With three editions in Latin America, the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge funded 81 projects that used technology to address challenges such as increasing audience engagement and diversifying revenue sources for news organizations. According to Google, the program was “designed to stimulate innovation around the creation of a more sustainable and diverse news ecosystem in the region.”
Yet, a newly published study presents a critical perspective on Google's initiative for journalism in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The authors interviewed 36 GNI beneficiaries in the three regions and argue that the initiative “fosters dependence” of journalistic organizations on technology platforms.
They also say that the GNI is “a strategic tool for the company to address concerns about its impact on the media industry” and is a way for the company to “deflect criticism and mitigate potential regulatory scrutiny” in countries where there is an attempt to regulate the platform's operations, such as in Brazil.
The study, “The philanthrocapitalism of Google News Initiative in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East – Empirical reflections,” was carried out between 2020 and 2023 by researchers Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos, Allen Munoriyarwa, Lucia Mesquita and Adeola Abdulateef Elega and published this month in the International Journal of Cultural Studies.
Santos told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) that the research stemmed from an interest in how journalistic organizations were applying technology in their operations. The researchers realized that many of these projects were financed by technology companies, such as Google and Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“We saw that it was the only way that these media organizations could develop these projects,” Santos said. “And despite these being technology-focused funding opportunities, media organizations also used this money to support themselves during this project year.”
The GNI Innovation Challenge caught the attention of researchers due to the characteristics of the funded projects, said Santos.
“There were a lot of cool projects being developed, as well as other projects that we saw had no future. People tried to bring this to media organizations, but many [projects] died,” he said.
The researchers then decided to map the organizations covered by the Innovation Challenge and understand what their experience was like in developing the projects.
In Latin America, they interviewed managers from 20 outlets, including Grupo Octubre, La Nación, Red/Acción (Argentina), El País (Bolivia), Alma Preta, Aos Fatos, AzMina, Congresso em Foco, Desenrola, Fiquem Sabendo, Jornal do Commercio, JOTA, Notícia Preta, Marco Zero, O Eco (Brazil), La Voz de Guanacaste (Costa Rica), GatoEncerrado (El Salvador), Verificado MX (Mexico) and la diaria (Uruguay) and CLIP.
All respondents said the Innovation Challenge was “a valuable opportunity for media organizations to secure funding for their innovative technological projects,” the study said. Still, many had reservations about the quality of support and the incompatibility between the financing offered and the scope of the projects, among other aspects.
Some respondents said they realize Google has a dual objective with GNI, using it as “a preemptive strategy to address forthcoming regulations and demonstrate to regulators that big tech companies and media organizations could coexist and cooperate successfully,” the study said.
The authors maintain that, given the crises faced by journalistic organizations in the three regions analyzed, “any form of funding is often embraced.” However, according to them, it is imperative to critically analyze the support offered by Google, “particularly in light of its strong opposition and forceful lobbying against regulations mandating compensation” from the company to journalistic organizations.
In 2023 in Brazil, the tech company promoted a campaign against bill 2630/2020, which seeks to regulate digital platforms, including requiring them to compensate news organizations for their content.
The Federal Police concluded in an investigation that Google and Telegram abused their economic power in their campaign against the bill. Google said it spent around R$2 million (about US$360,000) hiring advertising services for the campaign.
In an article published on the Google Brazil website, the company states that PL 2630/2020 “could harm journalism,” as it “puts current investments at risk and discourages new investments” by technology platforms in news organizations.
Between 2018 and 2021, Google's global journalism initiative supported 7,000 organizations in 120 countries with more than $300 million. In the Innovation Challenge in Latin America alone, at least $5 million was invested in 2019 and 2021 – the total amount for the 2022 edition was not disclosed.
LJR contacted Google in Brazil to ask for a comment on the study’s conclusions, but had not received a reply as of the publication of this article.
Respondents interviewed by Santos and his colleagues reported difficulties in developing projects financed by the Innovation Challenge. Among them is the challenge of hiring technology staff at the salaries prevailing in the field of journalism, as these professionals tend to get higher salaries in other sectors. They also said it is difficult to obtain financing to keep projects operating after the end of the resources contributed by Google.
The time required by the Innovation Challenge to complete the projects – one year – was considered too short, which led many to reduce the scope of the proposal when they realized the complexity of developing the projects. In many cases, beta versions or prototypes of the initially proposed products were developed. And many projects stopped operating shortly after funding ended.
