The Debunk Awards is offering $6000 in support for finalists and winners.

The Debunk Awards is designed to recognise the impactful fact-checking work being done in Africa in order to empower ordinary citizens to hold disseminators of harmful mis/dis-info accountable.

Winners will therefore receive more than just cash grants. They will also receive the recognition and support that being identified as key players in the fact-checking space brings, including having their submitted work/fact-checks showcased on the Debunk Awards website and other PesaCheck and Code for Africa media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In.

THE BASICS :

Winners will receive cash grants of between $500 and $1,000, depending on the applied category and potential impact of the fact-check.

With help from a committee of experienced fact-checkers that will ensure each submitted debunk meets a set of industry standard fact-checking processes and criteria, an independent Debunk Awards jury will evaluate all finalist submissions, and will award cash prizes in the following categories:

  • Best debunk from active citizen
  • Best debunk that tackled online hate-speech/intolerance/militancy
  • Best debunk that tackled government correction/clarification
  • Best debunk that tackled issues of major public interest/clarification
  • Best debunk that tackled troll distort or subversion of public discourse
  • Best debunk that tackled Health, Climate and Environmental-related misinfo/disinfo

SUPPORT SERVICES:

Our Mission

Misinformation has become an ‘infodemic’ that is too big for any one organisation to solve. The flood of misleading toxic information is undermining our societies. We all need to protect the truth, by fighting back with facts. These awards are intended to celebrate the pioneering citizens and organisations across Africa, who are exposing false information in innovative ways.