Google and eight top European news publishers announced the Digital News Initiative, a collaboration which aims to support high quality journalism and encourage a more sustainable news ecosystem through technology and innovation.

Among the publishers participating in this initiative are Proto Thema (Greece), Les Echos (France), FAZ (Germany), The Financial Times (UK), The Guardian (UK), NRC Media (Netherlands), El Pais (Spain), La Stampa (Italy) and Die Zeit (Germany), European Journalism Centre (EJC), the Global Editors Network (GEN) and the International News Media Association (INMA).

Proto Thema participates in the first meeting of the 100+ top news publishers of Europe which is held today in Berlin. Proto Thema was the first news publisher entrusted by Google to cooperate in Greece last July.

The Digital News Initiative is focusing on three key pillars:

• Product development: Google and news publishers will establish a ‘product working group’ to enable a close, on-going dialogue exploring product developments to increase revenue, traffic and audience engagement.

• Supporting Innovation: Google will support and stimulate innovation in digital news journalism over the next three years by creating an innovation fund to support and stimulate innovation in digital news journalism over the next three years.

• Training & research: Google will invest in new training and development resources for journalists and newsrooms across Europe, and will fund research into the changing media landscape.