TORONTO – Social media giant Facebook today said it will expand its Facebook-Canadian Press News Fellowship with an additional $8 million investment.
Last June Facebook and CP announced the fellowship with initial funding of $1 million. The new money will be contributed over the next three years “to help support the sustainability of the news industry in Canada,” reads the company blog post.
Since the June 2020 announcement, CP has created roles for 10 emerging journalists (including, for example, Nunavut’s Emma Tranter, the first CP correspondent based in the far north in 35 years). The one-year fellowships are bringing stories from across Canada – including some underserved communities – to more than 1,000 news organizations in CP’s network, adds the blog. They have contributed close to 500 bylined stories and provided reporting to an additional 300 stories.
“The program has given us an opportunity to add vital, young and diverse voices to our news reports,” said Gerry Arnold, executive editor of The Canadian Press. “We were able to add voices that enriched our editorial reports because of their life experiences; where they came from and where they want to go.”
Another important program highlight shows how publishers must build better business models to support their newsrooms. As Arnold noted in the Facebook blog, “Journalism has to explore nontraditional ways of funding… you can’t just sell ads against your content and hope that’s going to finance a newsroom.”
This investment is on top of the more than $10 million invested by the Facebook Journalism Project in partnerships and programs over the last four years in Canada, and $100 million distributed globally to support the news industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. These additional dollars will also help ensure that publishers of all sizes (which includes broadcasters) can fairly access these funds, especially small and local publishers, says the release.
“In addition to the fellowship program, the $8 million investment will allow Facebook to build programs to increase the strength of under-represented voices in journalism and to help ensure continued support for smaller, local publications. More details on specific partnerships and programs in this field will be shared soon,” added the blog.
