A Senior lecturer on the Department of Communication Studies on the University of Ghana (UG), Dr. Gilbert Tietaah is urging media practitioners to be cautious of sharing mis-disinformation which has the tendency of fomenting pointless tension in the nation throughout political seasons.
Mis-disinformation is a mixture of two phrases, misinformation, and disinformation which implies info that’s false and deceptive and should both be supposed to hurt or not to hurt.
Dr. Tietaah added that such an act of sharing false info leads to deception of the general public which is probably going to have an effect on voting preferences and thereby, affect negatively the nation’s growth.
Speaking to Citi News on the sidelines of a two-day coaching workshop for journalists on reality-checking and countering mis-disinformation organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Dr. Tietaah emphasised the necessity for media practitioners to be extra scrupulous when spreading info.
“Passing on information without the intent or without the knowledge that is wrong calls on us to be more diligent and scrupulous in the information we share. We make mistakes but when we make mistakes, there has to be a writing, a disclosure or correction process”, he famous.
The Communication lecturer additionally pressured that mis-disinformation might be decreased when media practitioners expose themselves to coaching workshops to renew what they already know.
Meanwhile, a reality-checker and Programmes Officer with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Krobea Asante urged media practitioners to keep away from biases when cross-checking info that impacts its final result.
“Sometimes you are likely to analyse information along your personal beliefs or your own beliefs, so you believe in something to the point where information comes to you. But you are biased towards that belief, and you use that belief system to approach an understanding or analysis of certain information when you are trying to fact-check it. Therefore, you may not get the best out of what you want to do”, the actual fact-checker defined.
The coaching workshop introduced collectively twenty-5 (25) journalists drawn from Accra and different areas throughout the nation.
Source: citinewsroom.com
