By Enock Sithole
In an era characterised by the rapid spread of citizen-generated content and AI-driven output, the foundations of journalism — verification, accountability, credibility — are under intense pressure.
The phenomenon of everyday individuals publishing news-like posts on social platforms, combined with the emergence of AI-generated text, images and video, means that journalism’s gate-keeping role is increasingly complex, yet more necessary.
Fact-checking journalism is one of the strongest defences against this erosion. When practiced well, it helps protect public discourse from manipulation, supports informed citizenship and upholds journalistic integrity. As one training workshop for South African journalists asserted:
“Everything we report on, impacts people’s lives. We cannot mis-quote information as journalists.”
At its core, fact-checking isn’t simply “checking a few facts”. It involves:
- Detecting misleading or false claims;
- Assessing the provenance of images and videos, including verifying AI or manipulated visuals;
- Verifying data, official statements and context;
- Transparently documenting sources and reasoning;
- Holding powerful actors to account.
In the age of “citizen journalism”, where non-professional actors publish reports, fact-checking becomes especially important. Without the institutional structures or editorial safeguards of traditional newsrooms, the risk of error, bias, or deliberate manipulation rises. Similarly, the AI-content era adds a further dimension in fake images, videos, synthetic voices, or plausible but false text can masquerade as “news”. Newsrooms and journalism schools must adapt accordingly.
The fact-checking in Africa: the landscape
Across Africa the fact-checking ecosystem is emerging, albeit slowly. Several key developments are worth noting:
- Africa Check, based in Johannesburg and hosted by the journalism department at the University of the Witwatersrand, is one of the first dedicated Africa-based fact-checking sites.
- In Uganda, a training of 26 young journalists on fact-checking and digital verification was held during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- In Tanzania, the non-profit Nukta Africa conducted fact-checking, AI and visual verification training:
- In Nigeria, the independent fact-check platform FactCheck Africa developed a full curriculum for higher-institutions, including modules on AI, open-source intelligence (OSINT), critical digital literacy and media literacy, according to are report by journalist Demola Akinyemi published in Vanguard News.
- At the institutional level, efforts such as a partnership between the African Union, UNESCO and the University of Johannesburg have rolled out training modules on “Mis/Disinformation and Fact-Checking in Africa”, “Critical Media and Information Literacy”, and “Reporting on AI and Emerging Technologies”, reported the African Union
These examples show that fact-checking isn’t simply a “nice to have” but increasingly viewed as an essential component of journalism education and curricula.
According to the UNESCO Criteria for Excellence in Journalism Education in Africa, one of the explicit items is that a school’s curriculum should “run a course on journalism ethics, with components that include notions of fairness, verification and fact-checking”.
The UNESCO document suggests that, at minimum, verification and fact-checking should appear in the benchmarks for “quality” journalism training.
What we see in reality
The fact that organisations like FactCheck Africa are developing separate curricula implies that many existing journalism school programmes had not integrated robust fact-checking and AI-literacy modules from the start, reported Akinyemi.
While these Rhodes University, in South Africa, is regarded as “Africa’s pre-eminent media education institution, its syllabi often do not emphasise “fact-checking” or “AI-verification” as discrete modules, or at least not evidently so.
Observers of the journalism-education ecosystem have noted the delay in updating curricula to reflect new challenges such as misinformation, citizen-generated content and AI-driven media. For example, an article pointed out a gap in teaching media-and-information literacy (MIL) broadly:
In short, fact-checking is being taught in African journalism education, especially in short courses, workshops, fellowships and via non-profits, but not yet universally integrated as a full standalone course or embedded deeply across all programmes. In many cases, it remains a module or component rather than a curriculum core.
Why this matters and what’s at stake?
Democracy and trust: Journalism’s role in democratic societies, especially in African contexts where public discourse, elections, governance and social media interplay are intense, is under threat when misinformation proliferates unchecked. Fact-checking helps restore trust and protect the information ecosystem.
Technology disruption: With AI and generative tools producing plausible content, journalists must bring new skill-sets. OSINT, visual verification, digital forensics, synthetic-media detection. Without formal education and training in these, journalists may be ill-prepared.
Citizen-journalism and decentralised content: The barrier to producing “news” has lowered; thus, the gatekeeping role of journalism shifts. Verification becomes not only a newsroom task but a public good. Journalists trained in verification carry added responsibility.
Curriculum relevance: If journalism-schools fail to adapt curricula, they risk producing graduates who are skilled in “traditional” reporting but unprepared for verifying AI-driven misinformation, social-media claims and deepfakes.
Regional equity: Many African regions have under-resourced journalism schools or non-accredited institutions, some even bogus schools, which makes it harder to uniformly raise fact-checking education standards.
Final thoughts
In the final analysis, fact-checking journalism is not optional in today’s information ecosystem, especially in Africa, where the speed of content, ubiquity of mobile platforms and rising use of AI, combine to create high-stakes information battles.
Journalism schools on the continent are stepping up, but more must be done in embedding verification across curricula, equipping future journalists with the tools to detect deepfakes, OSINT-verify, question viral content and navigate citizen-journalism flows.
In the end, journalism remains a public service and in the age of unlimited content, its value increasingly lies in the ability to say: “unlike citizen journalists, we verified it, here is how we know, you can trust this.”
Image by Joshua Miranda via Pexels