About us
Lie Detectors is an independent, award-winning and journalist-driven media literacy organisation. As Europe’s largest organisation of this kind, its remit is to counter the corrosive effect of online disinformation and polarisation on democracy.
To do this, Lie Detectors empowers young people and teachers to tell fact from fake online and understand how journalism works. It trains teachers to pass this knowledge to students safely and effectively.
Lie Detectors contributes research and findings from its practical work into advisory and policy-making processes in the fields of education and digital rights.
Lie Detectors is non-partisan and its remit universal. Its commitment to take no funding from political parties and none from large online platforms is cited by 77% of teachers as an important or very important factor in their decision to host Lie Detectors. Lie Detectors trainers comply with ethical guidelines to keep modules age-appropriate, inclusive, accessible and free of political position, as well as in line with the code of the Ethical Journalism Network.
Lie Detectors receives core funding from the Wyss Foundation and is accredited as a charity by the donor-advised fund Myriad. Several of its projects are funded via EU grants. It was conceived and founded in 2017 by award-winning journalist Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck as a response to a growing public crisis of confidence in professional journalism.
"Everyone needs the skills to be a journalist."
— Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills, OECD
Our work in numbers
We run our workshops in English, French, German and Polish with more languages in development
Reach
Our network of more than 500 trained journalists allows us to work at scale: Lie Detectors is Europe’s leading provider of journalist-driven media literacy education and trains teachers internationally.
Lie Detectors’ theory of change: creating a virtuous circle
Journalists work with students
Lie Detectors selects and trains professional journalists with an award-winning script to deliver 90-minute classroom-based workshops for children aged 10-15. Classroom sessions are for all school types and localities. Sessions are interactive, inclusive, non-political and age-appropriate. We aim to harness children's intuitive understanding of their online world. Games and tools give children skills to navigate the online information world with curiosity and care. Training is in line with DigComp2.2, EU EDAP and Digital Literacy recommendations.
Teachers are powerful multipliers
Teachers wishing to teach media literacy can request teacher-training by our most experienced journalists. Workshops of 120-180 minutes emphasise peer learning, games and practical tools for teachers to to work independently and safely with their students. Demand is up since Covid. Training is in line with DigComp2.2, Digital Literacy recommendations. Lie Detectors is proud to be a Supportive Partner of eTwinning and a member of the European School Education Platform’s Professional Development Advisory Board. New modules are constantly in development.
Academic evaluation
We gather feedback from journalists, teachers and each of the 26,000+ children we train annually in anonymised GDPR-compliant questionnaires. Created with the help of scientists from Bristol, Munich, Southern Denmark and Sorbonne Universities, surveys facilitate quality control and provide snapshots of children and teacher’s online ability and views. Evaluation shows young people’s media use by young people, data on vulnerability and impact, and allows LIe Detectors to understand the evolving needs of young people and potential for impactful training.
Cooperations and Policy Advice create lasting impact
Insights from the ground across EU states inform policy debate on education policy and digital rights, within expert advisory processes such as the High-Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation and EU Digital Literacy Guidelines. Journalists feed experience of young audiences into newsrooms. This creates momentum for policy and support structures underpinning media literacy work, with solutions increasingly integrated into public education infrastructure. Lie Detectors is creating toolkits for newsrooms and education authorities.
Partners
Lie Detectors partners with organisations with shared values and complementary interests. Lie Detectors and its knowledge partners reinforce one another’s networks and advocacy positions where relevant. Through cooperation, we all benefit from influencing and being associated with one another’s activities. Lie Detectors’ partnerships involve no money or capital flows.
Lie Detectors knowledge partners:
