Digital News Initiative geeft ruim 800.000 euro aan innovatieve, journalistieke projecten uit Nederland

Google’s Digital News Initiative (DNI) geeft ruim 800.000 euro uit aan journalistieke projecten uit Nederland waarmee de initiatiefnemers hun plannen kunnen verwezenlijken. De winnende projecten - 107 in totaal, onder wie zes uit Nederland - werden vanmiddag bekendgemaakt tijdens het Innovation Fund Event in het EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, waar honderden journalisten en andere mediamakers uit heel Europa op af zijn gekomen.

De winnende ideeën uit Nederland die financiële steun krijgen zijn onder andere de ontwikkeling van een slim, gepersonaliseerd radiostation, een betere manier om te volgen wat gekozen politici zeggen, een platform om journalisten en cartoonisten aan elkaar te koppelen en de blockchain als factchecker.

Digital News Initiative
Het Digital News Initiative werd twee jaar geleden opgezet en is een samenwerking tussen Google en Europese nieuwsuitgevers om journalistiek van hoge kwaliteit te stimuleren met behulp van technologie. Onderdeel van het DNI is het Innovation Fund van 150 miljoen euro, bedoeld om Europese initiatieven van de grond te krijgen met geld van Google. Vandaag publiceerde Google tevens een rapport waarin ontvangers van geld uit het fonds hun lessen en ervaringen delen.

Eerdere Nederlandse projecten die het Digital News Initiative heeft ondersteund zijn onder meer van ANP, Blendle, De Coöperatie, Follow the Money en NRC Media.

Overzicht van de Nederlandse projecten in ronde 3
BNR Nieuwsradio: BNR Smart Radio
BNR Smart Radio aims to provide listeners with a personalized playlist, filled with relevant and automatically generated audio fragments based on BNR’s radio shows and podcasts. Users can tell us their interests and we will match them with a database of automatically segmented audio files with a rich set of metadata, generated by a model based on the latest AI/ML techniques. This creates a non-linear and personalized listening experience for spoken word audio, catering to a new audience of younger listeners, while at the same time better serving our current listeners who are increasingly more interested in shorter bits of information instead of longer radio shows.

Open State Foundation: PoliFLW

With PoliFLW, journalists will be able to effectively follow large groups of politicians simultaneously in what they publicly say and do. It will extract, transform, combine and serve near real-time data from various sources to enable users to to search, monitor, follow, alert, notify and analyse the public behavior of a large group of elected politicians and their parties. This prototype will make it possible that an increased number of politicians can be monitored, including politicians who were normally out of view. It allows journalists to provide better coverage on niche topics, local politics, backbenchers and alternative or distinct local parties.

De Utrechtse Internet Courant, Design Innovation Group & Milvum: Blockchain as a fact checker

We foresee a landscape in which articles gain credibility likes and dislikes. Journalists may, moreover, boast of the credibility factor and therefore ascertain their crucial role. They are the crucial junction between fact and fiction and can again take their role as guardians of the truth. DUIC (De Utrechtse Internet Courant) in collaboration with Design Innovation Group & Milvum aim to set up an experiment in which we want to explore the possibilities of block chain for fact-checking by a design manner.

Stichting Lokale Onderzoeksjournalistiek: Bureau voor Lokale Zaken

The Bureau voor Lokale Zaken will offer a secure web-based working environment and a publishing platform for local investigative journalists. Its structure is aimed at facilitating cooperation: intraregional, but also interregional when comparable topics are subject of investigation projects. Its participants are local reporters that – at different levels of authorisation – will get access to content and that will be working together on investigation projects, jointly creating output and sharing documents and audio and/or video files. Parts of their information may be shared with consulting experts, participating citizens, and platform staff. Research methods and best practices may be mutually shared.

Cartoon Movement: Cartoons on Demand

The new service offers clients (Journalists/Media) the opportunity to have (custom-made) editorial cartoons or slideshows of cartoons in a few clicks and for a reasonable price. A One Stop Shop. They get access to a network of > 500 high quality professional cartoonists around the globe and their services, without having to invest in the creation of such a network.

VPRO: Trees

Trees by VPRO is a web-based, mobile-first storyspace where investigative journalism crystallizes in the form of a serialized, narrative audio story. In each cycle, it focuses on a specific topic. Trees is an agile format, in which journalists will explore, research, share, listen and be in close contact with those formerly known as the audience. With an interactive open audio format, users become critical participants of the process, hence providing a sense of ownership and responsibility that creates a bond between them and the journalist.