Facebook to make its own news programmes by paying TV stars like Anderson Cooper

Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly claimed that he is not running a media company, despite now paying for news programming

Anderson Cooper @andersoncooper According to the New York Times, the CNN anchor is “the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television” since coming out in an open letter last summer[2012]. “The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud”, he wrote. (Getty Images)

Facebook is to pay for original news shows that will play alongside its news feed.

The company says that the new programmes – funded by Facebook and made by the world's biggest news organisations like ABC and CNN – are part of its new plan to stop the site being filled with misleading and untrustworthy reports.

But it also comes alongside criticism that Facebook is really a media company, despite resistance from Mark Zuckerberg and other members of its team. Critics argue that since the site distributes – and now funds – news and other content, it should be regulated and scrutinised as such.

The shows will be made specifically for Facebook, aiming at its audience rather than adapting existing programming for the platform, it said. The shows will be hosted by many of the biggest names in the media, including Anderson Cooper of CNN, Shepard Smith of Fox News and Jorge Ramos of Univision.

Facebook made the announcement shortly after it shut down the "trending" news section that sits alongside users news feeds. It killed that as part of an attempt to focus on "trustworthy" and "informative" news, it said.

That was just one of a huge range of changes made over the couple of years to try and limit the reach of fake news and misinformation on its pages, as well as to improve users' relationship with the site.

The new shows will sit in Facebook's "Watch" section, which was launched some time ago but has struggled to break through in the same way as traditional posts in its news feed.

Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships, said the shows will be original and exclusive to Facebook, rather than adapting TV programmes from elsewhere for a Facebook audience.

Mr Brown declined to say how much Facebook is paying for the shows. They will be available in the US this summer.

"We tried to assemble a diverse set of partners who are already doing quality news who are also really adept at engaging the audience," Brown, a former television anchor, said in an interview.

Time Warner Inc's CNN, Fox News and Univision generally appeal to different audiences.

Other programmes on Facebook Watch would be produced by ABC News, owned by Walt Disney Co, Advance Publications' Alabama Media Group and websites ATTN: and Mic, with more to be announced later, Brown said. Some shows would appear daily and others less frequently.

The shows will experiment with social media features such as polls, she said.

Social sites have struggled to reduce fake news stories, sensationalism and hoaxes that spread easily on social media. The posts have been blamed for political divisions worldwide and violence in countries such as Sri Lanka.

"There's been a real effort to down-rank clickbait sensationalism," Brown said.

On the business side, Facebook has turned to video as a source of advertising revenue as inventory in its News Feed becomes scarce.

Facebook competes for content and ad revenue with companies such as Alphabet Inc's YouTube, Snap Inc and Twitter Inc.

Facebook will share ad revenue with the companies in addition to paying them to produce the programmes, Brown said. She declined to disclose terms.

Facebook has had a rocky relationship with news organisations as it piles up advertising profits while paying little for content, but news executives expressed satisfaction with the latest arrangement.

"Facebook's very committed to making Watch happen, and they want to bring content that they think will do well both for the publishers and for advertisers," Jason Ehrich, Fox News senior vice president, said in an interview.

Additional reporting by agencies