Learning the latest: Empowering the media and readers through technological innovation Donor: Transition Promotion Program of the Czech Foreign Ministry

Learning the latest: Empowering the media and readers through technological innovation

Overall Objective

The overall aim of this project is to boost the professionalism of online journalism in Georgia in order to contribute to a more free and independent press.

Partners: Georgian Institute of Public Affairs

Specific Objectives

  1. To improve access of Georgian citizens to quality online information by improving service and content of the independent media;
  2. to improve the ability of independent journalists in Georgia to identify disinformation campaigns and report on them, countering, especially, fake news;
  3. to introduce information verification and disinformation countering skills into curricula of local universities and raise awareness of journalism students and high school students about the importance of information verification – thus building a solid foundation for the improvement of media sector resilience in the long run.

Activities

  • Participation of Georgian journalists in journalism training in Prague for skills exchange;
  • Newsroom placement/fellowship, where two selected participants receive a placement within a European media newsroom where they will familiarize themselves with new skills (e.g. data journalism);
  • Content production on issues of societal importance in Georgia;
  • Solutions Journalism training;
  • Solutions Journalism stipends where two journalists per year will receive a stipend to realise a solutions story;
  • Publication of Solutions Journalism articles;
  • Hackathon is organized in Georgia bringing together representatives of the media and the IT community to investigate on major pieces of disinformation in Georgia;
  • Organize and hold data verification school to improve reliability of content and trustworthiness of media;
  • Individual hands-on coaching of trainees to deliver two major investigations into fakes generated in Georgian media sphere;
  • Introduction of media monitoring approaches in Georgia to identify disinformation distribution strategies;
  • Training of Trainers of the lecturers;
  • Training of students;
  • Introduction of media monitoring approaches in Georgian universities;
  • Roundtables with teachers;
  • Training of high school students; and
  • Localization of content.

Course for media educators and journalism students

What happened: In a partnership with the GIPA Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management, we offered the certified course “Trust, Social Data, and Media” for media educators and journalism students between 10-18 December.  

How it worked:

  • Sessions were led by experts Fergus Bell, Ivan Godarsky, Henk van Ess, John Cook, and Jaroslav Valuch, news literacy and fact-checking program manager at Transitions.
  • We had an average of 25 participants throughout the sessions. 
  • The course covered topics such as the mis/disinformation ecosystem and how to respond and write about it, social media monitoring, internet research with open sources, and fact-checking practices

For more information about TOL’s other current projects, please click here.