Google has announced support for European journalism organizations with €150 million and consulting services. The Digital News Initiative (DNI) already includes the Financial Times, Les Echos (France), NRC Media (Netherlands), El Pais (Spain), La Stampa (Italy), Faz and Die Zeit (Germany) and the British Guardian.
Three journalistic organizations-associations also appear as founding members, the European Journalism Center (EJC), the internationally recognized journalistic community of the Global Editors Network (GEN) and the International Association of INMA.
The Internet giant's relations with European publishers have been troubled for years, as the latter see a Google product - Google News - as a threat and exploitation. In France and Spain, the dispute with its current partners was intense when it was announced that according to the new legislation, as a "collector" of news, it would have to pay for every reference to their content. Google had responded by excluding Spanish publishers from Google News.
Also, a point of intense controversy is the secret of Google's search engine algorithm that up-ranks daily updated journalistic publications. Finally, the presence of the American giant in Europe is overshadowed by the recent decision of the Commission that its practices harm healthy competition.
As for the DNI initiative, however, it was announced that it already concerns the company's agreement with eight journalistic organizations and that the funding will amount to 150 million euros, which will be made available within three years.
Journalism in the digital age and the use of the Internet for data collection and cross-referencing information will be the subject of the initiative, with Google showing journalists how they can use its tools for their purpose, without, however, being involved in achieving it.
It also addresses ways that could help publishers increase revenue, traffic, and audience engagement in the medium, through the use of advertising displays, apps, and traffic data analysis.
Source: In.gr