Revista AzMina, a Brazilian digital media outlet founded in 2015, was included in the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Innovation Challenge. The first project, Elas no Congresso, proposed monitoring bills on women's rights being processed in the National Congress.
The second project, Amplifica, was carried out in partnership with Núcleo Jornalismo and sought to be a tool to follow readers' debates on Twitter (now X) and promote conversations between the public and media on the social network.
Elas no Congresso continues to operate, while Amplifica was closed in May 2023 “due to lack of resources and Twitter’s decision to end access to its free API,” according to Núcleo.
Carolina Oms, institutional and fundraising director of Revista AzMina, told LJR that there is a “disproportionality” between the money offered and the returns requested by the program.
According to her, the requirement is “to create a super innovative project within an ecosystem that is in crisis, with functionality, sustainability, technology and journalism to be successful and turn around in a year”.
“What technology startup in the world does this? Any startup initiative takes time. So it’s a business that doesn’t really make much sense,” Oms said.
According to her, there was no suggestion from Google about the possibility of continuing to finance the project after the year in which it was supposed to be developed.
“I think it’s cool to encourage the industry to innovate and think about journalism with technology. But I think that the deadlines and values are not in line with the size of the ambition that the notice [of the Innovation Challenge] requires,” the manager said.
She highlighted, however, that participating in the Innovation Challenge opened doors for AzMina for funding from other organizations, which saw Google's investment as a seal of approval for that journalistic media outlet.
This was also the case for Marco Zero, included in collaborative projects in the first two editions of the Innovation Challenge, in 2019 and 2021. Carolina Monteiro, co-founder and president of the Marco Zero board of directors, told LJR that being selected by the program gave the organization great visibility and opened doors to other sources of funding.
Another positive point of the Innovation Challenge for Marco Zero was learning how to work in a network.
“Everything that Marco Zero started to do after this project brought this network perspective, because we understand that this collaboration and this logic of working together with other organizations is very important,” Monteiro said.
In the project selected in 2019, Marco Zero was one of ten organizations that developed the Reload channel, which sought to make journalism more accessible to young audiences. Reload went offline in December 2022 “due to the difficulty of management and continuity on the part of the organizations involved,” Monteiro said.
In the project selected in 2021, “Acessibilidade Jornalística” (Journalistic Accessibility), Marco Zero and eight other organizations carried out research on the accessibility of digital journalism for people who have visual impairments, and produced Lume, an application that curates journalistic content aimed at people with visual disabilities.
Due to a lack of resources, Lume has been offline since May, Mariana Clarissa, who is responsible for the project, told LJR. “We are planning to return with it in October, to be able to follow the election,” she said.
“While innovation and tech advancements are crucial for media challenges, a comprehensive approach is needed,” the authors wrote in the study’s conclusions.
They suggest a holistic perspective with diverse solutions to deal with the current challenges faced by news organizations, which addresses “systemic issues within the media industry and emphasizes sustainable solutions beyond technological advancements alone.”
“Trust-building, ethical journalism, diversity, inclusivity, and financial sustainability are essential for media's long-term health, highlighting the importance of factors beyond technology,” they said.
To deal with specific issues related to the Innovation Challenge, the authors suggest that Google expand its funding criteria and extend the deadline for project development.
“By offering increased flexibility and support, Google can foster innovative projects that address the multifaceted needs of the media industry in the Global South. This approach would promote sustainable solutions and enhance the independence and resilience of news organizations in these regions,” the study suggested.
Even though the two rounds of participation in the Innovation Challenge left Marco Zero better off, Monteiro highlighted that the study brings “important warnings” for all actors in the journalism ecosystem.
“These are reflections that we need to carry out as a field, and I think it further reinforces the need to think outside of [technology] platforms,” she said.
Journalistic organizations need to be aware of the risks of depending on a single source of funding, “whatever it may be,” Monteiro said, and diversify their sources of revenue. Funders also need to be aware of the impact they have on the journalism ecosystem and the risks they promote, she said.
Current president of the Digital Journalism Association (Ajor), Monteiro said that the study's considerations reinforce Ajor's proposal to create public policies to promote journalism. One of the association's proposals, which emerged in the debates on bill 2630/2020, is a sectoral fund to finance journalism in Brazil.
“Other sectors of society need to get involved in this agenda of promoting journalism, because it is a matter of defending democracy,” Monteiro said.
*The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, which publishes LatAm Journalism Review, has received funding from the Google News Initiative.
