On a cool Tuesday morning in Moscow, something significant was taking shape inside the National Centre Russia. Representatives from news agencies across Asia and the Pacific had gathered under the banner of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies, or OANA, for an international forum called Dialogue About Fakes 4.0. There was no mood of celebration in the hall, only a sense of quiet urgency. The information landscape, they all agreed, has become a battlefield. Disinformation, increasingly powered by artificial intelligence, is spreading faster, looking more believable, and hitting harder than ever before. The old instincts of journalism — verify, check, publish carefully — are being tested by algorithms that reward speed over accuracy and emotion over evidence. The answer, the speakers argued again and again, is not to retreat into national silos or to defend each newsroom alone, but to build bridges across borders. Andrey Kondrashov, OANA President and Director General of Russia’s TASS, opened the conversation by stressing the need for information sovereignty and honest, responsible journalism. He warned that social engineering has become one of the most dangerous weapons in the disinformation arsenal, because it bypasses rational thought by triggering emotions like fear, urgency, curiosity and trust. Even careful readers and viewers, he reminded the room, can be fooled when a false message feels personally relevant or emotionally resonant. But his central point cut through the noise: information should be judged by one standard alone, whether it is true or false. Source, affiliation, political convenience — none of that matters. Truth, in other words, is non-negotiable. That simple yet radical idea set the tone for the entire day. The participants were not there just to complain about the problem; they were looking for practical, cooperative ways to fight back, knowing that the future of public trust depends on what they do now.
One of the most concrete proposals came from Vu Viet Trang, Director General of the Vietnam News Agency. She argued that the era of isolated fact-checking is finished. Fighting disinformation cannot remain a solitary activity performed independently by each news organization; it needs to become a shared, coordinated effort. She introduced a vision called “connected information resilience,” a model in which news agencies do not simply verify stories on their own but actively support one another in real time. Her idea was to create an OANA anti-fake news center, a practical mechanism where member agencies could exchange alerts, share verification requests, and publish results together. Starting with pilot projects focused on high-stakes areas like public safety, health and financial stability, the center would combine local knowledge and technology into a collective defense that no single agency could build alone. From Malaysia, Bernama’s Chief Executive Officer Nur-Ul Afida Kamaludin acknowledged that artificial intelligence has made the fight against disinformation far more complex, but she insisted that the ultimate answer is not to chase every piece of fake content endlessly. The real goal is to earn public trust through accuracy, balance and accountability. She called for an OANA Verification Network to check false claims that are falsely attributed to legitimate news organizations, as well as training programs on information resilience and responsible AI use, including how to recognize deepfakes. She also proposed a shared framework on responsible AI and verified content that would encourage every member agency to verify AI-generated material, protect audiences from fabricated content, and create clear mechanisms for correcting errors. Kuwait News Agency’s acting Director General Mohammed Almannaei echoed that message, urging colleagues to check and recheck every item before publication, no matter how urgent the breaking news seems. Then came a sobering reminder from Vladimir Tabak, president of the Global Fact Checking Network. People turn to conspiracy theories, he said, when their legitimate questions go unanswered by official sources. They fall for false but confident claims because certainty often feels better than confusing ambiguity. This is why media organizations must invest in media literacy, critical thinking and responsible information consumption. On the previous day, OANA and the Global Fact Checking Network had signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen fact-checking practices, develop new verification methods, and provide mutual expert, advisory and educational support. It was a small but meaningful step toward formalizing the spirit of cooperation that filled the room.
But amid all the talk of artificial intelligence, algorithms and deepfakes, many speakers reminded the audience that the fundamentals of journalism have not changed. At the OANA 65th Anniversary Media Forum panel discussions, the message was clear: verification and editorial responsibility remain the beating heart of the fight against disinformation. Demetrio Pisco Jr., Executive News Editor of the Philippine News Agency, took the audience inside a typical newsroom workflow to show how truth is protected. The process begins long before the first word is written, with careful planning of major events, monitoring of emerging developments, news gathering, and writing with precision. Story summaries act as an initial screening step before full coverage is assigned. Editors and concerned agencies hold story conferences to identify which reports need to be amplified across multiple platforms. Then comes the most important part: multiple levels of editorial review before publication. Accuracy, editorial independence and accountability are not abstract ideals; they are daily practices that require discipline. After publication, the work continues. News organizations must monitor how audiences react to their reports, issue corrections when necessary, and publish follow-up stories that add context and clarity. Pisco also highlighted a concrete example from the Philippines: the Presidential Communications Office’s Anti-Fake News Desk. This dedicated team monitors suspected misinformation and disinformation, coordinates with government agencies and media organizations, verifies claims, and issues corrections to help ensure the public receives accurate, verified information. It also promotes media and information literacy and encourages responsible information sharing as part of the government’s efforts to strengthen public trust in official sources. This is not about censorship or control; it is about building a culture of verification from the ground up. The Philippine example demonstrates that institutional responses, when paired with public education, can make a real difference. It also shows that the fight against disinformation is not simply a technological challenge, but an organizational and cultural one. Newsrooms must be restructured so that truth can survive the speed of the internet.
