Victor Pickard on native ads and the new journalism economy

Victor Pickard celebrated the Federal Communication Commissions vote Thursday to regulate the internet as a public utility at an internet victory party in Washington, DC. For Pickard, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School of Communications, and an expert on global media activism, the decision is a win for the public good, and maybe even the future of journalismtwo concerns that are very much on his mind as he sits down to write his next book.

Even though its still in its earliest stages, the book will stand on the shoulders of Pickards most recent work, Americas Battle For Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform, which he is currently on tour promoting. A slim, fast-paced account, it digs into a series of media policy battles that played out in the 1940s, when government and media activists fought to rein in powerful broadcasters and to articulate a role for radio and newspapers that served the public good, as opposed to commercial interests.

Their vision might have succeeded, were it not for Cold War paranoia, and an interpretation of freedom of speech that favored the rights of corporations over the rights of individuals. By the time the smoke had cleared, antitrust action had split NBC into two, but the efforts to make the news more local and less commercial were largely defeated. To Pickard, this failure to unhook the news from commercial pressures, and the subsequent triumph of corporate libertarianism, was a critical juncture in journalism that shaped the course of its future.

Now, while the impact of the FCCs ruling remains uncertain, and native advertising colonizes the Web, journalism has arrived at another critical juncture. As policy makers seek to define the public interest in a digital age, Pickards body of scholarship may provide a useful, if controversial, road map to our current media environment. As he sees it, technology has changed, but the concerns of the 1940saccess, sustainable business models for the news, and the role of regulationwill be central to maximizing the democratic potential of the web, and nurturing the future of public service journalism.

I spoke with Pickard by phone. Our conversation has been lightly edited and abridged.

Your previous book argues that the commercial internet faces a norm-defining moment similar to that of commercial radio in the 1940s. How so? What is at stake?

In the 1940s, as a society, we were asking big, normative questions about what the role of media should be in a democratic society. Questions that sought to define a kind of social contract between media institutions, the public, and the government. That asked whether it was healthy to have a news media system so dependent on the market, or whether we should be creating structural alternatives. I think were facing a similar crossroads for determining whether our new mediaor newish mediawill become captured by commercial interests, or whether they are able to serve a higher democratic purpose.

So those earlier battles to keep the airwaves free of corporate monopolies, and the moral concerns about ads invading the news, are being repeated today?

Yes, and net neutrality is kind of exhibit A. If we preserve net neutrality protections, our internet will develop one way. If we lose those protections our internet will develop in a very different way. So were certainly in a pivotal moment.

How do native ads fit in? Whats your take on them?

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Victor Pickard on native ads and the new journalism economy