Fake News : A Breach In 4th Pillar Of Democracy

Why is it that in today's world we suffer credibility with the NEWS we see? Despite all the advancements in technology and high speed communication systems we get to see Fake News at such a alarming rate, wherein we have no differentiating factor, if news we see is true to life or not.

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RUMOURS TRAVEL FASTER THAN SPEED OF LIGHT AND ARE LOUDER THEN WHAT'S TRUE. 

Everyday on average each one of us reads 2-3 articles or pages online, just because what's inside is something related to our own preference. Maybe we Googled it or we saw a suggested post somewhere on social media. We are 80% likely to open the article and read it, if we are interested in that topic. Internet is full of scam and fake stuff & that's not a brand-new information. Every Social Media Platform is fighting their own battle against fake news and scams. Sometimes we can avoid this stuff by using our own common sense and say yup that's false information.

Historically we have all relied on trusted New Sources that are Newspapers and News Channels. But looks like even they use twitter to see what's actually happening. Now to address what happened on 19th November 2020 is disastrous around 7 PM News Channels Like ABP NEWS, TIMES NOW, AAJ TAK & REPUBLIC BHARAT started to shout-out loud "breaking news India Carried out a Strike in PoK on terrorist launch pads - PTI"

Courtesy : Google Images

THE BREAKING NEWS

The misguided news started with saying India carrying out another strike in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) on terror launchpad. When these channels busted out that breaking news, majority of them sourced it as PTI. Soon, Indian Army had to step-in and refused those claims. 

Lieutenant General Paramjit Singh, Indian Army Director General of Military Operation said : "Report's of Indian Army's action in PoK across the Line of Control are fake.

 

Courtesy : Twitter

Later it turned out PTI story was based on an "analysis of ceasefire violation" that had taken place on November 13. Let's understand, it took some time for army to react to the fake news. That time was enough for Times Now to run a unverified visual video location, on which they discussed whereabouts of the strike non-stop.

Courtesy : Times Now

HOW DID THEY STEP BACK?

WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY - who said this line? Definitely not TIMES NOW or AAJTAK or ABP NEWS. 

When the Army reacted saying those are false claims these channels just backed out saying this didn't happen it was just a analysis, and didn't even apologize. Because why will they? It was sourced to PTI.

It's very important to understand the gravity of the situation it was national television, whole country was watching it and when you outdo yourself to an extent where you are showing some sort of visuals of the strike you know you are fucked up, you owe an explanation to the whole country. These channels are responsible for what they show, they can't just say it never happened and do there normal business again.

This clearly show how poorly run this jerks are its just a business for them, they'll show what makes them money, and the truth takes a toll.

This incident spotlights the media's problem on addressing military issues. While hurrying a breaking news they completely walked over the basic journalistic practice like VERIFICATION OF THE NEWS. How long do you think it might have took to question a military spokesperson or the defence minister? Not long infact I believe if that would have happened PM Modi himself would have taken twitter to shout-out the strike for 2024, maybe idk.

But NOO!! Who needs fact checking we are AAJ TAK we just want to be Sabse Tez or maybe we are ABP NEWS and we are Sabse Aage, makes we wonder how this organisations are run and are run successfully. In every outro they will be like you are watching AAJTAK INDIA'S No.1 NEWS CHANNEL, yeah if you say that, have balls to stand up to say what actually matters, why get suppressed by politicians? Why is it a race of being the fastest to deliver news? Why not the race of most credible news channel? 

So in the race for rating and revenue, channels and their anchor first presented a unverified news and backtracked without apologizing. So PTI was blamed for all the drama.

Courtesy : A Random Retweet

NEWS MEDIA IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM THEN IT SEEMS 

• To be very honest the job of news anchor is to read the news instead of that they explain the news. Logic every human applies to few things is different, we have our own brain we have our own understanding. When these anchor explain you a news they redirect you into certain perspective, so when you listen to the news, you see it through their vision. News should not be told via a certain perspective, If you remember back in the day when DD National use to tell news, the anchor just read the news and didn't interpret it, it was upto public how they want to receive the news. Yes, at times there are few complicated news which can be explained, but using same logic everytime is wrong
• At times news channels give their own verdict on a case & proof one party guilty, they discuss it in length with expert guests. It generates set of problems to the accused victim which weakens there stand in the court. It wrecks the social image of that person. What happened to Rhea Chakraborty is a prime example Media gave so much insights and coverage, they studied so much about Rhea, they already declared her guilty before the case unfolded. If the verdict had came the other way around I am 100% sure they would have had a plan Z to hide their failure. Media houses own little court of justice is not what we need, it is misleading sometimes and one day it will surely back fire.
• The guest experts, surprisingly inteligent politicians these people should also be held responsible for the sh*t they talk, it's unbelievable, the logic they use, the points they put forward in a debate,are very questionable. That debate show is a fight among themselves, where everybody feels that they are winning the argument. Those debates should actually happens with some intellectual people, politicians they just shout, they know they are lying they know it's wrong but they want to win the argument, so just keep shouting man.
• The Jurisdiction should take some legal action against this news channels, because you know if a common man does something or start a fake rumours the cyber police finds them and punishes. The National news channels start a fake rumours make breaking news out of it nobody points them out, no action against them. How is that justified infront of the law? if you do something wrong, if you are caught red handed you should be penalized.

WHAT SHOULD WE TAKE AWAY FROM THIS?

Well to be very clear if media keeps doing this kind of stunts we are f**ked until eventually somebody personally has to come out and say it's not true

The problem is even as a normal person you can't fact check certain things, because how Google works is different. See Google shows you the results from most trusted source at the top, which unfortunately will be AAJTAK, TIMES NOW or ABP NEWS. So if it's a breaking news these webpages would have live transcript for the news so eventually you might end up seeing what you just watched on television.

TV Channels should be more responsible and held themselves responsible if anything like this happens again.

The way every TV anchor reacted and started twitting stuff is insane, it's really concerning what we see on live television. I certainly agree things can go wrong on live television and it's all instinctive but there a common understanding that they can share whether to flash breaking news or let someone from the military say something. But who's interested in that if X news channel shows it and Y doesn't. Will we prefer Y who is waiting for confirmation of the story or we prefer X who brings us fresh and fast news.

Courtesy : Twitter

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM PLAYS MAJOR ROLE IN FAKE NEWS

The Major problem was Twitter hashtags like #surgicalstrike3.0 #pkmb #indianarmy this creates a lot of nuisance. People are stupid and they take it to next level by trash talking about some other country. People have great power with open internet and access to open world, and they don't understand this. Someone from far distance can cause strikes and riots in some other country. It's a self feeding chain someone tweets something happened, and other dumbass believes it, he will retweet it and the cycle continues and with in an hour there are 20 thousand tweets with same hashtags, it's trending.

This should not happen internet still has a lot of potential and it will be a huge part of our near future for a long time. Getting one step closer to 5G is not the goal, how to use 5G by being responsible knowing the pros n cons of internet should be our goal.

Interestingly most of us aren't fully aware of these the scams and fake stuff, you can come across so many people who say I thought it was legit so I did it. It's our responsibility to look after are loved once and make them aware and educate them.