Google bets on news creators to fuel next wave of search

Google is expanding its support for news creators as it works to improve how they appear in search results.

The company plans to broaden an initiative designed to identify independent news publishers, extending it to cover up to 1,000 news creators globally. It will also launch 20 news bootcamps and deepen its collaboration with YouTube and Search to strengthen how credible creators are ranked and featured.

Announcing the strategy at a Google & Beehiiv event* in London on Thursday, Arun Venkataraman, Global Lead of Emerging News Voices & Research at the Google News Initiative, said the shift reflects how audiences now find news.

“The Reuters digital news report showed that globally, social media is now the primary way that consumers discover news,” he said, adding that the figure is even higher among under-35s.

He acknowledged that “a lot of high quality emerging news providers on social media are probably not being surfaced on search to the extent they should be.”

Backing news creators

To address that gap in visibility, Google is expanding its support for news creators.

Among the changes is Project Oasis, originally designed to identify independent online news publishers, which will now expand to include 1,000 news creators worldwide.

The database is intended to help legacy publishers identify creators they may want to collaborate with, and to give funders greater visibility over who is operating independently.

Venkataraman said Google has increasingly seen interest from established news organisations looking to partner with creators to expand coverage or reach new audiences. At the same time, some creators lack the legal and verification resources required for certain types of reporting.

Project Oasis, he suggested, could act as connective tissue between the two.

Google is also launching 20 Emerging News Voices bootcamps across major markets this year. The programmes will focus on workflow, AI tools and building more than one way to make money.

“We’ll be running 20 Emerging News Voices this year to help news organisations think through their long-term strategy,” Venkataraman said.

For more established operators, Google is partnering with FT Strategies on a News Creators Lab offering deeper commercial support. Two early-stage pilot programmes with Project C in the US and Europe will help journalists leaving legacy organisations build independent businesses from scratch.

Tackling search visibility

Beyond funding and training, Google is also looking at how news creators appear in search results.

“One of the things we're thinking about internally and working with our partners at YouTube [on] is how to make sure that the news creators who are taking those extra steps are getting credit for their work, and how that work is being elevated,” Venkataraman said.

An external advisory group made up of standards experts and industry representatives has helped outline what those “extra steps” involve.

Venkataraman said Google’s internal data suggests overall search referrals have not declined, but are being distributed more widely. Rather than concentrating among a fixed group of large publishers, traffic is reaching a broader mix of sources.

He added that “those with real expertise, real depth in their content and coverage will be well positioned to take advantage of this moment.”

Beehiiv, which co-hosted the event, framed the shift around distribution.

“The old model of page views and traffic… has totally broken down,” founder Tyler Denk said, arguing that publishers can no longer rely on platform referrals alone and are instead building direct relationships with subscribers.

*Google & Beehiiv: A New Era for Media & Journalism, 12 February, 2026, London.

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