 Philipp Schnidler |
Google today unveiled a $300M campaign to help mainstream media "thrive in the digital age," according to a blog post by chief business officer Philipp Schindler.
The search engine, which took heat for distributing misleading and fake news during the presidential campaign, says its Google News Initiative will strengthen quality journalism, elevate business models to drive sustainable growth and empower media through technical innovation.
Google, which claims to be combatting fake news on its own platforms, will promote authoritative content and work with publishers to launch DisInfo Lab to identify misinformation in breaking news.
It is teaming with the Poynter Institute, Stanford University and Local Media Assn. to develop "MediaWise," a program to teach digital media literacy to young people.
Schindler says Google, which controls the lion's share of the digital ad space, is committed to helping publishers diversify their revenues base.
For instance, is company will allow users to purchase newspaper subscriptions via their own Google accounts. The New York Times, Financial Times and Washington Post are among papers to sign up for this service.
According to Schindler, GNI demonstrates that news and quality journalism is a top priority for Google.
"We know that success can only be achieved by working together, and we look forward to collaborating with the news industry to build a stronger future for journalism," he wrote.
Underscore Media, a new creator-led media venture dedicated to New York sports, is built around three established New York sports personalities, Sal Licata, Jimmy Traina, and John Jastremski.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
