The Media is the focal point of any information ecosystem and without the media, there can be no effective information dissemination system, for us to have a balanced information delivery system.
| Wikifactcheckers for Media Professionals | |
|---|---|
| A WikiCred 2022 Grant Proposal | |
| Project Type | Event |
| Author | (Semmy1960) |
| Contact | semilo99@gmail.com |
| Requested amount | $9933.99 |
| Award amount | Unknown |
- What is your idea?
The world has however changed so drastically in the last several decades and citizen journalism has almost taken over the information ecosystem. This has created a seemingly disoriented and easily misinformed society. It has therefore become imperative to train our media professionals not just about sourcing news and corroborations, but also on how to identify and establish items of misinformation and disinformation from the plethora of news and feature articles in the media for example.
For Media practitioners to be able to recognise misinformation and disinformation in the information ecosystem, they must be trained on how to fact-check information using fact-checking tools and techniques. Since Wikipedia is at best a tertiary source of information, but actually more of a bank of information from libraries, these primary and secondary sources of information, any effort to assure the reliability of these sources, invariably contributes to making the content on Wikipedia reliable.
If Wikipedia is to remain reliable as a free open information and educational resource, it must be kept safe from misinformation and disinformation which may have been deliberately or inadvertently published by the media. This is critical because the reliability of information published by the regular media is directly related to the reliability of information on Wikipedia. This is more so because of the totally open accessibility of Wikipedia which ordinarily places a burden of fidelity of its content on its authors and editors, and where they choose to source their references.
In summary, training media professionals and prospective Wikipedia Editors on the need to look out for misinformation and disinformation and equipping them with fact-checking skills and techniques, as well as the tools will help to check and verify the reliability of sources of information before they are put on Wikipedia as references. This is critical to create an in-built quality assurance system for content on Wikipedia and the references used in citations in the articles.
- Why is it important?
It is to help save the information ecosystem. The involvement of media men with fact checking skills and Wikipedia skills will critically help to improve the reliability of information on Wikipedia it will also generally improve the quality of Wikipedia articles and ease the creation of new reliable articles that will be more notable for the strength of their reliability and not just the depth of their coverage. The increased reliability of Wikipedia in Nigeria will boost the wider and deeper acceptability of Wikipedia in the long term, creating the possibility of having Wikipedia as a regular companion in Newsrooms of the Nigerian Media.
For example, using Wikidata's Query Tools like Query Builder, Open Refine, Quick Statement and Visual Query can open totally new vistas for data journalists and data journalism in Nigeria. With the Nigerian General Elections just around the corner for example, Nigerian journalists will definitely benefit from the tools and diverse training in analytic data journalism, to report and write more-readily understandable and reliable reports on the Nigerian Elections. Nigerians journalists equally need Wiki Commons to keep the world updated with reliable images that can more readily and more copiously, pass information across.
- Link(s) to your resume or anything else (CV, GitHub, etc.) that may be relevant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Semmy1960
- Is your project already in progress?
Yes, we have started the project. The pilot was with the training of Information/Public Affairs Officers of the Lagos State Government. We trained them on how to use Wikipedia, Wikidata and WikiCommons. We explained the importance of quality and adequate references for Wikipedia articles documenting their activities as well as what they need to provide to journalists covering and reporting their activities and whose newspaper reports Wikipedia editors access to get references for citation in articles related to the activities. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Awareness_for_Lagos_State_Information_Officers
We are expanding the project to include training media professionals across South West, Nigeria, the home of the oldest Nigerian media organisations. We have started the background work for this, including sensitising Media professionals of their importance in the Wikipedia movement. We have started speaking with Media houses who are willing to collaborate with us.
- How is this project relevant to credibility and Wikipedia?
Training media professionals in the use of fact-checking tools and equipping them with the best fact-checking tools and techniques, as well as how to edit or add to content to Wikipedia and use Wikipedia content for their reports and publications, will without any doubt, help to not just improve the credibility of Wikipedia content, but also its popularity in Newsrooms. This project seeks to build a community of Wikimedians who will not only improve the quality, but also the reliability of content in Wikipedia and the overall popularity of Wikipedia as a trustworthy source of information in this age of anomy. We desire to additionally build Wikimedians who will also help change the negative narrative about the reliability of information on Wikipedia.
By creating quality-assuring and assured Wikimedians from among media professionals and equipping them with adequate fact-checking tools and techniques right inside the pillars of the information ecosystem, we believe we will not only be improving the reliability of content in Wikipedia, but we will also be helping to improve the acceptability of Wikipedia across professional bodies who see the media as the gate keepers between the professionals and the diverse publics in the society as a whole.
