Foremost Africa’s fact-checking and verification platform, Dubawa, has selected The Informant247 journalist, Yemi Sodeeq, as one of this year’s Kwame Karikari fact-Checking fellows.
Yemi Sodeeq, an investigative journalist and fact-checker, was chosen alongside 40 other journalists, researchers, and fact-checkers across the West Africa sub-region, specifically Anglophone countries (Ghana, Liberia, Gambia, and Sierra Leone), for the six-month program.
This is the sixth edition of the fellowship program, inspired by the urgent need to combat information disorder, enhance media literacy, and equip journalists with skills to combat misinformation and disinformation in the mainstream media.
Supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship aims to promote media literacy and empower journalists to disseminate the importance of information verification to grassroots communities, which are often targeted for political, social, and cultural misinformation in the region.
Fellows will undergo training on information disorder dynamics, the verification process, and learn fact-checking skills and tools from industry experts.
The fellowship program started with a mandatory four-day virtual training from Monday, February 26, to Thursday, February 29. Following this, the six-month program will begin, with fellows being paired with mentors for further training and task execution.
Named after Ghanaian Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Kwame Karikari, the fellowship honours his advocacy for freedom of expression, social justice, and democracy in Africa.