AFP launches new verification course on its online platform
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is launching an online course on its award-winning training platform to explain how to use the Verification Plugin for online investigations, also known as InVID-WeVerify, at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.
The new course, developed by experts from the AFP’s digital investigation team, and supported by the Google News Initiative, explains key functions of the plugin – a toolkit which was co-developed by AFP which is widely considered as one of the best resources for verifying online images and videos.
The freely accessible browser extension combines multiple verification tools in one place, including for investigating the origin of pictures or videos, metadata extraction, forensic analysis or social media analysis. Journalists and digital investigation experts have called it one of the best tools for anyone who needs to verify the authenticity of online media.
The online course for journalists and journalism students explains the top features of the toolkit with examples, exercises and videos and lasts around one hour, providing a certificate on completion.
”AFP’s new digital course will help equip journalists to tackle the growing challenges of verifying online information in a landscape impacted by the rapid developments in generative AI,” said Phil Chetwynd, AFP’s Global News Director.
All of AFP’s modules are available on the Digital Courses platform in four languages — English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Since its inception in June 2022, the platform has enrolled and trained more than 25,000 journalists and journalism students.
There are now 16, self-paced modules on the platform, each lasting around one hour and leading to a certificate, covering topics including verifying information around major news events and searching and working more efficiently online.
The courses have been used and adopted by journalism schools around the world, including Sciences Po Paris and CFJ (Centre de Formation de Journalistes) in France, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), PUC-SP in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the University of the Philippines and Universidad del Norte, in Colombia. AFP’s training resources have won multiple awards, including from WAN-IFRA, INMA, the Webbys, the Anthem Awards and the Lovie Awards