Last month we announced new opportunities for student journalists to develop their reporting skills, and new resources for news organizations to grow their digital business. World events reminded us of the importance of a free press, and in many areas of the world, we expanded on efforts to combat misinformation ahead of elections. Read on for February updates below.

Combating misinformation ahead of elections in Asia and Europe
In collaboration with Meedan and Rappler, we launched #FactsFirstPH, a coalition of more than 100 groups — news, civil society, business, religious groups, academia and legal communities — to create a whole-society approach to attack disinformation ahead of the Philippines election this May. The event will be headlined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa.

In France, together with our partner AFP, we announced the 21 members of “Objectif Désinfox,'' a coalition to fight misinformation ahead of the French presidential election.

The Google News Initiative India Training Network, in partnership with DataLEADS, ran PollCheck 2022, a digital training series designed to support journalists reporting the upcoming state polls in India. Topics included data verification, fact-checking, mobile journalism, data visualization and digital safety.

Expanding support for Indonesian fact-checking coalition
The Google News Initiative was a founding supporter of CekFakta, a fact-checking coalition based in Indonesia, when it launched in 2018. We announced an additional 11 billion IDR ($815,000 USD) to bring more local news organizations into the network, expanding reach around the country.

Introducing the Google News Initiative Student Fellowship 2022

In partnership with the European Journalism Centre, the Google News Initiative has made 30 fellowships available across 14 European countries with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. The 30 successful applicants will receive a full time, paid, eight-week internship in a leading newsroom. For more information and to apply see journalismfellowships.eu

Giving European publishers tools to grow their reader revenue

This month we announced the return of the GNI Subscriptions Academy for Europe, in collaboration with INMA and FT Strategies. The eight-month program is designed to help European publishers strengthen digital subscriptions capabilities and grow reader revenue. Applications are open until March 14.

Helping news organizations to grow their digital business

The Google News Initiative Digital Growth Program has helped more than 5,000 news organizations around the world to grow their business through free business trainings and digital resources. Last month, we developed a free workshop series on how news organizations can collect, analyze and use data to increase their audience size and earn more revenue. The workshops are available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

In North America, we kicked off the 2022 Ad Transformation Lab, a four-month program to help 15 Black- and Latino- owned publications in the U.S. and Canada advance their advertising strategies and grow digital revenue.

We sponsored the News and Information division of the inauguralNext Challenge, which is run by the Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group. Three of the finalists are former graduates of the GNI Startups Boot Camp:Shasta Scout ('20),Queerency ('21) andAZ Luminaria ('21).

Growing the next generation of journalists

As part of our ongoing efforts to humanize news for younger consumers, we partnered with Baruch College on a program promoting journalism education, school newspapers and news literacy in underserved New York high schools. The program aims to help launch at least 25 school newspapers by the end of 2023.

We announced a new fellowship piloted by Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) to deepen audience engagement and increase staff diversity in the nonprofit newsrooms. The six-month fellowship will connect INN member news organizations with recent college graduates to focus on community engagement, digital marketing, digital communications or audience growth projects.

Engaging audiences in Latin America with web stories

We launched a Storytelling Innovation Program for Latin America featuring more than 70 digital publishers across Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. These publishers partnered with Google and Fundación Gabo, to receive training, and technical guidance to experiment with Web Stories. More than 1,000 stories have been published with impressive preliminary results: some publishers saw traffic increase by 30%.

Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in Latin American newsrooms

To promote more diverse, inclusive and equitable reporting, and also to support the creation of more inclusive workplaces for journalists, we launched the course "How to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Latin American journalism" in partnership with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. The course covers topics such as gender, race, human rights and diversity and is led by four prominent Latin American journalists.

Adapting, growing and challenging subscription products

We partnered with Gruner+Jahr, one of Europe’s leading premium magazine publishers, to support the implementation of special-interest digital subscription products across their portfolio. This helped them to grow subscriptions more affordably and develop new subscriptions products more quickly. and more quickly than before.

That’s all for February. Stay in touch on social and through the Google News Initiative newsletter for more updates.

Last month, we expanded journalist training in India to combat misinformation, invested in startups growth in Latin America, learned about innovative news projects around the world and more. Read on for June updates.

Combating misinformation in India

In India, DataLEADS, our Google News Initiative training network partner, completed a 35-day virtual roadshow to provide digital verification skills to over 4,000 people. More than 700 organizations took part in workshops focused on tackling misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines.

