The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, has disclosed that the phenomenon of misinformation and disinformation, compounded by rising insecurity, unemployment and poverty has become a challenge to impactful journalism.
He was speaking at the forum on Public sector Accountability and Investigative Journalism in Accra yesterday.
The forum was also used to send off the second batch of the Next Generation Investigative Journalism Fellowship (NGIJ) after their five months intensive training.
As part of interventions to strengthen the media and ensure critical journalism, the MFWA established the Investigative Journalism Fellowship project.
The fellowship aims at grooming and equipping young journalists to practice investigative journalism. The second cohort was made up of thirteen vibrant young journalists made up of 10 Ghanaians, 3 from Sierra Leone and 1 from Liberian.
The fellows were presented with certificates and some of them received special awards in honor of their extraordinary contributions to the fellowship.
The Best Right to Information (RTI) User was Edmund Boateng Agyemang, the Best Story Writer was Victor Jones, the best Fact-Checker went to Thelma Dede Amedeku, whilst Philip Teye Agbove won Most Promising Young Investigative Journalist.
Addressing the gathering, the Executive Director of MFWA, Sulemana Braimah, added that the media faces significant challenges that make them unable to play the role that is expected of them.
The challenges, he mentioned, are corruption, injustice and abuse of power, not leaving politics and resources limitation out.
To respond to the crisis faced by journalists, Mr. Braimah stated that his outfit established two journalism initiatives, namely the Fact Checker to combat the issue of disinformation and misinformation and the Fourth Estate as an independent non-profit investigative journalism.
The Press Attaché of the US Embassy, Kelvin Brosnahan, who also graced the occasion, said corruption steals money from the people and misappropriates public funds for gains.
According to him, Investigative journalism is not easy, thus, it takes courage, competence and character.
