NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — is a military alliance where countries agree to defend each other and act together for their collective security, enacted in 1949 amid fears of Soviet expansion.
Madhav Chinnappa – a former BBC head and Google director – has a working idea for the news industry: build a similar alliance amongst news publishers.
Why now?
For years, news organisations let tech companies like Google index their content in exchange for web traffic – a clear value exchange that gave publishers some control and visibility. But, as Chinnappa explains, we are quickly departing from the 'traffic era'.
"In the era of Gen AI, I don’t know what the value exchange is. I don’t know what the control is. And I deeply, deeply worry about what this does for legitimate content creation," Chinnappa warns.
How would a news alliance work?
Chinnappa suggests that, at a national level, news organisations could join forces and collectively license access to their content.
This involves:
- Collective action: News organisations in a country would join together to form an alliance (like NATO), setting transparent eligibility guidelines for membership.
- Licensing access, not content: Instead of licensing individual articles or copyright, the alliance would license access to their content – meaning they would provide AI and tech companies with structured, organised data feeds (such as APIs) that are easier for machines to use.
- Product value: This access would be valuable to AI companies because it allows them to use news content in a controlled, reliable way for training or generating answers, rather than scraping the open web.
- Negotiation power: By acting together, news organisations could negotiate better terms and prices for this access, rather than being picked off one by one.
- Revenue sharing: Any money earned from these deals would be distributed among the alliance members, based on agreed rules.
He points to recent deals, like Google’s agreement with Reddit and Wikipedia’s arrangements with AI companies, as examples of how tech firms are willing to pay for structured access to information.
Pros and cons of the “NATO for news” model
Pros:
- Stronger bargaining power: Acting together, news organisations could negotiate better terms and prices with tech and AI companies.
- Shared expertise: Pooling resources could help overcome technical and legal hurdles, such as data structuring and antitrust concerns.
- Greater control: A collective approach could allow newsrooms to set clearer rules for how their content is accessed and used by AI.
- Potential for new revenue: Licensing structured access could create a new income stream, even if it’s not as much as publishers hope.
Cons:
- Difficult collaboration: News organisations are used to competing, not cooperating, and building trust could be a challenge.
- Complex logistics: Organising data, managing access, and distributing revenue fairly would require significant coordination.
- Legal and antitrust risks: Collective bargaining could raise regulatory questions, especially in larger markets.
- Uncertain value: AI companies may be more interested in content that has clearer commercial value, limiting the potential upside for news organisation.
Why try this approach?
Chinnappa admits this isn’t a perfect solution: "This is not a good idea. But it's the least worst one that I can come up with. Every other scenario I’ve played out ends up much, much worse for the ecosystem."
He believes it’s better to try something ambitious — even if it fails — than to do nothing and watch the industry decline.
This article was drafted by an AI assistant before it was edited by a human
