Tag Archives: Google News Initiative

Google News Showcase launches in Colombia

On the 10th anniversary of Google’s presence in Colombia, we’re investing in the future of news in the country with the launch of Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news. Colombia is now the third country in Latin America, alongside Argentina and Brazil, to provide News Showcase for readers.

Nearly 1,000 news publications globally have signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K, Austria and Argentina, with discussions underway in a number of other countries. Over 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news.  

When Google came to Colombia a decade ago, the tech industry was facing an important moment of evolution in the country. Internet access and mobile penetration were increasing exponentially, marking a tipping point for Colombians. We’ve been a part of that growth ever since by partnering with the news industry, the government, industry associations, advertisers and users. With News Showcase launching in Colombia today, we’re looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the news industry over the next 10 years and more.   

News Showcase is backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news. The primary goal of News Showcase is to support news publishers that are invested in comprehensive current events journalism in the public interest by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms. Through News Showcase, these publishers can help connect their readers with the news that matters to them. As part of our licensing deals with publishers, we're also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. This feature will give people the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to incentivize more readers to become subscribers. 

  • El Diario on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "Google News Showcase is a great opportunity for our high-quality content and information to reach new audiences throughout the country. From El Diario we are pleased to be part of this project and committed to doing our part so that the project is a success in Colombia." - Luis Carlos Ramírez, CEO of El Diario
  • El Pilón on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “By joining News Showcase we're advancing our objectives of expanding and reaching new audiences for our newspaper. In addition, this partnership helps improve our sustainability and strengthens our business" - Clara Inés Araujo, General Manager of El Pilón
  • La Crónica del Quindío on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “In times of so much uncertainty, having an ally like Google with its News Showcase product means we're able to evaluate new ways to reach audiences and develop new tactics. Our audience was acquired over 30 years of serious and responsible journalism. Now with News Showcase, La Crónica opens a window to look to the future with optimism." - Sandra Macias, General Manager of La Crónica del Quindío
  • La Patria on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “Being part, as a member, of the News Showcase means for Colombian media an innovative alternative to reach new audiences with quality contents and it will contribute to its sustainability and independence.” - Nicolas Restrepo, Director of La Patria
  • La Opinión on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: We have many expectations. We are confident that this new initiative will strengthen the strategic relationship between Google and media industry. From La Opinión, we believe that it is a great opportunity to show many more readers our journalistic work" - Estefanía Colmenares. Directora of the Opinión
  • El Espectador on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "This partnership between El Espectador and Google is a great step towards recognizing the value of quality journalism and the need to ensure its sustainability in a changing environment. We are pleased to be part of the Google News Showcase project in Colombia and we are committed to continuing to produce the best news content for our audiences." - Eduardo Garces, General Manager at El Espectador
  • Publimetro on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "Working hand in hand with Google Showcase provides media companies with new tools to connect with different and wider audiences, giving us the opportunity to deliver objective and truthful content that combats misinformation.” - Jose Luis Carulla, CEO Publimetro Colombia

Today’s News Showcase announcement includes 24 regional and national news publications well known to the people of Colombia: BLU Radio, Caracol Radio,El Colombiano, El Diario,, El Espectador, El Heraldo, El Nuevo Día, El Nuevo Siglo, El País, El Pilón, El Universal, Hoy Diario del Magdalena, La Crónica del Quindío, La Opinión, La Patria, Noticias Caracol, Publimetro, Q'Hubo Bogotá, Q’Hubo Bucaramanga, QHubo Cali, QHubo Medellín, Semana, Vanguardia and W Radio. Over the coming months we plan to add more publications. 

Logos of some of our News Showcase partners in Colombia including: BLU radio, Caracol Radio, El Colombiano, El Diario, El Espectador, El Heraldo, El Nuevo Día, El Nuevo Siglo, El País, El Pilón, El Universal, Hoy Diario del Magdalena, La Crónica del Quindío, La Opinión, La Patria, Noticias Caracol, Publimetro, Q'Hubo Bogotá, Q’Hubo Bucaramanga, QHubo Cali, QHubo Medellín, Semana, Vanguardia and W Radio

News Showcase panels display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers in Colombia more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and their branding. Readers who click on a News Showcase panel are directed to the full articles on the publisher’s website. This drives valuable traffic to news organizations and enables them to grow their businesses and their audience while deepening relationships with readers.

Example of how News Showcase shows up for readers in Colombia

Starting today, News Showcase panels from our participating publishers in Colombia will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover. Readers will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalized feeds, and they might also find panels from publishers they’re less familiar with presented as suggestions in the Google News “For You” feed and inside “Newsstand,” the discovery area of Google News.

Examples of what story panels look like for people using News Showcase in Colombia.

More support for the Colombian news industry

News Showcase is part of a broader set of Google’s efforts to help the news industry in Colombia thrive and builds on the work we have been doing with the Google News Initiative (GNI) through training, scholarships and funding. Some examples include digital skills training with publishers like El Tiempo, and a program with AMI, an association that represents Colombian news organizations, to promote responsible, objective and independent journalism. We've provided support for Colombian news organizations to accelerate the growth of their businesses online through the Digital Growth Program, as well as Labs like the 2020 LATAM Contributions Lab that included 5 Colombian publishers.

We all know the importance of trustworthy journalism in helping us make informed decisions that affect our lives, work and family.  That’s why we have collaborated closely with a number of fact check organizations in Colombia. For example, since 2019, we’ve provided support for workshops and training on fact checking tools with RedCheq, a network of fact checkers.  And we’ve worked on initiatives to promote the use of digital tools to combat misinformation, such as Verificracks. 

Additionally we’ve partnered with journalism organizations such as Fundación Gabo to support innovation in newsrooms and their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Covid-19 hit all sectors of society hard, including newsrooms.  We responded by funding 83 small and medium local newsrooms across Colombia in 2020 through our Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. And in the last year alone we have trained +1800 journalists with our News Lab programs. 

  • Caracol Radio y W Radio on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “For many years, traditional media players had set the goal to build a better relationship with Google regarding the production and distribution of content. Showcase is the first and most meaningful step in creating a more fair and mutually beneficial relationship that ultimately benefits users and audiences.” - Felipe Cabrales Urdaneta, Director General Caracol S.A.
  • Hoy Diario del Magdalena on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "The arrival of the News Showcase in Colombia represents a great opportunity for the country's media, as it not only strengthens business models, but also opens a digital window to high-quality journalism and allows readers and different audiences have access to the best content ” - Ulilo Acevedo, Director of Hoy Diario del Magdalena
  • Q’Hubo Q'Hubo Bogotá on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “Being part of the Google News Showcase program is a great advance for the Colombian news industry. This will help improve the direction of the newspaper in its print and digital version." - Jorge Alberto Rangel Gómez - Manager
  • Noticias Caracol on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: “We are very happy to participate in the Google News Showcase project in Colombia with our news brands Noticias Caracol and BLU radio. We firmly believe in the essential value for society of professional and high-quality journalism and we are sure that this new Google product will give us a very relevant window for the country's digital audiences” - Marcelo Liberini, Digital Vice President of Caracol
  • Semana on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "We are pleased to be part of the News Showcase project in Colombia. We are committed to continuing to produce high-quality news content that contributes to and enriches the country's news offer” - Sandra Suarez Grupo Semana General Manager
  • El Nuevo Siglo on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "Being part of the News Showcase in Colombia will allow El Nuevo Siglo not only to expand its digital frontiers but also to promote the differential, quality and well-written content that is the daily commitment to our readers." - Melany Chiari Caballero, General Manager of El Nuevo Siglo
  • El Colombiano on what News Showcase means for their business and readers: "The arrival of News Showcase to the country represents a great opportunity for the country's media ecosystem, as it not only strengthens its business, but also opens a digital window to high-quality journalism and allows readers to access the best content." - Ignacio Gaitán Villegas President of El Colombiano

Over the coming months we’ll continue to work with our news partners in Colombia to incorporate their feedback as we build new features for News Showcase and include more publishers in the program for the future.

Enabling a robust and healthy landscape for news should be a shared responsibility across industries, governments and private and public interest groups.  News Showcase along with our other News products and GNI programs are a clear demonstration of Google’s commitment to support quality journalism for the people of Colombia for the next decade and beyond.  

Ripples Nigeria and the power of geojournalism

In 2015, Samuel Ibemere and his colleagues founded Ripples Nigeria, an online newspaper that aims to bring data journalism into the mainstream. And they’re particularly focused on geojournalism: the harnessing of earth data to accurately report on big stories and important changes in the environment. “The media sector cannot stand by idly while other industries in Africa are contributing to help protect the environment,” Samuel tells us. As well as bringing geojournalism into the mainstream in Nigeria, the hope is that it will also help track climate change.


In 2021, Ripples Nigeria received funding from the Google News Initiative Innovation Challengefor its latest project, Eco-Nai+, Nigeria’s first digital geojournalism platform. The Keyword sat down over Google Meet with Chinedu Obe Chidi, Assistant Editor of Ripples Nigeria, Programme Director of Ripples Centre for Data and Investigative Journalism (RCDIJ) and Team Lead of Eco-Nai+ to find out more about the work being done. 


How would you define geojournalism and its importance today?

Geojournalism uses scientific data on the earth to report the environment. It’s a fusion of journalism and earth sciences to create a brand of journalism that allows us to have objective, visual, measurable, interactive yet broadly accessible coverage of issues surrounding the environment. Without it, people could still write about the environment. But by relying on technical tools — like image geotagging and authoritative open data sources like Google Earth —  we can better communicate from a scientific perspective how best to interpret changes to the environment. It’s about getting more informed, more reliable coverage of issues like rising sea levels, droughts, rainfall, erosion — the many issues tied to the question of climate change, where technical reporting is vital. 


What’s the origin story behind Ripples Nigeria? 


In 2014, two slightly unrelated developments acted as a pull on a group of young Nigerian professionals in the media space. After years of struggle, Nigeria finally entered the internet age - and the media industry rushed to take advantage of new digital opportunities. With that, investigative and data journalism became even more important, helping resolve local and global concerns around corruption, illiteracy, diseases and the environment.

Ripples Nigeria was a product of these fundamental shifts. Realizing the gaps and opportunities at the time, the plan was to build a fiercely independent multimedia platform that would rise to speak truth to power, stay committed to the ideals of solution journalism and become Nigeria’s most influential news source.

Can you tell us about your initial work in data journalism?

We’ve been focusing on data journalism for the past five years. There’s a huge lack of familiarity with the subject on the continent and the more esoteric area of geojournalism is even newer to writers and editors. In 2017, we set up Ripples Centre for Data and Investigative Journalism (RCDIJ) to equip journalists, primarily through our Data Journalism Masterclass, to effectively and accurately embark on data reporting and investigative stories  in key areas like the environment. The Masterclass, in its third year now, has graduated more than one hundred journalists. 

How does Project Eco Nai+ use data?


We rely on three main sources of data. First, we work with user-generated data from those most impacted by environmental changes, like farmers and other rural workers. We thought that if we could get these people to tell their own stories — what things within their natural operating environment were like five to 10 years ago versus today, for instance — they could contribute valuable data to the platform and help document these changes. Second, we use authoritative sources of data such as Google Earth, data from meteorological agencies, and other third-party official or trusted open data sources. Third, we use data collected by people we deploy to the field — researchers, analysts, data collectors, data and investigative journalists — who look at the environment in different communities where irregularities or changes have attracted our interest. These three sources represent a very broad data set that will form the rich database of Eco-Nai+ digital platform. 

The Ripples Nigeria team stand in front of a minivan smiling to the camera in corporate jumpers and work attire.

The Ripples Nigeria team

What do the next few years look like for Ripples Nigeria?

Beyond creating Nigeria’s first geojournalism digital platform with Eco Nai+, we want to launch Nigeria’s first geojournalism lab, a center where journalists can access our tools, training and resources. It’s about empowering journalists across the country to be “geojournalists in practice,”  and contributing collectively to more accurate, responsible reporting on the environment. Eventually, we intend to scale the project to cover journalists across the African continent.

Ultimately, we want to be able to mobilize different interest groups across Africa to buy into the idea of using data to protect the environment. Yes, we’re well aware of our commercial objectives, but as a social enterprise, we believe that at its core — at a time when climate action is needed and fast — Eco-Nai+ is about much more than profit; it is about lasting social impact. We believe that our social mobilisation agenda is good for the country, good for the continent, good for the industry and good for the environment. 


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How local news in Italy is using News Showcase

Editor’s note: This is part of our ongoing series featuring local publishers from around the world using Google News Showcase, our new product and licensing program for publishers, showing  how we are supporting both their editorial and business goals. Read the first of our series, which comes from ADIRA in Argentina. 

When the other founders and I looked to launch Citynews in Italy 11 years ago, there wasn’t a huge supply of local news online. We knew we wanted to have more local news available for citizens all over the country, to cover everything from local government to politics, schools, transportation and health. These are the stories that make an impact on people’s day-to-day lives. So after we tried a few different iterations and models, we launched Citynews in 2010.  

Now, after just over a decade, our company is a local news leader in Italy, publishing 50 metropolitan online newspapers everywhere, from Milan to Florence to Rome, plus the national newspaper Today.it. Our team of over 250 journalists produces news that reaches 32.6 million unique users monthly and theCitynews team produces more than 1,300 articles per day. That’s more than 50 stories an hour! 

To fuel our growth we took a data-driven approach to journalism, building our news stories on data from Google Analytics to identify topics that are of real interest to our readers. The data differs from city to city and our news article content adapts to that. Now we’re using Google News Showcase to further this growth and better engage our readers on both Google News and Discover.

One example of a story that touched the hearts and minds of everyone in the country was the birth of Tommaso, the first baby to be born at the Martini hospital in Turin when the maternity ward finally reopened after closing for COVID-19. This was a wonderful example of the kind of local story that resonates with a larger national audience, all of whom have gone through the difficulties of the past 18 months of the pandemic. Our local paper Torino Today covered the story and our editors produced it for Google News Showcase.

This image shows examples of News Showcase panels from Italian publishers Firenze Today, Roma Today, and Milano Today

Examples of News Showcase panels on Citynews publications Firenze Today, Roma Today, and Milano Today. 

One of the biggest challenges that comes with the scale of our organization is ensuring that we’re able to curate stories and highlight essential information for our local audiences. Readers are constantly inundated with news and stories can move quickly, making it difficult for people to stay on top of the latest developments. Our team of experienced editors and journalists use Google News Showcase to highlight the most important news articles of the day for our readers at scale. Not every story can be told in the same way, and it’s convenient that News Showcase gives our editors a variety of options on how to tell impactful stories, making it simple to link to additional articles to offer helpful context, provide a timeline of events and more. 

Having the flexibility to tell news stories in a number of different ways and to choose which stories to highlight with News Showcase helps our editors present work in the best manner possible for such a dynamic environment, bringing editorial judgment to the fore for our readers. Our editors make multiple updates and changes each day to News Showcase panels, helping us amplify important stories as news changes. And we really like how the product lets us add in our unique branding, from our logo to our colors and font, to make our brands really known to new readers and enable them to easily recognize our news moving forward. 

News Showcase also allows us to foster a direct relationship with our readers where they can follow our stories and hopefully become eventual subscribers of our news organizations, helping us to build more sustainable connections with readers. 

News Showcase is an important milestone for the online news ecosystem in that it further supports the economic value of journalistic work. We are looking forward to exploring new ways to use the product to help our readers and partnering with Google on future feature updates. This relationship only strengthens and grows Citynews’ journalism and future. 

News Brief: July updates from the Google News Initiative

Last month, we explored mental health resources for journalists in the U.K., inclusive news coverage and innovation in Latin America, leadership training for reporters in Asia Pacific and more. Keep reading for July updates.

Promoting mental health in the media industry 

Many of the challenges that impacted the mental health of journalists in the months and years before the global pandemic have been exacerbated by COVID-19. We’re supporting the Headlines Network to test out a new form of training in the United Kingdom to strengthen and promote mental health in the media industry. Independent industry experts will offer a safe space for early career journalists, new managers, mid-career journalists and senior leadership.

