4 APAC Publishers Share Impact of Splice Lights On Emergency Funds

In Asia, news organisations of all shapes and sizes have endured the business and social impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. A survey of financial conditions at media companies conducted earlier in the year by Splice Media, a self-funded start up reporting on Asia-Pacific newsrooms, showed that over 40% of media organisations expected to start cutting jobs in 2020.¹

As COVID-19 hit, the Facebook Journalism Project and Splice Media announced an emergency funding program to support independent newsrooms in Asia-Pacific: The Splice Lights On Fund, which has awarded 56 microgrants of US$5,000 to news organisations in the region. For many recipients, these essential funds have kept the lights on and journalists on the payroll. Importantly, they’ve directly helped Asia’s freelancers, an integral part of the news ecosystem.

Thanks to The Splice Lights On Fund, many journalists have been able to capture the pandemic’s human stories, from the way COVID-19 has impacted women to the plight of rural doctors as they fight to keep their communities safe.

Alan Soon, Splice Media co-founder said, “we’re lucky to have been able to play our part in supporting newsrooms and independent journalists across Asia in an incredibly difficult year. Thank you Facebook Journalism Project for making this happen, and for standing behind this community.”

At The Current in Pakistan, freelancers captured this video story of a doctor operating in one of the poorest areas of Karachi. This moving piece shows the Doctor out in his community and working from his clinic - one of the only medical facilities in the area. The story highlights his battle to keep this vulnerable community safe during the pandemic.

“We are so utterly grateful for this grant. It has helped us in very tough times, allowing us to commission stories that would not have been possible otherwise.” said Marium Chaudhry, founder of The Current. “We have made sure that raising awareness about the virus has been connected to almost all of our recent work - including food reviews and social experiments. We are focused on being the outlet that is factually accurate and making coronavirus data and information the easiest to understand.”

Splice Lights On funds allowed Eguur, an independent news site from Mongolia, to experiment with new formats and capture important stories such as this one about 10,000 Mongolian nationals unable to return home during the pandemic, as well as the plight of over 2,000 drivers living in Zamiyn-uud (a border town) during COVID-19. With borders closed, the livelihoods of these drivers have completely disappeared.

Myadagbadam Jarantai, editor-in-chief at Eguur.mn, Logoo LLC shared, “Although we have allotted the funding to freelancers, it has been a great encouragement to our team.“ She notes that in Mongolia, “The news cycle has been limited to an 11am press conference organized by the Health Ministry. We have brought new angles and new characters and voices to the news cycle. We are grateful to Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development for helping us apply for the grant, as well as the Facebook Journalism Project and Splice Media."

Magdalene, a publication targeting young women in Indonesia, used its Splice Lights On funds to generate stories that shine a light on the challenges women are facing during the pandemic. This includes stories exploring divorcing in the time of the pandemic and the rise of domestic violence in families.

“We also used the funding to launch our Safe Space program, a campaign to cover all aspects of domestic and gender-based online violence, particularly in the time of pandemic, which has seen a significant increase of both types of violence,” said Devi Asmarani, editor-in-chief of Magdalene.

Mariah Binti Ahmad, founder and editor of Malaysian esports publication What’s the Meta Today (WTM Today) used the funds to help scale content efforts during the pandemic. Domestic lockdowns during COVID-19 delivered a spike in esports activity in Malaysia and beyond. Thanks to the Splice Lights On Fund, Mariah was able to experiment with new content formats and deliver behind-the-scenes stories to house-bound esports fans.

“This fund allowed me to document how esports stakeholders have been dynamically adapting and finding new workable strategies to keep their business running despite the pandemic.” Said Mariah. “PUBG Mobile Pro League (Malaysia and Singapore - held in March 2020), was one of the most successful esports events of the year, despite all tournament players participating from home. This fund also helped me train new talent, creating a window of opportunity for WTM Today to explore the world of esports journalism.”

The Facebook Journalism Project supports The Splice Lights On Fund as part of our commitment to help build a more sustainable future for news that connects people to quality, trusted, and local news that is important to them.