The Google reporting toolkit
Be ninjas of search and interrogators of metadata
Irene Jay Liu, APAC lead of Google News Lab, shed some light on some of the best tools at journalists’ disposal for research, verifying leads and news sources, at her Storyology talk “The New Reporting Toolkit”, in Sydney this afternoon.
In this media environment, technology must be meshed with quality reporting and storytelling.
“Journalists and technologists have to work together in order for the world to become more informed,” Liu said.
That includes Google, of course.
We all use Google search. But journalists should learn to become search ninjas. It’s important, she said, for the search engines to “understand” what you are trying to find. Be specific. Eliminate the unnecessary.
“Google Advanced Search can unlock those hidden details for journalists, that thing you’re looking for that may lead to something else.”
“Even with all these sources available to us there is rarely a “silver bullet”,” she said, “but knowing how to use all of these tools properly can … often help you gain leverage for a story,” Liu said.
Liu’s informative and extensive list of Google and connected online tools delved deeper into the online universe available to journalists and offer a strong reminder of how much information is at our fingertips.
Her tricks ranged from finding data meant only for ‘confidential’ business conference employees, to verifying photographs and videos, and even locating a document that has been removed from a website.
She urged journalists to explore metadata in their research, using the example of a Reuters story where data on the movement patterns of fishing trawlers in a certain area were used in an investigation on the diminishing fish populations in our oceans.
