Data Sourcing and the Exposition of Fake Financial News at Kenya’s Standard Newspaper

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated the sway that data sourcing has on the exposition of fake financial news at Standard Newspaper, Kenya's oldest print media.

Methods: The research, which was of concurrent mixed design, was conducted between October 2022 and December 2022. It involved financial news editors, reporters and graphic designers drawn from The Standard, The Saturday Standard and The Sunday Standard. Participants were enlisted through criterion-i purposeful sampling in the research whose structured and semi-structured data were gathered concurrently through face-to-face, telephone and electronic mail. Responses were organised systematically informed by the objective of the research. Thereafter, the quantitative and qualitative data were analysed separately before the pair of data were compared and integrated, and later interpreted.

Findings: The study established that data sourcing has a huge sway in the generation of fake financial news at the Standard Newspaper.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: This study showed that how the media arranges, structures and packages and delivers content has a sway on the public, hence validating the Framing Theory. The outcome will guide media actors to pay for more focus on content sourcing for it informs the final output of the media.