Daniel Olugola was a father in need. A father, who was trying to solicit financial help from social media to help pay for the many surgeries and treatment for his daughter who was diagnosed with a sinonasal tumor. Yet, Olugola became the victim of online scammers who took advantage of his situation and diverted the funds into their personal accounts–an unfortunate situation of money that could have otherwise been sent to him to pay for his daughter’s treatments never reaching him.
His daughter died some months later.
Not all victims of online scams may be in situations like Mr. Olugola’s. In more recurring situations, money is not denied to you, it is rather extorted from you.
Besides the unfortunate incident of Daniel Olugola that Dubawa reported on, we have had to equally report on different manifestations of scams such as scholarship application links surfacing across social media platforms of West African countries Dubawa has a presence in (Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia). These scholarships are purported to be from reputable institutions, including the Commonwealth seen on both Ghana and Nigeria social media platforms; the University of Oslo and Abu Dhabi University seen on Nigeria’s social media platforms, and the University of Western Australia seen on Liberia social media platforms – all within the same period of time.
Another kind of scams Dubawa has had to report on are mass-market scams purporting to be from telecommunication group, MTN (here and here), the World Health Organisation, online stores such as Melcom (here and here) and Jumia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and food and beverage companies such as Nestle and Coca-Cola (surfacing in both Ghana and Liberia social media platforms).
Most of these sites were dishonestly offering what they would never deliver, in return for people’s personal data, passwords, and ultimately, money.
Falling prey…
Sometimes these scams are so glaringly deceptive that you wonder why people fall victim. It is for such concerns, that an American-based neuropsychology professor, Stacy Woods, together with some colleagues, conducted research to understand this phenomenon. The research article, which was featured on the BBC, showed some common stratagems observed to be used by scammers that made some people easy pickings for them. In addition, Dubawa noticed a similar trend with scams in countries where it operates, which have been reported on… Click here to continue reading
In his capacity as the chairperson of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Authority, the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo went to Guinea on 17 September 2021 to have ECOWAS-delegated discussions with Guinea’s military leadership led by Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya which included the immediate release of President Alpha Conde and for elections to be held within six months.
Following this event, a Facebook user, Evangelist Adda Emmanuel, on 19 September 2021, announced in what he claims to be breaking news that Akufo-Addo has ordered for the immediate arrest of military men in Guinea because they attempted to assassinate him. But this is false, as Akufo-Addo has neither reported on the arrest of military men in Guinea nor did military men in Guinea attempt to assassinate him on any occasion.
Several images and videos have gone viral on social media, suggesting that the Sunyani Municipal Hospital’s Maternity Block, which was commissioned by President Akufo-Addo in August 2021 was still under construction and that the project was started by Lordina Mahama, wife of ex-president, John Mahama. Both claims were, however, found to be false. The maternity block had been completed by the time it was commissioned by the President Akufo-Addo on 11 August 2021 though the project was commenced by the Sunyani Municipal Assembly and financed by the District Assembly Common’s Fund.
Daniel Olugola was a father in need. A father, who was trying to solicit financial help from social media to help pay for the many surgeries and treatment for his daughter who was diagnosed with a sinonasal tumor. Yet, he became the victim of online scammers who took advantage of his situation and diverted the funds into their personal accounts. An unfortunate situation of money that could have otherwise been sent to him to pay for his daughter’s treatments, never reaching him.
His daughter died some months later.
Not all victims of online scams may be in situations like Mr. Olugola’s. In more recurring situations, money is not denied to you, it is rather extorted from you.
Besides the unfortunate incident of Daniel Olugola that Dubawa reported on, we have had to equally report on different manifestations of scams such as scholarship application links surfacing across social media platforms of West African countries Dubawa has a presence in (Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Liberia). These scholarships are purported to be from reputable institutions, including the Commonwealth seen on both Ghana and Nigeria social media platforms; the University of Oslo and Abu Dhabi University seen on Nigeria social media platforms, and the University of Western Australia seen on Liberia social media platforms – all within the same period of time.
Another kind of scams Dubawa has had to report on are mass-market scams purporting to be from telecommunication group, MTN (here and here), the World Health Organisation, online stores such as Melcom (here and here) and Jumia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and food and beverage companies such as Nestle and Coca-Cola (surfacing in both Ghana and Liberia social media platforms).
Most of these sites were dishonestly offering what they would never deliver, in return for people’s personal data, passwords, and ultimately, money.
Falling prey…
Sometimes these scams are so glaringly deceptive that you wonder why people fall victim. It is for such concerns, that an American-based neuropsychology professor, Stacy Woods, together with some colleagues, conducted research to understand this phenomenon. The research article, which was featured on the BBC highlighted some common stratagems observed to be used by scammers that made some people easy pickings for them, and Dubawa noticed a similar trend with scams in Ghana which have been reported on. Popular among those found in the study were:
Familiar brands: In order to sound credible and assume to have some authority, many scammers use a fairly well-known, legitimate, or local business to persuade people.
(Little wonder in Ghana, MTN and Melcom, which seem to be among the top preferred companies for scammers, are always seemingly doing some sort of give-away)
Motivation: In their quest to arouse an urgent desire in people to participate, many scammers make their offers time-bound.
Legitimacy:Some scammers are also observed to use diction that suggests seriousness in business by using legal terms to further persuade people that the offer is legitimate. Others also had website interfaces that are colourful and attractive with photos of money, prizes, and details of purported previous winners.
The study also included an experiment to identify consumer habits and their susceptibility to scams. It found that people who did not mind complying in unknown scams gave their reasons to be that the potential benefits outweighed the risks of loss for them, adding that loneliness, low income, and inadequate numeracy skills were factors that also influenced their willingness to participate.
Noticeable in the demographics of people who were usual prey for such scams, as the study found, were people with fewer years of education and in some cases, younger people.
As observed by Dubawa, particularly about the influx of fake scholarship websites, it is the season (July to October) when most school years are opening. It is found to be an opportune time for scammers to equally gush out their fake scholarship offers given the appropriateness of such a period to the needs of most students.
Notwithstanding, there seems to be a specific motivation and target for most of these scams – money. Hence, it is becoming commonplace now to see scammers lure people into participating in many online activities that are, in most cases, non-existent.
No matter what strategy it takes, whether it is a make-believe promo, fake purchase deal, scholarship scheme, or job offer, let’s call them for what they really are – defrauding and cyber crimes – and they are punishable by law.
Laws are enacted to help you
The complexities of cybercrimes and the anonymity that characterized the medium of criminality make it difficult sometimes to identify the culprits. Notwithstanding, when a culprit is identified, there are legal provisions in place for such fraudsters in Acts of Parliament, such as Act 29 of the Criminal Code 1960, Act 772 of the Electronic Transactions Act 2008, and Act 1038 of the CyberSecurity Act 2020.
