SLAJ President's Remarks at the Launch of DUBAWA in Sierra Leone

By: President of SLAJ, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla

Date: Tuesday 13th July 2021 Venue: Country Lodge

Time: 10am

Opening courtesies.

Good morning everyone, and let me also on behalf of the management and staff of Dubawa warmly welcome every one of you and thank you so much for honouring their invitation.

And I am very honoured to serve as Chairman for the official launch of Dubawa in Sierra Leone.

I am sure Dubawa were deliberate in choosing me as the Chairperson for this occasion. This is a media thing, and as President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) it is assumed that I take responsibility for the conduct of the media and ultimately its practitioners, whether good or bad. That is not to so say, however, that Dubawa has levied a charge against the Sierra Leone media.

And as Chairman, I assure you I will steer this launching program with a KISS (Keep It Simple and Straight-forward), lest I run the risk of being fact-checked by Dubawa.

So, let me ask an obvious question: why do we need fact-checking organizations like Dubawa when we have the media, which is supposed to perform that function through the timely provision of accurate and truthful information for the public and hold government and its agencies, and persons in positions of trust in both public and private sectors to account? 

Is it because the media has failed to uphold its fundamental responsibility of doing just that? Is it because the media has been overwhelmed by technological advancement and consumed by a rapidly growing digital environment that it has no control over?

Indeed, in this age of growing information crisis, which is a much more devastating pandemic than COVID-19, powered by the digital revolution the media has become a victim of circumstance. And so fact-checking organisations like Dubawa are the rescuers, the warriors of truth, to help the independent media and its practitioners stay the cause by adapting to the needs of a dynamic digital environment.

The mis-representation of facts, political propaganda, political advertising, falsehood, distorted news, conspiracy theories, and many more can spread exponentially, and so we need fact-checking platforms like Dubawa to help limit the detrimental impact of such type of information on societies.

The problem of mis-information and conspiracy theories is so pervasive that our people (the audiences) no longer know what to believe and who to believe.

We see the mis-information that has been going around the fight against COVID-19 and how it is fueling public doubts about the pandemic and causing innocent deaths; we see how mis-information is undermining the peace, stability and cohesiveness of our nation in recent times; we see how mis-information is giving false hope and aspiration to people; we see how mis-information is leading to abuse of fundamental freedoms and human rights.

We see and hear it every day, in our smart phones (social media), our televisions, in the newspapers and on the World Wide Web. We even hear it straight from the mouth of politicians who are scheming to outwit one another to get the people’s vote in the next elections. 

They come in spoken and written words, in audios, short videos, flyers, in all shape and form and well packaged to pass off as accurate and truthful information.

Therefore, fact-checking is incredibly important in all spheres, not just in journalism. However, the challenge is that the fact-checking- which is basically an exercise in verification, debunking, and correction of untruths- is done after publication of the mis-information and after it has spread widely on the web and social media platforms. This means that the fact-checking will have to be done in a proportionate speed to contain the damage that will be done, if not already done, by publication of the mis-information.

So we look forward to a time when we all become fact-checkers. You fact-check what you say and write; you fact check what you hear, see and read. Dubawa is here to help you do that. All they are asking you to do is to also help yourself, your family, your community, and your country: IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, DO NOT SHARE!

Let me conclude by sharing with you my response to a question posed to me on the occasion marking the 30th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration on World Press Freedom Day in May this year.

The question was:

What do you think will be the role of the media and verified information in ten years from now?

And this was my response:

In 10 years’ time, the role of the media in providing accurate information, exposing corruption, holding public officials and governments to account, educating and raising awareness, etc., will not change much. What will change is the demand for greater responsibility of the media in combating fake news, hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, all of which have culminated into a raging media virus called infodemic.

I thank you very much.