Reflection No. 1 - Chan Jing Jie (:

1. Based on your understanding of facts and opinions, why do you think this is important for a journalist/ reporter in the world of online news reporting?
2. How can some of the problems raised in the articles be controlled?
3. What are some responsibilities of discerning readers?

Online Journalism is through reporting facts and news over in the internet. Journalists should also be able to differentiate the facts and opinions from the articles and resources they are referring to. A Journalist has to verify the facts before publishing them up the net. This is to ensure accuracy of the news. A Journalist has a heavy burden of making sure that the news published is without and opinion and thoughts. If a news published without real factual information, the reporter is blamed. A basic skill of having to ascertaining the facts, is important in this case. False information would affect the reporter, as well as the people stated in the news report.

Nowadays, there are more and more informative report sites. Reports are competing against each other in publishing the report up. Problems, like reporters trying to rush the news report out in the fastest time is now causing a stir. Information that the reporters get may not be factual, as they may contain opinions and thoughts. Therefore, the report may not be reliable and accurate. This problem can be solved if the reporters place accuracy before speed. Apart from that, there could also be more reporters to ascertain the information posted up onto the web. The information stated would then be more reliable and factual. If misleading news is posted on the web, the whole wide world would be able to access it and would get the wrong information. Therefore, it is important to corroborate the information.

Readers should be able to differentiate from a fact and an opinion. This would avoid having major topics of the news report itself. They should think in behalf of the reporters, and not kick a big fuss over false information. Instead, they should contact the publisher of the news report immediately, to avoid the readers to have a false information and impression.

Besides that, to verify the information, they can also check on the web with other news reporting sites, when in doubt. Corroborating and Triangulating the information would allow them to confirm the accuracy of the content in the report.