National Indigenous Times is collaborating with Google News Initiative and Bastion Transform to launch a series of newsroom innovations.
NIT is one of three news organisations, alongside Nine Publishing and BusinessDesk New Zealand, who will launch live pilots in their newsrooms focusing on editorial excellence.
Bastion Transform, a content strategy and digital transformation agency led by former ABC News Director Gaven Morris, is coordinating the projects over the coming six months.
"Newsroom innovation is more important than ever and finding the time and resources for journalism teams to step outside of daily coverage to shape, test and learn new ways of connecting with audiences is a struggle. This project enables editors and journalists to raise their sights beyond their deadlines and explore long-term change," he said.
The innovations will focus on the challenges and opportunities the partner newsrooms identify across their operations including storytelling, resourcing, workflows, platforms, data, and technology.
The National Indigenous Times is an independent 100% First Nations-owned news publication, both online and printed, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and national syndication.
NIT Chief Operating Officer, Reece Harley, described the news organisation as "a small team, with big ideas on an important mission – to tell Indigenous stories with integrity and to promote them into Australian conversations everywhere".
"We've never had the opportunity to be involved in a project like this – to have investment in ideas, techniques, and technology to keep us at the cutting edge of innovation," he said.
Google News Lab ANZ Lead, Uma Patel, said she hopes to see the newsrooms "make bold choices, to test the frontiers of what might be possible".
"Journalists iterate every single day, there's no one way to break a story and the best journalists adapt and try different strategies to get what they need to publish the news readers need to know - so I have no doubt they've got the skills they need to think of and test new ideas to boost their journalism," she said.
At the conclusion of the program, other newsrooms will get the chance to learn from the pilots when Google presents the findings in a knowledge-sharing showcase.
"We want to see this resonate across the journalism industry. There's never been more information on what engages audiences – excellent journalism matched with courageous exploration is the way to capture their minds," said Ms Patel.
