This week the Competition Commission is probing how online news is affected by AI chatbots, search and advertising technology. The outcome of the hearings is important for the future of news reporting in South Africa. In this article, we try to explain why local news publishers are under threat.

1. Why most genuine news publications are battling to make ends meet

Only a few decades ago, if you wanted to read the news, someone in your household paid for a newspaper. Running a printed newspaper, with journalists who went out daily to report stories, was a sustainable business.

There were four main revenue sources: subscriptions, sales of individual copies, adverts and classifieds. The main barrier to entry was the cost of printing. Subscriptions and sales of individual copies were meant to cover this, but the real money was advertising -- and for some publications, like the Cape Argus in Cape Town, the classifieds.

The advertisers sponsored the news, whether in a national daily, or a small weekly newspaper distributed in a rural town. The big chain stores placed their ads in the big dailies, and the mom-and-pop stores advertised in the local papers. In towns, this income paid for reporters to attend the monthly council meeting, cover school events and visit the court to find out who might have ended up on the wrong side of the law.

Take for example the Limpopo Mirror, a weekly newspaper published in Louis Trichardt which one of us, Anton van Zyl,...