Job Openings at Code for Africa

Code for Africa (CfA) is seeking experienced Fact-Checkers to join our PesaCheck team. We have immediate openings for full-time positions based in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania.

Candidates must have demonstrable experience in journalistic or investigative research experience and excellent writing skills. Bilingual applicants will have an advantage.

The successful candidates will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team using digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners.

About the Role:

The successful candidates will join PesaCheck’s transnational fact-checking team working as part of a network of locally-based fact-checkers in 18 African countries. The team is responsible for helping the public separate fact from fiction, using a range of journalistic techniques and digital verification tools.

Your core duty is to produce fact checks and investigate questionable content on social media, on mainstream media and utterances/claims by public figures. You will also, from time to time, collaborate with PesaCheck media partners and/or Code for Africa’s digital innovation teams on other special projects.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Proactively monitor various local/regional public sources, from mainstream media to social media and chat apps, to detect misleading or malign content, such as hate speech.
• Analyse public statements/manuscripts for factual errors, logical flaws, and significant omissions to determine their classification as misinformation or another form of misleading content.
• Examining the sources mentioned in selected public statements/manuscripts and, where necessary, identifying additional documents and/or sources to help determine whether PesaCheck should classify the content as misinformation or as another form of misleading or malign content.
• Producing ‘explainer articles’ that outline why a specific public statement/manuscript has been classified as misinformation or another form of malign content. Your articles will be based on substantive desktop research and interviews, accurately distilling relevant information into explanations that are easily understandable by ‘ordinary’ audiences, and that are substantiated by tangible evidence.

Required: 

• 3+ years of proven experience in journalism or research, preferably on a fact-checking desk
• Excellent research, numeracy, and analytical skills to break down complex issues for all audiences
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to manage high work volumes within tight deadlines while maintaining consistency and accuracy
• Strong news literacy, critical thinking skills, and a keen sense of accuracy and truth

Preferred: :

• Experience in transnational multilingual digital newsrooms
• Understanding of fact-checking, disinformation, and digital tools for fact-checking
• Familiarity with mining and handling large datasets
• Strong decision-making and exceptional presentation skills

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As a Copy Editor at CfA, you will bring with you a wealth of editorial experience and impeccable proofreading skills. You will have the chance to collaborate with a diverse team from around the world, utilising digital collaboration tools to create impactful content for our global audience and international partners.

To excel in this role, candidates must have a proven track record of professional sub-editing within a journalistic or communications environment, coupled with exceptional English language writing skills. Knowledge of technological innovation and digital activism/democracy will be an added advantage.

The successful candidate will join CfA’s Engagement team, which is responsible for building public engagement with the civic technologies and digital journalism created by our teams in 22 African countries.

Working with a multinational and multilingual team, you will leverage digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners.

Required

• Minimum of 5 years of copy-editing experience in a fast-paced newsroom or the digital journalism space.
• Excellent knowledge of grammar and proper compositional practices, to aid in rewriting and proofreading often complex copy.
• Excellent explanatory writing and editing skills, with a strong command of English. 
• Rigorous research skills, an obsessive commitment to accuracy, and attention to detail to verify information on diverse topics. 
• The ability to work fast, creatively, and accurately under pressure to deliver content that is credible, consistent and always factually correct.
• Excellent knowledge of current affairs, particularly in the civic-tech space, coupled with critical-thinking skills.
• Strong organisational and decision-making skills.
• Experience developing style guides and training inhouse teams on how to apply it to their work
• The ability to communicate and work effectively with multicultural – and multilingual – writers, editors, designers, illustrators, video producers and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.
• Proficiency in adapting writing styles to cater for various audiences, channels, and formats.
• Demonstrable ability to improve the meaning and clarity of copy through correct grammar, consistency of voice, tone and terminology, factual accuracy, logical sentence and document structure, and readability of the final product.
• Track record of copy editing various content types, such as blogs, social media content, investigative reports, and presentations.
• The ability to work creatively and in a remote fast-paced deadline-driven environment to deliver content that is credible, consistent and always factually correct. 
• Effective communicative and collaborative skills with multicultural writers, editors, and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.

Preferred: 

• A keen understanding of how to integrate data into compelling storytelling.
• Experience in transforming traditional journalism into visual storytelling, including how to most effectively integrate social video and/or infographics.
• Experience in using digital collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello to manage editorial workflows.