Going with the Current: A Google News Lab Workshop

October 28, 2016

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Nick Whitaker, Media Outreach Manager at Google, spoke about strategies, trends and directions in data and information and tools that Google News Lab uses to help journalists and entrepreneurs change the future of media by organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful during 2016 Mass Comm Week.“This is a unique moment in the history of news,” Whitaker said as he opened the Wednesday afternoon session of Mass Comm Week on October 27, 2016. “There are a lot of labs popping up and people are trying new things. Industries are realizing that we should not place in one place forever. It should be adapting and changing.” Whitaker spoke about Google News Lab’s effort to empower innovation at the intersection of media and technology by sharing his experiences of collaborating with journalists and entrepreneurs to build the future of media with Google. While there are millions of ways of storytelling and understanding the information,Whitaker said “we do this in three ways: training and development, trends, and programs.”Whitaker also spoke about the importance of VR Journalism that virtual reality is a totally new medium of telling stories. “Interfaces are changing the way we see things. We need to come out from a comfort zone,” said Whitaker. “We need to change the mindset about anxiety into excitement about experimenting with technologies.” Whitaker emphasized that visual striking storytelling is flourishing like never before and encouraged journalism students with new opportunities for innovation in journalism. You can follow Nick Whitaker on Twitter at @googlenewslab. For more information about Google News Lab, visit the website g.co/newslab.