De La Salle University-Dasmariñas has been selected to join Google’s fact-checking project with a grant from the Asian Network of News and Information Educators (ANNIE) School Net.
According to Communications and Journalism Department Chair Isolde Valera, DLSU-D is one of the only two Philippine schools that were chosen for the grant of USD$5,000 which covers trainings and other needs of the participants of the project.
The DLSU-D program will kick off with a three-day training from February 24-26 facilitated by Press One editor and DLSU-D faculty member Rommel Lopez.
Later in the year, the participants will also be trained by Google experts on fact checking, in addition to the series of trainings and workshops that participants will complete under DLSU-D’s competent pool of faculty trainers and resource persons.
Under the program, 18 students from the Digital and Multimedia Journalism and Communication programs were selected via a screening process which took into account their grades, their skills, and their potential as fact checkers.
The Digital and Multimedia Journalism students were also prioritized since the project is in line with their coursework.
“This is very advantageous to our DMJ students, especially since DLSU-D is the only university in the Philippines that is offering a specialized course on Digital and Multimedia journalism. This program will also help prepare them as they venture into media practice,” Valera said.
By the end of the program on December 2025, participants are expected to be empowered with analytical skills, logical reasoning, and effective content creation through the utilization of digital tools and techniques employed in journalistic fact-checking. They are also required to produce at least 36 fact checking videos as part of their output.
“We have also allotted a specific timeslot on Green FM for the students for this fact checking project,” Valera said.