Facebook to Fund News Programming, Including CNN’s Anderson Cooper

Facebook will launch a set of “fully funded” news shows on their platform, including a twice-weekly show from far-left news outlet Mic, and a “nightly show hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper,” in an effort to crackdown on “fake news.”

According to the Wrap, the shows will accompany the launch of Facebook Watch, and “despite being paid for by Facebook, will have ‘full editorial control.'”

The lineup includes ABC News’ On Location, Advance Local’s Chasing Corruption, ATTN’s Undivided ATTN, CNN’s Anderson Cooper Full Circle, Fox News’ Fox News Update, Mic’s Mic Dispatch, and Univision’s Real America with Jorge Ramos.

“Earlier this year we made a commitment to show news that is trustworthy, informative, and local on Facebook. As a part of that commitment, we are creating a dedicated section within Watch for news shows produced exclusively for Facebook by news publishers,” declared Facebook’s Head of Global News Partnerships, Campbell Brown. “With this effort, we are testing a destination for high quality and timely news content on the platform.”

“This first lineup of funded shows includes news publishers from broadcast to digital native, national and local. The shows will be hosted by award-winning journalists, as well as new faces, and the formats will vary from a mix of daily briefings, weekly deep dives, and live breaking news coverage,” Brown explained. “They’ll debut later this summer, and we’ll announce additional shows in the coming weeks. We will work closely with our publisher partners to experiment with these different formats to understand what works, and they will have full editorial control of their shows.”