VERIFIED MEMBERS
Membership in the EFCSN signifies an organisation’s rigorous commitment to provide accurate information ethically and transparently, without bias or prejudice and focus on matters in the public interest as well as a proven track record of excellence, integrity and accountability as definied in the European Code of Standards for Independent Fact-Checking Organisations.
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Vistinomer / Metamorphosis Foundation
Website
https://vistinomer.mk/Date
12/10/2023
Please, answer the following questions:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Newsroom
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Monitoring and Analysis - Vistinomer team members also engage in monitoring the media and/or the political landscape in the country and then write monthly/quarterly reports on issues such as public accountability and transparency, adjustment of the Macedonian laws to the EU legislature, state of hate speech in the country, foreign malign influences, etc.
Fact-checking tools and databases development - Vistinomer team takes part in developing tools for fact-checkers, journalists and the public:
- Vremeplov (Time Travel) tool, which discovers and aggregates news from web sites in order to discover the publication and republication of the same or similar news and disinformation and discover the changes happening throughout the publishing cycle on the various web sites and discover the editorial practices of various web sites;
- Partiski vetuvanja (Political party promises) app, which lists the pre-election promises made by the local authorities and their implementation or lack there of;
- Glasomer survey allows users to discover which political party is the closest to their beliefs and values
Public events/panels/presentations/press conferences - Vistinomer team members take active part in the Metamorphosis Foundation's events, such as the annual E-society conference, project promotion and project impact presentation events, annual regional Western Balkans Point conference in Sarajevo, etc.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
- We continue to fact-check statements of persons with significant influence over shaping the public policies, mainly elected and appointed politicians, but also experts, public discourse influencers, as well as political parties' press releases.
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Visitnomer/Metamorphosis Foundation is the only IFCN member from N. Macedonia.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 30/05/2023
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
- Make an annual review of the complaints and practices
- Prepare an annual impact review (up until this point we would write impact assessments of our projects, but not the fact-checking effort as such
- Include much more details/links about our publisher - Metamorphosis Foundation
- Publish record of corrections at our Corrections page
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Article 2.2: Methodology
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), operations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Statements:
All of the statements we fact-check concern issues of public interest or public policies. We fact-check the statements of persons with wide influence over public policies and political party press releases
Political party pre-election promises
Political party pre-election promises concern public interest by definition. Those are the promises voted in by the public at elections allowing the authors of those promises (the politicians) to hold an office and implement the pre-election promises.
Facebook fact-checks:
a.) Ukraine-Russia war disinformation; Disinformation covering Ukraine-Russia war is also widespread, despite being mostly imported from abroad.
b. "Herd journalism" events where disinformation originating from one news web site or media in general gets republished by other media without any checks leading to their extended virality on the news aggregators and the social platforms.
c.) Viral "culture wars" imports containing disinformation regarding local policies starting divisions and polarization in the society over issues where either consensus existed before or the issues imported where pretty much on the back burner, because the society moved on to discussing other more pressing issues
e.) Conspiracy theories in order to help overcome the entrenched "conspiratorial mindset" phenomenon forcing some audiences to look at all events through conspiratorial lenses and suspect of the existence of ulterior motives of powerful individuals in groups standing behind even the most mundane or chance events.
g.) COVID-19 and anti-COVID-19 vaccines disinformation; We intend to continue covering COVID-19 disinformation for as long as necessary, because it is still viral and because of its' capacity of causing harm.
h.) Continuing to cover through a limited number of fact checks regarding issues or information widely or relatively widely known to the public, but not by everybody in order to provide truthful information to the parts of the public that lacks educational and information gathering opportunities and is now prime target for believing in conspiracy theories, fake science, and satire for the amusement of other users.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Best Practices:
In addition to the required standards listed above, the Code identifies the following as a best practice that is encouraged but not required to join the EFCSN.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 11/09/2023
Article 3.1: Non-Partisanship and Impartiality
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-checking Standards Network (EFCSN), operations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Metamorphosis Foundation is and has always been a non-partisan organization. Neither the Foundation, nor the employees have ever publicly supported any political party or any candidate for a political office during elections. The employees, Vistinomer staff included, do not involve themselves directly in political parties and advocacy organizations.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Here is a sample of 10 fact-checks from our Statements section where we fact-check statements of the persons having influence over public policies, meaning mainly elected and appointed politicians, with some non-parliamentary parties' leaders, as well as one statement of a foreign embassy. This selection of fact-checked statements shows that we are not selecting the statements to be fact-checked by the source of the statement (who said it), but by criteria such as the lack of facts, the influence the statement might have on a wider range of citizens, as well as harm it might cause to the citizens. We are always trying to stay balanced when selecting a statement to fact check, taking special care not to concentrate on a single person or a political party, even when certain politician or a party spreads much higher number of disinformation compared to the other players on the political scene. But, in order not to provoke an impression of partiality we tend to select statements throughout the political spectrum, sometimes even choosing less important statements by somebody we haven't fact-checked or haven't facet checked for some time, just to preserve the impression of impartiality. Also, we tend to stick to statements which we can prove through primary sources and those containing clearly stated disinformation. We are prone to stay away from unclear, manipulative statements and speeches, metaphorical statements, statements with hyperbole, in order not to compromise our methodology, but also because we do have one more section on our web site titled Counter-spin (which is not part of our fact-checking efforts), where we explain and deconstruct use of spin and manipulation by the politicians.
