Disinformation in 2023 Elections: Quality Journalism as a countering tool, By
Zulaiha Danjuma
AREWA AGENDA – Facts are indispensable in Journalism. The core of the profession is set on the principles of Fairness, Truthfulness and Accuracy. Yet, times too many ‘journalists’ have relinquished their ethical codes to fight for internet relevance with bloggers and social media influencers.
Owing to the global technological advancement, the media over time has also had to evolve to meet the trend, demand and competitiveness of the digital media market. This has given room for conventional media houses to operate on the internet and social media spaces.
Aside from these transiting media houses,the online space has also given room to any and everyone with internet access to do the work of “journalists’ ‘ without possessing the proper knowledge to operate in the field.
This has caused chaos in the information ecosystem and caused the spread of information disorder.
For many journalists, the pressure to survive the harsh conditions of the countrys economy sector lead them into cutting concerns on the job. Aside from the various drivers of disinformation, poor journalism is a huge contributory force.
The media space having to battle weak media structures where a single journalist is multitasked to complete a job description of five person’s definitely leaves room for errors, deliberately or indeliberately.
The Breaking News syndrome has not helped much either. With journalists clamoring to be the first to give account of events or happenings, the principle of accuracy is slowly dying in the minds of many journalists. Not many journalists are concerned with doing a thorough check on their stories before it’s published.
Almost all the media houses in Nigeria, especially the small ones who operate locally or regionally lack the capacity of a proper verification desk. Many journalists are not properly trained to verify stories, and those who have some basic training are not retrained to be up to date with the recent global acceptable practices in the profession.
Media houses also are not willing to invest in training their staff. Many media houses are solely reliant on the capacity of journalists to source and write news stories. How the news is gotten becomes secondary, as long as the next news items will draw in traffic to their sites nothing else matters.
Funding a major problem for Nigerian Media
Due to the tight income generation from advertisement many media houses are let to source for funds from political actors especially during elections.
The media’s relationship with political influences have been debated worldwide. For an institution required to checkmate the government, frolicking with members of government or aspiring members can become problematic.
Politicians are agenda driving. Having the media closely dependent on politicians for financial support can in many ways affect their reporting. It is public knowledge that some copies of some certain print media houses represent certain agendas of some political parties. This is evident in the manner they report issues against and of interest to those political parties.
Media houses both offline and online need to generate funds to pay staff and keep the business afloat. However, since the major source of income usually comes for advertisement many media houses are left to suffer due to the scarcity in advert placements on their platforms.
It’s crucial to Preempt the Public on disinformation leading in to the 2023 election
In 2015, people knew that disinformation in election matters was a problem. It became a concern in 2019. Leading up to the 2023 elections it will be existential. David Ajikobi, Nigerian editor at Africa Check, made this assessment as the current situation of Nigerians 2023 elections.
Despite the fact that some ‘journalists’ have disregarded core journalistic principles for various reasons which include financial gain, lack of proper training, ignorance and negligence. The task still rests on the shoulders of those journalists seeking to do better during and after the 2023 elections.
This is why Preempting the general public on basic tips to help decipher disinformation is crucial.
In a 2020 article “Debunking Handbook ”, writers believe that information disorder (Fake News) is sticky and is best tackled in two ways; when it’s preempted, and when it’s debunked.
Debunking has to do with providing detailed refutation, and a clear explanation as to why a story is true or false. While, debunking is largely what trained journalists are meant to do for the Public. Preempting is what journalists can teach the public in order for them to be informed and aware of disinformation that spreads in various forms to protect them from falling for the antiques of mischief pedaling disinformation.
There are largely seven (7) types of Mis/Disinformation; and journalists are to do well in explaining them to their audience and readers.
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Satire or Parody: This is largely misinformation, not usually with an intent to cause harm, but can be harmful if satirical comments are mistaken as fact by people unknowingly. Satires are usually jokes, and comical accounts of real issues which are further filled with inaccurate talks and exaggerations and baseless compearisms.
Misleading Information: This is the use of misleading information to frame an issue or person. For example; when an event had happened long before the current time, and that piece of information is reported to the public as a recent happening.
Imposter Contents: This is when genuine sources are imprisoned. For example; when official government websites, social media handles of prominent people are impersonated to spread false narratives
Fabricated content: This kind of news are 100% false. They were created to destabilize peace and cause harm
False connections: This is when headlines, virtuals and captions in a story do not support the content of the story. For examples, stories that carry untrue headline or unrelated pictures to support the body of their stories
False context: This happens when genuine information is shared with false contextual information, which adversely changes the original context of the information
Manipulated content: This is when genuine imagery, video or information is manipulated to deceive.
Journalism has passed just simply reporting events. The profession has evolved into other forms of reporting, and with the growing demand for the media the responsibility of journalism and journalists is broader.
An aspect of journalism that is not very common but necessary in today’s world of information disorder is ‘Journalistic Media Education’.
Media education is defined as the ability to evaluate and act upon media messages.
According to Maarit Jaakkola in her article, “Journalists as Media Educators: Journalistic Media Education as Inclusive Boundary Work”. She pointed out three ways to see journalistic media education (JME). First, as a set of boundary practices, defined as a set of practices set to distinguish a profession from others. Secondly, as a non-formal and extramural education – meaning education that occurs along traditional education in schools, for example, but not as a part of the official curriculum.
And thirdly, as a conceptualized strategic audience work – by educating, journalists engage with the audience and also emphasize the importance of critical, quality journalism.
This article is looking at Journalistic media education as a conceptualized strategic audience work where journalists can educate their audiences and media literacy issues, teach them tricks and tips to distinguish genuine news information from fakes.
The major reason the public continues to pass on this mis/disinformation as true especially on social media is because many people are not knowledgeable about the media. Hence, they are easily manipulated and deceived to believe lies as truth.
What needs to be done going forward?
It is important for journalists to protect journalistic values by deepen public confidence in the Nigerian Media through willingness to receive and implement trainings in order to correct lapses
The Nigerian Press Organisations, incorporating the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Nigerian Guild of Editors,NGOs and other media bodies should institute a well-structured Media Capacity Building Fund for continuous training and re-training of journalists
Media owners and operators should develop new and creative ways to generate funding to help pay staff and reduce the need to receive tokens from political actors or interests.
Journalists should desist from recycling social media stories as news without proper verification; but rather seek deeper, fresh and analytical angles in their stories
Media houses are encouraged to explore media education for their audience through radio programs, articles in newspapers or posts on their social media handles.
Instances of Disinformation on social media
In 2019, according to a report by the BBC a two year old video of a woman who was seen being beaten was purported to be the aftermath of the killings of Christians in Sokoto, following the murder of Deborah Samuel who was set ablaze over allegations of blasphemy.
A Facebook screenshot purported to be from a certain Chiropractor Uche-Ayodeji; Alias Dr. Chris was widely speculated and shared on social media to be a medical doctor who “confessed” to deriving joy in killing Muslims brought under his media watch.
The screenshot alleged that Mr. Chris was a physician at the University Hospital Birmingham in the UK. However, further verification was made by Gimba Kankada, a social critic on Twitter, to ascertain the authenticity of the supposed person. It was gathered that the such individual was never a staff at Birmingham hospital nor does the name Christopher Uche-Ayodeji (Dr.Chris) exist on Facebook.
The above mentioned examples are debunked stories by the BBC through its fact checkers.
