Rodolfo Pazos

Thirty newsrooms from around the world will join forces to mark World News Day (WND) on Sept 28 to showcase the contributions made by professional newsrooms to the communities they serve.

They will tell the stories behind the reports and features that made an impact in the past year, giving audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how these were put together.

These range from reports which exposed corruption and scams, to issues being neglected by society or systems not working to deliver services as well as
insights on people and events shaping the course of current affairs.

“Getting the news is never easy. It involves much legwork on the ground, doing many interviews with newsmakers and experts, fact-checking, ensuring you have the right sources and enough of them, delving deep to understand the issues so you can put things in proper context,” said Mr Warren Fernandez, President, World Editors Forum, and Editor-in-Chief, The Straits Times and Singapore Press Holdings’ English, Malay and Tamil Media (EMTM) Group.

“That’s what journalists in professional newsrooms do. And they do it against a deadline and across media platforms throughout the day.

It is time-consuming, laborious work, and takes considerable resources to do well.

“The aim of World News Day is to celebrate the work of professional journalists and newsrooms, and the critical role they play in our societies,” he said.

“By stepping up to make the case for good journalism, we hope to garner public support for and trust in the media, as well as inspire our newsroom to rise to the challenge of delivering the news and serving their audiences,” he noted.

“In a world which is growing more complex and more polarised, and with the proliferation of so much fake news, the role of professional newsrooms in helping to establish the facts and provide the platform for sober and sensible debates is increasingly critical to the proper functioning of our societies,” he added.

The Straits Times (ST) is among the 30 newsrooms taking part in the campaign. Some of the early participants include The Star and Bernama (Malaysia), The Jakarta Post (Indonesia), the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Manila Bulletin (the Philippines), The Bangkok Post (Thailand) and Viet Nam News (Vietnam), from South-east Asia.

Others include JoongAng Ilbo and The Chosun Ilbo (South Korea), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), The Hindu, Hindu Business Line and The Quint (India), United Daily News (Taiwan), Tiso Blackstar (South Africa), OEM (Mexico) and the Welad El Balad Media (Egypt), who have confirmed their participation.

WND is being organised by the World Editors Forum (WEF), the network for editors within the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (Wan-Ifra). The latter counts 3,000 news-publishing companies and technology entrepreneurs as its members and its reach extends to more than 120 countries.

The WND initiative is supported by Google News Initiative, a project of the global Google platform, to promote quality journalism.

The inaugural WND was hosted by the Canadian Journalism Foundation (CJF) on May 3 last year, and celebrated on May 2 by CJF this year.

The WEF’s Asia chapter is spearheading efforts to include several newsrooms from Asia in the global campaign and it is being held on Sept 28 this year to coincide with Unesco’s International Day for Universal Access to Information. News organisations
taking part in this project have agreed to run the stories from across the 30 newsrooms joining in this initiative, on their platforms and pages on Sept 28. These will also appear on the WND site here: www.worldnewsday.org that has gone live today (Sept 1).

A string of activities has also been lined up for the celebrations on Sept 28.

The National Youth Achievement Award in Singapore is organising a photo contest for young people under the theme My News.My Story, to raise awareness about the importance of real news. Youth wishing to join in need to send photos of themselves consuming news in any way they prefer. For details, please visit the WND web site. Winners will be announced on Sept 28.

On the same day, WEF will hold a WND: Why It Matters forum on the importance of quality journalism, in Singapore. Journalists will share their stories, editors & experts will hold a panel discussion on good journalism and there will be a session on fake news.

For digital viewers, there will be a Live WND show on Youtube to be broadcast from ST studios. It will feature videos and content from participating newsrooms and discussion on the work of journalists.

Said Ms Esther Ng, Chief Content Officer, Star Media Group: “In the era of fake news where all sorts of stories get passed around via the social media within minutes, real news has not just become more important, it is a necessity.

“Our tasks as journalists have expanded – we are now not merely reporters but news analysts, and we strive to affect change and shape the nation.

