Google cash will help keep publishers’ heads above water in a project to give them more time to innovate.

Newsrooms of three Australasian media companies – Nine, National Indigenous Times and NZME – are to work with the digital giant through its Google News Initiative.

Digital transformation and strategy consultancy Bastion Transform (above) – led by former ABC news director Gaven Morris – will coordinate the “live pilots”, focussing on business growth and editorial excellence “to support innovation and trusted journalism”.

The experiments – in the newsrooms of Nine Publishing, the National Indigenous Times and NZME’s BusinessDesk New Zealand – will “trial frameworks” with the results to be shared with the broader industry.

Morris (above with Uma Patel) says finding time and resources to step outside daily coverage is a struggle: “This project enables editors and journalists to raise their sights beyond their deadlines and explore long-term change.

“It’s essential,” he says. “It’s do or die.”

Experiments will focus on challenges and opportunities identified by the newsrooms including storytelling, resourcing, workflows, platforms, data and technology.

Nine Publishing executive editor Tory Maguire said the project was “an incredible opportunity to go exploring.

“There’s been a big shift in the way our audiences consume news, and the types of stories they’re demanding. If anyone has perfected the response to this, I’m yet to find out about it.”

At National Indigenous Times – a 20-year-old First Nations-owned print and digital publication – chief operating officer Reece Harley says they are a small team with big ideas: “We’ve never had the opportunity to be involved in a project like this.”

BusinessDesk general manager Matt Martel says the news media industry is now defined by winners and losers: “Newsrooms that embrace change are moving ahead and finding profit and success while those clinging to the past, or failing to be brave are falling behind. 

“It is a great time to be a journalist as long as you’re supported to take risks, think laterally and be ahead of the others,” he says.

Google says more newsrooms will get the chance to learn from the experimentation at the conclusion of the programme. “We want to see this resonate across the journalism industry. There’s never been more information on what engages audiences – excellent journalism matched with courageous exploration is the way to capture their minds,” says Google News Lab ANZ lead, Uma Patel. “I want to try things our newsroom has never ventured to do, across content and the way we operate. This is a high-return, low-risk project. 

“Even if one of the experiments comes off, it’s a success.”