6,000 African journalists to benefit from Google digital programme   

• NASCAM educates practitioners on cyber security
Search giant, Google, will offer about 6,000 African journalists free Digital Journalism training within the next nine months, the Head, Training and Development at Google News Lab, Daniel Sieberg, made this known in a statement issued on last week in Lagos.

Sieberg said the training would be done in collaboration with the World Bank and Code for Africa, to equip journalists with data journalism skills within the nine months.

In a related development, the National Cyber Security Awareness Movement (NASCAM), a non-profit organisation, is organising a Master Class programme for Nigerian journalists in order to acquaint practitioners with the provisions of the Cybercrime Act 2015, as it relates to media practice, particularly online journalism.

The Executive Director, NASCAM, Aaron Ukodie, while announcing the plan to empower media practitioners with the requisite capacities for maintaining legal decorum online, said the theme of the workshop is: The Nigerian Cybercrime Law: What Journalists Need to Know. He said the training is fixed for June 23, in Lagos.

Meanwhile, Sieberg said the Google training would empower journalists in Africa by giving them the necessary support to better understand the web and how to use the available online.

According to him, the Code For Africa Digital Journalism Initiative will take place over the next nine months in 12 major African cities.

“The cities include Abuja, Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Casablanca, Dakar, Freetown, Dares Salaam, Kampala and Yaounde.

“Code For Africa is a data journalism and civic technology initiative operating across Africa that trains and supports journalists and civic activists to better understand and use web tools for news reporting and storytelling.

“Training will take place in three formats and beginning from June 15 and the in-person training sessions will be held in the cities mentioned above. In each city, we will conduct trainings in three newsrooms and trainings will be held twice a month for the duration of the initiative.

“Beginning from August, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will be made freely available online, covering a range of web concepts and practices for digital journalists,” he said.

Ukodie said the workshop became necessary following the fact that numerous media practitioners are not aware of the provisions of the law, regarding their practice such that many have recently fallen foul of the law.

“Going by the tracked trends, public officers, including the President, Vice President, governors, legislators (State and National Assembly members), judges and lawyers, corporate brands, CEOs and senior officials of organisations and religious leaders are vulnerable to the dearth of knowledge on the cybercrimes Act 2015 by the ‘citizen journalists’ on the prowl in Nigeria.