Madhav Chinnappa
Strategy Director, News Partnerships, Google
Tackling fake news, and repairing Google’s relationship with the news industry – offering strategic advice, and even cash investment
Madhav Chinnappa is the senior executive at Google responsible for their relationship with the news industry. After 9 years at the BBC leading their commercial team, he joined the ‘wonderfully crazy company’ and deliberately became ‘the most technically dumb guy at Google’ to boost their understanding of the media ecosystem beyond a tech-only approach. In this in-depth interview, he talks through their Digital News Initiative – offering expertise, and even cash investment through their Innovation Fund; discusses the huge complexity of complying with the laws of hundreds of countries; and outlines their initiative to tackle fake news – ensuring perpetrators don’t profit, and marking search results which have been fact checked.