By J.K Nabary, GNA, GNA
Winneba (C/R), May 17, GNA- Media Practitioners and Journalists have been admonished to remember that advocating for freedom of speech and of the press comes with the responsibility of upholding high ethical standards in their reportage.
Prof Albert Agbesi Womyo, the Dean of School of Communication and Media Studies (SCMS), of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) made the call at a day’s training workshop for some selected media practitioners and journalists in the Central Region.
The workshop was on the theme: “Tacking information disorders, AI-driver fake news and Ethical Journalism Through Media and Information Literacy Skills.”
Prof Womyo said as an institution that trained media practitioners to continuously engage in this era of social media, AI among others, should also train on issues issues about upholding the truth, responsibility and creativity must be harped.
The workshop was organised by SCMS’ Communication Education Research and Professional Development in collaboration with Penplusbytes, a non-profit organisation that leverages technology, media, and innovation to promote transparency, accountability, good governance and active civic participation across Africa.
The event brought together media practitioners and journalists across the Region who interacted and shared ideas on the theme and how they could improve on their profession.
On issues of responsibility, Prof Womye said misinformation, disinformation and fake news were rife, and there must be means to trace and help deal with such issues to sanitise the information highway.
“As practitioners, we must be mindful of the messages we put out and how they affect individuals, communities and journalism practice, which I see as very dicey, as striking the balance is always very difficult, hence the need for us to work professionally and ethically,” he added.
Professor Gifty Appiah-Adjei, the Head of Department of SCMS of UEW schooled the participants on understanding information disorder and ethical journalism using media and information literacy as a tool to tackle information disorder.
She stated that the internet and technology had brought about information overload which had led to information disorder.
Prof Appiah-Adjei noted that previously, information was scarce because only few people were working as journalists, producing news for the public, but currently, both trained journalists and uneducated ones were producing and sharing information.
According to her, many of the people putting together content and sharing, did not know anything about agenda setting, external influence, economic influence and political influence, and were clueless, as AI technology, internet, now made it easier for anybody to put together content.
“It is even now dangerous because with AI, you can generate a story as well as images within one minute,” a problem, she indicated must be of concern to all, and urged media practitioners and journalists to cross check and check well whenever there was a breaking news on the internet, to avoid spreading false information.
Prof Appiah-Adjei said information overload referred to a situation where there was excessive information, and excessive amount of data which may be true, fake, disinformation, misinformation, and malignance information.
According to her, false, misleading, manipulated or harmful information being circulated in the digital environment led to the overall pollution of the information ecosystem.
Society therefore could not vouch all the information on the internet as true or not.
“Whether we like it or not AI is now part of us, it is here to stay so far as we deal with information, we need to be cautious as AI is now facilitating the creation of deep fakes making it difficult to distinguish real and fake, and posing threat to ethical journalism.
“Hence the need for us as trained media practitioners and journalists to always cross check, check and check well before using information we gather from the internet or any other source and disseminate them for public consumption,” she advised.
Mr Emmanuel Koranteng Asomani, the Programme Manager and Ms Rebecca Avusu, the Project Coordinator of Penplusbytes who also schooled the participants on countering information disorder using practical tools and data, encouraged them to always discharge their duties in accordance with ethics and rules pertaining to the profession to help protect the country’s democratic growth.
GNA
Edited by Alice Tettey /Benjamin Mensah