Of fake news and the unwanted stuffs Creating room for speculations

Imphal woke up to the ‘news’ that at least 19 MLAs had submitted a representative to the Prime Minister to remove the Chief Minister on the ground that he is also part of the problem. The Sangai Express too did receive the report that at least 20 MLAs, not 19 that did the round and went viral on the social media, had submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister to work out a political solution to the crisis that has already crossed the 17 months mark but did not go to the extent of stating that the MLAs had demanded the removal of the Chief Minister. In the course of the said ‘news’ going viral another snap shot of the memorandum purportedly submitted to the Prime Minister containing the line ‘we strongly feel that removal of the present incumbent Chief Minister is the only solution’ emerged. The font of the letters in which this particular line was written seemed at odds with the other words on the memorandum and even as discussions and inputs were shared on the social media on whether this line was part of the representation or were fudged, a local TV channel announced that the Chief Minister had offered to resign. This again went viral on the social media and this was something not unexpected given the fact that Manipur is today highly tuned in to any political developments that may come. How true the ‘offered to resign’ TV news is, is best left to the people concerned to clarify but it is interesting to see how quickly the focus of the people shifted from the Delhi dialogue, the statement issued by the Kuki-Zo MLAs after the Delhi meeting, the refusal of the Meitei MLAs who attended the Delhi do to share what transpired during the meeting, to the memorandum submitted by 20 MLAs to the Prime Minister and later to the ‘offered to resign’ story. This is the age of instant information and as professionals sitting in the newsroom and collecting and editing reports, it is not uncommon to see a report still at the stage of being worked on going viral on the social media. That is even before a report has been given the final touch to go to the printing press, the same report may have gone viral on the social media from other sources and this is where people need to exercise utmost caution and examine each news on the social media with a questioning mind before digesting them. The people obviously cannot be told to wait for the next day’s newspaper, but a word of caution never hurts and any information that goes viral on the social media needs to be checked, rechecked and reverified before it is digested as true. Again this is where the wisdom of not spelling out things, such as the October 15 Delhi meeting, serves no purpose at all and only creates room for speculations to fly thick and fast, more so given the fact that the Kuki-Zo MLAs had issued a statement that no peace talk is possible without first addressing the Separate Administration agenda.
Fake news, which may border very close to a real story, will prosper in an environment where there is no free flow of information. Again it is in such a situation enough rooms are created for stories or news to be planted in any newspaper houses or local TV channels and given the situation that Manipur is passing through right now, such an atmosphere cannot be good for the place and her people. Coming back to the October 15 Delhi dialogue, there is still no official report on what the Meitei MLAs were told and what they conveyed to the Central team deputed by the Home Ministry. This is what is unhealthy and certainly not expected from a Government which otherwise seems to be extremly sensitive to what is put in the newspapers, carried in the local TV channels and even in the social media. For 17 months Manipur has been on the boil and the pressure on the media has been immense and it is only right that the atmosphere is not created for fake news and speculations to do the round and with the interests of the people largely focused on what the Government does, it is only expected that the public relations arm of the Government is made more sensitive. Look at the chain of events and one can connect the dots that led to the story of the  Chief Minister offering to resign and this can be traced to the memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister by 19 MLAs who had purportedly called for his ouster.