The Executive Director of Fridabs SolaceBase Communications Ltd and publisher of SolaceBase Online Newspaper, Comrade Abdullateef Abubakar Jos, has urged journalists to prioritise verification and accuracy in reporting ahead of the 2027 general elections, warning against the spread of fake news, misinformation and manipulated digital content.
Jos stated this while presenting a paper titled “Fake News, Misinformation in Electioneering and Digital Tools to Fact-Check Pictures, Videos and Information” at the 2026 Kaduna Retreat of the Kano Correspondents Chapel of the [Nigeria Union of Journalists] held in Kaduna recently.
SolaceBase reports that the retreat, organised under the theme, “2027 General Elections: Navigating Legal, Security and Ethical Challenges in the Media,” brought together journalists and other stakeholders to examine the legal, security and ethical challenges associated with election reporting.
Jos said the rapid growth of social media had made it possible for false and misleading information to spread within minutes, noting that photographs, videos, audio recordings, screenshots and alleged election results could reach thousands of people before their authenticity was established.
He identified fake election results, false statements attributed to politicians, manipulated photographs, old videos presented as current events, fake endorsements, false claims about candidates withdrawing from elections, fabricated INEC statements and misleading claims about BVAS among the forms of misinformation journalists could encounter during elections.
According to him, artificial intelligence had further complicated the information environment by making it easier to produce manipulated audio, video, photographs and other forms of synthetic media.
He therefore urged journalists to develop the habit of verifying information before publication, stressing that the responsibility of the media was not merely to disseminate information but also to establish its authenticity.
“Speed is important in journalism, but accuracy is more important,” Jos said, urging journalists to make verification a central part of their professional practice.
He cautioned journalists against relying solely on the term “fake news” when reporting false information, saying practitioners should clearly explain what was false or misleading about a particular claim.
Jos said journalists should, where possible, establish whether a photograph was old, whether a video had been edited, whether a statement was genuinely issued by the claimed institution or whether a quotation had been falsely attributed to a public figure.
He explained that misinformation, disinformation and malinformation were different forms of information disorder and should not be treated as the same.
According to him, misinformation involves false information shared without an intention to deceive, while disinformation involves false or misleading information deliberately created or distributed to deceive or cause harm.
He added that malinformation involves genuine information that was deliberately presented or used in a harmful or misleading manner.
“Not every false claim is fake news, and not every person sharing false information is deliberately lying,” he said, stressing that the duty of journalists was to establish what happened, what was false, what was true and what the evidence showed.
Jos said election periods were particularly vulnerable to misinformation because of political competition, emotional reactions, partisan loyalty, the speed of social media and information gaps.
He noted that false information could influence voters’ perceptions, discourage voter turnout, damage reputations, undermine confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), create ethnic or religious tension and contribute to post-election violence.
The SolaceBase executive director warned that misinformation originating from social media should not be dismissed as harmless because it could move from WhatsApp to Facebook, X, TikTok, blogs, radio, television and eventually offline communities.
He said journalists should be particularly cautious when dealing with political claims, arguing that information supporting one political party or attacking another should attract greater scrutiny.
“When a claim supports one political party or attacks another, the journalist should become more skeptical, not less skeptical,” he said.
Jos cited several examples of misinformation and disinformation associated with previous Nigerian elections, including false election results, manipulated photographs, old videos presented as current incidents, fake endorsements and false claims about candidates withdrawing from elections.
He also referred to misinformation surrounding the 2019 and 2023 elections, including the “Jubril of Sudan” rumour, manipulated photographs, fake endorsements and false claims concerning INEC’s electoral technology.
He said such examples demonstrated that a genuine photograph or video could still be used to promote a false narrative if its original context, date or location was deliberately changed.
Jos urged journalists to ask basic verification questions before publishing any election-related material, including who created the information, what exactly was being claimed, when and where the event occurred, why the information was being circulated and what evidence supported the claim.
He described the question, “How do we know?”, as one of the most important questions journalists should develop as a professional reflex.
The facilitator also introduced journalists to digital tools that could assist in verifying photographs, videos, locations and online claims.
He identified Google Lens and reverse-image search as useful tools for discovering earlier versions and original sources of photographs, while TinEye could help establish previous appearances of images online.
Jos also recommended tools such as InVID and WeVerify for investigating videos and extracting keyframes, as well as Google Maps and Google Earth for verifying locations through buildings, roads, landmarks and other geographical features.
He said journalists could also use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to examine older versions of websites and previously published online materials.
On digital images, Jos explained that metadata could sometimes provide information such as the date, device or location associated with a photograph, but warned that such information could be removed or altered.
He therefore advised journalists to treat metadata as supporting evidence rather than conclusive proof.
Speaking on artificial intelligence and deepfakes, Jos said journalists must be increasingly alert to AI-generated photographs, cloned voices, fabricated interviews, fake political endorsements and manipulated videos.
He identified unnatural facial movements, inconsistent lighting, unusual shadows, lip-sync problems, strange voice patterns and inconsistencies in backgrounds as some possible warning signs of manipulated content.
He, however, cautioned journalists against declaring material AI-generated simply because it appeared unusual, stressing that technical indicators should be combined with source verification and independent corroboration.
Jos suggested a simple verification process for journalists: “Detect, investigate, corroborate and conclude.”
He further urged newsrooms to adopt a “Stop, Check, Trace and Confirm” approach before publishing sensitive election-related information.
According to him, journalists should first stop before immediately publishing shocking, emotional, political or controversial information, then check the source, date, location, claim and available evidence.
He said journalists should subsequently trace the original photograph, video, statement, document, social media post or audio recording before confirming the information with primary and, where possible, independent sources.
Jos also advised journalists to use precise verdicts when assessing disputed information, instead of simply labelling every questionable claim as “fake.”
He identified categories such as true, false, misleading, out of context, manipulated and unverified, noting that “unverified” was a legitimate journalistic position where available evidence was insufficient to establish the truth.
He warned journalists against unnecessarily amplifying false claims, saying that reporting an unimportant rumour could inadvertently give it a wider audience.
“If a false claim is not important enough to report, publishing it may simply give the falsehood a larger audience,” he said.
Jos urged journalists who must report false claims to ensure that the correction and verified information remained the centre of the report rather than allowing the false claim to dominate the story.
He stressed that journalists were not merely messengers but also filters and verifiers, and should consider the potential consequences of publishing unverified information.
He said journalists must ask themselves whether a piece of information was newsworthy, whether it could be independently verified, who the original source was, what evidence supported it and what harm could result if it was published and later found to be false.
Jos concluded by urging journalists covering the 2027 elections to combine traditional journalistic principles with digital verification skills, stressing that credibility of the media would depend largely on its ability to distinguish facts from falsehoods.
He said the most important responsibility of an election journalist was not to be the fastest person to spread information but to ensure that the information was accurate, properly contextualised and worthy of public trust.
