The Premium Times Center for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), through its fact-checking project, Dubawa, has selected five journalists to begin its maiden fact-checking fellowship.
The Fellowship would involve the Fellows tackling misinformation, malinformation and disinformation in newsrooms.
The Fellows were selected from The Nation, NAN, Tribune, Guardian and Business Day.
The selected journalists, who were on a four -day intensive training were taken through courses on the misinformation ecosystem, news industry transformation, research and data journalism, investigative journalism, and fact-checking/verification as an innovation to today’s journalism.
According to Dabuwa’s Project Officer, Ebele Oputa, the Fellowship is inspired by the needs to tackle the societal menace of mis- and dis-information in Nigeria and beyond, thereby creating a safer media ecosystem where truth and accuracy can thrive without jeopardizing freedom of expression.
“This training was carefully designed to provide, not just a one-directional training for the fellows but to encourage engaging conversations between the trainers and the fellows, so that the right approaches to solving the information disorder problem in Nigeria can be attained.
“I am particularly optimistic because this training is the start of a larger plan of instituting a culture of fact-checking in Nigeria.
“Our fellows come from NAN, Tribune, Guardian, Business Day and The Nation, top media organisations in Nigeria with wide reach, and they are expected to train their colleagues and help set up fact-checking desks in their newsrooms at the end of the 6-month fellowship. Imagine the impact of this on the media landscape in Nigeria.”
The Executive Director of PTCIJ, Dapo Olorunyomi, said the main aim of Dabuwa is to use technology in countering the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
Olorunyomi, who was represented by the PTCIJ’s Deputy Programmes Director, Tosin Alagbe said: “Fake news and misinformation is not a new phenomenon but has become widespread with the advent of technology. So we are also hoping to use technology to counter the spread of fake news.”
The Communications Manager of Heinrich Boll Stiftung in Nigeria, Chibueze Ebii, said the aim of the fellowship is to foster a culture of fact-checking in newsrooms and hopefully encourage newsrooms to have a fact-checking desk.
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