Ahead of the Lok Sabha Election 2019, Google News Initiative, in partnership with DataLeads and Internews, on Thursday announced the launch of a training series (PollCheck: Covering India’s Election) to support journalists covering India’s election.
The Google News Initiative will host training sessions in 30 cities between February 26 – April 6, 2019, across the country in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Bangla, Kannada, Gujarati, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi, Google said in a statement here.
The Initiative will offer training on online verification and fact-checking, journalist digital safety and security, YouTube for elections coverage and data visualization for elections.
“The Google News Initiative is proud to be supporting journalists in India as they prepare to cover the upcoming elections,” it said.
Since 2016, Google has trained more than 13,000 journalists in 40 cities across the country , said Irene Jay Liu, Google News Lab Lead, Asia-Pacific.
Registration for the program is now open and it’s free.
Working journalists and freelancers can apply from today and slots will be given on first come, first served basis.
The workshop will also be open to journalism students.
Last year, to support trusted and authoritative journalism, Google had launched the Google News Initiative India Training Network, focused on online verification and fact-checking.
In six months, the Network on boarded 241 trainers in seven languages, who have so far trained 5260 journalists across 40+ cities in the country.
For 2019, Google plans to train another 10,000 journalists in India under this program. (UNI)
Training the journos ahead of polls, a google effort
