Society between Fake News and WhatsApp knowledge

Donald Trump’s inauguration brought with it the term most used by this president and his office yet. The term ‘Fake News’ has been used by Trump and his team to oppose, debunk or slam any question they do not wish to answer. For the sake of clarification, this term means the spreading of false information that is manipulated to look like credible journalism mostly made possible and aided by social media. We have witnessed the leader of the Free World accuse prominent news agencies of falsifying information yet while viewers gawked at Trump’s administration the truth remains that most people around the world cannot distinguish between what is real news and what is fake. 

Recent studies have shown that people tend to deem a piece of news false if its content stands in opposition to their ideological views and beliefs. Today the line between what is real and what is fake in the world of news has been well and truly blurred. The rapidity with which great quantities of information are dumped on people has created a silent infectious disease of mass confusion. This bombardment has left consumers of information exhausted, no longer having the energy to sift through the murk to discover the truth in a world of falsity and this is where the ailment of our society lies. People worldwide are receiving millions of fragmented stories, headlines and manipulated images on an hourly basis ranging from politics to health and even religion. 

Message applications such as WhatsApp allow for the circulation of such information to the masses relying on a snowball effect starting from a single person’s contact list. The forwarding hysteria knows no time constraints for one could receive said message at any time of the day or night as if the fate of humanity depended on it. These ‘news/informative’ pieces whose origins are unknown and writers almost always anonymous are taken as truths thereby making their way into day to day conversations and even used as advice for self-medication remedies. The result is a culture that is guided by questionable information offering a shallow and debatable knowledge of the world.  

As a direct consequence of this ‘surface-scratching’ culture we are witnessing the professional journalistic, scientific and educational institutions suffer for if readers no longer care about fact-checking, credibility or references where does that leave the entities that dedicate their entire resources towards their procurement? 

It is indeed a sorrowful state that even in highly educated societies this affliction seems to be taking hold, a state that demands the valuing and aiding of credible sources. People must refuse to be a cog in the ‘Fake News’ churning machine by putting a halt to their instinctive forwarding habits for it is one thing to learn something false and another thing entirely to aid in teaching it as truth. 

If a topic intrigues you, learn more about it, if a news piece moves you then find out the details and when approaching a conversation please do not make WhatsApp knowledge your only point of reference. 

A society is but a sum of its parts and if its most crucial one, its knowledge, is although not lacking but has become tainted then a society’s future will be too. The stream of information that cuts through a society is ever-flowing; at times even flooding the world, much of it needs to be filtered because just like the rest of our planet we have managed to dump our waste in that too.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 26 Feb, 2017  http://bit.ly/2mqGcX7

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/2mj0ogS

 

Free media: an oxymoron

For decades the Arab world limped through life maimed by the brutality of regimes driven only by greed. The previous generation lost hope in a better future, and the new one had none, but overnight and without any substantial signs a storm took over the region, uprooting the most ancient of dictators. Hurricane Arab Uprising has hit and as we watched it swoop through in utter shock and disbelief we knew our world was never going to be the same again.

The aftermath of storm Arab Uprising has left many dead and made brave those who remained, but like in the passing of any storm the most obvious remnants are in the form of rubble. Yet even amidst all the chaos and in spite of the confusion we could see new lines being drawn and new words etched to form our new reality.

The political world was altered to an almost unrecognisable entity. Every branch of governance is currently experiencing a transformation and if we believe that the press is the fourth branch of governance then it is safe to say that the Arab media landscape is being reshaped as well.

Strangled by the heavy hands of bureaucracy and political agendas Arab media was just like the people, gasping for air. The revolutions revived what was once forgotten, that the media in itself is a freedom fighter and the teller of truth. History has seen the Arab media awaken and then slip back into its coma many times; such is the impact of great events on journalism. All media channels experience slow news days but in the Arab world the days dragged into years.

Today the Arab media is reawakening once again, rising from slumber it is taking its first steps towards more courageous coverage, treading on areas only a few years ago would have meant the end of a media establishment.

Many who have been in the fraternity prior to the revolutions can vouch for this newly found freedom however mild it may be. Having said that, one must not take the word freedom in vain. Freedom of the press can never be the licence to say anything one desires. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to slander and attack and must never be used to fight other people’s wars. It does not mean manipulating a story into speaking your views. One might think it common sense but in the world of journalism a lot of what makes sense is lost to the lure of favouritism, greed and fame. Sadly, in this truth-telling business truth is hard to find.

It is unfair to undermine Arab media and compare it to the West because the climates both operate in are drastically different. The profession is the same but not the rules of the game. When we say the media in the West is free what freedom do we speak of? You might be quick to reply that governments do not overshadow media in the West, yet that is not technically correct. Corporations govern the Western media, corporations owned by powerful almost governing figures. Therefore substitute one governance for another and you shall see that while the hands might differ the grip is one and the same.

The media world taught in classrooms is an idealistic representation of a world very far from the reality of the profession. Manoeuvring in the media, whichever part of the world it may be in, is akin to being a diplomat, adapting, evolving and finding a way out of the maze of social and political interactions that come with the job. It is not just a question of black or white and right or wrong. It is a grey political world, this world we call the media.

Freedom in the press means freedom from bias, it means telling both sides of the story but it also means responsibility. Just like the government, the press is responsible for the community and its people. Media channels that are concerned about the welfare of their people must adhere to the social and cultural sensitivities. Media being global is not an excuse to be insensitive to the local. The press is not there to offend, it exists to inform and educate. The media should report the chaos not create it.

Say what you wish about media in the Arab world, but say it knowing that no media channel in the world is absolutely free.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 10th June, 2012.

Arabic version of this article published in Al Khaleej newspaper on 10th June, 2012: http://bit.ly/KX3RYc