FACEBOOK TO FUND LOCAL COVERAGE

Facebook said Thursday it is committing $5 million towards paying local journalists for coverage in their communities as part of the tech giant’s new newsletter platform.

Independent journalists chosen from the pool of applicants will enter into a deal with Facebook that includes a multiyear licensing fee to give the writers “time to build a relationship” with their audience, Facebook said in the announcement.

The announcement comes about a month after Facebook announced plans for its newsletter platform, following the rising success of the Substack platform, and after years of friction between local news publishers and the tech giant came to a head earlier as Australia put forward a plan to require Facebook and Google to pay news publishers to share their content.