Google Nigeria to Train 100 Reporters & Editors on Poll Reporting for Elections

Ahead of the February national elections, Google Nigeria said on Wednesday in Lagos that it would train 100 journalists on poll reporting.

Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, Google’s Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Anglophone West Africa, said the workshop for poll reporting would be held in Lagos on Jan. 16.

The theme of the workshop, is “Data Tools for Elections Reporting’’, a statement by Kola-Ogunlade said.

It said the Google for elections workshop was a hands-on certificate programme with a focus on using social media tools, visualisation and citizen reporting tools in ‘unearthing’ and telling elections-based stories.

The statement said the training was hinged on the important role the social media and online journalism had played in helping to build a stable democracy resulting from informed voting.

The weeks leading to Nigeria’s 2015 general elections will present great opportunities for media people to innovate on their storytelling abilities through the use of online tools and social media, it said.

It said that participants would be taught the use of online tools such as fusion tables, polls, trends and tables to research and develop stories.

The statement also said journalists including editors, social media users, digital reporters would be equipped with skills in a bid to make them more proficient.

It is hoped that at the end of the training participants will be able to leverage on online digital tools for better election reporting.

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