In the news: News content and sharing have returned to Australian Facebook users after a temporary standoff between the tech giant and the Australian government.

A standoff between Facebook and the Australia government that temporarily barred Australians from seeing seeing or sharing news on the social network ended this week. Rod McGuirk of the AP reports that Facebook had “struck a deal with the government on proposed legislation that would make digital giants pay for journalism.” The temporary blackout didn’t just affect Facebook news access; McGuirk says that “the blackout also cut access -- at least temporarily -- to government pandemic, public health and emergency services, fueling outrage.”

This story comes at a time when internet giants such as Facebook and Google are under increased pressure to pay journalists and publishers for the content that appears on their networks. Read more here.

. . . But Do the Internet Giants Still Hold the Cards?

Although deals between Facebook and the Australian government, and between Google and News Corp, provide a long overdue boost to publishers and journalists, it’s not all rosy. Kate Kaye of Digiday.com writes: “Some publishing industry members say the agreement to compensate the publishing giant obfuscates the power that platforms like Google and Facebook hold over smaller publishers, which Australia’s proposed media bargaining law is meant to address.” Her article raises an important question: Are Google and Facebook’s efforts to comply with Australian law “a bargaining chip or hush money?” Read more here.

Also Notable

News Production Cost Control

“If your business survived 2020, you can tackle just about anything at this point,” writes Jerry Simpkins in a February 22 Editor & Publisher column. He shares his suggestions to minimize production costs in 2021 and beyond, including reassessing circulation draws, pre-runs, and single-copy sales. He also cautions publishers to “stop padding for runs for ‘insurance.’” Read the full column here.

Visually Depicting Covid-19 Losses

How can a newspaper or magazine with limited editorial space drive home the enormity of 500,000 Covid-19 casualties in the US? A few notable newspapers tried to drive home the magnitude visually in the last week. On the front page of the Sunday (February 21) New York Times is a chart of nearly half a million dots, one for each American who has died of Covid-19. Elsewhere, Artur Galocha and Bonnie Berkowitz of the Washington Post presented three visual analogies to show the scale of the country’s Covid losses. See the NYT graphic here and the Washington Post graphics here.

A 300-Year US Magazine Retrospective

A major magazine retrospective is now on display at New York’s Grolier Club. The exhibit, entitled “Magazines and the American Experience,” features over 80,000 issues from collector Steven Lomazow’s trove of magazines from the 1700s through today, reports Nora McGreevy of Smithsonian magazine. Ultimately, McGreevy says: “As Lomazow himself points out, the exhibition also functions as an ode to the long cultural production of a now-struggling industry.... But in the heyday of print advertisements, magazine flourished and writers reaped the benefits.” Read more about the exhibit here.

Print Magazine Closure: Saveur

Influential food magazine Saveur has shuttered its printed edition after several years of struggle. Most recently, the title was purchased by Bonnier in October 2020. Chris Crowley of GrubStreet.com writes that the closure comes “at a time of some transition in food media, including the rise of more independent magazines like Whetstone and a boom in newsletters bringing in different voices and perspectives not always given space.” Read more here.

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