Today we’re excited to announce the launch of French, Spanish, German and Arabic versions of First Draft News. From the day we published firstdraftnews.org, we’ve stressed that the challenges we highlight are truly global ones. While the launch of four additional sites is a small step, we hope it helps more people understand the key issues related to finding and verifying articles, images and videos that emerge on social media.
The websites currently offer translations of the eleven most-read articles from firstdraftnews.org. One article each month will be added to the websites, including case studies and resources on social newsgathering, verification, ethics and law. We’ve also translated some of the most popular how-to videos for verification and reporting tips, like the Google Earth Pro Basics video, which is now available in Arabic, English, French, German and Spanish.
To support the growth of our multi-language networks, we will offer a monthly newsletter where subscribers can indicate their preferred language. First Draft also has a new Arabic Twitter handle @FirstDraftAr which we’re using as a pilot to see whether we can support multiple language social media accounts.
In the meantime we will be including more social media images and hashtags featuring different languages to try and reach more people. We will continue to produce our weekly English-language newsletter that includes the latest reads and resources from First Draft News, and other interesting articles from around the web.
In the next 12 months, we hope to include many more practical case studies and resources on our five websites. We know people want to develop and improve their skills in these areas and we intend to keep supporting the growing community of people around the world who are interested in finding, verifying and sharing trustworthy content sourced from the social web.
We’d love to hear your ideas about how we could reach more people around the world. Send them via email or get in touch on Twitter and Facebook.
