US Consul Gen Jennifer Larson stresses on threat caused by disinformation in media

Hyderabad: Jennifer Larson, Consul General, United States Consulate General, Hyderabad, spoke to journalists about the threat posed by disinformation and the importance of spotting and debunking false narratives before they enter mainstream reporting.

"There have always been actors looking to spread false information and journalists have always been on the front lines of identifying that information and preventing it from circulating among the broader public," she said at the certificate awards ceremony of the training programme on "Countering Disinformation for Telugu TV Journalists" at the CFRD building on the OU campus here on Tuesday.

Consul General Larson said that "It's important that we work as hard as we can to spot disinformation, because the stakes are high. The whole point of democracy is that we come together as individuals, argue about what we think our elected officials should do, and then hold those elected officials to account. But we can't do that if we're working with bad information."

Professor D Ravinder, Vice Chancellor, Osmania University thanked the US Consulate General, Hyderabad, for choosing the 104-year-old educational institute to train Telugu journalists to counter disinformation. He narrated how false information created trouble in academic settings.

Prof Stevenson Kohir, Project Coordinator and Head, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at OU, shared the positive impact created by the first-of-its-kind training programme conducted for Telugu TV journalists.