The Center for Journalism & Liberty at Open Markets Commemorates World Press Freedom Day
Consider this: The hundreds of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work risked their lives and liberty to bring us the news that tech and AI companies now lay claim to under the guise of fair use.
The way we govern competition in digital markets is intertwined with the integrity of our information environment and the future of journalism and democracy. This is top of mind for us on World Press Freedom Day 2024.
Competition policy plays a fundamental role in structuring media markets and business models that ensure the future of a strong and independent free press where journalists can make a living and work safely and without fear of reprisal, from government or corporations.
A 2023 report with our colleagues at the Open Markets Institute catalogs how, throughout U.S. history, Americans have chosen to protect the free press and the information essential to debate and democracy the news provides, by enforcing competition policy. In every wave of technological change to the way we communicate, from the telegram to the telephone to TV and the early internet, policymakers used competition policy to ensure the news business could sustain itself. Until now.
News organizations and journalists around the world face not only a myriad of obstacles from authoritarian and autocratic regimes that seek to silence them, but also an information environment that is heavily controlled and concentrated in a handful of digital platforms.
On World Press Freedom Day we must recognize that press freedom is impossible in the face of corporate monopolization of the public sphere. It is impossible given the uneven playing field created by tech and AI companies that exert outsized power over journalism and the news industry and have been allowed to steal, censor, and co-opt journalism with impunity.
Nations around the world are meeting this challenge by working to rein in the power of these platforms and revitalize their news media markets. However, Google and Facebook have responded with retaliatory actions to dodge or influence the outcome of these regulatory efforts, including censoring news in Canada and California and deprioritizing the dissemination of news on their platforms. With such responses, these tech behemoths are only reconfirming the problems of their consolidated power and unfair practices.
Tackling the power of tech companies over our information and communications systems must be a central focus on World Press Freedom Day. At the Center for Journalism and Liberty, we’ve made it so:
Today, CJL is in the field, with senior reporter Karina Montoya reporting on closing arguments in a pivotal antitrust case against Google’s Search dominance. The outcome of the Google Search trial along with a second trial coming this September against Google’s monopolization of advertising technology will be pivotal for the future of competition policy and the business models of journalism.
Later today, I am speaking at a convening of first amendment experts about the future of press freedom and many of the issues I have identified in this post. This is a panel at The Future of Press Freedom: Democracy, Law, and the News in Changing Times symposium at the Knight First Amendment Center about how law and policy can more affirmatively sustain the democracy-enhancing press functions.
Today, like every day at the Center for Journalism and Liberty, we honor the sacrifices journalists have made to bring us the news by fighting for the future of a self-sustained free and independent press.
Dr. Courtney C. Radsch is the director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute. Learn more at https://www.journalismliberty.org/.
For more, read our reporting:
The Google Search case:
US v Google: What to Know About the Trial
What To Watch For in the First Monopoly Trial of U.S. vs Google
CJL Statement on the Public’s Lack of Access to the US v Google Trial on Search Monopolization
The Google Trial’s Dangerous Secrecy
Google Ad Tech Case:
DOJ Case Against Google Ad Monopoly Means a More Free Press and More Open Internet
How Google Manipulated Digital Ad Prices and Hurt Publishers, Per DOJ
How Three Mergers Buttressed Google’s Ad Tech Monopoly, Per DOJ
The Countdown to the Google Ad Tech Trial Is On: Here’s What You Need to Know
Monopoly and the Free Press:
Even Facing ‘Extinction,’ Journalists Still Cannot Name the Monopoly Problem
How Fighting Monopoly Can Save Journalism
Reports: