Internet and tech giant Google has announced it will fork out $390 million over the next three years as part of is effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age.
Google’s chief business officer, Philipp Schindler, unveiled the Google News Initiative (GNI) in a post yesterday, which he said signifies a major milestone in the company’s 15-year commitment to the news industry.
“[It] will bring together everything we do in collaboration with the industry – across products, partnerships, and programs – to help build a stronger future for news.
“The GNI will build on these efforts and deepen our commitment to a news industry facing dramatic shifts in how journalism is created, consumed, and paid for.
The GNI is focused on three objectives:
- elevating and strengthening quality journalism;
- evolving business models to drive sustainable growth; and
- empowering news organisations through technological innovation.
Google is targeting inaccurate content and ‘fake news’ by training up its systems and adjusting its signals toward more authoritative content, highlighting relevant content from verified news sources in a “Top News” shelf.
The company is also helping publishers remain financially viable through a new platform that allows those with Google accounts pay and subscribe for their news offerings, with Fairfax Media, The New York Times and Maincihi among the launch partners.
Furthermore, Google has launched Outline, an open-source tool from Jigsaw that lets news organisations provide journalists more secure access to the internet.
“Outline makes it easy for news organisations to set up their own VPN on a private server – no tech savvy required,” Schindler said.
