The War on Truth #aboutlastnight — Antwerp 7/11
I admit it has been more than last night, but hey what’s time when you’re fighting fake news or even alternative facts. What’s in a name ??!! … At the Special Belge Tap room both University of Antwerp as University of Leuven students gathered to discuss this fake news reality. Even more VRT teamed up with DPG Media to find out what the point of view was on both sides. We ended up in a real cool attic style gathering of 100 some people. Young bright minds open like a parachute ready to land … We loved this tweet afterwards …
For starters as usual our master of ceremony, Fredo De Smet explained why we are searching for answers in a bar under the sea: We are living in a post truth society. Fake news and alternative facts aren’t going away. But how can we fight this ? What are the things that already work ? What are our responsibilities as media industry ? First up … the professors …
Peter Van Aelst reassured us that in Flanders, things aren’t polarising as much as in USA. He also sees that a lot of citizens still trust the commercial & public media companies. But there is a shift happening in between people who are left & right winged. They are divided, but there is still a big group in the middle. Michaël Opgenhaffen agreed on this but added he sees a new problem arising with youth as social media is replacing the traditional media as primary newssource. This changes the game as a whole. We really need to step up in the fight against fake news, also on those platforms.
Next up were a few people running automatic factcheckers, trying to grasp the hughe cognitive bandwith of the internet to help find out if news is truth. First up was Jan Jagers, researcher & the factchecker for Knack, a roularta magazine. After that Michaël gave us a glimpse of factcheck.vlaanderen he made with VRT, VfJ, textgain, belga, erasmus hogeschool, KUL and TreeCompany. Really funny here was that in a second phase they created ‘TOOTS’. Funny little animation figures that could reply to desinformation on social media. Really cool way to shut down wrong facts or agressive or even trolling behaviour. Last up was VRT itself, where the new DDT data team of VRTNWS had a hackaton and came up with a factchecker tracing the origin of a post through crosslinks. Saving the journalist a lot of work. We ended up concluding that we should put all these three factcheckers together, as having the right facts is good for any journalist. So this isn’t a competition thing. It’s about pure survival as a profession.
At this moment we were already running a half hour late on schedule, so the students needed a break. This break was rudely ended by Black Sabbath’s War Pigs on Volume 11. Great way to annouce Maike Olij, EBU researcher on this. Her advice to depolarise for news agencies was be open-minded & transparant, work together, listen to the people and find the common cause in telling stories.
Next up were the professionals: Amra Dorjbayar, research journalist from Rudi Vranckx’s team, who researched the social and digital tactics & behaviour of extremist groups. Together with Jo Buggenhout, chief of deontology & foreign news at VTM Nieuws DPG Media. Jo was very clear on this … After all these years the game has changed, but the job has not. It’s all about researching the facts. “ We are going to be correct, or we aren’t gonna be at all anymore”. Amra explained how he got his boots dirty researching extremist online groups and how they work as a digital army. Also concluding that only double- and crosschecked facts can save us. Very hardcore if you ask me. Good stuff.
A lot to take in but the students were attentive until the last word. Followed by a visit to the VRT Jobs stand and the VRT EDUBOX & learntech booth with Tim Van Lier. Friendships were born, future perspective was created for the students, promises to join forces with the factcheckers. Pax Media & University … it was a good night for the truth. Let’s get this train rolling … Btw this is Koen Van den Eeckhout from bayron doing the great visual harvesting you see on top … book him !
