Clickbait works but there has to be a better way to get folks to read the news right? That’s the question the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge seeks to answer.
The challenge is part of Google’s $300 million investment into helping journalism thrive in a digital era. For the 2022 iteration of the challenge, special attention was paid to organisations and entities that showcased digital innovation initiatives.
The 34 winners from 17 countries will receive a share of $3.2 million in funding.
The five local news organisations selected as winners are:
“This year, we sought to broaden our criteria to include digital innovation initiatives that promote goals like reader engagement, new reader income, subscriptions, disinformation among other things. Following a thorough assessment, numerous interviews, and a final jury selection, 34 projects from 17 countries were chosen to receive $3.2 million in funding,” said head of innovation for the Google News Initiative, Ludovich Blecher.
The organisations that were selected met all five of the requirements for consideration including impact on the news ecosystem, equity and inclusion, inspiration, innovation, diversity, and feasibility.
A total of 425 submissions were received from 42 counties. Google says this is a 27 percent increase compared to the previous year.
“Notably, there was a significant increase in applications from news organisations undertaking fact checking activities at 118 percent when compared to previous innovation challenges in the region. Proposed projects which use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) also showed significant growth (92 percent), reflecting a trend across the news ecosystem to embrace cutting edge new technologies and data,” Google said in a press release.
The full list of winners from the African continent follows below and you can read more about GNI here.
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Congo
- Congo Check
- Afrikpic/Halvest Company.
Egypt
- Egyptian Streets
- OSH for Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence Research.
Kenya
Morocco
Niger
Nigeria
- The Republic
- TheCable
- Dubawa, Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development
- HumAngle Media
- Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ).
South Africa
Uganda
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
