Blaming Google & Facebook, newspapers seek 'safe harbor' on Capitol Hill
Leaders from some of America's biggest newspapers turned to lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday for help in the industry's battle with the giants of Silicon Valley and its overall fight for digital survival.
Leaders from The Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, Tribune Publishing Company, Star Tribune, Gannett - owner of USA Today -- The Post and Courier in Charleston, Philadelphia Media Network and News Corp. met with members of Congress to rally support for the News Media Alliance's anti-trust safe harbor bill and to educate members about the economic fight against the likes of Facebook and Google.
(Fox is the parent company of FOX Business and Fox News. Rupert Murdoch is the executive chairman of News Corp. and the co-chairman of Fox Corporation.)
The newspapers want Congress to quickly pass the safe harbor bill so that they have the leverage to demand more money for their content from Google and Facebook. The move was debated on FOX Business' "Bulls & Bears," Tuesday.
"I feel like this is Blockbuster getting mad at Netflix for putting them out of business."
"When you are a business, you need to compete," Fox News' Carol Roth said noting that companies have an obligation to innovate.
FOX Business' Liz Claman said she hopes these newspaper executives are going for distinction and notoriety for quality journalism and is focused on making sure the right news entities receive the credit each deserves.
"All of that investment and that risk taken on to break these big stories," Claman said. "The newspaper wars have revived with '[The] Washington Post' and 'The New York Times', too. That's something worth paying for."
FOX Business' Jackie DeAngelis said it feels like any group or business that struggles to grow just falls back and blames big tech companies.
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"This is going to be part of the conversation going forward, especially with the regulators as they try to fix some of these issues, but it's just funny to sort of see how the president, if he's all of a sudden not doing well, he says 'it's because they're not publicizing my tweets properly' or whatever the case may be," DeAngelis said.
"You know, I think as the business is changing."
DeAngelis maintained it's to be expected in an ever-evolving industry.
Fox is the parent company of FOX Business and Fox News. Rupert Murdoch is the executive chairman of News Corp. as well as the chairman of Fox.