Countering disinformation: US diplomat underlines importance of fact-checking by journos

The conference was organised jointly by the Osmania University department of journalism and mass communication and the US Consulate General Hyderabad at the CFRD building on the OU campus on 9 July. Prof. Lakshminarayana, the registrar of OU, underlined the need to counter disinformation and misinformation for the common good. A book on fact-checking authored by noted journalist Udumula Sudhakar Reddy and fact-checker Satyapriya was released at the event. Prof. K. Narender, the dean of social sciences, and Prof. K. Stevenson, HoD (journalism and mass communication) also spoke at the event. Syed Nazakat, the founder and CEO of DataLeads, urged participants to apply critical thinking techniques to sift facts from the flood of information. In her session, Nivedita Niranjankumar, news editor (south) of BoomLive, emphasised observational skills over overdependence on tech tools. She asked the trainees to think about what is fake news, opinion, and joke.