Workshop for digital media journalists held in Hyderabad

The objective of the workshop was to enable the digital media journalists to improve credibility of news they put up

Hyderabad: A workshop on the challenges in the new age of digital journalism was conducted for digital media journalists by the Cyberabad Police jointly with EndNow Foundation and Telangana State Police Centre of Excellence for Cyber Safety (TSPCC) here on Saturday.

The objective of the workshop was to enable the digital media journalists to improve credibility of news they put up, equip them with tools to do fact checking to ensure validity of information before they publish it and understanding how to identify and differentiate between misinformation, malinformation and disinformation.

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In his address, Cyberabad Police Commissioner M Stephen Raveendra said, “in today’s age of information disorder, as representatives of law enforcement and digital media, we share an enormous responsibility to address this problem head-on, and it is our duty to ensure that the integrity of the truth prevails.”

Telangana Today Editor K Sreenivas Reddy spoke about Citizen Journalism and explained its boons and banes and the responsibilities that come with it. He explained how information dissemination was linear earlier, whereas the presence of multiple sources now confuses people.

Former journalist with The Hindu, Soma Shekhar emphasized on the difference between perception creation and news, which journalists have to be careful of. SCSC secretary Krishna Yedula explained how presence of unverified information in the digital domain also leads to cybercrime issues.

Dr. Sonia Sharma, a practicing psychiatrist, explained the mental wellbeing aspect that inflicts journalists because of the experiences they get exposed to during journalism and how important it is to talk about it and treat it with professional help.

The workshop had a fact checking session by Factly founder Rakesh Dubbudu in which he gave live examples of how fake news/ information could be created, published as news and lead to communal riots and public order situations.

EndNow Foundation founder Anil Rachamalla spoke about the concept of digital intelligence and how it can be leveraged by journalists to gather and analyze information for effective reporting.

Supreme Court advocate Sai Teja Kaveti expounded the Articles of the Constitution that gives the Right of Freedom of Expression and added the caveat of reasonable restrictions.

TOI Special Editor Sushil Rao spoke about the ethics of journalism and explained how it was the duty of journalists not to create rumours or disseminate them, but to bust rumours and myths by going to the root of the matter.

Siasat Editor Zahiruddin Ali Khan said sanitising social media platforms with respect to fake news is a fight that all journalists must be a part of.