The media ecosystem is a rapidly evolving chaotic landscape. Professional journalists now share space with bloggers, citizen journalists and social media users, transforming the nature of journalism and its ethics. The internet is encouraging new forms of journalism that are interactive and immediate. Due to this shift, there is a growing emphasis on the importance of ensuring that social media users are media literate.

To understand the solution media literacy may provide to the challenges of accessing information in the digital age, The News on Sunday spoke with veteran journalist, Kamal Siddiqi. Siddiqi was the founding editor of The Express Tribune and is a former director of the Centre for Excellence in Journalism at the Institute of Business Administration. In June this year, he was awarded the prestigious Journalists of Courage Impact Award at the East-West Centre International Media Conference in Philippines.

he News on Sunday: What do you think are the major challenges in accessing and using information in the digital age?

Kamal Siddiqi: The first thing about journalism is that in our profession, especially in Pakistan, not everybody has been trained to be a journalist. Many practitioners have degrees in other subjects but ventured into journalism. So, journalism is an unregulated profession as compared to, let’s say, a profession like law, where you have to have a law degree, and a licence to practice. That makes journalism, in comparison, a very free-flowing profession. The down side of this—and perhaps also the upside—is that anybody can be a journalist. And that’s basically the ethos of journalism, that anybody can start writing and become a journalist.

The challenge here is that because most people have not studied journalism as a discipline, they are unaware of the basic ethics of the profession. Initially, in print, there was a mentorship system, which by and large helped. The seniors trained the juniors, and those ethics were passed down. Ethical rules are not law and they are not written in stone. But if you violate ethics, you’re not only making it a problem for your profession but also for yourself in terms of your professional standing.

There was a substantial shift in Pakistan when private broadcast media came in the early 2000s. A lot of people who had absolutely no clue about ethics became part of the profession. Then a whole new culture of breaking news was introduced.

Now, with digital media as we see it today, two things have happened. Initially, digital media was also part of the mainstream media. But now, because of censorship, the audience is shifting away from the mainstream media. The next challenge that we’re facing in terms of ethics is that there are people who are not journalists but opinion leaders and content providers. The content that they produce is viewed online. We may not call their content ‘news,’ but it is ‘information.’ These people do not believe they are obliged to follow professional ethics.

It’s not just about fake news; it’s also about misinformation. When you look at the newspaper and you get news, it’s not supposed to have a bias; that, however, does not hold true for an influencer. Here the challenge is even greater because you now have people who are non-journalists but are in the field and driving their news agenda.

TNS: The media landscape is rapidly transforming. Considering not everyone producing content is a journalist, what should these new-age content creators and professional journalists keep in mind when researching and publishing information in a society where media literacy has not yet been fully integrated?

KS: They should try to report as accurately as possible. This is one of the four pillars of the code of journalism, which is to seek the truth and report it. It’s much more difficult than it seems. So that’s one. But there are other things as well.

They have to be mindful of the fact that there are biases. Even in the most unbiased journalists, there’s a bias. And they have to recognise and address that. The third thing is that they should do no harm in the sense that their content should not harm people, especially victims of some crime. Most importantly, they should hold themselves accountable.

There’s always a market for good journalism. We’re seeing now in Pakistan as well that some media platforms emerging in the digital landscape are performing very well. If people see a good story and realise that it’s not agenda-driven or biased, they appreciate it.

TNS: Media literacy and ethical concerns are closely linked. Considering that news, content and information have a wider, global reach through digital platforms, is there a need to rethink and revise ethical codes?

KS: In my opinion, the issue is the evolution of journalism and the media. If we are going to look at media ethics in terms of mainstream and non-mainstream media, it should encompass the influencers, independent podcasters and other content creators. If we are to work on evolving a code of ethics or guidelines, it has to include these platforms and people because the audiences are shifting there.

These are not covered yet because we feel they’re not journalists and, therefore, they’re not our responsibility, but we have to acknowledge that they are still generating content. It’s going to be a difficult task because this is a much larger group.

TNS: In the digital age, advocates of media literacy are advancing the cause with great fervour. But energy and enthusiasm are most effectively expended when the challenges are properly recognised. Have we realised those challenges?

KS: Media literacy has to shift. Ideally, people should be discerning enough to understand what is correct and what is not; what to read and what not to; what to forward and what not to. But, you know, in practice that doesn’t happen. People are quite reckless in the way they forward information; how they share things; and also, with the kind of content that they consume.

The hardest challenge here, of course, is for the less aware. They are the people one should think about while forwarding content because they will consume it mindlessly.

The interviewer is a staff member