“In Times of Fear, Collaboration becomes Critical”
Maria Ressa said it at GlobalFact11, ARIJ’s AFCN Experienced it during the Gaza War!
AFCN manager, Saja Mortada
During GlobalFact11 in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, reminded fact-checkers experiencing harassment that they are not alone, and that in times of fear, “collaboration becomes critical.”
Unfortunately, in 2023-2024, our journalists and fact-checkers in Gaza and Palestine would have been isolated without the support of ARIJ’s AFCN and the commitment of some global media partners who believe, like us, that “Coverage Must Continue”.
When Maria Ressa cried while speaking about Rappler shutdown experience, I was sitting – me – Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) manager Saja Mortada, next to ARIJ Director General Rawan Damen and ARIJ Comm Manager Samya Ayish, in a venue filled of 500+ fact-checkers from all over the world. I couldn’t help but reflect on the immense difficulty of being a journalist and fact-checker in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Sudan, and in almost every place in our Arab World. After more than nine months of war in Gaza, we are exhausted from seeing our colleagues killed, targeted, losing their families and homes, and being displaced. Yet, despite all these challenges and threats, they continue working tirelessly to spread the truth.
Yes, as Maria Ressa stated at GlobalFact11 on June 26, 2024, “A decade from now, you are gonna look back, and know you did everything you could.” Indeed, we at AFCN and ARIJ feel we have done everything we could. We have persevered despite facing a lack of funding, threats, and mental breakdowns.
We supported our community of journalists and fact-checkers in Gaza and Palestine with emergency funds, equipment replacements, mental health support, collaboration opportunities with international organisations. We helped 230 journalists and fact checkers. That is 10% of the need. We launched, just one day before GlobalFact11, our #Gazaproject, in 5 languages, a global collaboration between 13 media outlets with 50 journalists, organised by “Forbidden stories”, that investigated the targeting of journalists, fact-checkers and media offices in Gaza and pursued the work of journalists who have been killed or threatened in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7, 2023.
ARIJ’s AFCN attendance at the GlobalFact conference organised by IFCN this year was markedly different from previous years in Oslo and Seoul. Being in Sarajevo, a city that endured a horrific genocide from 1992 to 1995, the longest siege in modern Europen history, held profound significance, especially in a year when Gaza is also experiencing the same. Our journalists and fact-checkers in Palestine are facing the most critical challenges they have ever encountered. This context sharpened our focus during the conference on freedom of expression, safety, and collaboration as essential pillars for continuing our work in exposing human rights violations, corruption, and mis/disinformation campaigns.
On June 26, and in a show and tell entitled “Truth Amid Turmoil: Fact-Checking Strategies During Crises and Wars (Gaza Example)”, our Director General Rawan Damen shared with GlobalFact11 attendees, 10 lessons learned from our response to mis/disinformation related to Palestine since October 7, 2023,, highlighting our AFCN international collaboration with 60+ fact-checking organisations from 40+ countries around the world, our community support, and our focus on physical and mental safety.
On June 27, during a panel titled “Regional Networks: Experiences and Challenges,” I highlighted a major success story from AFCN’s work in 2024. The #AFCNFactLab project, supported by the Google News Initiative, successfully trained over 3,000 journalists and media students on fact-checking across 11 countries in just three months. She also emphasised our main challenge this year: “safety,” and echoed Maria Ressa’s sentiment that “In Times of Fear, Collaboration becomes Critical”.
In 2024, Palestinian fact-checkers in Gaza like our colleagues Ahmad Arja, Ahmad Jouda, and Mohamad Khalidi were displaced from their homes and lost family members due to Israeli airstrikes, along with all their media equipment. Our AFCN community fact-checking organisations: Kashif, Tahaqaq, and Tayqan, along with their teams, are doing extraordinary work while experiencing burnout from working around the clock and mental breakdowns from verifying the horrific scenes from Gaza, all while suffering with financial constraints and social media restrictions. AFCN was one of the first to find emergency support for them from CFI. AFCN is receiving an increasing number of requests for mental health support from fact-checkers throughout the Arab world. And personally, I lost three colleagues and friends in South Lebanon, Issam Abdallah, Farah Omar, and Rabih Meemari, who were killed by Israel while doing their journalistic duties.
While we are going through a hard time, GlobalFact11 provided a valuable opportunity to delve deeper into the state of fact-checking amidst crises, advancements in AI, and its role during elections. The conference featured insightful sessions and panel discussions led by industry experts, including our partners like Full Fact, Maldita, Boom Live, Africa Check, EFCSN, LatamChequea, and Arab fact-checking organisations such as Beam Reports, Akhbar Meter, Kashif, Annir and BN Check. Additionally, Peter Cunliffe-Jones, Visiting Researcher at the University of Westminster, contributed to enriching discussions at the event, in discussing harmful misinformation.
GlobalFact11 also provided an excellent opportunity to connect with fact-checkers from around the world, meet our partners face-to-face, and explore potential collaboration opportunities. AFCN engaged in meetings with IFCN, regional networks, Full Fact, and other key stakeholders.
The closing ceremony of GlobalFact11 on June 28, was particularly noteworthy, celebrating our partner Teyit’s achievement in Turkey, which received the highest impact fact-check award for debunking claims that Palestinians sold their land. Teyit did exceptional work around the earthquake in Turkey, and I remember how we jumped into 24/7 support to them in Arabic language.
And as the International Fact-Checking Network “Sarajevo statement” mentioned that “fact-checking cannot be considered censorship in any true sense of the word. Censorship removes information. Fact-checking adds it”, we will continue, as ARIJ’s AFCN, enhancing fact-checking efforts in the Arab world and supporting our community, no matter the obstacles, even if it is extraordinary and unprecedented like in Palestine.
