investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Elliott Award was established in 2016 in honour of former ICFJ board member Michael Elliott. Elliott was a top editor at The Economist, Newsweek, and Time before becoming CEO of ONE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Award aims to advance the careers of emerging journalists in Africa who work to strengthen people\u2019s voices and improve their well-being. ICFJ sponsors the award in partnership with the ONE campaign. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Silas Jonathan, the digital investigations manager for the Digital Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DAIDAC), has won the 2025 Michael Elliot Award for Excellence in African Storytelling for Nigeria. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announced this via its official X handle @ICFJ. \u201cAnnouncing the 2025 winners of the Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling! Congratulations to @GodwinAsediba of Ghana and @Silas2Silas of Nigeria,\u201d the X post reads. Silas, who leads the DIDAC team under CJID, is an expert in media research, fact-checking, disinformation analysis, and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). DAIDAC, a Project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), focuses on the complex interplay between technology, AI, and information systems, particularly in the context of African societies and democracies. His winning story \u201cHow Telegram, TikTok aided Russian disinformation that led to the incarceration of Nigerian minors was published on DUBAWA in November 2024. This investigation followed DUBAWA\u2019s observation during its #EndBadGovernance live fact-check in August 2024. We observed that in the North, the protest was dominated by Russian flags, which seemed out of place considering the protest\u2019s purpose, which was to fight against the economic struggle and hardship faced by citizens. This investigation dug into how foreign disinformation campaigns can influence African politics and society. Reacting to this win, Silas, now the sixth Nigerian to win this award, said he is excited and believes the recognition cements the role of OSINT in Nigerian Journalism. \u201cI feel great. It is a career-changing award,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it is a big contribution to OSINT and a confirmation that OSINT has a place in journalism.\u201d Last year, DUBAWA\u2019s editor, Kemi Busari, won this award with his \u201cBaba Aisha\u201d investigation. The Elliott Award was established in 2016 in honour of former ICFJ board member Michael Elliott. Elliott was a top editor at The Economist, Newsweek, and Time before becoming CEO of ONE. The Award aims to advance the careers of emerging journalists in Africa who work to strengthen people\u2019s voices and improve their well-being. ICFJ sponsors the award in partnership with the ONE campaign. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22252,"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_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"default","_instagram_share_type":"default","_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":[1688,1571,3812,3815],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[1106],"class_list":["post-22251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-fact-check","category-headline","category-homepage"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-5MT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1106,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"lois-ugbede","display_name":"Lois Ugbede","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Lois.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Lois.jpg"},"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\/2025\/04\/Silas.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22251","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=22251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22253,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22251\/revisions\/22253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22251"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=22251"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=22251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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