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In early 2021, I made the decision to have my internship in the field of Journalism and Content Writing thinking that it would be easy, due to what I had already learned in college thus far.
Oh boy, was I wrong…
As a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia has seen a spike in the amount of “fake news” being spread around by the general public for the past year or so. It was so prevalent to the point where the Malaysian government even instated a new law in efforts to curb the transmission of false information. With that being said, it’s really no surprise that due to this increase-in-false-info-situation, the journalism and news-reporting in general scene suffered great change… along with my expectations for my internship.
The general public was part of the competition.
With social media coming into the mix, anyone could now write their own stories without having to go through a journalist. This phenomenon, coined “citizen journalism”, is one of the main perpetrators of misinformation in the media. As members of the public are not bound to any journalistic integrity, the information that they spread can often be inaccurate, biased, or even purely false.
Though at first glance, it may seem as if people still turn to news outlets for verification, the truth is that Malaysians are particularly susceptible to fake news. As noted in research conducted by Ipsos, 68% of Malaysians rely more on their own understanding of things instead of referring to facts.
Personally, as someone who was writing and creating content for the Malaysian public based on facts, I started finding it difficult to be able to reason with the audience in the first place; as they were often times more determined on proving that the content created by news outlets were part of some form of “conspiracy” by the government, than actually reading the article. And with the spread of COVID-19 misinformation, especially regarding the vaccines, this issue was far too common.
The truth became harder to discern.
Besides the misinformation being published by members of the public themselves, there has also been misinformation in the circulation of news content produced by news outlets themselves. Journalists have begun to source their information through social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, which has then caused journalists themselves to disseminate information that isn’t entirely accurate. And due to time-constraints, they are no longer able to take their time to accurately fact-check their sources as well.
Combined with the widespread COVID-19 misinformation, it was almost impossible to confirm whether a piece of information was 100% true and accurate. As public speculation grew, I have had moments where I was confused about the actual facts of the pandemic and the vaccines; primarily due to the fact that I was constantly being bombarded by multiple pieces of information that were sometimes proven as true, or were just pure speculation.
What causes this misinformation to occur in the first place?
Misinformation happens because there is too much information; and with information so readily available due to the internet and social media, it’s really no surprise that there would eventually be an overload of it. People nowadays are unsure of what to believe as there are too many sources of information who are spouting different truths, or at least different versions of it.
News Outlets should fact-check their sources and commit to proofreading their articles, to ensure that only the most accurate information is disseminated to the public. Lawmakers should also enforce the ‘Anti-Fake News’ law that was passed in March, as there is still hope that the amount of misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and the vaccines will significantly decrease after its enforcement. Lastly, as members of the public, we need to be more self-aware and conscious about whether the information that we choose to share is accurate by fact-checking our sources online.
So, whether occurred intentionally, accidentally, or as a mere by-product of an error in communication, it has become a major problem in today’s modern society. And though we aren’t able to completely rid the world of false information, there are still steps that can be taken to manage it.
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