[netaustin]

I work in news technology, including with many local news organizations, both corporate and independent, including in California. Google does not support all news organizations equally, and this seems designed to gain some leverage over organizations that do get a lot from Google. Their Google News Initiative is on its surface just a training platform for publishers to learn how to use Google’s tools but they’ve done quite a bit more for some publishers. This feels like an attempt to gain the vocal support of publishers who have been blessed by Google’s beneficence, many of which are earnest non-profit organizations who might take the bait about big bad hedge funds. I don’t know how they select who to help and who to ignore and our attempts to engage with them on behalf of publishers have had mixed results.

But publishers’ collective frustration with Google is quite high. Given the implications that “it would be a shame if something happened to your nice journalism website” coupled with the appeal against the big bad hedge funds and ghost papers, it’s sort of a clever position but I’m not sure it will work.