MENLO PARK, CA — Imagine a cash cow for most financially struggling newsrooms.
Facebook has spent the last few years facing the occasional diatribe from the people who buy the ink by the barrel — from trying to ward off foreign interests using the platform to influence U.S. elections to privacy issues among their users.
This time, the social media giant intends to be on the other side of press attention. The Menlo Park-based company plans to invest $300 million in the last bastions of truth, in particular on a local level with programs, partnerships and content.
Its news partnerships chief, Campbell Brown, said the company spent much of last year evaluating and understanding what kind of news people want to see. The conversation always returned to local. Therefore, the company outlined a vision of how to spend the first $36 million to advance the local cause. The ideas prompted a few industry sources to wonder what the other $264 million would be earmarked for. After all, the industry has never been known to be rich with cash.
Moreover, putting out a wish list for how to advance the industry requires thinking and anticipating trends so far ahead, once you hear about them, it’s too late. Note: Think of how the most successful stock investors make transactions.
David Snyder, director of the First Amendment Coalition, insisted he’d like to see a windfall of monetary support go toward local newsrooms’ diminishing legal means. The coalition is a nonprofit advocacy organization committed to ensure government accountability, a dwindling aspect to journalism when business owners reduce editorial resources.
“If the goal is to enhance the ability for journalists to do what they do best, one important facet to bring back is the legal support for access matters and subpoenas newsrooms have to handle,” Snyder said. “Any infusion of cash in local news is welcome.”
The public often screams for investigative journalism to expose wrongdoing on a local level. But Snyder contends local governments have run amok and developed “bad habits” related to transparency lately.
“If no one’s pushing back, there’s this willingness to disregard the laws, and it spirals from there,” Snyder explained.
The coalition is many ways is conducting the type of work once performed in newsrooms when an agency, for example, needs to be challenged legally.
“Newsrooms have been hammered hard with our economic trends,” he said.
There are other areas in need of focus as well.
Larry Messner, the director of development with the Society of Professional Journalists, told Patch he pondered the notion of newsrooms receiving the windfall and without hesitation said training is a necessary investment to put back into newsrooms.
“More training — all of the above,” he said, when asked if he was referring to existing or new journalists. “We want to help our members in this ever-evolving industry.
Established in 1909, SPJ is the nation’s most broad-based journalism organization, dedicated to encouraging the free practice of journalism and stimulating high standards of ethical behavior. This means that no matter what trends fast track journalists to a new realm, old standards such as ethics must not be overlooked. Technology is great, but it needs a moral compass.
Facebook already has a partnership with SPJ.
“We have a great partnership in the years we’ve been with them,” Messner said. Whatever happens, “collaboration is important,” he added.
“It’s an interesting opportunity. We’ll see where it takes us,” he said.
Embracing the future is something Facebook appears to do best.
“We’ve also asked our partners in the news industry how we can better work with them to make a real impact,” said Brown, vice president of Global News Partnerships. She punctuated the partnership with how local newsrooms “are looking for more support.”
There are two key areas Facebook is eyeing:
Over the long haul the belief is that the headway made in having two public forces working together in unison will foster civic engagement. Research shows the attitude has a direct impact on whether people read local news.
Among the components of the programs are the following:
Also on the agenda, the company is expanding Accelerator pilot, a program launched in the United States last year to assist local newsrooms with subscription and membership models. Facebook is indeed the expert on these types of delivery.
Plus, $20 million will be invested to continue the local Accelerator in the United States and to expand the model globally, including in Europe. This is among the first investments to be made in order to support local news organizations.
“We will continue to look for partnership opportunities as we build out our teams internationally,” Campbell added.
Lastly, Facebook will hold a two-day “Accelerate: Local News” summit devoted to ground-level news, in partnership with the Knight Foundation and the Online News Association.
“Our goal is to bring together top local U.S. news organization leaders, entrepreneurs, technologists and funders to discuss, design and drive toward solutions that address today’s most pressing local news challenges,” she said.
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The state of journalism has been in flux for the last decade, with the last two years especially punishing to those in an industry who are referred to by its own federal executive branch as “the enemy of the people.”
Journalists may buckle at the idea of needing friends to do their jobs — but partnerships for the betterment of the Fourth Estate are welcome, especially in this day and age.
“News is a key part of Facebook’s mission to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. We’re going to continue fighting fake news, misinformation and low quality news on Facebook,” Campbell emphasized, continuing: “But we also have an opportunity and a responsibility to help local news organizations grow and thrive. We know we can’t do it alone, but there is more we can and will do to help.”
Note: Patch participated in the Accelerator pilot program
–Image courtesy of Facebook