Dubawa Ghana, a fact-checking entity under the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), has held a two-day training on information disorder and fact-checking for journalists in Wa, Upper West Region.
The training centred on fact-checking ‘information disorder’ widely known as ‘fake news’, and sought to equip journalists with the requisite skills and tools needed to fact-check information.
The training, held from April 18 to April 19, 2023, and attended by over 20 journalists, was supported by the Google News Initiative under Dubawa’s Digital Verification and Fact-checking Workshop for African Newsrooms project.
Editor for Dubawa Ghana, Mr Nathan Gadugah, speaking to Info Radio at the end of the two-day training, said the training became necessary to empower journalists and newsrooms to counter the proliferation of 'fake news' within the media space.
He observed that promoters of information disorder engaged in the act to gain power, make money or drive some social and psychological benefit, and were gaining grounds at a fast pace.
“We have realized over the last couple of years that the actors of information disorder are gaining grounds…they are people who are engaging in what we normally call ‘fake news’ either to gain power, to make money or either social or psychological gains,” he said.
He said information disorder was largely committed by social media content creators and influencers where there are non-existent editorial guidelines as compared with the traditional media, to regulate information sharing.
He said the phenomenon was precarious that people mostly depend on information to make decisions, and that decisions made based on false information pose adverse risks to people, as those decisions have high chances of being wrong.
“And the thing is that people rely on information for every decision they take…now, if the information you are receiving is impaired or is false, chances are that the actions or decisions you take would also be impaired.
“So Dubawa and other international organizations have decided to train journalists across the country to expose them to some of the basic tools that they can use to be able to fight the activities of these agents of disinformation,” Mr Gadugah said.
Mr Gadugah encouraged media houses to set up fact-checking desks within their establishments to carry out information verification.
He said it would help the media houses and their professionals to maintain their reputation and integrity and also give their audiences verified and trusted information.
He advocated the introduction of media literacy into the Ghanaian educational curriculum at the basic level to equip the citizenry with the requisite skills to consume information as he believed media literacy has become a basic life necessity.
Mr Prosper Kuorsoh, the Regional Secretary of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and former Editor of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Wa, said the emergence of the new media has placed a greater burden on journalists in disseminating truthful information, as the contents of social media spread at a faster rate.
He said the training was useful to equip journalists with the requisite skills needed to fact-check and verify information in order to correct wrong assertions and properly inform the public.
“I was so excited that we were exposed to a number of fact-checking tools that as a journalist you can fact-check your information…initially, I didn’t know that all these things existed that we could use as journalists to fact-check our information before [going forward] publishing,” he said.
M Kuorsoh who was also a lecturer with the SDD University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Department of Communication Studies, called on journalists to constantly upgrade their knowledge and skills in fact-checking and media verification to counter information disorder.
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