What you need to know
- Google is pledging to support news outlets during the current crisis by waiving its fees for their use of Google Ad Manager.
- The fee waiver will be in effect for the next five months.
- In addition, the company has set up a relief fund to provide monetary support to news publishers experiencing financial difficulties.
As we struggle through a global pandemic, accurate reporting on the ongoing crisis has become critically important, especially as conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding the coronavirus can lead to significant damages to both infrastructure and human life.
To show its support of the journalism community at large during the current crisis, Google this week announced that it would no longer charge news publishers for the use of Google Ad Manager, an analytics platform that many news websites use to serve ads to their readers. The fee waiver will remain in effect for the next five months.
Many news publishers around the world use Google Ad Manager to support their digital businesses with advertising. As the coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on our global economy, the Google News Initiative is working to identify ways to provide immediate financial support to those news organizations around the world producing original journalism.
This follows several other measures taken by the Google News Initiative to support journalism in recent months. The company set up a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund earlier this month to offer financial aid to small, medium, and local news organizations, with grants ranging from "the low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms." The Mountain View giant is accepting applications till April 29 via this form.
In addition, the company has donated $1 million to the International Center for Journalists, while also pledging $6.5 million to help combat coronavirus misinformation.
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