Digital Investigation Techniques


Multilingual open courses for journalists and journalism students from leading global news agency AFP, supported by the Google News Initiative



Check out our course!

More than 2 billion people will vote in 2024. We've just updated a course in three parts on tackling election disinformation for journalists and journalism students. You will learn:

- How much is spent on political ads
- How to monitor online activity
- How to identify and verify the main types of disinformation that circulate before, during and after an election
- How to create a collaborative project

Why are these courses useful for journalists?

  • Learn with examples, quizzes and tips from AFP's global digital investigations team, the world's largest team of fact checkers

  • Save time with new skills to search, verify and work safely online

  • Earn your first certificate in less than one hour

  • - Carry out more efficient searches online
    - Find the origin of a photo or video
    - Learn techniques to protect yourself online
    - Save evidence and find online archives

  • -Tackling election disinformation
    - Verifying climate claims
    - Take social media searches to the next level
    - Geolocation I: Identify clues, use online maps

  • - Use mapping tools and find results with few clues (Geolocation II)
    - Identify reliable sources on health topics
    - Find witnesses to breaking news events and obtain, check and vet images

Testimonials

Masato Kajimoto

Associate Professor - Journalism & Media Studies Centre (HKU)

"Each module is what we call a 'bite-sized' unit. So you can probably spend one or two hours to finish one. I can give students assignments to finish all those courses so by the time they come to my class, they already know the tools and they know all the basics. So that works really well."

Alice Antheaume

Executive Director - Sciences Po Paris Journalism School

"Tested and approved by our team, the AFP modules are perfect "holiday homework" for students at the Sciences Po School of Journalism. In less than 1h each day, they prepare future journalists for the first semester of classes, and beyond, for the production of reliable and verified information, while boosting their agility with digital tools."

Robin Ewing

Senior Lecturer - Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU)

"Disinformation and misinformation is extremely problematic. It’s gone into every kind of area -- health, politics and beyond. So it’s a real problem, and I think I’m really impressed with the AFP Fact Check team and what they are doing, and to be able to bring that into the classroom and teach students the tools to be able to do digital investigations is incredibly important journalism education."

Abe Wong

Bachelor’s Degree of Journalism - The University of Hong Kong

"I’ve finished all of the courses. And out of those courses, my favorite course is the geolocation. The mapping tools they are really helpful and handy. It taught me to look into all the details that I have left in our daily life. For example the car plates, the zoom in technique, or the languages, they are really useful in our reporting."

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AFP's YouTube playlists with fact-checking tips won two prizes at the 2023 Lovie Awards: Bronze and People's choice!