Reflecting on diversity in Latin American Journalism

We partnered with The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas to publish the ebook “Diversity in Latin American Journalism,” which was announced at the annual conference of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. In the book, 16 journalists from seven countries reflect on how to make newsrooms and news coverage more inclusive across gender, sexual orientation, racial and ethnic issues and disability. The ebook is available for free in Spanish.

Celebrating Innovation Challenge recipients

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


A group of four women and two men stand in front of a painting posing for the picture

Latin America Innovation Challenge recipients from Editora del Mar S.A. in Colombia

We recently supported 21 projects from nine countries in Spanish-speaking Latin America and Brazil. This year, we asked for new news projects and business models, with a strong focus on underrepresented publishers and diversity, equity and Inclusion as part of the selection criteria. Recipients included an analytics platform from La Gacetain Argentina, a transparency platform from Associação Fiquem Sabendo in Brazil, an open-source data platform fromEditora del Marin Colombia (pictured) and more.

A group of 7 people standing and posing for a picture

The membership team from the Daily Maverick

Innovation Challenge recipients were awarded across six categories in the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Africa awards. South Africa’s Daily Maverick, whose Innovation Challenge project created a relevancy engine for data-driven customer insights, took both the Best Paid Content Strategy award and the newly introduced Best Trust Initiative award.

A screenshot of the Bytecast app recording an audio clip

Reporters in the U.K. are using an audio collection tool developed in the U.S.

Audio tool Bytecast, created as part of the Innovation Challenge in North America, has crossed the Atlantic and is now rolling out to local news organizations in the United Kingdom. Newsquest, which has more than 120 news brands, is using the app to help reporters record, edit and upload audio clips from the field. The content supported by the tool is encouraging new and existing readers to pay for their local news.

Advancing parents and caregivers in Asia Pacific newsrooms

We launched the second iteration of our leadership training pilot in Korea in partnership with the Journalists Association of Korea and HeyJoyce — Korea’s largest community for women — to help equip reporters on parental leave for leadership roles when they return to work. Inspired by what we’ve learned in Korea, we’ve also launched a back-to-work program for the APAC region with WAN-IFRA, and a new program in Australia in partnership with Women in Media.

That’s all for July. Stay in touch on social and the Keyword blog for more updates.


A shared responsibility for quality journalism

Today we are publishing a paper that draws from our decades-long experience working with news publishers and journalists. It offers some ideas for constructive paths forward to foster the sustainability of the quality journalism that informs and strengthens communities, and elevates the essential stories in our lives. This paper includes possible areas for public policy support, such as incentive structures, innovation programs and projects to share best practices. While this is by no means an exhaustive list of ideas, we are publishing it to contribute to the wider discussion.

Supporting journalism has always been important to Google. As a company whose mission focuses on access to information, and whose success depends in large part on having a diverse open ecosystem of quality information, we are committed to helping find a path to a sustainable future for journalism. It's why 20 years ago, we built Google News to help connect people to stories that impact their daily lives. We launched the Google News Initiative to support news publishers in their transition to a digital world; we do this through tools, technology and significant financial support for both existing newsrooms and new, diverse online news outlets and projects. More recently, we launched Google News Showcase, through which we pay publishers to create and curate quality content for a new online news experience. 

Quality journalism enables communities to learn and share essential information, establish shared, accurate understandings of key public developments, and hold elected officials and institutions to account. And in this information age it has never been more essential for democratic discourse and social well-being. But digitization has challenged the underlying commercial model. That said, ensuring a sustainable, vibrant future for quality journalism needs to be done thoughtfully, and as a collective endeavor. 

Sensible public policy can be a key component to addressing these challenges; such policy will work best if it is informed by a robust dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders including publishers, journalists, policymakers, civil society and the private sector. We must identify the underlying challenges and consider novel solutions. 

In the paper we are publishing today, we discuss three foundational proposals that we believe could help inform public policy approaches to supporting the future of quality journalism:

  1. Convening cross-sector experts to identify focus areas and collaborate on shared solutions;
  2. Investing in newsroom innovation and experimentation to identify and support sustainable business models; and 
  3. Providing support for legacy institutions as they go through the digital transformation. 

