News Blog
The official blog from the team at Google News
$5 million to encourage innovation in digital journalism
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Posted by Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development
Journalism is fundamental to a functioning democracy. So as media organizations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we’re eager to play our part on the technology side -- experimenting with
new ways
of presenting news online; providing tools like Google Maps and
YouTube Direct
to make websites more engaging for readers; and investing heavily in our digital platforms to enable publishers to generate more revenue.
But while we're mostly focused on working with news organizations to develop better products for users, we also believe it's crucial to encourage innovation at the grassroots level. That's why we’re giving $5 million in grants to non-profit organizations that are working to develop new approaches to journalism in the digital age. Our aim is to benefit news publishers of all sizes.
We've granted $2 million to the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
, which has a proven track record of supporting programs that drive innovation in journalism. It will use $1 million to support U.S. grant-making in this crucial area. The other $1 million will augment the
Knight News Challenge
, which is accepting funding proposals from anyone, anywhere in the world, until Dec. 1. Now in its fifth year, the News Challenge has supported projects like
DocumentCloud
, which aims to bring more investigative-reporting source material online so anyone can find and read it.
We’re eager to do even more internationally, so we will be investing the remaining $3 million in journalism projects in other countries through a similar partnership. Stay tuned for more details early next year.
We hope these grants will help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation. As Thomas Edison once said, "When there's no experimenting, there's no progress. Stop experimenting and you go backward." We look forward to working with the journalism community to help digital news move forward.
[
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
]
Shining a Spotlight on Video News
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Posted by Natasha Mohanty, Google News Software Engineer
Today in the U.S. we’re launching a new section in Google News called "Spotlight Video" that showcases popular videos from news channels on YouTube like "
NOVA: The Secret Life of Scientists: Jean Berko Gleason
" from PBS.
Google News has always helped users find recent articles from a wide variety of sources. But we recognize there are other types of stories that our users are interested in. So last year, we created the Spotlight section to feature stories of more lasting interest. Like the rest of Google News, Spotlight articles are selected by our computer algorithms, but they aren't your typical breaking news. Instead you'll find stories of enduring appeal such as feature articles, investigative reporting and opinion pieces. In fact, Spotlight quickly became one of our most popular sections.
So now we’re shining the spotlight on videos too. In the right-hand column you can find the new Spotlight Video section and check out recently popular news clips, like "
Singer-producer Bruno Mars Continues to Rise
" from the Associated Press.
If your news organization isn't already making its video content available on YouTube and Google News, we encourage you to
get started
. More information on how to
submit
your news videos to Google News can also be found in the
News Publishers' Help Center
. And
here
are some additional tips on news search engine optimization.
Side note: today you may have noticed we also modified the left-hand navigation. Now, as you scroll down the page, the navigation menu will move with you. This way, you can always see the sectional and hot topic quick links.
Please
tell us what you think
and we’ll keep working to improve Google News for you.
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