News Brief: April Updates from the Google News Initiative
To underline our commitment to supporting high-quality journalism, we’ve developed a new training program designed to support hyperlocal publishers. In partnership with two high-profile nonprofits, Fundación Gabo and Chicas Poderosas, we announced a new hybrid pilot program to support regionally relevant, hyperlocal digital publishers across Spanish-speaking Latin America.
The Local & Digital Natives Program will provide training at scale and mentorship to newsroom leaders in 18 countries for four months, building knowledge and creating a new community around local media.
Providing media literacy resources to university students in Asia
In tandem with International Fact-Checking Day, we launched an Asia-wide verification challenge for university students. Five hundred and eighteen teams signed up for the two-week challenge, which provides an elementary guide to fact-checking and will be followed by verification workshops in May. In India, English and Hindi-language trainings will be provided in partnership with DataLEADS.
Developing new tools for news publishers through the GNI Innovation Challenge
Building on the Digital News Innovation Fund in Europe, GNI Innovation Challenges have supported more than 150 projects that inject new ideas into the news industry. Around the world, we’re learning from former Innovation Challenge recipients who are using their funding to drive innovation in news.