With the Google News Initiative award, Documented expands to more communities

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The Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge awarded Documented funding to support our engagement with New York’s Chinese and Caribbean immigrant communities. Building on the success of our Documented Semanal Spanish language WhatsApp news service, this new project will offer unprecedented access to journalism that is important to these communities.

The Google News Initiative’s innovation challenges encourage “local publishers to think of new ways to understand, improve and meet the needs of their communities.” Documented is one of 25 newsrooms out of 190 North American candidates to receive a fee of more than $ 3.2 million to meet the unique needs of the local news audience.

With our funding from the Google News Initiative, we will research what Chinese-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean immigrant communities need from the news. Together, these immigrant groups make up 12% of New York’s population, but conversations with stakeholders show that Documented’s audience engagement and referral process can help these communities meet their information needs.

We believe that to create valuable journalism, we must first listen to our readers. In 2019, we launched Documented Semanal, a WhatsApp newsletter that has grown to reach 2,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants, many of them undocumented. Our weekly communication provides readers with vital information about the resources and policy changes affecting their lives. Recently, the Institute for Nonprofit News awarded our editorial team the Game-Changer Award for this work.

Google News Initiative support allows our editorial team to adapt this approach to meet the needs of other immigrants. Through conversations with Chinese and Caribbean communities, we will develop a news product or messaging service that provides readers with a path to shape our content and communicate directly with reporters.

If you are a stakeholder in New York’s Chinese and Caribbean immigrant communities interested in our project, please contact [email protected].

To learn more about our award-winning approach to community engagement, read these pieces from the Documented team:

Our editorial team uses WhatsApp to communicate with undocumented immigrants

How our “community-oriented approach” has grown our audience

Documented methodology for community driven content

How to start a community-based publication

How we used a people-centered approach to build trust and become part of a community

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