Decide Nhendo
In its quest to fight against misinformation and disinformation, TellZim News is training citizen journalists in Masvingo and abroad on how to disseminate authentic information on social media to avoid misinforming the public during the election period.
One of the training workshops was held at Chvron Hotel on July 15 where Citizen Journalists were trained on election reporting.
The facilitators Dr Gift Gwindingwe and Dr Last Alfandika who are both media lectures at Great Zimbabwe University urged citizen journalists to verify sources before reporting, to curb disinformation and misinformation as the country drift towards elections.
Dr Gwindigwe urged participants that they were supposed to prioritize fact checking before rushing to disseminate information and also urged consumers to verify sources before consuming social media information.
“Citizen Journalists have to do fact checking before rushing to disseminate information. And similarly consumers have to verify sources before consuming media output from social media,” said Dr Gwindingwe.
He said election reporting was a sensitive phenomenon as it can influence public opinion and incite violence so citizen journalists had to follow professional ethics and certain professional guidelines.
During the event, Dr Alfandika said being aware of different media output and information literate was another way to do away with misinformation and disinformation.
“Stepping up media literacy is a way to combat mis- and dis-information, as we go towards 2023 harmonized elections”, said Dr Alfandika.
He said Citizens journalists should question any information they receive and correct facts. They have to stand up and say certain issues are not verified”.
Citizens journalists were urged to make use of new technology to detect fake or fabricated content so that they disseminate true and authentic information during the course of elections and in the future.
