Supporting the news industry and next-generation journalists on YouTube
Canadian journalists Anushree Dave and Muhammad Lila admitted into the Creator Program for Independent Journalists, Brandon Gonez joins the Sustainability Lab for Digital-First Newsrooms
Over the past few years, we’ve seen more and more people turn to YouTube every day to get their news. We want to connect our community to authoritative, trustworthy content, and believe we have a responsibility to support innovation and a sustainable ecosystem. That’s why we work alongside news organizations from around the world--both through our products that help news partners reach audiences and monetize their video content, as well as through grants and training programs as part of the Google News Initiative.
We’re committed to supporting the future of journalism, and that means continuing to create opportunities for the industry to harness the latest technology and techniques for growth on YouTube. In April, we opened applications for two new programs focused on supporting the next generation of reporters and newsrooms. We’re excited to announce today the selection of nearly 50 independent journalists from around the world and over 40 digital-first newsrooms across the programs.
Our Creator Program for Independent Journalists aims to give the growing number of reporters publishing independently the tools needed to succeed on YouTube. This year, two Canadian journalists were admitted into the inaugural program. Anushree Dave, a science reporter aspiring to create PopSci for YouTube, focusing on the intersection of science, technology, and society. Muhammad Lila is a former warzone correspondent who now specializes in finding stories of hope, courage and reslilience in places you least expect.
We are also thrilled to announce that The Brandon Gonez Show has joined the Sustainability Lab for Digital-First Newsrooms, which provides support for digital native newsrooms to start and expand their video operations.The Brandon Gonez Show is a weekly online platform that provides local and national news, and shares important untold stories with audiences of all backgrounds.
“Being an independent journalist allows me to set the editorial direction of our platform and focus on people who are left out of the conversation”, Brandon Gonez explained. “Starting The Brandon Gonez Show has allowed my team and me to fill that gap and ensure that more voices have a microphone to amplify their stories. Joining the Youtube program can really help to create a strong foundation and lead to massive growth. That growth can easily translate to more impact and greater results for the stories and people we cover.”
Altogether, the participants represent 25 countries, speak nearly 20 different languages, and report on a wide range of topics, spanning local news and national politics, to undertold stories about marginalized communities. You can read more about the selected participants for the Creator Program here and for the Sustainability Lab here.
Over the course of the next year, we’ll offer journalists in the Creator Program training in industry best practices, including comprehensive sessions on video production and editing, audience development, entrepreneurship, and achieving financial sustainability on the platform.
Participants will receive grants to help fuel their new video operations. They’ll also be connected with experts at YouTube to answer questions, and join groups of their peers to share insights and experiences. The digital newsrooms selected for our Sustainability Labs will receive grants, one-on-one support from YouTube, and have rich opportunities to learn from each other as they develop video news capabilities and business plans.
We also hope to learn from our first set of participants how we can further improve and iterate on these programs for future classes. Our goal is to work together with the industry and help journalists and newsrooms thrive on YouTube.
It remains an ongoing priority to build a more sustainable video news ecosystem as we continue to raise up authoritative content on our platform. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we’re eager to increase access to credible, trustworthy information from a diversity of sources to everyone who comes to YouTube to learn more about what’s happening in the world.
