Learn to know the difference - Press Council’s annual report
With it, media can continue to play, on many platforms, the decent role it always has aspired to. That role was rarely perfectly discharged but that was, and is, a near universal ambition. Without credibility, the media becomes a half-cocked entertainment or something far more sinister. As so many recent campaigns have shown communications technology means media can be manipulated, coloured or simply hijacked to mislead.
The controversy around how Facebook controls — or does not control — content is another layer of uncertainty in one of today’s pressing issues. This was acknowledged yesterday by Communications Minister Denis Naughton when he launched the Press Council’s annual report. He pointed to the almost impossible challenge around filtering fake news. The scale was highlighted this week when Facebook said it would increase its monitors from around 4,200 to something closer to 10,000. That may seem an advance but the fact that nearly two billion people use Facebook means that this obligation is still very much at the tokenism stage. It is not possible to imagine that all elements of online media are credible, but what we can do is try to develop an awareness, a new set of antennae that might help us work our way through this maze. The solution to this technological challenge may be cultural, one that equips us all to see the wood from the trees.
