African Fact-Checking 2023 challenge and awards for Journalistic Excellence in Africa

The African Fact-Checking Awards, the longest-running awards program honoring fact-checking journalism by the media in Africa, are in their tenth year.

About African Fact-Checking

African Fact-Checking, Facts matter. Every day across Africa, people make decisions, big and small. To do this, they rely on publicly available information. Often that information is misleading or just plain wrong.

Rumors that the polio vaccine caused infertility and was part of a plot to reduce the Muslim population rippled across northern Nigeria in 2002 and 2003.

The baseless claims were shared in communities and believed by leaders of several states in the region, who then fomented a boycott of the vaccination campaign against polio. This led to a surge in cases.

Compounding the problem of public distrust was that the media reported these claims without interrogating them.

By the time the harmful claims were withdrawn, the damage had been done. The devastating disease, which was on the retreat worldwide, spread to other West African countries, and the world.

The impact of this false information in Nigeria made it clear that Africa needed an organization dedicated to holding public figures accountable for what they said and debunking dangerous false statements.

Our holistic approach to fact-checking includes publishing reports and factsheets, media literacy, running awards and training journalists.

Benefits  

• Fact-Check of the Year by a Working Journalist
• Fact-Check of the Year by a Professional Fact-Checker
• Fact-Check of the Year by a Student Journalist

1. The winners of the working journalist and professional fact-checker categories will each get a prize of US$3,000. The runners-up will receive $1,500.
2. The winner of the student journalist category will be awarded $2,000, and the runner-up $1,000.

Requirements

To qualify, entries must have been first published or broadcast in the period from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. The fact-check should conclude that a claim about an important topic, originating in or relevant to Africa, is either misleading or wrong.

• Be the original work of the individual or team identified in the entry form as the author.
• Expose a claim on an important topic that originated in or is relevant to Africa as misleading or wrong.
• Be an original piece of fact-checking journalism first published or broadcast on any date from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.
• Be received by the organizers before midnight GMT on 30 June 2023. Late entries will not be accepted.
• Be received by the organizers via the official entry form. No other means of sending in entries is allowed.
• Fact-checks can be published/broadcast in any language, but entry forms must be completed in either English or French. However, should the fact-checking report not be in English or French, a written translation must be submitted with the entry.
• By submitting an entry, the entrant confirms that they are the authors of the work, and that in the case of any dispute about this, this is entirely the entrant’s responsibility.
• Reports published by Africa Check are not eligible for the competition.
• Judges reserve the right to move an entry from one category to another.
• Candidates can only enter for the awards in one category per year, but can submit more than one report if they choose.
• Should the entrant win a prize in the awards, we will send the money to a bank account to be nominated by them.
• At the shortlisting stage a representative of the jury may seek clarification on some points.
• Entrants who are found to be unethical about any aspect related to their entry will be disqualified.
• Entrants must agree to do media interviews and/or reports about the awards if they win.
• Entrants for the awards must agree to accept the judges’ decision as final.

• Significance: The significance for wider society of the claim/statement investigated. How much does the topic matter to society at large and how serious could the consequences be if the claim wasn’t fact-checked?
• Testing: How was the claim tested against the available evidence? Fact-checkers must take a long, hard look at the claim/statement that was made. Fact-checking entails rigorously sifting through the publicly available evidence for and against the claim. This should be done in a way that is fair to the person or institution who made the claim and strict in assessing the evidence.
• Presentation: How well does the piece present the evidence for and against the claim? A good fact-checking report is structured in such a way that it’s understandable and makes the topic accessible to the widest possible public.
• Impact: The impact that the fact-check had on public debate on the topic. Did it lead to a correction, did it have significant reach, or was it shared by other organizations or members of the media, for instance?

How to Apply