Doubt the Messenger: The reputation cost of fact-checking

ARUGUETE NATALIA; CALVO, ERNESTO; VENTURA, TIAGO

Montreal

Congreso; APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition: Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation; 2022

APSA

We implement a survey experiment to measure the reputation cost of publishing proand counter-attitudinal fact checks in a polarized political environment. The survey experiment exposes respondents to a news publication that was TRUE or FALSE depending on the day of its publication. Later in the survey we treat respondents to a fact check that adjudicates the initial tweet as TRUE or FALSE. Respondents indicate a higher intent to share pro-attitudinal fact checks compared to counter-attitudinal fact checks. Concurrently, the treated group answered questions about the perceived reputation of a menu of news organizations, politicians, and the fact checker “Chequeado”. A control group answered those same reputation questions before observing the correction by Chequeado. The experiment shows that a counter-attitudinal adjudication reduces the perceived reputation of the fact checker compared to the pro-attitudinal adjudication. The counter-attitudinal adjudication also increases the perceived ideological distance between the respondent and the fact checker (contrast effect). Results carry important implications for the long term sustainability of organizations interested in reducing the spread of misinformation.