To prevent journalists from getting hoodwinked by fake news, Google India decided to train 8,000 journalists in English and six regional languages over the next one year.
Google News Initiative India Training Network will select 200 journalists from across India and train them during 5-day trainer boot camps.
These certified trainers will then train other journalists at two-day, one-day and half-day workshops organised by Google.
Google India says the workshops will be held in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada in cities across the country.
The focus of the training will be fact-checking, online verification and digital hygiene for journalists, using a curriculum built by experts from First Draft, Storyful, AltNews, BoomLive, Factchecker.in and DataLeads.
"Supporting trusted, authoritative media sources is a top priority for Google, which is why we are proud to collaborate with Internews, DataLeads and BoomLive to support journalists in their fight against misinformation in India," said Irene Jay Liu, Google News Lab Lead, Asia-Pacific.
"Our goal is to train more than 200 trainers, who will then train 8,000 journalists in six languages over the next year, making this Google's largest training network in the world," Liu added.