There are no easy solutions to the complex set of challenges facing the news industry today, which is why we have been working for years to support legacy newsrooms and new entrants focused on providing local news and quality journalism.  The challenge is urgent – and across society we must work together to create sustainable solutions to these issues.

The experiences and lessons we describe in this paper would not have been possible without the valuable input we’ve received from the news partners we have worked with and learned from over the years. While there may be no simple solution, we are eager to listen, learn more and help drive innovation to support a successful public policy approach that results in a vibrant journalism ecosystem.

Helping digital news outlets serve local communities

Journalism has always been about bringing communities together, and delivering information that is valuable to them. But traditionally, the most influential outlets have focused on serving the majority, often inadvertently leaving people behind. The result is entire communities who are unable to find quality journalism which reflects their lives and values.

Today, it’s possible for digital publishers to reach local and niche audiences online with journalism readers care about and can see themselves in. Despite this, we know that achieving financial sustainability as a digital news business is often a major challenge.

That’s why we at Media Lab Bayern are partnering with the Google News Initiative and the European Journalism Centre to launch the GNI Startups Lab Europe – an intensive six-month accelerator program designed to help a group of up to 12 early-stage digital news organisations find solid financial footing.

The program has been designed specifically for news startups producing original content, drawing on our team’s collective expertise. This will be the GNI’s fourth Startups Lab, following runs in Brazil, North American and Hispanoamérica. The European Journalism Centre brings their deep domain knowledge and vast network from across the continent. We at Media Lab Bayern will leverage our experience as a media innovation hub for more than 200 European media startups over the past six years. During this time, we have learned how startups can build a sustainable business, with the three most important things to get right being building something your users need, getting the word out and finding a viable business model.

That’s why we have structured the program into three phases:

  1. In the first two months we’ll work with the participating teams on their product and team. Which audience do they serve? Which problems do they solve for them? And do they have the resources inside their team to build an amazing product?

  2. In the middle months, we provide inspiration on how to grow an audience. Do they have the right marketing strategy? How big is the addressable market?

  3. And finally, for the final two months of the program we will help them develop a sustainable business model -- something which no company can survive without. How many income streams do they have and what might be unconventional ways to monetize their content? Experimentation will be a key element of this phase, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

The GNI Startups Lab Europe will start this November. You can learn more and apply here; applications are open until September 20, 2021. If you are an early-stage digital news publisher who is passionate about reaching an underserved community then we want to hear from you. 

Together we can build a sustainable future for digital news, so every European who searches for a community can find exactly what they are looking for.

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Google News Showcase is launching in Austria

Google News Showcase, our new product and licensing program for news publishers, will begin rolling out in Austria today, building on our ongoing commitment to support journalism. Backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news, Google News Showcase supports publishers by giving them a new way to curate their high-quality content on Google’s News and Discover platforms, connecting their readers with the news that matters to them. 


The Austrian publishers taking part at launch include, among others, Der Standard (derstandard.at), Wimmer Medien (nachrichten.at), Russmedia (vn.at, vol.at, vienna.at), Salzburger Nachrichten (sn.at, salzburg24.at) and Moser Holding (tt.com). These publishers represent a mix of local, regional and national news organizations around the country. 

This image shows the logos of some of our Austria News Showcase partners including DerStandard, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg24, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Vorarlberg Online, Vienna.at, Tiroler Tageszeitung

Logos of some of our News Showcase partners in Austria including DerStandard, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Salzburg24, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Vorarlberg Online, Vienna.at, Tiroler Tageszeitung

News Showcase is just the latest investment in our ongoing commitment to support journalism around the globe. Through both our services and direct funding of news organizations, Google is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of news.


More than 800 news publications globally, more than half of which are in Europe, have now signed deals for News Showcase since last year. These span more than a dozen countries, including India, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Czechia, Japan, the U.K. and Argentina,with discussions underway in a number of other countries. More than 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news. 


“As the first German-language daily newspaper on the Internet, DER STANDARD was interested from the start in bringing its quality content to interested readers in all possible ways,” says Gerlinde Hinterleitner, online publisher of Der Standard, a national newspaper based in Vienna. “Google News Showcase is a logical continuation of this path. We look forward to being one of the first publishing houses in Austria to participate."


