AN ASSESSMENT OF FACT-CHECKING TOOLS ADOPTION BY SELECT SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

Journalism as a public service institution, requires total commitment to true, fair, trustworthy and objective reportage, to achieve this, reporters and editors require patience, hard work and tenacity. Fact-checking therefore becomes a deliberate editorial task aimed at ensuring correctness of facts in news reports. The overall intention is to ensure that Journalism retains its stamp of quality. In 2024, UNESCO reported that a majority of social media influencers around the world did not verify information before sharing with their audiences. This is a problem that necessitated the conduct of this study, which sought to identify the fact-checking tools being adopted by Rivers State-based social media influencers and how the adoption of such tools has affected the quality of their reports. Being a study that sought to determine the use of fact-checking tools in the news process, the Social Responsibility Theory was most suitable as its theoretical thrust. Relevant literature material bothering on fact-checking, ethics, quality content and social media were leveraged to provide secondary data for the study. The study adopted the qualitative survey design. Purposive sampling was used to determine the sample size while Focus Group Discussion was used to generate reactions from participants who were mainly Chief Executive Officers of ten Rivers State-based social media platforms. Data analysis was done using the Glaser and Strauss Constant Comparative Technique, which facilitated formal identification of themes and construction of meanings out of the responses suggested by the data. The study showed that the social media influencers that participated in the study did not believe in fact-checking to boost trust and confidence, a few that carried out fact-checking on their reports, did not have knowledge of digital verification tools, and only used physical methods such as community note and official position. The study recommended that fact-checking should be a compulsory part of the training for Journalists and other public information providers, and that social media influencers should be more deliberate about the use of fact-checking tools in their content creation.