Google and News Corp are creating more new jobs for regional journalists, launching the Digital News Academy.
The academy will exist as a partnership between the two companies and offer digital skill development to 750 local and regional news professionals from a variety of outlets.
According to Google and News Corp, the academy will focus on skills across digital journalism, video and audio production, data journalism, audience measurement, reader revenue, digital business models and marketing.
“The future of commercial news organisations rests on their ability to create and publish journalism that serves audiences in tangible, valuable ways and is consumed how and where those audiences choose,” said News Corp Australasia’s executive chairman Michael Miller [featured image].
“This task is the foundation mission as news organisations large and small develop business models built on high value journalism. I thank Google for working with News Corp Australia in establishing the academy and it’s further acknowledgment of journalism’s value and importance.”
Australia’s largest regional publisher ACM will also be involved with the program and will recieve both training and trainees.
“ACM is delighted to be involved in this initiative. The ongoing training and upskilling of our editorial teams to meet the ever changing demands on our consumers is a key priority for our business,” said ACM CEO Tony Kendall.
As well as providing training to current journalists, the Digital News Academy also promises to create new opportunities moving forward.
The academy will fund 60 new 12-month journalism traineeships in regional Australia over the next three years, News Corp and Google confirmed.
This latest News Corp/Google partnership comes just months after the two companies signed a deal as part of the Google News Showcase.
As well as providing News Corp with “significant” payments for news content used by Google, the deal also promised to see News Corp launch a new subscription platform, invest in video journalism for YouTube and share ad revenue via Google’s ad tech stack.
