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Google announced that the company would award $5m in grants to non-profit organisations to boost ‘grass roots’ innovation.
Despite an occasionally tetchy relationship with media companies as sales of printed newspapers have plummeted and online media has struggled to earn from online news, Google says it depends upon news agencies and wants to do all it can to help media companies succeed.
While Google said the new $5m fund is aimed at fostering innovation at a ‘grass roots’ level, the Internet giant also said that it was "investing heavily" to create systems which would enable publishers of all sizes to generate more revenue.
Google announced on the firm’s official blog that the initial beneficiary would be the US non-profit organisation John S. and James L. Knight Foundation which would be awarded the first $2m of the new fund while the remainder would go to other agencies engaged in similar work world-wide.
We hope these grants will help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation," wrote Google spokesman Nikesh Arora before quoting legendary inventor Thomas Edison on the value of experimentation.
"We look forward to working with the journalism community to help digital news move forward," he added.