Criminal Code 1960, Act 29
In Ghana, Act 29 of the 1960 Criminal Code does not condone any kind of fraud. For example, Section 16 of Chapter 2 which makes provision relating to fraud states that,
“For the purposes of any provision of this Code by which any forgery, falsification, or other unlawful act is punishable if used or done with intent to defraud, an intent to defraud means an intent to cause, by means of such forgery, falsification, or other unlawful act, any gain capable of being measured in money, or the possibility of any such gain, to any person at the expense or to the loss of any other person.”
Electronic Transactions 2008, Act 772
Even more specifically, the Electronic Transactions Act 772 caters to cyber offenses and their consequent charges, like the Criminal Code 1960. Pertaining to the effect of the cybercrime committed, it makes provisions for offenses committed via electronic means.
These include stealing, appropriation, representation, attempt to commit crimes, conspiracy, forgery, access to a protected computer, obtaining electronic payment medium falsely, general offense for fraudulent electronic fund transfer and general provision for cyber offenses. Other offenses are unauthorised access or interception, unauthorised interference with electronic record, unauthorised access to devices, unlawful access to stored communications, unauthorised access to a computer programme or electronic record, unauthorised modification of computer programme or electronic record, unauthorised disclosure of access code and causing a computer to cease to function.
Cyber Security Act 2020, Act 1038
The Cyber Security Act 2020, Act 1038 establishes a Cyber Security Authority which is responsible for regulating cybersecurity activities in the country. Additionally, it establishes the National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT) which is responsible for responding to cybersecurity incidents, coordinating responses to cybersecurity incidents amongst public institutions, private institutions, and international bodies. The NCERT is also responsible for overseeing the Sectoral Computer Emergency Response Team (SCERT), which has oversight of cyber security in designated sectors such as public, banking and financial, energy and utilities, national security, academic, health, transportation, telecommunication, and military sectors in the country.
The Act also allows for a cybersecurity point of contact for the general public – individuals and institutions who are not affiliated to a particular sector – to report cybersecurity incidents.
Section 48 stipulates that,
(1) The Authority shall establish a cybersecurity incident point of contact to facilitate (a) reporting of a cybersecurity incident by the general public; and (b) international co-operation in cybersecurity matters.
(2) An institution that is not affiliated to a designated Sectoral Computer Emergency Response Team, shall report a cybersecurity incident to the National Computer Emergency Response Team through the cybersecurity incident point of contact established under subsection (1).
(3) An individual may report a cybersecurity incident to the National Computer Emergency Response Team through the cybersecurity incident point of contact established under subsection (1).
Regulatory bodies exist to help you
Dubawa spoke to the Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Mr. Richard Okyere-Fosu, who explained the functionality of NITA in helping citizens report cybercrimes.
He said that being the agency responsible for implementing Ghana’s IT policies, NITA also serves as an Emergency Response Team and is committed to ensuring the integrity of websites in the country. He added that in consultation with Ghana Domain Registry (which is the agency responsible for registering all websites in the country), any website whose domain is found not registered and consequently guilty of cyber offenses can be taken down when reported. Mr. Okyere-Fosu emphasised that this is provided for in the Electronic Transactions Act 772 which allows for blocking, filtering, and taking down of illegal content.
Section 87 of the Act states that,
(1) The Authority may, on the order of a court, authorise a service provider to block, filter or take down illegal content and phone numbers used for a malicious purpose which seeks to undermine the cybersecurity of the country.
(2) The grounds for blocking, filtering, and taking down illegal content and phone numbers include
(a) the protection of national security;
(b) the protection of children;
(c) the public safety;
(d) the prevention or investigation of a disorder or a crime;
(e) the protection of health;
(f) the protection of reputation or the rights of an individual;
(g) the prevention of the disclosure of information received in confidence;
(h) compliance with a legal order; or
(i) any other ground that the Authority may determine
Mr. Okyere-Fosu further revealed that NITA had in past services, focused more on its operations for government and now, given the rise of fraudulent websites, is purposed to equally focus on its regulatory duties for citizens.
He advised that there are several agencies, of which NITA is included, in place to handle the investigations of cybercrime, and citizens should not hesitate to report such incidents to the Cyber Security Authority.
“Use Cyber Security to report any incident. They have a good response team who will handle it with all relevant agencies such as BOG, data protection, or NCA, depending on where the crime is being committed. They will investigate it and come out with the necessary penalty,” Mr. Okyere- Fosu said.
He, however, cautioned that cyber security was not only the responsibility of cyber security agencies but individuals also had a part to play in their safety online.
Update software and operating system frequently to be protected with the latest security offers for your computer.
Use anti-virus or a comprehensive internet security solution and ensure it is updated to prevent your computer from cyber attack.
Use strong passwords and do not record them anywhere
Do not open attachments in spam emails
Do not click on links in spam emails or untrusted or unfamiliar websites
Do not give personal data via electronic means such as phone or email unless the security of the means of communication has been established.
Contact companies about suspicious offers before indulging via their contact lines from their official websites.
Be cautious with clicking on unfamiliar URLs
Monitor your bank statements
Additionally, a Secure Life – an organisation that offers security services – gives some tips on how to identify a fake website by showing that:
The address bar matters. It reveals that the ‘s’ in https:// means ‘secure’ which further means that the website has encryption for data transfers and is protected from hackers. However, a website showing http:// without an s does not always mean it is a scam, except that it may not be as secure and users should be cautious entering personal data on such sites.
The domain name matters. Scammers like to imitate established brand domain sites by changing single alphabets therefore caution must be taken before navigating such sites.
The domain age matters. How long a website has been created can be checked to further confirm suspicions. This is helpful in confirming sites such as those maliciously created around school reopening dates to chance on scholarship offers. Whois Lookup domain is a tool helpful in assessing who a domain is registered to, its location, and how long it’s been in existence.
Other tips include watching for grammatical errors, identifying the provision of reliable contact information, the accessibility of using only secure online payment options, thinking through offers that are too good to be true, and running a virus scan on the site with the help of free resources such as IsitHacked?, VirusTotal, PhishTank, and FTC ScamAlerts.
As Mr. Okyere-Fosu advised, “Cybersecurity is also a personal responsibility. Ensure you take good care of your cybersecurity hygiene.’’
Ghana’s E-Cedi: What You Need To Know About Ghana’s Digital Currency (E-CEDI)
By Paa Kwesi Eshun
The Bank of Ghana (BOG) will pilot the digital Cedi currency also known as the E-CEDI this month.
This was announced by the First Deputy Governor, Dr. Maxwell Opoku Afare, when he addressed the media on Monday, July 12, 2021.
