Media in the firing line of social media

Thai PBS replacing Nattaya Wawweerakup, the host of People’s Voices That Need to be Heard Before the Reform, after a junta complaint last week prompted a lot of discussion, especially on social media. 

On social media, arguments raged over the media’s responsibilities, whether it operates with political neutrality or that it needs to and whether the freedom of the press is deserved. 

Early this week, the media became the talk of the town once more after some mainstream media organisations, Daily News and MCOT, published a story about a Facebook page in which dogs are purportedly procured for sexual abuse. There was a contact number on the page. It turned out the page was fake.

A group called Dark Knights II, which has a reputation for taking on social justice causes, denied it was responsible for the page. 

The newspaper admitted it had made a mistake, and removed the story from its website. While many people felt satisfied that it was a mistake and proved the media worked properly, many said the media’s coverage of this “story” proved it didn’t work properly. 

Later in the week, a pantip.com post by TonyMao_NK51 was widely shared and discussed. He called for universities to scrap communication arts, journalism and mass communication faculties.

His argument for doing so included his belief that mainstream media had become irrelevant and citizen reporting via social media was the new power. 

He said the online media was full of experts willing to provide information about a particular story and that resulted in more truth being shed on a topic than what occurred in the mainstream media, which had access to only a few big names and had a limited number of news sources. 

“It is a different nature of the working process,” he wrote. “The media might want to interview A, B and C but these people might not want to talk to the media … But in the online world, even the person at the end of the world and is hard to reach, if he wants to give information he can just get connected to the Internet and share the information.”

He also said the media’s deadlines led to mistakes and incorrect information being published. 

The cost of reporting nowadays is very low, he wrote, adding that people can use mobile phones and the Internet in reporting while a lot of information pours in once an issue is raised. Some journalists do investigative reporting, but such a skill is a gift that cannot be taught. 

“After all, it’s not wrong to say that we should scrap the faculties of communication arts, journalism and mass communication because what the students learned were only techniques the media uses and a bit of ethics,” he said. 

“Finally, they [the mainstream media] cannot match the Internet when it comes to deep and detailed information due to the limitations I have already mentioned.” 

This post received a lot of reaction from journalists and non-journalists. Many said the big hole in the author’s argument was the fact that the faculties were not only about producing news journalists. 

They also said many people who graduated from journalism schools found that ethics cultivated in the schools worked and was very crucial. A lot of people said good journalists existed.

I, a journalism graduate, also believe the schools are necessary. 

But the issues discussed are not surprising. Journalists also discuss the present challenges facing the media. 

What happened this week might be just another lesson and a warning for the media. After all, the role of the professional media remains vital, and is even more crucial in order to verify the loads of information floating around elsewhere. 

More importantly, press freedom – which must be ensured – has to come with the media acting responsibly.