Dow Jones chief’s tech warning on news undermined by ‘cats on skateboards’

Will Lewis, the chief executive of Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones, has warned rival newspapers not to “run like headless chickens” to strike content deals with tech firms such as Facebook and Google.

Lewis, a former editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph, warned that deals such as Facebook’s Instant Articles partnerships pose a threat to loss of control of content.

“The issue for us, and I think the broader industry, is do we run headless chicken-like towards offers from companies like Apple and Facebook to put our content in their walled gardens?” he said, speaking at a panel session run by The&Partnership at Cannes Lions. “Or do we pause and think together about what the most appropriate way of dealing with these opportunities are and make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past?”

Lewis said it was encouraging that a raft of new companies have entered the space of traditional news organisations.

The news sector has seen a glut of newcomers in recent years, from HuffingtonPost and BuzzFeed to Mashable and Vice News.

“To see now the tech mad, mad tech [companies] now trying to get into the content world is fundamentally very encouraging,” he said. “They recognise news is really important. For those of us who have worked in it all our lives, it’s a great validation of what we’ve been talking about all our careers. Professionally created news is of incredible importance in society and has deep moral purpose”.

However, he added that it was also quite a “dangerous time” for the industry if news content is undermined by “cats on skateboards”.

“It’s about stories, whether you are producing stories that rock Fifa… or producing day after day strings of M&A scoops … if you do that, that’s how we measure success,” he said. “Everything comes from that. Somehow in this world the importance of the story and the deep connection between the editor and his or her readers is getting a little bit lost. If it is all about cats on skateboards … then none of this will work.”

Lewis said Dow Jones was in talks with all the major technology companies about content distribution. However, the company will not seek deals that do not allow for a subscription element.

“Are you going to respect and help us grow our models which have to be cross-revenue models?” he said. “Advertising is not going to be enough. It is no secret, we are in talks with Apple, Facebook, Snapchat about doing exactly this. And some seem to be giving clearer indications about respecting the need for subscription revenues than others. Those that do that we are probably more likely to play with.”