In June 2021, the governor of the BOG, Dr. Ernest Addison, disclosed that the digital currency (E-Cedi) is in the advanced stages and will go through three phases – design, implementation, and piloting – before it goes into circulation.
The design phase, which involves the design of the digital money, is completed. The Central Bank is moving to the implementation and the piloting stage where a few people would be able to use the digital cedi on their mobile applications and other apps that are currently running.
Ghana’s Central Bank partnered with a U.S. company called EMTECH, a fintech startup dedicated to central banks for a digital transformation journey that will establish a template that other regulators and stakeholders can embrace for a robust banking sector. The partnership will leverage EMTECH’s software to test innovative solutions, including blockchain. The approach will bring on board new products and services as well as bridge the gap between the banked and unbanked.
The project is also designed to speed up the time to market for the Bank of Ghana’s CBDC.
What is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)?
The Central bank’s digital currency is the digital form of a country’s fiat currency. The BOG will issue electronic tokens whose value will be backed by the full faith and credit of the government and will replace the minting coins or the paper notes.
The supply of the digital currency will be wholly determined and controlled by the central government.
Can Ghanaians use the E-Cedi in other countries?
Dr. Maxwell Opoku Afare says that as part of the preparations for the launch of the digital currency, there would be coordination between the Bank of Ghana and other central banks across the world, to enable Ghanaians to use e-cedi for international transactions as well.
Is the E-Cedi Volatile?
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are characterised by a number of factors, including a lack of proper central bank regulation, that leads to its volatility.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Mr Yofi Grant, at the official launch of its investment summit dubbed “Spark Up” on August 3, 2021, made some false claims regarding the country’s foreign direct investments in 2019 and 202.
He said that Ghana is the second country in Africa, following Egypt, to receive the highest foreign direct investment in 2020. He also claimed Ghana recorded 2.7 billion in FDI in 2020, and that the country recorded 1.9 billion in 2019. All of these were found to be false.
The District Chief Executive of Bongo District, Peter Ayinibisa, claimed that the water his constituents drink makes them very fertile and sexually active, the reason for the high rise of teenage pregnancy in Bongo. However, we found no evidence to back up this claim. The water being drunk in Bongo has not been tested for aphrodisiac-inducing minerals or chemicals.
According to a number of local news portals, Ghana is among the top visitors of pornhub.com, a pornography website. Yet, this claim is not only false but also misleading as the chart on which the claim is premised only refers to visitors of just one category of videos on the websites.
Twenty-two Liberian journalists drawn from the country’s print, broadcast and online press will begin a four-day training in fact-checking training at the Murex Plaza and Suites in Monrovia Wednesday 28 July where Deputy Minister for Information, Mr. Boakai Fofana, will open the event with an address on “Stemming the Spread of Misinformation in Liberia to Advance Good Governance and Democracy.”
The training is organized by the West African fact-checking initiative, DUBAWA, a project of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ).
“We are honoured and privileged to be in Liberia to support our peers in executing this training on the global information crisis of misinformation and disinformation, and the challenges they pose to democracy, electoral integrity, public health and sound public policy in the country,” said Oluwatosin Alagbe, the Programme Director of PTCIJ in a statement Tuesday from Monrovia.
Ms. Alagbe said the training will be conducted in collaboration with The Stage Media, an indigenous Liberian fact-checking organisation, formed last year, and that the scope of the training will cover accountability journalism, theory and history of fact-checking, as well as the structure and ethics of the practice. Other skills trainees will acquire are: how to conduct a full-fledged fact-checking exercise; how to identify best sources for fact-checking; how to use multimedia verification tools for fact-checking and how to interpret data and understand numbers.
“We expect trainees from the programme to also learn how to use data and geolocation tools as well as the Freedom of Information Law to reinforce their fact checking practice,” said Ms. Alagbe, adding that the leadership of the Liberian Press Union, the Female Journalist Association, the Centre for Media and Society, the Accountability Lab, civil society captains and a string of officials from the diplomatic community will grace the occasion.
Liberia’s media has a strong tradition of promoting accountability since the 1826 founding of the Liberian Herald by Charles Force but fact-checking is recent with Stage media, and an erstwhile leader in rural journalism, Local Voices, which incorporated fact checking into its journalism earlier this year, helping to fight misinformation and promoting media literacy in the country.
Experts and facilitators that will conduct the training are: Dapo Olorunyomi, the Executive Director, Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism; Malcolm Joseph, Executive Director, Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding; Adedeji Adekunle, Director, DUBAWA and Caroline Anipah, Programmes Manager, DUBAWA Ghana.
About DUBAWA
DUBAWA is a transnational verification and fact-checking platform, initiated by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) in 2018. It is independent, transparent and non-partisan and abides with the Code of Principles of the International Fact-checking Network (IFCN) to which it is a signatory.
Dubawa aims at instituting a culture of truth and verification in public discourse and journalism through strategic partnerships between the media, government, civil society organisations, technology giants and the public.
Since 2019, Dubawa has held successful annual fellowships for journalists, fact checkers and researchers in The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone to equip fellows with skills in fact-checking and verification in combating the wide spread regime of misinformation in the West African sub-region and to also contribute to knowledge around information disorder in the subregion.
For more about Dubawa visit dubawa.org and ghana.dubawa.org
West Africa’s verification and fact-checking platform, Dubawa, is set to launch a new country office in Sierra Leone.
The launch will take place on July 13, 2021 at the Country Lodge Hotel in Freetown.
A project of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ with a core mandate to restore the eroding trust of newsrooms, Dubawa’s mission is to institute a culture of truth and verification in public discourse and journalism through strategic partnerships between the media, government, civil society organizations, technology giants and the public.
“We are super excited at this development, which is one element in the broad mission of Premium Times’ strategy to help deepen the primacy of ethics in governance, in policy making and in journalism within the ECOWAS subregion,” Executive Director of PTCIJ, Dapo Olorunyomi, said.
As part of activities for the official launch, Dubawa will also train journalists and bloggers in fact-checking skills, digitals tools, Right to Information laws and data journalism.
“We are setting up shop in Sierra Leone with the hopes of tackling misinformation and disinformation through rigorous fact-checking, media literacy and research,” Oluwasin Alagbe, Programme Director of PTCIJ also said.
Currently, Dubawa has been holding successful annual fellowships for journalists, fact checkers and researchers in The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone to equip fellows with skills in fact-checking and verification in combating the widespread regime of misinformation in the West African sub-region and to also contribute to knowledge around information disorder in the subregion.
First launched in Nigeria as the country’s first indigenous fact-checking platform in 2018, Dubawa expanded its programme to Ghana in 2019 and Sierra Leone in 2020 in a bid to promote accountability and democracy across the West African region. Dubawa currently also has a presence in Liberia and the Gambia.
