Selective silence damages media credibility (2)

But the public will not miss any news. The news disappeared from the official media will be spread widely on the Internet. The more ambiguous and confusing the news is, the more attractive it will be. If the media keep silence and reporters do not conduct a tracking survey, rumors will prevail due to lack of true and reliable information.

The blame is often put on the demagoguery of people with ulterior motives to some unexpected events. Do they have the opportunity of demagoguery if the media can find the truth and take a stand immediately after something happens? Blocking news and keeping silence do not mean safe but will brew greater crises.

The official media represent official voices in a sense and their keeping silent will make government departments lose the right to speak. It actually is a matter of the media about what and how to report, and excessive intervention will make the media deviate from their duty. Behaviors violating the rules of journalism may backfire. The media's silence about hot issues and the public's heated discussions on Weibo are two entirely different circles, intensifying the distrust between officials and the public.

Both media and management departments should respect the objective law of journalism and the characteristics of network communication. In the era of multimedia, the banning, blocking and instructions are ineffective in cultivating virtuous public opinion ecology, and media should first learn to listen and understand the wills of people before guiding and easing social emotions. The key for media to win the audience and credibility does not lie in whether or not they are major newspapers and official mainstream media, but lies in whether they can explore the truth, convey the wills of the public and control the right to speak.

Selective silence will marginalize the media and make them the spokesperson of commercial interests and dispensable "megaphone", finally leading them to decline.

Source:China Youth Daily, author: Feng Xuemei.

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