Supporting news startups in Latin America

The Google News Initiative Startups Lab is expanding to Spanish-speaking Latin America, in partnership with SembraMedia. Through direct funding and an intensive six-month curriculum, the Lab will help a group of up to 12 early-stage digital news businesses develop financial sustainability and growth. This builds on lessons learned from the Startups Labs in Brazil and North America. 

Last month, we also released a Spanish version of the Google News Initiative Startups Playbook, a guide to building a successful digital news business from scratch.

Engaging with the global news community through Newsgeist

Together with other news industry leaders, we organized a virtual, week-long version of Newsgeist, an opportunity to connect with the global news community to discuss relevant topics, share projects and initiatives and tackle challenging problems facing the news industry together. The event brought together more than 600 journalists, business leaders, tech leaders, academics and others for a discussion about the state and future of the news industry

Collaborating on AI literacy

Over the next six months, 24 international news organizations will take part in acollaborative experiment across Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas. The program was developed  in partnership with Polis, the London School of Economics and Political Science’s journalism think tank, through JournalismAI, our efforts to strengthen AI literacy within newsrooms, and convene the industry around common challenges and opportunities.

Learning from Innovation Challenge recipients

Building on the Digital News Innovation Fund in Europe, Google News Initiative Innovation Challenges have supported more than 180 projects that inject new ideas into the news industry. Around the world, we’re learning from former Innovation Challenge recipients who are using their funding to drive innovation in news.

• Word in Black chose Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day the last slaves were freed in the U.S., to launch a new website and newsletter for Black communities in collaboration with theLocal Media Foundation. 

• AnyClip combines artificial intelligence and search tools to provide video analytics for content providers. The Israeli startup has raised an additional $47 million to build out its platform and expand business after seeing 600% growth in the last year.

• Socialbeat is an Italian startup developed through a collaboration between Accenture and Italian publisher SESAAB. With the help of a recent investment, they’ll continue to enhance their AI-powered software platform for aggregation and content selection.

• The Sicilian Post created the ARIA project, which allows journalists to automatically create illustrative graphics using data. This month, they hosted a workshop to introduce participants to the project at an Italian conference. 

Using AI to moderate content

The changing legal and political environment in Europe, as well as growing extremism and polarization in society, means that moderation tools are often inadequate for modern journalism. In light of these factors, Wirtualna Polaska built a moderation engine using Google Cloud tools to help ease the burden on content moderators and provide a safe platform for open discussion in Poland. 

Helping European publishers grow their digital revenue

In partnership withWAN-IFRA, we’re launching the 2021-2022 Table Stakes Europe program designed to help European publishers drive digital revenue growth by focusing on putting audiences first. Applications are now open and will operate on a rolling basis. The program is scheduled to begin in December 2021 and will run for nine months.

That’s a wrap for June. Follow along on social and sign up for our newsletter for more updates.

Last month, we supported new programs to drive business development, media literacy and elections reporting around the world. We’re collaborating with news partners through virtual events, supporting innovation in journalism through new tools, and much more. Read on for May updates.

Providing new resources to drive Advertising revenue 

Starting June 1, the GNI Digital Growth Program is launching Advertisingworkshops in six languages. Workshops will be available in English in North America and the Asia Pacific region, as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. Register today to join them live or on-demand. 

Developing LGBTTQI+ leaders in Latin American media

We partnered with Chicas Poderosas to launch a Leadership Incubator aimed at addressing workplace dynamics in Latin American newsrooms. The program will provide mentoring and training to journalists at local and hyperlocal startups founded by women and people who identify as LGBTTQI+. Participants will work with experts to create a plan to strengthen innovation, collaborative work, diversity and gender perspectives on their teams.

Strengthening Media Literacy in Spanish-speaking Latin America

We’ve launched DigiMente — the first major media literacy program for young people in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Over 12 months the project will provide 20,000 students with the skills to sort fact from fiction online using relevant topics such as memes, video games and music, among others. Building on the foundational work of Google-supported projects such as Civic Online Reasoning (Stanford University) and EducaMidia (Brazil), this new effort was developed in partnership with Movilizatorio and Teach for All. 

Celebrating GNI Innovation Challenge recipients

Building on the Digital News Innovation Fund in Europe, GNI Innovation Challenges have supported more than 150 projects that inject new ideas into the news industry. Around the world, we’re learning from former Innovation Challenge recipients who are using their funding to drive innovation in news.

