The sub-se-pehley problem
Every individual must be responsible at his\her end
about not broadcasting or sharing any such news
which may or may not create panic and chaos among the people
When it comes to spreading any news just because of the tagline, “Our channel\newspaper has got this breaking news to you before any other” Pakistani media has been seen scattering even the tittle-tattles of the world.
Yes, you read it right!
The never-ending race has begun between the different news channels in Pakistan which force them to broadcast every single news, even before having it confirmed from an authenticable source. This leads to a really puzzling situation and sometimes may also create some heavy impacts on the life of an individual and\or their families.
Taking a note on this situation Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) added an online complaint section to its site in order to let the public access it directly to lodge any complaints regarding media content. According to the analysis in the very first week of launching this section it was reported that people actually are getting irritated by this attitude of our media and more than 60 complaints were registered regarding the false news being spread over media frequently without having it confirmed from any source that would be considered authentic.
Earlier this year, on 23 February, sudden panic was noticed among the TV channels airing the news about a bomb blast heard in Gulberg, Lahore which was later found to be wrong.
I appreciate the quick action taken by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority regarding this false news. PEMRA issued “show cause notices” to all those 29 TV channels for airing the news of bomb blast in Lahore without any verification because it created panic in the public and brought fear among them.All these TV channels claimed that the blast was reported to occur outside a foreign food chain restaurant. They reported the ‘breaking news’ between 1:00pm-2:00pmwhich leaded to panic and fear among the public, the PEMRA statement said that these ‘erring channels’ were asked to explain why should they not be fined up to Rs1 million each or their licenses not be suspended/cancelled for airing such news.
The most saddening part was that, the TV channels about which we are talking were not only some small channels but were also some leading news channels of Pakistan media including Geo News, ARY News, Khyber News, 92 News, Dunya News, Samaa TV, Metro 1, Awaz, Jaag, AbbTakk News, Roze News, DawnNews, Mehran News, Kohinoor, 7 News, Lahore News, Neo News, Capital News, Sach News, Sindh TV, Express News, Channel 5, Din, Waqt, KTN, NewsOne, Channel 24, BOL News, and K-21 News.
However, after the investigation police officials denied the news of bomb blast. Rana Sanaullah (law minister of Punjab) also denied this false news. Later the bomb blast news was also declared a hoax by Pakistan Rangers. They said no apprehensive person or material was found from the site nor were there any signs of blasts. The authority asked the TV channels to explain intentions behind airing this news.
Apart from print and electronic, a new media has emerged; the social media. Although social media is playing a vital role in being more informative than our mainstream media because it provides a complete platform for every individual to highlight daily issues and has also let us get interconnected with the world, but it is rightly said that “Nothing is perfect in this world, everything has its pros and cons”. Similarly, while being so beneficial social media also plays a major role in disseminating or even sometimes “creating” fake news in the lust of being “eye-catching” among the audience.
The most common regulating rumours around social media are “celebrity controversies” and I cannot count about how many rumours had been published regarding stars and celebrities on the social media but the fact is that celebrities don’t care about scandals and rumours anymore as they know that is the part of their everyday lives.
Let’s talk about some recent incident that also happened earlier this year in January. It was reported on the social media that a famous TV star from ‘90s super hit series “Ainak wala Jin”, Jahan Ara who played “Bil Batori” in the series has been found begging on the streets due to poverty. This news was generated on the social media and was quickly spread all over the social media; everybody went “gaga” over this news without even having any particular authentic resources or proof. Would you expect our mainstream media to not follow and spread the news? Not at all! Even this news got aired on mainstream media. Some of the very well known news websites also aired this news about “Bil batori” found begging on the streets.
Although it was later investigated and found that the news being circulated was untrue as Mrs Jahan Ara was not “literally” begging on the streets but she was suffering from the after effects of a paralysis attack. It affected her legs and she was admitted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Lahore. The doctors checked her and discharged, handing out an instruction. She waited for help, but unfortunately, no one came to help her. During an interview, Nusrat Ara broke into tears and said that that nobody from the government ever contacted her for any kind of aid.
What else can we expect? The false news affects no one but the nation. The trend of spreading fake news has been around forever. As the famous Garry Kasparov said, “If you can convince people that real news is fake, it becomes much easier to convince them that your fake news is real.”
