Supporting journalists to supercharge their reporting using online tools and technology is the focus of a renewed training collaboration between Google News Initiative (GNI) and Australian Associated Press (AAP).
An expanded second year of the Digital Skills Training partnership, the partnership builds on 50 free sessions delivered to newsrooms across Australia in 2022/23. It also continues the work previously conducted by Google's Teaching Fellows.
With a focus on journalists working outside major metropolitan newsrooms, the training aims to build on baseline digital skills while encouraging engaging fact-based journalism.
The year-long initiative will include free online and in-person sessions delivered by AAP's newsroom innovation trainer and former Google Fellow, Neil Varcoe. He draws on 20 years of work at the intersection of tech and news media, and expertise training journalists in newsrooms and universities around Australia.
"AAP has a long history of supporting the Australian media landscape, and together with Google, we're thrilled to offer a revamped training curriculum that is incredibly practical and relevant," said AAP CEO Lisa Davies.
"Small or under-resourced newsrooms may find it challenging to routinely provide professional development, so these sessions remove some of the barriers to ensuring their journalists are across the tools and technologies to take their reporting to the next level."
Google News Lab lead Uma Patel said the GNI has trained almost 10,000 journalists in Australia and Google is looking forward to partnering with AAP to continue supporting journalists' digital skills in the newsroom.
"Audiences, journalists and news publishers all benefit when stories are told in an engaging, innovative manner and I'm excited to see what journalists do with the skills they learn in the sessions," said Patel.
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