Google has launched a new initiative called News Labs which is looking to help journalists sharpen their digital skills for reporting. "From Maps to YouTube to Fusion Tables to Earth to Search, we offer many tools that newsrooms can use in their reporting and storytelling. Now, journalists around the world can access tutorials on these products created specifically for newsrooms," Steve Grove, director of News Labs said in a blog post. The new platform gives journalists a number of tools in the form of tutorials on how to better research, report, distribute and optimize stories for the Internet. The website also has a Data section which showcases some the best visualizations of data-driven journalism across the globe using Google Trends. Google Trends was recently updated and now has real-time data, and incorporates feedback we collected from newsrooms and data journalists around the world News Labs has also partnered with a number of programs to help journalists and includes: - Matter, a startup accelerator and VC with a mission to “change media for good” - The European Journalism Centre in Brussels, Hamburg and London which have a formal partnership with Google - The Center for Investigating Reporting which will produce a global series of events called TechRaking, dedicated to the intersection of journalism, technology, and design - There's also First Draft, YouTube Newswire and the Witness Media Lab which is YouTube's journalism forays to help with the discovery and verification eyewitness news videos on the platform. Competition from other technology platforms It’s worth noting that Twitter has been trying…
