Google has launched an online lab for journalists on Monday. Using this online lab, journalists can learn and hone up Internet Age reporting skills. The News Lab has the aim to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to apply technology innovations to reporting news.
The lab director Steve Grove said in a blog post, Google will be offering many tools from Maps to YouTube to Fusion Tables to Earth to Search. These tools can be used by the newsroom for reporting and storytelling.
Now, journalists around the world can access tutorials on these products created specifically for newsrooms, he added. The News Lab home page includes multiple options like research, reporting, distribution and analytic tools.
Also, Google has been working with partners on programs focused on imagining the future of news and information, as well as on empowering new voices in the media. The partners in this innovative project included the Hacks/Hackers grassroots network of journalists and technologists with a pilot project of re-imagining the future of news reporting.
“As both the media landscape and technology continue to evolve, we believe we can create a more informed world if technologists and journalists work together,” Grove said.
News Lab was a product of global effort launched with teams in Britain, France, Germany and the United States.
YouTube Newswire plans were announced last week by YouTube. This will feature eyewitness videos and a separate project on videos related to social justice and human rights. For this feature, YouTube has partnered with a social news group Storyful. A blog post from the video sharing site stated that the YouTube Newswire will be a curated feed of the most newsworthy eyewitness videos of the day, which have been verified by Storyful’s team of editors.
With the Newswire, we hope to provide journalists with an invaluable resource to discover news video around major events, and to highlight eyewitness video that offers new perspectives on important news stories, the post further stated.
