Graphic’s Mohammed Fugu selected for 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship

Mohammed Fugu, the Northern Regional Correspondent of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, has been chosen for the 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship.

He is one of 40 media practitioners and researchers shortlisted from five West African countries - Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia - for this year’s fellowship, which will run from Friday, March 1, to Monday, August 30, 2024.

The six-month fellowship, a fact-checking and verification project initiated by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) under the auspices of DUBAWA, aims to combat the increasing threat of information disorder while upholding high journalistic standards.

Named after  Ghanaian journalist and academic, Prof Kwame Karikari, the fellowship is dedicated to grooming the next generation of journalists and other media practitioners in accountability journalism, ensuring that media organizations develop a strong culture of fact-checking as part of their daily newsroom activities.

As part of the project, the newsrooms of the selected fellows will receive support to set up fact-check desks for verifying claims, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 general elections.

During a virtual inception workshop for the selected journalists, the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dapo Olorunyomi, emphasized the crucial role of journalists in enhancing democracy and development in West Africa.

“Democracy calls for journalists to stand up for accountability. Fact-checking will help authenticate and verify claims made by authorities and duty bearers,” he said.

He advised journalists to guard against misinformation and disinformation to prevent themselves from becoming agents of spreading falsehoods.

The Kwame Karikari Fellowship is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).