AJ + Al Jazeera Plus in Spain won the Digital Journalism Award (OGA) in the United States in the category of excellence in collaboration and partnerships for the Verivecado 2018 project.

The project is a participatory initiative to validate news and combat disinformation during Mexico's electoral process.

The award was awarded to the Mexico City-based channel on the sidelines of the United States Digital News Association's conference on September 15, 2018 in Austin, Texas.

Al Jazeera Plus in Spanish launched the Verificado 2018 initiative and its leaders with other media partners to verify the news during Mexico's largest election in its history, in which 56 million people voted.

Over the course of 119 days, Verivikado verified videos, photos, essays and messages that were circulating on social media about the electoral process, as well as the accuracy of politicians' statements with transparency.

The findings were posted on its Web site and its accounts on the Web sites and through its network of 90 partners across Mexico.

Al Jazeera Plus in Spain won the Digital Journalism Award (OGA)

Second prize
The channel's director, Dima Al Khatib, expressed her enthusiasm for the channel receiving the second prize from the American Digital Journalism Awards, the first being awarded to Island Plus in English in 2016 for excellence in Internet journalism.

"Our Spanish-speaking channel with media from all over the world wants to learn from our experience and replicate the concept of Verivecado 2018 in the midst of a wave of false news."

Verifikado 2018, which means "verified material" in Spanish, is the first initiative of its kind with a full-time digital team and a telephone line to implement Wesab to combat disinformation.

The initiative interacted with the public through a special tagging on communication sites (# I would like to investigate) to receive news verification requests and interact with the public through direct messages and instant private conversations.

The initiative has reported more than a million times on Twitter and has received more than two million interactions on both Twitter and Facebook.

After the initiative, which was launched in particular for the election period, Al-Jazeera Plus in Spanish launched a new project called "AJ + VERIFICA".

The channel continues to check content and scrutinize politicians' statements in response to popular claims in Mexico and to restore real journalistic practice to digital platforms in the era of false news.