Launching in Argentina: Google News Showcase

Just last week we announced that Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news, had launched in Australia. Today we’re announcing that News Showcase is rolling out with local, national and independent publishers in Argentina. As part of our licensing deals with publishers, we're also launching the ability for readers to access select paywall content. This feature will give people the opportunity to read more of a publisher’s content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to incent readers to become a subscriber. 

So far, we’ve signed on 40 news publications to Google News Showcase, including Clarin, La Nación, Perfil, Infobae, Crónica, Cronista, El Economista, Diario Río Negro, El Día, La Gaceta and El Litoral. These news organizations represent the two largest newspapers in the country and some of the top independent, local and regional news organizations. We’re continuing to work with additional publications to sign them on for News Showcase, 

"We are satisfied to continue building a mature and productive relationship with Google in Argentina,” says Héctor Aranda, CEO of Clarín and clarin.com, the largest media organization in the country. “As the owner of several of the most visited journalistic sites in the country, Grupo Clarín contributes an important value to the ecosystem and the consumption of digital content in Argentina. The possibility that this value is recognized by a relevant platform like Google is an auspicious step."

Globally, there are more than 450 publications in Google News Showcase in over a dozen countries including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, U.K. and Argentina.

Google has generated important benefits for the journalism industry in Argentina. For more than 10 years, we have been working collaboratively with the media industry and with journalists in the country, supporting innovation through online trainings which have reached more than 40,000 journalists, students and entrepreneurs, partnerships and programs to improve sustainability and monetization, awards to recognize best practices in the industry and initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion in newsrooms, among many other projects. Last year, we funded 233 small and medium local newsrooms across Argentina through our Journalism Emergency Relief Fund.

"Google products are an important source of traffic for La Nación and we are confident that News Showcase will allow us to display some of our articles in an even more attractive way for Google News users,” says Francisco Seghezzo, CEO of La Nación, one of the largest newspapers in Argentina. “It is an exciting new step forward to building an even stronger bond between La Nación and Google that will favor our audiences."

With News Showcase panels, editors at news organizations can help explain complicated news topics and bring context to readers looking to understand more. News Showcase panels display an enhanced view of an article or articles, giving participating publishers more ways to bring important news to readers and explain it in their own voice, along with more direct control of presentation and branding. 

News Showcase content and panels from our publisher partners will automatically start to appear in Google News and Discover, and direct readers to the full article on the publisher’s site. People will see panels from publishers they follow in their personalized feeds and they might also see panels from publishers they’re less familiar with, presented as suggestions in the Google News “For You” feed and inside “Newsstand”, the discovery area of Google News. Panels are already appearing in Google News on Android, iOS, and the mobile web, and in Discover on iOS, and will start appearing in other versions of these products soon.

“News Showcase is based on a substantial value: the delivery of traffic to the media sites themselves in Argentina,” says Nahuel Caputto, president of Adira, the Regional Newspapers Association that represents 60 news outlets in the country. “This is a central difference from the rest of the platforms, which retain audiences in their own ecosystems. Additionally, editors will select the content to be displayed, giving them an additional way to highlight their most important stories.”

We’ll continue to work with our news partners in Argentina to incorporate their feedback as we build out new, innovative features for News Showcase. Alongside governments, other companies and civic society, we’re dedicated to continuing to find ways to engage readers around the quality news that matters to them and supporting the sustainability of the news industry both in Argentina and around the world.