We are delighted to announce the official signing of a partnership between MediaFututres and Faktisk.no. Effective Autumn, 2023, the alliance marks a significant stride in advancing research and innovation in the realm of fact-checking.
Central to its core mission, MediaFutures maintains a strong focus on pioneering research, and the creation of cutting-edge solutions for content verification and trustworthy journalism.
Over the years, the center has sought collaborations with various entities to drive this objective. A significant past joint endeavor in this domain was the partnership with Faktisk.no.
Between 2022 and 2023, the Norwegian fact-checking organization played a crucial role in providing guidance to MediaFutures’ PhD candidate, Sohail Ahmed Khan, as he developed two prototypes: an image classifier and a language detector. Both tools have earned great acclaim among fact checkers and journalists, including those operating in war-torn Ukraine.
The successful endeavor brought into focus the potential that resides in collaborative efforts, prompting MediaFutures and Faktisk.no to solidify and formalize their partnership.
“We have witnessed the significant editorial value of the technology developed with MediaFutures. Sohail’s tools proved very useful for verification journalism related to image and video material from the Ukraine war. The tools have been adopted by editorial teams in other countries, including the global news agency AFP. The achievements stemming from this prior collaborative endeavor make us very excited about fostering closer ties with MediaFutures”, says Morten Langfeldt Dahlback, the head of development at Faktisk.no.
Commenting on the outlook, Langfeld Dahlback emphasizes: “Our alliance with MediaFutures is significant, offering us a chance to strengthen ties with the country’s leading media technology expertise, and to drive technological and methodological innovation in Norway’s media sector. We are already conceptualizing multiple collaborative projects with fellow partners in the domain of multimodal content verification. We believe this partnership holds great value for all involved.”
In parallel, MediaFutures’ Director, Professor Christoph Trattner, lauds the partnership, stating “We are thrilled to welcome Faktisk.no into the consortium. Their expertise in fact-checking is highly valuable to us. Together, we are poised to drive innovation and counteract the spread of misinformation, ultimately advancing trustworthy journalism.”
About Faktisk.no
Faktisk.no represents an alliance of Norway’s major media companies. This includes the state broadcasting company NRK, the major media conglomerate Schibsted, the newspaper Dagbladet, TV2, Amedia and Polaris Media. The organization is part of the International Fact-Checking Network.