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Cape Town – The internet and social media has enabled a free flow of information for journalists and the public to share stories, according to a leading BBC journalist at the IAB Digital Summit in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Zeinab Badawi, presenter of BBC’s World News Today, said the UN declaration called for freedom of speech and expression as well as the free flow of information.
“That’s where I think the road of the internet has been absolutely critical because it means there is a flow of information,” she told Fin24. “We’ve seen the way that social media has been used in various ways to really help bring greater freedoms for people.
“We’ve seen in Egypt the role of Facebook and in Iran with the protests that took place there.
“I think that social media is absolutely vital in disseminating freedoms and bringing in a variety of different opinions to the fore.”
Social media should not be seen as a threat, but as a compliment to traditional media, said Badawi.
“It has opened up more sources of information,” Badawi said. “Even if something happens in a distant part of the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that somebody has a mobile phone where they’ve taken pictures.
“I remember a few years ago in Burma, where there were demonstrations by Buddhist monks and there was some violence, and we saw some footage of that come through.”
Watch the full interview:
Role of news organisation is to verify information
“The role of an organisation and traditional media like the BBC is to try to verify what is accurate and what isn’t,”she said. “And that is a vital role that we play, because there is a great deal of propaganda also being waged.
“[There] are atrocities purportedly being committed by various parties in middle eastern conflicts and we have to verify that."
She does that by checking the weather in the video compared with the forecast and listening to the voices in the video. “That shows you the kind of test we run at the BBC,” she said. “We have teams of people looking at this kind of material all the time and assessing it. So you need an organisation to interpret and analyse the vast amount of material that is out there on social media and the internet."
Signal jamming in parliament
Badawi, who documented free and fair elections in South Africa in 2014, said she heard from colleagues about the signal jamming at the State of the Nation address last week.
She said that where you have had one party in power for a long time, it has to keep reinventing itself. “It has to respond to the needs of the citizens, especially in a country like South Africa where expectation were so high after the dismantling of apartheid,” Badawi said.
“They may begin to see the rumblings and grumblings, so it is a huge challenge for the ANC leadership to ensure that they don’t rest on their laurels and ensure in particular the economic needs of the country and its people are met,” she said.
“The South African economy is something that has caused concern,” she said. “The very high levels of unemployment – about 25% - and for young people even higher – about 40%.”
Badawi said that it was important for South Africa stick to its proud constitution that allows for freedom of speech and expression.
