While it is becoming increasingly difficult for anybody to know what is fake and what is not, the fact-checking organisations like DataLEADS and Internews (USA), are consistently and fiercely fighting the misinformation pandemic by spreading awareness.
They have begun a special webcast series as a part of media literacy effort called FactShala. This news and information literacy program is launched in India by Internews in collaboration with DataLEADS with support from Google. Through this, they plan to build a network of media and information literacy trainers in India who will help adults in tier 2 and 3 cities. These trainers will learn how to sift facts from the sea of online misinformation and help them understand better the nature and characteristics of content published online. This will be one of the biggest networks of media literacy educators in the country.
This webcast series is one such initiative in this direction. Navigating the Covid-19 Infodemic is in five languages; the first one, in English, commenced on 16th May. In this FcatShala, Alt News Editor Prateek Sinha threw light on how misinformation is created and spread across social media platforms. The idea is to make the public at large learn how to handle information overload.
Topics like The Spread of Corona ‘Infodemic’, How and Where to Find Reliable and Trustworthy Information, how to spot misinformation and check the authenticity of online messages before sharing, were covered.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has forced these agencies to re-configure how they reach out to the community. They are on a lookout for students, teachers and media educators who are passionate about fighting misinformation. Interested journalists, fact-checkers, media faculty members, academics and civil society thought leaders could sign-up to become trainers in the programme and be part of the biggest network of media literacy educators in the country. More details are listed in the below link:
More information about the webcast series can be found here.
The Tamil webcast is on 30th May 2020 Mr A S. Panneerselvan- Readers Editor- The Hindu and Mr Vardarajan Anathakrishnan would be the speakers for this webcast.
Register for the webcast here:
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