Quality of the media products, discussed with the high-school students from Durlesti

Several students of Hyperion high-school from Durlesti participated in a media literacy lesson, organized by the Independent Journalism Center, on February 18. The young people discussed about the fakes in the press, manipulation and other media problems. The activity was moderated by journalist Liliana Barbarosie, Radio Free Europe.

22 students found out more about how to get correct information from the media, how to read the news and analyze the information without being manipulated. In this context, Liliana Barbarosie highlighted: “The main product of a journalist is the information. It must be analyzed from several perspectives, so that the readers can form their own conclusions”.

During the lesson students talked about the manipulation phenomenon in the news, and the rules a journalist has to follow, such as:  objective presentation of the facts, events and no personal opinions on the reported information.

Liliana Barbarosie also explained to the young people the problems encountered by the Moldovan press. “There are two major problems for our press: the media institutions are not independent and there is manipulation coming from the foreign media”, said Liliana Barbarosie.

Anastasia Zagoreaniuc, participant in this lesson, mentioned: „This kind of activities help us understand whether what information is true or false. If the news in not based on facts, but on opinions and it doesn’t use at least two independent sources, then we should throw it away”.
Her colleague, Daniela Caras, noticed: „Media literacy lessons are very necessary, because they help us select correctly the media information and make us understand that press only has to inform us, not manipulate!“.

The event took place as part of the project “Promoting media literacy among Moldovan citizens”, implemented by the IJC between March 2014 and April 2015 with the financial support of the US Embassy in Moldova.