A dozen of young people from the South-West Region and Pelagonija participated in the three-day workshop on the fight against disinformation and fact-checking, that took place in Struga from 22nd to 24th March. The training was organized by the Metamorphosis Foundation in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
Trainers of the workshop were three journalists – the Chief Editor of Truthmeter, Vladimir Petreski, the Editor of Meta.mk, Meri Jordanovska and Jon Greenberg from the American fact-checking service, PolitiFact.
The training was a combination of theory and practical work, covering the ways disinformation and propaganda is spread and throwing light on the origin of the contemporary phenomenon of disinformation narratives. Along, examples were shared of false publications in North Macedonia and in the United States of America (USA). In addition, the manner and the general rules for revealing announcements and posts that could be fact-checked were discussed along with the methodology and the fact-checking techniques. The participants were divided into groups and assigned a task to identify a suitable published statement that could be fact-checked.
The training included information related to the most frequently shared contents that contain disinformation, but also focused on recommendations for journalists on how to protect themselves from sharing incompetent, spiteful, manipulative information from incredible sources. Also, several fact-checking tools were shared and tested.
The trainers paid due attention to the examples of using hate speech, which is a criminal offence. The foundations of the media self-regulatory system were also elaborated. Finally, the participants were assigned a group task to develop the outline of a fact-check. All participants received certificates for successfully completing the training.
The event was part of the program ”Journalism for a New Generation: A Media Training Program for North Macedonia” of the Metamorphosis Foundation, in partnership with the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), implemented with the financial assistance of the US Embassy in Skopje.
This is the second of a total of four training sessions envisaged as part of the program that also contains a competitive component. Specifically, the best students from the four workshops will acquire an internship opportunity in one of the three media of Metamorphosis Foundation – Meta.mk, Portalb.mk or Truthmeter. At the end of the project, two of the trainees will go on a week-long study visit of the USA organized by ICFJ.
The new group of young people up to 29 years old from the South-East and the Vardar region will be able to apply for the third training session of the program focusing on the topic of data-based journalism and data visualization.
