Jennifer Larson, Consul General, United States Consulate General, Hyderabad, said debunking the false narratives before they enter the mainstream reporting was of paramount importance as the dangers posed by disinformation were a threat to democracy.
“There have always been actors looking to spread false information and journalists have always been on the frontlines of identifying that information and preventing it from circulating among the broader public,” she said while speaking at the certificate awards ceremony of the training programme on “Countering Disinformation for Telugu TV Journalists” at the Osmania University here on Tuesday.
“It’s important that we work as hard as we can to spot disinformation because the stakes are high. The whole point of democracy is that we come together as individuals, argue about what we think our elected officials should do, and then hold those elected officials to account. But we can’t do that if we’re working with bad information,” she added.
Consul General Larson also thanked Osmania University for its efforts in providing fact-checking and counter-disinformation resources and best practices to 30-odd journalists in both the Telugu States through a unique programme, jointly organised by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, OU and the U.S. Consulate General Hyderabad.
Prof. D. Ravinder, Vice-Chancellor, Osmania University, narrated how false information created trouble in academic settings as well. Prof. Stevenson Kohir, Project Coordinator and Head, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, shared the positive impact created by the first-of-its-kind training programme conducted for Telugu TV journalists.
The project “Countering Disinformation for Telugu TV Reporters” is a training programme to train TV journalists as verification experts. Journalists were trained in various types of disinformation and misinformation verification methods; fact-check tools and techniques; methods for finding open data; the legal aspects of misinformation and disinformation; how to verify or fact-check news or videos or text or images among others.
