Facebook has announced that it will be investing $300 million in news programs, partnerships, and content, over the next three years.
As part of its continuing effort to bring more local news to users and support local newsrooms, Facebook has announced further and expanded efforts around local news for the next few years. As per Facebook’s recent announcement, efforts will concentrate on two key areas:
“supporting local journalists and newsrooms with their newsgathering needs in the immediate future” and “helping local news organizations build sustainable business models, through both our product and partnership work.”
According to the announcement, over the next three years, Facebook will invest $300 million in news programs, partnerships and content that will include:
- A $5 million “endowment gift” to the Pulitzer Center to launch “Bringing Stories Home,” providing local newsrooms with reporting grants to foster coverage on topics that affect local communities. The gift will unlock an additional $5 million matching gift from Emily Rauh Pulitzer, chair of the Pulitzer Center.
- A $2 million investment in the Report for America initiative, which will help place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms across America over the next five years.
- A $1 million investment in the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund which will be dedicated to a “news innovation and technology hub” that is being created to help evaluate and improve how technology is used in newsrooms across the U.S.
- A $1 million investment across the Local Media Association (LMA) & Local Media Consortium (LMC), to help more than 2,000 local member newsrooms better understand, develop and implement revenue streams through branded content both on and off Facebook.
- A $1 million commitment to the American Journalism Project to grow and sustain local civic news organizations through venture philanthropy.
- The $6 million Community News Project that will partner with some of the biggest regional publishers in the United Kingdom – Reach, Newsquest, JPI, Archant, Midland News Association and the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). The project will recruit trainee ‘community journalists’ and place them in local newsrooms over a two-year period.
In addition to the above, Facebook will also be expanding its Accelerator pilot, that helps local newsrooms with subscription and membership models. The company will be committing over $20 million to continue the local Accelerator in the U.S., but also to expand it globally.
Finally, Facebook will be holding a two-day “Accelerate: Local News” event which will be devoted to local news, in partnership with Knight Foundation and the Online News Association.
All these investments and actions are part of Facebook’s continued support of local news and its fight against fake news, misinformation, and low-quality news on its platform.
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