Facebook To News Outlets: We’ll Pay You Millions To License Content
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Facebook is looking to get into the news business, and that could be good news for some outlets, according to a published report.
Quoting sources, the Wall Street Journal reports today that the social media behemoth is willing to pay as much as $3 million a year to license headlines and preview of articles. That would be a sharp departure from the status quo of fellow online giant Google, which has taken flak for not compensating news outlets for headlines and previews that pop up from searches.
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Facebook itself has drawn criticism for poaching ad revenue from newspapers, most of which are struggling in an increasingly digital world. Company reps have pitched the content-licensing idea to ABC News, Bloomberg, The Washington Post and WSJ parent Dow Jones, per the paper. It’s unknown whether any of them have agreed to a deal, which the paper’s sources said would run for three years.
WSJ said Facebook would give news orgs a say in how their content would appear on the news tab — either hosting their stories directly on the site or putting headlines and previews in the tab that would send readers to their own websites.
The social media company wants to launch the news section, which is in development, in the fall.
The proposal already has drawn some harsh reaction, as many news outlets — and journalists — are wary of the plan in the wake a broken Facebook pledge years ago. The company had made a big push toward putting news in users’ feeds, but it later dropped the plan.
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