220 young leaders in Malaysia, interested in futures in politics, participated in online workshops on media and data literacy to learn what they can do to help ensure that a healthy information ecosystem thrives in the country. The two workshops – Workshop Series for Digital Parliamentarians and Youth Leaders and Digital Literacy & Evidence-based Law Making and Information Literacy & Fact-Checking for Young Leaders – were conducted by Internews in collaboration with UNDI18 & UNICEF Malaysia.

Wan Nurul Hanani, Project Director of Ayuh Belia (a project of Internews in partnership with the Center of Independent Journalism, NGOHub, Malaysia Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights, and Projek Dialog) conducted the workshops that covered the reality of data in law-making, selecting reliable data resources, personal biases in sharing information and the role that the young leaders can play in ensuring a healthy information environment in Malaysia. The participants also had the opportunity to work in teams to develop their own toolkits, checklists and pledges on increasing their data literacy.

Data journalism expert, Keng Kuak Ser delivered a one-hour training on fact-checking with hands-on exercises. The participants were enthusiastic and requested future training on the topics.

“I will extend my learnings to my friends,” said one participant. “The young people today are vulnerable to various information which may be partly inaccurate. So, they need to know how to overcome this confusion so that the Malaysian media space is not toxic, and the community will be more critical to analyze information, as they may not know the extent of the truth brought by their source of information.”

(Banner photo: Malaysian newspapers by Mbl2020/CC)