Google releases new tools for journalists

Jun 23, 2015 08:49 GMT  ·  By

Google has been on a mission to refurbish journalists with new tools for their daily jobs, aiming to firmly establish itself as a solid source for discovering news leads, carrying out in-depth research, and verifying eyewitness accounts.

This doesn't mean the company's tools weren't used before, but now Google is actually catering to the journalism market by providing reporters with a resource center where they can improve their skills and grow at their job.

Tools like YouTube, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Alerts, Google News, Google Trends, and Google Search have always been used by journalists, and now the list will be expanded with Google News Lab.

Google News Lab focuses on the reporter, not the reader

This latest Google product can be considered a journalist's training ground, a portal where he can go and learn about the ins and outs of his job, while also learning to use Google's products to better suit his end purpose, and that's to break and/or verify news in this fast-paced, ever-changing online world.

The site is packed with tutorials, training videos, and case studies, all from which reporters can learn to do their job from the world's most famous news agencies, like The New York Times, CNN, or The Guardian.

Google News Lab also provides access to a series of programs and experiments, three of which were launched only last week when YouTube Newswire, the First Draft coalition and WITNESS Media Lab were announced.

Last week we also saw Google premiering a redesigned Google Trends dashboard, which compared to the previous version also granted access to real-time search data, integrating it with popular news stories.

Google had a plan all along

Now looking back, we can see this update as part of Google's master plan, Google Trends being featured on News Lab's portal as a way for journalists to discover news stories and also embed Google's data in their reports, providing more powerful storylines backed up by real, verifiable information from Google's own servers.

If stepping back for a moment and analyzing how Google put News Lab together, we see a clear vision of how various of the company's offerings can work together and provide tools that can revolutionize basic news reporting.

We only hope Google launches more of these initiatives, putting their sometimes disparate services to work for a common cause, blending their features together with the sole purpose of simplifying your day-to-day life.