Pacific nations journalists to join award-winning digital news training program

Journalists from Pacific nations will be provided with the latest tools in digital reporting in an expansion of the award-winning training program established by News Corp Australia and Google.

Tavuli News cadet Bradford Noda is looking forward to ‘being able to learn from other peer colleagues’.

Journalists from Pacific nations will be provided with the latest tools and techniques in digital story­telling and social media to assist with keeping the public informed in an era of increased digital publishing, in an expansion of News Corp Australia and ­Google’s award-winning training program.

Thirteen journalists and newsroom leaders from the Post Courier in Papua New Guinea, The Fiji Times, the Fiji Sun, Cook Islands TV and Herald, Tavuli News in the Solomon Islands and the Pacific Media Network will join reporters from a broad range of news organisations across Australia, the US and Britain for the next intake of The Digital News Academy.

The nine-month digital news training program, established in 2022 by NCA and Google Australia and delivered by Melbourne Business School, equips journalists with the skills required to thrive in the modern era and has a special focus on regional and community journalism, with a view to countering the problem of “news deserts” in these areas.

Journalists will gain skills in mobile journalism, multichannel and vertical storytelling, social media, statistics, data journalism, graphics and how to engage and grow audiences.

They will also learn how to use Google’s Pinpoint AI research tool for journalists, as well as techniques for verifying sources, information, images and videos.

Tavuli News cadet Bradford Noda, who will undertake the program, said he was looking forward to “being able to learn from other peer colleagues”.

“Our vision is to lead the way at a time of digital transformation, and this will help me fulfil our company’s vision,” Mr Noda said.

News Corp Australia’s group executive of corporate affairs, policy and government relations Campbell Reid said he was delighted the partnership could make a “tangible contribution to helping the story of the Pacific to be told in new ways”.

“One of the most striking things we have learned through the DNA program is that the smaller the newsroom, the bigger the impact,” he said.

“In operations where there is no separate video or audio team or tech support, the skills the DNA shares dramatically empowers individual journalists to tell stories in new ways to reach more people. We have found that effective mobile journalism using the ubiquitous technology of the mobile phone can play a role preserving the coverage of under-resourced areas in Australia; I am sure we will find the same in the Pacific as people embrace the DNA’s practical skills.”

DNA director Sonja Heydeman said digital storytelling skills were valuable for all journalists, and could be “incredibly useful in smaller, rural, regional and culturally and linguistically ­diverse newsgroups”. NCA, Google and MBS’s move to expand their digital journalism training program to the Pacific comes amid calls for the Australian government to designate Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, under the news media bargaining code.

Designation would force Meta to negotiate payment for news content with media companies, or risk fines of up to 10 per cent of its local revenue. Earlier this year, Meta refused to renew its existing payment-for-contentdeals with Australian news outlets, a move that will drain hundreds of millions of dollars from the industry.

That move led to significant job cuts across the Australian media sector, and raised concerns about the resourcing of public interest journalism and its ability to counter misinformation and disinformation on social media.