The democratic process is one of the foundations of our society, and people around the world turn to Google to ask important questions about election candidates and their positions on various topics. We’ve built products and programs to help journalists and voters engage with democratic processes in several elections, including the U.S., Germany, U.K., and others.

Google partnered up with Brazilian broadcaster Band TV to bring Search trends to the first presidential debate for the 2022 elections in Brazil. To support this effort, we have looked into Google Trends data on search interest to help inform the electorate on regional trends for presidential candidates and themes.

The partnership is part of the Google News Initiative, Google's effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age. We've worked with multiple teams to bring real-time insights from Google Trends during the debate through tailor-made visualizations for TV, and an online data hub that users can use as a second screen.

One of the highlighted features of the online hub is a pre-debate dashboard with information about each candidate, topics of interest, and region trends. The dashboard was built focused on mobile screens using Google Data Studio and Google Trends data.

Our goal with the pre-debate dashboard is to allow journalists to interact with the data to find interesting trends for specific candidates and themes throughout 2022. But we also want to give context into how the debate will alter the trends.

With those goals in mind, we built a dashboard that allows journalists and the public in general to see trends about the candidates since the beginning of the year, and breakdowns per region and themes, which can be viewed through the data studio interface.

In addition, we also launched aTrends hub with real-time data on the electoral cycle, providing Search trends around presidential candidates, parties and top questions on topics related to the campaign.

By making data more accessible through Google Data Studio and Google Trends initiatives, we hope to help journalists and voters engage with the democratic process in Brazil.

The GNI Innovation Challenges, part of Google’s $300 million commitment to help journalism thrive in the digital age, have seen news innovators across the world step forward with many exciting initiatives demonstrating new thinking.

The 3rd Middle East, Turkey and Africa Innovation Challenge launched in February 2022, and received 425 applications from 42 countries – a 27% increase in overall applications. After a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process, 34 projects were selected from 17 countries to receive $3.2 million in funding.

This Innovation Challenge saw a significant increase in applications from news organizations undertaking fact checking activities: an increase of 118% when compared to previous Innovation Challenges in the region. Proposed projects which use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) also showed significant growth (92%), reflecting a trend across the news ecosystem to embrace cutting edge new technologies and data.

The call for applications listed five criteria: impact on the news ecosystem; innovation; diversity, equity and inclusion; inspiration; and feasibility – and the chosen projects clearly demonstrated all five. Here’s a selection of the successful recipients (you can find the full list on our website):

• Dubawa, Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development from Nigeria, an online-only publisher, will introduce automated radio fact-checking.
• Majarra from the UAE will apply AI and ML to use readers’ data to better help them navigate their website and be more inclusive to female subscribers.
• The Bridge Across the Abraham Accords project: In an industry-first initiative, Tel Aviv-based Israel Hayom and Abu Dhabi-based Al-Ittihad will collaborate to give readers of both news organizations the ability to share news and comment in the same multilingual environment.
• Minority Africa from Uganda is designing and implementing a web distribution application that will make it easier for newsrooms publishing under a Creative Commons license to have more control of their work.
• Quote This Woman+ from South Africa will build a tool to provide women+ (identified as women, people living with disabilities, LGBTQI+, rural and religious minorities).
  sources to newsrooms and journalists to diversify sources in news coverage.
• Dipnot from Turkey, a TV company, will create COM+: a multi-screen OTT platform for curated news in Turkey.

The successful recipients will be embarking on their projects later this summer and will share their learnings with the wider news ecosystem.

As a former director of business strategy for The Atlantic, Eric Rosato knows a few things about building a successful news business. Now he lends his strategic acumen to thousands of news organizations across the globe for the Google News Initiative’s Digital Growth Program. We talked to Eric about the value of journalism to society and why sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is talk about it.

How did you get interested in news publishing?

There was a point where I decided if I was going to build a career in an industry, I wanted that industry to be bigger than me, the value of it to be bigger than me. That journalism has value to society, that it’s key to a functioning democracy to have an informed citizenry – that’s what motivated me, to know that this purpose is bigger than just me and my work.

What’s different about working for Google?

At Google, it's the same sense of mission, but doing it at scale. Everyday I have a moment with a publisher that reinforces that mission and that sense of purpose, and it’s not just one publisher, it’s many publishers — thousands, actually, in countries all over the world.

