
Google announced it will begin to pay publishers for content
through a program slated to launch later this year.
In its early stages, the initiative has signed partnerships with local and national outlets in Germany, Australia and Brazil, which Google
had been in discussions with for several months.
The new product will launch on Google News and Discover first.
“This program will help participating publishers monetize their
content through an enhanced storytelling experience that lets people go deeper into more complex stories, stay informed and be exposed to a world of different issues and interests,” Brad Bender
vice president product management, news, wrote in a blog post for Google. “We will start with publishers in a number of countries around the globe, with more to come soon.”
This
builds on the work the company has done with the Google News Initiative (GNI), which launched in March 2018, Bender noted.
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In addition to its proposed paid partnership, Google will subsidize
publishers by paying for free access for users to read pay-walled articles, in effect helping them to grow and diversify their audiences.
Stefan Ottlitz, managing director of
Germany’s SPIEGEL Group, one of the publishers signed on to work with Google, noted that the partnership will “allow us to curate an experience that will bring our award-winning
editorial voice into play, broaden our outreach and provide trusted news in a compelling way across Google products.”
The new program follows the GNI’s release of an updated suite of data analytics tools for publishers and provided grants to more than 5,300 newsrooms through its Journalism Emergency
Relief Fund, given the COVID-19 pandemic.