Sources are a key to information. How to handle them – finding them, interviewing them, quoting them or keeping them quiet – is part of the journalist’s know-how. Checking sources,” said Guillaume Daudin, a former AFP Factuel coordinator, “also makes it possible to foil fake news. Here’s how.
Guillaume Daudin is what is known as an “agencier”, i.e. a journalist working in a news agency. Since 2010, he has worked in several departments at Agence France Presse, including AFP Factuel, the source verification service dedicated to fake news, for which he was the coordinator from November 2017 to February 2020.
Guillaume Daudin holds a degree in History and Political Science from the University of Paris 1 (2007) and a Master’s degree from Sciences Po Paris (2009). The title of his dissertation seems to herald his future activities: “Empowering Individuals”.
His apprenticeship at AFP lasted two years (2011-2012), in partnership with the Centre de Formation des Journalistes de Paris (CFJ). It was an opportunity to discover AFP’s many offices, to diversify one’s skills and to explore many different types of writing and journalistic genres. But above all, it was an opportunity to meet that fundamental requirement in a news agency: the processing and verification of sources.
As a political journalist, from 2013 to 2017, Guillaume Daudin adds a string to his bow by becoming a Social Media Editor.
Since February 2020, he is a journalist in charge of judicial investigations at AFP.