Attention is the gold of our time. In a world with an overabundance of information, journalism and fact-checking initiatives are forced to compete in an environment where the success of content depends less on rigor and quality than on algorithmic decisions and social media trends.
This panorama is aggravated if one takes into account the general situation of the media, which do not have assured sources of sustenance and are exposed to aggressions as a result of their work. In the case of Colombia, these challenges, which limit the ability of journalists to carry out their work in optimal conditions, are even more noticeable in regions other than Bogotá, where training opportunities are scarcer.
Workshops in five cities in Colombia
Against this backdrop, during 2024 we carried out a series of activities around journalism and the attention economy, with support from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. First, we organized a series of regional workshops to update and strengthen the capacities of journalists and fact-checkers in Cali, Medellin, Santa Marta, Cucuta and Bogota.
In these spaces, with the support of the Foundation for Press Freedom, we offered technical and theoretical tools to navigate in the digital environment, analyze information critically and offer reliable news. In addition, in each of the sessions we worked on proposals to develop journalistic investigations with subsequent mentoring.
The intention of these spaces was to put into practice the knowledge acquired and create journalistic pieces with quality standards in the coverage of episodes of disinformation and manipulation online. As part of the mentoring, the following articles were published:
- #NoConMiAhorro puts Julio César Iglesias in the 'Atlas' of global ultra-right financing, by Paola Benjumea Brito, in ColombiaCheck.
- Tan tuiteros como Petro: radiografía del discurso de oposición en X, by Laura Sanabria Rangel and Santiago Amaya Barrantes, in La Silla Vacía.
- Graphics: how power has transformed in Colombia in 15 years, by Daniel Pacheco, Pablo Añez Held and Andrea Montoya, in La Silla Vacía.
- Lies and conspiracies pressured the fall of the bill that prohibited "conversion therapies", by María José Echeverry, Santiago Amaya Barrantes and Maria Paula Acosta Boada, in La Silla Vacía.
Attention economics and journalism series in Charlas con Charli
Each session of the workshops also featured the participation of invited experts. As part of this initiative, in alliance with CHCH, Carlos Cortés' opinion and political criticism initiative, a series of five chapters were held to discuss technology and human behavior, consciousness and algorithms, critical thinking and disinformation, and incentives and audiences.
Read the complete series here:
