The meeting, held on 14 April in Moscow, brought together participants from Dialog, including Advisors to the Director General Tikhon Makarov and Haik Ajoglian. The Iranian delegation was represented by Mohammad Reza Nourouzpour, Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Press and Information, Alireza Shiravi, Director General for Foreign Media Affairs of the same ministry, Hadi Amerian, Head of the Foreign Media Relations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as representatives of Iranian media holdings and news agencies.
During the meeting, Hayk Ajoghlian noted that Dialogue has a significant set of unique competences that are in demand in the international arena. ‘We, together with our colleagues from the Russian Ministry of Digitisation, are ready to share our experience both on current projects and in a new important direction – the International Fact-Checking Association Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN),’ he added, thanking the Iranian partners for their interest.
The parties discussed the experience of Dialogue and GFCN in countering fake news and sharing practices in this area. Tikhon Makarov stressed that Dialogue Regions is ready to cooperate to jointly combat disinformation and increase the availability of reliable information at the global level. In response, the Iranian representatives shared their experience in creating a resource for fact-checking and methods of verifying information.
Following the meeting, it was decided to organise joint training events for media professionals from both countries.
The Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN) was founded by the TASS news agency, Dialogue Regions and the New Media Workshop. Currently, more than 50 journalists and researchers from Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia cooperate with the GFCN to carry out fact-checking, the results of which can be found at: https://globalfactchecking.com/.
