Sixteen Nigerian publications ‘in financial distress’ are among beneficiaries of grants totalling about $39.5m provided by Google News Initiative (GNI) through its Journalism Emergency Relief Fund (JERF).
JERF is a programme through which Google is supporting news publications in financial distress with funding.
Head of Google News Initiative Innovation, Ludovic Blecher, said in a statement that, in the past few months, JERF has provided $39.5m in funding to publishers in 115 countries.
JERF was launched in April to assist publishers who have been hit by economic and advertising downturn due to the COVID – 19 pandemic.
The 16 Nigerian publications that benefited from the JERF, according to Blecher, include Aledeh.com, City Mirror News, Daily Nigerian, News Wire NGR, Lagos Post Media, Newsfeed Nigeria, Premium Times, Sundiata Post and Sunrise Newspaper.
Others are Tell Magazine, Daily Times, Daily Report, Eagle Online, The Median, TNG and The Punch (including Saturday Punch, Sunday Punch and Punch Online).
Blecher explained that applications for support were received from about 12,000 publishers across the globe within the first two weeks of the launch of JERF.
The applicants had newsroom sizes ranging from an average of 20 in Asia Pacific to eight in North America.
The Daily Tracker is the home of factual, informative and developmental journalism. We go beyond the regular to keep our readers well informed at all times. Our focus is on the people, institutions, the society and ideas. We aspire to provoke and inspire. Welcome to our World
