Cox Institute Joins the Google News Lab University Network

The James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership has joined a new university training network established by the Google News Lab.

The Cox Institute, a training and industry outreach unit of the Grady College’s Department of Journalism, will affiliate with an initial group of 46 universities from around the globe to form a collaborative forum for sharing resources and best practices on training with Google’s extensive set of tools for journalists and news organizations.

“The Google News Lab has become an important resource for news professionals plying their craft in the digital age. To have access to proprietary tools and resources for training Grady journalism students and faculty is an exceptional opportunity,” said Keith Herndon, director of the Cox Institute. “Becoming an affiliate of this network will add significant new resources and greatly expand our training agenda.”

Google News Lab said its new university network will promote knowledge sharing among its member schools and will feature exclusive training through both in-person and remote sessions. Also, members of the network will collaborate with Google News Lab on white papers and will provide feedback on Google products, project ideas and training curriculum.

“Journalism schools around the world are shaping the future of media by training the next generation of journalists in their classrooms,” wrote Nicholas Whitaker, a training and development manager at Google News Lab, in a blog post announcing the network. “At the News Lab, we believe Google’s tools like Google Search, Google Trends, Google Maps, Google Earth, and others can play a unique role in helping provide the skills necessary for these students to succeed in the newsrooms of tomorrow.”

The network will allow its members to use relationships the Google News Lab already has established with professional organizations such as the Society of Professionals Journalists. The Cox Institute will collaborate with SPJ to hold its first on-campus training session as part of the network on February 15, 2017.

For a complete list of the colleges and universities participating in the network’s initial cohort, please see the Google News Lab’s blog post.