Tuesday 15 January 2019 12:09 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 2:10 am

Facebook to invest $300m into local news around the world

Facebook has said it will commit a further $300m (£233.5m) in funding for local news publishers globally over the next three years, with the first round destined for a selection of US organisations.

The investment will be separated into two broad segments – supporting journalists and publishers in gathering news, and helping those newsrooms to sustain viable business models for the future.

The social media giant said today that this latest round will be different to earlier investments by Facebook, as it will not be tied to delivering products directly on the platform such as video publishing or advertising.

“We’re going to continue fighting fake news, misinformation, and low quality news on Facebook,” Campbell Brown, Facebook's vice president of global news partnerships said in a statement.

“But we also have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to help local news organisations grow and thrive.”

The first recipients of the investment include the Pulitzer Centre, Report For America, the Local Media Association and the Local Media Consortium, among others.

Facebook said the funding will help boost resources for local journalists, including research on how to use technology to improve news gathering and foster new products for dissemination. A new programme will be established to help recruit "trainee community journalists" for local newsrooms, modelled after a similar programme designed by the US Peace Corps, which will place 1,000 journalists in newsrooms over five years.

The move follows on from a £4.5m investment by Facebook into UK local publishers in November, as well as the roll-out of its fact-checking service in the country last week.

Facebook said the programme will focus on the most harmful fake and misleading content, such as bogus cancer cures and inaccurate information about terror attacks and elections. Users can flag posts with content they find dubious, which a team of fact-checkers will then review and award an accuracy rating.