Kathmandu: The Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (ACORAB) Nepal has launched a nationwide initiative to strengthen fact-checking skills of community radio journalists on March 1.
The campaign provides mentorship to radio journalists and technicians from 21 community radio stations across seven provinces, equipping them to identify misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and election-related rumours, and to produce verified, fact-based electoral content that enables the public to make informed voting decisions and actively participate in democratic processes beyond elections.
Journalists from these stations will receive dedicated mentorship on identifying misinformation and disinformation in electoral contexts, along with training in fact-checking tools and techniques, ethical journalism, election reporting, and digital verification methods.
“Community media are close to the people, can communicate in local languages, and understand the local context, making them best positioned to produce localized content and counter rumours so communities are not misinformed,” Siromani Dhungana, Director at ACORAB Nepal said during the formal announcement of the campaign. “Our priority is to strengthen community radio journalists as local fact-checkers and support meaningful public participation in democratic processes.”
There is a massive flow of information during elections, and people can easily be influenced by content they encounter, whether it comes from verified sources or not. Misinformation spreads quickly across digital and social media platforms.
Pre-election environment is sensitive and some communities are already facing conflicts. The credibility of the information people receive during such period can determine whether those tensions escalate or not. Community radios should play a key role in ensuring that reliable information reaches communities and raise awareness about the risks of unverified content.
“Many community radios lack sufficient human resources and the technical capacity needed to integrate effective fact-checking into their reporting and production processes. This campaign therefore focuses first on strengthening journalists’ fact-checking skills, and then enabling them to produce electoral content that contributes to a free, fair, and transparent election on March 4,” said Dhungana.
“Even beyond the election period, the initiative aims to support community radios in continuing to create such content to counter information disorder at the local level and reinforce public trust in democratic processes,” he added.
According to him, radio stations have already started producing and disseminating fact-check based content in four languages—Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tamang, and Tharu—as well as in local dialects of Karnali Province.
Beyond the elections, ACORAB plans to introduce dedicated programmes that mobilize community radios as local fact-checkers and strengthen their institutional capacity to safeguard information integrity and counter misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech at the community level.
In recent years, ACORAB Nepal has adopted a radio-digital convergence model to ensure its nationwide network of more than 350 community radios can effectively use multimedia tools to deliver essential information.
