Facebook has announced a £4.5 million funding scheme for community newspapers that is supposed to support local journalists in the UK.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal and allegations against Facebook of disseminating fake news have dominated headlines this year, but the company is now looking towards local journalism to make amends.
The project, dubbed the Community News Project, is designed to “establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry.” The funds will be given to the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), who will be recruiting around 80 journalists on a two-year programme to take part in the project.
The NCTJ has not yet revealed the process of the recruitment. As part of the scheme, the successful candidates will receive training on how to efficiently use social media platform as a reporting source.
Karyn Fleeting, head of audience at Reach, said: “Community news is shared widely on Facebook, on pages and in community groups, and this collaboration will help us reach communities which don’t currently benefit from in-depth community news.”
At first glance, the project seems to have been designed with good intentions. However, it has its critics. Regional press has faced a difficult time since 2007 – more than 300 local newspapers have closed due to a lack of advertising revenue, in large part because of Facebook and Google’s digital advertising monopoly.
Dr. Ben Marder, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Edinburg University, said: “Mark Zuckerberg’s motive is irrelevant. If training is to take place, Facebook will be directly interfering with the evolution of the news industry.”
It isn’t just Facebook. The BBC has also pledged to pay £8 million a year toward sponsoring “local democracy reporters” that work for regional newspapers. Similar to Facebook’s plan, the BBC sponsorship is aimed at helping local newspapers stay afloat and enabling democracy, which damaged by the media giant duopoly.
It’s too soon to say whether the scheme will be effective, as applications only open in January 2019. While £4.5 million is a drop in the ocean for a company that earnt £10.5 billion in just the last quarter, there is now a glimmer of hope that the fund will help revive local independent journalism.