We are in a troubling time when information has taken a nose dive into the hands of quacks, miscreants, clout chasers and those under the grip of herd mentality. At such time, misinformation and alternative facts have taken over our public discourse. No one is bothered any longer with news authenticity or verifiability. What everyone have come to accept and practice is laxity in matters of fact check. It is business as usual.
Public discourse appears to be deteriorating at an alarming rate. In an era of politics and social media including fake news and disinformation campaigns, it can be difficult to separate the truth from fiction. Going through several news reports especially on social media, I discovered how one small falsehood can spread to the highest levels and degenerate into a crisis.
The goal of science is to research, understand, and explain the world and the way it works as far as the existing scientific methods will allow. Science seeks truths and knowledge about nature, social conditions, humanity, and technology.
The self-declared goal of science is not from that of journalism. According to the principles stated in the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the primary obligation of journalism is to the truth, but not in an absolute sense. This journalistic truth is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information.
The world is constantly evolving, and new information may come forth, and thus journalistic truth, like scientific truth, is tentative. Journalism has to be as transparent as possible when it comes to sources and methods making it possible for readers to make up their own minds about their views and the correctness of the information put to them.
The snag is: we have all become journalists. And trained journalists have come to rely on whatever they can lay hands on to publish without cross examination. This is why you see trending videos of past event surface as new incident or ongoing incidents. Even established media houses are not innocent. They are caught in this web of new form of idiocy and none professionalism; no thanks to the emergence of citizen journalism enhanced by social media. Social media is forcing mainstream media into a rat race where the competition is to break the news as it hot without recourse to fact checking. Not that mobile applications to are not at our disposal for fact checking. The truth is: we have all become slaves to and of alternative facts.
Little wonder, even the protest along Ugwuogo- Nike, - Opi- Nsukka road against the incessant kidnapping along that route, has been packaged and filed by mainstream and online media as robbery and kidnapping incident. This falsehood has been trending across all media and some radio station have rebroadcast it.
This period calls for studied patience before running to town with any information we read on social media as well as mainstream media.