Said Ms Tammy Tam, editor-in-chief of South China Morning Post: “Independent journalism matters more to the world than ever before. With the rise in fake news and misinformation tactics, World News Day is an important reminder that when we educate readers through news, we help them develop informed perspectives and decisions about current affairs.”

“This is the day we stand up for good journalism. This is the day we celebrate what we aim to do,” she said.

Added Natalie Turvey, president and executive director of the CJF, on the rationale for WND: “It is more important than ever to highlight journalism’s contribution to our society and democracy. “With the media facing so many existential challenges, WND serves as a reminder that as goes journalism, so goes democracy.”

The writer is Asia News Network Editor, The Straits Times, Singapore.

A video that went viral caught the dramatic moment when a ceiling in a busy shopping mall came crashing down. Screams rang out as shoppers scurried to safety.

But no, this scene did not play out at Singapore’s newly opened Jewel Changi Airport mall, as alleged in a post that went round last week.

Rather, the incident took place recently at Shanghai’s Vanke Mall, as reporters from this newspaper found out. We were alerted to the video by an anxious reader who turned to us to find out if the video posting was true or make-believe.

Such online falsehoods are a public menace of our times. A growing number of people say they are concerned about them and find it increasingly difficult to tell real news from fake. What is worse, studies show that fake news gives rise to more shock and awe, and so spreads more rapidly than factual news reports.

Lamentably, things look set to get worse, with the emergence of new technologies, such as deepfake. This allows video images to be manipulated such that words can literally be put into the mouths of prominent personalities. And with the technology getting more sophisticated and less costly to produce by the day, seeing might soon no longer be enough for believing.

So, this is where professional newsrooms will have to increasingly play a role – in helping the public separate fiction from fact.

Of course, newsrooms can’t fight fake news on their own, and this task will have to be one shared by many. Yet, that is no reason for each of us not to pitch in and do what we can.

At the very least, our aim should be to raise public awareness of these efforts to mislead, and encourage audiences to pause and question what they read before sending it along.

Yet, such overtly fake news, spread out of malice or mischief, is just one form of online falsehoods. Another version of this was on full view last week in the tweets from none other than the President of the United States, Mr Donald Trump.

Well aware of the power of his online outpourings, he ordered American firms to relocate from China and bring their factories home, sending shock waves through global financial markets.

Perhaps alarmed by the reaction, Mr Trump dialled back the next day, saying he had “second thoughts” and disclosing the “very good calls” he received from unnamed leaders in Beijing, who had apparently reached out to try to put the stalled talks on the Sino-US trade-technology-currency spat back on track.

Sceptical reporters delving deeper into this, however, soon discovered that Chinese officials were unaware of any such conversations, raising doubts about whether they had indeed taken place.

Well, thank goodness for dogged reporters, for without them, newsmakers everywhere would feel free to manipulate and mislead with impunity.

Reporters digging deep, to uncover the facts, convenient or otherwise, are a pre-requisite for meaningful discussions. For public discourse can only be conducted if those on opposing sides might agree on some of the basic facts they are discussing.

Reasonable debate grinds to a halt if those involved insist not only on their right to hold a different opinion but also having their own “alternative facts”. Policy discussions are then reduced to shouting matches, catchy soundbites, empty slogans or bold lettered tweets.

The consequences of this are increasingly clear: growing mistrust, polarised societies, ill-informed electorates and divided parliaments, as is now playing out in the land of William Shakespeare, that painful-to-watch, long-running, tragicomedy called Brexit.
Indeed, research cited in the Caincross Review, an independent commission set up by the British government to study how to secure a sustainable future for quality journalism, pointed to the “dire democratic consequences” that might arise from a lack of reporting on public authorities.

It went on to note further that there was a “clear link between the disappearance of local journalists and a local newspaper, and a decline in civic and democratic activities, such as voter turnout, and well-managed public finances”.

Here, again, professional newsrooms have a role and a mission. For it is their job to seek out information and try to establish the facts, so as to enable, and facilitate, the public debate that might follow.

