Though the details of Google’s international news donation are to be announced early next year, the $2 million for the Knight Foundation - an organization that focuses on advancing and funding journalism in the digital age, will be broken up by $1 million to help fund the Knight News Challenge and another $1 million for general grant-making for journalism innovation.
The Knight News Challenge is a worldwide news innovation competition that will be distributing $6 million in awards to contest winners. It’s currently looking for submissions with a focus on mobile, sustainability, authenticity and community, and one of the requirements is that they have to be open source, which aligns nicely with Google’s goals in the space. Last year, the Foundation awarded $2.74 million in grants that ranged from real-time ads, to crowd-funding, to reporting using social media. It’s also supported the likes of DocumentCloud, Spot.Us and Everyblock.
“This is an enormously important vote of confidence by the industry leader. We welcome Google’s support,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation in a statement. “Already, more Americans get their information from the Internet than from newspapers. That trend will only intensify, making it imperative for our democracy that we find ways to effectively deliver the news and information people require on the new, digital platforms.”
As media companies struggle to find a sustainable model while more news consumption takes place on the web (with much through the social web), there’s a great need for innovative ideas and approaches to news. So why donate the money? In part, it is policy for Google to donate 1% of profits toward charity, but it’s also a peace offering of sorts to news organizations that have often blamed their woes on the technology giant.
As Megan Garber of Nieman Journalism Lab points out, despite years of having a dysfunctional relationship with news organizations, Google’s donation comes as a “multi-million dollar olive branch.” For years, some news organizations accused Google of stealing their news, but recently Google has been reaching out to news organizations for partnerships on projects like Living Stories, which it collaborated on with The New York Times and The Washington Post. Despite working on such partnerships recently, Chris Gaither told Garber the donation is an effort to “encourage innovation at a more grassroots level.”
Going forward, with major news organizations cutting back on international resources to produce news, it will be crucial to help fill in a gap.
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