Hanoi (VNA) – Alongside the fight agaꦍinst the COVID-19 pandemic, there is another battle that is also as fierce and challenging – the battle again🏅st the waves of fake news. In this front, journalists have to rush into “hot spots” of the disease and use their photos, videos and articles as weapons to fight fake news.

“Active F1s” race against time

Nguyen Khanh is working as a photojournalist for Ho Chi Minh City Youth Newspaper and is also one of those who have been covering developments of the COVID-19 epidemic since the early days. He called himself and his on-duty colleagues as “proactive F1s”. “When accompanying Deputy Minister of Public Health Nguyen Truong Son on a working trip to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases No. 2, we had the opportunity to talk to patients positive for COVID-19. We joke with each other: Now all of us are F1s but proactive F1s,” explained Khanh. To talk to COVID-19 patients, reporters have to wear special protective gears to ensure safety and work at an acceptable distance. “At that time, the hospital officials were concerned that there are high risks and danger if we enter the treatment area. Without thinking too much, all of us agreed,” the reporter remembered. He said that when getting near the patients for the first time, he also felt anxious. But the feeling went quickly, he began concentrating on his work as he did not have much time. He had only 20 minutes to work in the treatment area. “Almost like racing, we have no time to be scared. If you don't take the best photos, you won't have any chance to come back a second time,” said Khanh. Photojournalist Pham Ngoc Thanh of Vnexpress e-newspaper also pursued reporting on the COVID-19 epidemic from the early days. He is also one among the few journalists who dared to go to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases No. 2 to capture the real images to convey to readers. Remembering the feeling when working at this hotspot, he said: “That day, I felt a little bit scared, just like the feeling when I covered the fire at Rang Dong factory earlier. But, my biggest fear is not about the risk of myself being infected but the possible impact on my family and friends”. Like his colleague Nguyen Khanh, that feeling quickly passed under the pressure of work. As one of the few journalists who were allowed to enter the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases No. 2 for coverage, Thanh had to race against time. “I don't have much time to work, I have to decide what to shoot and how to take the angle immediately at the time I put on the protective gear. Fear is therefore almost impossible to exist,” he recalled. The operational process for reporters is also very special. According to Pham Ngoc Thanh, first of all, he needs to get the permission of the governing body. “After that, we will need a good set of protective equipment. When entering the epidemic area, reporters must be issued with a card. All tools must also be disinfected continuously. Besides, we also need to equip ourselves with basic knowledge of disease prevention and control,” he emphasized. “I myself avoided meeting others after working at epidemic hotspots,” Khanh added.

A news feed is worth more than a thousand words of explanations

As the force working day and night at the hottest spots of COVID-19, the reporters themselves are deeply aware of the danger of fake news in the current context more than anyone else. Reporter Huy Kham of Reuters said that if the danger level of the disease in the community is assessed by the infection index, fake news will leave much more unpredictable consequences. “A piece of wrong information can cause negative psychology on a large scale. Fake news can even disrupt a large community without proper control and intervention,” the Reuters photojournalist said. Sharing the same opinion, reporter Pham Ngoc Thanh said that “Previously, there was fake news about a type of grapefruit that can cause cancer. Later, people kept using this image to illustrate all articles about grapefruit trees in general, making many readers think that eating Nam Roi pomelo has a similar risk”. He said that in the fight against fake news, every reporter needs to promote the pioneering role of reporting and correcting information for the public. Agreeing with the point of view, Huy Kham said that “To achieve effectiveness, I think it is necessary to promote professionalism when working. Typically for photojournalists, a mandatory operation before shooting is to verify to make the product the most authentic”. With the viewpoint of “a photo worth more than ten thousand words,” journalist Hoang Manh Thang from Tien Phong (Vanguard) e-newspaper said that for a frontline reporter to fight against fake news, it is necessary to approach things in a right way so as to provide readers with close but vivid and accurate images. “In my opinion, each writer must have a sense of self-improvement of skills to distinguish true and fake news, and have reliable sources to verify the news as well as a network of contacts, especially with authorities, to be able to arrange interviews to correct or reject false information as quickly as possible,” said Phung Trang of the Vietnam News Agency Television./.

[Fighting🍷 fake news: Journalists must be at frontlin🌱e]