As reported by Mariella Brown on the Society of Editors website:
The introduction would see payments being made to news providers if the project gets the green light, Facebook confirmed.
The Facebook News service was launched in the US and provides users with access to items from thousands of news providers including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic and Fox News as well as local publishers and news organisations.
While Facebook have confirmed they are in the early stages of discussions with UK publishers, they have not yet revealed details of how payments would be made and on what scale.
Announcing the proposed roll-out, Campbell Brown, vice president of Facebook Global News Partnerships said: “The US launch of Facebook News marked a new chapter in our relationship with the news industry and it’s off to a strong start. Built with publisher feedback and insights from people, it is a personalized destination for news within Facebook. Helping publishers reach new audiences has been one of our most important goals, and we’ve found over 95% of the traffic Facebook News delivers to publishers is incremental to the traffic they already get from News Feed.
“Based on this progress, we are accelerating our plans to expand internationally. We aim to launch Facebook News in multiple countries within the next six months to a year and are considering the UK, Germany, France, India and Brazil. In each country, we’ll pay news publishers to ensure their content is available in the new product.
“Consumer habits and news inventory vary by country, so we’ll work closely with news partners in each country to tailor the experience and test ways to deliver a valuable experience for people while also honouring publishers’ business models.
“We will continue to focus on growing engagement of Facebook News in the US and we’re committed to the partnerships we’ve developed with US publishers to make Facebook News a valuable asset over the long term.
“Innovation is critical to building a sustainable news ecosystem. We will keep building new products and making global investments to help the news industry build long-lasting business models.”
The Facebook News tab enables users of the social media giant to access what it describes as “relevant news you can depend on. With original reporting from over 200 outlets across general, topical, and diverse outlets, with thousands of local publishers, Facebook News connects you to more of the news you care about.”
As part of the project Facebook created a team of editorially independent journalists to manage a section entitled ‘Today’s Stories’.
The Facebook News tab enables users to control what news they receive and state preferences, as well as receiving the top news headlines of the day alongside news personalised for their interests.
