I'm sorry, but journalism is too empty pocked to innovate - and Google knows it
If you crunch the numbers, it becomes clear which big tech company has given the most money to legacy media: Alphabet (formerly Google). Sure, Meta (formerly Facebook) had a few projects, but they quickly realized it was easier to simply remove news from their algorithm. And then there’s Jeff Bezos, pretending to contribute to democracy by keeping the Washington Post's lights on. But Alphabet? They pay a lot.
Since its launch in 2018, the Google News Initiative’s Innovation Challenge has provided about $30 million to more than 200 projects in 47 countries. This "philanthrocapitalism" is really just Google ensuring that media companies don’t protest too much about the use of their content—maybe even buying some goodwill from media executives.
At least, that’s what I think they’re doing. What they say is that the $30 million is meant to empower innovation in newsrooms. But a recent study by Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos confirms what I’ve suspected for years working in this industry: media executives don’t actually want to innovate. They just want to create projects that milk the big, juicy cash cow that is big tech. And boy, I’ve seen so much “innovation.” From websites supposedly focused on local journalism that just repurpose wire service content with city tags, to a “video streaming experiment” that turned into an excuse to buy old cameras and build a TV studio inside a newspaper newsroom.
Everyone in the media industry knows that Google’s money was never about innovation. It’s to pay salaries, buy equipment, and pretend there’s some sort of innovation for PR purposes.
So whenever I come up with a project idea, I sometimes wonder: maybe we could apply for one of those Google News Initiative grants. But then I do the math and think about how much would actually be used for the project itself.
And I give up.
Because I know media executives don’t want to innovate. They need the money to pay salaries. And Alphabet knows it too.