Nigerian Journalist Wins 2015 African Fact-Checking Award
A Nigerian Journalist, Ben Ezeamalu, of online news site Premium Times won the annual African Fact-Checking Awards for his work debunking claims about legislation on the age of sexual consent.
To win the coveted prize, Mr. Ezeamalu, beat two other finalists, Phillip de Wet, of the Mail & Guardian newspaper, and Pieter-Louis Myburgh, from the Media24 news group.
The duo were named first and second runners up respectively.
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The Premium Times man was given 2,000-euro winner’s cheque by the organisers, after a jury considered 51 competition entries from 15 African countries.
While receiving the award, Ezeamalu, who heads the online newspaper’s Lagos operations, said: “I’m grateful to God for this award and I want to dedicate it to the fantastic team at Premium Times for the encouragement and support.
“Fact checking is a really important part of journalism. It is necessary that as journalists we hold public figures to account for what they say.
The Africa Check Award, was launched in 2014 to encourage fact-checking journalism by media across Africa.
