Google Flags Off Emergency Relief Fund For News Teams, Journalists

Google News Initiatives has launched a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to financially support small, medium and local news publishers globally.

The fund is open to all news organisations producing original news stories for local communities. In the blog post, Google has specified that the average ticket size of the fund will range between “low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms, with variations per region.”

Interested publishers can submit their applications on the given weblink before April 29, 2020 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Google has ensured that it has made the process as streamlined as possible in order to find eligible publishers across the world. After going through the applications, Google will announce the list of winners and how they plan to utilise the fund.

Besides this, Google.org is collectively donating $1 Mn to International Center for Journalism and Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. The International Center for Journalism will be providing immediate resources to support reporters globally. Meanwhile, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma will focus on helping the journalists, who have been exposed to traumatic events during the Covid-19 crisis.

“Today’s news builds on other efforts we’ve made to support the industry and connect people to quality information at this time of need. We believe it is important to do what we can to alleviate the financial pressures on newsrooms, and will continue to look at other ways to help with more to announce soon,” Google said, in a blog post.

Whereas, Facebook has also committed $100 Mn to support the news industry across the globe. Out of this, $25 Mn will be allocated to emergency grant funding for local news through the Facebook Journalism Project and $75 Mn in additional marketing spend to move money over to news organizations around the world.

Besides this, Facebook will also be providing financial aid of $300 Mn to serving journalists around the world. The fund will be allocated through “diverse and inclusive” news programs and partnerships like Report for America, the Pulitzer Center, the Community News Project and the Facebook Journalism Project’s Local News Accelerator training program.

Last week, even Facebook announced a ‘COVID-19 Local News Relief Grant Program’ for the publishers and newsrooms in the US, under its Facebook Journalism Project (FJP). The applications for the same are open till April 24, 2020.