Media Start-up: Africa Check in South Africa | In focus | DW | 20.05.2020
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In focus

Media Start-up: Africa Check in South Africa

Africa Check is an unusual fact-checking organization that works in not one but four countries: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. In 2019, the start-up checked more than 800 so-called "claims" per day.

The start-up Africa Check was founded in 2012 and is aimed at what it describes as "regular voters." Across the four countries it works in (South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal), the start-up has 34 employees. The organization's executive director Noko Makgato spent more than two decades working in the media before joining Africa Check as deputy director in September 2016. He now develops strategies for the start-up and spoke to DW Akademie about its challenges and visions.  

Africa Check's aim is to introduce accuracy and honesty in public debate by fact-checking claims made bhighly influential people, as well as other claims they see as important, Makgato said. "The key is to make sure the public has the correct information instead of just claims that are baseless." 

False information is a global problem but Africa faces additional issuesMakgato stresses. "In Africa, there's generally a lack of quality information and so the work that we do is not just fact-checking claims but also introducing evidence-backed information." 

Funding and finding the right commercial model 

Most of the start-up's revenues — about 80% — come from international funding organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Luminate and the Open Society Foundation. About 20% comes from commercial sponsors and Africa Check is currently looking for a different business model that would make the start-up less dependent on donations. 

"There are plenty of ideas out there but the issue is funding and finding the right commercial model, particularly for the media," Makgato said. "I'm a big believer in that you need to pay for what you consume. I think the great difficulty for start-ups is in getting people to think that way, to get your audience to think that they're receiving quality and should pay for it. Making that shift would be the key." 

Cashless transactions create barriers 

Africa Check's annual budget is equivalent to €1.1 millionIt is easier to keep foundations that are already on board than attract new ones, and in the media sector it is vital to build relationships and trust, Makgato believes. 

The start-up launched a crowd-funding campaign that asked people to contribute via credit card payments but the campaign had limited success. Makgato explained that a country like South Africa is quite sophisticated and has a robust financial system where people often make cashless transactions. In other parts of Africa this is not the case and it's almost impossible for people to make transactions using credit cards. 

Lack of access to information hinders work 

In some parts of the continent, Africa Check has easy access to information and experts who can verify claims, but that this is not the case in other regions. "Working in four different countries is the biggest challenge for us, and not just in terms of output," Makgato said. "What we do on a daily basis as fact-checkers requires a lot of access to information and data and that's not always possible." 

Another challenge is language. The start-up publishes mainly in English and French, which can only be understood by a fraction of Africa's population. To help accommodate the need for other languages, Africa Check has started working with social media giant Facebook. Users are able to communicate directly with the editors via Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and a radio program. So far, an additional 10 languages have been covered. 

"We're able, through that project, to focus on Zulu, Swahili, Hausa and other languages. It would require enormous resources to cover all languages in Africa," Makgato said.  

Acting offline and online 

Misinformation is being spread offline as well as online, and to address this, Africa Check has started focusing on analogue events. The first event was held in May ahead of the 2019 South African general elections. 

"We had a panel with speakers from different political parties. The idea was essentially to debate their perceptions on key topics and then we presented the facts around those topics," Makgato explained. "It allowed us to interact with some of our users. I'm hoping we can increase that in the next few years because it's a direct way of engaging with people who are interested." 

Africa Check plays an important role in the media eco-system system, and the organization has an opportunity to remodel what people consume and how they consume it, as well as how they see value in fact-checking and how they reciprocate this, Makgato said. 

"For the longest time people's media consumption has essentially been subsidized, so we are forced to find interesting innovative ways of finding the right model to present quality news and information and have people actually pay for it."