National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
By Dayo Emmanuel
Chairman of the Lagos Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Adeleye Ajayi has commended the Google News Lab for providing training for Lagos Journalists, saying Google tools will enhance capacity of journalists.
Welcoming participants to the second leg of the Google News Lab training organised by the NUJ and Google at D’Podium International Event Centre, Ikeja, Lagos yesterday, Ajayi said it is the kind of training his members have longed for.
“I welcome you all to this training, this is the kind of training journalists in Lagos have been looking forward to,” he affirmed.
Ajayi who commended Google for the initiative to build the capacity of Lagos journalists, added that about 150 journalists from various platforms have so far benefitted from the training in the first batch of the training.
“The last session was held about two weeks ago and about 150 journalists have so far participated. The training on fundamentals is very germane. I must commend the Lagos State journalists and Google News Lab on the success of the first leg of this training.
“I want to agree that this training will assist journalists to have better grasps on how to use these tools for researching and writing better stories,” Ajayi said.
Continuing, he said, the training will create room for advanced guide on search as well as enhancing the capacity of journalists to use research tools for verification of their findings.
“This training will bring speed and accuracy to the profession as they are very vital to news gathering and news reporting. It will also inculcate in the reporter factual reporting and updated knowledge of what is being reported,” he said, enjoining participants to make the best use of the training to improve their work.
He also appreciated the management of the Google News Lab. “My sincere gratitude goes to the management of Google News Lab for improving the skills of journalists not only in Nigeria and Africa but also worldwide,” he said.
The training which lasted for six hours featured two facilitators; Ken Macharia, a Kenyan journalist who facilitated from Kenya and Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade who was the anchor trainer in Nigeria.
The training, titled ‘Fundamentals and Verification for News’ was designed to assist members of the NUJ-Lagos to better grasp how to use Google’s digital tools for researching and reporting better stories.
It also exposed participants on tools to use in advanced search, image verification and fact checking necessary to authenticate contents and prevent fake news.
Participants learnt the use of Google tools to search for contents and how to filter through files of various formats. They also learnt using Google trends, advanced search tools, Google image reversal tool among many other Google tools.
Appreciating the organisers of the training on behalf of the participants, Mr. Jide Atunshe in his vote of thanks said, Google and NUJ Lagos must be commended for the synergy to enhance capacity of journalists.
“On behalf of all of us participants, I like to appreciate God for giving us the grace to be here, we also appreciate the Adeleye Ajayi-led NUJ for providing this platform for all of us today, we appreciate our facilitators, we can see that the training is unequalled in terms of contents, we cannot quantify it,” he said.
Continuing, he said, “I am very sure all of us have learnt and what we have learnt will stay with us for the rest of our lives. It will help us to be more productive.
“We also say that Google should extend this training to more of our colleagues so that more of us may come on board as we know that Google has more in stock that we can benefit from,” he said.
