On Monday, February 26th, the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute hosted a webinar that brought together leading experts to discuss approaches to determining the value of news and the future of journalism in the digital age.

What is the value of news to online search, social media feeds, news aggregators? What about news used for training large language models that power consumer-facing AI applications like ChatGPT, WhatsApp's AI assistant, or search bots Bard or Bing? How do news organizations figure out the value of their work on different tech platforms when such platforms gatekeep access to metrics data?

These questions are at the root of efforts to make Big Tech pay for the news they use and lawsuits over how they use news in AI systems, including Large Language Models and generative AI search. In Australia and Canada, publishers have negotiated deals of between $100- $200 million, whereas researchers in the US estimate that fair compensation for news on Google Search and Facebook news feed would amount to at least $13 billion annually. Meanwhile, a handful of large media companies have secured million-dollar deals with OpenAI even as the legality of using news content in AI systems remains unclear.

This event brought together leading experts to discuss these different approaches to determining the value of news, and what they mean for the future of journalism in the digital age. It aims to widen the discussion beyond a myopic focus on referral traffic to explore how to (re)define the value of credible journalism, for example, as a key source to counter disinformation, and what this means for legal regulatory efforts in the US and around the world.

Panelists

Dr. Anya Schiffrin -Director of the Technology, Media, and Communications Specialization in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University 

Cristina Caffarra -Antitrust expert and honorary professor at University College London 

Ermela Hoxha - Associate Director, Strategic & Platform Partnerships at The Guardian

Alexis Johann - Executive Behavioral Designer & Managing Partner, Fehr Advice 

Moderator: Dr. Courtney Radsch - Director of the Center for Journalism & Liberty at Open Markets Institute