The internet search Google has announced a donation of $5 million for innovation in digital journalism and $2 million will go to the Knight Foundation and $3 million will go toward international news efforts.
The $2 million for the Knight Foundation is an organization that focuses on advancing and funding journalism in the digital age and 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.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.
Alberto Ibarguen, president of the Knight Foundation said in a statement: “This is an enormously important vote of confidence by the industry leader. We welcome Google’s support,” he added “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.”
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.”
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