The study “Fact-checking in China: normative and strategic transparency of Chinese journalists in fact-checking reports” by Haiyue Zhang from University of Westminster investigated how fact-checking journalism in China presented the principle of transparency.
Fact-checking in journalism has originated from the West, but it has also flourished in non-Western countries. In China, fact-checking is for the purpose of consolidating the truth and exposing facts, but some critical studies suggest that it has been used as a political weapon and generalized criticism of fact-checking as possibly having a political bias has emerged (Shin & Thorson 2017).
Transparency is considered important in fact-checking for the purpose of building trust. It appears in three of the five principles, or codes, outlined by The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and 122 organizations have signed up to these codes.
The research questions in this study were the following two: Q1: How do Chinese journalists use fact-checking to stage transparency?
Q2: What are the reasons for Chinese journalists to adopt this form of transparency in fact-checking? The context of the study was Mingcha, a news column under the Paper’s News and Current Affairs Center (澎湃新闻时事新闻中心).
The Paper was launched in 2014 as a mobile news application that produces its own original content, and it has since emerged as a significant player in the Chinese media landscape. Mingcha is its fact-checking team launched in 2021, currently with four members who fact-check international news.
The empirical data comes from semi-structured interviews of five journalists involved in Mingcha’s fact-checking reports. The interviews were conducted after the Covid-19 lockdown in person, which, according to the author, allowed for a broader range of topics than just the pandemic.
According to the interviews, transparency was mainly related to disclosure and participation, while decision-making on the selection of topics was opaque and closed.
Fact-checking in Mingcha made extensive use of technological tools to help with the process, and was open and transparent in disclosing which tools were used. Mingcha also collaborated with academics who were allowed access to the fact-checking newsroom and could provide additional information, which was also presented transparently to the audience.
However, the decision-making process was secretive, with a strict hierarchy, where the fact-checkers themselves were in the bottom, with editors-in-chief being higher and Shanghai government the highest.
The results show that both normative and strategic transparency coexist, driven by complex factors in Mingcha, contrary to the previous studies, which present these as a dichotomy.
The article “Fact-checking in China: normative and strategic transparency of Chinese journalists in fact-checking reports” by Haiyue Zhang is in Asian Journal of Communication (open access).
Picture: The photo was taken at the Monument to the People’s Heroes, Shanghai bund. By Edward He.
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