51 •
DIGITAL INVESTIGATION
LANDMARKS
SOPHIE NICHOLSON
DEPUTY CHIEF EDITOR IN THE DIGITAL
INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT
Disinformation and digital investigation are increasingly
part of our general coverage and feature more and more on
our production wires. Today, more than 140 AFP journalists
work on digital investigation around the world in 24 lan-
guages.
In such a fast-moving sector, the Agency launched major
projects in November 2021 to perfect the digital investiga-
tion skills of journalists and students the world over. This
also reinforces AFP’s position as world-leader in the fight
against disinformation. These projects, supported by Goo-
gle, took shape in 2022:
For the first time, online digital investigation training
courses open to everyone: digitalcourses.afp.com.
•Training workshops for journalists and journalism stu-
dents all over the world
•Videos with tutorials and case studies presented by our
journalists available on the AFP YouTube channels
• A project on the French elections – Objectif Désinfox, – with
a coalition of French media fighting against disinformation
from February to June 2022.
The online training platform Digital Courses was launched
in English and French at Global Fact 9, an international fac-
tchecking conference in Oslo A Portuguese version was
launched in August at the Abraji international conference
for investigative journalism
The courses are aimed at journalism school students and
experienced journalists wanting to improve their skills by
using online tools for searches, finding archives, geolocating
via maps, protecting themselves against cyberbullying, etc.
The platform offers a dozen or so modules, with a certifi-
cate awarded at the end of each one. More than 16,000 cer-
tificates were awarded in 2022. In 2023, we will also have
modules in Spanish.
Several journalism schools, in France, Asia and Latin Ame-
rica, have already integrated their online training modules
into their curricula.
We have also had very good feedback about our five trai-
ning workshops that we organised for journalists and stu-
dents in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Nairobi.
The short videos are broadcast via playlists on YouTube,
Twitter and Instagram. Anyone wanting to learn digital in-
vestigation techniques can benefit from our journalists’
tips. They are in English, French and, shortly, Spanish.
Around 20 videos with tutorials were published in 2022,
around one every two weeks.
We also launched the Objectif Desinfox coalition figh-
ting against disinformation, bringing together 23 French
media organisations, which published 202 factchecks and
23 videos during the French presidential and legislative
elections
These new training projects required us to form a new team
with skills in digital investigation training and video
"The Agency launched major projects in November 2021 to perfect the
digital investigation skills of journalists and students the world over."
AFP SOCIAL STORIES
PRESENTATION
CAMILLE BOUISSOU
DEPUTY CHIEF DIGITAL INVESTIGATION EDITOR,
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
Can you explain how this new AFP product,
Social Stories, came about?
More and more people are turning away from the news.
Young people have been using social media to get their
news for years. The Story format is everywhere: Ins-
tagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube Short. These
networks have become the main way for young people to
consume news.
We first had the idea for Social Stories in 2022 and we put it
into action in record time, with two main criteria:
• Producing a quality product that met AFP standards
• Targeting an audience we had not necessarily aimed for
until now
On August 15, 2022, we launched a format compatible with
these platforms, in English and French, under the name
Social Stories. Since then, we have been producing 50 per
week. That is our commitment. Subscribers to AFP News
can easily integrate them into their website, in an AMP for-
mat that allows them to be read very quickly, and onto their
platforms.
We pull together the best of AFP’s image production, in
France and abroad, to give a brief summary of the news or
explainers of less than two minutes Our AFP Social Stories
are available on the AFP News platform A subscriber to this
format can keep abreast of the news twice a day due to a
roundup of that days most important stories
What is the content?
It’s about producing attractive and relevant Stories, with
context and explanations. That’s the richness of three me-
dia in one.
For example, we adapted a fascinating feature on Fast
Fashion, clothes sold very cheaply in Europe by the big re-
tail firms, which contribute to global warming. We have also
done explanatory Social Stories, such as one on Germany’s
Leopard tank. We offer Stories on sport, environment,
culture, etc.
Who produces these Social Stories?
We have a team of seven, three in London and four in Paris.
We trawl through the Agency’s production, videos, photos,
text, to pick out what we think will appeal most to young
audiences. Then we draw up a script adapted to the format,
with a dynamic montage.
Our team is very young and very much in touch with today’s
world. They are very connected and in touch with what is
being said and done. They can take the pulse of the social
networks.
We are offering the product for sale to clients and prospects
in 2023 There will be separate video and text bundles
which will allow the client to adapt the format to their own
working language
"It’s about producing attractive and relevant Stories, with context and
explanations. That’s the richness of three media in one."