Information, however, does not always flow freely. It has to be sought out, verified, cross-checked against many sources, interpreted fairly and objectively, and put in proper context.

This is what professional journalists in established newsrooms do. It is laborious work, time-consuming, and requiring considerable resources to do well.

Ensuring that this public good is delivered is in society’s interest, as the Caincross Review concluded, adding that this was not something that can just be left to the narrow commercial considerations of media moguls or business conglomerates.

Securing the future of public-interest journalism is especially important amid the growing cry from citizens for help in sifting out the real from the fake in today’s super-abundance of information.

Taking up this issue in a thoughtful essay, titled Back To The Future Of News, Professor Charlie Beckett, director of the London School of Economics’ journalism institute, Polis, argued that fake news is both a bane, and a boon, for credible journalism.

He said: “The fake news crisis is good news for credible journalists. The more reliable and accountable news brands have seen a sharp rise in people consuming their content and even paying for subscriptions. When there is an abundance of questionable material out there, people often turn to more trustworthy sources.

“Journalists have a moral opportunity here. It is also a business opportunity. One option is for journalists to produce clickbait, to pander to the worst impulses of those people attracted by fake news. But there is also an option for journalists to be better curators, filters, or guides in the dark forest of overabundance. Journalists can be much better at identifying what is credible, verifying what is believable and helping citizens get the evidence they need.

“Journalists must still do quite traditional things: be critical, bust myths, give context, be accurate. Their job is also to say challenging things and take on those in power or positions of authority. However, they should also have a sense that they are contributing to ‘the good life’ and to a ‘good’ society.

This is not some woolly idea. It is a practical service that says that journalism can help people to live healthier, happier, more enabled lives as individuals and in communities. Good information is good for us, and journalism can help provide this.

“This is about journalists empowering the public, not themselves.”

But just how are societies to ensure that this public-interest journalism continues to be available, given the major disruptions taking place in the media industry, with audiences drifting online, and the bulk of digital advertising being mopped up by the big tech players?

Well, the ever-insightful Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari has some interesting answers in his latest bestseller, 21 Lessons For The 21st Century. His advice to those grappling with the challenge of making sense of an increasingly complex and confusing world is simple: Start by seeking out the best reports and information, make the effort to read them, and be prepared to pay for them.

“If you want reliable information – pay good money for it,” he says.

“If you get your news for free, you might well be the product,” he adds, pointing to how technology companies mine data on how audiences spend their time online, and use this information to rake in huge profits by serving up targeted advertising.

He adds: “Supposing a shady billionaire offered you the following deal: ‘I will pay you $30 a month, and in exchange you will allow me to brainwash you for an hour every day, installing in your mind whichever political and commercial biases I want.’ Would you take the deal? Few sane people would.

So the shady billionaire offers a slightly different deal: ‘You will allow me to brainwash you for one hour every day, and in exchange, I will not charge you anything for this service.’ Now the deal suddenly sounds tempting to hundreds of millions of people. Don’t follow their example.”

Indeed, please don’t.

Instead, you would do better to support the 30 newsrooms from around the world which are coming together later this month to mark World News Day (WND). To be held on Sept 28, the day is meant to celebrate the work of newsrooms and the contributions they make to the communities they serve.

Together, these newsrooms plan to showcase their efforts to expose corruption, uncover human and drug smuggling, check sexual harassment and exploitation, question and improve public policies, or celebrate the work of various groups which are striving to uplift and inspire others in the community. These reports will run on the platforms and pages of all participating media organisations on the day, as well as on the WND website at www.worldnewsday.org

Organised by the World Editors Forum, a professional network within the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (Wan-Ifra), the theme for World News Day is clear and simple: Real News Matters.

It does matter, not just to journalists and newsrooms, but more importantly to you, because the best news reporting is always about developments and why they matter to the reader – to you, your family, your society and your world. Do join us in marking World News Day on Sept 28.