Google News Initiative launches pan-India training series for journalists covering the upcoming elections

New Delhi: Ahead of the Lok Sabha Election 2019, Google News Initiative, in partnership with DataLeads and Internews, today announced the launch of a training series (PollCheck: Covering India’s Election) to support journalists covering India’s election. 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. 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. Our partners DataLeads and Internews will offer training on online verification and fact-checking and other courses, in 30 cities in 10 languages. Since 2016, Google has trained more than 13,000 journalists in India, across 200+ newsrooms and in 40 cities,” 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.

Since 2016, Google has trained more than 13,000 journalists in India, across 200+ newsrooms and in 40 cities under the newslab program. 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 onboarded 241 trainers in seven languages, who have so far trained 5260 journalists across 40+ cities in India, benefitting 200+ newsrooms and universities. For 2019, Google plans to train another 10,000 journalists in India under this program.

For more information about Google News Initiative “PollCheck: Covering India’s Election” and to register, please click on the city below.

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