Fifteen Media Organisations, Including the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), have pitched tent against fake news and misinformation ahead of 2019 general elections. The move under the banner "CrossCheck Nigeria" a collaborative information verification initiative powered by First Draft, a United Kingdom organization fighting misinformation globally.
CrossCheck, Nigeria slated to be launched on Wednesday, 28th November 2018, will be coordinated by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), an independent and non-profit news agency in the country.
Meanwhile, a two-day boot camp (training program) opened in Lagos on today, 26th November 2018, for about 46 journalists drawn from the participating media organizations. Addressing participants at the opening session, the Executive Director of First Draft, Dr. Claire Wardle, revealed that the project was targeted at improving the quality of information available to the voting public.
Wardle added that CrossCheck Nigeria would help debunk misinformation and fake news and sanitize the media space in preparations to the elections. She further explained that the boot camp was designed to teach the participants about the new verification technology to be deployed for the project, and how to work in the media coalition.
Noting that the project will not only help the public appreciate what to trust but also why it should be trusted. In his speech, the Executive Director of ICIR, Mr.Dayo Aiyetan, expressed concerns over the “weaponisation of information either to deceive the public or injure the reputation of opponents’’.
He stressed that the media has a responsibility of verifying the information being put out on social media to ensure that they were factual. To this, he added that "journalists need to learn the skills to verify and fact-check such misinformation and debunk them before they mislead people or cause harm”.
The participating organizations are NAN, The Guardian, Punch, Daily Trust, The Sun, Tribune, Thisday and The Nation. Others are Channels Television, Freedom Radio, Premium Times, The Cable, Sahara Reporters, ICIR and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
