Questions and answers: AFP digital research courses support journalists in a busy election year

Professional fact-checkers have sought in recent years to pass on their skills to both the public and other journalists by developing training programs in fact-checking, investigative techniques and media literacy. Groups such as Chequeado in Argentina, First check in IndiaAnd AFP FactCheck in France have designed courses for different purposes.

This year, AFP launched new fact-checking modules for elections around the world. Many expect 2024 to be one of the busiest election seasons ever, with around half the world’s population estimated to vote in national, regional or local elections.

As a news agency based in France with a global presence, AFP is committed to providing training to journalists worldwide and in multiple languages. Digital verification trainingwhich was launched two years ago, was awarded the Webby Awards in April, which are considered to be one of the highest honors on the Internet. WAN-IFRA awarded AFP the The world’s best fact-checking project for 2024.

Elections are a central theme of this year’s GlobalFact 11 conference. I spoke with Sophie Nicholson, deputy editor of AFP Digital Investigation, on Zoom about the courses, including AFP’s election-year offerings. Here’s our conversation, slightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Enock Nyariki: Can you tell us about your journey with AFP’s digital investigative operations and how your role has evolved over time?

Sophie Nicholson: I started in 2017 at the beginning of AFP’s digital investigative work, when we only had one French fact-checker. Now I’m deputy editor-in-chief of this department. At first we were a small team. As we grew, I traveled around and trained people in Latin America and Africa. We built the team and the structure and collaborated with platforms and partners on various projects.

I’ve been working internally to share our niche fact-checking skills with journalists because they’re useful. For me, there’s a real overlap between journalism and fact-checking. Some say they’re different, but I see a lot of valuable overlap and shared skills.

Nyariki: What prompted AFP to introduce online training modules for reporters on election fact-checking and make them accessible to everyone?

Nicholson: Since we started fact-checking in 2017, developing high-quality training has been a priority. Our team has grown significantly and now includes over 150 fact-checkers worldwide. With disinformation techniques and social platforms changing rapidly, continuous learning is critical.

We started by traveling to different places to train people. We realized that an online platform was the best way to reach as many people as possible. With the support of the Google News Initiative, we improved our training and offered it in multiple languages, including English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Currently, over 19,000 journalists and students are enrolled on our platform. We offer 15 courses on topics such as online search, geolocation, and countering climate and health disinformation. Recently, we have focused on elective modules as disinformation around elections is on the rise.

We initially published the elective training as a two-part module, but later split it into three parts:

• Political ads and campaigns: Monitoring election campaigns and dissemination of misinformation about candidates, parties and the electoral system
• Election day and aftermath: Problems on Election Day and in the weeks following, including incorrect ballot requirements and allegations of fraud
• Advanced tools: Monitoring election campaigns, tracking political ads, and additional resources to combat election disinformation

Our courses are interactive and feature videos, examples, tests and resources. They are created by experienced trainers and are constantly updated.

We also produce short videos available on YouTube and other social media platforms. These short videos, often less than a minute long, complement the training modules. We have developed a special series for the European elections in eight languages ​​to debunk disinformation across the EU.

The online platform allows us to leverage the experience and skills of our global fact-checkers and continually update and improve the courses, making them a dynamic and valuable resource for journalists and journalism students worldwide.

Nyariki: What do you hope journalists will take away from the courses?

Nicholson: We hope you will gain new skills that you can use immediately. The courses are practical and clearly explained, so that at the end you know you can apply what you have learned in your daily work.

Nyariki: As the largest team of fact-checkers in the world, what trends have you observed in the spread of election fraud this year that other fact-checkers should be aware of as they prepare for elections?

Nicholson: During election campaigns, fact-checkers and journalists need to be especially careful when checking sources and verifying claims. There is a lot of talk about deepfakes, especially audio deepfakes, which are more common in election campaigns than video deepfakes. Audio deepfakes are easier to create and can be very difficult to verify. In some countries, deepfakes have been banned in political campaigns.

