New collaboration with BBC Media Action: Insights from BBC Verify's fact-checking experience for Journalism Faculty’s teaching staff

BBC Media Action is the BBC's international development charity. It works in more than 30 countries, including Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). 

As part of its cooperation with the YSU Faculty of Journalism, BBC Media Action offered courses for lecturers and organized a visit for Faculty Dean Naghash Martirosyan to Cardiff University and City University in the UK.  

BBC Media Action trainers Kate Hoyland, Paul Myles, and Olga Smirnova visited the Faculty of Journalism to conduct courses on podcasting and mobile journalism for lecturers. 

A three-day course for lecturers on "Collecting Information from Open Sources" was held from September 30 to October 2 as part of the cooperation between the YSU Faculty of Journalism and BBC Media Action. Faculty lecturers learned about BBC Verify's experience in obtaining information from open sources, as well as the latest methods and tools they use. 

The course was conducted by journalist, lecturer, and producer Olga Smirnova, who has worked for the BBC for over 24 years, contributing to the creation of the media's television, radio, and online products. Smirnova also worked in BBC Verify's fact-checking department and currently teaches at Oxford Brookes University.

Smirnova's course covered the three dimensions of fact-checking: methods, tools, and genres. Among the tools, the following were particularly significant: 

• photo verification tools ("TinEye," "Google Lens," "Yandex"),

• the "Search4faces" tool for recognizing people's faces,

• geolocation using "Google Earth" and "Yandex" maps,

• aircraft flight tracking tools, etc.

The trainer presented the approaches of BBC and other reputable media, including during the preparation of materials with text, multimedia and video versions. This stage was also presented with concrete examples and accompanied by discussions.

The training course was highly significant, particularly for the design of the Fact-Checking Lab. It will also provide an opportunity to update the content of topics related to collecting information from open sources across various courses, transforming their structure to include the latest tools and applying new teaching methods.