By Jane B. Mansaray.
In a Bid to promote accuracy and objectivity in journalism practice in Sierra Leone, Dubawa, a fact checking platform introduced and promoted by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) based in Nigeria has ended a three-day professional training for media practitioners in Sierra Leone.
The three-day residential workshop held at the Country Lodge Hotel, Hill Station in Freetown mainly targeted journalists from both Print and Electronic media and also Civil Society Organizations.
Various topics including ethics, methodology in fact checking claims and use of internet in verifying fake photos and news on social media were lectured by a team of media experts from Nigeria and Ghana, headed by Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi.
Dabawa was launched in Sierra Leone, on the 14th July 2021 by the Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. Mohamed Rahman Swarray to help amplify the culture of truth in public discourse, public policy and journalistic practice.
It is a non-partisan, accepting only to uphold the values of accuracy, balance, transparency, verification, independence and accountability in all its operations, guided in all practices by the five principles of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN) of commitment to non-partisanship and fairness, transparency of sources, transparency of funding and organisation, transparency of methodology and a commitment to an open and honest corrections policy.
The workshop attracted a galaxy of highly experienced media practitioners from across the country to delibrate on important tools in the practice of journalism.
It is hoped that after the lectures during the workshop, media practitioners would be in a better position to practice their profession, especially in the area of fact-checking.
Fact Checking is the act of verifying or checking factual assertions in a non-fictional text in order to determine the veracity and correctness of the factual statement in the text.