Many manipulated images circulate, especially during election campaigns. They attack political opponents, make accusations of electoral fraud or accuse politicians of misconduct, such as smoking marijuana or not having citizenship. There are also publications about electoral hurdles that are intended to prevent people from voting. We call on fact-checkers to quickly verify these claims.

Nyariki: Have you seen an increase in AI-generated misinformation in recent months since the technology became available to users?

Nicholson: That’s not the majority of what we check, although it depends on the location. In some places, like India, we’ve seen a lot of AI-generated misinformation. But even there, that’s not the majority of the false claims we come across.

Nyariki: Tell us more about the 15 AFP course, which has proven to be the most popular among journalists.

Nicholson: Actually, I will tell you about three. The most popular is search efficiently onlineNearby, the course is on Search social media. These two are the most popular. Almost as popular is the course on finding the origin of a photo or video, including the InVID WeVerify Tool co-developed by AFP. There is a lot of interest in this tool both in our courses and in our videos.

Nyariki: How many languages ​​and countries do you cover in your fact-checking?

Nicholson: We cover 26 languages ​​in our fact-checking. We have courses in four languages ​​on the platform. Our reporting is global, so we don’t count countries. As a news agency, we sometimes report misinformation from places where we don’t have a fact-checker, so we no longer provide a specific number of countries.

Nyariki: What were the major challenges you faced in developing this course for a global audience?

Nicholson: We can’t include examples from every country, but similar examples often resonate around the world. Many disinformation narratives cross borders, so it can still be helpful to see something that isn’t country-specific.

Our goal is to showcase the most useful tools and platforms that fact-checkers use around the world. Feedback from individual fact-checkers is crucial to keeping the platform up to date. Since we cannot cover all platforms or countries, we have to be very careful in choosing the tools we feature.

We originally wanted to work in many languages, but maintaining high quality and keeping training up to date was too costly. We needed dedicated staff to provide high quality training in multiple languages.

While we would love to have more languages, we are currently limited. We produce short videos in different languages ​​whenever possible to reach more people, but translating and updating entire courses is challenging.

Every time there’s a change, like Twitter becoming X, we have to update all the languages, and there are always changes. We try to keep as many tools and resources as possible relevant to as many people as possible.

Nyariki: Based on your experience over the past two years, what advice would you give to other fact-checking organizations interested in creating similar courses?

Nicholson: Start small and focus on your expertise. Do what you’re good at and don’t go beyond your expertise at first. Identify your audience and how you’ll present it to them. Test it on lots of people, expect to make adjustments and improvements, and listen to feedback before you publish.

We looked at online training on a variety of topics, not just our area of ​​expertise. We saw a lot of outdated training programs and didn’t want ours to stay that way. The feedback we’re getting now is that people appreciate our continuous updates and development. Keeping the programs current and useful is what has worked for us.

Nyariki: Can you tell us a success story or a significant impact of one of AFP’s investigative courses?

Nicholson: Well, it’s more about the feedback we’ve received. We’ve had really good feedback, especially from journalism schools that have included our courses in their programs. In France, for example, we have two big journalism schools, Sciences Po And CFJwho offer the courses to their students during the summer holidays. We have received great feedback from them.

Journalism schools find our courses useful because our work on the ground allows us to provide current examples and up-to-date tools that are relevant. We have also seen integration into journalism schools in Hong Kong and Brazil.

We have also received recognition for our training platform, including from Webby Awards (in the category “Websites and mobile sites”) in 2024.

Nyariki: What are your plans with the training program?

Nicholson: We want to keep the training relevant and up-to-date. We are running in-person workshops around the world to provide even more comprehensive training and supplementing the courses with short videos. We also plan to offer live workshops on topics that are changing particularly quickly, such as AI-generated content. We also want to build a community of people who are interested in this work and can share experiences and examples. We are thinking about this at the moment.