Facebook announced May 7 that it is awarding nearly $10.3 million to 144 local newsrooms through the company’s COVID-19 Local News Relief Fund Grant Program.
“We are honored to have been chosen to receive the Facebook Journalism Project COVID-19 program Grant,” Danny J. Bakewell, Sr., Executive Editor and CEO of The Los Angeles Sentinel, told California Black Media.
The majority of the Black-owned California newsrooms that received over $300,000 in grants are located in Southern California around the greater Los Angeles area, including the L.A. Sentinel, the L.A. Focus Newspaper, the Los Angeles Wave and Independent News Paper Group and Black Voice News in Riverside.
The grant recipients were chosen from a pool of more than 2,000 applicants by the Facebook Journalism Project and its partners: The Local Media Association and the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
In addition, to the COVID-19 relief grants, Facebook also awarded $5.4 million in grants to North American newsrooms that have participated in Facebook’s Local News Accelerator programs.
