Vacancy Notice – News Fact-checking Expert

Assignment description: Preparing and delivering one full-day training workshop on news fact-checking for 10 content creators and 15 field correspondents

Assignment location: Beirut, Lebanon

Employment type: Short-term consultancy 

Assignment period: March 2024

Level of effort: Two expert days

How to apply: Please send your application documents to info.lebanon@democracy-reporting.org cc’ing e.haddad@democracy-reporting.org, by Monday, 5 February 2024, 11:59 PM local time (Beirut, Lebanon). 

DRI is looking for a media expert to deliver one full-day training workshop to a group of 10 content creators and 10 field correspondents to increase their skills in news fact-checking and detecting misleading information and fake news.

Background

Democracy Reporting International (DRI) is a non-partisan, independent, not-for-profit organisation registered in Berlin, and established in Lebanon since 2016. DRI promotes political participation of citizens, accountability of state bodies and the development of democratic institutions worldwide. Democratic discourse is the basis of our mission and vision. In our work, we facilitate discussion and exchange about democratic government and the need for a continuous discourse adhering to democratic rules.   

In the framework of its project entitled: “Independent Voices: Supporting Innovative & Citizen-centric Content Creation in Lebanese Media”, DRI is facilitating collaboration between a network of journalists, media makers, and digital content creators following a rights-based approach to shed light on political reform issues and the expansion of civic space.

The project aims at countering mis- and disinformation and the spread of fake news in mainstream media. To do so, we envision a young media community that works together to deliver high-quality media content about topics that are typically overlooked by mainstream media.

In this context, DRI is recruiting a news fact-checking expert to deliver one full-day training workshop to a group of 10 content creators and 15 field correspondents in March 2024. The objective of the assignment is to enhance the skills of the trainees in news fact-checking and identify fake news. The trainer will explain the tools used by journalists to detect such information on social media platforms.

Your duties and responsibilities

Under the supervision of DRI’s Programme Manager, the Expert will:  

• Develop interactive and detailed training modules, a training session plan, and all accompanying background materials (½ expert day);   
• Prepare pre- and post-training test modules to be shared with the participants before and after the training sessions, once validated by DRI; 
• Deliver one full-day training workshop for 10 content creators and 15 field correspondents following an interactive, engaging approach, e.g., discussion activities, exercises (one expert day);  
• Once the training is completed, submit a training report summarising the training outcomes and the pre- and post-training tests results, reflecting the trainees’ increase in knowledge as per the template provided by DRI (½ expert day).  

 Your skills and experience  

• A university degree in communications, media studies, social sciences, or any other relevant field; 
• At least 5 years of experience in the media field;
• Proven track record as a content creator on social media platforms;
• Proven experience in training on news fact-checking or similar related topics using interactive methods;
• Excellent verbal and writing communication skills;
• Gender and cultural sensitivity;
• Working proficiency in Arabic and English.