Code for Africa Chestdeck Incubation Fellowship Programme 2024

Code for Africa’s African Fact-Checking Alliance (AFCA) provides a six to eight-month incubation program for media organizations in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Togo, Uganda, or Zambia to establish a CheckDesk in their newsroom.

A CheckDesk is a specialized fact-checking/verification unit inside a news organization, fact-checking organization, or Civil Society Organization (CSO).Successful organizations will receive hands-on technical training and support to help them design commercially viable models and set up editorial production processes for their CheckDesks.

The initiative is supported by the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).

Eligibility:

1. The organisation must not work for any paramilitary or security organisation.
2. The organisation must be based in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Togo, Uganda or  Zambia
3. The organisation must have an existing online presence, including an actively maintained website and/or social media profiles, or a substantive commitment to establish an online presence at the beginning of the programme.
4. The organisation must have internet access and internet-capable devices for participating journalists/trainees/researchers to enable them to access project resources and undertake their fact-checking assignments.
5. The organisation must have skilled and available editorial staff (journalists and supervising editors) or managerial staff who are committed to participating in the period agreed upon.
6. The organisation must commit to timely and open communication from the management and seconded team members.
7. The seconded trainees must commit to agreed-upon weekly online training and task-based class assignments.
8. The organisation must commit to broadcasting or publishing content produced through the programme in the specified cadence and driving engagement on an appropriate public platform.
9. The seconded trainees must be fluent in either the language of tuition and mentorship: English or French.

The incubation programme:

The incubation programme seeks to build a diversified ecosystem of local fact-checking champions to aid in the fight against misinformation and disinformation. The programme will consist of:

1. Financial support: The chosen organisations will receive a modest grant to cover eligible activities and costs.
2. Technical support: CfA will offer hands-on technical training, followed by one-on-one project mentorship, along with support from CfA’s staff technologists, data analysts, multimedia producers and editors.
3. Publishing support: The newsrooms will publish their fact-checking products generated under the project on their respective media platforms, and will additionally receive support to publish internationally.
4. Organisation building: The selected organisations will receive online consultations with CfA to assist them in better understanding their audience, refining their fact-checking offering and developing potential revenue models.
5. Growing reach: CfA will offer amplification/growth support, including scaling/syndication support.

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Code for Africa CheckDesk Incubation Fellowship Programme