Media boot camp arms Filipinos to fight fake news

Baler: A room full of Filipino police and soldiers stares intently at headlines projected on a screen, the latest students of a media boot camp aimed at fighting their nation’s flood of fake news.

Scores of people ranging from girl scouts to government workers have already received the same innovative instruction in the Philippines, ranked the world’s top user of social media.

“Which one is real?” asks class teacher Rowena Paraan, a veteran journalist with the top Philippine TV network ABS-CBN, as she stands in a gym on a military base.

Her lesson is part of the channel’s long-running citizen journalism training programme, which since late-2016 has shown some 25,000 people how to fight the fake news spike that accompanied President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise.

The first headline zeroes in on the nation’s struggle against the infamous militants on its southern islands: “Donald Trump sends 5,000 troops to fight Abu Sayyaf ”.

It’s fake and several students quickly raise their hands to say so.

But subsequent headlines get harder and harder until the only sound is Paraan’s footsteps as she paces among the students.

The training, which is delivered free-of-charge to groups who request it, provides an overview of how fake news works as well as techniques to spot and debunk it.

It is one of several similar efforts that have sprouted up since Duterte’s election, including one run by the news website Rappler, known for battling with the president over his brutal drugs war.

Paraan says the risk of being manipulated has grave risks.

“It (fake news) generated more support for the president.

“Either it encouraged you to hate the president’s enemies or urged you to support the president,” Paraan says, referring to Duterte’s 2016 election.

Duterte’s camp has repeatedly been accused of employing online trolls to sing his praises and savage dissenters with fierce words or even threats. — AFP