It has come to light that some media practitioners are increasingly responsible for misrepresentation or perpetuation of misleading, sensationalising or publishing harmful information and content.
The fundamental purpose of news and current affairs content in a democracy is to enable people to know what is happening. So, it is crucial for content to be disseminated responsibly and ethically so people are not misled or misinformed.
The Content Forum together with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) held a webinar on the 25th of January 2022 sharing experiences, insights and other concerns regarding ethics in news reporting.
Titled ‘Ethics in the News’, this full day webinar benefitted the participants who were broadcasters, media practitioners, health practitioners, institutes of higher learning, government representatives and members of the public. The webinar also made a good touchpoint for content creators to connect amongst themselves for continued interaction and feedback in a bid to improve the industry.
A panel consisting of three leading news broadcasters in Malaysia discussed Journalism Ethics and Standards, Responsible Reporting on Suicide and Shared Experience – News Reporting in Malaysia.
The participants also received a refresher course on the role of MCMC and the Content Forum in managing the communications and multimedia industry, and they were able to share industry experiences in news reporting and journalism, as well as discuss the best practices for news reporting. Everyone was updated on selected laws and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Content Code (Content Code).
“The development of the Internet as a source of free and immediate access to information has forever changed the structure of the news media. With user-generated content by members of the public who seem to want to ‘be the first to share’, accuracy and fairness in news appear to be more difficult to uphold but is now even more important to sustain. People are inundated with ‘fake news’ on social media and messenger services, so the legitimate organisations that are actually tasked to publish news should be the ones to counter the ill effects of ‘fake news’ by holding firm to the tenets of ethics,” said Content Forum Executive Director Mediha Mahmood.
Mediha, who was also one of the moderators, hopes that this virtual event that took place will act as a platform for all participants to have a better understanding of their roles, responsibilities and to further improve or strengthen their modes of working together.
The webinar was streamed live on the Content Forum’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mycontentforum. For more details about Content Forum or the Content Code, visit www.contentforum.my
