C4CJ secures Google hyperlocal funding

Cardiff University's Centre for Community Journalism (C4CJ) has secured €250,000 (approx. £223,000) of funding from the Google Digital News Innovation Fund to create new revenue streams for the community and hyperlocal news sector. The project, Value My News (VMN), will develop an innovative suite of tools enabling community and hyperlocal news publishers to make money from, and track the sale of, hyperlocal stories, while at the same time copyright existing content. This is a ground-breaking response to the issues of sustainability in the sector and the new forms of funding it provides will deliver a much-needed boost to small independent publishers across the UK. In collaboration with the Media Innovation Studio (MIS) at the University of Central Lancashire, VMN will enable publishers to easily access, buy and republish high quality editorial content from community and hyperlocal news organisations across the UK. News, produced at the grassroots level, has value further up the news food chain. By surfacing the best and most important stories, VMN will ensure that content producers receive a fair share of the revenue generated from their work. VMN will transform the sector by capturing revenues otherwise leaking through the supply chain.