The University of Philippines, through the university’s Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs and the Department of Journalism, will conduct the Philippines Elections Workshop Series for newsroom editors and journalists to ramp up knowledge on effective election coverage. This is supported by Google News Initiative.

The workshop series will offer a breadth of 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.

Interested media from print, broadcast and online news organizations must sign up via bit.ly/UPElectionWorkshop for the workshops scheduled on Feb. 21–Feb. 23 and Feb. 28–March 2 for the first cohort and March 4 and 5 for the second cohort.

The trainers are award-winning journalists Craig Silverman of ProPublica and KuekSerKuangKeng of Rainforest Investigations Network established by the Pulitzer Center, Trinna Leong as Google News Lab’s first Southeast Asia teaching fellow, and YouTube’s News and Civics head Joyce Hau.

“Due to the pandemic, covering this year’s elections will be heavily online. Journalists, especially those who are accustomed to face-to-face coverage, have to upgrade their skills to meet this new challenge,” said Dr. Rachel Khan, Acting Dean of the UP College of Mass Communication.

“Empowering journalists with the knowledge and tools they need regarding fact-checking and effective election coverage is important. It’s an honor to partner with the University of the Philippines and support their Philippines Elections Workshop Series for the upcoming 2022 national elections,” said Irene Jay Liu, APAC Lead, Google News Lab.