PUP College of Communication (COC) Student Council kicked off the first on-ground broadcast and the second session of Rappler’s #FactsFirst Initiative through Move PH’s five-week media and information literacy program at the college’s audio-visual room (AVR) on Friday, January 27.
The webinar dubbed as "Fighting Disinformation: The Importance of Fact-checking and Facts-based Reporting in matters of Public Interest" is a collaboration between COC’s fact-checking initiative, "Spill The Truth", and the five-part MIL training series of Rappler’s Move PH that featured Faktisk’s founder and editor-in-chief Kristoffer Egeberg; Rappler’s head of digital services Gemma Mendoza; and Rappler researcher-writer Ailla dela Cruz.
Egeberg addressed in his talk the crucial role of fact-checkers in society and public interest, especially in understanding government policies; participating in democratic processes; and helping the masses to make informed decisions.
“It [misinformation] can lead you to make the wrong choices in your life based on falsehoods – take the wrong medicines, trust the wrong politicians. And that is maybe the most important role fact-checkers play: we’re kind of building a vaccine against fake news by showing the public not only what the correct answer is but how you find the answer,” said Egeberg.
Mendoza, who also spoke in the first session, discussed fact-check methodology with her “Fact-Checking 101” talk, where she shared Rappler’s very own fact-checking mechanisms and techniques like reverse image search and utilization of InVID for video verification.
PUP-COC alumna, Ailla dela Cruz, ended the webinar telecast by moderating a live spot-checking of misinformation in the web as an exercise for the viewers of the training series.
Spill The Truth’s assistant creative head Josh Phillip Crisostomo, Explained PH editor-in-chief Archie Bergosa, and PUP Campus Journalists (PUPCJ) Vice President Glenn Ferrariz also left some motivational sentiments and shared their insights in the post-webinar forum as the official partners of COC-SC in the event.
COC Dean Hemmady Mora opened the on-ground program with a pre-webinar general discussion about disinformation; meanwhile, COC-SC Vice President Patricia Loise Labrador closed the session encouraging her fellow media students to continue fighting against disinformation and other grievances faced by the students in the campus.
“Tayo, bilang mga kabataang alagad ng midya, dapat tayo 'yong nangunguna para tumindig [para] sa katotohanan, tumindig para sa malayang pamamahayag lalo pa‘t nasa madilim na parte tayo ng kasaysayan,” said Labrador.
The second session was also simultaneously broadcasted through 4 other partner school organizations across the country; moreover, the third on-ground session of the training series will be held next Friday, February 3.
Article: Chris Burnet Ramos
Graphics: Cathlyn de Raya
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