Facebook has announced that it will be making a major investment to support local news over the next three years. It has set aside $300 million for this purpose. The money will be doled out to different initiatives and organizations with the sole aim of supporting local newsrooms. The initiative is not unlike the one that Google announced late last year.
The local news business has already been under considerable pressure over the past few years. The emergence of big digital platforms like Facebook hasn’t helped much.
Facebook’s VP of Global News Partnerships Campbell Brown has said that once the company examined what kind of news people want to see on the platform and talked to industry partners, “We heard one consistent answer: people want more local news, and local newsrooms are looking for more support.”
The investments that Facebook will be making are going to be focused in two major areas. They will be used to support journalists and newsrooms to aid their newsgathering process as well as help them build business models that are sustainable in this day and age.
It will specifically be investing $2 million in Report for America which is an initiative to place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms across the country over the next five years. It has also earmarked more than $20 million for Facebook’s Accelerator program which will guide local publishers with their membership and subscription programs.
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