How Google supports journalism and the news industry in India

Google is committed to supporting open access to information. Our products give people choice and help them find more high-quality journalism — from international stories to community reporting — than ever before.

Over the past 20 years, we’ve collaborated closely with the news industry and provided billions of dollars to support the creation of quality journalism in the digital age. Through both our services and our direct funding of news organizations, Google is one of the world’s biggest financial supporters of journalism.

Our commitment to news

Our products are built to provide relevant and useful information for everyone, ensuring that people around the world are able to find quality news. As part of this, we play a constructive role in enabling a sustainable, independent, and diverse news ecosystem.

We've demonstrated that commitment over decades of financial support by providing billions of dollars — sharing revenue with news publishers via our ad network, developing tools, training and funding through programs like the Google News Initiative, and launching Google News Showcase. All of these have led to us paying news organizations significant amounts of money.

These efforts help people get the quality news and information that matters to them and their community.

We deliver significant value and funding to news organizations

Every news organization can choose whether they want to be in Google Search and Google News. Most do because it results in valuable free traffic.

Each month, people click through from Google Search and Google News results to publishers' websites more than 24 billion times. The traffic we send to news sites helps publishers increase their readership, build trust with readers and earn money.

Our advertising technology helps news organizations make money by showing ads on their websites, apps and videos. Every year we pay out billions of dollars directly to the publishing partners in our ad network.

We also pay to license content through Google News Showcase, a new online experience that’s powered by a $1 billion investment in news organizations. Google News Showcase is rolling out in India with 30 news publishers including national, regional and local news organizations like The Hindu Group, HT Digital Streams Ltd, Indian Express Group, ABP LIVE, India TV, NDTV, Zee News, Amar Ujala, Deccan Herald, Punjab Kesari, The Telegraph India, IANS (Indo Asian News Service) and ANI. This builds on News Showcase deals signed by 700 news publications in more than a dozen countries, including Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the U.K. Australia, Czechia, Italy and Argentina, more than 90% of them representing local or community news — with discussions underway in several other countries.

And we’re committed to finding new ways to support the news industry. This includes Subscribe with Google, which we built with news publishers to help them make money from new subscribers, as well the Google News Initiative, through which we provide tools, training and grant funding to help news organizations evolve in the digital age. The Google News Initiative includes a $300 million funding commitment to the future of the news industry.

Reflecting on our Google News Initiative work in India

Our efforts have reached every corner of the world, including India. In June 2018, we launched the GNI India Training Network, in partnership with BoomLive, DataLeads and Internews. So far, the program has trained over 25,000 Indian journalists in-person or via virtual live workshops in 10 languages, touching 1,000+ news organizations and 700+ universities. And, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, we provided financial support to 228 news organizations in India through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund. For example, Minnambalam, a Tamil language publication from Chennai, will be able to keep their newsroom going, the funding giving them the confidence and financial support needed to carry on with their work.

In partnership with the WAN IFRA, we’ve launched the Asia-Pacific Subscriptions Lab, which aims to help publishers improve how they attract, retain and earn revenue from subscribers. Eight publishers including The Hindu participated in the intensive four-month program. As our report on the Subscriptions Lab shows, publishers are already seeing positive results. The Hindu, for example, achieved a 50% increase in sign-ups by removing sign-up barriers and making offers more visible and easier to compare. We’re also actively working to support and inject new ideas into the news industry under GNI APAC Innovation Challenge and funding programs; 16 media outlets in India have already benefited from this. 

We continue to support newsroom talent across the region with a range of verification programs. Last year, we provided a $1M grant via Google.org for Internews to train journalists, fact checkers, academics, NGOs to fight misinformation and fake news across the country. And as vaccination programs pick up pace, we’re backing organizations working to combat pandemic-related misinformation with stringent fact-checking. Through GNI’s global COVID-19 Vaccine Counter-Misinformation Open Fund, we’re providing grants to three important fact-checking projects in the region.

These are just a few examples of our ongoing efforts to support the news industry. We’re expanding our GNI efforts in India to include new programs like the GNI Transformation Lab and GNI Advertising Lab to help small and mid-sized local news organizations achieve financial sustainability and elevate quality journalism.