主播大秀

More than 2,000 young people have learned journalistic skills and how to spot fake news this summer, as part of 主播大秀 School Report roadshows.

The media literacy skills initiative has toured the country recently, including at the Bournemouth Air Festival; Clacton Airshow; Godiva Festival in Coventry; at 主播大秀 offices in Salford and London, and in the coming weeks will be at 主播大秀 Digital Cities in Birmingham, and in the North East during October.

Since starting in 2006 主播大秀 School Report has supported teachers in more than 2,000 secondary schools to help 11- to 16-year-olds develop new literacy skills and critical thinking.

We’ve now expanded to include young people aged up to 18, as well as youth organisations so that those in harder to reach areas can also take part.

This means 主播大秀 School Report can operate all the year round because while schools finish for the summer, youth organisations don’t, so we’ve lots of events running throughout the holidays.

Although research has shown that young people are aware of the concept of fake news, a majority of children both in the UK and overseas struggle to recognise it.

There’s been some great feedback from young people saying they’ll now able to tell what’s real and what isn’t when they go online, which is one of the biggest things we can teach them.

It’s a real moment for them when the penny drops, and they ask why people would put out false information in the first place.

You could teach it as ‘this is an example of fake news, and this is an example of real news’, but we felt that was quite a simplistic and not very exciting way to approach it.

When we broke down what you needed to know when it comes to identifying fake news, it’s actually the principles of good journalism.

That’s what we’ve used to guide our workshops, and to be the framework of iReporter, the online game we have made with Aardman Studios that places you in the heart of a newsroom amidst a breaking news story.

It’s been played more than 83,000 times so far, and makes you think about motivations, source checking, why people might say certain things, how data can be confusing, balance and different viewpoints – what journalists face every single day.

The game measures you on speed, accuracy and impact, so if you go really fast through it you’d score low, because accuracy is of crucial importance.

As well as events, films, lesson plans for teachers and online tools, more than 100 主播大秀 staff members have been trained as mentors to go into schools and help young people distinguish fake news from the real thing.

Going global with 主播大秀 School Report is the next step, as we know that fake news can be more of an issue abroad than in the UK. There will be further events in Nairobi and in Delhi during the autumn, and we are also in talks about Europe.

Find out more at the 主播大秀 School Report homepage .