Halle Coleman
Blue & White Flash/ Staff Writer
On Jan. 15, Facebook Inc. announced that the company would invest $300 million into numerous organizations over the next three years in effort to support the development of local news outlets.
Recipients of the investment include the Pulitzer Center, The American Journalism Project, Community News Project, Report for America, Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, and the Local Media Association and Consortium.
Facebook has recently undergone scrutiny
for being the leader in providing a platform to misinformation and meddling, especially during election season.
Facebook’s Vice President of Global News Partnership, Campbell Brown, said in a statement regarding the issue, “We are going to continue fighting fake news, misinformation, and low-quality news on Facebook, but we also have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to help local news organizations grow and thrive.”
The social networking site has also been blamed for the steady decline of advertising dollars that newspaper’s receive as advertisers move their content online. Facebook says users have been requesting to see more relevant, local content including news stories information regarding community meetings such as weather alerts and road closings.
Brown also stated, “Our company can’t uninvent the Internet, but we want to work with publishers to help them succeed on and off the social network.”
Unlike previous investments made by Facebook, this latest endeavor is different because it is not tied with Facebook related products.
Earlier rounds of investments were designed to encourage publishers to rely on delivering their information through Facebook, which eventually hurt many news organizations when their strategies shifted.
According to Marketwatch.com, the first round of investments will help gather resources for local reporting, conduct research on how to use technology to improve news gathering, create new products, recruit trainee journalists, and place them in local newsrooms.
In addition to these changes, $5 million of the investment was given specifically as a grant dedicated to Pulitzer Center to support local coverage and $2 million was directed to Report for America for the employment of an estimated 1,000 journalists.
Local Media Association, who is a recipient of the $1 million, said they are using the funds to help their newsrooms develop revenue streams.
CEO Fran Willis of Local Media Association stated, “I think they [Facebook] are recognizing that trusted, credible content is of benefit not only to local publishers but to them.”
This new investment is catching the attention of many students who hope to go into the journalism field.
Kharynton Allen, a freshman mass communication major from St. Louis, Mo. said, “As a journalism major,I applaud the new investment from Facebook. It gives me hope for my career in the future and I look forward to seeing new changes at the local news station and other entities.”
O’Naja McKinney, also a freshman mass communication major, disagrees with Facebook’s investment claiming it was a poor business move for the company.
“Technology has taken over the world. The generation to target is now millennials. News websites now exist, you’re able to get a notification on your phone about what’s going on. I think it’s a bad investment,” said McKinney.
Facebook is currently up +0.76 in the stocks.
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