Google Digital News Innovation Fund
The award of a six figure sum by Google to the Centre for Community Journalism in Cardiff is groundbreaking hews for the hyperlocal press in this country. As one of the ten founding members of ICNN (the Independent Community News Network), the Bay Life web platform, with the Pevensey Bay Journal in print, looks set to benefit from the award.
This is extraordinary news. We have been a campaigning web platform for eight years. The Pevensey Bay Journal was founded only two years ago and is already a commercial success in some small way. In our view this is because local businesses want to be embedded in the local communities that they serve, and want to be perceived in print as being part of the communities that they serve.
The decision by Google to support the hyperlocal press in this country through the Digital News Innovation Fund, with the support for the Centre for Community Journalism, will be game changing for the hyperlocal newspapers in the country that are part of the Independent Community News Network.
We celebrate all that is best about our communities. We debate important local questions and campaign on subjects like the regeneration of economic activity and the preservation of precious community assets.
In our own case, with the support of the Google Digital News Innovation Fund, what we want to see is young people in Pevensey Bay supported so that their voice can be heard.
We want to help teach young people how to write opinion pieces and features so that their voice in print can be heard. Through Google and the new syndication process being established, we would also like to see young people in Pevensey Bay paid for their work, the award by Google will enable this process to begin.
We are not just delighted to have been here at the start of the hyperlocal press in this corner of Sussex, but also delighted to have been a part of ICNN since the start.
The award by Google to the Centre for Community Journalism is the next stage in the journey that the hyperlocal press is taking in this country to see that the voices of local people in hyperlocal newspapers are heard.
Bay Life will continue the journey that we began eight years ago, now with the support of the Google Digital News Innovation Fund.
The first person that we would like to see syndicated with their work is Dani Lee, and her My Generation column. Dani is 24 and lives in Pevensey Bay. The work for the Pevensey Bay Journal is her first journalist assignment since completing a degree in media at the University of Chichester.
The celebration of all that is best about our communities and the debate about important local questions and the campaign on subjects like the regeneration of economic activity and the preservation of precious community assets, thanks to Google, will now enable the Pevensey Bay Journal to continue to develop our profile in some new ways.
—Bay Life, 25 July 2018
Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism (C4CJ)
media release, 24 July 2018
Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism (C4CJ) is delighted to announce it has secured €250,000 (approx. £223,000) of funding from the Google Digital News Innovation Fund to create new revenue streams for the community and hyperlocal news sector.
The project, Value My News (VMN), will develop an innovative suite of tools enabling community and hyperlocal news publishers to make money from, and track the sale of, hyperlocal stories, while at the same time copyright existing content.
This is a ground-breaking response to the issues of sustainability in the sector and the new forms of funding it provides will deliver a much-needed boost to small independent publishers across the UK.
In collaboration with the Media Innovation Studio (MIS) at the University of Central Lancashire, VMN will enable publishers to easily access, buy and republish high quality editorial content from community and hyperlocal news organisations across the UK.
News, produced at the grassroots level, has value farther up the news food chain. By surfacing the best and most important stories, VMN will ensure that content producers receive a fair share of the revenue generated from their work.
VMN will transform the sector by capturing revenues otherwise leaking through the supply chain.
It will build sustainability by creating revenue streams and by maximising the skills and expertise of the talented and dedicated pool of journalists working in the sector.
The funding announcement comes less than a year after C4CJ launched the Independent Community News Network (ICNN) – the first representative body of its kind dedicated to supporting the interests of community and hyperlocal news publishers in the UK.
Director of ICNN and project lead Emma Meese said: “Creating a platform that will help community and hyperlocal news publishers earn more money for the work they already produce has been a dream of ours for a long time.
“Our mission is to create more jobs for journalists at a local level and to ensure the quality of grassroots journalism in the UK is the best it can be.
“I’m delighted to lead on this project as it has the potential to change the future of local news.
“Bringing independent publishers together and surfacing their content in this way has never been done before. It will allow us, for the first time, to really understand the value and the journey of hyperlocal news which is hugely exciting”
Principal Investigator for Value My News at MIS Clare Cook said: “I am inspired and excited in equal measure to work on a project that is both innovative and impactful. This is about better understanding the lived experiences of hyperlocals and bringing about real change in their revenue models.”
Work on the project will begin immediately (we are far too excited to wait!).
In 2015, Google launched the DNI Fund, a €150 million commitment open to publishers of all sizes in Europe to support high-quality journalism through technology and innovation. To date, the fund has reached €115m for innovation in news.
