Fact Checking & Fake News Lessons Dished Out to Journalists in Douala

Fact Checking & Fake News Lessons Dished Out to Journalists in Douala

"Fake news is intended to manipulate public opinion." These were the words of Senegalese born Samba Dialimpa Badji, Editor in Chief of Africa Check, Francophone, headquartered in Dakar, Senegal. Africa Check is Africa's first independent fact-checking organisation launched in 2012 to promote accuracy in public debate and keep politicians honest.

Fact Checking and Data  Journalism lessons were recently dished out to some 18 media men and women drawn from the North West, South West, Littoral and Centre regions of Cameroon. This was during a 3-day  Training Workshop for Anglophone and Francophone Journalists on Data Usage Techniques for Fact Checking in Times of Crisis dubbed Fact and DataCamp that was organised by ADISI-Cameroon in Douala from July 22nd to 24th 2019 as part of the implementation of its project, Access to Information in the English Speaking Areas in Times of Crisis with financial support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWAS) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Workshop Participants & Speakers

ADISI-Cameroon is an organization working on issues of access to information and freedom of expression plus the  promotion of Open Data and Data Journalism through its Citizen Access to Information platform and DataCameroun.

Fake news is information that's untruthful after verification. Often in the form of audios, videos, pictures, documents, applications etc, fake news is mostly spread through social media with the intention to mislead and manipulate the public, damage a person or institution and make financial gains through dishonestly fabricated headlines that pull readership to the fake news site. It has been observed that states, political figures and institutions often tend to refute any circulated information that doesn't please them as fake news. However, not every fake news is fake reason why fact checking must always be implored to authenticate or refute the claims.

Within the three days of the training workshop, attendees consumed lessons on the context and justification of the ADISI-Cameroon project on Access to Information in the Crisis Hit Two English Speaking Regions of Cameroon. Ever since the escalation of the ongoing Anglophone Crisis that started in November 2016 with lawyers and teachers in Buea and Bamenda peacefully marching on the streets, calling for immediate reforms in the educational and legal systems of the country, the abusive gathering, packaging and dissemination of information has reached its peak.

Samba Dialimpa Badji, Africa Check, Francophone, Main Workshop Facilitator

Paul-Joel Kamtchang of ADISI-Cameroon opines that if all reports on the Anglophone crisis are fact checked, much will be found wanting. Government and the secessionists have fortified the bad practice of countering reports from the other side through propaganda with fake news being their highly used tool for this exercise and as such the crisis persist, in the midst of which innocent civilians pay the price as their basic right of access to information is being trampled upon. He thinks that if journalists fact check their stories thereby doing away with fake news, it'll go a long way to deescalate the crisis.

There are over 150 organizations globally involved in fact checking, a practice born in the U.S in 1920 and by 1923, Time Magazine constituted the first ever fact checking team. Annually, every April 3nd is commemorated as International Fact Checking Day.

Attestation of Participation Handed to this Reporter

Attendees have thus returned to their various regions of origins with firm instructions to implement the knowledge acquired by determining some of the fake news that has remained unverified in their areas and whose verification and clarification remains important to the population. Their findings shall be submitted to Africa Check for eventual publication if validated.