Counter mis-disinformation to reduce tension in political seasons – Lecturer tells media

Counter mis-disinformation to reduce tension in the political season – Lecturer told the media

A senior lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana (UG), Dr. Gilbert Tietaah urged media practitioners to be wary of sharing mis-disinformation that tends to cause unnecessary tension in the country during the political season.

Mis-disinformation is a combination of two words, misinformation, and disinformation which means wrong and misleading information and may be intended to harm or not harm.

Dr. Tietaah added that the act of sharing false information leads to fraud on the public which may affect the electoral choices and thus, may affect the development of the country.

Talk to Citi News on the sidelines of a two-day training workshop for journalists on fact-checking and combating mis-disinformation organized by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Dr. Tietaah emphasized the need for media practitioners to be more careful when disseminating information.

“Changing information without intention or without wrong knowledge invites us to be more diligent and careful about the information we share. We make mistakes but when we make mistakes, there should be a writing, disclosure or correction process”, he said.

The Communication lecturer also emphasized that mis-disinformation can be reduced when media practitioners are open to training to update what they already know.

Meanwhile, fact checker and Program Officer with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Krobea Asante urged media practitioners to avoid bias when checking information that affects their results.

“Sometimes you can analyze information based on your own personal beliefs or beliefs, so you believe something until you reach that information. But you are biased towards that belief, and you use that belief system to approach your understanding or analysis of certain information when you try to check the facts . Therefore, you may not get the best out of what you want to do”, the fact checker explains.

The training workshop brought together twenty five (25) journalists drawn from Accra and other regions across the country.

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