Claim: News reports claim Ghana is the second-largest producer of Cassava in Africa.
False. Ghana is the third-largest producer of cassava in Africa, not the second.
Full Text:
According to news reports “Ghana is the second-largest producer of cassava in Africa.” The claim, published here and here, was earlier published on myjoyonline.comon the 22nd of May 2021 but has since been updated.
Source: myjoyonline.com
Source: Myjoyonline.com
According to the news reports, the claim was made at a conference on financial and technological support for processing cassava in Kumasi.
At the event, stakeholders resolved that it is time the country added value to cassava through agricultural industrialization in order to boost its production.
Verification
Cassava is a major crop in the farming systems of Ghana. According to the Global Cassava Processing Market Report 2019, the majority of the population of Africa, Latin America, and Asia depend on cassava for sustenance as it provides food as well as occupation to farmers and traders.
But what’s Ghana’s position in the production of cassava in Africa?
Since the source of the claim was not stated in the story, Dubawa reached out to the journalist who wrote the story published on myjoyonline.com. Our checks revealed that a freelance journalist, Mahmud Mohmmed-Nurudeen, was the reporter of the story.
An email was sent to him to seek clarity on the claim.
On WhatsApp, he sent the link to the original video of the news story on YouTube. Dubawa assessed the video and revealed that the claim was made by the Head of Trade in Services and Manufactures at the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, Banda Abdallah Khalifah, during a conference on financial and technological support for processing cassava in Kumasi.
“…Another interesting statistics that we would want to know, Ghana is one of the largest producers of cassava in the world, not even in Africa… in 2019, we produced about 22 million metric tonnes of cassava – 22 million metric tonnes. Thailand is the largest producer, followed by other countries. In Africa, Nigeria is the largest, Ghana is the second largest producer of cassava fresh cassava in Africa…,” Mr Khalifah said in the video (3:35-4:30).
In response to a phone call after seeking clarification Mr Khalifah revealed that “the claim was made using statistics of either 2017 or 2018.”
But he confirmed that “currently, Ghana is the third-largest producer of Cassava in Africa with Nigeria being the first.”
Globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) most recent data, the ten largest cassava producing countries are Nigeria, Thailand, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Ghana, Angola, Vietnam, India, and the United Republic of Tanzania.
Deducing from the ten cassava producers in the world, in Africa, the five major cassava producing countries include Nigeria (42,592,025.35 mt), the Democratic Republic of Congo (22,018,779 mt), Ghana (12,113,237.42 mt), Angola (7,806,487.15 mt), and United Republic of Tanzania (5,507,582.62 mt).
According to the most recent data on Tridge, a global sourcing hub that puts together data and networks to make cross-border trade happen, Ghana is the third-largest producer of cassava in Africa.
Ghana indeed is one of the largest cassava producers in Africa, but it is the third in Africa.
This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking.
West Africa’s media innovation and development organisation, the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), through its sub-regional fact-checking project, DUBAWA, today in Abuja, named its coveted fact-checking and research fellowship, the Kwame Karikari fact-checking and research fellowship, after Professor Kwame Karikari, former professor at the School of Communication Studies of the University of Ghana, Legon, former Dean of Communication Studies at Wisconsin University and founder of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
PTCIJ, in a statement Friday, April 23, by its Chief Executive Officer, Dapo Olorunyomi, said it decided to name the three-year-old fellowship after Professor Karikari in recognition of his “life work in the development of accountability journalism, his mentorship and training of generations of journalists in the sub-region and his redoubtable work in the advocacy for and promotion of media freedom in West Africa.”
Olorunyomi said the idea of the fellowship was “inspired by the need to tackle and curb the rapid spread of mis- and dis-information and further expand the art and reach of verified and accurate information to rural and urban societies, to institutionalise a culture of fact-checking across the sub-region, and to build knowledge around the menace of information disorder.”
The Kwame Karikari fellowship will follow a twin-track, according to Olorunyomi, each of which offers either a six-months fellowship for intending fact-checkers seeking to incorporate enhanced verification measures into their work; and the six-month scholars fellowship for academics seeking a path to original research in knowledge production around information disorder.
Moreover, Olorunyomi said, both tracks of the fellowship are designed to promote accountability of public institutions, institutionalise the art and culture of amplifying truth and stemming the phenomenon of programmed falsehood in newsrooms, while building competencies to strengthen democratic principles in the Anglophone axis of the West African sub-region.
The fact-checking track, according to Olorunyomi, is open only to journalists and reporters with at least a first degree who are currently working in traditional and new media from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. For this category, he said, experience in fact-checking is not required of prospective applicants.
“All that is essential, is their interest in pursuing fact-checking of stories pertaining to politics, economy, health, governance, business, and media, as well as the willingness to think about ways to expand the reach of verified information to grassroots communities that are targeted constituencies for political, social, and cultural misinformation,” Olorunyomi said.
The scholar track, he said, is an enhanced programme initiated through Dubawa’s Information Disorder Analysis Centre (IDAC), and is a project open only to postdoctoral and graduate/research fellows keen to create knowledge on the information disorder ecosystem through extensive research, following an identification of gaps in knowledge that should drive policy and democratic discourse around technological consequences, social media, and political legislation.
The Kwame Karikari fellowship is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington DC, and the Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation (HBS). They both offer a monthly stipend to cover all costs of the investigation and research project for fellows.
The application call announced today will last until May 10, when a four-day selection process will begin. After a one- week training offered by a team of international scholars and experts, the fellowship will commence at the end of May and run through November.
To mark International Fact-Checking Day on 2 April, Dubawa hosted the general public to a two-hour webinar on Zoom which was also live streamed on Facebook on 1 April under the theme “International Fact-Checking Day: Experiences of victims of fake news and fact-checkers”. The webinar, set in an informal atmosphere, offered seven panelists the opportunity to share their unique experiences with information disorder.
The first set of panelists were two victims of misinformation – a Ghanaian politician and a Nigerian pastor. George Andah, former Deputy Communications Minister and Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya West in Ghana and Daniel Olugbenga Olugola, pastor and founder of Beautiful Feet World Missions in Nigeria, took turns giving air to the effects fake news has had on them.
“It is quite difficult dealing with such false accusations. It is disorientating, it is confusing… to some extent it even gets quite painful. It makes you really mistrust people. It leaves you with the fear of human interactions and you sometimes become paranoid as to who else you can trust,” Andah said.
Andah further revealed that having served in frontline politics, one was regarded as fair game for such propaganda and has been a victim of several politically-motivated allegations beside this particular incident. Nonetheless, as a matter of principle, he resorted to taking legal action against these cases of false representation. He mentioned the Electronics Communications Act as the law protecting victims of misinformation and emphasised to all participants on the webinar, the need to understand and use this law (as he did, and has won some cases) to deter perpetrators of fake news from further propagating such stories.
