Authorities have just announced the results of verifying the origin of the letter: "Letter to father in Truong Sa" which once caused a stir in public opinion.

A opera actor in Binh Dinh asked his daughter to rewrite an article titled "A daughter's letter to her father in Truong Sa" and then posted it on his personal Facebook page to get "likes" from friends and the online community.

Immediately after that, a series of online newspapers and general electronic information sites posted information about the writing assignment of a third grade student, titled "Write a letter to a relative" by Le Yen Vy. The sensational information "attracting views" above has caused public outrage, negatively affecting the State's policies.

In fact, exploiting information on the Internet is an indispensable skill for journalists today. As early as 1976, Queen Elizabeth used the Internet to send the first emails, marking a breakthrough in the field of global communication. In the early 1990s, the world had an official Internet service provider. To date, there are billions of websites, blogs, and personal social network accounts, attracting billions of views and information exchanges every second and every minute.

Social networks make small media like mobile phones more powerful than ever and become an indispensable thing for people in modern society. Because with just a smart mobile phone, people can surf the web to find information and also easily become a messenger with full sound and image in the fastest way.

The Internet is becoming an uncontrollable reality, a "society" that anyone can join but is difficult to control and master. Information on social networks can be spread by word of mouth, and can be copied and pasted. However, it is worth mentioning that exploiting and collecting information from social networks and then rehashing it, even using it as is to turn it into news and posting it on the newspaper is becoming a trend that some websites are pursuing.

Some people skip working directly in real life and just go through personal Facebook pages to collect information and "create" news and articles according to their imagination.

There is no denying the ability of social media to deliver information quickly, but information alone is not journalism. Journalism, in addition to news, requires discipline, analysis, explanation, and most importantly, reliability. Journalistic information differs from word-of-mouth information in its verifiability.

An example of the difference between newspapers and social networks is as follows: If you hear sensational news that “Ebola virus appears in Vietnam” as was falsely reported on Facebook recently, the next thing you do is visit a reputable news site to verify this information. Do not rush to spread the news because one day you will accidentally harm others and yourself and bring trouble upon yourself.

Thao Vy(Sports & Culture Newspaper)