The Infomore.cz Project Won in AMEC Awards 2021

The winning team of analysts from the academic and commercial sphere including the Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses FM MU, which has been following the media coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic for almost a year, points to the good and bad journalistic practice in spreading the information about the pandemic. Via the Infomore.cz website, they point out journalists’ bad work with data, ignorance of medical terminology, or the use of inappropriate examples and comparisons.

“When this website was created a year ago as one of the main outputs of our interdisciplinary project, I had no idea how interested would the professional public be, including the AMEC Awards 2021. It is a great thank you to not only all my colleagues from the Infomore.cz team, but also to the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic for supporting applied research in the field of journalism and media,” says the project leader Václav Moravec from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University.

In addition to quantitative and qualitative media analyses, an explanatory dictionary of terms related to COVID-19 is available on the website, including two animated series and recommendations for journalists for quality news and publicist coverage of the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is an absolutely unprecedented task for the media and journalists, however, it is also a responsibility. The Infomore.cz website has proven to be an excellent helper, which thanks to the work of our analysts and other experts and with the use of the newest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, helps to deal with the challenge better,” explains the role of the website Petr Herian, founder and owner of NEWTON Media.

For the general public, the Infomore.cz website strengthens media and health literacy. Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic and the Association of General Practitioners of the Czech Republic (of which a quarter of members took part in a large survey on information in the Czech Republic within a month) have shown interest in sharing the knowledge base.

“The project shows us that the fight against misinformation makes sense. The interest of the professional and general public clearly shows the potential of the outputs of this project. The team of researchers plans to follow up on the National Health Information Portal by preparing content that will cover information reaching other readers and thus helping to form an opinion based on true and data-based information.” adds Martin Komenda from the Faculty of Medicine MU.