There is no debate now whether the print news paper will stay or survive. Rather the countdown has started when the print news paper will extinct at the spread of the online news paper.
Editor At Large of reputed Singapore based The Strait Times Han Fook Kwang has categorically said that the print news media will last 5 years more.
There is a new rivalry between social media and online news paper world wide. However the experts have opined that the social media cannot be news media. At least the present scenario tells so. Even Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg has said to give less importance to wrong news in the Facebook. In the social media at best may be the ingredients of information and that will also depend on the verification of the information available in the social media.
Why the social media is not news media? To this there is one reply. The time was the middle of 2015. I was told at the hotel lobby of a Singapore by a Bangladeshi official that Turkey is sending a war ship to attack Myanmar with the aim of rescuing the Rohingyas. I had wanted to know from him that what is the source of this news. He replied that it was seen in your online. Became surprising I wanted to see it. He showed me the news in a post of Facebook. I asserted that this is not news media, it is not true.
Practically Turkey did not attack Myanmar. Will the man will believe the social media presented through photo shop. Even in the last US election the voters were confused by the social media. So there are worldwide preventive measures to check the false news in the social media.
There is a campaign in Indonesia and Singapore to identify the fake news in the social media to make them aware. Even in our country many unruly incidents took place due to the fake news spread by the social media. So we can judge that this social media is far lagging behind on line news media.
In the social media people are giving share to many information, Then is this news?
Alamgir Hossain, Editor-in-Chief of Bangladesh's leading news portal Banglanews, said that so long the information contains in the social media is not news but if the journalists after proper scrutiny make it news then it will be news. In the Facebook or social media the information is not news. This is clearly called status or post. If a journalist take it as a primary ingredient (News peg) and present it after proper scrutiny then it will be news.
“The two media-- news media and the other is social media--are known clearly different in their names. The accountability of the two is different”, he said
The father of the online news media in Bangladesh added that in the social media the people are writing their stories according to their desire and if s/he tells lie then there is no accountability. But the news media has accountability. The content of the news is reality. So finally people will accept the information of the news media not of the social media.
Hong Kong based Splice Newsroom Co-founder Alan Soon told Banglanews the attempt of the social media to get the popularity of the news media would soon proved false. Because the people are not giving thorough reading of the social media news only giving an eye moving on the headlines. Even they cannot remember the headlines of the social media. So the online should give importance on the content of the news.
Alan Soon said that in future the news media will have to survive on the investigative news. Because, the people will make it as the part of the daily life. But for special news the people will go to news media.
Still those who consider the social media as a threat to news media then we can present the survey of Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore). In 2016, Assistant professor Edson C Tandoc Jr made survey on 2502 Facebook users. His survey showed that 73.60 percent Facebook users avoid the fake news of Facebook. Of the 12.53 percent, people report to the authority to remove the false news.
Some photographs and news of the social media about the torture on the Rohingyas in Myanmar became viral in Bangladesh. Then does it prove that the social media is more powerful than news media? While wanted to know he replied that it depends on the social background. However the government should enhance awareness campaign against the fake news.
What would be fate of the journalists if Facebook, twitter or other social media become news source? To this, The Jakarta Post of Indonesia Managing Editor Damar Harsanto replied that it will not be. The social media will rapidly lose its value as news source. Because the fake news industry is still too much powerful. This fake news will soon rebound and will make the news media important.
BDST: 1353 HRS, FEB 11, 2018
SJN/SI
