Beware of fake news

Acting Chief Executive Maria Cooper, in a short welcome address to the 21 interns drawn from secondary and tertiary institutions across the country, pointed to the risks of inaccuracies that occur because of the changed and sophisticated media environment both locally and globally. She described the project as one born out of Newsday’s commitment to the development of youth in society.

This is the second year Newsday is undertaking the project which will culminate with the young participants demonstrating their newly-acquired skills in both the regular Newsday publication and a special youth issue towards the end of August. Last year’s inaugural event saw a number of participants undertaking freelance assignments with Newsday in news and feature writing, design and layout and photography, and some have maintained a relationship with the newspaper.

Editor in Chief Jones P. Madeira, warned that today’s audiences are no longer passive recipients of information and opinion generated by the media.

He said the dramatic evolution of information technology and its shattering of the constraints of time and distance for the transfer and exchange of information have given the audience the immense power of proactively talking back, and it is to the peril of media that they choose to ignore this fact and not lend an ear.

He quoted a USbased journalist and author Jeff Ansell who had warned that “research on the run only gets it right some of the time, and truth and perspective become casualties of reporting.” Speaking with Newsday after yesterday’s launch, Cooper outlined the objectives of the NYLO programme which included to train participants how to communicate effectively with others using traditional and new media and to guide participants in the basics of journalism including how to write news stories, how to approach people and, how to ask questions. According to the Newsday acting CEO, the newspaper also wants to gain constructive feedback from its youth partners on how to report and disseminate the news for younger audiences.

The participants toured Newsday’s prepress and press operations at its El Socorro headquarters as part of yesterday’s launch and they will continue at that venue today and tomorrow for sessions that further expose them to newspaper publishing operations as well as the rudiments of news and feature writing.