Disinformation and Journalism

Disinformation and Journalism

The news media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decades. Through digital sources, there has been a tremendous increase in the reach of journalism, social media, and public engagement. Checking for news online—whether through Google, Twitter, Facebook, major newspapers, or local media websites—has become ubiquitous, and smartphone alerts and mobile applications bring the latest developments to people instantaneously around the world.

This has placed journalism in a state of considerable instability. New digital platforms have unleashed innovative journalistic practices that enable novel forms of communication and greater global reach than at any point in human history. But on the other hand, disinformation and hoaxes that are popularly referred to as “fake news” are accelerating and affecting the way individuals interpret daily developments.

Journalists are on the frontline of the ‘fake news’ wars. As truth becomes a casualty of disinformation campaigns designed to disrupt democracies and pull down the shutters on open societies around the world, journalists must defend freedom of expression and the public’s right to know.

Finding ways through these contemporary information challenges is of utmost importance for journalists – but more broadly its fundamental to the maintenance of open societies.

Attention is also being given to making audiences more discriminating and resilient, through empowering them with critical Media and Information Literacy competencies. These steps are also part of the solution, although they are generally of a medium-term nature.

For journalists, journalism students, and journalism educators it is mission-critical to understand the nature and magnitude of the threats and have a holistic view of the attempts to counter them.

“Fake news” and sophisticated disinformation campaigns are especially problematic in democratic systems, and there is growing debate on how to address these issues without undermining the benefits of digital media. 

In order to maintain an open, democratic system, it is important that government, business, and consumers work together to solve these problems. Governments should promote news literacy and strong professional journalism in their societies. The news industry must provide high-quality journalism in order to build public trust and correct fake news and disinformation without legitimizing them. Technology companies should invest in tools that identify fake news, reduce financial incentives for those who profit from disinformation, and improve online accountability. Educational institutions should make informing people about news literacy a high priority. Finally, individuals should follow a diversity of news sources, and be skeptical of what they read and watch.

EC Chair assures election 2020 to be water-tight

To begin with, the Commission is worried that its IT staff do not have administrative rights to passwords to access the biometric database gathered through Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) equipment.
Mrs. Jean Mensa said she was told by STL, they found the Ghanaian staff “untrainable”.
Citing an example of the extent of steep reliance on STL company, she said a recent plan to clean 13,000 biometric verification devices ahead of the referenda for the creation of new regions.
By clean up, she explained, the devices had to be wiped and re-tested for effectiveness. But this will cost $1.7m to be paid STL.
Jean Mensa said the EC was prepared to dole out $200,000 to the IT department to run this clean-up exercise. But none of them had been trained to execute the technical job, she indicated.
According to her, the feedback from her IT department was: “we don’t know how to do it.”
It is these biometric devices purchased in 2011 which are set to be re-used in the voter registration exercise. But these devices, according to the EC, are now outdated technology, bulky, unwieldy and expensive.
The casings holding the devices “is a whole suitcase as though you are going to an engagement to marry a woman,” Jean Mensa said and revealed each case costs $2,500.
Imagine the cost involved in ordering several more for a registration exercise, she suggested.
Newer technologies are less expensive, more efficient and certainly don’t come in huge casings, she revealed.
While it will cost $56m to refurbish the devices and purchase new ones for the mass registration exercise, buying a whole new set of emerging biometric devices will cost $20m less, the EC chairperson said.
This is why, the Chairperson explained, is unable to set up registration centers widely across districts for the 2019 voter registration exercise.
It would be expensive to do an expansive registration exercise with the current biometric devices hence the decision to restrict the exercises to the district offices only.
“Why do you go on with such a system that is not user-friendly, that is costly” Jean Mensa quizzed.
The EC chairperson indicated, the Commission would rather save that money to buy the modern devices adapted with multiple capabilities beyond voter verification.
They can transmit pink sheets by scanning and can also be used for registration. “Some of them are like tablets,” she picked out an advantage of new technology.
The decision has irked the opposition National Democratic Congress whose General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia sees an attempt to disenfranchise newly eligible voters.
“The EC is doing everything possible to ensure people’s right to register is suppressed, that is a way of rigging elections,” he fumed on Top Story on Joy FM.

'Let us know the outcome of investigation into your IT system in 2016 election' - JDM demands from EC

The former Ghanaian president is demanding the EC makes full disclosure of the report of investigations into the hacking of its IT system on Election Day on December 7, 2016.
“If they have investigated they should let us know what compromised the system [and] what steps are being taken to safeguard the system being compromised again,” John Dramani Mahama said at the Business School of Oxford University Friday.
The elections management body kept the nation on tenterhooks after it failed to announce certified results of the 2016 polls after it closed several hours after.
The Chairperson then, Charlotte Osei, at a news conference claimed their electronic transmission system had been "compromised" for which reason they had to rely on a manual system of transmission.
A week after the polls that saw the opposition New Patriotic Party convincingly beat the incumbent National Democratic Congress, Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, said the figures kept changing anytime they were keyed into the system.
Following Charlotte Osei’s removal from office as well as two of her deputies - Amadu Sulley and Ms Georgina Opoku Amankwaa- by President Nana Akufo-Addo, for stated misbehaviour, her successor has yet to comment on the aftermath of the investigations.
Three years on, the EC is yet to furnish Ghanaians with what got it's IT system compromised. 
Delivering a lecture at the Business School of Oxford University on the topic, 'Democracy & Elections in Contemporary Africa', John Mahama said making known the outcome of the investigations, would help safeguard the integrity of the upcoming 2020 elections.
At least if they have, they haven’t shared those findings with us. It was important for us to find out what had happened so that we forestall any disputes around the IT system in the next elections 2020,” he explained.
NDC’s position
Speaking Monday on Newsnight on Joy FM, the NDC’s Director of Elections, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said the call by the former President, who is again contesting the 2020 elections, is “fair” and “reasonable”.
That he noted, will further boost the confidence of the people and the contending parties as far as the next general elections are concerned.
“Any reasonable person would want to have clarity…So these are very legitimate concerns,” Afriyie Ankrah argued.

NPP reacts
However, the New Patriotic Party says whether or not the EC publishes the reports of its investigations, will not change the final results of the polls as announced by the Commission, which also tallies with what the opposition party then, collated.
As far as the NPP is concerned coupled by the mechanisms they rolled out on the day of voting “there was nothing wrong with the results,” Director of Elections, Evans Nimako told the host of Newsnight, Evans Mensah.
Mr Nimako said the NPP adequately prepared itself for the 2016 elections and took a keen interest in the EC’s activities and put measures in place for that.
“We monitored the legal frameworks, we watched the EC’s calendar and we matched them accordingly,” Nimako added.

Source: Myjoyonline