The Premium Times Center for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), through its fact-checking project, Dubawa, is set to hold its maiden fact-checking fellowship for selected journalists in Nigeria.
The 6-month fellowship, scheduled for June – November 2019, will be preceded by a four-day intensive training starting Monday, April 28, and ending on Thursday, May 2, 2019 at Barcelona Hotel in Abuja.
Premium Times reports that the selected journalists will, at the training, be taken through courses on the misinformation ecosystem, news industry transformation, research and data journalism, investigative journalism, and fact-checking/verification as an innovation to today’s journalism.
According to Ebele Oputa, Dubawa’s Project Officer, the training is well-primed to lay a foundation for the fellows in the coming month.
She said: “This training has been carefully designed to provide, not just a one-directional training for the fellows but to encourage engaging conversations between the trainers and the fellows, so that the right approaches to solving the misinformation problem in Nigeria and instituting a culture of truth in newsrooms can be attained.”
PTCIJ’s Deputy Programmes Director, Tosin Alagbe, speaking on behalf of Dapo Olorunyomi, the Executive Director, said: “fake news and misinformation is not a new phenomenon but has become widespread with the advent of technology. So we are also hoping to use technology to counter the spread of fake news.”
The Dubawa Fact-Checking Fellowship is supported by Heinrich Boll Stiftung, a German foundation that works with civil society organisations and other actors to strengthen democracy globally. At the opening ceremony, Chibueze Ebii, the Communications Manager in Nigeria said: “the aim of the fellowship is to foster a culture of fact-checking in newsrooms and hopefully encourage newsrooms to have a fact-checking desk.”
The fellowship is inspired by the need to tackle the societal menace of mis- and dis-information in Nigeria and beyond, thereby creating a safer media ecosystem where truth and accuracy can thrive without jeopardising freedom of expression.
