Google has pledged to donate $5m (£3.15m) in grants to non-profit news organisations to help "develop new approaches to journalism in the digital age."
The technology giant will invest $3m in journalism projects outside the US, it said today. The remaining $2m will be donated to the Knight Foundation, a US-based initiative for supporting innovation in journalism.
Nikesh Arora, president of Google's global sales operations and business development, said the company hopes the grants will "help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation", adding that the aim is to benefit news publishers of all sizes, not just smaller enterprises.
He wrote on the company's blog: "Journalism is fundamental to a functioning democracy. So as media organisations globally continue to broaden their presence online, we're eager to play our part on the technology side.
"[...] But while we're mostly focused on working with news organizations to develop better products for users, we also believe it's crucial to encourage innovation at the grassroots level."
Singled out for special mention by Arora was DocumentCloud, a user-generated index of primary source documents enabling easier use of public records.
In February this year Google donated $2m to the Wikipedia's parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation. Last month the company handed out $10m to five non-profit organisations that tackled serious global challenges.
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