Thanks, Kevin.
One of our signature investments is the Facebook-Canadian Press news fellowship, which began in 2020 as a program of $1 million to create eight new local journalism positions across Canada. CP publishes the fellows' stories to its wire service, making the work available for distribution to more than 1,000 Canadian news outlets in the CP network, in both official languages.
In January 2021, based on the early success of this program, we expanded it to include two new positions for emerging indigenous reporters, bringing the total net new journalism positions we've created to 10. Last week, we announced a three-year renewal of the Facebook-Canadian Press news fellowship.
For COVID, we announced in April 2020 a total of $1 million in grants to support Canadian and U.S. local news organizations covering the coronavirus. Eighty-one Canadian publishers each received a $5,000 U.S. grant to cover unexpected costs associated with reporting on the crisis in their communities. They included The Coast, Halifax's weekly; The Temiskaming Speaker from New Liskeard, Ontario; Peterborough Currents; La Gazette de la Mauricie, from Trois-Rivières; Autour de l'île, from Sainte-Pierre-de-l'Île d'Orléans; Clark's Crossing Gazette, in Warman, Saskatchewan; Le Franco, from Edmonton; and Medicine Hat News.
Facebook's accelerator program helps news publishers navigate the digital transition to build sustainable businesses. Since May 2019, 15 Canadian publishers have participated in the accelerator program, including Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, La Presse, The Brunswick News, the Winnipeg Free Press, Le Soleil, Glacier Media, The Discourse, the Daily Hive, Northern News Services, The Tyee, The Narwhal, The Sprawl and Village Media.
Paul Samyn, editor-in-chief of the Winnipeg Free Press, has stated, “The key impact to date” of working with the accelerator program “is that we've been able to share a new vision for a profitable future based on online audience growth at both the executive level of the company, as well as with our board of directors and ownership group.”
I'll now turn it over to Kevin for some closing remarks.