Indonesia’s Antara News Agency offered a broader, multi-stakeholder vision for the future. President Director Benny Siga Butarbutar described a strategy built on rapid detection, verification and coordinated response. He called for cross-border early-warning systems that could alert member agencies to emerging disinformation campaigns before they spiral out of control. He urged the sharing of forensic metadata on deepfakes, so that partner organizations around the region can identify manipulated content more quickly. He pushed for multilingual media-literacy programs and common ethical standards for AI-generated content. But his most ambitious proposals reached far beyond the newsroom. He suggested creating a permanent OANA AI and Disinformation Task Force, a “polluter pays” model that would require major technology platforms to support independent verification, and he called for shielding public media funding from short-term political volatility so that reliable information is never held hostage to electoral cycles. The logic is simple: those who profit from the viral spread of falsehoods should help pay for the truth. Monstame News Agency of Mongolia, represented by Director General Enkh-Orshikh Khurlee, brought the discussion back to human judgment. AI, he said, is gradually becoming part of the newsroom workflow, but it must only assist, never replace, journalists. Quick processing of information is essential, but speed does not always mean accuracy. The approval of content for publication, he emphasized, remains a human decision. Editors cannot outsource their conscience to a machine. That may sound old-fashioned in an age when generative AI can write articles, create realistic images, and mimic human voices, but it was a recurring theme throughout the day: technology can process information, but it cannot understand context; it can generate plausible text, but it cannot weigh consequences; it can identify patterns, but it cannot take responsibility. And responsibility, the speakers implied, is what journalism is ultimately about.
That point was reinforced by leaders from some of the region’s largest news organizations. Yusuf Özhan, Vice President and Editor in Chief of Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, acknowledged the role of AI in developing new content and expanding distribution on various platforms. But he insisted that verification is essential in every newsroom, and understanding context is a task for humans. Technology, he said, does not relieve editors of their duties. Amanpreet Singh, Managing Editor of Press Trust of India, put it even more bluntly: seeing is no longer believing. In an age of deepfakes and synthetic media, the camera can lie, the audio can lie, the voice can lie. AI can streamline research, summarize long documents, transcribe interviews and translate languages, but journalists remain essential for verifying facts, exercising sound judgment and upholding ethics. Moriyasu Chikazawa, Managing Director of the International Department at Kyodo News of Japan, offered a philosophical perspective. Technology can support journalism, he said, but only people can bring the truth to light. AI excels in cyberspace because it only knows what has been converted into data. It cannot observe the real world with its own eyes, capture the trembling emotion in someone’s voice, understand the silent grief after a disaster, or build the kind of trust that comes from showing up in person, again and again, to listen. No matter how advanced AI becomes, journalists on the ground still do the same essential work they have always done: observing real events, capturing voices and emotions, building trust, understanding full context, and writing with judgment, insight and a sense of mission. From Iran’s Mehr News Agency, Managing Director Mohammad Mehdi Rahmati offered some practical advice about mistakes. News agencies, he said, should not be afraid to correct errors. Credibility grows not from perfection, but from honesty about imperfection. His formula was beautifully simple: spot the error, recognize it, explain the circumstances, apologize, and remove it. In a world of constant noise and relentless critique, the willingness to say “we were wrong” is a quiet but powerful form of trust-building that no algorithm can replace.
Looking at the gathering as a whole, one could feel the weight of history behind the discussion. OANA was created in 1961 on the initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, at a time when information traveled by wire and radio, and when the word “viral” meant a disease rather than a social media trend. Today, OANA includes member agencies from more than thirty countries in Asia and the Pacific and accounts for two-thirds of the world’s information flow. That number carries enormous responsibility. What these agencies publish, translate and distribute shapes the reality of billions of people. If they fall into the trap of false balance, sloppy verification, or unchecked artificial intelligence, the damage could be catastrophic. But if they cooperate — if they share alerts, verify together, teach each other new methods, and hold one another accountable — they can build something rare in the digital age: an information ecosystem rooted in trust. The forum in Moscow was not a celebration of achievements already secured. It was a recognition that the fight against disinformation is ongoing, evolving, and deeply human. Artificial intelligence will keep improving. Bad actors will keep adapting. Social media platforms will keep changing their algorithms. No treaty, no technology, no single news organization will ever completely eliminate falsehoods. But the commitment shown by OANA members suggests a growing understanding that no one can solve this problem alone. Cross-border cooperation — through concrete mechanisms like the proposed anti-fake news center, verification networks, training programs, and shared ethical standards — offers a path forward. At the same time, the discussions made clear that the most powerful weapon against disinformation is not a new algorithm or a legal regulation. It is the simple, stubborn practice of good journalism. It is checking the source, waiting for confirmation, correcting the record, and telling the truth even when it is inconvenient. It is the human decision to be careful. And it is the courage to say, in a technological era that constantly pushes for speed, that accuracy still matters more. That message is not new. It is as old as journalism itself. But in a world of deepfakes, AI-generated rumors and information chaos, it is more urgent than ever. The message from Moscow was clear: the tools may change, but the mission remains the same.