TRUE, FAKE NEWS HAS BECOME A CANCER STRAINING RELATIONS AMONG NATIONS
Written by Millennium on July 14, 2019
I WISH to agree with our Information minister Dora Siliya that fake news has managed to strain relations between politicians and the media, relations among nations and a loss of trust by citizens in honest Journalism.
It is true that traditional Journalism in Zambia is being disrupted by New Media especially anonymous online publications and Citizen Journalism that have gained massive popularity but most of the times they are hell bent on character assassination.
The majority of our internet-based platforms are marred with poor and dishonest reporting, commonly known now, as fake news.
Apart from that the so-called social media is plagues by plagiarism and steal stories from other platforms without shame or cannot be bothered to credit the sources.
This obviously cannot be allowed to go on. Government should step in address the lacunas in the management of technology platforms mostly owned by the private sector that are being used to spread fake news.
Targets of plagiarism currently are both print and electronic where many small-time online organisations are busy lifting stories with unbelievable impunity. Totally unprofessional!
So it is not enough for government to merely complain about this vice. It is entirely up to it to quickly find lasting solutions to this scourge.
Cataloguing its problems, for me, I think it not good enough because depend on their government to solve whatever problems that may arise in the nation.CYRUS CHIZANDA
