Ripples Nigeria<\/strong><\/a>, was caught in this web.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen DUBAWA checked the claim, we discovered the post initially emanated from a parody account before going viral across many countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While fact-checkers and other parties are interested in sanitising the information space and leading campaigns against misinformation, disinformation and misinformation, some news outlets are still caught in the web of sharing false or misleading reports. DUBAWA, Nigeria\u2019s first indigenous fact-checking organisation, had made efforts to establish fact-check desks in newsrooms, and while this had become a welcome development in some, others had yet to embrace this initiative fully. In 2023, some major news outlets were guilty of carrying false information while others published within a missing context, thereby misleading the public. Here are some fact-check reports DUBAWA did in 2023 to correct false information from major news outlets. During the election period in Liberia, DW Africa\u2019s post on its social media handle claimed George Weah was taking the lead in the elections. However, when contacted, the media company confirmed it to be an editorial error, which was later removed from its page. One of the major online news outlets in Nigeria, SaharaReporters, posted a video of soldiers torturing an alleged terrorist.\u00a0 This elicited many responses on social media, both on X and Facebook, as some users condemned the act by personnel of the Nigerian Army. DUBAWA fact-checked the video and saw that it was used in a missing context as the media outlet did not provide any context to indicate the video was not recent, thereby causing confusion. Following the frenzy of breaking the Guinness World Record in one area or another, news broke that a Nigerian man killed a lion with bare hands, beating the record of Samson in the Bible. The reports featured various areas, such as Ondo State and Benue State. One of Nigeria’s major newspaper outlets, New Telegraph, published a report claiming a Nigerian killed a lion with bare hands at Ngokugh Mountain in Benue state.\u00a0 DUBAWA\u2019s findings noted that the image associated with the report was from Uganda, where Amodoi Moses of the Ugandan People\u2019s Defence Force had tried to shoot a lion that eventually jumped on him. In a bid to save his colleague, another soldier shot the lion dead, though Mr Moses sustained injuries. In one of its reports, another of Nigeria\u2019s major newspapers, Daily Trust, claimed the Federal Government, through the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), had approved a 114% salary increase for all elected politicians in Nigeria.\u00a0 The report was also featured in Peoples Gazette, an online newspaper. The report elicited harsh reactions from Nigerians, who claimed that the country\u2019s governance cost is exorbitant and should be reduced.\u00a0 DUBAWA’s findings showed that as of the time the story was published, the RMAFC had only proposed the said increase, and the decision was subject to approval from the executive and the legislature, which had yet to be formed at the time, making the story misleading and inaccurate. One of the major misinformation that rocked 2023 was news that Hiba Abouk, wife of PSG football star Achraf Hakimi, demanded more than half the properties owned by Hakimi as part of her divorce settlement, but the majority of the properties had been registered in the name of Hakimi\u2019s mother. The news had trended on social media, supporting misogynistic narratives against the footballer\u2019s wife and (married) women in general viewed as gold diggers. One of Nigeria’s major media platforms, Ripples Nigeria, was caught in this web.\u00a0 When DUBAWA checked the claim, we discovered the post initially emanated from a parody account before going viral across many countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[1571,4,3812,3815,123],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[1920],"class_list":["post-17171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-check","category-featured","category-headline","category-homepage","category-mainstream"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-4sX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1920,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"elizabeth-ogunbamowo","display_name":"Elizabeth Ogunbamowo","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7043a07f4ff292637cb75d13c8340fa9afb2ec87eceec4eedd980077c8bfd304?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Newspaper.webp?fit=600%2C405&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17173,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17171\/revisions\/17173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17171"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=17171"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=17171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}