#Affcameroon Schools Journalists, Content Creators, Bloggers On Fact-checking

By MAANDA LUM NFOR

The Africa Fact Checking Fellowship in Cameroon, #AFFCameron, brought together over 40 journalists, content creators and bloggers to train them on fact-checking, disinformation, misinformation and malinformation on social media, on September 1 in Bamenda.

Unfolding on the theme, “#AFFCameroon Cohort 7,” one of the facilitators, Desmond Ngala, said the objective is to educate media practitioners on how to verify information.

“Our main goal is to educate media personnel on how to verify information and also to serve as a base for appropriate information verification especially with the ongoing Anglophone crisis", he said. 

He also added that it is aimed at helping to educate and bring facts to the population both online and offline, this initiative has helped combat hate speech and other forms of violence in and out of the territory Cameroon.

 (Photo of communication specialists at the fellowship)

Going by a mentee whom The Post got as Patience, stated  that from this first fellowship of the cohort 7, she has learnt a lot about how to handle information and she believes the training will help her be a better journalist.

Funded by UNESCO and the Federal foreign office,AFFCameroon has helped prove numerous amounts of fake news, malinformation, disinformation and misinformation.  

During the fellowship, the group was educated on how toidentify fake news, how to check facts on social media platforms. The differences between misinformation,disinformation and malinformation were also key topics in the fellowship.

To match word with action, trainees were shown different reports of videos and pictures which have been fact-checked by alumni of the prestigious fellowship. An example was a  picture of a plane labeled  “Camairco”  with wooden stairs. It was said the picture is fake, because the it was edited, and Camairco logowas put on another plane in order to mislead and disinform the public.

The fellowship was attended by the Regional Delegate for Youth and Civic Education for the North West Region, representative of the Regional Delegate of Communication of the North West Region, amongst others.

The African Fact Checking Fellowship is an initiative by #defyhatenow, in partnership with Data Cameroon which aims at fact-checking, data journalism and digital rights among journalists, bloggers and content creators in Africa. It is a three-month programme geared towards providing mentees with the skill sets and tools needed to tackle the current misinformation challenges in their communities.