'What we do matters': Journalism at risk as Meta pulls funding for news

"Meta's decision will rob communities of independent, credible and trusted voices," ACM managing director Tony Kendall told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday.

"Many of our mastheads have been in existence and operating for over a century ... We provide independent, fact-based and unbiased reporting that keeps our community strong, informed and connected," Mr Kendall said. "What we do matters."

He said the social media giant's refusal to pay for news would mean that ACM - which publishes this masthead - "and many other publishers will be forced to close titles".

Mr Kendall joined News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller, Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby, Seven West Media managing director Jeffrey Howard and others in calling on the Albanese government to force social media companies to pay their fair share.

"If Meta continues to thumb its nose to the laws of this nation and to the wellbeing of the Australian people, as it seems it is likely to do, the government should tax it at 20 per cent of revenue," Mr Kendall said.

That revenue, likely more than $1 billion, could be "split between providing mental health services and supporting publishers in the provision of public interest journalism".

Mr Miller said Meta was "preparing to blackmail" media organisations and the federal government by threatening to remove news from its platforms if forced to pay. "They don't negotiate. They dictate," he said.

He said the government must regulate the social media giants and "if they don't then adhere to [the rules], ban them".

He highlighted the importance of public interest journalism being able to reach Australians where they spent the most time, with Facebook users spending an average 2088 minutes on the platform each month.

The 12.5 million readers of news.com.au each spent just an average 32 minutes per month on Australia's most-read news website, Mr Miller said.

Mr Sneesby said Nine's news video content provided a "significant commercial opportunity" for Meta, generating five billion views a year and growing at a rate of 50 per cent a year.

He said Meta's platforms had "embedded themselves in the social fabric" of Australians' lives and must take more responsibility for their impact.

The media chiefs appeared at the joint select committee on social media and Australian society.

Meta announced in March it would not renew its deals, which are due to end this financial year, with Australian publishers.

Mr Kendall said a dramatic fall in Facebook traffic to ACM titles in the months leading up to Meta's announcement suggested the company had "tweaked the algorithm" to create a perception that users were not interested in news.

He said ACM - Australia's largest employer of regional journalists with more than 400 reporters on staff - would be "forced to make hard decisions on the future of many of our mastheads and the jobs they support".

Those media companies which had signed deals with Meta under the News Media Bargaining Code have been calling on the government to "designate" the social media giant under the code.

Mr Miller dismissed Meta's claim that news accounted for just 3 per cent of what users saw on its platforms as "misinformation", citing polling suggesting users spent almost a quarter of their time on Facebook consuming news.

Meta insists that the figure is correct and that "people don't come to Facebook for news and political content" but to connect socially.

A recent University of Canberra and Reuters study found that 45 per cent of users of Meta apps Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram consume news on the platforms, while 80 per cent engage in "general use", each week.

Mr Kendall said the 3 per cent figure related to content viewed through Meta's little-used News tab, which did not reflect the large volumes of news content people were seeing in their feeds.

"The research that we're doing shows that news is absolutely a part of consumers' life on social media," he said. "60 per cent of Gen Z is now using it as their main source of news."

He said it was important for quality, fact-checked journalism to be on the platform, to mitigate the proliferation of unreliable, inaccurate and damaging content.

An Australian government spokesperson said the nation's news media businesses "should be fairly remunerated for their content on digital platforms".

"Public interest journalism is critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy and we know that many Australians access news via social media platforms," the spokesperson said.

"The Albanese government is following the process set out by the code, which includes consideration of advice by both the ACCC and Treasury. We have received ACCC's advice and are awaiting Treasury's. We will have more to say in due course".

Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly said 48 per cent of Meta users consumed news on its platforms, when the correct figure is 45 per cent.