The Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) led by ARIJ announced, during the closing ceremony of ARIJ16 forum on December 4th, 2023, its fact-checking award, which is the first of its kind in the Arab world.

In its first year, the award aimed to encourage collaboration between Arab fact-checking Initiatives/organisations within the AFCN community, through the exchange of resources and expertise, and to enhance international presence by highlighting influential projects that provide solutions to the challenges of mis/disinformation and prove their applicability at the regional and global levels.

Several projects applied to the award application, which was opened on the occasion of the International Fact-Checking Day, April 2, 2024. The projects are primarily related to joint-fact-checking efforts/projects in conflict and crisis zones, and the exploitation of technology and AI to facilitate and accelerate the fact-checking process.

The winning project for the 2024 award, which was announced during the closing ceremony of the 17th ARIJ Forum in Jordan on December 8, 2024, is “Fact-Checking Platforms Collaboration to Counter Mis/Disinformation During the War on Gaza and South Lebanon”, and was implemented by the teams of the organizations “Tahaqaq” from Palestine, “Sawab” from Lebanon and “Misbar” from Jordan. The project, which represented an effort of 3 fact-checking organizations in three different Arab countries, was able to contribute to combating misinformation using different modalities during the war on Gaza and South Lebanon in 2024, in which large amounts mis/disinformation was spreading.

The project delivered that impact through:

1. Awareness campaign against mis/disinformation that spread during the same period (Examples:  1 – 2 – 3)
2. Workshops targeting journalists covering war events. (Examples: 1 – 2)
3. Fact-checking pieces under joint collaboration framework between the three platforms (Examples:  1 – 2 –3)
4. An analytical study of the trends and types of mis/disinformation that spread during the project period. (Examples: 1 – 2 – 3)

Regarding ARIJ continuously encouraging the use of technology and AI and integrating it into journalism and fact-checking fact-checking according to its AI strategy, another project deserved nomination, for integrating technology into fact-checking in a tool entitled (Archive of Combating Disinformation in Conflict Zones (ACDC)). The tool is a collaboration between three Arab fact-checking organisations, “Tafnied” from Egypt, “Tahaqaq” from Palestine and “Tunifact” from Tunisia, in addition to their technical partner “Mix Media“.

The project aims to archive and document fact-checks related to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa in both Arabic and English, starting with the war on Gaza.

The projects submitted for the award were evaluated based on a set of professional and methodological criteria by a specialised jury committee, maintaining integrity and transparency in the evaluation process.

Jury members:

1. Dr. Arwa Kooli – Fact-checking consultant and head of the Jury committee
2. Ghassan Al-Shihabi – Editor at ARIJ and expert fact-checker.
3. Abdullah Maksoor – Journalist and writer.
4. Samia Ayesh – Communications Manager at ARIJ.
5. Saja Murtada – AFCN Manager.

Evaluation Criteria:

1. Relevance to fact-checking: The project must be directly related to the field of fact-checking.
2. Adherence to AFCN Code of Principles.
3. Fact-checking methodology: The methodology used in the fact-checking process and its accuracy and professionalism.
4. Importance and novelty of the topic: Evaluating the importance of the topic the project addresses and its novelty.
5. Quality of collaboration: This includes the quality of collaboration between the team and the quality of cross-border collaboration between the participating organisations.
6. Impact: What impact has the project had or could have?
7. Additional criteria: They were determined based on the nature of the submitted projects, including storytelling, use of technology, and others.

ARIJ Director General Rawan Damen emphasised that “the winning project and its runner-up that received nomination, both succeeded in highlighting the importance of collaboration between the ARIJ’s AFCN community, that has worked for years to enhance joint work which adds to the efforts in combating mis/disinformation in the Arab world”.

It is worth noting that this is the first edition of the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) Award for the best fact-checking project, which will continue in its next edition in 2025. The award focuses next year on investigative reports that uncover disinformation campaigns in the Arab world, and applications will open in the first half of the year.