- Facebook is committing $100 million in grant money and promised ad spending for helping news outlets dealing with financial struggles due to the COVID-19 outbreak
Facebook is committing $100 million in grant money and promised ad spending for helping news outlets dealing with financial struggles due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some of the hardest-hit news outlets include local newspapers.
Even though readership has been spiking and a number of media companies noticed increases in online subscriptions, there have been drops in advertising — which is causing news companies to reduce pay or lay people off.
“This is a time when we need this reporting the most,” said Facebook’s head of news partnerships Campbell Brown in an interview with MarketWatch. “Advertising money is shrinking fast and even though news consumption is up, it is not making up for those losses, so we are trying to help bridge that gap.”
Facebook’s commitment has been established in two categories. The first category is $25 million in emergency grant funding to help smaller news outlets with immediate related to COVID-19 coverage. And the other $75 million is in ad spending for helping news outlets of all sizes in the U.S. and abroad deal with the drop in revenue.
“Every business is suffering right now, but the news industry has really been struggling, and we are in a privileged position to be able to help,” added Brown.
Brown pointed out that Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg feels that getting accurate information about the coronavirus is “vital.”
The grant funding will be an extension of a $1 million pilot that Facebook launched in March. And Facebook received over a thousand applications within days of that program.
For example, the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. was able to take down its paywall on coronavirus stories and launch remote workstations in rural parts of the state using the backing of the grant. And El Paso, Texas-based El Paso Matters used the money for hiring freelancers and translators to extend coverage in the city.
