In the 21st century, people belonging to my generation are a part of a big process of news production and consumption through many mediums whether print, digital, or social media. I do not come from a journalism background, but indirectly we all are a part of journalism as we are the readers and watchers of this media, and we are the makers of the media firm’s revenue, though a very insignificant part of the percentage. But, there is hope for us and I am very positive about it.
It is a serious problem if we get fake news or news with an agenda because the news and media have the ability to drive the consensus. If we go down memory line, we will encounter the fact that the Muzaffarnagar riots were the result of fake news. So, clearly it is a critical issue grappling us in today’s India.
A Pew Research Center study explores the defining traits of the modern news consumer. One overarching conclusion is that news remains an important part of public life. More than 7 in 10 American adults follow national and local news closely, and 65% follow international news with the same regularity, and it is a similar case in India where the youth is getting news from many sources.
I keep myself updated with news through every medium, whether it is my annual subscription of the Hindi daily, Dainik Jagran and Navbharat Times, or the English daily The Hindu, or various social media platforms that I use like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. If we talk about a non-political message such as the cure of cancer, I often see those messages being circulated in large numbers, but aren’t they a form of fake news, aren’t they spreading fake knowledge? Yes, they are and it is ethically wrong for a person to forward such messages without even checking the facts behind those messages. Do we even bother to fact-check the message?
Such fake news has the ability to create a consensus among the people, they can even mobilize, and in spreading fake news, social media does play a role. In the Muzaffarnagar riots, a video was uploaded on Facebook and it was shared by some news channels without even analyzing it and without checking the accountability and credibility of the news.
A report by The Guardian said, “False news is more novel than true news, and that may be why we share the false much faster and more widely. Prominent responses to false news include surprise, fear and disgust. True news tends to be met with sadness, joy, anticipation and trust. Humans are more likely than automated processes to be responsible for the spread of fake news.”
In continuation, “A growing bundle of studies shows that this is a qualitatively and quantitatively new problem, not just a digital manifestation of the yellow press of old. Apart from effects on elections and referendums, fake news in social media can assist hate speech to turn into communal violence more quickly. And some government responses are troubling on free-speech grounds, such as Sri Lanka’s week-long ban on social media, or ‘digital curfew’,” The Guardian reported.
Fake news has resulted in changing the consensus of the public, as seen in the US elections. When there is internet access to all and a fairly significant number of people are using WhatsApp, fake news circulation is easy.
It is not just fake news, it is also the content we are being offered as a consumer. Now, if we talk about television media or digital media, it really makes a difference. The news which you see has a more enduring impression than what you read.
Moreover, in today’s time, many channels are inclined towards a particular party and they largely showcase what the party supports and what the party wants to show. Many news channels are owned by politicians or corporates supporting a political party. I cannot say that media firms have to be neutral, everyone can have a liking and a personal inclination towards a particular ideology as an individual, I might be inclined to the right wing or the left, but a news channel must be tolerant enough to listen to every ideology and to control their own inclination and try to present neutral reports to the public, they must not present a particular ideology, but a spectrum of ideologies from which we can choose. No media firm is neutral and it is practically impossible for a media firm to be ideologically neutral that is true.
Now, there is always a question on exit polls. Yes, they drive consensus and they do decide the outcomes in a certain way and quite significant it is to see these exit polls being conducted by every media channel, but is it good for a democracy? I was watching Dr. S.Y. Qureshi, the former Election commissioner in an event. He denounced the exit polls and the opinion polls which are conducted before an election. He said that a poll can spread massive misinformation among voters, and it may end up influencing the choice of many voters. The prime responsibility of the EC is to conduct free and fair elections and for that, it should be able to restrict any activity that could potentially inhibit the fairness of the election process.
One more thing we need to ask – do all the media platforms have credibility? For example, if I think Firm A is the best platform, then do I really check the credibility of the news and the source of the news? When the reporting culture ended, there was the emergence of ‘source’ (sutra) which is a big question on the credibility and accountability of the news that we are being offered.
We have to be critical of what we are being offered. If you ask me how this shift from report to debate happened over the last few years, it is when the newsroom stopped working as a newsroom and became a company. Today, journalists are asked to show what the owner of the firm tells them to show.
As a consumer, what can we do? It is a pretty difficult question but for me the easiest way out is to check the facts you are being shown, cross-check the facts stated by a politician in a rally, cross-check the facts which are being shown in the news, and do not believe in what you think is right, do not just blindly believe in anything on any channel. Here in India, if the PM says he was a chef, people will blindly believe in it and I can surely say that it would become the headline of some news channels and newspapers in the front page and they will conduct prime-time debates on it. So, as a consumer stop watching a particular media channel if you think they are spreading fake news, stop reading the newspaper that you think has an agenda, stop reading and block the account that is spreading hate posts, fake news, and report it.
I asked a famous journalist while I was researching for this article, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, how I can cross-check government data if I have a doubt in the GDP numbers projected when compared to other parameters like economic growth, agriculture, exports etc. His answer to it was that we can lodge an RTI request, and ask official authorities and we can cross-check the news on various platforms.
It is ‘us’ at the end of the day who have to decide what we want to read and listen and watch and what we want to believe. So, it is a big responsibility being a consumer of news in the 21st century with more technology in hand, more channels, but few sources of information (largely ANI for most of the channels), and the propaganda by some of the news channels.