Mokokchung Press Club urges DIPR to combat misinformation through media literacy campaign
The Mokokchung Press Club has urged the state’s Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) to introduce media literacy and ethics initiatives as countermeasures
- DIMAPUR — Expressing serious concern over what it described as increasing
public confusion between professional journalism and unregulated media content,
the Mokokchung Press Club (MPC) has urged the state’s Department of Information
and Public Relations (DIPR) to introduce media literacy and ethics initiatives
as countermeasures.
- In a letter
addressed to the director of DIPR, the MPC flagged the growing trend of
equating content from social media users, YouTubers, and informal online
groups—WhatsApp and Facebook groups, and even well-meaning collectives that
associate with the term “media”—with the work of professional journalists.
- “In today’s
digital environment, a wide range of actors now produce news-like content,
often without attribution, editorial standards, or accountability. While these
voices contribute to public discourse, the tendency to equate all content with
credible journalism undermines the profession’s integrity and misleads or
misinforms the public.
- “We are
witnessing the collapse of public distinction between journalism that upholds
fact-checking, accountability, and editorial standards, and content aimed
solely at engagement, reaction, or virality, often with little regard for truth
or ethics,” the letter read.
- While
digital platforms have democratised access to information, they have also
blurred the lines, it stated.
- Accordingly,
it proposed to the DIPR to initiate two specific steps: launch a state-wide
media literacy campaign in collaboration with schools, colleges, churches, and
civil society organisations to help the public distinguish between factual
reporting and opinion, propaganda, or misinformation; and support training,
fellowships, and workshops for district-level journalists and local media
workers, with a focus on digital verification, ethics, and public trust in
journalism.
- “We stress
that this is not a call for censorship but a call for clarity, education, and
the protection of the integrity of the press. Journalism must evolve with the
times but not at the cost of its principles,” it asserted.
