At a forum on Media and Development in Berlin yesterday, my friend Nalaka Gunewardena (who moderated a discussion) brought on a fresh perspective to the problem. It’s not about the tools per se that we could use to fight Fake News. It’s also about education, alliances and policy reform, .
We must also look for the symptoms in the loss of trust in journalism, he said. The need is to build structures that enhance and nurture quality journalism. In other words, create trustworthy messengers before trying to fix (or block) the pipes through which the messages flow. Plus the need to influence policy and literacy.
This is a lot more nuanced than just clamping down on media platforms or discrediting the sources – reactive steps.
So let’s get pro-active about a problem that didn’t arrive yesterday, and won’t go away soon.
I encourage you to read Nalaka’s post about this.
Hoipolloireport 