When it comes to the way we approach the statements we fact-check, the first thing we do is to isolate the claim or the claims we are fact checking. By doing it this way, the implementation of the methodology is so much easier. We stick to our methodology by checking the stated facts, and not that often opinions based on false information where those false information used can be clearly identified. We always use primary sources and expert sources we trust, trying to back them up by even more such sources until we are confident that our point has been proven.
1. Не е вистина дека со Преспанскиот договор јазикот е сменет во „северно-македонски“ 30.05.2022
9. Само премиерот вози по нови 1.300 километри патишта 09.02.2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
This can be seen through the list of employees that they have on their web page.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Vistinomer team also follows the Journalists Association of Macedonia Code of Ethics. This is a requirement for all the Vistinomer team members, as well as for the journalists working on all other Metamorphosis Foundation media projects.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The document can be obtained here and it is clearly linked on our Contact page to make it easily available to all of our readers.
Additional explanations on this subject are also contained in our methodology page here.
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Article 3.2: Privacy and Safety
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), operations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
If we ever encounter such a specific situation, where we need to protect the identity of a regular person under investigation, who be put in danger because of our fact-check, we would certainly do mask their identity. We are also obligated to act in this manner in order to respect the Article 4 of the N. Macedonia's Journalism Association Code stating journalists' obligation to protect anonymity of sources requiring protection.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
But, the main reason for structuring our fact-checks in this way is to avoid placing too much attention to the source or identity of user generated content and cause an undue public scrutiny. We prefer to include a quote of the claim we fact-check instead of embedding or direct screenshots.
Exception from these rules are the fact-checks of the statements of the politicians. When we fact-check such statements of public office holders, beside a quote of the claim we also include a picture, and if we have a video clip of the statement we fact-check, we might also embed the video clip. But, this is only practiced when it comes to fact-checking statements of widely known public office holders, which are subjects of greater scrutiny in every democratic society.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
According to the Article 7 of the N. Macedonia's Journalism Association Code we are obligated "to respect the privacy of the individuals, except when it is against the public interest." Therefore, it would inappropriate if we would start publishing personal information that has the capacity to allow harassment of people.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
According to the Article 7 of the N. Macedonia's Journalism Association Code we are obligated "to respect the privacy of the individuals, except when it is against the public interest." Therefore, it would inappropriate if we would start publishing personal information that has the capacity to allow harassment of people.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Our Corrections and Clarifications Policy is pretty much based on the obligations stemming from the country's Constitution, Media Law, and Journalists' Association Code.
As a Meta third-party independent fact-checking partner, we are also obligated to follow Facebook rules regarding complaints, corrections and clarifications.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Best Practices
In addition to the required standards listed above, the Code identifies the following as a best practice that is encouraged but not required to join the EFCSN.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
After this defamation attack and the incidents stemming from it, we instituted a policy not to assign individual fact-checks to a specific author and offered counseling to everybody who needs it. The policy of not to provide the information regarding the fact-check authors concerns only the Facebook fact-checks. All other fact-checks, like the fact-checks regarding the statements of the politicians and fact-checking the political party pre-election promises, contain the information about the author.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Article 3.3: Honest corrections
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), operations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
The title was clearly marked with the word CORRECTION, the first sentence of the body text clearly states that the fact-check was corrected and that it can be found at the bottom of the fact-check, while the correction itself explains what was corrected and why.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Record of the corrections from the years past included on the page.