What is the Digital Growth Program, and what’s your role?

The Digital Growth Program, within the Google News Initiative, supports small to midsize publishers in tackling digital transformation. We offer a range of resources covering five critical areas in digital publishing: reader revenue, audience development, advertising revenue, product and data. And all of these resources we developed working with subject matter experts, associations and, of course, publishers.

My role on the team is to help ideate, launch and execute programs. I also work to better understand the impact we’re having and to see how we can improve.

What did you learn in your previous work that you apply at the Google News Initiative?

A lot of the challenges the publishers I work with now are the same challenges I faced at my last job, albeit at a different scale. At the heart is the same question: “We need to reach different audiences. How, from a business perspective and from an editorial perspective, are we going to do that?”

Two practices that are equally valuable for publications at any scale are first, to experiment and not be too precious. Your business will be better off if you try new approaches that allow you to learn from failure and build on success. The second is to work at identifying what your audience wants and how they want to interact with your brand.

There’s a lot of focus in the industry right now on deeper audience relationships. How does that benefit smaller and local publications?

I think small publishers serving local communities are well positioned to earn audience trust because they know what their communities need. And there’s value in those relationships.

A lot of publishers get hung up on the fact that they don't have a national audience to entice advertisers. One of the biggest mindset shifts that we've encouraged publishers to make is to believe that their audiences, what they do in their communities and the journalism they produce have real value to advertisers. That if they have that deep community relationship, they can sell on that value versus just selling on reach.

Are there any promising developments you see across the news industry?

The discourse around news has been difficult to navigate over the past few years. But the benefit is there has been a heightened focus on the value of news and of a healthy, diverse news ecosystem. And that has resulted in a lot of collaboration. For example, I think there's been a real sense of the pandemic as a common enemy, and publishers have banded together to try to combat that enemy. Seeing publishers work together, crowdsourcing and sharing solutions and best practices to help each other through this moment is incredibly rewarding.

How important is it for publishers to have that kind of peer support?

We’re told time and again by the publishers we engage with that hearing from their peers is a top need. Anytime we introduce an idea, the first questions are, “Has someone else done this? What worked and what didn't work? Can I do that for my publication?” So it’s really a priority for us to provide benchmarks and publisher examples. And in our Lab programs, we want to make sure that we create a strong sense of cohort so publishers keep talking to each other. That’s part of the value of the GNI – to bring publishers together and create a kind of town square where those conversations can happen.

As a former director of business strategy for The Atlantic, Eric Rosato knows a few things about building a successful news business. Now he lends his strategic acumen to thousands of news organizations across the globe for the Google News Initiative’s Digital Growth Program. We talked to Eric about the value of journalism to society and why sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is talk about it.

How did you get interested in news publishing?

There was a point where I decided if I was going to build a career in an industry, I wanted that industry to be bigger than me, the value of it to be bigger than me. That journalism has value to society, that it’s key to a functioning democracy to have an informed citizenry – that’s what motivated me, to know that this purpose is bigger than just me and my work.

What’s different about working for Google?

At Google, it's the same sense of mission, but doing it at scale. Everyday I have a moment with a publisher that reinforces that mission and that sense of purpose, and it’s not just one publisher, it’s many publishers — thousands, actually, in countries all over the world.

What is the Digital Growth Program, and what’s your role?

The Digital Growth Program, within the Google News Initiative, supports small to midsize publishers in tackling digital transformation. We offer a range of resources covering five critical areas in digital publishing: reader revenue, audience development, advertising revenue, product and data. And all of these resources we developed working with subject matter experts, associations and, of course, publishers.

My role on the team is to help ideate, launch and execute programs. I also work to better understand the impact we’re having and to see how we can improve.

What did you learn in your previous work that you apply at the Google News Initiative?

A lot of the challenges the publishers I work with now are the same challenges I faced at my last job, albeit at a different scale. At the heart is the same question: “We need to reach different audiences. How, from a business perspective and from an editorial perspective, are we going to do that?”

Two practices that are equally valuable for publications at any scale are first, to experiment and not be too precious. Your business will be better off if you try new approaches that allow you to learn from failure and build on success. The second is to work at identifying what your audience wants and how they want to interact with your brand.

There’s a lot of focus in the industry right now on deeper audience relationships. How does that benefit smaller and local publications?

