What is Google Pinpoint?
Google Pinpoint is a platform that helps journalists store, organize, and analyze documents, images, interviews, and other assets. Journalists often use Pinpoint for complex stories with large datasets, where collaboration is essential. The platform is part of Journalist Studio and was launched as part of Google News Initiative in 2020. you may upload up to 200,000 documents in multiple formats and search, highlight, and share specific sections.
Pinpont is a powerful tool that utilizes Google’s AI to assist your research, so you may quickly search hundreds of thousands of documents, evenfrom budget Chromebooks. However, Google states the service is limited to journalists. To use Pinpoint, you’ll need torequest access; Google reviews requests within 24 hours. Now that you know the basics, here’s a rundown of just what Pinpoint is capable of.
Journalists can manage large, diverse document collections
The concept behind Google Pinpoint is simple. Upload your document set and enter a search term. Pinpoint will then identify exact matches or similar matches. For example, you can search “Car,” and Pinpoint will match it to “vehicles” and “auto.” Pinpoint can usefuzzy matchingto find themes on handwritten documents, book annotations, and even the writing on photos.
Google Pinpoint supports most document typesincluding web pages, PDFs, and audio files. You can filter documents by people, organizations, locations, and labels for broader searches. Labels are added to uploaded documents manually. If you run into document support issues, you can contact the people at Google News Initiive for help when you’re logged into Pinpoint
From the collection view, Pinpoint will sort documents by type, then in alphabetical order. To search collections, enter a term in the search bar or click one of the filters to the right.
Pinpoint can transcribe audio and video files for searching
Upload an audio or a video file up to two hours long, and Pinpoint will transcribe it into a PDF document. It won’t delete the original recording and will add timestamps to the text, so you can read along to the audio.
Nearly any file format containing text can be uploaded to Pinpoint, including images, PowerPoint slides, and email archives.
To create and upload a collection, clickCreate a new private collectionfrom the Pinpoint homepage. Click it to start uploading documents from Google Drive or your computer.
Share and collaborate on Pinpoint document collections
Pinpoint’s collaboration feature is what really helps it stand out. Once you’ve created a collection, you may share it with anyone with a Google account. Collections are private by default. You’ll need to grant others access manually.
Newsrooms working on investigative or breaking stories use Pinpoint to collaborate and analyze documents. Stories that once took months or research can now be completed in a few weeks. The Lede Lab, theWashington Post’sexperimental news team, use Pinpoint for many of its largest investigative stories.
Click theSharebutton at the top of your screen, and search for people you want to collaborate with. However, you won’t be able to make your collection public.
Pinpoint helps make managing documents a breeze
Pinpoint is part ofJournalist Studio, a collection of tools for journalists. Alongside Pinpoint, it includes tools like The Common Knowledge Project, which allows journalists to visualize and share data about their local communities.
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