Africa Check
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| Non-profit organisation | |
| Industry | Journalism |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Headquarters | South Africa |
| Services | Fact checking |
| Website | www |
Africa Check is a nonprofit and non-partisan organisation started in June 2012 with the stated aim of improving fact checking and news gathering in Africa.[1][2] Its website is partnered with the School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa to support the training of journalists on how to check facts asserted by politicians and other media outlets.[1]
History
Africa Check was launched after it won an International Press Institute news innovation contest sponsored by Google.[2] It was modelled after Factcheck.org and PolitiFact.com and is the first website in South Africa to focus only on fact checking.[3] Currently, Peter Cunliffe-Jones is its director with full-time journalist Julian Rademeyer, and two researchers, Sintha Chiumia and Kate Wilkinson.[4]
It is funded by public donations, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) Foundation,[5] and the University of the Witwatersrand.[6]
Fact checks in the new media
It is particularly notable for fact checking viral claims made about South Africa on Facebook.[7][8] Sixteen claims about South Africa were investigated including claims such as "unemployment in South Africa has increased by over 60% in the past 19 years," South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world, and South Africa is one of the top-ten countries in the world for murder. Regarding these claims, Africa Check found that South Africa's unemployment rate has increased from 20% to 24.7% during the last 19 years, an increase of 23.5%, so the claim of a 60% increase was false.[7] They could not substantiate the claim that South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world, but they reported that it is probably true that South Africa is in the top ten countries for highest murder rates.[7]
Recently, articles from several African countries have claimed herbal cures for HIV/AIDS.[9] For example, in Tanzania's Daily News it was reported that the Ministry of Health claimed the discovery of a herb, which could cure HIV/AIDS even in the final stages of the disease.[10] In Zambia, a doctor reported a new herbal cure for the HIV virus.[11] Africa Check found no evidence for the effectiveness of any of these claimed herbal cures.[9]
In South Africa, there has been a long-term debate about whether South African farm attacks are an organised genocide against white South African farmers or whether the rate of attacks and murders is consistent with the overall murder rate in South Africa.[12] Africa Check reported that the current murder rate of whites is less than the murder rate of other racial groups in South Africa and that it is less than the murder rate for whites from 1979 to 1991, which was during the apartheid era and drawing into question the claim of genocide.[12][13]
Originating with the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008, the claim that 80% of South Africans use traditional healers has been spread by the news media world-wide.[14] Africa Check found that this claim was greatly exaggerated and that the claim could be traced to an unsubstantiated claim made in 1983 WHO documents.[14]
Are countries such as South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo or India the rape capitals of the world? According to Africa Check, it is not currently possible to make such comparisons because different countries have different legal definitions of rape, methods of collecting data of rapes, and levels of reporting rape. All of these issues make exact comparisons of rape rates across countries because the data a currently too unreliable.[15]
Donations
According to Africa Check's website it a non-profit organization, which receives its funding from grants by major organizations and donations from individuals. Among the major donors from 2012 to 2014 were International Press Institute, Google, the African News Innovation Challenge, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, International Centre for Journalists, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Omidyar Network, United States Department of State, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Open Society Foundations.[16]
References
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