I think small publishers serving local communities are well positioned to earn audience trust because they know what their communities need. And there’s value in those relationships.

A lot of publishers get hung up on the fact that they don't have a national audience to entice advertisers. One of the biggest mindset shifts that we've encouraged publishers to make is to believe that their audiences, what they do in their communities and the journalism they produce have real value to advertisers. That if they have that deep community relationship, they can sell on that value versus just selling on reach.

Are there any promising developments you see across the news industry?

The discourse around news has been difficult to navigate over the past few years. But the benefit is there has been a heightened focus on the value of news and of a healthy, diverse news ecosystem. And that has resulted in a lot of collaboration. For example, I think there's been a real sense of the pandemic as a common enemy, and publishers have banded together to try to combat that enemy. Seeing publishers work together, crowdsourcing and sharing solutions and best practices to help each other through this moment is incredibly rewarding.

How important is it for publishers to have that kind of peer support?

We’re told time and again by the publishers we engage with that hearing from their peers is a top need. Anytime we introduce an idea, the first questions are, “Has someone else done this? What worked and what didn't work? Can I do that for my publication?” So it’s really a priority for us to provide benchmarks and publisher examples. And in our Lab programs, we want to make sure that we create a strong sense of cohort so publishers keep talking to each other. That’s part of the value of the GNI – to bring publishers together and create a kind of town square where those conversations can happen.

Editor’s note from Ludovic Blecher, Head of Google News Initiative Innovation: The GNI Innovation Challengeprogram is designed to stimulate forward-thinking ideas for the news industry. The story below by Marie Calvo Monge, CEO, KUAM/Pacific Telestations LLC, is part of an innovator seriessharing inspiring stories and lessons from funded projects.

With a population of 50,000 spread across an archipelago of tiny islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in the Pacific has often been too remote for other Guam based broadcast news crews to carry live coverage.

Previously, my organization’s coverage of significant events in the CNMI was handled in one of two ways: we could wait for a tape-delayed file from the island chain’s only local news operation, which was a lengthy process that taxed our workflow and internet bandwidth capabilities. Or we could send a two-person crew to gather the story, which they would edit and publish upon return to Guam, which was costly with airfare, transportation and lodging costing approximately $2,000 per trip.

But that has all changed thanks to the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge funding the One KUAM project, which has enhanced and expanded the quality content our media group produces for and about our Pacific region.

Now, our regional correspondent operates efficiently as a “one-person band” and can send live HD quality video via their mobile device. We’re able to report live from multiple locations on broadcast and streaming, and we’ve even been able to feature live reports in HD from Tinian and Rota, the smaller islands of the archipelago, with a combined population of 5,000. We’re the first broadcast news station on Guam to do this.

These improvements have helped us achieve our goal of expanding our regional coverage and sharing the stories of Indigenous Pacific Islanders with more people. Our expanded coverage has brought more information to the homes of our viewers in the CNMI and also helped show how current issues – from climate change and COVID-19, to military training and cultural revitalization – impact the region as a whole.

The increase in news coverage from the CNMI has also opened up a new advertiser revenue stream, with local businesses and agencies in the region now advertising on our stations to appeal to our expanded audience. Prior to rolling out the One KUAM project, we had no advertisers from that market. Since March 2022, we’ve drawn in nearly $15,000 in advertising revenue from CNMI advertisers.

KUAM gained a noteworthy increase in viewers from our expansion to regional interactive coverage once we began reporting on events in the CNMI last fall. That market has been underserved in news coverage since the start of the pandemic, and our videos published to YouTube have generated an average of 10 times more views than usual from the CNMI. Our Facebook and Instagram posts have been viewed an average of seven times more than our normal traffic benchmarks, and videos on those platforms have been viewed and shared three times more than comparable coverage in our domestic market. Our overall growth of frequent users has increased 5.7%, with the overwhelming majority of those being from the CNMI.

We’ve made the leap from analog to fully digital operations and streamlined the workflow of our journalists. They now can gather and produce news with a more flexible multimedia skill set, integrating functions such as creating their own graphics, cross posting social and web content, and launching live reports for broadcast and live stream in HD directly from their mobile devices. Our new way of connecting to multiple internet connections has transformed the way we incorporate live reports into our productions while the teams can still use their existing cameras and mobile devices.

