Tribune reporter, 25 others inducted for 2021 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship

West Africa’s verification and fact-checking platform, Dubawa, has inducted 26 fellows into its 2021 cohort of fact-checkers to combat misinformation in the sub-region.

Dubawa, a project of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), announced the commencement of the yearly fellowship in Abuja on Monday.

Now in its third year, the 2021 fellowship is christened Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking and Research Fellowship in honour of Ghanaian Professor, Kwame Karikari.

Twenty-six successful applicants including a Senior Reporter with the Nigerian Tribune, Faith Adeoye, were selected from over 200 applications received from The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The fellowship is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Adeoye, a graduate of English and Literary Studies at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti joined Nigerian Tribune in 2018 as a corps member. She was thereafter engaged as a Senior Reporter in 2019.

The fellows will undergo training that will equip them in combating the widespread regime of misinformation in the West African sub-region.

“Upon completion and evidence of competence after a ten-course module the participants will graduate into the six months in-country fellowship,” Dubawa programme manager, Adedeji Adekunle, said in a statement.

Mr Adekunle said the training faculty for the programme are drawn from a pool of the leading global experts in the field of fact-checking who come with individual and organizational talents including the founder of Africa Check, and current course co-director/researcher at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom Peter Cunliffe Jones; researcher and trainer at the global investigative organisation, Bellingcat, Youri van der Weide; and author, trainer, and the digital editor, at BuzzFeed, Craig Silverman

Others are former professor, School of Communications, University of Ghana, Legon and Chairman of the Board of the Daily Graphic newspaper in Accra Prof Kwame Karikari; coordinator of the African Centre for Information and Media Literacy, AFRICMIL, Dr Chido Onumah; Editor of DUBAWA, Kemi Bhsair; DUBAWA Programme Manager, Deji Adekunle; Ghana Programme Lead for DUBAWA, Caroline Anipah; and Executive Director for the PTCIJ, Dapo Olorunyomi

Participants at the course will learn about the accountability journalism ecosystem in the sub-region; how to fix the current information disorder through legal, regulatory responses and through misinformation literacy.

They will also learn fact-checking methodology, the skills and steps involved in fact-checking, ethics of journalism and fact-checking; data presentation and analysis for fact-checking, media literacy, monitoring and analysis of social media content and accounts; investigating websites, as well as freedom of information/right to information laws in West Africa and the verification of digital tools.

At least two present and past staff members of the Nigerian Tribune have graduated from the fellowship in recent time. Niyi Oyedeji and Ifedayo Ogunyemi graduated from the programme in 2019 and 2020 respectively.