Google is supporting Code for Africa Digital Journalism Initiative and World Bank to train 6,000 African journalists within the next nine months according to Daniel Seiberg, Head, Training and Development at Google News Lab. He made this known in a statement issued on Thursday in Lagos.He said that the training would take place in 12 major African cities and will empower journalists in Africa by giving them the necessary support to better understand the web and how to use resources online.
The cities include Abuja, Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Casablanca, Dakar, Freetown, Dares Salaam, Kampala and Yaounde. Code For Africa is a data journalism and civic technology initiative operating across Africa that trains and supports journalists and civic activists to better understand and use web tools for news reporting and storytelling.
Training will take place in three formats and beginning from June 15, the in-person training sessions will be held in the cities mentioned above.
In each city, we will conduct trainings in three newsrooms and trainings will be held twice a month for the duration of the initiative.
Beginning from August, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will be made freely available online, covering a range of web concepts and practices for digital journalists,” he said.
He also said that the monthly study group meet-ups would take place in Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda which will be held in collaboration with Hacks/Hackers to provide more focused, in-person instruction.
He said that in 2016, Google announced its commitment to train one million African youth within a year, to help them create and find jobs via the web and he believes this digital journalism training will be a massive contribution to the growth of Africa’s news and media ecosystem.