Mr Ayokanmi Oyeyemi, a Wikipedia media expert, has urged journalists to verify information from original and credible sources before publishing or sharing it. Oyeyemi gave the advice in a presentation he made on the role of Wikipedia in combating electoral disinformation at a capacity-building workshop for journalists on Tuesday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was held under the theme: “Strengthening Electoral Information Integrity through Responsible Journalism, Factchecking and Wikipedia.” It focused on strengthening electoral information integrity through responsible journalism, factchecking and Wikipedia. Oyeyemi, who used the controversy surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s age as a case study, said that unverified information could easily spread through social media.
He said screenshots of Wikipedia pages could be misleading because they captured information at a particular time, while subsequent corrections might not appear. According to him, Wikipedia’s edit history enables users to trace changes made to articles and determine when information was added, altered or removed.
Oyeyemi said journalists should check live Wikipedia pages and authoritative documents, including official records, instead of relying on screenshots or viral claims. He also urged journalists to strengthen verification practices, warning that failure to verify information before publication could amplify disinformation and mislead the public.
The workshop, organised by ECOWAS, was supported by the Foundation for the Internationalisation of Public Administrations (FIAP), a Spanish public sector organisation that works to improve public systems and democratic governance globally.
- Source: NAN
