29/04/2020
Social media has emerged as a powerful tool that has enabled people to share ideas and also post their grievances. Numerous issues and problems are raised on various social media platforms through audio/video recordings, images, posts and comments.
Now anyone can share anything, and because people tend to believe what they see, false information can spread just as, if not more easily, than the truth. However, we should not always believe everything we see on social media. According to a research paper published in Science, "Falsehoods spread like wildfire on social media, getting quicker and longer-lasting pickup than the truth."
Nowadays, any piece of information can now get attention, whether it is true or false. On many occasions, the local media faces accusations of not doing their work diligently. The problem is that everyone thinks he/she is a journalist. However, being journalists by profession, we have to dig deep to find out the truth before sharing it with the rest of the world. We are accountable for the accuracy of our work. It is most unfortunate to see people claiming to have grievances refusing to come on record to narrate their problems/ordeal. It is a big challenge for the local media to proceed further with the story without authentic information from the first person.
Journalists need evidence to back their stories. We just cannot publish everything and anything as it is against the ethics of journalism. Putting pressure to churn out half-baked stories without evidence will certainly not help our cause. However, we will continue to put our efforts to bring out evidence-backed true stories in front of our readers and the public. And despite all the criticism, we will continue to perform our duties as the fourth pillar of society.