Daily Maverick, an online national South African publisher, combined multiple data sources from within its organization — from newsletters, website analytics, memberships and newsroom — to create one essential data hub. The "RevEngine” (short for relevancy engine) then displays daily reports and alerts in easy-to-use dashboards, which have become an essential resource for the publisher’s membership and editorial teams. Membership grew 110% year over year in 2020 and highly engaged readers doubled, thanks to actionable insights derived from RevEngine. Meanwhile, it has also saved the Daily Maverick more than $50,000 in 3rd party SAAS fees.

Independent Television Service (ITVS), a California-based public broadcasting partner, has producedDocSCALE, an interactive survey tool designed for both engaging audiences and generating data. It allows viewers to share feedback, and the chance to interact with fellow audience members in response to programming. The platform has improved the depth and diversity of membership engagement, increased opt-in email subscriptions and filled a qualitative data gap for public television stations. See DocSCALE in action at thisevent from May 27 withMaryland Public Television.

Chilean consortium Mecenas Spa has signed up 20 newsrooms to its Reveniu platform, which enables publishers to sell memberships, solicit donations and easily collect payments. As a result, one membership client raised more than $30,000 dollars in six months — almost a third of its entire budget — using the platform. Investors have jumped on board, with expansion to Peru, Colombia or Mexico due later this year. 

Supporting Germany’s election with resources for journalists

In the run up to Germany’s national election in September, we partnered with dpa (the German Press Agency) to launch FaktenCheck21. The program will support local and national newsrooms, establishing fact-checking teams through training bootcamps, an open learning platform called dpa factify and a Slack community to encourage collaboration. Journalists from more than 100 newsrooms across Germany already participated in the training and 400 are collaborating on Slack. GNI also launched the GNI live training series for German journalists on online security, verification and data journalism.

Enhancing media literacy in Germany 

In partnership with German publisher DIE ZEIT, we sponsored and co-hosted ZEIT for teachers, a digital unconference as part of the learning platform ZEIT for schools. More than 950 German-speaking teachers from 26 countries including Brazil and Argentina participated in the two-day virtual conference with panels, workshops and networking opportunities.  We tackled topics such as media and information literacy, new teaching tools, resilience and disinformation.  

Connecting European publishers through News Impact Summits

As part of its ongoing partnership with the GNI, the European Journalism Centre (EJC) will host twoNews Impact Summit events in 2021. One will be devoted to diversity, equality and inclusion, while the other will focus on data journalism. On June 15, “Democratising data: Making data a tool of effective journalism" will explore how data visualisation can impact public debate. “Diversity, equity and inclusion in the media industry: How can journalism better cover our changing societies?” will follow on September 23. 

Innovating with AI in Asia Pacific

The London School of Economics, GNI’s partner within theJournalismAI initiative, hasannounced the five selected newsrooms for this year'sCollaborative Challenge in Asia Pacific: Fuji Television (Japan),  Initium Media (Hong Kong), Singapore Press Holdings (Singapore), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) and The Quint (India). They will work with theTimes School of Media and the Computer Science Engineering Department of Bennett University to explore how AI-driven audience insights can help newsrooms produce more relevant coverage. The outcome of their work will be presented at theJournalismAI Festival later this year.

Checking Vaccine Misinformation in India

In India, our longstanding training partnership with DataLEADS continues with a specific fact-checking Town Hall Series to help journalists explore tools and strategies they can use to identify and combat vaccine-related misinformation. VaxCheck will hold 30 workshops for journalism students and media professionals across the country. The program  runs through June 8th. 

Convening industry leaders at Newsgeist

We co-hosted Newsgeist 2021, an “unconference” organized by Google along with leaders and thinkers across the news industry. The virtual event series, which held sessions on May 18–20 with more scheduled for June 15–17, features discussions about the future of news with a program crowd-sourced by the attendees themselves.

Setting startups on a sustainable path

10 participants of the first NorthAm Startups Lab, which is being run in association with LION Publishers, completed an in-depth curriculum on business sustainability. GNI will now fund revenue and audience growth experiments for each participant, to be designed by each publisher alongside their experienced Startups Lab coaches, Lizzy Hazeltine, Lillian Ruiz and Brian Boyer.

Growing the Tiny News Collective

After launching an ambitious outreach plan this spring, Tiny News Collective received 43 organization applications from 53 aspiring and diverse founders hoping to start their own Tiny News businesses. An experienced team of industry experts and veteran startup founders narrowed the applicants to a finalist round of eight publishers. Six entrepreneurs will ultimately be invited to join the Tiny News cohort in June.

