Art by Jeff Drew
This week’s cover story about the symbiotic — and troubled — relationship between news organizations and Facebook isn’t about us. But it certainly does involve us.
Facebook has changed its algorithm in response to allegations it had become a bullhorn for fake news. Its solution was to stop boosting news altogether — fake or otherwise. The change has terrified many news organizations. While many newspapers loathed having to tailor their content to Facebook’s users, the loss of the platform threatens to shrink already dwindling revenue.
Investigative reporter Daniel Walters examined the shifting landscape in a cover story for Inlander, the family-owned alt-weekly in Spokane, Washington. Walters’ story looks at how many newspapers, both daily and weekly, are feeling panicked over the loss of online traffic due to Facebook’s algorithm changes. The paper offered it to other alt-weeklies around the country.
“Part of our motivation, of course, was educating readers on the fact they’re going to need to seek out the news sources they value and trust, like ours,” says Jacob Fries, the paper’s editor. “Helping people be more media literate seemed to be a worthy goal.”
The Facebook shakeup has certainly affected Isthmus’ traffic. From January 2016 to January 2017, our Facebook referral traffic dropped 3 percent. From January 2017 to January 2018, when Facebook changed its algorithm, we lost 21 percent.
It’s a scary drop. However, Isthmus Publisher Jeff Haupt explains that the paper is not as reliant on Facebook as some news media. “As a local publication we have never heavily relied on Facebook for traffic,” Haupt says. “Playing ‘clickbait’ games to garner a few more readers is not worth eroding the trust that we created over 41 years. Fortunately, most of our readers come to us directly.”
“But this is not to say that Facebook is not important to us,” adds Haupt.
There are many factors that make a month-over-month or year-over-year comparison difficult. That’s just the nature of news. Last January, 100,000 people took to the streets to protest President Donald Trump’s inauguration. A big story like that can really fuzz your numbers — and your decision-making process, if you’re changing your business model based on clicks.
Of course change is inevitable these days, and we continue to evolve like everyone else. You’ll never guess what happens next!
