The Google News Initiative (GNI) is a journalism training and funding project launched in 2018. During a recent INMA Webinar, Fabiana Zanni, head of LATAM news ecosystems and associations at Google News Initiative, shared what the organisation has accomplished since that launch and how they plan to implement “a healthy, sustainable, and diverse news industry.”

The programme funds news media outlets and journalist training sessions and consists of a number of training tools such as Google Trends and Fact Check that seek to favour the journalism practice through technology.

Since 2018, the Google News Initiative has:

• Supported more than 7,000 news partners in 120 countries through US$300 million in funding.
• Trained more than 500,000 journalists around the world and more than three million online users.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, GNI supported more than 5,000 local media outlets through the Google Journalism Emergency Relief Fund.
• In Latin America, almost 1,200 media companies have received about US$26 million, whereas more than 2,000 news partners in the United States got US$61 million.
• Other regions in the world also benefitted from the fund: 1,870 news companies in Europe received US$54 million, more than 1,000 companies in Asia-Pacific got US$33 million, and 160 African media outlets were given about US$4 million dollars.

The allocation of these funds depends on the number of media outlets and the density of the population in the regions, Zanni said.

Through polls with the journalist community, GNI has defined five main pillars that allow them to work with partners. These pillars are:

1. Understand audiences. GNI can a help a media company to understand its audience, what it consumes, and how to improve user experience by means of tools and consulting services.
2. Improve journalism. GNI helps newsrooms analyse data, detect interest trends among audiences, and develop new narratives and other key elements in the content generation process.
3. Expand distribution. GNI can help media companies expand their audience reach by offering new platforms, regardless of the type of content: written, audio, or video.
4. Increase revenue. Advertising, subscriptions, licensing, and donations are ways to keep the companies’ finances healthy.
5. Create a culture of innovation. GNI promotes the adoption of technology to innovate throughout the company or in specific areas.

GNI also supports other aspects that reinforce the news ecosystem such as gender diversity through initiatives like Women in News in Latin America. Along with Colombia’s Fundación Gabo, GNI launched the book “El hormiguero” (it translates “the anthill”), which talks about how digital media in Latin America has grown, with references to more than 1,500 media outlets of 12 countries in the region.

Additionally, GNI is advancing in a journalist training network with Factual and training courses on how to be a mentally healthy journalist in the digital era.

The fact-checking programme “Formación de formadores” (training of trainers) is meant to train more than 1,000 journalists through more than 100 sessions in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru. A similar programme will train 300 students at universities in Mexico this year, which will add to the 250 students trained in 2022.

In terms of distribution, GNI helped Argentinian Grupo America speed the growth of digital video production and consumption, with evident results in audience (143%) and revenue (216%) growth.

Mexican news company Reforma used Google’s tools to increase their subscription base. After their subscriptions had grown about 30%, they started to implement new tools that helped them reach a 43% increase in conversion rates.

GNI also has a licensing and content curation programme, known as Showcase, that has been implemented in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and more recently in Mexico, with more than 80 allies.

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