Google Plans to Embed 1000 Reporters in Local Newsrooms

Yayyy.

CJR'S MOST RECENT print edition focused on local news, the backbone of an industry suffering from the steady shift of advertising dollars away from print, leaving newsrooms in crisis--bleeding staff, scaling back coverage, and grasping for solutions. A project announced yesterday at the Google News Lab Summit hopes to help address those concerns.

Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruthProject, Google, and others, plans to place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms over the next five years. Writing in CJR, the project's co-founders argue that America needs "a dramatically new approach at the local level--grounded less in the traditional commercial model and more on a reawakened spirit of public service among reporters."

...

As the program begins placing reporters, it will be important to ensure that the journalists chosen represent a diverse cohort, both racially and socioeconomically, that underserved areas which may not have an active local donor base are not overlooked, and that young journalists who participate receive not just initial training but support throughout their employment.

Google will now be arranging for the payment of its own cadre of "journalists" embedded in local news stations across America.

I wonder if the media will become even more pro-Google than they are now.

Oh well, it doesn't matter -- #MuhPrivateBusinessDecision and all that!

posted by Ace of Spades at 01:10 PM

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