TheCable’s Taiwo Adebulu shortlisted for African fact-checking awards

Taiwo Adebulu, a journalist with TheCable, has been shortlisted for the 2020 African fact-checking awards.

Adebulu was shortlisted in the category of the fact-check of the year by a working journalist for his story which investigated the claim made by Nigeria’s minister of environment, Mohammed Mahmood, at the United Nations Climate Action Summit at UNGA74.

The minister had said seven federal universities were running strictly on renewable energy. Adebulu’s fact check revealed that the minister had grossly misinformed the United Nations.

In an announcement made on Friday, Africa Check, organisers of the award, said there were 192 entries from 27 countries across the continent.

They said the entries came at a time where across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered a flood of dangerous false information.

“With health-related decisions sometimes being a matter of life or death, good fact-checking journalism is vital – now more than ever,” Noko Makgato, executive director at Africa Check, said.

“The quality of information disseminated in public can determine the life outcomes of many and so it is the responsibility of the media to refrain from being conduits of misinformation.

“Each year we are seeing growing interest in fact-checking as evidenced by the number of organisations that have emerged focusing their efforts on debunking harmful claims in different parts of the continent. This, we believe, strengthens the quality of public debate and, hopefully, improves the quality of life across the continent.”

Five other Nigerian journalists also made the 11-man shortlist. They are Oluwadamilola Ojetunde and Olayinka Shehu of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and Mayowa Tijani of AFP/TheCable. Kehinde Ogunyale and Oluwaseye Ogunsanya were shortlisted in the student journalist category.

The awards ceremony will take place on October 22 as part of this year’s virtual African Investigative Journalism Conference.

In 2017, Adebulu won the sustainable development goals (SDGs) category of the Zimeo Excellence in Media awards in Ethiopia. He was a finalist for The Future Awards Africa Prize for Journalism 2018.

Adebulu, who holds a master’s degree in communication arts from the University of Ibadan, is also a recipient of the 2020 BudgIT/Civic Hive media fellowship.