Unfortunately, Olugola’s daughter died after a complication – a situation he described as incomprehensible. Similarly, he stated that he could not comprehend people’s intention to profit from his family’s ordeal.
“That thing that happened, this misinformation, that scam, it really made me think… how can some people be listening to situations that are making a family cry, and how can they see it as an opportunity to be making money for themselves,” Olugola said.
Olugola revealed that to his surprise, other pastors were found to be involved in this spread of misinformation to exploit him. He further cautioned against the severe consequences misinformation can have, especially on people in pain.
The next set of panelists were five fact-checkers from verified fact-checking organisations in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. Oluwasegun Olakoyenikan from AFP Nigeria, Silas Jonathan from Dubawa Nigeria, Roselena Ahiable from Dubawa Ghana, Sani Abdul Rahman from GhanaFact and Alie Tarawally from Dubawa Sierra Leone described the modus operandi and challenges involved in their line of work in the era of a COVID-19 pandemic.
Sani Abdul-Rahman, who practised as a journalist for over five years before engaging in full-time fact-checking in Ghana, foregrounded the difference between the work of a mainstream journalist and the work of a fact-checker. He stated that by simply publishing the news reports as a journalist, there was always the interest to break the story first instead of getting it right. This, he identified, was a fuel of misinformation and disinformation in the entire world – a situation he appreciated during the course of fact-checking.
“When I started fact-checking I had to first apologise to my conscience and to the many people that have come across my reports as a journalist because I realised that I was just confusing people. If I put together all that I’ve gathered in my work as a journalist, I can say 90% of the report and the data that I churned out in my report were inaccurate and I got to realise that when I started fact-checking,” Rahman said.
Roselena Ahiable further listed the procedure of fact-checking which would involve media monitoring on both social media and legacy media to source for claims, researching, interviewing both the people implicated in the story and authoritative sources, writing the report, editing and consequently, publishing the check. She emphasised the importance of timeliness in producing fact-checks to help discerning audiences engage with the truth of a topical or trending issue.
Silas Jonathan added that for claims which did not necessitate interviewing people such as manipulated videos and photos, the fact-checker was required to apply the appropriate digital tools to verify such content.
All fact-checkers agreed that audience acceptance was a challenge to their work. Olowasegun Olakoyenikan, who monitors the information ecosystem in some anglophone West African states, attributed the information disorder in Nigeria to the country’s large population and wide internet penetration of its citizens. He further stated that the nature of Nigeria’s diverse culture, religion and beliefs affected how polarised a fact-check could become if it favoured or disfavoured the parties incriminated in a story. Abdul-Rahman mentioned the similarity of this situation in Ghana by exemplifying the major culprits to be politicians and their followers. He stated that such a category of people, when found to be on a favourable side of the check would exalt the work of fact-checkers, but when found to be on a disfavourable side of the check, tend to consequently denigrate the work of fact-checkers.
Further, fact-checkers agreed that the inconsistencies in data sets and the unavailability of the sources to a data was also problematic to them, where Abdul-Rahman gave a number of instances he had encountered such with claims made by Ghanaian Ministers of State.
Alie Tarawally, in response to the severity of information disorder confronting the Sierra Leonean mediascape, justified the legislation against misinformation to facilitate fact-checking. He explained that particularly because of the situations of the Ebola epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic in the country, the need for a cyber law to govern fake news that continues to spiral on social media was instituted.
All fact-checkers acknowledged the gratification that resulted from the fulfilled objective of accurately informing people. They also agreed that in spite of the unending cycle of misinformation and verbal attacks, fact-checkers needed to be intentional with occasionally taking a break from media monitoring to help them de-stress from the mental fatigue, trauma and depression engendered by the nature of their work. Additionally, it was agreed that more lingual channels should be open and made more accessible to inform the misinformed local dialect speakers in African countries, not just English-speaking audiences, to further the impact of fact-checking.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA) officially launches its social media arm known as Viral Facts Africa.
Viral Facts Africa was launched at a workshop on health communications for leading African influencers from business, sports, the arts and the media hosted by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union, the Rockefeller Foundation, Access Challenge and WHO.
Amid the growing spread of COVID-19 and related misinformation in the African continent, the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA) initiative was born to combat misinformation related to the pandemic.
This alliance launched in December 2020 with 12 organisations, brings together the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red crescent (IFRC), UNICEF, UNESCO, UN Verified, UN Global Pulse, WHO and the fact checking organisations Africa Check, PesaCheck, Agence France Presse Fact Check, Dubawa and Meedan.
Today, the Alliance has grown to include 14 organisations with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Ghana Fact joining the fold.
VIral Facts Africa is a WHO-hosted network that is part of the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), to coordinate actions and pool resources to combat misinformation and fill information gaps around the COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies in Africa.
“False claims can spread faster than COVID-19 itself, often because they are simple, visual and tap into our emotions. Viral Facts Africa aims to debunk myths right where they spread, fast, and to help people sort life-saving facts from noise. Together, we can stop viral rumours by sharing viral facts,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, was quoted as saying in the press release.
Viral Facts creates scientific fact-based information, fact-checks, debunks and misinformation literacy content that are highly visual, engaging, and shareable across social platforms.
“COVID-19 is not over, and as vaccines are rolled out across Africa, mask wearing, hand hygiene and physical distancing are still key to saving lives. We need a whole-of-society push to keep these messages fresh in people’s minds and everyone has a role to play as viral health misinformation costs lives,” said Dr Moeti.
To achieve this, Viral fact works with communities to co-design and disseminate it’s contents on different social media platforms.
The role of the media in informing and educating its audiences has not only been achieved through traditional reporting but more recently through fact-checking claims that have dubitable character and may have the propensity to misinform and mislead. This study, through interviews, established the critical role fact-checking is playing in sanitizing the information ecosystem of polluted information in Ghana. While on one hand these media houses seek to ensure that the general public is served with factual information, there are challenges they are confronted with on the other hand – easy access to information, funding and political ownership of some of the media organisations – being some of them. The study recommends that the media should, in the face of the highlighted challenges, make fact-checking an integral part of the newsroom architecture separate from investigative journalism and other genres of reporting.
Introduction
The information ecosystem has become convoluted with an avalanche of messages shaped and contorted along the lines of propaganda, fabrications, satires, and memes. Digital media has become the dumping site for predators who share information that baits readers but are bereft of facts and sometimes lacking authenticity (Pangrazio, 2018).
Often, information shared on digital media platforms travel far and wide across the globe and media audiences rarely consume such messages by first subjecting them to a second check to ascertain their truth or falsity. Coupled with the ease of access to such media platforms, users find new media as a safe haven for propagating misinformation and fake content; and eventually, the site has become a breeding ground for fake news.
