Opinion: Belarusian journalists are technically and ethically ready to combat fake news

“Belarus and the mass media community did not start this era of post-truth and fake news. We were forced to work in this era. Since the beginning of this very difficult year we had to operate in such an intensive mode. However, to the credit of Belarusian journalists, most of them adhere to the ethical standards of the profession. All adhere to the new Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists adopted by the International Federation of Journalists at the end of last year. In fact, this is a small ethical constitution for journalists, for more than 180 journalistic associations around the world,” Andrei Krivosheyev said.

According to him, data verification and fact checking are becoming essential for a modern journalist. “In fact, disclosing fake news is turning into a separate genre of journalism, which, by the way, is very popular among our readers, subscribers, viewers, followers, radio listeners. Therefore, in my opinion, our colleagues, Belarusian journalists, are technically, ethically, and morally prepared to counter this avalanche of fake news. As for the Belarusian Union of Journalists, we expect to significantly boost the ethics commission at the congress today. This commission will help, including at the national level, large regional mass media holdings to maintain high ethical standards, to keep the ethical bar of Belarusian journalism,” Andrei Krivosheyev said.

In addition, the congress of the Belarusian Union of Journalists will also discuss digitalization of regional media.