The Google News Lab (Google News Initiative) is a global team at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

whose mission is to “collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to help build the future of media”. Launched in 2015, the team works with news organizations to help address industry challenges by providing training and access to emerging technologies for reporting and storytelling. The Google News Lab was added to the Google News Initiative when it launched in 2018.

Impact

Combating misinformation

Google News Lab was a founding partner of the

fact-checking Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such che ...

coalition

First Draft First Draft News was a project "to fight mis- and disinformation online" founded in 2015 by nine organizations brought together by the Google News Lab. It included Facebook, Twitter, the Open Society Foundations and several philanthropic organiz ...

, which launched in 2015. In 2017, Google helped First Draft launch new collaborative reporting models to verify news stories during the UK, French and German elections. The News Lab also provides free training for journalists in how to "discover and debunk false news and misinformation," both in-person and on it
training website
As part of its

Digital News Initiative The Digital News Initiative is a European organisation created by Google to "support high-quality journalism through technology and innovation". It encompasses an "Innovation Fund" worth €150m, which in 2018 issued grants to 461 projects at news ...

, Google has introduced the Journalist Studio with tools such as Pinpoint, an AI-based tool built to help journalists find and verify stories, and The Common Knowledge Project, a way for journalists to explore, visualize and share data about important issues in their communities.

Newsroom diversity

In 2017, the Google News Lab partnered with the

American Society of News Editors The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) was a membership organization for editing, editors, news director, producers or directors in charge of journalistic organizations or departments, Dean (education), deans or faculty at Journalism school, ...

(ASNE) on its annual Newsroom Employment Diversity Survey. The survey showed how hundreds of

newsroom A newsroom is the central place where journalists—reporters, editing, editors, and Television producer, producers, associate producers, news anchors, news designers, photojournalists, videojournalists, associate editor, residence editor, visu ...

s across the U.S. had changed since 2001. It also compared newsroom diversity counts to census data to show how newsrooms compare to their local area in terms of race and gender.

Local news

The News Lab has trained more than 9,000 local reporters in the U.S. through a partnership with the

Society for Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

. Training programs for local newsrooms also exist in Europe, the

Asia Pacific Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Criticism

The Google News Lab and Google's

have been criticized as buy-offs of the newsrooms after its advertising

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

led to countless layoffs in newsrooms.

References

External links

* {{Journalism News Lab Organizations established in 2015 Internet properties established in 2015 American journalism organizations