In Nigeria today, the media has not accepted Wikipedia as a truly reliable source of information. Training media professionals to become fact-checking capable media practitioners and Wikimedians will be a game changer because it will help reduce the misconception people in other professions have about Wikipedia. The unique training we plan here, will also help introduce the media professionals to other Wikipedia sister projects which would be vital to their diverse professional engagements.
- What is the ultimate impact of this project?
1. To build a 'force' of at least 1,000 Nigerian media professionals with solid Wikipedia editing and fact-checking skills, starting with the recruitment and training of 100 media professionals not just to enhance and boost the number of quality contribution of Nigerian journalists to Wikipedia, but also how to improve the overall reliability of Wikipedia content from them and others, using diverse fact-checking tools and techniques.
2. To ensure that media professionals being trained in the use of Wikipedia and fact-checking tools and techniques become avowed and practicing converts. This ensures that experienced Wikimedians in the community join in the spread of the fact-checking gospel to fight misinformation and disinformation on Wikipedia.
3. In furtherance of the strengthening of purposeful fact-checking in the Nigerian media, we will also steer the media professionals to improve Nigerian contribution in Wikipedia. Their contributions will also focus on trending global subjects, which are also critical for future national development, as well as subjects of local importance in Nigeria, but on which Nigerian-sourced articles are conspicuously sparse or non-existent.
These subjects include: 1. Climate change discussions in Nigeria
2. Inadequate presence of details of the Legislative Arm of Nigerian governments across all the states of the federation and the Nigerian federal government. Many Nigerian legislators have neither Wikipedia articles nor Wikidata items on them. Their pictures too, are not on WikiCommons either. Yet, and incidentally, many active media practitioners in Nigeria, have access to the needed information. We will work on getting them to throw the information to the global public domain through Wikipedia.
3. We will also be actively promoting having a lot more easier-to-analyse data on the Nigerian elections on Wikipedia including accurate detailed reports on Nigerian Elections since 1956.
4. We believe this will enable the media professionals to create or improve as many as 400 articles, aside from thousands of minor edits.
5. The project will also help to input hundreds of Wikidata items
6. It will also help to add pictures to Wikicommons
- Can your project scale?
Yes, the project can scale up. The training of Information Officers in Lagos State was a success. The Governor of Lagos State and the Commissioner for Information accepted that initiative as another way to counter misinformation and disinformation in the society. The new project here specifically now targets more general groups of media practitioners than the Public Affairs Officers. We see prospect in the government itself specifically embracing such as this training, as an appropriate and effective response to fighting misinformation and disinformation.
- Why are you the people to do it?
We have the specialist media training delivery experience and Code for Africa has agreed to partner with us on the project to train media men on how to fact check and fight misinformation and disinformation, while also training the use of Wikipedia. We have experienced Wikimedians and very experienced journalists on the team, to execute out the project.
Kemi Makinde: I am a Certified Trainer of the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program in Nigeria, a member of the Education User Group, a member of the Wikimedia Nigeria User Group, the team lead of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism Wiki Fan Club. My user page is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Semmy1960
User: Kaizenify (Ayokanmi Oyeyemi): Program Director Wikimedia Nigeria User Group, Wikipedian-in-residence Code for Africa Climate Change Project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kaizenify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kaizenify
Username: B.Korlah (Kolawole Oyewole) -Co-founder of African and Proud https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:B.Korlah
Oseun Ogunseitan Nigerian journalist, software programmer, digital archivist, data processing enthusiast and specialist writer, O'seun Ogunseitan is a notable Nigerian writer on Science, Technology, Environment and Development issues. The very active public commentator and former students' union activist, is a graduate of Zoology from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan Nigeria.
He is the multiple awards-winning journalist who also won the first-ever Nigerian Journalist of the Year Award in 1987. He is an Alumni of the Thomson Foundation School for Advanced Journalism in Wales and the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He also trained in Holland and the United States of America as a digital archivist and data recovery technician some 30 years ago.
He was instrumental to the founding of Nigerian Federal Environmental Protection Agency FEPA now (NESREA) when he authored the global exclusive Toxic Waste Dumping Stories in Africa starting with his expose of the dumping of Toxic Waste from Italy in the Republic of Benin and in Koko, South West Nigeria, in 1987.
The notable Science, Environment and Development issues writer, was a Science Editor in two leading Nigerian newspapers - at The Guardian newspaper between 1984 and 1988 and at The Nation newspaper between 2008 and 2014.
O'seun Ogunseitan was the founding Editor of the African Science Monitor, a publication of the African Concord Magazines in Lagos, Nigeria, between 1989 and 1992. He was also the Science, Technology & Environment Editor at the Comet Newspaper between 1999 and 2001.
