Ryerson University’s School of Journalism and social media company Facebook have joined forces to launch an incubator for Canada-based spinouts related to the digital news sector, Metro reported yesterday.
The program aims to support early-stage journalism businesses and offset a rise of falsified information shared on social media, commonly referred to as fake news.
Facebook will work with Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone incubator as well as the journalism school to provide participants with both funding and mentorship. Additional details are expected to be disclosed later this year.
One forthcoming ethics seminar for Ryerson students in October 2017 will discuss the best way to report on extremism responsibly.
In January 2017, Facebook launched the Facebook Journalism Project to strengthen its ties with the news industry. The project hopes to explore new business models for news published on the Facebook website.
Charles Falzon, dean of Ryerson’s Faculty of Communications and Design, said: “The issues are real, but I also think the importance of what a journalist is has also been growing.
“The discussion has been about new ways of distributing journalism, new ways of connecting with audiences and so on.
“But at the same time, the fundamental questions of journalistic method, of truth, of the integrity and professionalism of journalism are also foundational.”
