Fake News and The Broadcast Media in Nigeria : Views from Delta State Residents on Nigeria Broadcasting Commission’s (Nbc) Regulatory Measures

Fake news is a major negative trend that has eaten deep into the polity of both the developed and the developing nations of the world, and this trend needs to be tackled properly in other to eliminate it from existence. In actual fact, the tagged word ‘fake news’ was not known before the 2016 United States Presidential elections face -off between the  Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton and that of the Republican, Donald Trump, who was having incessant attacks on journalists whom he claimed were disseminating fake/ false news. Fake news have been fuelled with the broadcast media especially the radio and television and most particularly the social media. Due to the ills that fake news have caused Nigeria, this paper looks at the principal body (NBC) that guides broadcasting content viv- a vis the perceived views of Delta state residents on NBC’s regulatory measures and their suggested views on a way forward in checkmating fake news. The methodology made use of survey research design with the questionnaire as the instrument of gathering data. The data gathered were analysed quantitatively with simple percentages and tables. In conclusion, the paper gathered that, Delta state residents view NBC’s regulatory measures as not stringent and harsh enough to control the spate of fake news in the State and Nigeria as a whole. As a result, the researchers’ recommends that, the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) should have measures spelt out on their code that will be used to ‘punish’ any peddler of fake news in Delta State as this will act as a deterrent against fake news peddlers in Delta State in the near future