By Michael Kenetey
A fact-checking organisation, Dubawa Ghana with support from the US Embassy Ghana, has organised a two-day fact-checking training for journalists in rural communities in Ghana to equip them with the necessary manual and digital tools for fact-checking information.
Michael Kofi Kenetey reports that the capacity building across the country was into three categories, the Northern and Central zones, which was held a week ago, with the Southern zone taking place on October 24–25, 2022 in Accra.
Journalists from the rural communities in the southern sector were from the Eastern, Volta, Western, Western North, Central and the Greater Accra regions.
The journalists were taken through the types and forms of information disorder, which is commonly known as fake news; how to detect information disorder; how to verify information; videos and photos; impacts of information disorder; information disorder and the law; among others.
In an interview with GBC Sunrise FM, the Country Lead of Dubawa Ghana, Caroline Anipah, explained their choice for journalists from rural communities. She explained that for the past years, they found out that training for journalists targets specific journalists who have been trained over and over while journalists from rural communities and young journalists who really needed the training are left behind.
A Lawyer and lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a Facilitator of the Fact-checking training, Zakaria Tanko Musah, advised journalists not to be channels of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Lawyer Tanko Musah further advised journalists to regularly fact-check and verify information before dissemination.
The Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy Ghana, Nicole Chulicks, noted that journalism plays a pivotal role in every country and urged journalists to educate, inform and also hold governments accountable.
She showed her gratitude to Dubawa Ghana for taking it upon themselves to train journalists in the country on fact-checking information. Some of the journalists who participated in the fact-checking training also shared their experiences.