Google Tools training for journalists coming to Knoxville

SPJ Training Program in association with Google News Initiative

Don’t miss an upcoming free training opportunity in Knoxville for journalists.

The East Tennessee chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is bringing SPJ’s Google Tools training to town on Saturday, June 2.

The four-hour session begins at 10 a.m. at the Scripps Lab, 1345 Circle Park Drive, on the University of Tennessee campus.

While free, registration is required. Sign up here: https://bit.ly/2IJ1cCR

Participants need to bring a laptop and phone to the session.

SPJ Trainer Mike Reilley, founder of SPJ’s Journalists Toolbox.

The instructor will be Mike Reilley, founder of SPJ’s Journalists Toolbox, a treasure-trove of journalism resources.

Reilley (@journtoolbox) is a visiting professor in data journalism and digital journalism at the University of Illinois-Chicago and is a consultant to national media organizations on digital innovation.

This innovative training is made possible by the Google News Initiative and the Society of Professional Journalists.

The Google News Initiative partnered with SPJ in 2015 to teach Google digital tools for news and storytelling at conferences, workshops and newsrooms across the country. Google and SPJ are committed to training as many journalists as possible.

This intensive course will help make you be a better digital journalist, teaching you how to take advantage of Internet sources for researching court cases, public data and news archives, among other sources. It is designed to improve the efficiency and efficacy of your in-depth research.

Here is an outline for the course.

10 a.m. to 10:55 a.m.: Google basics, Google Trends, Google Reverse Image Search and verification tools, Google Scholar. Fun with Google AutoDraw.com and what else is coming in AI with Google Lens.

11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.: Deep Dive Google MyMaps. Data scraping with Google Sheets, scraping .PDFs with Tabula. Google Public Data Explorer

12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m.: Lunch and learn: Mobile reporting tools, including Google Cardboard Camera and Google Streetview app.

1 p.m. to 2 p.m.: Google Earth Pro, Earth Engine Timelapse tool, Street View.

Have questions? Email me at jack@jacklail.com

SPJ Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie to speak in Knoxville

Alison Bethel McKenzie, the new executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists, will speak to the East Tennessee SPJ chapter on May 10.

Alison Bethel McKenzie, SPJ executive director.

McKenzie, the first African-American to serve as SPJ executive director, will speak at 7 p.m. at the Knoxville Entreprenuer Center, 17 Market Square Suite 10 (in the building where the Knoxville Chamber is).

She was named the 20th executive director of the national journalism organization in February.

A native of Miami, she was executive director of the International Press Institute for five years. The Institute is the world’s oldest global press freedom organization and is based in Vienna.

She was the first American, first woman and first African-American to to be its executive director since it was founded in 1950, according to an SPJ news release.

She has worked as a visiting professor of print and investigative journalism at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore, India.

Bethel McKenzie was a Knight International Journalism Fellow in Ghana in 2008-09, managing director of the Nassau Guardian in the Bahamas in 2007 and executive editor of the Legal Times in Washington, D.C., in 2006-07.

She has also worked at The Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald.

Early in her career, she worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Louisiana, New York and Michigan. She was deputy business editor and senior assistant city editor at The Boston Globe and Washington Bureau Chief for The Detroit News.

Bethel McKenzie is a journalism graduate of Howard University She studied non-profit leadership at Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education and is nearing completion of an MBA in media leadership at the University of Cumbria (U.K.) in collaboration with the Robert F. Kennedy College (Switzerland).

Please join us on May 10.

Google PhotoScan

This one has been around awhile — and it really does a good job. “Scan” old photo prints with your phone with Google PhotoScan. It actually stitches together five copies of a photo to create a digital copy.

This video explains some of the science behind this seemingly simple app.