In recent years, I have searched for podcast news programs, even though news podcasts with frequent updates and rich content are difficult to find, due to a business model that mainly relies on commercial sponsorship.
I find myself instead listening to the New Folder (新資料夾), a podcast news series hosted by independent Taipei City Councilor Chiu Wei-chieh (邱威傑), who is also a YouTuber better known as “Froggy” (呱吉).
Although the show offers more entertainment than news, and Froggy and cohost Liou Cai-ling (劉采翎) have no journalism background, they do not cut corners on fact-checking.
If they did not verify the news in advance, all of the discussion, analyses, laughing and cursing would be of no value.
In late January, the English journal Information, Communication & Society published an article titled “Legitimating a Platform: Evidence of Journalists’ Role in Transferring Authority to Twitter.” The study found that journalists are transferring their authority to social media.
After an analysis of hundreds of US news stories containing tweets in 2018, the article said that “journalists have come to treat tweets more like content, an interchangeable building block of news, than like sources, whose ideas and messages must be subject to scrutiny and verification.”
Journalism is a profession based on facts, but facts do not verify themselves. After verification, the journalist can analyze the facts, comment on them and provide guidance based on them.
However, over the past year, headlines containing phrases such as “exposed on the Internet” or “stuns the Internet” have become common, and some news stories are simply credited to “coordinated reports” or “comprehensive reports,” without being attributed to a journalist.
These news stories typically use social media content as sources, while the reporters are acting like any other Internet user.
The widespread use of such content might be related to the survival strategies and division of labor in today’s media.
However, those in the news business have neither the time nor the interest to run their social media accounts, while editors in social media look down on the media’s content and productivity. As a result, the media have begun to use platforms for their large volume of irresponsible content, which generates a higher flow of news stories.
As journalists continue to transfer verification to social media, and social media are incapable and unwilling, under their business model, to take greater responsibility for fact-checking, who becomes the victim?
If the media are untrustworthy and social media are irresponsible, people in democratic societies do not have access to reliable information. How can they judge whether to support government policies?
There is an increased risk that Internet users will end up supporting Chinese propaganda, becoming “little pink ones” (小粉紅), or young Chinese nationalists online, without even joining Beijing’s “50 Cent Army” (reportedly what it pays Internet moderators in yuan per post).
Of course, the responsibility does not rest solely with the news media and social media.
In the Internet era, when almost anyone can disseminate information online through social media, everyone must responsibly distribute information, and not just give in to their emotional reactions. That way, each and every person makes at least some small contribution to democracy.
Chang Yueh-han is an assistant professor in Shih Hsin University’s Department of Journalism.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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