Journalists and newsrooms

We train journalists to teach digital media literacy. Join us to make a difference.

Citizens urgently need media literacy skills to make sense of individualised news feeds and social media steered by algorithms.

Who better to help than professional journalists? Lie Detectors trains selected professional journalists, media experts and newsrooms to hand basic journalistic tools to students aged 10-15 and to teachers with an award-winning training concept.

Journalists trained by Lie Detectors will never to tell students what to think, empowering them instead to harness their natural curiosity and powers of inquiry, to seek out the truth, resist false and polarising content and navigate ambiguity with care. As a participating journalist we will uptrain you regularly on emerging topics such as how to address conspiracy theories, war, media skepticism and AI safely with children in classroom settings. Crucially, you will learn how to speak openly and honestly about the hard and complicated craft of ethical journalism in the 21st century, and why it matters. If you love your work in classrooms, we will also consider you for our projects in training teachers.

We have trained more than 500 journalists in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Poland and Switzerland and we work with prestigious newsrooms. For a list of media experts who have worked with Lie Detectors, click here.

Apply now to join our community, as either an individual journalist or as a newsroom manager on behalf of a newsroom

  • "In a polarised environment, what is critical to effective education is a neutral, non-partisan approach that translates across countries."

    Teacher, Poland

  • "We journalists have front-row seats in the fake-news spectacle. Through Lie Detectors, we get to do something about it."

    Maria Udrescu
    Journalist, La Libre Belgique, Belgium

  • "The best Zoom call I ever had."

    Le Soir journalist Patricia Labar after a digital visit to a classroom in Belgium

  • "Truly uplifting to see the curiosity and thirst for knowledge of these children. And no doubt this will give me good karma too."

    Jochen Spangenberg
    Media expert, lecturer, founder/member of InVid fact-checking consortium, Berlin, Germany

  • "When I grow up I want to be a journalist (or a dancer)."

    11-year-old, Belgium

Interested, but you still have some practical questions?

We train journalists to teach media literacy. Join us to make a difference.

Citizens urgently need media literacy skills to make sense of individualised news feeds and social media steered by algorithms. Who better to help than professional journalists? Lie Detectors trains selected professional journalists, media experts and newsrooms to hand basic journalistic tools to students and teachers with an award-winning approach.

Apply now to join our community.

Join 500 journos

Lie Detectors cooperates with newsrooms

Our ethics

Lie Detectors subscribes to professional codes of journalism ethics, as described by the International federation of Journalists and the Ethical Journalism Network. All journalists participating in the Lie Detectors project commit to a set of ethical guidelines and are bound by a cooperation agreement to ensure standards of non-partisanship, courtesy, an inclusive and age-relevant approach, as well as standards of punctuality and equal delivery of classroom visits.

Our selection criteria are strict and we are sorry we cannot include journalists and media experts who do paid work for political or commercial non-journalistic entities.

Resources

HOW WE DO IT

Lie Detectors advocates for all citizens to have the necessary tools to navigate information streams safely and sagely. In our cascade effect, we train journalists for several days and then deploy them into schools to provide interactive, inclusive and awardwinning training (LINK) to children aged 10-15 in the presence of their teacher. By joining our pool, journalists and newsrooms agree to hand over newsgathering skills. understanding of their audiences and speak
Professional journalists and media experts teach 90-minute classroom sessions in the presence of a teacher and provide follow-up “News Challenge” materials for use in the classroom.

Sessions consist of two parts: in the first half, students discuss disinformation and acquire journalistic tools to decode fakes. A second half uses interactive games to explore journalistic pressures and news agendas and how these may present partial picture of reality. Material for homework or follow-up sessions – where requested – allows children to develop deeper a understanding of storytelling and perspective.

All journalists have been trained to discuss their profession and its challenges honestly and transparently. Services offered to classrooms are free of charge and aim to reach a broad and diverse range of schools in Europe. Training for teachers, teacher-trainers and school managers follows the award-winning approach of hands-on, inclusive training by journalists, frank discussion and resources for follow-up.

90-minute classroom-based workshops​

Target age group: 10-15​

Diversity of school types​

harness intuitive understanding & curiosity​

high interest accelerated since COVID pandemic​

activate as catalysts at home​

positive contact with journalists​

age-appropriate and playful​

In line with DigComp 2.2 & EU EDAP & Digital Literacy recommendations​