The advantages of using digital media – unrestricted access, low cost of entry, and the advantage of ‘multi-mediality’ – make it user-friendly, thus eliminating all potential barriers that will preclude a user from sharing information at any time and anywhere. While digital media provides these positives, the challenges associated with it, particularly the preponderance of fake news in the ecosystem, is often a worry to many, such as consumers of media messages, policy makers and even governments. Indeed, the prevalence of polluted information and fake news on digital media has implications on governance, human security, businesses, the environment and more recently the health sector.
For example, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fatalities that have been recorded and ones being recorded in the second wave of the pandemic have made everyone edgy and willing, without often questioning, to latch on any drug or herbs that portend to fight the virus, all in an effort not to be killed by the disease. From the origin of the virus, through to the behavior of the virus and the debate about its mode of transmission to the point of a medication to treat the virus are all riddled in fake information, thus making many people feel their faith to be hanging in the balance and struggling to determine what information is worth believing.
In a recent presidential and parliamentary elections held in Ghana, social media platforms – WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook – went buzzing from one allegation to another from the camps of the two main political parties jostling for power – New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Nation Democratic Congress (NDC). Committed to ensuring that the voters are well informed on policies, projects and programmes being promised by the political parties, the media, popularly referred to as the fourth estate of the realm, took up the responsibility of not only reporting the news as it breaks but went further to defuse fake information in the public sphere by fact-checking statements made by political party officials on campaign platforms and political talk shows in the media.
To enhance understanding on the role the media played in battling the fake news canker, this report places the spotlight on the media organisations that were at the forefront of combating fake news especially during the election period. A profile of the media organisations, mode of fact-checking, rating scales used, tools for fact-checking, impact of their work, challenges they encounter, and the sustainability plan for the fact-checking exercise are the key outlines that this report seeks to highlight.
Focal persons in the selected media organisations were interviewed on the thematic areas that the report seeks to address. In all, five media houses – Citi FM, Joy FM, Starr FM, 3FM and Ghanaweb – were selected for the interview. The selected media houses were at the frontline of combating misinformation and fake news where fact-checking was either part of the station’s programming or of a project initiated to be executed within a specified time frame.
Profile of the Media Organisations
Citi FM
Citi FM is a private radio station based in Accra-Ghana, which commenced commercial broadcasting in November 2004. The station employs English as its medium of communication and offers a blend of adult contemporary music, news, and talk programmes. The station has a dominant presence in Greater Accra, Eastern, Central and parts of Volta and Western Regions in Ghana and aims at a global reach as online radio. In 2006, the station was also adjudged the New Radio Station of the year at the BBC Africa Radio Awards for West Africa in August 2016.
Joy FM
Joy FM is a radio station based in Accra. It was Ghana’s first English-speaking private radio station, established in 1995 as the country’s news and entertainment hub. Many private radio outlets followed after. Joy FM targets the middle to upper income group of listeners. The station’s format consists of news and talk programming interspersed with entertaining music programs.
Joy FM is one of the country’s most patronised radio stations. It is part of the Multimedia Broadcasting Limited, one of Ghana’s biggest private media groups that cover radio, digital TV & Online
Starr FM
Starr 103.5 FM is an urban, lifestyle radio station, which focuses on the delivery of compelling programmes through good music, entertainment/lifestyle – led talk programmes and sports for its target audience. In respect of News and Current affairs, it seeks to deliver accurate, factual, relevant and newsworthy stories to its listeners. It seeks to entertain and educate the target listeners through music and talk content that it puts on air, through its events and promotions. Starr is part of the Excellence in Broadcasting media group that has TV and online presence. (https://e4impact.org/partners/starr-103-5-fm/).
3FM
3FM is a privately owned radio station in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The radio station is owned by Media General Radio Limited which forms part of Media General, a media and Communications Company which owns several television and radio stations in Ghana (https://onlineradiobox.com/gh/3/).
Ghanaweb
GhanaWeb is a comprehensive resource about Ghana. It’s a website on information, news and entertaining content. In 1999 the website was renamed as GhanaWeb from formerly being known as GhanaHomePage. The owning company of the website is Bellaart Investments B.V., a privately owned company that is operating from The Netherlands.
In the last decade, GhanaWeb’s profile has risen in Ghana. Initially, the webpage consisted of some pages with information about Ghana but it quickly has evolved and expanded into a platform which is used by thousands of contributors to publish their content.
In a survey by Goodman AMC, GhanaWeb was mentioned as a media news source that Ghanaians would trust to provide first-hand and reliable information in the 2016 presidential election (http://ghana.mom-rsf.org/en/media/detail/outlet/ghanaweb/).
Fact-checking: Processes adopted by the media
The resources for fact-checking are usually claims or statements made in public spaces that lend themselves to verification. Often, such statements may have gone viral, thus dividing opinion and creating doubts in the minds of media consumers about the authenticity of the claim. Explaining the processes his media organisation adopted in fact-checking a claim, the first respondent (R1) interviewed asserted that identification of a claim that is worth fact-checking is the first step in the process.
‘The process starts by first identifying a claim, then we conduct research on what we have by speaking to experts where expert advice is needed so we get proper and professional insight into the issues that have engaged public attention,’ R1 said.
Having done fact-checking for six years, respondent one affirmed that the initial process of identifying what claim ought to be fact-checked is the first hurdle that must be crossed after thorough investigations are done on the statements to ascertain the factual basis of the claim.
‘Identifying the claim is one step of the process but beyond this step, I do a thorough investigation by consulting other resources mostly online to help me establish the facts that support or debunk the claim’.
The processes as highlighted by the respondents align with the processes for fact-checking as outlined by Dubawa, one of only two full-time fact-checking organisations in Ghana. According to Dubawa, fact-checking involves a five-step process: (a) Choosing the claim(s) (b) Assigning to a team of independent researchers (c) Researching the claim (d) Writing the report (e) Editing with skepticism and then (f) Publishing. These processes ultimately drive and guide researchers and fact-checkers in conducting their investigations.
On his part, respondent 4 (R4) argues that in as much as most of the claims are already being discussed in the public domain, which he calls demand driven, claims can also be supply- driven, where the researcher finds information worth being fact-checked and then shares its findings with the public.
‘For me, identification of a claim is either demand-driven or supply-driven. If the issues are topical and have engaged a lot of public discussions, often with no clear lines as to where the truth lies, I pick the story and conduct my own investigations. I speak to experts, if the issues will need experts to explain it better for the understanding of all. In this case, the issues are already in the public domain so the public may be craving to know what the truth is. Instances of such nature in the fact checking process is what I call demand-driven.
