News Corp shuts Knewz after 18 months

Mariam Cheik-Hussein
By Mariam Cheik-Hussein | 12 July 2021
 

News Corp has shut its news aggregator platform Knewz after less than two years.

The site was launched in January last year to take on platforms such as Google and Facebook, which News Corp believed didn't compensate publishers adequately for content.

Knewz gathered headlines from hundreds of news sources, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, mimicking how news is shared on social media and Google.

However, in a note published to Knewz, the platform announced it has closed.

“We started Knewz as an experiment in news aggregation because we wanted to gather a diverse range of quality journalism, to highlight all sides of every story and to protect and project provenance,'' the note says.

“We certainly had provenance, but not profits, and so we bid Knewz farewell.

“Thank you to the millions of Knewz users who saw the value of the service and supported our mission.”

knewz

The site directs readers to other news sources such as The Wall Street Journal and New York Post.

After launching Knewz last year, News Corp has secured payment deals with both Facebook and Google for news content which appears on their platforms.

The deals, made in February and March this year, follow the passing of Australia’s news media bargaining code.

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