The Facebook Journalism Project has announced a $2 million investment in grant funding, coaching and training to support Asia-Pacific news organizations’ coronavirus work.
Previously, Google launched a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to deliver urgent aid to thousands of small, medium and local news publishers globally.
According to an official statement by Facebook, News organizations will receive funding and business support, including:
A portion of funds initially allocated to the Splice Beta Fund are being redirected to support more than 50 news organizations’ business operations at this critical juncture. The Lights On Fund will provide immediate grants to small- and medium-sized news businesses.
The Walkley Foundation will administer our program of financial support for news publishers in Australia and New Zealand, including a fund focused on non-metropolitan newsrooms and audiences.
We’re partnering with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) to offer a combination of grants, webinars and professional mentorship to support publishers as they navigate the challenges associated with COVID-19. This continues our partnership with ICFJ; together we produced a successful APAC Video Accelerator program for 13 newsrooms across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong in 2019. Mentors from the Accelerator will host a webinar series created with ICFJ to provide additional training and support.
We will launch a virtual edition of our Reader Revenue Accelerator grant and training program, which helps news organizations develop and strengthen their reader revenue strategies. Mentoring and training will be led by Tim Griggs, the Accelerator’s executive director and a former New York Times executive, and his team of experts.
News publishers and journalists are joining ongoing virtual trainings across the region:
We’ve restructured WAN-IFRA’s Newsroom Transformation 2020, a six-month training program for at least 10 traditional publishers across Southeast Asia, into a five-month Newsroom and Business Transformation 2020 online curriculum. Coaching will address immediate needs and issues as they accelerate their digital transformations.
More than 1,000 media professionals across the region have joined our Digital Media Bootcamp: COVID-19 Edition to learn product best practices for coverage of COVID-19. Sessions have covered topics such as how to use Facebook and Instagram Live, tips for working from home and mental health and wellness advice.
We’re also committed to helping our news partners pivot to virtual events and innovative Live programming to inform and connect people during the pandemic.
A recent example is “COVID Frontline,” a co-hosted Facebook Watch broadcast that generated more than 25.6 million views in a partnership with 7News in Australia, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong, and The Straits Times in Singapore. The three newsrooms shared their production outline in an effort to help news publishers across the region collaborate on similar Live COVID-19 broadcasts.
Alan Soon, co-founder & CEO Splice Media, said, “It’s important that news orgs not only survive, but are in a stronger position when COVID-19 passes. The funds that the industry is gathering and distributing are key if we’re to build more sustainable and more relevant media next year.”
“Asian newsrooms were the first in the journalism field to feel the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Johanna Carrillo, ICFJ’s vice president of programs. “With this new grant from the Facebook Journalism Project, we can build on our work together helping newsrooms and publishers in the region at this difficult time.”
Our $2 million commitment to newsrooms in Asia follows Facebook’s $100 million investment to support the news industry during the coronavirus crisis.
