MEDIA ON THE MOVE - #63 - "Citizen Facts" – Disinformation: Citizens' Response

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👉 Please note, this podcast is only recorded in French. 

This week, we focus on a rather unique newsroom. Its name? "Citizen Facts."

Its members are not professional journalists but high school students, midwives, IT specialists, or retirees... All of them hate the false information circulating online and share the same desire: to debunk it.

A citizen project born during the Covid-19 crisis, in response to the rise of conspiracy theories, led by journalist Aude Favre, founder of the YouTube channel WTFake! and guest on our podcast this week.

The investigations, conducted in "open source," leveraging everyone’s skills, were the subject of a mini-documentary series broadcast on ARTE last fall. It takes us behind the scenes of this virtual newsroom’s work, which strives to demystify very real topics such as the rhetoric of "anti-vaxxers," "anti-abortion" activists, or the practice of "greenwashing."

Today, "Citizen Facts" counts 2,000 "citizen investigators", mostly Europeans and all volunteers.
Aude Favre tells us about this crazy adventure.


In this episode:

• The life of the citizen newsroom
• The skills of the "citizen investigators"
• The difficulty of arguing against conspiracy theorists
• The next steps for the project

Suggestions?
If you have comments, topic proposals, or people to interview, please contact our editorial team at: hugues.dago@mediaconnect.com