It was a true story. 

A digital platform broke the news that a national figure had died of severe injuries after a traffic accident. The bombshell news quickly spread through social media platforms, drawing concern and responses from many netizens.

Upon being checked, however, the news was untrue; it was a hoax.

Fake news on the death of the national figure was only one of the hundreds, if not, thousands, of pieces of misleading information on various issues regularly disseminated by irresponsible individuals via websites, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.

Today, the inevitably rapid digital development is marred by the prevalence of misleading information promulgated on social media platforms, as anyone can establish an online media platform.

Currently, Indonesia is home to more than 40,000 online media platforms, according to a report. This means that people have become increasingly used to reading news stories online.

But this also implies a warning about the importance of being cautious when it comes to news media sources in order not to become the victim of misleading information with all its variations and implications.

Recently, a talk show themed “Shaping Good Governance: Media Integrity in Pint and Pixels” was held at the @america venue in Jakarta.

The Sept. 15 event, held in a hybrid style, featured The Jakarta Post CEO Judistira Wanandi, Kompas deputy editor-in-chief Paulus Tri Agung Kristanto and Indo Media Digital (Tempo Digital) CEO Wahyu Dhyatmika as speakers, with CNN Indonesia journalist and anchor Bram Herlambang as moderator.

The talk show revealed that continuous endeavors should be made to promote media literacy among the people, especially consumers or users of social media platforms, amid the increasingly rampant false information and hoaxes ahead of the 2024 presidential election in Indonesia. 

From the readers’ standpoint, it is important to discern misleading information from authentic and reliable news and find out whether the source is reliable or not.

A large amount of information is posted on social media platforms, much of which can potentially mislead users because it is incomplete and unverified. “Information presented partially and devoid of context can perplex readers,” said Wahyu.

However, reliable media outlets, including The Jakarta Post, Kompas and Tempo adhere to journalistic codes of ethics, these provisions serve as guidelines for every journalist in carrying out their duties. This explains why the news stories they publish are complete, verified, balanced and confirmed, with clear context.

The three speakers acknowledged that they were slower in terms of running their news stories, compared with other unregulated social media platforms that produce content to boost their traffic.

“At The Jakarta Post, we must first verify because we do not want just to be quick and appear [first]. Credibility is number one. We do not want to run a news story just for the sake of increasing traffic,” said Judistira.

“We do not focus on breaking news but more on comprehensive and analytical reports,” he added.

The adherence to the journalistic code of ethics is also manifest in the process of selecting topics by the editorial team, according to Wahyu.

“Our role as journalists is providing the context of a statement, and explaining how the statement could be made, why and how the situation was; whether it was serious or joking. So, it is important to understand the function of the press,” said Wahyu, referring to a case involving a netizen taking a video of a figure who made a statement, followed immediately by others tweeting, which went viral, on different social media platforms.

“Asking for verification and confirmation from news sources are part of the task that journalists should do,” he added.

According to Wahyu, only information that has been verified and confirmed by a true and authoritative news source can be called news.

The conventional and long-established media outlets, Kompas founded in 1965, Tempo in 1971 and The Jakarta Post in 1983, which have had a strong presence in print in the past, have adjusted to the digital age as they are present in both print and digital, with subscription fees as their business model.

“A subscription-fee business model can be one of the ways to tackle the issue of the increasingly uncontrolled sensationalist or impression-based journalism,” Wahyu said.

“This is also a way to provide quality content for subscribers of The Jakarta Post with its comprehensive analytical reports, Kompas with in-depth and data-driven reports and Tempo with its investigative reports,” he added.

Paulus, more affectionately known as Pra, said that the journalistic code of ethics-based media must not tell a lie.  “A journalist may make a mistake but he/she should not tell a lie,” Pra said.

Concerning business models in digital media, Indonesia lags behind other countries, according to Pram. “In the United States, for example, 80 percent of online media have adopted payment models, either through subscriptions or membership schemes,” he said, adding that to produce quality and objective news pieces, the British newspaper The Guardian was funded by donations or crowdfunding.

“Almost all digital media outlets are going in that direction,” he said.

Wahyu added that print and journalistic code of ethics-based media could serve as a reference that users of social media used when seeking the truth about news reports.

Accessing information and news is, indeed, a matter of choice. But choosing journalistic code of ethics-based media publishers, which only provide verified and confirmed news reports, can, surely, prevent you from reading deceptive and confusing news.

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