On October 17th, a Maryland circuit court judge struck down the state’s tax on digital advertising services. The ruling held that the tax violated the Internet Tax Freedom Act, the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, as well as the First Amendment.
A research report published earlier this year, “Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly,” demonstrates how minority-owned media’s continued survival – as well as the addition of new outlets – is being threatened by the digital platforms’ anticompetitive practices. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would help to sustain these publications, whose work is critical to the communities they uniquely serve.
The News Media Alliance has named The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead (North Dakota) (Small category), the Detroit Free Press (Medium category), the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Medium Category) and Newsday (Long Island, NY) (Large category) as the recipients of the 2021 John P. Murray Award for Excellence in Audience Development.
News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern had an energizing conversation with Aram Zucker-Scharff, Engineering Lead for Privacy & Security Compliance at The Washington Post, that got in-the-weeds about the kitchen sink of ad tech topics, including site monetization; improving privacy and the user experience; optimizing site performance using Core Web Vitals; and more.
The American Economic Liberties Project, MediaJustice and the News Media Alliance have jointly published a report, “Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly,” which examines the history of minority-owned media and the impact of the ascendance of big tech platforms, such as Facebook and Google, on minority-owned outlets and those targeting underrepresented communities.
The News Media Alliance has named the Arizona Daily Star’s #ThisIsTucson (Small category), The Keene Sentinel (Keene, NH) (Medium category), and McClatchy (Large category) as the recipients of the 2020 John P. Murray Award for Excellence in Audience Development.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently published an op-ed that it has approved Alliance members to run in their publications, suggesting that the rise in closures of local news and problems with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy can both be improved through government advertising in local news media.
The News Media Alliance applauds Congress for approving another round of stimulus legislation, and for including an affiliation waiver that will allow previously ineligible news publishers to apply for the Small Business Administration (SBA) PPP loans as individual, independent entities.
While the straight revenue share between Google AdSense and publishers was clearly tilted in favor of the publishers, Google AdSense has become less relevant for publishers who sell through Google Ad Manager, an opaque marketplace. And Google benefits significantly more from that relationship than do publishers.
From November 6–10, the Lincoln Network hosted the Reboot Conference, a series of virtual conversations about the intersection of technology and policy. Included in the November 10 discussions was a conversation between the Lincoln Network’s Marshall Kosloff and Alliance CEO David Chavern on the future of online news.
