Fake or Real Newsroom, A Disinformation Workshop

Aims of the tool

To help young people understand how disinformation is created and spreads, by experiencing the process themselves rather than being told about it. The workshop builds critical media literacy, encourages questioning of news sources, and strengthens teamwork and public presentation skills.

Description of the tool

This workshop introduces high school students or group of young people to the concepts of fake news and disinformation through direct experience rather than lecture. Instead of starting with definitions, participants are asked to produce both truthful and false news content themselves, and only afterward reflect on what they did and why it matters.

The group is split into four smaller teams. Two topics are given out, one lighter and almost absurd (used as an icebreaker), and one that mirrors real, current debates. Each topic is handed to two teams: one is instructed to write a truthful headline and short article using only the factual information provided (who, where, when, why, what), and the other is instructed to spin the same facts into a false, alarming or provocative headline and article, some groups used AI-generated images or "deepfake"-style elements to make their fake story more convincing.

Topic examples used successfully in our sessions:
"[This city] is going to become the new capital of the country." (a light, almost absurd claim, good as an icebreaker since it's low-stakes and easy to laugh about.)
"The government will ban social media for everyone under 20 years old." (a more realistic, current-feeling claim that mirrors real policy debates and tends to provoke stronger reactions and more convincing "fake" articles.)

Facilitators can adapt the topics to their own local or national context, the key is pairing one playful, unlikely topic with one plausible, contemporary one.

Each team then presents their article to the whole group, and the facilitators open a discussion: How easy was it to distort the truth? What techniques made the fake version more convincing? How did it feel to deliberately create disinformation? This is the point where the terminology (disinformation, misinformation, fake news) is introduced, connecting it to what the participants just did themselves rather than presenting it as abstract theory.

Learning outcomes:

Participants can recognize common techniques used to create disinformation (emotional language, provocation, selective facts, manipulated images).
Participants understand that disinformation is often built from real facts that are distorted, not invented from nothing.
Participants improve teamwork and collaborative writing under time pressure.
Participants practice presenting and defending ideas in a foreign language (English) in front of peers and international facilitators.
Participants develop a more critical approach to headlines and news they encounter online.