-In fact-checking ahead of Nimba Senatorial By-election
By: Shallon S. Gonlor / shallonsgonlor@gmail.com
GANTA CITY, NIMBA COUNTY_ Several local journalists in Nimba County are participating in investigative journalism and fact-checking training in Ganta City ahead of the Nimba County Senatorial By-election on April 22, 2025.
The National Elections Commission in partnership with Internews-Liberia, UNDP, European Union, and UNWomen among others on Thursday rolled out several journalists’ capacity-building workshops to enhance the knowledge and skill of journalists on fact-checking news associated with the contentious senatorial by-election in Nimba County.
The training workshop is being organized for three days each targeting about 100 journalists and social media influencers selected from radio, television, newspaper, and online.
The beneficiaries of the workshop were selected countywide. The capacity-strengthening workshop also targets media houses/radio stations in the county.
The intervention will equip the journalists with skills and tools to analyze content, produce fact-check reports, and carry out media programs that will educate the public on misinformation and disinformation.
It is expected that media reports will contribute to raising public awareness, promoting information hygiene, and strengthening the ecosystem of countering false news and propaganda narratives, particularly in the context of the 2025 by-election.
Addressing media professionals at the start of the training session, NEC Liberia Chairperson, Madam Davidetta Browne Lansanah, cautioned local journalists who will be covering the Nimba County Senatorial By-election to further investigate and fact-check their news stories before going to press.
Madam Brown Lansanah, who was a professional journalist dating as far back as the pre-war period, further emphasized the importance of truth-telling in today’s journalism because a lot of research is not being done.
The NEC Liberia Chairperson sounded the caution Thursday, 10 April in Ganta City at the start of a two-part series training on Investigative Journalism and fact-checking in the Nimba County Senatorial By-election.
As the 2024 elections draw closer, it is expected that the media as a critical actor in the promotion and consolidation of peace, can use its influence, agenda-setting, and public education capacity to build bridges to de-escalate propaganda and polarising narratives.
It is also necessary that the journalists be empowered to counter these narratives to contribute to fostering fact-based campaigning and peaceful elections on April 22.
The Nimba Senatorial By-election faces threats posed by mis/disinformation from both politicians and its supporters that ward off possible security threats to Nimba.
