The Programmes Officer at Dubawa, a West Africa-based fact-checking organization, Roselena Afi Ahiable, has called on journalists to take information disorder seriously, warning that the profession is increasingly vulnerable to manipulation by powerful interests.
Speaking at a three-day training on data journalism and fact-checking held at Central Hotel in Accra, Madam Ahiable highlighted the growing threats facing media practitioners in an era of coordinated disinformation campaigns.
She pointed out that journalists are often prime targets of well-funded and coordinated efforts aimed at influencing news narratives. According to her, such campaigns are strategically designed to capture media attention, infiltrate newsrooms, and subtly push agendas that serve both state and non-state actors.
“We are targeted by coordinated and well-funded campaigns to capture our attention, trick us into amplifying messages, and bend us to the will of states and other powerful forces.”
Beyond manipulation, she noted that journalists themselves may become victims of falsehoods, rumours, and hoaxes. These tactics, she explained, are sometimes deployed to intimidate reporters and undermine their credibility, particularly when their work seeks to expose wrongdoing or challenge entrenched interests.
“Journalists can find themselves targets of lies, rumours, and hoaxes designed to intimidate and discredit them or their journalism, especially when their work threatens to expose those who commission or commit disinformation,” she stated.
The facilitator also expressed concern about the broader impact of information disorder on journalism, cautioning that credible reporting risks being drowned out by the overwhelming volume of misleading and sensational content circulating across digital platforms.
“Journalism faces the risk of being drowned out by the cacophony,” she said, adding that despite these challenges, journalists—particularly investigators and fact-checkers—must remain committed to producing credible and factual information.
As part of the training, participants were introduced to practical fact-checking and verification tools to enhance their work. These included Google Pinpoint, web scraping techniques, and DUBAWA’s artificial intelligence-powered verification platform, dubawa.ai. The tools are designed to help journalists track sources, analyse data, and verify claims more efficiently in a fast-paced media environment.
The workshop brought together about 30 selected journalists and focused on strengthening their skills in verification, data analysis, and ethical reporting.
The training is the third and final phase of an initiative led by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and funded by the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) under the Participation, Accountability, Integrity for a Resilient Democracy (PAIReD) programme.
The programme is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), co-financed by the European Union and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), and implemented in collaboration with Ghana’s Ministry of Finance.
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