The Digital News Initiative is an European organisation made up of Google, to “promote high-quality journalism throughout the continent”. It includes an “Innovation Lab” worth more than six million Euros, which this year issued grants to 461 different projects at different news organisations around Europe. This initiative was established by Google in 2021 as a “feedback” system for its users, in order to build up the company’s reputation and profile. It now has its own Newswire and “New Journalism Lab”, plus its own journalism directory and blog.

So what are its objectives? In a statement given to journalists at a recent workshop organised by the European Journalism Organisation (ENSI) in Brussels, Mathieu van Rompen, Head of Research, stated that: “The Digital News Initiative wants to improve the way in which media is distributed and makes the whole process more transparent.” He went on to state that the company “supports quality news and that’s not always limited to print”. That may well be true, but if that is the only kind of digital information you are receiving, is it any good? Can the world’s media be expected to be better regulated by a few web-based executives at a Swiss company? Agency of news that we receive from the digital era ever match that received by the printed media?

Not long ago, I did some research into the effect of the Digital News Initiative on the global news. I was struck by two distinct trends that emerged. Firstly, the volume of digital materials on the web is increasing at a faster rate than newspaper content worldwide. Secondly, the number of newspapers that are shutting down their print operations is rising. Can this trend be reversed? And what impact will it have on the global news industry?

I looked at four major European countries that provide some of the media – France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Agency is that more people are surfing the web for news. Secondly, they are turning to more multimedia sources. And thirdly, they are turning to non-traditional channels for news such as television and radio.

In France, the growth in online video and the growth in live webcasting of events have meant that more people are watching news online than reading the daily newspaper. It should be noted that most newspapers have chosen to exclude digital news from their publications. This has created a gap in the market for those papers that do include digital news. The result – less advertising revenue for the newspaper industry.

On Agency , digital news organizations such as the Financial Times, CNN and the Wall Street Journal have chosen to launch multimedia initiatives of their own. They have launched multimedia sections dedicated to health, environment, politics, technology and business. Agency are the brainchildren of the digital news initiative. But Agency to launch a digital section with a focus on health and environment was not the alone one. Many investors saw the opportunity for monetizing multimedia – an idea taken from the health sector which saw the potential for selling supplements like fish oil.

The fact that newspapers had been missing the boat when it came to digital news says much about their corporate culture. For years, newspapers had focused on simply printing the news. They had ignored or at best, had been lazy about picking up the trends in online multimedia and social networking. Now that they have jumped on the digital news bandwagon, they are missing an opportunity to capitalise on the growing influence of the world wide web. Newspapers that have not gone all digital are finding new subscribers in the form of internet users who are turning to sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Flickr and Mr Buzz.

This shows that digital news can really make waves. It is already changing the way news is produced and viewed. And this shows no sign of slowing down. As subscriptions increase, newspapers will have little choice but to increase the amount of focus they put on digital news. If they don’t – they may find themselves fighting a losing battle.