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.