Validate First

Validate First

By: Joanne Christine Mocay

When I was young, I told myself that I don’t want to be a policewoman. It’s because of the thought that I might die early because of the duties policemen need to comply, battles they need to conquer and bad people they need to catch.

As I enter college, I have decided to took Mass Communication as my course because I want my name to be written as a by line on a newspaper, be heard on the radio and to be watched on the television. This was the course connected to my dreams and media-related. I came to realized that it was not only in being a policemen or policewoman where I take my life at risk. Instead, being a journalist or media practitioner is more detrimental because what lies ahead is my credibility and trust of the people.

I remembered one situation somewhere in Pangasinan which happened before last month, it was wherein a journalist reported news about a disease and stated that this was a dangerous skin-eating and was transferable. This affected the people, tourists and others who want to visit and have their vacation on the said place. On the other day, a doctor clarified to the public that this skin disease was not transferable. With this, the credibility and trustworthiness of the public to that reporter decreases if not totally destroyed.

We can view from this that with only one mistake or wrong information we report can affect our whole life especially our career. Let us relate this to a quote which states, “Trust is like a paper, once it is crumpled it can never be straightly perfect again” which obviously states the meaning.

Nonetheless, as an aspiring media practitioner in the future, let us not acquire the “kuryente” jargon of journalists. It was a term used to describe a situation wherein a reporter immediately report or broadcast an information he/she have just heard from other people or colleagues without validating first it is true or false just to have fresh news. Validating is very important because in here you have to authenticate your sources if what they have told you is factual or not.

I always remember this phase from one of my supervisors in my internship and I want to share it with you, he said, “when in doubt, don’t”. Just imagine yourself on a narrow cliff, just one wrong move and you’re dead.