A76176 Bancrofts Insight Newsletter Spring 2020 P3

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6
E N G L I S H
Fact or Fiction:
The Guardian Workshop
Abisola Daodu, RN
On Monday 9 December, thirty Bancroftians went to
The Guardian newspaper’s headquarters in King’s Cross.
On the morning of the trip, we gathered around the tower
eagerly awaiting our coach despite the bitter cold. As we
embarked the coach, we were all engaged in chatter, which
continued throughout our journey.
The Guardian’s headquarters are made of glass and very modern
looking, with photographs taken by their photographers adorning
the walls. We were greeted by Margaret, one of The Guardian’s
employees, given name tags and then ascended the escalator
towards our workshop in complete silence.This was because
there were offices around us and people were working.When we
entered the workshop, we were put into groups of six in which we
were to remain for the day.
Once we were seated, we were shown a PowerPoint explaining
the fundamental 5Ws of journalism (who, what, where, when, why).
This included a short clip of an advertisement for The Guardian,
showing us that there are different angles for a were
shown a typical day at the newspaper. We were then told about
our task which was to research fake news, then present and record
our findings. Fake news is a big problem sweeping the world of
journalism, since journalists often do not have time to research
stories fully. Most of the time, they are told rumours and then they
must investigate the story from there. Each group was given three
news headlines to analyse and find out if the stories were fake or
did this by searching our headline on iPads. It was very
important that we read multiple articles to gather information on
all possible angles of the also had to make sure that we
had enough facts on each of the 5Ws and enough data to support
our reasoning. An example of a story that we had to research was
an image of a man carrying a jaguar which allegedly was a photo
of the jaguar being rescued from the Amazon fires. By comparing
different sites, we discovered that it was actually a photograph of
the Brazilian military’s mascot playing with the soldiers.
Once we were sure that we knew enough about each headline
and had concluded whether it was a fake or a real story,
we filmed each other presenting the stories as if we were
newsreaders. We filmed these based upon an Instagram series
that The Guardian produces, called ‘Fake or For Real’. When we
had finished, we put the clips together using iMovie. Afterwards,
we successfully filmed all 15 stories in one attempt. Once we
had completed this our time at The Guardian was unfortunately
thanked Margaret and left for our had had a
great time at The Guardian’s headquarters.
Fake news is a big
problem sweeping the
world of journalism
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A B I S O L A