Hyderabad: Workshop held on 'Countering Disinformation for Telugu TV Reporters'

Hyderabad: Frankie Sturm, Assistant Public Affairs Officer at the US Consulate-General, here, has underlined the importance of citizens' duties and responsibilities to defend truth, while countering disinformation and misinformation in all possible ways.

Addressing a two-day workshop on "Countering Disinformation for Telugu TV Reporters," jointly organised by the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Osmania University, and the US Consulate, he said 'it is imperative to have a wider discussion on the issue of misinformation and disinformation'.

"Misinformation threatens the foundations of democracy, because we can't get together and debate the big issues of the day if we don't have a shared understanding of basic facts," Sturm observed. "This workshop will improve the information environment - and thus the underpinnings of democracy - by equipping journalists with additional skills to spot misinformation and provide reliable news to the public. Osmania University has already conducted over 100 hours of training on countering disinformation, and we look forward to more such training today."

Prof. D Ravinder, OU Vice-Chancellor, the guest of honour, thanked the US consulate for having chosen the 104-year-old educational institute to train Telugu journalists. He urged the media "to cross check facts before making news public as unverified information can damage the reputation of individuals and organisations. Hence, the media ought to be balanced and fair."

Prof Stevenson Kohir, project coordinator and head of the department, said the first-of-its-kind training programme evoked overwhelming response from participants. He described how some participants had already pre-empted the dissemination of misinformation in news by applying the techniques they were taught as part of the training. He highlighted the resource material in Telugu on fact checking, authored by the lead trainer Udumula Sudhakhar Reddy and BN Satyapriya, proved to be very useful to participants in their daily journalistic routine as effective fact-checkers.