MediaLab Francophonie

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In early October 2024, the state school of journalism in Tours (EPJT) played host in Paris to 26 students from seven schools of journalism from the Théophraste network (Belgium, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Lebanon, Morocco, Romania and Senegal) to cover the Francophonie Summit, Village and Festival, with output designed for social networks.

The students were first welcomed to France Médias Monde for a tour of the RFI and France 24 newsrooms, followed by a discussion with journalists. They then went to the CFI premises to meet the CFI Chair and Managing Director Thierry Vallat.

Producing reports and fact-checking

During the Summit, they then paired up with students from other schools, to work in newsroom conditions to produce 37 reports, supervised by a teacher from each school, and an EPJT team acting as Chief Editors and logistics coordinators. These videos were then published on the EPJT, Théophraste and CFI social networks.

“Participating in this newsroom was a unique experience, especially the opportunity to meet other students, journalists and citizens from several different countries. The supervisors were all passionate and took the time to get to know us and support us. We were really lucky to visit CFI, France 24 and RFI. This was like a dream come true to me.”
Chris Costantine, student at Lebanon University

The second part of the project involved reinforcing the platform Factoscope.fr . This raised the visibility of this French-language portal which provides fact-checking and Media and Information Literacy (MIL) resources. New content and educational videos produced by Factoscope’s partner Nothing2Hide were published online. 21 fact-checking articles were produced and published thanks to the commissions from media outlets contributing to the platform. Students from Théophraste network schools learned about the resources available and platform issues during webinars, organised before and after the Francophonie summit. Lastly, the Factoscope.fr fact-checking award was bestowed on five media outlets, out of the 39 who applied, in the categories “Political statements”, “Providing context for images”, “Debunking rumours”, “Disinformation about women” and the “Jury’s Prize”.

“The programme was beneficial because it gave us a complete immersion in journalism as well as developing our capacity to adapt to a new team and work in groups.”
Hibatallah Elalami, student at ISIC (Morocco)