Document Women Selected for Google's News Equity Fund 2023
We’re pleased to announce that Document Women has been selected as part of the recipients of Google News Initiative’s News Equity Fund.
The announcement was made on Tuesday, after applications opened in June and closed in July 2022.
"Today, we are excited to share that more than 450 news organizations across 52 countries have been selected as recipients of the News Equity Fund," Google News Initiative tweeted. "This global commitment will provide financial support and opportunities to news organizations that primarily serve underrepresented communities."
The News Equity Fund, open to small and medium-sized news organisations producing original news for underrepresented audiences, is to strengthen inclusion and further empower a diverse news ecosystem.
"This is exciting for me both as a part of the team and as a woman. Since I pitched my tent with Document Women over a year ago, the mission to have a more inclusive representation of women in the media was personal to me," Document Women COO Oiza Jagun said. "With this funding, we can take space in the news ecosystem with the news that matters. We can create content that helps us serve the singular purpose of making the media more diverse and positively equitable. We will continue to purposefully and accurately document women's contributions to society as we know it."
In October, Google had announced launching additional initiatives through the Google News Initiative to support African journalists and fact-checking organisations to advance media literacy on the continent.
A statement issued by the Head of Communications & Public Affairs, Google Africa, Dorothy Ooko, said that 72 per cent of respondents surveyed in Kenya and Nigeria raised apprehensions about being exposed to false and misleading information.
Launched in 2018, the Google News Initiative has supported over 7000 news partners in more than 120 countries and territories through more than $300 million in global funding by providing journalists with the tools, training and resources to help them find, verify, and tell engaging stories across the web.