President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Affail Monney, has shared that the combined efforts of human skills and technology can help to reduce the incidence of fake news in the traditional media.
Speaking in an interview with Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s ‘Facts Sheet’ show on the topic ‘Fact-checking: The Political Rhetoric, he explained that while technology presents us with tools and mechanism to crosscheck the originality of news, there is the need for professionals to use their skills of questioning a news item’s authenticity before presenting it to the public.
“The tendency is that people will be inclined to swallow hook line and sinker whatever comes in news. We as professionals must ensure that we don’t feed them with any false news. We need to fact check and there are tools and mechanism to check fake news. These days, technology has made it easy so we need to subject any information to scrutiny.
However, these days, the best resources can let you down so you have to check and crosscheck any information you receive”.
He further advises, “It calls for dexterity in technology use and the ability to anticipate errors. It is a wakeup call to all of us”. He noted that while we cannot achieve perfection, it is important that media persons stick to the principles of journalism.
Research shows that fake news is mostly manifested as fabricated content and false headline without connection to the content.
Overall, the results of the study show that fake news is a growing problem in Ghana”.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
