The inaugural winner of the student journalist category of the African Fact-Checking Awards was crowned tonight in the fifth year of the awards’ history.
By Patricia Aruo
Senegal’s Moussa Ngom was awarded the student prize for his article “Pourquoi Macron a tout a faux”/Why Macron has it all wrong. Ngom joins the Newsplex team from Kenya and Benin’s Alexandra Djotan who won the English and French categories respectively.
The winners were chosen from a shortlist of seventeen portfolios of work that had been selected from the record 159 entries received this year by Africa Check.
Dorothy Otieno accepted the award on behalf of her team for their fact-checking, in a series of “Before You Vote…” articles that checked some claims made by politicians during campaigns in the run-up to the 2017 Kenyan presidential elections.
Newsplex team @NationMediaGrp wins Anglophone @AfricaCheck award, collected by Data Editor Dorothy Otieno, at Global Investigative Journalism Conference #gijc17 in #Johannesburg #SouthAfrica @dailynation @ddjournalism @ddj_rr @datajournalists @datasociety pic.twitter.com/z9uhnypKXV
— Fred (@okothmudhai) November 18, 2017
Djotan is a regional journalist for Benin’s Office de Radiodiffusion et Télévision du Bénin.
Ngom’s article debunked claims made the French president during a G20 summit earlier this year about the high number of children per woman in West Africa, which he attributed as one of the hindrances to development in the region.
The African Fact-Checking Awards are given annually based on entries from all over the continent. This year’s awards ceremony formed part of the proceedings at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference taking place at Wits University in Johannesburg.
PHOTO: All the winners of the African Fact-Checking Awards with Africa Check. Credit: Wits Vuvuzela.
