By Sulochana Ramiah Mohan from Vilnius, Lithuania
Lithuania -- once considered a peripheral player in Europe's information space -- now finds itself on the front line of an intensifying battle against foreign disinformation and propaganda.
Since Russia's annexation of Crimea and the rise of coordinated influence campaigns, Lithuanian newsrooms and fact-checking teams have stepped up verification efforts, media literacy programmes, and cross-border collaborations to protect public debate and democratic institutions.
Lithuania's geopolitical position -- sharing borders and historical ties with Russia and Belarus -- has made it a frequent target for disinformation designed to weaken public trust in institutions and sow division. In recent years, these campaigns have grown more sophisticated and pervasive, pushing narratives that Lithuania is a "failed State" or that neighbouring countries threaten its sovereignty.
Delfi: The fact-checking frontline
One of Lithuania's leading private media outlets, Delfi, has become a daily bulwark against such narratives. Established in 2001, Delfi operates two national television channels and a multilingual news portal available in five languages, attracting the largest audience in Lithuania. Its newsroom has become a trusted source of verified, impartial, and objective information.
As part of a European Union study tour, a team of ten journalists from Sri Lanka paid a courtesy visit to Delfi to learn about the outlet's operations, multilingual outreach, and media ethics framework. The visit showcased the growing recognition of Lithuania's media resilience and its role in countering foreign interference through responsible journalism.
Delfi is a private Lithuanian online media company and the country's most visited news portal. Based in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, Delfi has been part of Lithuania's digital media landscape since 2001 and operates under the well-known Baltic 'Delfi' brand. The company is owned by the Estonian media group Ekspress Grupp, which acquired the brand in 2007.
Delfi provides up-to-date news and in-depth stories on politics, business, culture, technology, and social issues, reaching more than a million readers every month. Beyond daily reporting, Delfi actively promotes media literacy and fact-checking, helping to strengthen trustworthy journalism in Lithuania.
Fact-checking as frontline work
Delfi's response to misinformation combines rapid verification with public education. Teams monitor social media channels, identify suspicious posts, and apply a rigorous verification process: spotting the claim, checking the source, finding the original post, verifying time and location, detecting manipulation or AI-generated content, cross-checking with trusted databases, and finally publishing the verified outcome.
Editor of "Melo detektorius" - fact-checking department of Delfi, Aistė Meidutė and Monika Jakimčukė, a Delfi fact-checker, described their workflow:
Monika Jakimčukė, a young fact-checker, said, "We start several times a week by scanning Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram. We use every tool available -- reverse-image searches on Google, Bing, Yandex, and TinEye; geolocation tools like Google Maps and Wikimapia; and AI detection plugins. Sometimes we even trace manipulated videos frame by frame."
She cited recent cases of AI-generated fake videos and doctored images that went viral before being debunked.
Teaching the public to verify
Beyond newsroom work, Delfi invests heavily in media literacy. The outlet produces short, shareable fact-check videos for young audiences, long-form TV segments, and "prebunking" explainers that expose how false narratives are built and spread.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Delfi collaborated with medical professionals and librarians to train them on identifying misinformation, empowering trusted community figures to communicate accurate information directly to the public.
"We cannot survive on fact-checking alone," Jakimčukė said. "Education is the necessary extra."
Threats from inside and out
While many disinformation campaigns originate from Russian and Belarusian sources, Delfi journalists warn that domestic actors -- including polarised politicians -- sometimes amplify these narratives. One example was a false story claiming Poland was militarising to reclaim Vilnius. Despite being baseless, it required swift and systematic debunking to prevent panic.
The bigger challenge, journalists say, is public distrust. Many audiences instinctively question journalists and official sources, making truth harder to defend.
Funding and sustainability
Sustaining large-scale fact-checking is costly. Delfi's funding comes from a combination of its parent media group, EU-backed grants, and partnerships with international organisations, including Meta's third-party fact-checking programme. However, editors acknowledge that securing stable, long-term funding remains a continuous struggle.
"Some projects have two- to three-year funding, but we're always applying for new grants," said one Delfi editor. "Partnerships are essential to keep this work going."
Delfi's guiding principles and ethics
Delfi's credibility rests on its strict editorial standards and adherence to journalistic ethics:
Multiplatform leadership
Delfi's content reaches audiences through web portals, television channels, YouTube, and social media, ensuring accessibility to readers, viewers, and listeners wherever they are. The outlet's ambition is to remain Lithuania's most trusted news source and the most sought-after employer in the media sector -- a goal backed by a united and ambitious team committed to ethical journalism.
For Delfi, publicity itself is a weapon -- a way to solve problems, expose injustice, and drive reform. Its Delfi Impact Report documents investigative stories that have led to tangible improvements in governance and civic life.
"Publicity becomes a real weapon in solving problems and creating a better life for everyone," reads the report.
Fact-checking organisations in Lithuania see their work as essential to democratic resilience. As AI-generated content proliferates and polarisation deepens, their mission is not only to correct falsehoods but to preserve a shared factual foundation for public debate.
"We see the polarising effects every day," Jakimčukė said. "Misinformation breaks down trust -- and trust is what holds democracies together."
From Vilnius to the digital frontlines, Delfi and similar newsrooms are betting that an informed, media-literate public remains the strongest defence against those trying to rewrite facts for political ends.
While fact-checking is a tedious job and newsrooms cannot always afford to hire full-time staff, most of them try to appoint freelancers. However, Delfi has a few on a monthly payroll and some freelancers to fight for news accuracy. In contrast, many newsrooms in Sri Lanka still have no fact-checking desks, but very soon this will become critically important, as fake news is taking a toll on the public and creating political havoc, destabilising the system.