Series of Journalistic Writing Part 1 : Understanding Post Truth (August 23, 2022)
On August 23, 2022, Van Deventer-Maas Indonesia held a Series of Journalistic Writing (part 1), facilitated by Kristin Samah (writer). There were 62 participants in this session. This session discussed “Understanding Post Truth”. Along with the development of digital technology, the flow of information is increasingly flooding the public space. Various news articles appeared on social media, so the truth seems difficult to identify. This flood of information makes us unable to distinguish what is right and what is wrong. This situation is known as post truth. Post truth is not a time sequence but rather a condition in which something is taken as truth and overstated.
Nowadays, in the post truth era, information technology gives us the opportunity to get the widest possible information, but at the same time also narrows our minds. This can be seen by the filter bubble that appears when we are surfing in cyberspace. Filter bubble is a search algorithm that allows us to get a feed of only the news we see most often. On the contrary, we are increasingly isolated from other news that we are not interested in. Filter bubble also called “cyberbalk“ or “splinternet”, means that filter bubble separating the two communities and limiting themselves to each other so that they fail to see each other’s point of view.
Media has a very big role in the post truth’s formation. There are 3 types of media’s efforts in the post truth formation: 1). framing, 2). signing, and 3). priming. Framing is an effort made by the media to frame, select or highlight an event in accordance with their vision and mission and side with certain parties. Signing is an effort made by the media in choosing words, terms, images, phrases or slogans, including in determining a certain sequence of events. While priming is the media’s effort so that the discourse reaches the audience as much as possible through simultaneous steps by increasing the opportunity to be accessed by readers.
Post truth can be countered by 1). developing critical thinking to make decisions based on facts/data (not assumptions), 2). conduct causality analysis and not claims, 3). express opinions based on interpretations (not justifications) and 4). view information based on conclusions (not evaluations).
In the QnA session, many participants took part in the session. Hillary Dwi Mukti (a VDMI grantee from USD) asked about the assumption in the post truth era. Assumptions can encourage us to find out something, but we cannot use assumptions to draw conclusions or decide something. We have to look back at the facts and data, so we don’t get caught up in the post truth. Next, Ode Dermasyah (grantee Pattimura University) asked about how journalists revised the wrong news that they already publish. A journalist has a big responsibility to publish the right news. She/ he is indoctrinated to do “zero mistakes”, because it can be a part of character assassination if journalists report the wrong thing, especially when the news has spread widely. Furthermore, this applies to all of us, not just for journalists. Because at this time we also act as disseminators of information, so we must be wise in producing or conveying information. However, if the wrong news has already been shared, then the most important thing to do is to correct the news or take down the news if it has been spread through online media.