Our mission now not only includes hyperlocal journalism on Guam and national headlines from the mainland, but also regional stories from across the Western Pacific.

KUAM is Guam’s first commercial broadcast and news media group and has been broadcasting on television and radio for more than 65 years. We’ve also ushered in many innovations in our history. We were the first media group locally to garner national network affiliations (NBC and CBS) and the first to broadcast international sporting and news events locally via satellite. We were also the first to produce local broadcast news on Guam.

The GNI Innovation Challenge support we received has helped us continue that legacy of firsts. We’ve evolved our operation from local and broadcast-centric to the first and only one in the region that’s accessible to a global audience on multiple platforms and devices in a quality HD format.

Editor’s note from Ludovic Blecher, Head of Google News Initiative Innovation: The GNI Innovation Challengeprogram is designed to stimulate forward-thinking ideas for the news industry. The story below by Marie Calvo Monge, CEO, KUAM/Pacific Telestations LLC, is part of an innovator seriessharing inspiring stories and lessons from funded projects.

With a population of 50,000 spread across an archipelago of tiny islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) in the Pacific has often been too remote for other Guam based broadcast news crews to carry live coverage.

Previously, my organization’s coverage of significant events in the CNMI was handled in one of two ways: we could wait for a tape-delayed file from the island chain’s only local news operation, which was a lengthy process that taxed our workflow and internet bandwidth capabilities. Or we could send a two-person crew to gather the story, which they would edit and publish upon return to Guam, which was costly with airfare, transportation and lodging costing approximately $2,000 per trip.

But that has all changed thanks to the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge funding the One KUAM project, which has enhanced and expanded the quality content our media group produces for and about our Pacific region.

Now, our regional correspondent operates efficiently as a “one-person band” and can send live HD quality video via their mobile device. We’re able to report live from multiple locations on broadcast and streaming, and we’ve even been able to feature live reports in HD from Tinian and Rota, the smaller islands of the archipelago, with a combined population of 5,000. We’re the first broadcast news station on Guam to do this.

These improvements have helped us achieve our goal of expanding our regional coverage and sharing the stories of Indigenous Pacific Islanders with more people. Our expanded coverage has brought more information to the homes of our viewers in the CNMI and also helped show how current issues – from climate change and COVID-19, to military training and cultural revitalization – impact the region as a whole.

The increase in news coverage from the CNMI has also opened up a new advertiser revenue stream, with local businesses and agencies in the region now advertising on our stations to appeal to our expanded audience. Prior to rolling out the One KUAM project, we had no advertisers from that market. Since March 2022, we’ve drawn in nearly $15,000 in advertising revenue from CNMI advertisers.

KUAM gained a noteworthy increase in viewers from our expansion to regional interactive coverage once we began reporting on events in the CNMI last fall. That market has been underserved in news coverage since the start of the pandemic, and our videos published to YouTube have generated an average of 10 times more views than usual from the CNMI. Our Facebook and Instagram posts have been viewed an average of seven times more than our normal traffic benchmarks, and videos on those platforms have been viewed and shared three times more than comparable coverage in our domestic market. Our overall growth of frequent users has increased 5.7%, with the overwhelming majority of those being from the CNMI.

We’ve made the leap from analog to fully digital operations and streamlined the workflow of our journalists. They now can gather and produce news with a more flexible multimedia skill set, integrating functions such as creating their own graphics, cross posting social and web content, and launching live reports for broadcast and live stream in HD directly from their mobile devices. Our new way of connecting to multiple internet connections has transformed the way we incorporate live reports into our productions while the teams can still use their existing cameras and mobile devices.

Our mission now not only includes hyperlocal journalism on Guam and national headlines from the mainland, but also regional stories from across the Western Pacific.

KUAM is Guam’s first commercial broadcast and news media group and has been broadcasting on television and radio for more than 65 years. We’ve also ushered in many innovations in our history. We were the first media group locally to garner national network affiliations (NBC and CBS) and the first to broadcast international sporting and news events locally via satellite. We were also the first to produce local broadcast news on Guam.

The GNI Innovation Challenge support we received has helped us continue that legacy of firsts. We’ve evolved our operation from local and broadcast-centric to the first and only one in the region that’s accessible to a global audience on multiple platforms and devices in a quality HD format.