IPNEWS-Monrovia: Peter Quaqua School of Journalism-PQSJ announces the inclusion of ‘Fact Checking Journalism’ in its academic programs beginning this semester (January-March 2023), press statement issued on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 says.

The new course was developed through a concept paper submitted to the School’s Board intended to basically provide the relevant tips and working tools to facilitate fact checking reporting for students at the journalism school.

Fact Checking Journalism emphasizes the ‘discipline nature of verifying information, which legitimizes the media’s social role as relatively different from other communicators.

This lesson will help senior students at the Peter Quaqua School of Journalism-PQSJ to know the fundamentals of Fact Checking Reporting, educate them on most common errors and improve the accuracy of their reporting.

The course covers at least ten (10) relevant sub-topics on what and how to do Fact Checking including:

✓The Basics about ‘Fact Checking’;

✓Why Journalists Must Do Fact Checking?;

✓Warm-up Fact Checking Exercise;

✓What to Check?; and

✓Dealing with sources.

It also covers topics such as;

✓Confirmation Bias;

✓Tracking Your Research;

✓Fact Checking Language;

✓Fact Checking vs. Editorial Process;

✓The Reporter’s Role in Fact Checking;

✓Summary and ✓Class Activities/Discussions, Questions/Presentations.

More than 20 PQSJ senior students make up the first batch that would benefit from the Fact Checking Reporting course this semester.

Every year, Peter Quaqua School of Journalism-PQSJ reviews its curriculum to include up-to-date and contemporary learning materials/features.

Meanwhile, the school is currently working with a Ghanaian-based Publishing company to begin the production of couple of its latest media textbooks.

These plans come ahead of PQSJ’s 7th Commencement Convocation which is scheduled to take place from: 19-25 February this year.