To boost election reporting in the age of digital media, the University of the Philippines through the College of Mass Communication/Journalism Department will conduct The Philippines Elections Workshop Series for newsroom editors and journalists, with a focus on data-driven stories, website and social media tracking.
The workshop series will offer new media skills for election coverage — from finding ideas on Google Trends, producing data-driven stories, conducting investigations on political ads, to producing your newsroom’s best election coverage on YouTube. These workshops aim to offer a breadth of new skills to fully equip journalists before polling day.
The trainers are award-winning journalists Craig Silverman of ProPublica and Kuek Ser Kuang Keng of Rainforest Investigations Network established by the Pulitzer Center, Trinna Leong of Google News Lab’s first Southeast Asia teaching fellow, and YouTube’s News and Civics head Joyce Hau. The series is supported by Google News Initiative.
Journalists from print, broadcast and online news organizations are encouraged to sign up for one of the two cohorts, with the following schedule: Cohort 1 (Feb. 21 – Feb. 23 and Feb. 28 – March 2) and Cohort 2 (March 4 and 5). Registration is free but slots are limited.
Registration information
Register for the Philippines Election Workshop Series via the links below. A registration confirmation email and a calendar invite will be sent to you following the close of registration. Due to the limited slots, this workshop series is only available to media practitioners in the Philippines and representatives from current Tsek.ph partners. It will require the use of a laptop to fully utilize the tools.
Cohort 1 : Registration Link: bit.ly/UPElectionWorkshop
• Feb 21 (Mon): 9am-10.30am: Google Trends for Elections
• Feb 22 (Tue): 9am-10.30am: Investigating Websites
• Feb 23 (Wed): 9am-10.30am: Investigating Digital Ads
• Feb 28 (Mon): 9am-10.30am: Data Analysis for Elections
• Mar 1 (Tue): 9am-10.30am: Data Visualization for Elections
• Mar 2 (Wed): 9am-10.30am: YouTube for Election Coverage
Cohort 2 : Registration Link: bit.ly/UPElectionWorkshop
• Mar 4 (Fri): 9am-10.30am: Data Analysis for Elections
10.45am-12.15pm: Data Visualization for Elections
2pm-3.30pm: Google Trends for Elections
• Mar 5 (Sat): 9am-10.30am: Investigating Websites
10.45am-12.15pm: Investigating Digital Ads
2pm-3.30pm: YouTube for Election Coverage
Speaker Information
Trinna Leong is Google News Lab’s first Southeast Asia Teaching Fellow. A former correspondent covering the triple beat of politics, economy and general news, her work over the decade has appeared in Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal and The Straits Times.
In her role at Google, she is running newsroom training across an incredibly diverse market spanning different cultures and languages. Much of her work now at Google involves building stronger digital skill sets, raising work efficiency and developing fact-checking knowledge among local reporters and editors.
Joyce Hau manages partnerships with news organizations for YouTube in Asia Pacific. She leads YouTube’s efforts to elevate authoritative news sources on the video platform in the region, as well as various initiatives to help the news ecosystem thrive on YouTube. Prior to this role, Joyce was part of Google’s Communications team for 8 years where she worked on Google Search, Hardware, and YouTube.
Kuek Ser Kuang Keng is the data editor of the Rainforest Investigations Network established by the Pulitzer Center. He is also a data journalism trainer and media consultant based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Partnering with regional journalism organizations including Google News Initiatives, WAN-IFRA and Internews, he has been conducting regular digital journalism workshops since 2018, reaching over 1,000 journalists in Asia. He also provides consulting and mentoring to media organizations in data, visual and interactive journalism.
Craig Silverman is an award-winning journalist and author and one of the world’s leading experts on online disinformation, fake news, and digital investigations. He recently joined ProPublica as a reporter investigating voting, platforms, disinformation, and online manipulation. He’s also the editor of the European Journalism Centre’s Verification Handbook series.
Craig previously served as media editor of BuzzFeed News, where he pioneered coverage of digital disinformation and media manipulation. He received a George Polk Award in 2021 for a series of articles about Facebook, and is the recipient of the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association, which honors “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics.” His 2019 series exposing a global Facebook advertising scam was also named investigation of the year by the Canadian Association of Journalists.
The Philippines Election Workshop Series is an extension project of the University of the Philippines System under the Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs and the Department of Journalism. For more information, please contact Prof. Rachel Khan, DPA ([email protected]), OIC, College of Mass Communication Office of the Dean or Associate Professors Yvonne Chua ([email protected]) and Maria Diosa Labiste, PhD ([email protected]) of the Journalism Department.
(This article was first published in the UP System Website on February 7, 2022)