The widely published specialist writer has also reported for many international publications like the New Internationalist and Panos in London and WorldWatch Institute in Washington. He has published and co-authored several books including Blaming Others: AIDS in the World (Panos, London, 1986) Biotechnology: Curse or Blessing? (Panos, London 1988) Curiosity of Science in the Worlds (Elsevier, Holland, 1988) The Making of the Flagship: The Story of The Guardian (2021).
He owns the copyright to a handful of published specialist software and is currently the publisher of many specialist Nigerian online publications, including NotableNigerians, NgWhoisWho and NgVoters among others. He is happily married and lives between Ilesa and Lagos in South Western Nigeria. He is a passionate Wikimedian who has partnered with Wikimedia in Nigeria and supported many Wiki Projects in the country. He is strongly pushing that Wikipedia will win a permanent place on the front desk of Nigerian newsrooms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27seun_Ogunseitan
- What is the impact of your idea on diversity and inclusiveness of the Wikimedia movement?
For diversity, we will ensure we bring onboard other Wikimedians and will partner with the other Nigeria-based Wikimedia User Groups. Not a few of the journalists and other media practitioners we are training, are members of some of the other Wikipedia language User Groups, including the Hausa, the Igbo and Yoruba Language Wiki Community. The push for this, is centred around the reality that the need for credible and reliable information, cuts across all languages and user groups.
- What are the challenges associated with this project and how you will overcome them?
1. Bringing the participants together 2. Funding 3. IP blocking 4. Having access to aged information that are not online 5. Low active participation records during trainings are a common occurrence amongst new Wikimedians. 6. As the lead of this project, I have been blocked on Wikidata by a CheckUser. I explained what happened to the Checkuser. I was training Librarians and while training, instead of the participants watching what I was doing they were also working on the same article as I was. It was seen as creating multiple accounts which was not the case. I appealed, wrote many mails and letters but no response from the Checkuser. As a community leader I can’t stop working because I was blocked. I learnt my lessons and the next training I did after that block, I was more cautious, paid more attention to the participants. I didn’t record such blocks from two subsequent trainings I have been a facilitator in. I know this is a big challenge that can stand in the way of implementing this project, but I have used my experience as a learning experience for other trainers.
Solutions 1. We will ensure the buy-in of the managements of all the media houses we have started talking with, to ensure maximum and unhindered response from the staff to be trained. Once the media houses come on board, we are assured that we will have all participants for the training onboard. To this end, our having a notable Nigerian journalist with as much as four decades experience and deep involvement at the very highest level of the management, across major Nigerian media organisations, further assures us of a good leverage to achieve this.
2. We have a detailed budget and believe if we are funded, we can achieve the goal.
3. We will ensure we get exemptions for the ubiquitous IP blocking during Wikipedia training sessions and ensure account creation and familiarity with Wikipedia by the new users before the project begins.
4. We will partner with the management of the digital archives unit of the Lagos State Ministry of Information, so that media practitioners we are training can have access to not just extant, but also decades-old digitised and non-digitised but preserved archival information.
5. We will ensure to provide data for the trainees, organise edit-a-thon and prizes will be won. We will ensure we provide their transportation allowance as well for the opening day. 6. To overcome the challenges of IP Blocking so that it does not affect the training which is vital and key to a progressive Wikipedia journey in Nigeria, I brought on board the Project Director of the Wikimedia Nigeria User Group (Ayokanmi Oyeyemi) and he is also a Wikimedian-in-residence for Code for Africa Climate Change Project. He also believes in the idea that media professionals should be on board to bridge the information gap affecting the society. He believes it would make our Wikipedia Journey in Nigeria readily acceptable and easier to grow faster.
- How will you spend your funds?
Hall for One-day take-off Meeting with 110 participants- $1352.08 Data cost - $2478.82 Honorarium for Code for Africa and the Organizing Team – $1577.43 Transport for participants- $743.65 Food- $991.57 Gifts – $676.04 Souvenirs- $495.76 Printing of Certificate- $495.76 Video Camera Rental - $135.21 Photographer- $90.14 Projector- $112.67 Bank charqes $135.21 Running cost -$ 225.35 Contingencies -$ 225.35 Zoom - $199 Total -$9933.99
- How long will your project take?
Five months. 10 Sessions online + One Welcome (Take-Off Session) Starting from February 2022. Project Ending – April 2023 Planning stage Jan 2023 Execution stage - February 2023 - April 2023 Mid-Project Evaluation – March, 2023 Final Project Evaluation – May, 2023
- Have you worked on projects for previous grants before?
Yes