Kofoworola Belo-Osagie
2022 IVLP Impact Award Project: Digital Fact Check Training for Women JournalistsNigeria
Kofoworola Belo-Osagie is a journalist with over 17 years of experience. She has won many awards and attended local and international training programs. A 2021 alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program, Belo-Osagie is also a 2021 Fellow of the Wole Soyinka Female Reporters Leadership Project; a 2017 Fellow of the Dart Center Reporting Institute on Early Childhood Development and the Brain, Columbia University, New York; and a 2016 Fellow of the Kiplinger Program in Digital Journalism at the Ohio State University. Kofoworola studied Mass Communication at the Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State. She started her journalism career at The Comet newspaper after observing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 2005. In 2006, The Nation started as a breakaway paper from The Comet. Kofoworola was hired as a pioneer staff and rose through the ranks from reporter to chief correspondent and head of the education desk in 2014. She joined about 26 other mentees in the Women in Successful Careers (WISCAR) program to publish a book titled "Briefcases and Blenders" detailing wisdom from top career women who served as program mentors. In 2015, she earned a post graduate diploma in Media and Communication (Community Relations) from the Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. In 2016, she participated in cybercrime training for journalists and information officers organized by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute in Turin, Italy. In March 2022, Kofoworola joined The Conversation Africa as Commissioning Editor, Nigeria, beginning a new journey into the world of research publishing for the general public. In her spare time, Kofoworola volunteers to share career awareness tips with young people, especially those transiting from secondary to tertiary institutions. IVLP Impact Award Project: Digital Fact Check Training for Women Journalists
Kofoworola's IVLP Impact award project was inspired by the need to help women journalists gain skills to remain on top of their profession. Covering a digital skills training for women last year helped her create a similar training for women journalists. This project was a three-day training workshop for 21 women journalists to bridge the digital divide and gain fact-checking skills to evaluate misinformation and disinformation. Kofoworola's IVLP experience opened her eyes to the challenges of disinformation and the need to be equipped with relevant skills to check misinformation and disinformation.
The choice of women as beneficiaries of the training is informed by the discrimination that women journalists face in the newsroom. There are few women in senior roles of media houses in Nigeria. By gaining specialized skills that help women bridge the digital divide, they will be more productive and get noticed for leadership responsibilities. The training focused on mobile journalism, video production, social media, website design and fact-checking. The participants created a WhatsApp group to stay connected and to continue sharing resources among themselves.
"This is my first training, and it is very special because I just joined the journalism field. Now, I know I need to fact check and ask twice. I know I will be extremely careful with my stories. Thank you for this opportunity; I do not take it lightly.” - Project Participant
IVLP Exchange Experience
Kofoworola was a participant in the IVLP Project Edward R. Murrow IVLP Journalism Project, Media Responsibility in an Age of Disinformation, organized by the U.S. Department of State and the Mississippi Consortium for International Development.
U.S. Communities Visited Virtually
Huntsville, AL; Washington, DC; Tampa, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Columbia, SC
"The biggest lesson from my IVLP experience was learning for the first time the meaning of misinformation and disinformation and the damage they cause. The program made me more interested in fact-checking, which had always been a cause of concern for me." - Kofoworola Belo-Osagie
Country: Nigeria
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