By Nelson Manneh
The 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact Checking Fellowship began on Monday, 26 February 2024 with a virtual training on fact-checking of news articles and pictures among others.
This edition of the fellowship is the third in its series and will last for six months. Participants for this programme have been drawn from different countries including the Gambia, and the programme offers a six-month fellowship for journalists to incorporate fact-checking in their work, and another six-month fellowship for scholars (researchers) to conduct original research for publication, as contribution to knowledge building around information disorder.
The Fellowship programme, which is supported by the “National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”, covers a monthly stipend that will cover all costs of investigations and research projects for fellows.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, non-profit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Since its founding in 1983, the Endowment has remained on the leading edge of democratic struggles everywhere, while evolving into a multi-faceted institution that is a hub of activity, resources and intellectual exchange for activists, practitioners and scholars of democracy the world over.
The fellowship is inspired by the urgent need to amplify media literacy and empower journalists to spread the gospel of information verification to grassroots communities, which are targeted constituencies for political, social, and cultural misinformation and disinformation within the region.
The training will also help journalists tackle and curb the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation, and will further expand the art and reach of verified and accurate information to rural and urban societies; institutionalise a culture of fact-checking across the globe, and build knowledge around the menace of information disorder in Africa. The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) through its fact-checking project, DUBAWA, set up the Kwame Karikari fact-checking and research fellowship which is designed to promote accountability of public institutions and institutionalise the art and culture of fact-checking in newsrooms, and building knowledge around the phenomenon in the Anglophone axis of the West African sub-region.