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 20/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Best Practices:
In addition to the required standards listed above, the Code identifies the following as best practices that are encouraged but not required to join the EFCSN.
Applicant
Date: 31/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
As stated above, Vistinomer is registered in the register of the professional media at the Media Ethics Council (SEMM) and the Journalist' Association of N. Macedonia. Both of these organizations have a Complaints Commission, where the authors of the reviewed content submit their complaints. The membership to these organizations is clearly stated on our Contact Page: https://vistinomer.mk/kontakt/
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Article 4.1: Organisational transparency
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), operations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
https://metamorphosis.org.mk/za-nas/#our-team
Note: The names of the non-fact-checking staff (i.e. the leaders of the Metamorphosis Foundation) arte listed on the organizations' web site (Metamorphosis.org.mk), while the fact-checking staff is listed on the Vistinomer.mk web site. The Metamorphosis web site is clearly linked at the Vistinomer.mk credits page.
| Governance structure & task | Full name of the people involved
Metamorphosis Foundation leadership staff:
| Metamorphosis Foundation Board of Trustees: in charge of overseeing the operation, approving annual plans, budgets /accounts. | RADMILA ZHIVANOVIK - President of the Executive Board VLADIMIR LAZOVSKI - Board member BILJANA RADONJANIN - Board member ZORAN JANEVSKI - Board member ZORAN CALI - Board member
| Executive Director (CEO) – Founder | Bardhyl Jashari - Runs the Foundation
| Partnership and Resource Development Director – Founder | Filip Stojanovski – In charge of partnerships and organizational development
| Program Director | Danche Danilovska – Bajdevska – in charge of implementing projects in all four of Foundation’s programs
| Finance and Administration Director | Marija Panchevska – runs the Foundation’s finances and is in charge of all administrative matters
| Media Program Manager | Goran Rizaov – in charge of all the media projects of the Foundation
Vistinomer editors and journalists staff:
| Vistinomer.mk – Editor-in-Chief/Media Projects Coordinator | Vladimir Petreski – in charge of all the fact-checking efforts of the Foundation, Editor-in-Chief of Vistinomer.mk – Public Transparency/Accountability and Fact-Checking web site, Countering Disinformation and Media Literacy Certified Trainer (Western Balkans Region), in charge of analyzing and answering readers complaints
| Deputy Editor-in-Chief | Olivera Vojnovska – in charge of fact-checking ratings together with the Editor-in-Chief, in charge of analyzing and answering readers complaints
| Editor/Journalist | Teofil Blazevski – political fact-checking editor and writer, political analyst – national and regional politics
| Associate writers/fact-checkers | Ana Anastasovska – fact-checker – national affairs, conspiracy theories, scams, political fact-checking, etc.
Miroslava Simonovska - fact-checker – health care (COVID-19/Anti-vaxx/fake medicines), conspiracy theories, scams, international issues, etc.
Simona Atanasova - fact-checker – national politics, conspiracy theories, international issues (culture wars fact checks), scams, political fact-checking, etc.
Sonja Rilkovska – fact-checker – local issues, scams, political affairs
Vane Trahkov – political fact-checking/local issues (occasional associate writer)
Vesna Kolovska – investigative journalist (occasional associate writer)
Goran Lefkov – investigative journalist (occasional associate writer)
| Social media | Oliver Stojanov – FB, Twitter, Instagram (Macedonian Language) Drilon Saliu – FB, Twitter, Instagram (Albanian Language), Macedonian to Albanian language translations
| Web Administrator | Trajce Panov
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Elira Canga (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 22/09/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
https://vistinomer.mk/metodologija/
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
https://vistinomer.mk/za-vistinomer/
https://vistinomer.mk/metodologija/
http://vistinomer.mk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Politika-na-integritet-1.pdf
https://vistinomer.mk/korektsii-i-pojasnuvana/
Article 4.2: Financial transparency and conflicts of interest
In order to be recognised as a verified member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), organisations or parent organisations must:
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
https://vistinomer.mk/za-vistinomer/
https://vistinomer.mk/kontakt/
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Antidisinfo.net - Anti-Disinformation Network for the Balkans (ADN-Balkans) - membership and following the values of the Antidisinfo.net
IFEX.org - Membership and following the statute and respecting and advancing the values of IFEX
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023
Dejan Donev (assessor)
Compliant
Date: 12/09/2023
Best Practices
In addition to the required standards listed above, the Code identifies the following as a best practice that is encouraged but not required to join the EFCSN.
Applicant
Date: 27/05/2023