Various social medias and blogs plays a very important part in present-day journalism. It's a useful source to the media persons in gathering various news. They are now the bridge between journalists and the people. Journalists very often pick serious and important issues from the blog and verify the ethical standards of fairness, accuracy, truthfulness, transparency and independence when using social media as you do on air and on all digital and printed news platforms.
It is very pertinent that social media should also check all the postings, comments about their truthfulness and fairness.
All information gathered from social media like blog posting, their comments should go through scanner before their posting. Moreover, their source of information, correctness should also be provided while posting and the reader should not be left guessing on misleading information.
In many cases it has experienced that wrong information leads to an outcry in some places, state or in the country. All postings in the social media are live and are available to anybody at any time. It is therefore essential to correct any mistake may it factual or by omission, so that while it is archives reader can go through the correction.
When any content or video being used from the blogs or social media, before their use some logical question should be asked, like what is the truthfulness of the content, what is the reason of their posting and the right of the person of the posting and the picture. Does the person has the legal right of the photograph or is it his/her own shoot? Often it was seen that image or video been manipulated, so before it's using meta-data should be checked.
Freedom of speech and expression is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right of the Indian people. Article 19 (1; a) ensures the implicit freedom but Article 19 (2) qualifies this in explicit terms. The Parliamentary Proceedings (protection of Publication) Act of 1977 and the Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matter (Repeal Act) of 1977 further reinforce and restrict these freedoms.While constitutional guarantees ensure freedom of the press and expression, press and media are obligated by a self-regulatory system of ethics that protect people and organizations from defamatory behavior.
Twitter, Facebook are Social sites and have a system of "privacy" setting, users can choose not to have their pictures or expression in front of the uninvited public. Collecting content from a public social site is different from inquisitive behind a password-protected wall posing as a friend. Accessing "private" content, journalists should apply the same guidelines and ethics as per Act of 1977 for undercover journalism. So before using any content, picture or video due consideration should be given to the followings:
- Does the content has a 'reasonable expectation' of privacy?
- Is this a content of great significance?
- Is there any alternate way to get the information?
- Are you willing to show your methods and reasoning, if challenged?
- What are your journalistic motivations?
I agree that each of us has our opinion which is what makes the blogosphere so popular, if we all agreed we would have the nothing to debate or to talk about. But we should also apply the following blogging ethics:
That we shall not lie
That we shall honor our country
That we shalt not recoil before thine enemy
That we shall always stay faithful
That we shall always be the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil
No comments:
Post a Comment