For over twenty years the Google News Initiative has worked to help local news organisations adapt to digital transformation, and 2023 was no different. Our goal, globally and here in Aotearoa, is to help  news media companies as they build sustainable businesses, connect with readers and engage audiences in a digital environment. 

In the past year, as outlined below, our programmes in New Zealand have engaged dozens of publishers and more than 100 journalists, providing critical information on how newsrooms can use digital technology to find and tell stories in new ways, reach larger audiences and generate more revenues. 

Google News Showcase, our curated online news experience and licensing program, launched in Aotearoa in 2022, provides news publishers with more opportunities to create connections with their readers. Across a range of large, small, regional and ethnically diverse publishers, 48 individual mastheads are now on News Showcase, representing the vast majority of news publishers in New Zealand. 

Most recently Newshub, New Zealand's independent broadcast and digital news service joined the program, with Sarah Bristow, Senior Director News, Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ noting: “This partnership is a significant step for Newshub, ensuring our brilliant reporting continues to reach audiences where they are, and helping to create a sustainable future for local journalism. We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with Google.”

Advancing quality journalism 

Training Kiwi journalists

We partnered with Telum Media to deliver eight open training sessions around the country, free of charge, to share the latest tools and processes to support digital reporting. In the last year more than 100 Kiwi journalists joined workshops run by local experts including training on Google’s research tool, Pinpoint, to support journalists’ reporting and creative data visualisation techniques. Journalists interested in future training sessions in 2024 can sign up here.

Supporting misinformation tracking & media literacy

It’s critical we can all differentiate quality information from misinformation in the moments that matter. New Zealand headed to the polls in October 2023, and with a wide range of political information sources readily available online, we partnered with CrossCheck at RMIT FactLab to launch immersive and interactive training events that help newsrooms and community media learn skills to analyse online information during the election period. More than 200 journalists, media executives, media community leaders and students took part in 12 sessions in New Zealand, with two of these facilitated in te reo Māori and one in Mandarin.

For the second consecutive year, Squiz Kids rolled out its media literacy module to give children of 8 to12 years the skills to decide which information sources are trustworthy, and which are not. The eight-part teaching resource, Newshounds, created in partnership with Google was aligned with the New Zealand curriculum and used by 72 Kiwi classrooms in 2023.

Supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 

At Ngā Kete Wānanga Marae marae, 12 Te Rito journalism cadets from diverse backgrounds participated in the second annual Te Rito Training Camp, a digital journalism camp founded on the Google News Initiative training curriculum. Cadets met with some of the leading journalists from New Zealand and Australia to learn investigative techniques, cultural history, digital skills and resilience training. For the first time, 8 Australian Indigenous journalists and three journalists from the Pacific joined the New Zealand based Pasifika and Māori cadets at the camp.

In July, Google hosted the inaugural Tagata Moana Media Fono at our offices in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, organised by Pacific Media Network, bringing together all parts of the Pasifika media community.

Strengthening and evolving publisher business models 

The GNI Advertising Lab Series 

The Google News Initiative's major training program for 2023- 2024 is the nine-month Advertising Lab. The Lab's aims to equip small and mid-sized news organisations with the latest information and support to improve their understanding, strategy, and infrastructure as it relates to digital advertising with a view to maximise their site performance and advertising revenue. Facilitated by Google and delivered by A&A Digital Services, a Google Certified Publishing Partner and Google Ad Manager 360 Platform Partner,  the lab supported more than 25 participants from 10 New Zealand news organisations, who will receive additional individual implementation support in 2024 to assist in their digital advertising performance.

The GNI Fundamentals Lab

The Fundamentals Lab is a collaborative three-month lab in which Google reviews news publishers’ sites and shares practical, easy-to-follow steps to grow their audience, expand their ad revenues and increase reader revenues. The Lab delivers learning sessions and working group sessions, as well as bespoke audits. In 2023, 13 participants from ten local news organisations participated in the Fundamentals Lab.

FT Strategies Program: Exec North Star & Digital Business Models Workshops

Kiwi news publishers participated in our Google News Initiative programmes facilitated by FT Strategies including:

• The Exec North Star Workshop Series, a two-month intensive programme aimed at publishers with a strong online presence, with participation from senior executives, aiming to define and accelerate progress towards a single ambitious organisation goal, using the FT’s proprietary North Star methodology to accelerate digital growth and strengthen commercial sustainability. 

• The Digital Business Models Workshop Series, a two-month program designed to help publishers at the beginning of their digital reader revenue journey understand and identify reader revenue models in evolving their digital businesses.

Empowering news organisations through technological innovation

Google is focused on partnering with news organisations on initiatives that further their digital transformation. One such partnership is with NZME and we’re pleased to share these examples of how we’ve supported their effort to promote original, trusted journalism across NZME’s digital titles. 

NZME launched a new enriched content subscription product, upgraded its core publishing content management system (CMS) to streamline workflows and improve performance, and enhances data maturity & audience targeting for new story formats. We also supported Stuff to realise the redesign of their stuff.co.nz platform which will enable an innovative approach to dynamic storytelling and exciting new advertising opportunities.

As we embark on 2024, we’re proud of the continued work to partner with the New Zealand news industry, to contribute to a thriving news ecosystem that seeks to benefit all New Zealanders.