“Anonymous journalists are meaningless”

Sharing about the issue of verifying information sources was one of the two main contents of the last session in the series of seminars on journalism at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, April 1, 2010.

Verify for objective information

“For journalists, any information received must be carefully verified to ensure that it is up-to-date but must be from an official source.” That was the opening statement for the sharing of Master of Journalism Vu Minh Thuy. The best way to check the authenticity of information is to go to the scene, where the incident or event that is of public interest occurs. If far from the scene, journalists can call the authorities, those who are responsible for speaking and have the ability to provide official information. For example, the news of a fisherman missing in storm Chan Chu returning home is very attractive to reporters and the public. Reporters get involved and verify the information directly from the character himself and related people to write touching articles about this character. However, not long after that, the story was just made up by that person in the hope of not having to pay back the subsidy money he received as a victim of the storm. Thus, if we rush to verify the accuracy of information, the consequences will be very serious. With modern journalism, in foreign countries there is a department that thoroughly verifies information data before publishing and "needs to have the voice of the character himself, whether right or wrong, that is how journalists protect themselves".

1001 sources

Master, journalist Pham Thi Thanh Long emphasized the importance of verifying information sources and its important impact on the reputation of the newspaper and the honor of the journalist himself. "Reputation", according to journalist Thanh Long, must be built with the efforts of quality articles by journalists. And to become a famous journalist, verifying information sources is a very important issue. Information sources for reporters are very rich. Journalists should have relationships with many people in different localities so that when an event occurs, there is the voice of someone who has lived there, understands that place, the article will have soul, the information will become closer, more attractive to readers. Journalist Thanh Long emphasized that maintaining relationships is not simply in work, but also in relationships between people. We need to build trust so that when an event occurs, they are willing to provide us with information quickly and accurately. This relationship needs to be built over a long period of time. Another important source of information, according to journalist Thanh Long, is from specialized magazines. In our country, there are currently about 900 published press publications. Among them, there are specialized magazines dedicated to researchers, which are extremely important sources of information for journalists. Official reports are documents that journalists can exploit for their articles. But in reality, there are events that if only relying on people around them, journalists cannot have full information, especially objective information on a large scale. In that case, we can use information on forums as a source. Some people say that information on forums is not official because sometimes people exchange nonsense. Such unofficial information has the potential to damage the reputation of the newspaper as well as the self-esteem of journalists. That is true, but we should also look at reality when there are many social issues that people exchange on forums very well, very frankly and deeply. Journalists must be careful with the information on the forum. That information only becomes valuable information if there is verification and contact with the owner of those statements in reality. The next important thing is that the way to present information and how to use that information must be seriously verified. The spokesperson then has the consciousness to protect the opinions that he presents to the public.

Difference from quote

“Good quotes make the difference between articles on the same issue and create a unique identity for each journalist. Getting good quotes depends on how reporters ask questions to the characters. Reporters need to pay attention to avoid making a big mistake: assuming they know everything. There is information that is already known, but reporters should ask to confirm that it is information provided by the characters themselves.” That is the sharing of Master Tran Le Thuy about quoting information in the press. Do not include background, general information, or additional information in the quotes. Choose sentences that express personal emotions, sentences that show the character's personality to use as quotes. Journalist Le Thuy also shared a concise way of writing modern articles: Consider yourself telling a story. Because after all, journalists are intermediaries, asking those who know and telling those who do not know about a certain story. So tell it in a concise, easy-to-understand and attractive way. The second part of the seminar was the certificate awarding ceremony and the closing ceremony of the seminar. However, the talk continued with interesting sharing of issues related to journalism.