Some 21 journalists across five West African countries will undergo a three month fellowship training in Fact-checking.
About 100 Applicants were drawn from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia and Ghana went through series of selection processes and interviews were later downsized to 21.
The Kwame Karikari Fact-checking fellowship program which is in it’s fourth year is being supported by National Endownement for Democracy (NED) aimed at enabling the fellows or participants to receive mentorship trainings in fact-checking and investigative journalism.
As part of the fellowship program, fellows are taken through a 4day training session which commenecd from Monday 5th to 8th December, 2022, this training sessions is to equip the selected journalists on basic Fact-checking tips, Fact-checking tools, the relationship between journalism and the law, media literacy and fact-checking process among others as a prerequisite for the main program.
The main fellowship program is a three months project scheduled to commence in January 2023 to March 2023.
As part of the program, fellows will be paired with mentors as they undergo a extensive mentorship in fact-checking where they will be responsible for identifying claims within all aspects of public discourse and interests such as; politics, health and education, from their respective countries; research on them for verification and onward publishications of their verdicts.
It is of a high belief that, information disorder has become a norm where most information available in both traditional and socila media are either untrue or misleading. Is of this reason why Dubawa has in recent years embarked on a fact-checking campaign and training for media men and women across the African sub-region, because a well informed public, starts with with a well trained press men and women.( E. Jenny., US Embassy, 2022)
It has been indentified that; apart of social media where everyone becomes a news creator with lots of misleading contents, actors such as; Entrepreneurs and politicians are mostly found of making claims which tend not to be true which affects the general public, a serious situation which is very rampant within the West African sub-region. Since disinformation has the potential to cause harm and damage, journalists must be equiped to fact-check every information before publication or broadcasting.
Participants, after the fellowship are expected to establish Fact-checking desks in their various newsrooms, become experts in news authentication and analysis among others DUBAWA is a West African independent verification and fact-checking project, initiated by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) and supported by the most influential newsrooms and civic organisations in West Africa to help amplify the culture of truth in public discourse, public policy, and journalistic practice. It has a presence in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia.
Story By Benard Rhussia
