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The research organisation hosted the workshop titled ‘Confronting misinformation in Bangladesh’ in a city hotel in collaboration with the United States State Department.

Journalists and fact-checkers from different Dhaka-based national media outlets attended the workshop. 

Zillur Rahman, CGS executive director, in his speech said that a recent media report has revealed that in recent times over 700 articles by ghost authors were published by different media outlets and journals, which were then republished by some mainstream media outlets without doing proper checking.

He stated that the recent media reports about a fake adviser to US president Joe Biden holding a press conference with political leaders in Bangladesh is another example of an inadequate knowledge about the fact checking procedure.

Emphasising the difficulties journalists currently encounter in fighting the spread of misinformation, Zillur, who is also known for anchoring the talk-show called Tritiyo Matra, also said that with the national election knocking at the door the chances of spreading misinformation, disinformation and malinformation centring the election event are high.

The workshop was led by Qadaruddin Shishir, fact check editor, Agency France Presse in Bangladesh.

Shishir discussed about a variety of procedures, techniques and precautionary measures pertaining to fact checking in the media, focusing on among other issues, election-centric misinformation, characteristics of religious misinformation, present state of fact checking, vulnerability of elections to misinformation, comparative standing of Bangladesh in relation to other nations and strategies for addressing misinformation.

Organisers at the CGS, a non-governmental think-tank, said that this was the second phase of their ongoing efforts to counter false information, rumours and misleading news in the country.

They also said that in the first phase they organised seven dialogue sessions with journalists, fact checkers and editors in five divisional locations in the country.