Nigeria, Other W/African Journalists to Receive Dubawa’s Fact-Checking Awards

Nigeria, Other W/African Journalists to Receive Dubawa’s Fact-Checking Awards

Journalists in Nigeria and other West African countries who participated as cohorts of the ‘2021 Kwame Kari Kari Research and Fact-Checking Fellowship’, organized by Dubawa, are set to clinch various categories of awards at the upcoming end-of-fellowship dinner and award night.

The Programme Officer Dubawa Nigeria, Temilade Onilede announced that the grand event will take place on the 25th of February 2022 at Corinthian Villa Hotel, Garki, Abuja.

“This is meant to celebrate investigative reporting in the Nigerian media and honour journalists who, during the fellowship programme, worked tirelessly to expose mis- and disinformation, while combating news disorder in the Wes-African sub-region and building a culture of practice around it,” Ms Onilede said.

While announcing the criteria, Dubawa’s Editor, Kemi Busari, said that the award will reward outstanding fellows at the event.

“There would be four major categories of awards which includes the Best Fellow, where one winner will be chosen from the West African cohort and the best fact-check of the fellowship where a winner, a first runner-up and second runner up from across well Africa will emerge,” Mr Busari announced.

Now in its third year, the fellowship instituted by Dubawa, Nigeria’s first indigenous independent verification and fact-checking project under the aegis of Premium Times Center for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), christened in honour of Ghanaian Professor, Kwame Karikari, selects outstanding journalists from across Nigeria’s newsroom for the six-months programme which equip participants with requisite skills for tackling misinformation, and holding political elites accountable for their words and actions, while expanding the reach of verified information to grassroots communities.

While addressing the 2021 cohorts at the begining of the Fellowship, Dapo Olorunyomi, Executive Director of PTCIJ, assured that the programme will equip journalists with all the empowerment mechanisms they need to combat misinformation, disinformation and fake news in the digital era.

The Fellowship is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

By PRNigeria