On Friday, 11th September 2020, a South Zone Online ‘MEDIA LITERACY’ Workshop on Science-informed COVID -19 Reporting for Regional Language Journalists was jointly organised by the Field Outreach Bureau, Mysore (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India) and the Department of Media Studies, CHRIST  (Deemed to be University) , Bangalore.
This was part of the community engagement activity for Media Meet 2020, the annual flagship event of the Department of Media Studies, CHRIST  (Deemed to be University) Bangalore.
The three speakers at the workshop along the course of their talk, spoke about various fact checking tools available to journalists as well as explored the changing role of the media during the current pandemic.
Dr Nirmala M N, Assistant Professor, Dept of Media Studies, CHRIST(Deemed to be University), started her talk by differentiating between misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. A member of the Health Fact-Checking India Training Network, she demonstrated fact-checking tools like the use of reverse image search to verify images during her talk. “It is best to start with google reverse search, as google is the most popular search engine” she explained while demonstrating other tools as well.
“You can’t really handle an epidemic without handling the media and taking them along,” said Ramya Kannan, Chief of the Tamil Nadu bureau at The Hindu while emphasizing on the need for training for journalists due to the way reporting has been affected by the pandemic.  She called for a reassessment of the popularity and scale of reach that social media possesses. “The biggest learning has been to keep our eyes and ears open at all points of time” she said, as she ended her talk.
Namita Kohli, Special Correspondent, The Week, New Delhi spoke on bridging the gap between science and reporting. She started her talk by mentioning how there has been a boom in health related news due to the pandemic. She emphasized on the importance of asking the right experts while reporting covid related news. “When dealing with COVID, speak to people from the field of community medicine, epidemiologists or virologists” she added.
The workshop was attended by over 50 journalists from across South India.Field Outreach Bureau, Mysore, Deputy Director Dr T C Poornima introduced the workshop and congratulated the Media Studies Department at CHRIST for organising such an event. She also noted how despite challenges, the bureau has been working towards meeting the requirements for training for journalists.
The Head of Department, Media Studies, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Prof. Padmakumar M M was the guest of honour. He highlighted the importance of regional language journalists in a democracy in his address before handing it over to the participants.
The vote of thanks was delivered by the workshop Faculty Coordinator Dr. Parashurama Kamath, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bannerghatta Road Campus.
Mr. S. Venkateswar, Indian Information Services Director General, Regional outreach Bureau and Press Information Bureau, South Zone, Mrs. Natasha D’Souza, Indian Information Services, Director, Regional Outreach Bureau, Bangalore and Fr Biju K C, Director, Bannerghatta Road Campus, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) also attended the workshop. 
The participants found the workshop insightful. “Dealing with fake news is the current crisis which the journalists face on ground, this workshop provided a solution to this to some extent” said Ms Shyamala, a journalist from Chennai. “I would also like to attend more workshops like this.” she added.