Interview with Richard Gingras

“I hope we are allies and collaborators”, Richard Gingras says, referring to the relationship between publishers and Google. According to him both of them share a common cause and they both rely on an open ecosystem of distribution. Editors need the open web to find their audiences and be successful, while at the same time Google’s entire business and co-products, like Search, are based on the open web. Gingras highlighted that the relationship between Google and editors “must be collaborative”: Google accelerated mobile pages (AMPs) project, for example, is an entirely collaborative effort of making the web fast and compelling.

Gingras also gave advice on how citizens can avoid getting lost into all the information provided by digital media, without falling into the filter bubble. According to him, all citizens have the responsibility to try to be as knowledgeable and informed as possible, especially in the current world of digital ecosystem where people can see information from various sources – both legitimate and non-legitimate. This is why it is everyone’s responsibility to develop one’s critical thinking as well as to understand the nature of the source, its motivations and its expertise. Gingras concluded that it is also Google’s responsibility to help users in understanding not only the latest news but the different perspectives on the news and the different background information, so that people can develop their own critical thinking and come to their own informed decisions.