Facebook boosts community newsrooms

As the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. began to rise and states and counties began to shut down, Facebook saw a need: to ensure everyone has access to information about the pandemic.

To do that, the social media company has invested $2 million in grants to help community-based news organizations throughout the U.S. cover the pandemic. Grants have already been distributed to 35 California newsrooms, including the Lodi News-Sentinel.

Facebook has also announced it will invest another $100 million — $25 million in grants and $75 million in advertising — to support local newsrooms in the U.S., Canada and around the world.

“This is just a really extraordinary moment for the world, obviously, let alone for the U.S.,” said Josh Mabry, the Local News Partnerships lead at Facebook.

With everything so uncertain during the pandemic, he said, people are looking for information that can keep them and their families safe.

“Local news is clearly the place folks are turning,” he said.

In recent years, Facebook has invested heavily in community newsrooms through the Facebook Journalism Project. That program has included millions of dollars toward helping newsrooms produce in-depth, multimedia reporting projects, building technological tools for newsgathering and managing digital subscriptions, and supporting Report for America, which places journalists in community newsrooms throughout the U.S.

“Report for America has built a really robust operation,” Mabry said.

Reporters with the program focus on underserved areas and beats, covering topics from New Mexico’s water resources, to public health in eastern Kentucky and southern Louisiana, to issues faced by marginalized communities in California, Wyoming and Utah.

“Especially at times like these, with the current pandemic, with the election coming up ... it’s important that people are informed,” Mabry said.

This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Facebook’s emergency grants during the pandemic are helping the Post and Courier in South Carolina remove its paywall on coronavirus-related stories. The Southeast Missourian has created an email newsletter focused on the pandemic, and is creating a contingency plan to ensure elderly readers continue to get the news if print distribution is disrupted. The online news organization El Paso Matters is using freelance reporters and translators to expand coverage of the pandemic.

One newsroom has used the funds to cover the cost of high-speed internet for its reporters, allowing them to work safely from home. A few have used their grants simply to keep the lights on and the press rolling.

“Local news organizations, especially hyper-local news organizations including those serving black and other underserved communities, have experienced challenges with the sustainability and distribution of news and information in the current media environment,” Janis Ware, publisher of The Atlanta Voice, told Facebook. “COVID-19 has exacerbated an already existing crisis and our jobs have just gotten tougher. With such a sizable infusion from Facebook, local news organizations across the country will benefit as will our readers, our viewers and our listeners.”

Mabry is excited and encouraged by the range of projects newsrooms are using their emergency grants to fund.

“There’s such a diversity of recipients amongst the grant winners, which is encouraging. It makes me happy to see the kinds of publishers who are out there working to serve their community, whatever that community might be,” he said.

These aren’t the kinds of projects Facebook normally supports, he added. The social media company has traditionally focused on helping news organizations develop new digital tools or work on creating sustainable, digital-focused business models.

“It’s a unique kind of circumstance,” Mabry said.

But during the pandemic, keeping people informed is vital, he said.

“Supporting local news and news in general is a great way to ensure that people have access to accurate information,” he said.

For more information about the Facebook Journalism Project, visit www.facebook.com/journalismproject.