Facebook says it’s going to try to help journalism ‘thrive’

Does today seem like a good day to discuss the future of journalism?

Facebook thinks it does: The social network, which has spent much of last year under fire for the way it deals with news, wants you to know that it thinks news and journalism are important.

“We care a great deal about making sure that a healthy news ecosystem and journalism can thrive,” said product exec Fidji Simo, in a lengthy post announcing the creation of “The Facebook Journalism Project.”

What’s The Facebook Journalism Project? Many things, apparently — it’s a long post — but it is primarily an affirmation that Facebook values journalism and wants to “establish stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry.”

Last week, Facebook hired former TV news anchor Campbell Brown as a liaison to the news industry. But today’s announcement has more details, including: A commitment to work with news publishers on product development; a project aimed at supporting local news; and offering CrowdTangle, the Facebook analytics startup it recently acquired, for free to Facebook publishers.

(Facebook also mentions, as an aside, that it is going to be “exploring ad breaks in regular videos” — those are the new “mid-roll” video ads I told you about on Monday.).........Read more from the source