Richard Gingras, the vice president of news who helps guide Google’s strategy for surfacing news content across Google products and working with the news industry, will lead off the second day of deliberations on rebuilding trust in news media at the annual Capital Conference (CapCon) of the California News Publishers Association (CNPA). The conference is examining the disinformation phenomenon and ways to combat its divisive effects.
At Google, Gingras oversees efforts to enable a healthy, open ecosystem for quality journalism, including the Google News Initiative, which was launched in 2018 to help centralize and scale the company’s efforts to help build a stronger future for news. Since then, Google has supported 7,000 news partners in 120 countries through $300 million in global funding, programs, tools and resources.
Gingras has spent his career developing online services, software and new media. Over the past several years, he has focused on the transformation of the media ecosystem, and especially on public access to a diversity of credible news sources.
“There are two universal truths about the state of the news industry today: Demand for quality journalism has never been higher, and the need for news businesses to embrace the transition to digital has never been more critical,” Gingras wrote in a Google blog about the future of news.
Gingras is a member of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy and serves as a board member of the First Amendment Coalition. He is also on the advisory board at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard.
“Google is a large and influential component of the modern media complex,” said Charles Ford Champion II, CNPA president and CEO. “Richard’s appearance at CapCon 2023 adds immeasurably to the discussion we expect to have in Sacramento about the integrity of current-day journalism and renewing public trust in news.”
Champion believes that CNPA and Google see eye to eye on the need for quality journalism as the foundation for an informed society. “We understand that the Fourth Estate is critical to the preservation of our democratic society.”
CapCon 2023 will take place from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento, California. In addition to Gingras, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, journalist and author Brian Karem, Reuters Institute research project leader Dr. Benjamin Toff, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and Check My Ads founder Claire Atkin will appear at the conference.
CapCon 2023 also features panel discussions on the First Amendment, reader trust in California media, successful COVID rebounds, grants for journalists and public notice.
About CNPA:
CNPA is a non-profit trade association representing daily and weekly California newspapers and digital news media. Its mission is to protect and serve the common interests of news media so that they can deliver democracy using the highest ideals, ethics and traditions of journalism to inform their communities.
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