In a recent turn of events, Facebook has suddenly decided to put $100 million in the news industry at this time when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been becoming ragingly popular. The reason why Facebook is suddenly becoming involved in the news industry is because of the raging popularity of COVID-19.
Facebook said that the $25 million of the budget would be given to provide a grant funding for the local news through the new Facebook Journalism Project, while the remaining $75 million will be made available for "additional market spend" to the worldwide news organizations.
The global pandemic
Publishers are one of the careers to be hit by the global economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. At the same time, their advertising revenue may be squeezed thin since most companies are cutting back on their marketing budget. According to SearchEngineLand's report, a research firm known as eMarketer has even lowered its calculated growth projections for the worldwide media ad spend by a solid 3%.
Reuters reported similar news stating that the virus could even cripple the United States advertising industry by billions of dollars categorized as lost revenue.
The coronavirus has now become a global pandemic, crippling countries around the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom-- these two countries are highly recognized news industries. The news and advertising industries have also been hit economically around the world due to marketing budgets being cut down during this period, according to Match2One.
Facebook's main goal with its involvement
The main goal of Facebook, along with Instagram and other social media platforms, is to be able to get rid of fake news and misinformation posted on their platforms. The pressure from the crisis is pushing these companies to take matters into their own hands.
The first step, as announced by Facebook, is to concentrate their grants on the certain publishers that need them the very most located in the hardest-hit countries. In the announcement, it was said that the first series of grants would give $5,000 to over 50 local newsrooms spread across the United States and Canada in hopes of covering the "unexpected costs" incurred from the coronavirus.
The entire $100 million comes on top of the $300 million budget, which Facebook has pledged to spend on news programs, partnerships, and other content back at the beginning of 2019. According to Facebook, they plan to spend the whole $300 million over the stretch of three years.
Just recently, Facebook has launched a program aiming to help the local news organizations boost digital subscriptions. The announcement also includes that Facebook plans to spend about £4.5 million to train local journalists located in the UK.
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Facebook has said that the usage of its service includes private messaging, as well as video calling usages that have been skyrocketing ever since the pandemic. The global pandemic has been taking a huge effect on many industries around the world, and the news industry is one of them.
