University lecturer with the Faculty of Communication at the Bayero University, Kano, Dr. Rukayyah Yusuf Ali, has described as most challenging to the journalism the situation whereby untrained people join the profession in the context of social media.
Rukayya was delivering a paper titled, ‘‘The Relevance of Mainstream Media in Speech Countering Fake News, Hate Speech and Curbing Insecurity in Nigeria” to the ongoing Bauchi State Council NUJ Press Week.
Ali pointed out that technology had revolutionized information processing and dissemination thereby giving birth to what is today popularly known as digital media, online media or the new media.
She said, “Now we have more information access on our finger tips, now we have people going into the media profession even though they are not trained. This has posed a challenge for us”.
She said that the fabrication of fake news and hate speech comes as as result of access and use of the media by non-professionals or any person that feels he has the gadgets to do that, which is a problem to media practice.
She gave the negative aspect of the new media as fake news and hate speech specifically in the Nigerian context.
The don also defined fake news as fabricated story which has no credible evidence base with apparent purpose of misinforming and persuading the audience to take action which is mostly negative, saying fake news is misleading and degrading.