Who Are the Arbiters of Truth? Mainstream Journalists’ Responses to Fake News during the 2017 Zimbabwe Coup

Abstract

This article reports on a study that was situated at the intersection of fake news and the daily news production practices of mainstream journalists during the November 2017 “soft coup” in Zimbabwe. There is a paucity of research on journalists’ responses to fake news, during military coups, despite increasing research on the influence of fake news on traditional news production practices. Conceptualised on social organisation of news work, the study deployed qualitative interviews with purposively selected political reporters from mainstream press newsrooms in Zimbabwe, to explore how they responded to fake news during the coup. The study found that faced with an avalanche of fake news, the journalists responded by re-evaluating their news sourcing routines and engaged in collective efforts to identify sources and pressure points of fake news that interfered with their work. Yet, overt reliance on unreliable websites and social media sources to produce news still persisted. Based on this and other related findings, the authors recommend that journalists should evolve their own platforms and mechanisms to verify and challenge fake news prevalent on social media and websites. They further recommend a “triangular approach” that can, in the long term, reduce the influence of fake news.