News Corp is taking the initiative on journalist training with a Google-funded Australian ‘academy’ delivered by Melbourne Business School.

Journalists from News, Australian Community Media and “some smaller media partners” will have access to the Digital News Academy programme, with the first of this year’s three 50-strong intakes beginning tuition on March 28.

News Corp will dominate the academy’s “panel of experts” with group corporate affairs, policy and government relations executive Campbell Reid as its head and journalism academic and ABC and SBS journalist Sonja Heydeman as its director.

Other members include Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerry Baker, news.com.au editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy, journalist, author and broadcaster Joe Hildebrand, national chief correspondent of The Australian Hedley Thomas and its investigations editor Sharri Markson, and Eliza Barr, a journalist on Daily Telegraph feeder site the St George Standard.

From Google come ANZ News Lab lead Uma Patel, its France-based journalism and AI expert David Dieudonne, and Pinpoint lead Megan Chan, who is based in California. 

The programme has parallels with that operated by News UK over a number of years, with students learning from and sharing experiences with Times, Sunday Times and Sun journalists.

In one, News Academy student Jack Coffey joined the tabloid’s showbiz team, not only honing WordPress skills, but getting a scoop from an interview with UK TV personality Ferne McCann and eating insects – washed down with tequila – with her, a story that scored 3700 page views in an hour.

News Corp Australia says the partnership with Google Australia will equip “this generation of news professionals with the next set of skills” needed to deepen in an era of increased digital publishing. It promises “the latest tools, techniques and insights on digital journalism, audience behaviour data, immersive storytelling methods and commercial news models” for publishers of all sizes and will have a special focus on regional and community journalism.

Executive chairman Michael Miller says it is “part of an ongoing commitment to, and reinvestment in,  journalism and its role in building a stronger Australia by keeping society informed through strong and fearless news reporting and advocacy”.

He said other media companies such as ACM, “and, over time, a host of small and regional news companies” were important partners in the Academy.

Group chief executive Robert Thomson thanked Google, Melbourne Business School “and all of our media partners” for working with News on an important initiative, and Google for its “acknowledgement of journalism’s critical importance and its value to society”.

In a corporate statement today, Google’s regional news partnerships director Kate Beddoe also added her support. “The Academy will provide training on everything from data journalism, to audience measurement, right through to highly-specialised topics like podcasting,” she said. “Traineeships will also provide a vital boost to regional journalism, with 60 students from regional newsrooms to benefit over the next three years.”

Google will provide access to global subject matter experts and learning resources. 

Australian Community Media managing director Tony Kendall described the academy as “an exciting prospect” for Australian journalism. “It can provide a world-class learning environment for reporters and editors to develop the digital skills for the news of the future, which is especially crucial for our regional audiences,” he said.
In its first three years, 750 media professionals are scheduled to complete the nine-month programme, with a “specially convened” governance committee making the final selection of candidates, a mix of self-nominated and chosen participants from partner media organisations, “particularly regional and community ones”.

Each student cohort will be split into five-person groups featuring a mix of experience and seniority, from junior reporters to senior editors, and these groups will collaborate to generate, build and sell stories to the course’s “virtual academy newsroom”. Each year’s schedule will include a major journalism conference, while a “select group” of trainees will also take part in a US study tour. More details at digitalnews.academy

• In an INMA post this week, Australian media company director Robert Whitehead cites the Academy as “a sign of what peace in our time looks like between media and the digital platforms”.

But he warns of falling victim to something akin to ‘Dutch Disease’ – the malaise that followed when the Netherlands discovered oil, its currency soared, its manufacturing base crashed, and its economy cracked. “Oh yes, and the oil ran out,” he says.

“The digital platform cashflow for Australian media is like its new oil gusher. The Digital News Academy is like its first major investment from its sovereign wealth fund-equivalent.” But he says it is “as big as any existential question.

“How can the news industry in Australia fully avoid the dangers of its rapid pivot to its new source of cash, recognising that booms are temporal? How does it avoid an ‘Australian Disease’, especially given the knowledge that progress overseas towards viable deals between publishers and platforms has remained stultifyingly problematic in the absence of legislation?

“What should a smart, cash-rich media company in Australia now do,” he asks.

Pictured: Sessions at News UK’s Digital Academy 2017 summer school brought 14 aspiring journalists, eight budding developers and four “wannabe designers” to sessions at the top of News UK’s headquarters in London’s Shard quarter including Unruly’s Mike Rawlings on user experience (above) and a ‘meet the editor’ event with Sun editor-in-chief Tony Gallagher, who was accompanied by Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas and Dan Wootton (top).