Call For Application: Kwame Karikari Fact-checking Fellowship 2024

DUBAWA, Africa’s verification and fact-checking platform, has opened the call for applications for its 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-checking Fellowship. 

This fellowship is inspired by the urgent need to amplify media literacy and empower journalists to spread the gospel of information verification to grassroots communities, which are targeted constituencies for political, social, and cultural misinformation and disinformation in the region.

This year’s fellowship, which is the sixth edition, will cut across anglophone West Africa.

Eligibility Criteria:

To apply, applicants must meet the following criteria:

• Applicants must be full-time employees of a media organisation, especially from grassroots communities (television, online media, radio, and print)
• Applicants must be citizens residing in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, or The Gambia.
• Applicants must possess exceptional writing skills.
• Applicants must be able to translate stories from English to one indigenous language.
• Applicants must be willing to dedicate time to activities, events, and meetings that will arise during the fellowship.
• Applicants from Ghana and other election-observing countries must be prepared to work with the DUBAWA team during the 2024 general election in any of our target election-monitoring countries.
• If selected, applicants must provide a managerial buy-in from their newsroom management that authorises them to undergo this fellowship and provides an assurance that fact-checks will be widely circulated or published on their media platforms without interference. Also, the institution will embrace fact-checking and set up a unit for it.
• Female journalists and journalists with disabilities (PWDs) are encouraged to apply. 
• Journalists who are knowledgeable in climate and conflict reporting can also apply.
• Journalists who can write fluently in any indigenous language across Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia are encouraged to apply.
• Knowledge and experience in fact-checking are not required.

Fellowship Details:

• Duration: Six months.
• Training and mentorship of fellows
• Support: Fellows will receive hands-on technical training based on current realities and trends in the fact-checking world. This will be followed by one-on-one project mentorship by the fact-checking team from DUBAWA. Fellows will also receive additional support to establish fact-checking desks in their newsrooms.
• Publishing: Fellows will be expected to publish their projects or reports in their media institution and receive support to publish on DUBAWA’s platforms.
• Promotion: Fellows will be expected to promote fact-checking on all social media, radio, or TV platforms as necessary monthly.
• Impact: Fellows will monitor the reach, audience engagement, and readership of every fact-check published throughout the fellowship period. This will enable DUBAWA to measure the impact of the work done.

This call is also open to indigenous language journalists who can read, write, and speak fluently in either of these languages: Hausa, Igbo, Pidgin, Yoruba, Twi, or Krio. 

The Kwame Karikari Fact-checking Fellowship is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Timeline:

The deadline for submission is 16th February 2024.

Shortlisting of applicants is 16th – 19th February 2024

Training workshop for selected applicants: 26th -29th February 2024

Commencement of fellowship programme 1 March 2024

To apply, click here [form].