Fact Checkers – Code for Africa

Positions in: Chad, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Uganda

Are you perturbed by the damage that misinformation is doing to society, and want to do something about it?

Code for Africa (CfA) has immediate vacancies for full-time Fact-Checkers in Chad, Zambia Zimbabwe and Uganda to join our PesaCheck team.

Candidates must have demonstrable journalistic and investigative research experience, and excellent writing skills. Applicants fluent in two or more official languages in each country will have an advantage,

PesaCheck is the continent’s largest indigenous fact-checking initiative, with teams in 12 African countries, and is incubated by Code for Africa (CfA). It researches and debunks misinformation published both online and elsewhere in more traditional media. It also tracks promises by public officials and shines a light on public finances to ensure the public is not misled.

The successful candidates will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team using digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners.

Required:  minimum requirements include:

• An eye for factual accuracy, and a nose for news.
• Proven experience in journalism, and/or digital investigations with impeccable writing skills.
• Familiarity with digital verification/fact-checking techniques and tools.
• Obsessive attention to detail, with excellent numeracy and analytical skills.
• Ability to unpack complex issues, explaining them in ways that any audience can understand.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced multimedia newsroom and meet tight deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal skills.
• Critical thinking skills.

Preferred: Candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage: 

• 4+ years of work experience.
• Work experience in transnational multilingual digital newsrooms.
• Experience with digital collaboration tools, including Slack and Google Drive.
• Experience using social media as a source for news.
• Data literacy and/or data journalism experience.
• A demonstrable understanding of public (government) finance management/budget processes.

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: Chad, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda
• Languages: English or French
• Preferred but not required: Shona, Ndebele, Nyanja, Bemba, Arabic, Kiswahili, Luganda and other local languages

About the Role 

The successful candidates will join PesaCheck’s transnational fact-checking team. The team is responsible for helping the public separate fact from fiction, using a range of journalistic techniques and digital verification tools.

You will join PesaCheck’s editorial newsdesk, working as part of a network of locally-based investigative researchers in 12 African countries.

You will produce daily fact-check articles, investigating questionable content on social media, in mainstream media, and declarations/claims by public figures.

From time to time, you will also collaborate with PesaCheck media partners and/or CfA’s digital innovation teams on election monitoring or other special projects.

The fact-checks you produce will be published on Pesacheck.org, while also being syndicated into partner media. The articles will be used by Facebook and other technology platforms to help detect misinformation on social media.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Proactively monitoring a variety of local/regional public sources, ranging from mainstream media to social media and chat apps, to detect possible instances of misleading or malign content (such as hate speech).
• Analysing selected public statements/manuscripts for factual errors, logical flaws, and/or significant omissions to determine whether PesaCheck should classify the content as misinformation or as another form of misleading or malign content.
• Examining the sources mentioned in selected public statements/manuscripts and, where necessary, identifying additional documents and/or sources to help determine whether PesaCheck should classify the content as misinformation or as another form of misleading or malign content.
• Producing ‘explainer articles’ that outline why a specific public statement/manuscript has been classified as misinformation or another form of malign content. Your articles will be based on substantive desktop research and interviews, accurately distilling relevant information into explanations that are easily understandable by ‘ordinary’ audiences, and that are substantiated by tangible evidence.

 What We Offer: 

• A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature.
• A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits.
• Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry.
• A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences, and interacting with colleagues around the world.

How to apply

Please fill in this form by July 09, 2021. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

About Us:

Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 70 staff in 19 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.