KATHMANDU, July 31: It has been stressed that media persons should maintain ethics and credibility while discharging their duties under any circumstances.
Speakers said this at a virtual training program organized by the Media Action Nepal in collaboration with the U.S Embassy in Nepal which concluded on Friday. Sixteen journalists based in Chitwan district representing various media outlets were part of the three-day training.
In the training program, participants learned various emerging issues of journalism ranging from credibility, fake information to misinformation.
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Inaugurating the training, Acting Public Affairs Officer of the U.S Embassy in Nepal, Curtis M. Chan, stated that misinformation and disinformation is one of burning issues. He urged the participants to take full advantage of this training and strengthen their professional skills and help practice responsible journalism in Nepal.
Chairperson of Media Action Nepal Laxman Datt Pant, the lead trainer of the training, said that professionalism, decency, responsibility, press freedom and accuracy are canons of journalism. "Media houses and journalists should maintain truth, accuracy, impartiality and inclusion," he said.
Prof. Mofizur Rahman from the Dhaka University highlighted how fake news is multidisciplinary in nature. He listed out characteristics of fake news and provided the trainees with vivid examples of fake news in the near past.
He also highlighted ways of detecting fake news, namely experts’ verification, speaker profiles, and linguistic cues. He provided the participants with links to websites that help with fact-checking and verification.
On the second day of the training, the participants learned current trends of fake news in Nepal. Journalist Umesh Shrestha informed the participants about a series of fake news in Nepali newspapers and online portals.
The third session of the training was on preventing misleading photographic messages. Photojournalist Chandra Shekhar Karki explained the participants about how pictures can be easily manipulated.
Another trainer Kamal Dev Bhattarai, talked about media’s role in strengthening democracy. He explained the relationship between media and democracy. Stating that media has to play a role of watchdog, he pointed out that press freedom is a must in the country to ensure transparency and inform citizenry.
