Repromed-Benin launches Infocheck 2026 against misinformation.

A national training workshop on information verification and combating misinformation, called INFOCHECK 2026, brought together journalists, online media promoters, bloggers, and digital content creators on Friday, June 12, for two days of sessions. The meeting is organized by the Benin Coalition of Digital Media Professionals and Promoters (REPROMED-Benin), with technical and financial support from the Association of Bloggers for Active Citizenship (ABCA).

At the opening, the president of REPROMED-Benin, Lorys Hounon, emphasized the responsibility of media and digital actors in the face of the proliferation of false information, stating that they must guarantee citizens “reliable, verified, and useful information for decision-making.” He argued that combating misinformation requires mobilization involving media, authorities, professional organizations, and digital security stakeholders. On behalf of the Union of Media Professionals of Benin (UPMB), Yves Patrick Loko praised an initiative that, according to him, “comes at just the right time.”

The first day was dedicated to two presentations. Servan Ahougnon, head of the fight against misinformation at the National Center for Digital Investigations (CNIN), spoke about the stakes of misinformation in Benin. He introduced the CRAAP method, a criteria-based evaluation grid for assessing the reliability of a source, as well as verification tools like reverse image searches, and discussed the framework set by the Digital Code.

The second session, led by Josaphat Finogbé, an investigative journalist and fact-checking trainer at Code for Africa, focused on the fundamentals of fact-checking and the SIFT method, which emphasizes critical distancing, identifying credible sources, and cross-referencing information with its original context. The workshop continues until June 13.