Our editorial policy

Balobaki Check is a non-partisan organisation that aims to strengthen democracy ensuring the accuracy of information in the public arena in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We work towards this aim through training for journalists, media education and quality content to combat hate messages and fake news.

Committed to integrity, we work day in, day out to improve our output and to align with the codes and principles of the International Fact-checking Network, a section of the Poynter Institute whose mission is to bring together fact-checkers from around the world. We work to adhere to their fundamental operating principles of commitment to impartiality, transparency and accuracy.

Commitment to impartiality and fairness
Commitment to standards and transparency of sources
Commitment to transparency of funding and organisation
Commitment to standards and transparency of methodology
Commitment to open and honest corrections

How we apply our editorial policy to the production of a fact-check

1

Selecting the information to check

We monitor the Internet (social media) and follow the news to identify false information. Once identified, we check to see if the information has reached a significant number of people in the community, if it is of sufficient importance to be dealt with and if it is relevant to our community (geographically, etc.). We select information to be checked impartially. We also receive information to process from contributors.
We check all types of content: photo, video, text and sound.

2

Proof of what has been claimed

We give a few indications about the information that is the subject of the research by listing a few elements such as: the exact quote or caption, the status of the information to determine whether it is false or dubious, the extent to which the publication has gone viral, the evidence available at the time of identification (links, screenshots, etc.) and the context in which the information was shared.

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3

Contacting the author of the publication

We then contact the author of the publication to find out its source and to obtain more information that may serve as a lead.

4

Verification

We contact all the people and organisations mentioned in the information being verified to either confirm or disprove it.
We also contact experts to shed light on certain subjects. We use reports from media that we consider credible and impartial. We consult data from credible organisations. We do not use anonymous sources at Balobaki Check.
To check links, photos, videos and other types of content, we use several tools such as Google reverse Image, Yandex, TinEye, Google Maps…

5

Writing the article

We begin by describing the information that has been verified, specifying at the outset whether it is true or false. We indicate the extent to which the information has gone viral to show the importance of verification.
We use hyperlinks to enable the reader to go to the sources we have used to assess the conclusion of our article. We take the exact statement or caption from the publication, we present the screenshot of the quote as evidence, we then present the evidence gathered after verification, we specify the context in which the information was shared. Finally, we give a rating to the information to indicate whether it is false, out of context, unproven (no evidence) or other.

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6

Proofreading

The writer of the article does the first review. Two other fact-checkers edit the article, one after the other, before the final review by the editor-in-chief.

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7

Publication

We publish our work in two formats: fact-check and podcast. Our articles are published on our Balobakicheck.cd website and on our social networks. We also work with online media and newspapers to share our content with a wide and diverse audience. Our podcasts, produced in national languages (Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili and Tshiluba) as well as in French, are shared on our SoundCloud account and on our community radio partners.

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8

L'impact

We identify the people and organisations cited in the information that has been verified in our posts on social media so that they are aware of what is being said about them. We also ask them to share our fact-checks or correct their statements.
We insert the link to the fact-checking article under the post or in the group (Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.) where the information being verified has circulated, in order to inform public debate.
We also judge the impact of our work by the amount of fact-checking content produced, the number of civil society members and journalists trained in fact-checking, and the reactions of Internet users on social networks (likes, comments, shares, etc.).