“Media capacity building is at the heart of achieving truth and accountability towards the promotion of good governance and democratic resilience.”
It is difficult to speak about misinformation and disinformation without pinpointing the role of the media and news dissemination. The advent of the World Wide Web accelerated a trend towards the diversification of media choices available and accessible to individuals globally.
The mass dissemination has, with the advent and constant development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), content creators, influencers, and big technological platforms expanded the information network and allowed or birthed the influx of intentional and unintentional news manipulation.
An essential ingredient in identifying the correctness and accuracy of any information is verification and fact-checking, roles DUBAWA has been committed to since 2018.
At DUBAWA, we believe building the capacity of the media, as the fourth estate, is at the heart of achieving truth and accountability towards the promotion of good governance and democratic resilience.
To institute a culture of truth and verification in public discourse and journalism through capacity-building and strategic partnerships between the media, government, civil society organisations, technology giants, and the public, DUBAWA has built the capacity of over 2,000 journalists between 2023 to date in West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia) through carefully crafted programmes fitted with the needed knowledge, skills and digital tools for verification and fact-checking.
Strengthening the frontline defenders of truth in the information ecosystem has yielded many results, as we have trained over 300 newsrooms across West Africa as well as helped them set up fact-checking desks. Our capacity–building efforts have included our fact-checking fellowship and Week for Truth media and information literacy campaigns (supported by the National Endowment for Democracy); Fact-checking for journalists in non-urban communities across Ghana (supported by the US Embassy in Ghana) and Digital Skills and fact-checking training for journalists and targeted newsrooms with support from the Google News Initiative.
Although the course is still yet to be fully run to ensure that every media practitioner, journalist, and student journalist imbibes the importance of fact-checking and truthful reporting, the journey so far has been fruitful and worth it.
As we celebrate International Fact-checking Day, it is a solemn reminder that fact-checking remains vital to preserving the integrity of truth and accuracy in journalistic practice and in the sustenance of democracy.
Today, we raise a glass to the unwavering effort and unyielding war against information disorder by fact-checkers and fact-checking organisations worldwide holding the fort as sentinels in the restoration and preservation of a sanitised and fortified information ecosystem.