Three years ago we created the Google News Initiative to build a stronger future for news. The upheaval of the last year has accelerated the demand for journalism, as well as the need for news businesses to transition to digital and sustainable businesses. As we continue to learn from our news partners around the world, we remain committed to working closely with the journalism community to build the constructive and sustainable news industry that’s necessary for our open societies to thrive. For March updates, keep reading.

Supporting the first diversity guide for German media 

Based on research in 2020, our partner Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen (NDM) launched the Diversity Guide for German Media, the first comprehensive handbook for German publishers and broadcasters that aims to provide diversity data, local and international best practices and checklists on team culture, recruiting and reporting. We announced the launch during a press conference with 150 journalists and on the Google Germany blog.

Gathering for a conference on diversity in journalism in Spanish-speaking Latin America

Training on disinformation in times of elections

In an election year throughout Latin America, we launched a series of journalist trainings on disinformation, data verification and digital tools. In partnership with First Draft, LatamChequea and local partners, we’ll provide training in seven countries: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. Registrations are free and open online.

Evaluating the health of local news ecosystems

We know that accurate, fact-based news and information is critical for individual, community and local government health. We, along with other funders of news in local communities, share a common challenge: how to assess the health of a given local community’s information ecosystem, and measure change over time.

In collaboration with the Knight Foundation and Democracy Fund, we supported Impact Architects to develop a playbook with a simple set of tools to help communities measure their local news industries, and measure them on an ongoing basis. This playbook was put to the test in nine U.S. communities of various sizes, and in March, we released a report with detailed findings from each of these assessments.

Growing news audiences through the Digital Growth Program

As part of the Digital Growth Program, which was designed to help small and medium publishers grow their online business, we launched new audience development resources including short guides, workshops and labs. The resources build on our analytics tool, News Consumer Insights. Workshops are free and available in English in North America and Asia Pacific, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. 

The program aims to provide news organizations with practical tips and strategies to develop and grow their readers over time by better understanding their readers, using data analytics, establishing clear goals and building an organizational culture centered around audience. So far more than 1300 people have joined our workshops, which will continue throughout April and are also available on-demand. 

Bringing the GNI Startups Lab to North America

We kicked off the North American GNI Startups Lab, a six-month accelerator for 10 early-stage news businesses seeking financial sustainability and growth. The Lab is being run in partnership with LION Publishers, and builds on the work of Startups Lab Brazil, which launched last year. We plan to announce additional regions for future labs over the coming months.

Driving innovation around the world

Building on the €150 million Digital News Innovation Fund, GNI Innovation Challenges have supported more than 150 projects that inject new ideas into the news industry. Last month, we launched the second Innovation Challenge in Latin America in Spanish and Portuguese, focused on building sustainability and diversity. Q&As are available in Spanish and Portuguese, and applications are open until May 3. 

Around the world, we’re learning from former Innovation Challenge recipients who are using their funding to drive innovation in news.

Through the first Latin America Innovation Challenge, Brazilian publisher Congresso em Foco has increased their site traffic by 67% year over year. It also generated enough revenue to build and maintain the largest database of federal parliamentarians in the country. This project helped them to grow their understanding of the Brazilian Congress and new business models for journalism.

In Poland, Wirtualna Polska developed a news service for Millennials and Generation Z readers called Vibez, which recently won the Mobile Trends Awards 2020 after receiving over 150,000 unique users per month and 96% of their traffic from mobile.

Using reader data to boost subscriptions for Finnish publisher Sanoma

riptions at Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s most-read daily newspaper. By feeding audience data to the BigQuery machine-learning platform, Sanoma determines which readers are most likely to pay and what content is most relevant to them. Another tool creates a personalized digital front page, offering relevant articles to likely subscribers. The program has pushed subscriptions to above 400,000 and from 23% to 60% of the publication’s sales.

Increasing user engagement for Jagran New Media with a data-driven content plan 

Through the GNI Data Lab in Asia Pacific, the Hindi news site Jagran.com created a tool for measuring content performance in real time. The dashboard helped editorial teams make more informed decisions, resulting in a 20% increase in article completion rate among the site’s most loyal readers and a 15% increase in the rate at which those readers clicked through to another article. 

Using AI to make Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s paywall smarter

The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (F.A.Z.) now has a valuable aid when it comes to deciding which articles should sit behind the paywall. Using a tool powered by Google’s machine learning, F.A.Z. editors can analyze previous top performers and predict which current articles will produce similar results. The tool has proven accurate — about half of the predicted conversion rates are nearly 100% accurate — but editors still make the final decision.  

That’s all for March updates. To learn more, follow along on our newsletter and social.