Oslo, Norway:
With truth famously recognized as the “first casualty of war,” a Norwegian parliamentarian announced Thursday that she is nominating “fact-checkers” for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Announcing the nomination on Twitter, Trine Skei Grande, a former leader of Norway’s Liberal Party, noted that “we live in a time when fighting lies is so important that @JoeBiden mentioned it in his speech yesterday”.
“This year, I have nominated fact checkers for the Nobel Peace Prize. They need our support,” Skei Grande added.
Specifically, she proposed the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) for the well-known peace prize.
The IFCN is a network of numerous dozen media and organisations — which includes AFP — active in reality-checking worldwide.
In his inaugural speech on Wednesday, the new US president Joe Biden spoke of an “attack on democracy and on truth,” and stated citizens and “leaders” have a duty to “defend the truth and to defeat the lies.”
Biden also spoke of a “painful lesson” from current weeks and months saying “there are truths and there are lies,” a rejection of his predecessor Donald Trump, who repeatedly disputed the final results of the presidential election and popularised the expression “fake news” when speaking of media outlets.
According to its web site, the IFCN at the moment brings with each other 79 certified organisations that have signed on to its code of principles.
In addition to AFP’s reality-checking service, the Washington Post Fact Checker and Reuters are also signatories, as properly as South African web site Africa Check and reality-checking organisations in Asia and South America.
Tens of thousands of people today, amongst them are parliamentarians and ministers from all nations, former laureates and specific university professors, are eligible to submit a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Institute in Oslo accepts all valid nominations sent in just before the January 31 deadline.
The 2021 Peace Prize winner will be announced in early October. Last year, the prestigious award went to the World Food Programme (WFP).
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