Rappler's Head of Digital Strategy Gemma Bagayaua-Mendoza holds the award beside Ed Bice, Chief Executive Officer of Meedan, a tech partner of #FactsFirstPH.

-

The #FactsFirstPH coalition was awarded Most Innovative and Impactful Collaboration at the Global Fact 9, an annual international fact-checking conference.

Rappler accepted the award in Oslo, Norway, on behalf of #FactsFirstPH, a coalition of over 140 news organizations, civil society groups, business organizations, legal groups, coalitions, and research groups dedicated to fighting disinformation in the Philippines.

The Global Fact conference is organized by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute.

“The [#FactsFirstPH] collaboration program was unique in the sense that it brings different stakeholders from the Philippines to combat mis- and disinformation before the Filipino elections and that’s, I believe, why the Global Fact 9 participants voted as the Most Innovative Collaboration of this year,” said Baybars Orsek, director of the IFCN.

The first-of-a-kind initiative has four key layers: fact-checking, amplification or mesh, research, and deterrence. This allows the coalition to maximize the impact of fact-checking by distributing individual fact checks in different formats and translations, digging deeper into social media behaviors and disinformation networks, and holding disinformation actors accountable.

#FactsFirstPH is supported by technology partners Google News Initiative and Meedan with its Check platform.

From February 1 to April 30, 2022, the coalition produced 878 fact-check articles and translations, 48 fact-check videos, 75 artworks, and 19 research studies. These were shared, republished, repurposed, and translated across member organizations, even among the traditionally competitive newsrooms.

Posts with the #FactsFirstPH hashtag on Facebook gained over 6 million interactions from February 1 to April 30.

“Fact-checking is time-consuming work and it makes a much larger impact when different media outlets, rights groups, activists, legal groups, use the fact check to generate a larger impact. So I hope this award will remind other fact checkers all around the world to reach out beyond their audiences and form new partnerships, new collaborations and then hold people in power during elections, before elections, after elections accountable by surfacing those fact checks with their partnerships,” Orsek told Rappler.

Source: Rappler.com