THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
Journalists must have fact-checking skills as there is more and more questionable information media workers have to refute. That is why the Ivano-Frankivsk Journalists’ Solidarity Center (JSC) of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) held an offline and online training Fact-Checking In Journalist’s Work for students of the first, third, and fourth years of the Department of Journalism of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University.
The speaker at the training/journalist of Channel 5/NUJU member, who lived and worked in occupied Kherson for eight months, Valentyna Pestushko, drew training participants’ attention to the fact that very often, we consume information without even verifying it.
“A lot of unverified information can also come from well-known news agencies. Sometimes journalists make mistakes by neglecting to check some information. Everything can seemingly look logical. In the first place, we must check sources. The information does not appear out of nowhere, and the news must indicate where and from whom it comes from,” says Valentyna Pestushko.
The journalist has experience in this field of journalism, as she worked on the project called Let’s Check a FAKE on the local Ivano-Frankivsk TV channel 402 for several months. Within the TV show, Valentyna analyzed local and national news for the presence of manipulative and inaccurate data.
Students shared their observations with the speaker and analyzed suspicious news. Future journalists were interested in how fake information spread by Russia is created, whether it is easy to recognize, discussed the news with many errors, and how to avoid inaccuracies. For example, Valentyna drew attention to well-known fakes of the blackout period when it was obvious that Google Translate was used from Russian to Ukrainian, where there were gross semantic errors.
“Now it is necessary to carefully check everything in the information field. We pay little attention to verification because there is a lot of news, and our information space is overflowing with data. But it would help if you remembered all the criteria we discussed today because they can be disguised anytime,” Valentyna advised the students.
Call the Ivano-Frankivsk JSC by dialing 066 677 0726 (Viktoriya Plakhta, the Ivano-Frankivsk JSC coordinator). The Center’s address is 25 Sichovykh Striltsiv Street.
As earlier reported, the Journalists’ Solidarity Centers is an initiative of the NUJU implemented with the support of the International and European Federations of Journalists and UNESCO. The initiative is designated to help media representatives working in Ukraine during the war. The Centers operate in Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro and provide journalists with organizational, technical, legal, psychological, and other types of assistance.
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It contributes to peace and security by promoting international cooperation in education, sciences, culture, communication, and information. UNESCO promotes knowledge sharing and the free flow of ideas to accelerate mutual understanding. It is the coordinator of the UN Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, which aims to create a free and safe environment for journalists and media workers, thus strengthening peace, democracy, and sustainable development worldwide. UNESCO is working closely with its partner organizations in Ukraine to provide support to journalists on the ground.
The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this digest do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area or its authorities or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this digest and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit to the organization.
NUJU Information Service
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