Google opens PollCheck Election Academy 2023 programme for journalists in India

Google will offer the training in 15 languages including Kannada, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, and more.

With at least five assembly polls due this year and the big general election next summer of 2024 in India, Google has opened new digital programme to train journalists for better poll coverage.

Titled PollCheck Election Academy 2023, is the fourth and largest yet edition of this training programme conducted jointly by Google's News Initiative India Training Network, in collaboration with DataLEADS and In Old News.

The search engine giant will offer the training in 15 languages including Kannada, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.

The programme is a three-part training that will help journalists very facts, on how to do online verification and improve their video storytelling, digital safety, media literacy and data journalism. Also, on how they can leverage YouTube to offer news, among others. Interested news organisation can sign up for the training on the website (here).

But first, with five states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram--in focus, as they are set for poll later this year, Google is slated to forganise a full-day, in-person sessions from September 8 to 22.

Later in the month from September 29, it will host three in-person PollCheck Digital Accelerator events in Delhi / NCR for advanced learning on digital investigations and fact-checking, data verification, video story-telling for elections, countering misinformation and online safety.

Interested journalists can register for the training at Google's official website (here). And, for the PollCheck Accelerator programme, readers can apply on this site (here)

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