Facebook, Google: Past 'Fake' News Efforts Impact Premium TV Ad Dollars

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 16, 2016

Facebook has a long way to go if its wants to grab serious premium video advertising dollars away from TV networks -- even after making a pledged to get rid of “fake” news items on its platforms.

Facebook --- at least on my news feed -- plied much digital real estate with fake tragedies occurring to celebrities and sports personalities. Now, not so much.

Is Facebook a real journalism enterprise? That’s not its main business. Don’t think of Facebook like a CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC.  Where are the journalists?

To be sure those traditional TV organizations aren’t always perfect. But at least they take responsibility for their mistakes, errors or reports that aren’t real. For example, during the last days of the election, Fox News recently had to apologized for a report Hillary Clinton was facing a “likely" indictment as the result of a federal investigation.

What about you, Facebook? Are you taking responsibility for any so-called news reports over the past six months to a year that wasn’t true? Where you do start?

Now I get different ads -- video ads about some miracle eye cream curing the bags under my eyes and poo-poo designer shoes. Fake? Probably.

All this follows up on the other news about video advertising on Facebook -- which vastly overestimated average viewing time for video ads on its platform for two years.

TV networks also make promises -- guarantees when it comes to viewership of TV advertising. If stuff is under delivered -- as is the case virtually all the time -- make-good inventory will be issued. In the digital media world, many charge for what actually is delivered -- which makes better sense.

Facebook isn’t alone. Google seemingly has the same issues in regards to “fake news,” which means the same criticism applies. Both now say they are looking to curb all “fake” news, cracking down on those Web sites.

Veteran TV/video buyers should do even more due diligence in future periods for all digital video -- especially during TV upfront period next spring/summer when many are thinking about shifting traditional TV dollars to newer digital media companies.

How it is that it took this long for garbage to get cleaned up? Journalism is already being attacked from all sides — just look at the events of the last week or so. We don’t need to be great. We just need to be better.