Legit.ng, Nigeria’s most visited news website with over 13 million monthly readers, has emerged as a winner of the Best Trust Initiative at the WAN-IFRA 2023 African Digital Media Awards.
The Nigerian publisher won the highly coveted ‘Best Trust Initiative’ award category, a new category that recognizes news projects that help restore public trust in quality journalism.
The winning initiative is known as the Legit.ng Media Literacy Project — an outstanding multimedia strategy that brought together a dedicated media literacy microsite, webinars, gamification, short-form videos and partnerships with influencers and celebrities. The campaign reached over 30 million people in Legit.ng’s quest to open Nigerians to the understanding of quality, ethical reporting.
Affirming the impact of Legit.ng’s initiative, the WAN-IFRA jurors said, “Great way to make fact-checking appealing to people, and to train them to do their own sense-check of information. The number of people reached is impressive. The fact that you can sign up for a webinar makes it particularly impactful.”
In 2022, and ahead of the 2023 elections, Legit.ng set out to help Nigerian readers, particularly younger audiences, improve their media literacy and be better equipped to identify and dismiss fake news.
Speaking to the symbolism of the award and what it represents for the media itself, PR Manager, Legit.ng, Catherine Tomosori said, “We are truly grateful for such acknowledgement. The Legit.ng media literacy project makes us more optimistic about the future of media literacy in Nigeria, and recognitions like this only fuel our desire to do more.”
The awards, presented annually, recognise publishers who have delivered unique and original digital media projects in the last 12 months.
