Editorial: Need for responsible journalism

One of the most memorable early social media messages was the triumphant “Everyone’s a journalist now!” On face of it, the statement seemed hard to deny. Dramatic events, such as the astonishing safe landing of a crippled US jet on the Hudson River, have been captured on smartphones and distributed worldwide in just minutes via social media. Conventional broadcasters could never be that quick.
There is however, rather more to journalism than Tweeting a picture or a piece of apparently accurate news. There are important values that need to be applied, not the least of which is the question: “Is this really true?” It is not just that there are libel laws that need to be considered. There is also a newspaper or broadcaster’s reputation that has to be taken into account. A media outlet that becomes known for getting it wrong will lose its audience and with them its advertisers and thus its ability to stay in business.
US newspapers still use interns as “fact-checkers.” A golden journalistic rule remains — “If in doubt, leave it out.”
Unfortunately no such professional constraints are recognized by social media “journalists.” Often obsessed by the number of on-line “followers” they can acquire, they are concerned with grabbing attention than accuracy. Thus social media are awash with nonsense, ranging from outright lies and disinformation to half-understood facts inadequately presented. And given the limitation on the length of messages, even correct information can be distorted by a lack of context.
Good journalism will seek to explain a piece of news with historic background. If comment is required from those who understand an event, then a reporter will try and talk to people from both sides. Balance and fairness are crucial in professional media work. These qualities are entirely missing from social media postings. Worryingly, there is a trend for some real journalistic media to make uncritical use of “news” and ill-informed views from the likes of Twitter. The danger here is of a race to the bottom in which professionals ignore another of the profession’s golden rules — “Fact is sacred. Opinion is free.”
It was clear that concerns at these troubling developments were to the fore at this week’s 11th Asia Media Summit 2014 in Jeddah. Organized by the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) and hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Information and the General Commission for Audiovisual Media, the theme was “Media and Diversity: Enriching the Broadcasting Experience.”
The summit heard that broadcasters in today’s complex media environment faced two critical tasks. The first was to make sense of the diversity of technology, content, skills and standards that can enrich their audience experience and sustain the organization. The second was to make sense of the vast array of ideas, opinions, perspectives and cultural background that can contribute to a critical understanding of political, economic, social and human development.
The extent of the challenge facing responsible media was underlined in the keynote address from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Saying that he hoped the summit would strengthen media cooperation between Asian countries, the king added that the media should not influence public opinion negatively. He reminded media personalities of their responsibility in disseminating accurate information and appealed to them to propagate sound ideas that encourage reconciliation and harmony.
“The message of Islam,” he said, “which originated from this country, insists that good words should be the basis for disseminating noble values to improve human behavior in order to build a better civilization.”
One perennial issue that came up in the summit was the degree to which man-made tragedies dominated the headlines. The old belief that good news does not sell newspapers has been borne out by the commercial failure of every publication that has ever set out to focus purely on good news stories.
It is the nature of Western media coverage that is often of concern. “Fire-fighter” reporters jetted into conflicts of which they do not understand the background, all too often resort to simplistic ‘good guy-bad buy’ coverage which misinforms their audiences. However, they are rarely on the story long enough to encounter the blowback from their ignorance. Few international news stories command attention of the world’s media for a few more days. Tightened budgets also mean highly-paid reporting teams cannot stay around for very long.
However for all their lazy approach to complex news stories, at least these journalists for the most part acknowledge, even if they do not always apply, professional standards. By contrast, the “citizen journalists” of social media have created a dense and dangerous jungle of misinformation and falsehoods, in the fond but ludicrous belief that it is news.