In a world of ruled by lies, truth is a rare commodity. Truth is not something one could buy, and in the modern world it may just cost you your life just to tell the truth.
We live in a world where if one is telling the truth he/ she will be considered guilty while the one who is lying continuously about it all will be given more importance as the media tries its best to scoop out gossip that can help them boost their ratings, they don’t really care if the news is fake or real as long as it can bring about income to fill their bellies they don’t hesitate spreading lies at all.
Our Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad ﷺ said:
‘Speak truth even in the harshest circumstances of oppression’
Influence of Media:
Truth may be hard to tell since people consider the truth as boring, people live for exciting news, something they could talk about for long hours, and listening to the truth would be no fun for them.
Media does not care about how many people get hurt in this spreading of lies, they just want to be the popular ones so in order to achieve that purpose they go to the measure where they brag so much exaggerate the truth that it becomes a lie.
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For instance, if one says something on the social media, the media will fabricate his / her words and display it in such a manner that his/her words will lose value and just might start indicating something else. But the worst part is how people react to these lies, media has such a strong hold over us that people consider what the media displays to be true, ignoring the truth and the actual back story of the case.
We don’t even know that the news we hear on social Medias or read in newspapers is even true or not.
It is rightly said that:
‘A LIE DOESN’T BECOME TRUTH. WRONG DOESN’T BECOME RIGHT AND EVIL DOESN’T BECOME GOOD JUST BECAUSE IT IS ACCEPTED BY A MAJORITY’
Rumours spread like wild fire:
The sources of social media in the developing world such as Facebook, WhatsApp, twitter etc. have made access to information much cheaper and comparatively faster. Information can now be passed all over the world as easily as it can in a small house. No doubt the world has become a global village.
In olden times people used to put some thought in what they had heard and before they passed on any information they made sure that it was true, but in the modern world people without even knowing the whole information pass it on and share it with others. The information than does not end up in its purest form, it than contains all the dirt material of the people who have been passing on the information.
People are always ready to pass their judgements, even if it’s not needed. ‘Lie is the new Truth' should be the next season of “Orange is the new Black”.
Print and electronic media need to achieve high ratings due to which they go to an extent where they change the given information in a way that people get engrossed in. which includes half-truths and whole lies.
What has caused all this?
Threats given to print and electronic media may also be the main cause that they fabricate the original information given to them.
Even though the landscape of media has become broad there is still deficiency of experienced and trained journalists.
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Measures that should be taken:
The truth should not be distorted by the media, it should be reported the way it has been handed over. The government and civil society should provide a threat free environment to the media so they can perform their work without any hindrance.
Before coverage media should give thought to it that the information that they have received is true or not before making big headlines.
The print media rather than putting fake idols on the front page of the newspaper should try to put the facts and show the true face no matter how bitter it may seem.
Hunter S. Thompson, A famous American Journalist once said:
“If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past 10 years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.”
