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Why media platforms police the boundaries of impartiality: A comparative analysis of television news and fact-checking in the UK

Marina Morani Orcid Logo, Ceri Hughes Orcid Logo, Stephen Cushion Orcid Logo, Maria Kyriakidou Orcid Logo

Journalism

Swansea University Author: Ceri Hughes Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/14648849241273599

Abstract

This article explores whether different media platforms across impartial news media supplied the same level of scrutiny in how they fact-checked political claims. While prior research has largely focused on independent fact-checking organisations, the fact-checking practices of legacy media through...

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Published in: Journalism
ISSN: 1464-8849 1741-3001
Published: SAGE Publications 2024
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67632
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Abstract: This article explores whether different media platforms across impartial news media supplied the same level of scrutiny in how they fact-checked political claims. While prior research has largely focused on independent fact-checking organisations, the fact-checking practices of legacy media through a cross-platform perspective have comparatively received limited attention. The study develops new lines of inquiry into the fact-checking practices of legacy media, presenting one of the largest and most forensic cross-platform studies of fact-checking to date. It draws on a systematic content analysis of 355 items from fact-checking sites, including 689 claims and 1850 instances where journalists or sources interacted with them in 2021, and assesses how they were covered by a further 280 television news items. Our findings demonstrate that the selection and degree to which journalists and sources scrutinised political claims varied across media platforms, with television news less inclined to report and analyse policy claims than dedicated fact-checking websites. Overall, we argue that the editorial boundaries of fact-checking are policed by journalists’ interpretations of impartiality, which differ across platforms (in television news or dedicated fact-checking websites) due to a range of editorial factors such as production constraints and news values.
Keywords: Misinformation, fact-checking, impartiality, television news, public service broadcasting, content analysis
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council, AH/S012508/1

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