Fake News and the Business of COVID – 19: Mis-Information, Dis-Information and Mal-Information in On-line News Sources in Nigeria

Abstract

The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has been described as the defining global health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge humanity has faced since World War Two. Since its emergence in Asia late last year, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Cases are rising daily in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Yet understanding this human pandemic has continued to be from a diffused point. However, since the outbreak of COVID 19/Corona Virus in December 2019, various explanations have been presented for its appearance, insurgence and continuity. The virus outbreak which was initially restricted in outbreak to Wuhan in China has become pandemic, as it has spread to almost all the countries of the world. Currently it has affected a total of 212 countries and territories in the world. There have been seemingly the same explanations for the outbreak across the world. It is believed to be the rich man's affliction by the poor and those who do not have access to overseas travel. Hence this paper discussed Fake News and the Business ofCovid-19: Mis-information, Dis-information and Mal-information in on-line News Sources in Nigeria. Premised on two objectives, the authors upon further categorization, used the 3 classifications of fake news, which were adopted as units of analysis and content categories for in depth qualitative content analysis. The news articles selected for analysis were selected from the opera news application for mobile (android) phones. With the absence of stable electricity and the increasing use of smartphones by majority of Nigerians, it is only fitting that the quickest way of accessing information is through mobile smartphones. The opera news application is currently one of the top ten applications downloaded by Nigerians on their mobile phones. Upon its arrival into the Nigerian mobile app market in January 2018, it became the most downloaded mobile application by February 2018. A total of ten news reports were selected in line with the content categories as determined in this paper. In the category of Mis-information, two news stories were selected for analyses, for dis- information, four news stories were considered while in the category of mal-information, four news stories were selected. The paper concluded and recommended that it is, however, especially at this time marking the world press freedom day, that journalists, whatever their description, should practice responsible journalism to avoid the "Sword of the Damocles.”