Who is Still Afraid of Fact-Checking in the Nigerian Media?
The credibility of news media in Nigeria is being challenged due to its susceptibility to a number of damaging factors. Some of these include fake news, disinformation, misinformation, hoax, rumour, news commercialisation among others. The worst has been the former so far. The power and influence of the media in a democratic world makes it almost impossible for all expressions of sorts to make an inroad to the public space without having to negotiate through the windows of the media. Since many of these falsehood and fake news make inroads into the news media, they not only constitute huge threats to the future of our society, the credibility and believability of news content is also at stake. Apart from a recent research by Ezeha Greg and Jonah Alice Aladi (UNN) which reveals that 39.9% of Nigerians strongly agree that news commercialization crumbles the credibility of news media in Nigeria, a report by the Premium Times (May 13, 2019), also quoted Vice President Yemi Osi...