‘Fake news is global phenomenon in digital media’

Speakers term media boom without sense of responsibility toxic for country

LAHORE: In the absence of public broadcasters, the media is seeking matters of interest for the public than looking for matters of public interest.

This was stated by veteran journalist Aroosa Shaukat, while speaking at a session titled ‘public interest news in the age of fake news’ at the two-day Afkar-e-Taza festival held at Alhamra Hall on Saturday.

The session was moderated by Rosie Thomson from Westminster. The speakers included Sana Gulzar, a journalist formerly associated with BBC Urdu and Fahd Hussain, resident editor of Islamabad.

The panellists discussed the need for verification of news in the wake of fake news, the future of journalism and the nature of interventions to mature it for creating public interest news.

Aroosa continued that they (we) had the government and private broadcaster that portrayed their respective interests and agendas. This is what she had observed during her career while working for daily print newspapers to TV and print magazine. She said that amidst all these private and government broadcasters, public broadcasters were missing and hence the news of public interests was leftover or ignored.

She further said 20 minutes prime bulletin at 9 pm had a story of a child falling on his head in it. This was negligible when it comes to the issue of public interest news.

Sana Gulzar said that working for an organisation like BBC in Pakistan absolved you from pressure.

Hussain maintained that fake news has turned out to be an international phenomenon in the wake of digital media. “It was toxic for Pakistan that is facing explosion of media without sense of reciprocal responsibility.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2020.