Coronavirus: A call for responsible journalism

In our line of work, one can easily get carried away by sensationalism, or by the desire for more clicks and hits on our news portals.

Sensationalism is always wrong and, in circumstances like the ones we currently find ourselves in, it is totally unacceptable. And so is the ‘we’re more expert than the experts’ mentality that is being shown by some people in the media trade.

As fear and panic increase in the unfolding Coronavirus drama, our newsroom, like others, is being inundated by calls, emails and Facebook messages claiming that X number of people have been infected and are still roaming around, that the authorities are lying to us and that tens of thousands of people will end up dying in overcrowded hospital wards.

We are double and triple-checking every piece of information that reaches us and, but the truth is that most of it is fake. We are only publishing real facts, as relayed to us by the health authorities, who we have no reason to doubt.

In fact, we have a constant and open dialogue with the health authorities and with government spokespersons. We have attended press briefings, where we voiced our concerns but also pledged to cooperate in getting the right information out there.

Not all newsrooms attended, however, and not everyone seems to want to cooperate.

The Nationalist Party media, for example, seems intent on trying to get some political mileage out of the situation.

While it is only natural to question the authorities and ask the questions that need to be asked, we cannot, just for the sake of politics, make people lose trust in our health system and in the people advising our politicians on the day-to-day decisions that are being communicated.

There was one particular case this week where a journalist accused the Prime Minister of being ‘reactive.’ Rather than asking questions, the journalist was making statements – which went contrary to the advice that was at the time being given by the World Health Organisation – and insisting that the Coronavirus would not have reached Malta had the PM stopped flights sooner. Which is hogwash, of course.

There is also the issue of what individual journalists post on the social media. While we are in no way saying that journalists, or anyone else for that matter, should be censored or told what they can and cannot post on Facebook, we must all realise that we carry some weight, that people look up to us in times like these, and that any views we express, whether personal or not, can be misconstrued. So there might be a situation where a particular newsroom’s efforts to stick to the facts and avoid opinion are undermined by some of its own staff.

There was another case this week where a fledgling online media outlet reported that OPM officials had said that a total of 30 people have been infected with the Coronavirus.

We had heard that rumour too, but we bothered to verify the facts. There was a simple explanation – patients have to test positive in three separate results to be confirmed as having contracted Covid-19. Some people can get a positive result in the initial test but negative in the subsequent two tests. If this happens, they do not have the Coronavirus.

But this particular news outlet did not verify the facts and ran the story, only to have to correct it later on. But the damage had been done by then, the ‘news’ had gone viral and people were panicking even more than before. ‘The government is lying to us,’ they were thinking. And it is a fact that, once a report like that goes out, it is hard to dispel the fake news, no matter how many corrections are issued.

We believe that our readers should be kept informed of all developments, and that nothing should be kept from the public (although there are times where holding on to some information can serve a greater good), but all newsrooms have a duty to publish facts, not fiction or unverified claims, especially at a time like this.

And people out there should get their news from reputable sources, particularly the independent media, not from fake news websites and dodgy Facebook pages.

Panic can be worse than the virus itself and the worst thing we can do is to send people into a frenzy by casting unneeded doubts on the professionals who are working 24/7 to combat the spread of the Coronavirus (by the way, many of them are the same people who fought other pandemics in the past, under different administrations), and to publish highly inflated infection figures.

So, once again, let us all pull the same rope, stick to the facts and have faith in those working tirelessly to keep us as safe as possible.