Reconstructing News Verification as Epistemic Labour: Journalism Training, Knowledge Cultures, and Responsibility Failures in Kenyan Newsrooms

Abstract

This paper theorizes news verification in Kenyan print journalism as a form of epistemic labour central to the construction of public truth. Drawing on Social Responsibility Theory and interpretive interviews with journalists supplemented by textual analysis of print media outputs, the study uncovers how weak pedagogical foundations, elite-driven news routines, routinized shortcuts, and thin verification cultures undermine accuracy in Kenya’s media ecosystem. The findings reveal that while journalists discursively endorse verification ideals, their ability to enact them is constrained by limited disciplinary literacy, organizational incentives that privilege access over scrutiny, and a misapplication of objectivity that normalizes transcription rather than interpretation. Unlike prevailing research that frames misinformation as a problem of fake content, this paper reframes inaccuracy as the outcome of knowledge-production failures embedded within journalism education, newsroom socialization, and professional identity. It advances a reconceptualization of news verification competence as an embodied disposition cultivated through training, relational capital, interpretive judgement, and exposure to tacit newsroom learning. In doing so, the study contributes a model of news verification as a socio-cognitive practice whose development is essential for the media’s normative responsibility and democratic function in contexts where digital and traditional media intersect.