KATHMANDU: The Association of Community Radio Broadcasters Nepal (ACORAB Nepal) has launched a nationwide initiative aimed at strengthening the fact-checking capacity of community radio journalists across the country.

The campaign aims at providing mentorship to journalists and technicians from 21 community radio stations across all seven provinces. The initiative is designed to help them identify misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and election-related rumors, while enabling them to produce verified, fact-based electoral content that supports informed voting and active civic participation beyond elections.

Under the program, participating journalists will receive hands-on mentorship in detecting misinformation and disinformation in electoral contexts, along with training in fact-checking tools and techniques, ethical journalism practices, election reporting, and digital verification methods.

Speaking at the formal launch, Siromani Dhungana, Director of ACORAB Nepal, said community media are uniquely positioned to counter misinformation. “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 rumors so communities are not misinformed,” he said. He added that the campaign’s priority is to strengthen community radio journalists as local fact-checkers and promote meaningful public participation in democratic processes.

ACORAB Nepal noted that elections often bring a surge of information, much of which spreads rapidly across digital and social media platforms regardless of its accuracy. In a sensitive pre-election environment, unreliable information can intensify tensions in communities already facing conflicts. The organization emphasized that community radios have a crucial role in delivering credible information and raising awareness about the risks associated with unverified content.

Dhungana acknowledged that many community radio stations face challenges due to limited human resources and technical capacity to integrate effective fact-checking into their reporting processes. He said the campaign therefore focuses first on strengthening journalists’ skills before supporting them to produce electoral content that contributes to a free, fair, and transparent election on March 5.

Beyond the election period, ACORAB Nepal plans to introduce dedicated programs to mobilize community radios as local fact-checkers and enhance their institutional capacity to safeguard information integrity and counter misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech at the community level.

According to ACORAB Nepal, participating radio stations have already begun producing and disseminating fact-check-based content in Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tamang, and Tharu languages, as well as in local dialects of Karnali Province.

In recent years, ACORAB Nepal has adopted a radio-digital convergence model to strengthen its nationwide network of more than 350 community radio stations, enabling them to effectively use multimedia tools to deliver essential public information.