Facebook has announced yet another financial package for COVID-19 related activities, this time the beneficiaries are local newsrooms that are covering the pandemic amid some serious risks. The announcement was made by Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, via an official blog post on the company’s ‘Journalism Project’ platform.
The funding will consist of “$25 million in emergency grant funding for local news through the Facebook Journalism Project, and $75 million in additional marketing spend to move money over to news organizations around the world,” the post read.
“If people needed more proof that local journalism is a vital public service, they’re getting it now,” Campbell said. He added, “And while almost all businesses are facing adverse financial effects from this crisis, we recognize we’re in a more privileged position than most, and we want to help.”
The announced $100 million grant will be over and above the $300 million that the company has already committed around the world through various news programs and partnerships. These include Report for America, the Pulitzer Center, the Community News Project and the Facebook Journalism Project’s Local News Accelerator training program.
The latest funding is the newest addition to the long list of measures and investments the tech giant has made ever since the pandemic broke out. These include a $1 Million grant provided for coverage of COVID-19 earlier this month, which Facebook claims to have helped 50 newsrooms in the US and Canada to cover the pandemic, and $100 Million grant for small scale businesses that have been most affected by the disruption in market activities.
Facebook has also contributed on the research front, with its Chan-Zuckerberg initiative helping in sequencing of the virus genome at the onset of the virus earlier this year. The tech giant has stood like a corner-stone in these testing times, leading the way for other philanthropic organizations to follow suit.
