Srinagar: Leading digital company Google on Monday organised a training workshop for journalists in the valley at Kashmir Press Club, Srinagar.

The event was a part of the company’s efforts to equip scribes with tools to fact check and identify fake data.

Google has started the initiative to guard journalists from falling prey to false news stories. As part of the larger project the company will train 8,000 journalists in English and other languages in India.

It is building a network of certified trainers who in turn will train more journalists across the country. The focus of this training has been fact checking, online verification and digital hygiene for journalists.

The workshop in Srinagar was organised in collaboration with Kashmir Press Club and New Delhi based media organisation named DataLeads. Journalists from across the valley participated in the workshop and received hands on training. In a statement the Kashmir Press Club said, “We are really happy that we could organise this workshop. The aim of such events is to build capacity among our members and journalists working in the valley. We thank Google for giving us this hands-on training and we hope to organise more such events in future ”.

Leading trainers delivered lectures from New Delhi on fact checking and the urgency of learning tools to debunk fake news stories and data. A detailed training manual was shared with the participants of the workshop