The Media Development Centre presented yesterday, July 1, 2025, the translations of the “Verification Handbook: An Ultimate Guideline on Digital Age Sourcing for Emergency Coverage” into Macedonian and Albanian Language. The promotion of the handbook, originally prepared and published by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) was followed by a panel-discussion on the topic of “Investigative Journalism for the Age of Information Disorder”.

The Verification Handbook is a great new resource that aims to assist journalists, but also humanitarian workers, first responder, relief and rescue services, to better deal with the inflow of information and user-generated content that accompanies all emergencies and breaking news in the contemporary era of social media and social networks.

Although the Verification Handbook was first published in 2016, it remains equally relevant today as nine years ago.

“I get a lot of questions – it was nine years ago. How is it still valid? Looking at the number of downloads and professors that use it in their academic studies in journalism schoos, it is still current because of the processes it describes. Tools change, especially now with the AI, as mentioned, but the processes, the steps you have to follow, the little things that you need to be aware of… not much has changed in that. So, if you use the Handbook, you will get a better understanding of what you need to go through to verify user-generated content on social media and everything else”, said Bianca Lemmens from the European Journalism Centre.

Shen also mentioned plans for a new, fourth handbook in the series, dedicated to verification of visual and video material.

The Verification Handbook is especially important from the aspect of the age we live in, in which checking and verification (or debunking) of information that citizens and other actors post on the social media and social networks is becoming one of the main tasks for journalists. That is true for both reporting on emergencies and breaking news, but also in the everyday reporting, in the fight against disinformation and media manipulations.

The publication of this Verification Handbook means that the series is now completely localized in Macedonian language (The Verification Handbook 2 has not been translated into Albanian), and MDC intends to continue with the localization of any future publications under the “Verification Handbook” series.

After the presentation of the Handbook, professor Jasna Bačovska Nedić, Ph.D, from Journalism Studies at the UKIM Faculty of Law; professor Sefer Tahiri, Ph.D, from the SEE University in Tetovo; and Maja Jovanovska from the Investigative Reporting Lab (IRL), discussed the place and treatment of investigative journalism in the mainstream media and its importance in terms of providing quality information in the “age of information disorder”.

The translations of the Verification Handbook and the panel-discussion were organized under the “Investigative Journalism for the Age of Information Disorder” project, implemented by the Media Development Centre and funded by the European Commission (through the EU Delegation in Skopje).