Ahead of the November 16, 2024, governorship election in Ondo state, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) has trained at least 40 journalists in digital verification skills and fact-checking techniques.
The two-day training, held in Akure, the Ondo state capital by CJID through its fact-checking initiative Dubawa in partnership with the Google News Initiative, had journalists from Ondo state and other neighboring states as participants.
During the various sessions, the participants were trained on fact-checking steps and methodology; digital verification skills and tools; Google tools for fact-checking; news and claim sourcing tools; election reporting; digital safety and security for journalists; information disorder, among others.
Speaking, the program officer of Dubawa Nigeria, Temilade Onilede, said the training was necessary to build African newsrooms’ capacity in digital journalism skills, verification, and fact-checking journalism.
She explained that fact-checking is important to hold those in authority accountable in the interest of the citizens towards the development of society.
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She dismissed the insinuations that fact-checking was against the government and people in public positions, saying, “Fact-checking is not anti-government but anti-falsehood.”
The Director of Program, Center for Journalism Innovation and Development, Dr. Babatunde Akintunde, while said Dubawa was established to help amplify the culture of truth in public discourse, public policy, and journalistic practice.
“We thought it was necessary to enhance the capacity of journalists in non-urban communities, particularly in Ondo and Edo states where elections will hold in a couple of months,” he said.
Akintunde, represented by the Deputy Director, Accountability Programme, Mr. Eno Mboho, said the group noticed a huge volume of disinformation during the last general election and suspect that such cases might repeat themselves in the coming election in Ondo, hence the need to fight it through training.
Mboho said, “It’s just the need for us to grow the army of fact-checkers. And we thought it would be nice to have this training as we prepare for the Ondo governorship election.
“During the general election, we noticed a huge volume of disinformation and we also suspect that that’s going to be the same as we look towards the election in Ondo State.
“One other thing that birthed this initiative is also the need to grow foot soldiers of fact-checkers within our space. Normally, we do this training in the cities, the big cities Lagos, Abuja, and we thought it was also wise to extend this training to community journalists who are closer to the populace than some of the mega National media platforms.
“And we also realized that one thing we need to do is targeted engagements because every time we say fact-checking training, we notice that the concentration has likely been on big platforms and Community platforms are most times left out. So that’s why we also said let’s bring this home to community platforms and also encourage them through capacity building.
“We all can do a lot in combating the menace of misinformation, especially as we look up to elections. We want to have a free, fair, and transparent electoral process, and that starts with journalists being able to put out information to the public that will help them in proper choice-making as against information that just goes out without proper scrutiny which, at the end of the day, can confuse citizens and then we begin to have leadership that is not totally the will of the people.
“This training catered to about 40 participants drawn largely across platforms that operate in Ondo state. Though, we had maybe about five or six participants that came from neighboring states of Ekiti and Osun, but the concentration of participants was largely from Ondo State.”
He encouraged Nigerians to always ensure that whatever information they’re passing, whether through social media platforms or through one-on-one messaging, is accurate.
“Help contribute to the security of Nigeria by not spreading disinformation and misinformation,” Akintunde added.
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