European Institute Foundation (EI) and the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) launched the “Piloting Radio-FACT-Checks for a More Trustworthy Media Landscape” initiative with financial support by the European Media and Information fund (EMIF).
This one-year first-of-its-kind EMIF-supported project in Bulgaria aims at widening the scope of the fact-checks, conducted by BNR, and boosting their visibility among the radio-audiences, particularly among social groups that are most vulnerable to disinformation.
The initiative builds on the work and increases the capacity of BNR’s Fact-Checking Team – the first such specialized unit in a public media outlet. This project will enable the team to utilize digital tools and platforms for checking facts more effectively, analyzing content and images, monitoring the disinformation ecosystem, and discovering the linkages between websites that disseminate misleading information. The fact-checkers will have the opportunity to learn from, and adopt, best practices of local and international experts in investigative journalism, fact checking, IT, and the mechanisms through which disinformation works on social media.
Along with the Sofia-based team, EI and BNR will seek to engage in this initiative over 30 regional reporters, news makers and correspondents, who will conduct fact-checks of statements on key themes that could be misleading to listeners and readers. The regional journalists will attend training sessions on fact-checking, image and video content verification, and assessing credibility of sources of information.
This project aims at actively engaging listeners of BNR’s regional and specialized programs in a public conversation on disinformation and critically assessing news content. To this end, thematic radio-rubrics will be produced to allow various audiences to participate with opinions and questions on-air and online.
All materials, produced in the framework of this initiative, are disseminated on the Internet with the hashtag #factcheckEI_BNR.