However, there are instances where the issues may not have necessarily been a highly debated issue in the public domain, but what I do is that I bring up the issues I consider worth informing the public about, by providing additional information through my research. Sometimes I pick the budget and I dissect the issues and supply the public with additional information in order for them to have an enhanced understanding of it,’ R4.
Respondent four (R4) however has a different approach in identifying his claims as compared to other respondents. The processes involved in investigating a claim according to this respondent are similar to what is outlined by Dubawa as a standard process to follow in fact-checking.
Again, according to Politifact, an organisation that fact-checks political claims, researchers must ask themselves the following questions in arriving at a claim they are convinced it is worth fact-checking:
Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable?
Is the statement leaving a particular impression that may be misleading?
Is the statement significant?
Is the statement likely to be passed on and repeated by others?
Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder if it is true?
Is the statement newsworthy
And sometimes, driven by curiosity, we pick a statement to fact check.
These processes appear generally standardized in the two fact-checking organisations actively involved in fact-checking claims and the processes adopted by the media organisations at the forefront of fact-checking in Ghana are not at variance to what is considered to be standard.
Fact-checking: Resources for Researchers
Fact-checkers decide the available tools to deploy to help them achieve their goal and which best will serve their purpose. Often, the internet has been a major resource for these fact-checkers. Online software applications have assisted these fact-checkers to interrogate, analyse, and verify images, videos and statements of facts, and expose misleading ones all in an effort to present reliable information for the consumption of the public.
Respondent three (R3) holds the opinion that ‘for most of the information we fact-check, we rely on the internet to gather additional information to confirm or debunk a claim being subjected to verification. Some of the tools we use are just to check whether an image used to tell a story is a true representation of what it purports to communicate or rather it tends to mislead the public instead’.
Corroborating the position of respondent three (R3), respondent one (R1) alludes to the use of other manual resources such as reports and hard copy documents to facilitate their work.He makes the point that ‘often, getting information to verify a claim is a very tedious exercise and one will have to scan through voluminous documents in search of facts and figures sometimes’.
While many of the resources have been the use of documentary evidence to authenticate the veracity of a claim or otherwise, opinions of professionals in a particular field of study or a specialized sector in governance and administration have also been relied on by fact-checkers to get expert opinion on a claim under scrutiny.
‘Where necessary, we speak to professionals who have expert knowledge on a claim we are investigating. In issues like health, we speak to professionals who share insightful thoughts that informs our decisions in rating our claims’, says respondent 2.
Fact-Checking: Rating of Claims
Fact-checking is aimed at confirming a claim as true or otherwise. In doing so, fact-checkers are guided by some form of indicators to pass a verdict after a thorough investigation of a claim. Generally, respondents make the point that a claim may be false or true, ‘however, there are instances where the claim may not be wholly true nor false and it is in that instance that we may say it is either partly true or even sometimes misleading, depending on what we find out’, says respondent five (R5).
To assist fact-checkers arrive at a conclusion and pass a verdict on their searches, Dubawa has a documentary guide which is often relied on by its researchers as a guide in making a conclusive statement upon interrogation of a claim. The scale as designed by Dubawa and often adopted by the media organisations has five (5) categories:
True – A fact-check is deemed true when all elements of such a claim pertain to factual information.
False – A fact-check is deemed false when all elements of such a claim do not pertain to factual information at the time of assertion. In essence, manipulated and fabricated content will be considered false.
Mostly True – A fact-check is deemed mostly true when some elements of such claim pertain to factual information. Usually, this rating will be assigned to fact-checks with three or more claims.
Mostly False – A fact-check is deemed mostly false when some elements of such claim do not pertain to factual information at the time of assertion, while an element may be true. Usually, this rating will be assigned to fact-checks with three or more claims.
Misleading – A fact-check is deemed misleading when elements of a claim are too complex to be termed true or false. This could mean two things:
More Context Needed/ Wrong Context – when the claim(s) oversimplifies complex issues. On a surface level, these may seem correct but they are either used out-of-context or depict an unintended meaning
Insufficient Evidence – when the claim(s) is unverifiable; usually pertaining to urban myths or unquantifiable data
These scales of measurement are amply manifested in the claims published by the media organisations. Ultimately, combating fake news involves taking a stance on a statement one is investigating based on the facts that speak to the claim. Unlike mainstream journalism, the reporter is restrained from expressing their opinions, except in opinion editorials. It is again instructive to observe that in fact-checking, as against mainstream reporting, verification of claims is a posteriori, where statements and claims become subject of verification after publication.
Fact-Checking: Impact on Society
Respondents allude to three main indicators that point to the impact of fact-checking on media audiences:
Public’s interest in fact-checking
Consciousness of political actors in making public statements
Media discussions on fact-checked information
Public’s interest in fact-checking
Respondents allude to incidents of members of the general public calling newsrooms to put forward claims they have come across to be fact-checked for them. According to R1, who has worked as a fact-checker and researcher in his media organisation for the past five years, this phenomenon was unknown in the past.
‘Sometimes, you get a call and someone tells you he/she has seen a statement on another media platform and they will want you to verify the authenticity of the claim in the statement. In the 2016 elections especially, though I was doing some form of fact checking, I never had calls from the public requesting I fact-check a claim they have come across with. This I view as a milestone and a recognition of the work we are doing as a media house in informing the public with accurate information,’ R1 said.
The assertion made by R1 is corroborated by R3 who says ‘we get attacked by the public for some of the verdicts we make after our findings. Especially with party followers, they insult you and attack your level of objectivity. The keenness with which the public follow our work and even criticize us show the level of enthusiasm with which they follow this exercise’.
Media content, has in recent times been taken with doubt by media audiences (UNESCO, 2018). The growing interest in fact-checking by the general public shows a level of interest by audiences in media messages that are factual and accurate. Given that the preponderance of fake news in media spaces was chipping away the confidence of audiences in the media, the growing interest in fact-checking points to a revival of interest in media content.
Consciousness of political actors in making public statements
The apparent consciousness being exercised by politicians in their public utterances during the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections especially was a positive indication, according to R4 of the impact fact-checking is having in the political arena. He asserts that ‘somehow, politicians were careful with their choice of words and they will often remark that they need to speak well before they are taken on by the media’.
This assertion by R4 is re-echoed by R1 and R3 who share similar observations of how one hardly finds political party officials and key leaders of a political group making statements that they may not be able to substantiate when subjected to strict scrutiny. R3 however observed that though politicians exercised some caution in their public utterances, such responses were not reflected on online platforms where some of the political parties have followers or individuals aligned to a political party and its ideologies.
