By Ikenna Uwadileke
The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) on Wednesday commenced training of 35 journalists of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on how to detect and counter fake news during and after the general elections.
The two-day fact checking training held in Abuja was to sensitise participants on the danger posed by fake news and the tools to counter it.
Addressing participants at the training, the Managing Director of NAN, Mr Buki Ponle, urged them to take advantage of the training to excel on the job.
Ponle, who was represented by Mr Silas Nwoha, Editor-in- Chief of the agency, expressed concern over the wave of fake news and the consequences in the society.
” I want you to give it your all because no training is a waste.
” So let us pay attention to the rich experiences we can gain from the training.
“Sometimes we want to go overseas for one training or the other, meanwhile we have the experts here.
“So, whatever they are giving us today is also a different kind of knowledge you can get anywhere in the world.
“Please, I urge you to pay attention and get the best you can from this training so that we come back to the newsroom as better journalists,’’ Ponle said.
While commending the resource persons over the initiative, Ponle said that NAN was looking forward to having other training programmes for the agency’s journalists in different zones.
Speaking on the fake news ecosystem, Ms Caroline Anipah, Deputy Director in CJID, emphasised the need to deploy journalism tools and technology to promote democratic accountability.
According to her, one of the cardinal objectives of Dubawa is to address information disorder also called fake news.
One way of tackling fake news, she said, was through fact checking.
“We recognise as an organisation that we are not able to do that by ourselves alone and that we need to partner with relevant institutions.
“And we also recognise that we can achieve our goal by training people who interface with the public to help us achieve our mandate,’’ Anipah said.
Ms Temilade Onilede, Programme Officer of Dubawa Nigeria, said that the 21st century had seen the weaponisation of information on an unprecedented scale.
Onilede said that misinformation distorts reality and changes people’s perception of things.
She, however, urged that while reporting election processes, participants must be non-partisan, fair, objective, adhere to standards and ensure transparency of sources.
Kabir Muhammed, one of the participants and an Assistant Editor-in-Chief, described the training programme as a welcome development.
“It can help them to develop their skills. With this training NAN staff can excel and take the agency to greater heights by giving out their best through credible and qualitative information,’’ Muhammed said.
Participants were trained on information disorder ecosystem, fact-checking practice, methodology and ethics as well as digital verification tools. (NAN)