The false news clearly consists of threats further than the need for increased watchfulness. Because these unauthenticated false rumours and false news directly attacks the system of the society for information sharing. It has really become a major issue about what news to trust and what to be not? It has created doubt over the trustworthiness of media and creating the impression that the media is offering just one of several possible truths, thus making it sort of optional which facts you care to relate to. Once the people of society are forced to doubt everything they see in the news, it results in devaluation and destabilisation of the system of society.
This unethical and immature behaviour of the media challenges the entire structure of society. They simply not only polarise different groups within a nation but also affect international relations.
In May 2017 Qatar’s state news agency claimed that its Twitter account had been compromised, and hackers had published fake comments purportedly made by the emir criticising aspects of US and Arab Gulf foreign policy towards Iran. Although the news agency was quick to label the comments as false, this did not stop neighboring countries Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt severing political ties with the country.
It may be very difficult to get the misinformation corrected and may have eternal effects even after it is debunked. As a result, false information may continue to control viewpoints and attitudes even after being discredited if it is not replaced by an alternative fundamental explanation. There are so many people who get their news on Facebook but they don’t believe the news they read on Facebook. According to a new survey 3,000 adults were asked some questions regarding their views about the news they get on Facebook. The results clearly showed the lack of trust of the people on the news they hear or read on Facebook. Half of the people who took the survey said they trust the news they read on Facebook “only a little” or “not at all.” However, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, claimed that they are working towards this issue to gain the trust of their users. Facebook has also more recently started to offer users tips on how to spot fake news in their news feeds.
The tragedy of this world is that the false news or rumours are completely made up, manipulated to bear resemblance to convincing journalism and create a center of attention and, with it, advertising revenue. Examples include: “Ultraviolet rays crossing through the earth, switch off your cell phones between 10:00pm-12:00 am”, “Some celebrity getting divorced”, “Facebook getting banned for lifetime” or “Facebook will not be for free anymore”, etc.
Basically, these stories are created to get as much reach or traffic as possible on their websites. Such melodramatic news quickly gets popular to travel on social media and every single person wants to share and publish it.
The main reason behind all this is that the number of clicks on your website for checking the news brings you profit: a man running a string of fake news sites from Los Angeles told National Public Radio that he made as much as US$30,000 a month from advertising that rewards high traffic. More than 100 pro-Trump fake news websites were being run by teenagers in one townin Macedonia. So, the fake news is intentionally created and planned to mislead readers just to maximise traffic and profit.
The lust of money and fame is the worst threat to any individual or society because it leads you towards cheating and convinces you to fraud with innocent people. Similarly, spreading fake news just to earn some money or fame must be considered a crime or fraud in order to get this eliminated from the society otherwise mainstream media and social media would never get the trustworthiness of the general public and there would be the day when even the real news would be considered fake by the audience and would be neglected which may result in the biggest downfall of any nation.
The public lacks the ability to identify whether it is a fake news or not and the public does not know how to validate it or boycott those who spread it. In order to get rid of this devaluated media environment the following measures must be put into consideration:
- Media Houses need to have strong quality control at the single news item level.
- Reassessment of the conditions for offering access to the public area must be done.
- Media houses needs to evaluate them-selves and work on the root causes of fake news trend and set some goals to avoid these problems in future.
- Every single news channel/newspaper must have a review of how they can not only avoid doing mistakes but actively contribute to making things better.
Not only the media houses but we should also make some responsible steps as a society:
- Remember, you, yourself have and influencing authority within your own social network: put in the legwork above, and only post or share stories you know to be true, from sources you know to be responsible.
- Every individual must be responsible at his\her end about not broadcasting or sharing any such news which may or may not create panic and chaos among the people.
- Only trust what you see. If you have seen or confirmed it through authentic source then you are allowed to share the news otherwise a big no! Your single act of irresponsibility may mislead the people.
- In case you’re not sure if a site is valid, immediately look for any red flags in it for e.g. are there too many irrelevant ads on the site constantly asking you to click or sometimes redirecting you towards ads without even asking, look for its domain name, such as “.com.co” etc.
- If you hear or read news, Google as much as you can about that topic and don’t just let it go. Increase your searching power and try to reach the roots before spreading it over.
