Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith Talks Facebook's Fake News Problem

By Steven Perlberg

The spread of misinformation across Facebook has become a major talking point among media executives in the weeks since the presidential election.

According to Bloomberg Media Group Chief Executive Justin Smith, the "fake news" debate should ultimately raise questions for marketers about the perils of placing ads on social media platforms next to content that might not be true.

"CMOs have been pouring their dollars into these environments because of great data, great accountability, and great ROI, but I think the context piece of it -- which is 'what kind of content are we around and what is the experience' -- has not perhaps come to the forefront of their thinking, and this fake news crisis brings that really front and center, " he said on the latest episode of the WSJ Media Mix podcast.

Mr. Smith said that Bloomberg has been a little more reluctant to place its own content on giant tech platforms, though the company has seen success with a deal with Twitter to livestream some of its TV shows as well as the debates during the presidential campaign, he said.

"We've been working ourselves on a lot of technologies internally so that we can mimic, or at least compete with the download speeds that [Facebook] Instant Articles, [Google] AMP and some of the others are offering publishers," Mr. Smith said.

While Bloomberg's core business consists of selling terminals to financial professionals, its media unit has had to respond to the same business pressures affecting the rest of the media landscape. Bloomberg recently announced new leadership at its money-losing Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, for instance.

Mr. Smith said the company will relaunch the title to make it more focused specifically on business and finance. "We're going to shift a lot of the business model burden from ad revenue to reader revenue," he said.

As for the wider digital media landscape, Mr. Smith predicts there will be consolidation soon, as traditional and new media companies all do battle for ad dollars with Google and Facebook.

"I definitely think the music has slowed down to a very slow tempo, and people are looking at what chairs are left in the ballroom," he said.

For more with Mr. Smith, check out the episode and subscribe to the WSJ Media Mix podcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify or Stitcher.

Write to Steven Perlberg at steven.perlberg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 30, 2016 13:06 ET (18:06 GMT)

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