The assertion by R3 confirms the widely held view by scholars that fake news is most prevalent in echo-chambers (Yusuf, Al-Banawi & Al-Imam, 2014) where members who share the same political ideologies re-echo claims by other members of the group. The members in this group or chamber believe in and hold on to statements that align with their biases and any other information contrary to their beliefs is discounted.
According to extant literature (Flaxman, Goel & Rao, 2016), echo-chambers have become a breeding ground for fake news and members are so loyal to one another such that information that stands at variance to their beliefs are treated with contempt.
Media discussions on fact-checked information
According to R4 ‘our ratings on a claim based on the findings we make were sometimes used as content for political talk programmes on radio especially and on other media platforms. Even on social media, shares we have for our fact-checked stories indicate that people do not just read but rebroadcast our findings for others to know about the truth or the falsity of a viral claim’.
The selected media for this study were at the forefront of combating fake news with verifiable facts. The media houses devoted a considerable number of hours in their programming schedule for airing of fact-checked materials to the general public. The premium placed on this exercise was again manifested by the publication of fact-checked information on all media platforms – online, radio and television – managed by the media organisation.
‘My works are often published on our online portal but beyond that, it is sometimes used as part of content in our political programmes during the elections as well as television programmes on our networks. Other media houses even call to interview me on a particular findings I have come up with during a key political show or get published on online spaces’, says R1.
As a key actor in the development process, the media’s role in informing and educating largely strengthens efforts of the government in achieving its developmental goals. More so, the role it is playing in combating fake news in the information ecosystem will contribute to ensuring that messages that are circulated in public spaces are sacrosanct and devoid of falsehood. This will be a rallying point in engaging the citizenry in all developmental and decision making activities at all levels of the governance structure.
Fact-Checking: Challenges of Media Organisations
Challenges as encountered by the media organisations included difficulty in accessing information from official sources, unwillingness of public officials to speak on a subject, lack of adequate funding, and lack of interest by editors to publish stories and political ownership of media houses.
‘One of the challenges I have doing this work has come from within. Sometimes editors will drop a story for fear of the media house being aligned to one political party or the other. Sometimes your story is not published at all and no explanations come even when you follow up. Though this was a challenge for a long time, gradually my works on fact-checking are being published on our platform,’ R1 recounted.
Corroborating this assertion, R4 also indicates that ‘sometimes you belong to a media house where the owner of the business is aligned to one political party. Often, such a media house does not take kindly to doing works that tend to undermine their course.’
This revelation brings to the fore the impact of media ownership on programming in media organisations. Media ownership and control has often been cited as a development that undermines the independence of the media. According to Petković (2004), media owners are in a position to influence media content, and the mere possibility that they would choose to exert such influence justifies the need for restrictions in the exercise of their authority on the media they control. Petković argues that their motives may be political, ideological, personal or commercial, but the outcome is the same – influence on content.
In Ghana, it is a common phenomenon that media organisations that are known to be aligned to major political parties broadcast news content that re-echo the position of the party and any other information that tends to put the political party in a bad light is often not given air space on their platforms.
Again, other challenges such as access to information and the willingness of government officials to speak on an issue being fact-checked has been a common hurdle that media organisations are confronted with on a daily basis. Respondent 5 recounts the frustrations they have to go through to get information from official sources to do professional work. ‘The nature of the work requires that you counter false information with the truth. In situations where you cannot get the supporting document to debunk a claim for instance, you are forced to drop the story rather than repeating what will turn out to be a lie instead’.
Fact-Checking: Sustainability Plan by Media Organisations
For the media houses, there are no policies by way of documentation on the sustainability plan for integrating fact-checking into the main scheme of work of the organisations. Fact-checking was most prominent an exercise during the election period and most of the media houses though have not abandoned the exercise, much attention has been shifted to mainstream reporting.
According to R2, his media house has not set up a desk dedicated to fact-checking as against other genres such as sports, entertainment, politics etc. Though this is non-existent, fact-checking has been accepted as one of the tasks the newsroom performs and fact-checked stories are published once work is completed on the verification of a claim.
Respondent 2 further asserts that ‘the media organisation has not set up any desk purposely focusing on fact-checking. After some training, I enrolled as a trainee fact-checker, I took up the challenge and has since been doing fact-checking for the organisation. In order to ensure that my absence does not spell the end of fact-checking in my organisation, I have started training one junior reporter to build his capacity to take up the work in future. The institution has not as a matter of policy, set up a specialized desk that is solely dedicated to fact checking’.
Respondent one alludes to the fact that his media organisation had no place for fact-checking until he took it up in addition to his daily routine reporting duties. He argues that the lack of specialized desks as in the case of other genres of reporting in the newsroom tends to jeopardize the existence of fact-checking in the media.
‘I took up the challenge of fact-checking as a journalist and initially it was not well embraced within my media set up perhaps it is something new there. However, overtime with the kind of tractions we get when we publish such stories, my organisation has made it a core part of reporting. Though there is no special desk like a fact checking desk, the recognition of fact-checking is for me a commitment by the organisation to see it as part of our portfolio of reporting,’ R1 said.
Though the evidence points to lack of a clear sustainability plan by the media organisations to maintain fact-checking as a specialized desk in the newsroom, its integration into news reporting shows a level of commitment by the media organisations to maintain the exercise as part of mainstream reporting.
Conclusion
The media and media messages are critical in shaping opinions of media audiences. As a conduit for informing and educating, the role of fact-checking aimed at authenticating claims in order to inform and educate the populace is a step that is believed to advance the cause of democracy and development of a country.
To the extent that fake news has brought about many individuals being misled and losing confidence in media messages, fact-checking statements in the public domain and reporting accordingly will not only purge the media of the tag of a machinery being exploited to propagate falsehood and other misleading claims but rather as a trustworthy agent for development.
Consensus keeps building between the media and the general public that the way to ensuring that the information ecosystem is devoid of fake news is by adopting fact-checking as a needed intervention for not only addressing the challenges that fake news poses but to serve as a discouragement for individuals who may want to use fake information to prosecute their agenda.
Again, the gradual shifting of fact-checking into the arena of journalistic practice in Ghana is a response to advocacy by stakeholders for the media to take the lead in removing the canker of fake news in public discourse. The evidence of fact-checking being embraced by media organisations largely signifies steps being taken to address the challenge head on.
Recommendations
The study recommends the following as steps to ensuring that the media is empowered to continue combating fake information circulating in public spaces:
There is the need for the media and civil society organisations to demand full implementation in compliance of the information law in Ghana. This will help address challenges researchers encounter in their effort to access public documents to assist in their work;
The media must create special and adequately resourced desks for fact-checking as part of their commitment to combating fake news in the information ecosystem.
Regulatory bodies like the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) must regularly engage media owners and editors to sensitize them to the need to commit to ensuring the independence of journalists plying their trade in a media organisation.
