SODP Dispatch - 7 May 2026

Making tech giants pay for news was a success the first time around. It can be done again

By Rod Sims

With the release this week of the government’s News Bargaining Incentive, it’s worth reconsidering the origins and achievements of its predecessor, the News Media Bargaining Code.

Both have the same aim: to gain payment from the search and social media companies that profit from the use of media content, but do not effectively pay for this necessary input to their business.

So what did we learn from the first laws, and how can that be applied to this new attempt to make tech companies pay for news?

A case of market failure

The bargaining code had its origins in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC’s) Digital Platform Inquiry from December 2017 to June 2019. The inquiry was tasked with examining competition, consumer, advertising and news issues.

There were 23 recommendations, one of which was for a news media bargaining code.

The logic for the code was that search and social media companies needed news, but they could choose any media outlet. But the media had no choice but to align with the major platforms.

There was thus a market power imbalance, a classic market failure. While not all market failures need a response, this one did, given the critical role that news media plays in our democracy.

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By Vahe Arabian

💰 Trust Isn't a Value Anymore: It's a Revenue Line Publishers Can Prove

Trust is not a publishing value; it is a revenue line, and data is proving it.

Publishers have spent years treating credibility as a brand attribute, something to mention in a media kit or cite when defending journalism budgets. But advertiser research is reframing trust not as a qualitative virtue, but as a quantifiable performance variable with direct implications for CPMs, brand recall, and campaign effectiveness.

According to the 2026 Trends Shaping Publishing Priorities report from Digital Content Next, trusted news environments outperform other content categories on key advertiser metrics, including brand suitability, attention, and purchase intent. This is not a peripheral finding. It is a commercial signal that publishers need to operationalise.

The challenge has been that "trust" is difficult to sell because it has been difficult to measure. But that is changing. Research from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 shows that trust in news varies significantly by source, with some publishers maintaining trust scores well above 50% among regular readers. That difference is not just an editorial achievement; it is an audience quality signal that affects how advertisers value inventory.

When readers trust a publication, their engagement patterns change. They read longer, return more frequently, and register more willingly. These are the same behavioural signals that first-party data strategies depend on. Trust is the upstream condition that makes first-party data worth collecting.

How publishers are operationalising trust

1. Audience verification over volume – Publishers with trusted editorial environments are shifting commercial conversations from reach to quality, presenting engagement depth metrics, such as return visit rates, newsletter open rates and time-on-page, as proxies for audience trust.

2. Contextual integrity as a targeting signal – Trusted publishers are building contextual taxonomies that go beyond broad category labels, using contextual advertising's resurgence to demonstrate brand safety and relevance.

3. Transparency reporting as a commercial document – A growing number of publishers are producing editorial transparency reports documenting corrections policies, sourcing standards, and editorial independence structures that advertisers can verify.

Publishers recovering ground commercially are those building direct relationships with advertisers, offering verified audience data, and making the case that a trusted editorial environment reduces brand risk in ways a low-CPM open-exchange placement cannot.

Scale still matters. But scale without trust is inventory. Scale with trust is a media brand, and those two things are priced very differently.

If trust is a measurable business asset, every publisher should be able to answer: What does trust look like in our data, and are we presenting that data commercially?

That means auditing the quality of audience engagement, not just the quantity. It means building a commercial narrative around editorial standards. And it means treating first-party data collection as a trust outcome, not just a technical infrastructure project.

Publishers who can answer that question clearly will be better positioned to make the commercial case for premium pricing, direct partnerships, and sustainable revenue models that do not depend entirely on programmatic volume.

Trust has always been the foundation of quality journalism. The shift happening now is that it is also becoming the foundation of a defensible publisher business model.

People are stressed out by most news that isn’t local news, according to a new study | NiemanLab

The way people of different age groups in the United States get their news is different, but no matter how old they are, everyone is pretty stressed about all news that isn’t local news. That’s according to a new study from the Media Insights Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

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Why audiences are tuning out the news — and how local journalism can win them back | Editor & Publisher Magazine

A 2019 Pew Research Center study found that two-thirds of Americans were experiencing news fatigue, while an August 2025 survey found that only 36% of U.S. adults “follow the news all or most of the time.” It’s likely those percentages have increased, given today’s headlines. Balanced reporting has been a challenge for J.D. Simkins, editor-in-chief of Military Times and Defense News, and his team because of the publication’s specialized audiences. Much of the content is for the largest military demographic: non-commissioned officers and below.

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IAB: Video advertising hits 29% market share as economic jitters shorten planning | AdNews

Video advertising grew 19.8% to $5.4 billion in Australia in 2025, accounting for 29% of total online advertising investment, according to the IAB Australia 2026 Video Advertising State of the Nation Report. The report, based on a survey of 78 advertising agency decision makers conducted in April, found investment But economic uncertainty is creating a nervous market, with 48% of agency leaders naming the economy as their leading concern, ahead of cross-channel measurement and the impact of AI, each cited by 41%.intent in video remains strong across a growing range of formats and environments.

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Google updates AI search to include quotes from Reddit and other sources | TechCrunch

Google is updating search to refine its AI experience by adding additional context to links, like excerpts from web forums and blogs, as well as a feature that highlights links from a user’s news subscriptions. While citing web forums and discussion boards can help users find answers to more niche queries, this design choice could also prove chaotic. Two years ago, Google overhauled its search experience to put AI front and center — when you search for something, Google will often summon an “AI Overview,” which has spurred mixed reception from users.

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WordPress Loses Marketshare. Is Astro Eroding Their User Base? | Search Engine Journal

A discussion on Twitter about the many people posting that they’ve left WordPress for Astro went modestly viral, with longtime WordPress supporters explaining why they ditched WordPress for Astro. Statistics show that WordPress is losing users and Astro is gaining them at a rate of 100% year over year, indicating that the shift toward Astro is more than a passing trend. An underreported statistic about WordPress is that WordPress peaked in mid 2025 with a marketshare of 43.6% and has been on a steady decline ever since, currently sitting at a 42.2% marketshare (according to W3Techs), a drop of 1.4%.

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What Counts As Journalism — And Who Gets To Decide? | TVNewsCheck

The news industry talks about change, but it keeps clinging to a definition of journalism that is pushing people away. I had just been hired as a news director, and in my first week on the job, I attended a content summit hosted by a major station group. The room was filled with news directors, GMs and digital and creative leaders. TikTok was already attracting the audience as a news destination for Gen Z and was the fastest-growing social media platform ever tracked by Pew Research. When the floor opened for questions, I asked leadership about the company’s TikTok strategy.

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