More than a dozen young people from North Macedonia took part in the second workshop as part of the “Journalism for the New Generation” program on the subject of “Countering Disinformation and Fact Checking” which took place from March 13 to 15 near Veles. At the three-day workshop organized by the Metamorphosis Foundation together with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), the young people had the opportunity to acquire knowledge about the way fact-checking works, learn the basic techniques in this domain, and at the same time take part and write a fact check.
Trainers were Todd Helmus, a professor from the international organization RAND, Vladimir Petreski, editor-in-chief of the portal Vistinomer.mk, as well as Despina Kovachevska, analyst and media monitor at the Metamorphosis Foundation.
The workshop included a combination of theory and practical work, starting with the ways in which disinformation and propaganda are spread, and where the modern phenomenon of disinformation narratives comes from. Young people had the opportunity to learn the general rules for discovering statements that can be fact-checked, and the methodology and techniques for how the fact-checking is done.
The trainers shared information regarding the most common misinformation topics and the use of artificial intelligence in creating and disseminating such content.
Recommendations were given on how journalists can protect themselves from sharing incomplete, malicious, manipulated information from unreliable sources. Finally, the participants had a group task to create the outline of a fact check.
All participants were awarded certificates for successfully completing the workshop.
This was the second of a series of three workshops that will be held this year within the “Journalism for the New Generation” program implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation and the International Center for Journalists and funded by the US Embassy in Skopje. The best participants from all the trainings this summer will have the opportunity for an internship in the Metamorphosis media: Meta, Portalb or Truthmeter, and three of them will go to a one-week study visit in the USA.
