Chronicle

Facebook’s Instant Articles partners with Asian media orgs

Facebook has announced its beta launch of “Instant Articles” in partnership with more than 50 Asian media organizations.

Facebook’s Instant Articles will enable users to view published news stories on Facebook itself, instead of opening the articles in web browsers. When tapped, the lightning bolt icon  on the top-right corner of stories in Facebook’s news feed allows faster access to the articles and provides a more interactive experience. Instant Articles also offers other features such as interactive maps, audio captions, video autoplay, and photo-zooming options.

Philippine media organizations ABS-CBN, GMA, Rappler and the Philippine Daily Inquirer already entered into a partnership with Instant Articles.

Instant Articles is  globally available to iPhone users. Meanwhile, Instant Articles via Android will launch later this year, with a small public beta available now.

Biodiversity Media Grant Opportunity

Media organizations are invited to apply to Internews Earth Journalism Network’s Biodiversity Media Grant Opportunity that aims to increase the media’s capacity to cover critical issues in biodiversity and conservation.

Proposed projects should involve training and capacity-building that enable media practitioners to deliver quality news and information about threats to biodiversity and conservation-based solutions, with a focus on developing countries. Awareness-building and network building should also be part of the proposals.

USD30,000 in grant funds will be shared among three chosen projects, which are expected to take place in 2016.

Deadline for submission of applications is on Jan. 4, 2016. For more details, visit this page.