With News Showcase panels, news organizations can curate how their content appears. All panels direct readers to the full articles on the publishers’ websites, driving valuable traffic back to publishers and enabling them to deepen their relationships with readers. 

This image shows examples of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in Austria including Der Standard, Salzburger Nachrichten, and Tiroler Tageszeitung/ Moser Holding

An example of how News Showcase panels will look with some of our partners in Austria.

“Google News Showcase is a great way for us to present our content to an even larger audience. Quality journalism from Upper Austria is our strength — and that is exactly what we want to promote through this new product,” says Gino Cuturi, Managing Director of OÖNachrichten, the leading regional newspaper in Upper Austria. “We aim to get even more readers excited about our digital products and to convince them of our local reporting in the long term.”


“Experience shows that there is still great potential for regional daily newspapers to attract occasional digital readers and then develop them into regular readers,” says Hermann Petz, the CEO of Tiroler Tageszeitung, the leading regional newspaper in Tyrol. “We see Google News Showcase as an opportunity to expand and monetize this ‘widest circle of readers.’”

This GIF shows examples of how News Showcase panel layouts will look from some of our publishing partners in Austria including Der Standard, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten/ Wimmer Medien, Russmedia, Salzburger Nachrichten, and Tiroler Tageszeitung/ Moser Holding

An example of News Showcase panel layouts from our publishing partners in Austria


News Showcase content from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in Google News and on Discover starting today. As part of our licensing deals, we’re also paying news organizations for access to select paywalled content, giving people in Austria access to a wide range of news content. We work closely with news outlets to determine the right amount of content to share to help drive subscriptions.


“With the new storytelling formats, quality media can better disseminate journalistic content together with Google News Showcase,” says Georg Burtscher, Managing Director of Russmedia, the leading regional publishing house in Vorarlberg. “VN.at,Vol.at and Vienna.at are known for testing innovations in everyday life - that is also the case with this initiative.”


"The importance of independent and high-quality journalism for society has become very apparent in the Coronavirus-crisis – news gives people the information they need about their communities, people have faith in it,” says Maximilian Dasch, Managing Director of Salzburger Nachrichten. “Google News Showcase promotes digital news and provides more support for journalism."


For many years, Google has invested millions of euros in Austrian journalism through innovation funding. With funding and support from the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, DER STANDARD built an AI solution to help combat online hate speech in comments, resulting in a 50% decrease in the time taken by moderators. We also supported a project from news agency APA to create login and paywall infrastructure to drive digital subscriptions. Plus, we worked with vol.at who brought together behavioral science and tech innovation to create a loyalty program, leading to a tenfold increase in registrations. And in 2020, with the spread of COVID-19, the Google News Initiative offered support to 10 Austrian newsrooms through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, providing them financial assistance to get them through the pandemic. 


We’re committed to helping people access information online, supporting an open web and partnering with news organizations in Austria and around the world to reach new readers and develop sustainable business models online.

News Brief: June updates from the Google News Initiative

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.

22 news innovators from the Middle East, Turkey and Africa

During a 14-year career as a journalist, Dina Aboughazala reported on issues impacting people's lives across the Middle East. But she found that many existing news services concentrated on what was happening in big cities, while lesser-known areas were often ignored. To highlight undiscovered voices with interesting stories to tell, last year Aboughazala started the journalism platform Egab.

Egab, which connects journalists from the Middle East and Africa to international media outlets, is one of 22 successful recipients for the Google News Initiative’s second Middle East, Turkey and Africa Innovation Challenge.

It will use the funding to build a platform for contributions. “This means we can empower more local journalists across the Middle East and Africa to tell diverse stories about their communities to global audiences: stories that defy stereotypes, represent our part of the world more fairly and engage more audiences,” Aboughazala says. “We will now be able to do that at a larger scale through the online platform we will be building.”

We launched an open call for applications in February and received 329 applications from 35 countries. A rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process followed.

