17th November, 2016
Over 100 media groups and projects are set to share 24 million Euros (25.7 million dollars) in grants handed out by internet giant Google on Thursday in Berlin.
The money was distributed to 124 projects in 25 European countries, with the lion’s share in terms of value going to Germany, Spain and France.
All participants received not less than 300,000 Euros.
The funding is part of Google’s Digital News Initiative, a project launched in 2015 to “advance innovation in the news industry”.
A first round of funding in March disbursed 27 million Euros for 128 projects.
The money is intended to help fund start-up media projects or to help established media organisations attempt to set up new programmes.
Separately, Google announced that the German version of its Google News page will start carrying a “fact check” tab this week, which allows readers to access further information about reports.
It said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper and Corrective website would soon start making use of the service.
However, Google noted that it does not fact check the items itself.