By: Althea Guillermo

“It is not simply informing or writing, it is writing accurate news,”

This is what the keynote speaker Jerry Serdena said during the RSPC 2018 mini press conference that took place in Ormoc City, December 6. 

Serdena mainly talked about the relevance of this year’s theme “Fostering 21st century skills and character-based education through campus journalism” to Fake News.

“The relevance of the theme is that nowadays there are fake news and as journalist, we should be able to only write genuine news; it should just be writing accurate or genuine news,” he said.

Serdena also said that they should know how to identify which news if fake and which news is genuine.

“We have to confirm first, clarify, and double check if what we write, what we read and what we share in social medias is actually genuine,” he added.

According to the ABS CBN News and Current Affairs survey, at the moment there are about 65 million active social media Filipino users out of the 107 million total population.

“We must empower and inculcate in the minds of our writers that they should write news with accuracy, with integrity,” a message from him to student journalists.