SUNRISE NEWS, Lagos, July 17, 2020 The SUNRISE News, a Nigerian online newspaper, published by Derib Associates Nigeria, has won a $5000 relief fund from the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund offered by Google to support news organisations in developing countries increase their capacity to cover the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Managing Editor of the newspaper, Michael Olatunji announced the grant in a statement published on its news website on Friday.
According to him, the Google News Initiative Team said in an email it received in Thursday that it: Received over 12,000 applications from more than 100 eligible countries and we are happy to confirm that your application, has been approved to receive USD $5,000 from the JERF, in this wave of announcements.”
Olatunji thanked the Google News Initiative Team for the grant and pledged that the fund would be judiciously used. See https://newsinitiativewithgoogle.com/journalism-emergency-relief-fund/
He said: “We at Sunrise News are extremely delighted that an institution as strong and reliable as Google, found us worthy to partner with, especially at this time when economies all over the world are going through very hard times and operations of a website has become more challenging and demanding. We assure the JERF that the fund would be judiciously used.”
Sunrise News got the fund after responding to calls for applications for the Google News Initiative’s Journalism Emergency Relief Fund (JERF) in April via https:newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/journalism-emergency-relief-fund.
The Fund’s aim is to support the production of original journalism for local communities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Application Eligibility Requirements included the following:
Small and medium-sized news organisations producing original news for local communities during this time of crisis.
Eligible applicants must have a digital presence and have been in operation for at least 12 months.
The Fund is targeted at newsrooms employing between 2 – 100 full time employees (FTE) journalists.
Local publishers employing more than 100 FTE journalists can still apply and will be considered subject to Google’s discretion, based mainly on differing needs in different countries/regions.
Organisations must be incorporated or registered in one of the eligible geographies. Unincorporated organizations must be based in one of the eligible geographies.
Eligible applicants need to have a focus on core news provisions, i.e. not a lifestyle, sports, business-to-business.
Eligible applicants can include for profit or non-profit traditional news organizations, digital natives, radio and or TV broadcasters.
Government-owned entities and individuals are not eligible to apply.
SUNRISE News was launched on November 20, 2015.