Today, we’re announcing $2.1 million in funding to projects and initiatives in 14 different countries. Recipients include startups and online-only media platforms alongside some of the bigger names in news across the region, and cover topics ranging from audience development to virtual reality storytelling. We placed an emphasis on projects that reflect and demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in the news industry.

Here are just a few of the recipients (you can find the full list on our website):

  • Messenger Reader Revenue: The Standard Group in Kenya is going to integrate bots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) onto a WhatsApp number so that its audience can prompt and interact with it to access news. Via a subscription, the uniquely curated content will feature categories such as farming and investigations.

  • Dreamcatcher: A blockchain-based micro-licensing platform for news articles comes from Aposto, a technology and new media startup in Turkey. This will mean news outlets can tap into a new market of unsubscribed users. For users, this allows them to access premium content without having to buy multiple subscriptions. 

  • Virtual Reality (VR) tours: Frontline in Focus in Syria will bring VR Tours by local journalists for international media and NGOs to help international reporters tell stories from the conflict zone with the help of more seasoned local reporters.

  • Growing through innovation: An audience engagement and membership project from Raseef22 in Lebanon targets Arab youth. The team plans to enhance audience engagement with dynamic story formats, podcasts and a membership program to explore new reader revenue.

  • Data for Morocco: A public platform to collect economic and financial data comes from online-only publisher Société des Nouveaux Médias. This will make basic datasets accessible to all readers as well as create specific offers to subscribers and clients through personalized dashboards, real time updates and market analysis.

We’ll be following their progress alongside the previous recipients who are already impacting the news ecosystem with initiatives that increase reader engagement and make for a more sustainable future of news.


22 news innovators from the Middle East, Turkey and Africa

During a 14-year career as a journalist, Dina Aboughazala reported on issues impacting people's lives across the Middle East. But she found that many existing news services concentrated on what was happening in big cities, while lesser-known areas were often ignored. To highlight undiscovered voices with interesting stories to tell, last year Aboughazala started the journalism platform Egab.

Egab, which connects journalists from the Middle East and Africa to international media outlets, is one of 22 successful recipients for the Google News Initiative’s second Middle East, Turkey and Africa Innovation Challenge.

It will use the funding to build a platform for contributions. “This means we can empower more local journalists across the Middle East and Africa to tell diverse stories about their communities to global audiences: stories that defy stereotypes, represent our part of the world more fairly and engage more audiences,” Aboughazala says. “We will now be able to do that at a larger scale through the online platform we will be building.”

We launched an open call for applications in February and received 329 applications from 35 countries. A rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process followed.

Today, we’re announcing $2.1 million in funding to projects and initiatives in 14 different countries. Recipients include startups and online-only media platforms alongside some of the bigger names in news across the region, and cover topics ranging from audience development to virtual reality storytelling. We placed an emphasis on projects that reflect and demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in the news industry.

Here are just a few of the recipients (you can find the full list on our website):

  • Messenger Reader Revenue: The Standard Group in Kenya is going to integrate bots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) onto a WhatsApp number so that its audience can prompt and interact with it to access news. Via a subscription, the uniquely curated content will feature categories such as farming and investigations.

  • Dreamcatcher: A blockchain-based micro-licensing platform for news articles comes from Aposto, a technology and new media startup in Turkey. This will mean news outlets can tap into a new market of unsubscribed users. For users, this allows them to access premium content without having to buy multiple subscriptions. 

  • Virtual Reality (VR) tours: Frontline in Focus in Syria will bring VR Tours by local journalists for international media and NGOs to help international reporters tell stories from the conflict zone with the help of more seasoned local reporters.

  • Growing through innovation: An audience engagement and membership project from Raseef22 in Lebanon targets Arab youth. The team plans to enhance audience engagement with dynamic story formats, podcasts and a membership program to explore new reader revenue.

  • Data for Morocco: A public platform to collect economic and financial data comes from online-only publisher Société des Nouveaux Médias. This will make basic datasets accessible to all readers as well as create specific offers to subscribers and clients through personalized dashboards, real time updates and market analysis.

We’ll be following their progress alongside the previous recipients who are already impacting the news ecosystem with initiatives that increase reader engagement and make for a more sustainable future of news.