Report | Beggars and Choosers: How Google and Facebook compromise media independence with their corporate donations

This report, “Beggars and Choosers: How Google and Facebook compromise media independence with their corporate donations,” was written by Nikki Usher, Ph.D., for the Center for Journalism & Liberty, the media solutions arm of Open Markets Institute. It considers the contradictory behavior of Google and Facebook toward journalism—how they pledge financial support to bolster quality news while failing to reform their anti-competitive business models and harmful data privacy violations, which continue to disrupt journalism’s ability to pay for itself.

Problems with corporate dollars disguised as philanthropy are considered, especially in light of efforts to thwart regulatory action and the impact of duopoly-provided software tools on news production.

The report makes the case for reforming philanthropic and corporate social responsibility financial disclosures, providing news organizations safe harbor to challenge Google and Facebook’s anti-competitive behavior and rethinking how to distribute philanthropic support in order to maintain independent journalism in the US.

Read the full report here or below.