From Google an emergency fund for local publishing: what it is and how to request it
To provide urgent support and financing to thousands of small or medium-sized and local newsrooms around the world, which are facing an unexpected and dramatic crisis due to the Coronavirus. It is with these words that Richard Gingras, Google’s VP News, announces a new initiative of the Google News Initiative for the world of journalism, an emergency fund for digital publishing on a local basis.
What the fund is
The initiative aims to reach out to the “newspapers that produce original news for local communities in this period of crisis”, with a direct funding that can be used to ensure the continuation of activities.
For Gingras, “local press is a vital resource to keep people and communities in contact with each other” and, in the current situation, its role is even more important because it serves to report timely and accurate information on “travel restrictions, school or park closures, or statistics on how the Covid-19 virus is affecting everyday life”.
What this initiative’s goal is
But the difficulties of the emergency and the economic recession that it has unleashed are also affecting the news sector, which sees its function at risk because of “job cuts, redactions diminished or declines in investments”.
Google has therefore decided to activate this fund to “provide urgent aid to journalistic organizations that produce original news for local communities during this period of crisis”: it has not been announced the overall ceiling, but only that the funding will have a range from “a few thousand dollars for small hyper-local publishings to tens of thousands of dollars for larger newsrooms, with variations by region”.
The funds will have to be spent to support “original journalism” that provides news coverage.
Who are the interventions intended for
As mentioned, the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund is available to small or medium-sized editorial publishing that publish original news for local communities even in this time of emergency; as specified, “local” means that the main focus of the news is on a specific geographical target.
On the page of the initiative you can read all the requirements for the access, which address – for instance – that the ones that can submit a request include:
- Publishers that have a digital presence and have been active for at least one year.
- Publishings employing from 2 to 100 full-time journalists.
The newspapers that have over 100 journalists can still forward a request and Google will assess the specific case, based on the needs of the individual area/region.
- Organizations must be established in companies or registered in one of the geographical areas identified. Non corporate organisations should be based on the geographical areas identified.
- Newspapers must have an editorial focus based on current news information: websites focused mainly on lifestyle, sport or business-to-business are not allowed to submit.
- Profit or nonprofit publishing companies of the traditional type, digital natives, radio and/or TV stations may apply.
- Public or individual companies are not allowed to request the fund.
How to apply
The time window for submitting requests is open from one day now and the deadline is set for Wednesday, April 29 at 23:59 with the time zone of the Pacific.
Google also clarifies that all admissible applications received will be subject to a review and selection process, so strongly recommends “that you submit your application as soon as possible”.
Interested parties can submit their application through an online form (at this address) which represents the only documentation requested by Google. At the moment the form is available in english, but there is also a translation in other languages.
In order to determine the suitability and the fulfillment of the requirements of the fund, some information on the editorial paper are required, including:
- General information about the organization, including the date of foundation.
- Geographical area, site URL, number of full-time journalists.
- A brief description of how financing could help the editorial staff to serve their local community in this time of crisis.
The selection process
The preliminary selection of projects will be carried out by teams of Google employees with “skills and experience in digital publications and journalism of identified regions”. They are responsible for reviewing all applications to verify eligibility and determine the share of funding to be allocated.
Candidates will receive an email with the indication of the proposed funding and, if accepted, will sign a contract with Google and will enter the Google Partners program to actually receive the funds.
Other Google initiatives supporting journalism
The fund is not the only action took by Google to support journalism at the time of Coronavirus: Gingras has in fact announced that the company has planned a total donation of 1 million dollars to the International Center for Journalists, that will distribute immediate resources to reporters around the world, and to the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma of the Columbia Journalism School, which instead supports journalists exposed to traumatic events during this emergency phase.
These initiatives add up to “the other commitments we have made to support the world of news, to help people find quality information in this time of emergency and to relieve the economic pressures that editorial publishings are currently experiencing”, concludes Gingras.
