Our first 60-second audio fact-check, recorded on our phones

One of the group exercises in our training looked simple on paper: take a rumour, check it, and explain the result in a voice note of one minute or less. The slide on the screen just said "group exercise: the voice". It turned out to be one of the hardest things we did.

Voice notes are how a lot of information moves in Lebanon, especially in family groups. If false claims travel by voice, the correction should be able to travel the same way.

How we did it

1. Pick one claim. Only one. Two claims in sixty seconds is too much.
2. Check first, script second. We wrote down the facts before we wrote a single sentence.
3. Start with the answer. "No, this photo is not from last week's storm" comes before the explanation, not after it.
4. Name the source out loud. "According to..." makes a correction easier to trust and to check.
5. Record somewhere quiet. A wardrobe full of clothes is a surprisingly good studio.

What surprised us

• Our first versions were three minutes long. Cutting them down forced us to understand the claim properly.
• A calm, friendly tone worked better than sounding like a news anchor.
• Nobody shares a correction that makes the other person feel stupid.

I've started doing this with my students too. They are much better at the sixty-second limit than we were.