In commemoration of the International Fact-checking Day, Dubawa, an independent fact-checking platform, hosted a webinar on the experiences of misinformation victims and fact-checkers.
April 2 is International Fact-Checking Day, a day set aside by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and its members around the world to celebrate and recognise the contributions of fact-checkers in sanitising the information ecosystem. This is held annually since its inception in 2017.
The webinar organised by Dubawa’s three West African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone) held on zoom and was streamed live on Dubawa’s Facebook page on Thursday, April 1.
PTCIJ’s Programme Director, Oluwatosin Alagbe, in her opening remark noted that misinformation is not new but the advent of technology has made it easier for it to spread, hence the need for all hands to be on deck in the fight against it.
“Misinformation undermines democracy and causes unrest. PTCIJ saw this problem and decided to fill the gap through it’s fact-checking platform, Dubawa” she said.
The first session featured victims of misinformation who shared their experiences.
George Andah, a former Deputy Minister of Communication and Member of Parliament of Awutu Senya West Constituency in the Central Region of Ghana was accused of wielding a gun at an election registration centre in Ghana while Segun Olugola whose ailing daughter’s picture was used to defraud many.
Both experiences brought to light the immeasurable effect of misinformation on the public and the need to seek correction/redress where and when misinformation is spread about a person or an organisation.
The second session of the webinar brought together a panelist of fact-checkers: Oluwasegun Olakoyenikan from AFP Nigeria, Roselena Ahiable from Dubawa Ghana, Silas Jonathan from Dubawa Nigeria, Alie Tarawally from Dubawa Sierra Leone, and Sani Abdul Rahman from GhanaFact.
These fact-checkers spoke on the misinformation trend in their different countries, how they work to tackle it, the challenges they face and how they overcome these challenges.
Some of the challenges identified by these fact-checkers include information sourcing, audience reaction to fact-checks and access to data.
The webinar was brought to a close by the chief executive officer of PTCIJ, Dapo Olorunyomi, who noted that the experiences shared is a clear representation of the effect misinformation on the public and the importance of the work fact-checkers do.
“The work you do brings a lot of consequence and value” he said.
Dubawa is the independent Fact-Checking Project of Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism(PTCIJ).
