Supporting trusted, authoritative journalism is a top priority for Google, which is why we are proud to announce the launch of the Google News Initiative Training Network in India in partnership with BoomLive, DataLeads and Internews.
This training network aims to support journalists from across India in their fight against misinformation, providing in-depth and hands-on verification training to 8000 journalists across English and six other Indian languages over the next one year. The training will equip them with best-in-class skills required to debunk fake news.
The Network will select 200 journalists from cities across India, who will hone their skills in verification and training during 5-day train-the-trainer boot camps. They will be trained in-person by global verification experts and top Indian fact-checkers, including First Draft, Storyful, AltNews, BoomLive, Factchecker.in and DataLeads.
The network of certified trainers will train more journalists in and around their region at 2-day, 1-day and half-day workshops organised by the Network. Training workshops will be conducted in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada in cities across India.
The network of certified trainers will train more journalists in and around their region at 2-day, 1-day and half-day workshops organised by the Network. Training workshops will be conducted in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada in cities across India.
If you are a newsroom, press club or journalism college interested in joining this fight against misinformation and hosting one of these trainings for your teams/ members/ students, please share your interest here.
If you are a journalist or journalism professor keen to join this fight against misinformation by learning verification skills and techniques from these experts, please apply here. Applications are considered on a rolling basis, with limited seats for each language.
There will be three rounds of applications to become a Google-certified trainer:
- Round 1: Deadline is July 5 for the first English train-the-trainer boot camp, which will be held in Gurugram from July 30-August 3
- Round 2: Deadline is July 15 for trainers in Hindi, Kannada and Tamil and English
- Round 3: Deadline is September 15 for trainers in Telugu, Marathi and Bengali and English
Separate train-the-trainer boot camps will be organised for English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali journalists across cities in India starting end of July:
Selected trainers will be alerted about the dates and venue of the boot camp via email. The Network will take care of your flights, accommodation and transfers to and from the venue for these 5 days and for any travel, if needed, to workshops that will be organised by the network. Trainers will be entitled to a stipend to compensate for the time they will need to commit to do trainings.
When journalists and communities work together, armed with the online tools to verify information, they can build a bulwark of trusted media to fight the tide of misinformation.
More power to fact-checking!
By Irene Jay Liu, News Lab Lead, APAC