After more than twenty years as a journalist the AFP new agency in Europe, Africa and Asia, I have been a leader since 2012 of efforts worldwide to understand mis- and disinformation, and counter their effects. In 2012, I founded Africa Check, the continent's first independent fact-checking organisation and built it into a team of more than 30 staff, four offices - in South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria and Kenya - and an annual budget of more than $1.84 million. At the same time, I launched a network, Africa Facts, to support and mentor fact-checking organisations based in other countries from DR Congo to Zimbabwe. Since 2015 I have been a member of the advisory board of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), based at the Poynter Institute in Florida, with a leading role in developing the IFCN Code of Principles, used by platforms including Facebook and Google to assist in tackling disinformation online. I have done this as a fellow of the Shuttleworth Foundation, finding open solutions to some of the world's most challenging problems. Joining the AFP news agency in 1990, I covered UK and European news from London and Paris, led coverage of the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia from early 1995 to late 1996, ran the AFP bureau in Lagos from 1998-2002 covering the end of military rule in Africa's most populous nation, and from 2003-2006 led AFP's Asia coverage as chief editor for the Asia-Pacific. From 2006-2011 I was head of the agency's English-language online news service. In 2003, I worked for two months as a consultant to the British development ministry DFID on the Nigerian media sector and in 2010 I published my first book - "My Nigeria - Five Decades of Independence" - called “a triumph” by Chinua Achebe. I have also frequently reported or provided commentary for media from the BBC and the Economist, to the Guardian and CNN.Since 2012 my focus has been on developing systems for identifying and reducing misinformation and disinformation in Africa and more widely around the world, and tackling the harm they cause. Today, while conducting research into misinformation effects, I am Co-Director of a course on media freedom and trust run at the University of Westminster for the Chevening Foundation and UK Foreign Office.