News Now Bangla online portal has been completed an Journalist workshop about “Fact Checking”. This workshop was organized by the project of ‘Promoting Fact Checking to Counter Misinformation in Bangladesh’ in a joint initiative of MRDI and InterNews. Farhana Nila, senior reporter of “News Now Bangla” of the resource person in this workshop.
This workshop was held on Friday 25 August at noon in the digital news studio of the organization. News Now Bangla editor Shamima Dola and India Today Group’s Bangladesh news consultant Shahidul Hasan Khokon participated in the inaugural session of the workshop.
Farhana Nila, the resource person of the workshop, presented several facts and figures on “Fact Checking”.
What is fact checking , why fact checking is needed, and the processes of fact checking are taught hands-on. Also, how to create investigative reports by finding information through images and videos is also reported. Information verification process, misinformation, false information, rumors are given an idea. Ideas are also given on what kind of news to fact check and how to present it.
At the end of the training, a question and answer session was conducted.
Finally, in the closing speech, the editor of News Now Bangla said, “This is the first training workshop organized by News Now Bangla. Thanks to MRDI for this. They have taken the initiative to organize this training for us. And our company is also an online company. Fact checking is very important in that regard. Although an editor, I am also a journalist. In that case I found this training necessary for me too. And I really learned a lot. I promise to keep more such events in the future.
India Today Group’s Bangladesh News Consultant Shahidul Hasan Khokon said, “Our Bangladesh News is published in India Today”. There are special fact checkers. I was waiting for such a training for a long time. But it was not becoming due to work pressure. Today, through this arrangement of News Now Bangla, I have learned as much as possible about fact checking of news. I will use it in my organization. And many thanks to MRDI for taking the initiative to teach fact checking and not just that. They are also developing some journalists as trainers. In continuation of which, Farhana Nila, a journalist of News Now Bangla, started working as a trainer today.
Resource person and News Now Bangla senior reporter Farhana Nila said, “Actually the training is not correct, I have shared the experience with everyone that I have learned myself. But the good thing is that I was able to answer everyone’s questions and fill in the blanks. Not stuck anywhere. Many thanks to MRDI for this. In fact, they have trained us in such a way that there is no possibility of us going wrong.”
Recently a training of trainers workshop on fact checking was organized by MRDI. Where Farhana Nila participated. In the next phase of that training, the trainees will again conduct workshops on fact checking. This training is organized in his continuation. A total of 11 journalists including News Now Bangla and 9 people from other organizations participated in this, including the organization’s editor journalist Shamima Dola and India Today Group’s Bangladesh news consultant journalist Shahidul Hasan Khokon.
Among the other 9 are News Now Bangla Sub Editor Shaheen Ahmed, Sub Editor Shireen Jhuma, Senior Reporter Nazneen Lucky, Senior Reporter Parvez Bulbul, Staff Reporter Jhuma Saha, Rafia Chowdhury, Lubna Hossain, Jannat Jimia of India Today and Kolkata TV, Daily Bangladesh. Ayesha Afroza.
