Major media is taking millions from Facebook — and keeping the details secret

This article was co-produced with Press Watch, an independent site that monitors and critiques American political coverage. My article in the Washington Monthly on Monday revealed how, under the cover of launching a news "tab" that as far as I can tell doesn't effectively serve any other purpose, Facebook in 2019 started delivering massive amounts of cash to the most influential news outlets in America — on the condition that they not reveal the details. In an effort that Damon Kiesow, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, described to me as being "flavored with a strong dose of crisis communication and regulation avoidance," Facebook chose the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, Bloomberg, BuzzFeed and other select outlets to be their "paid partners." I discussed the article on a panel that included, among others, Ben Smith, the media columnist for the New York Times who was formerly BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief — and who, it turns out, negotiated BuzzFeed's deal with Facebook News. Indeed, BuzzFeed did disclose that it received compensation from Facebook News in August 2020, in a story about Facebook's handling of inflammatory or misleading posts from Donald Trump, and in a February story revealing New York Times columnist David Brooks' previously undisclosed relationship with Facebook.