‘Retracting News’: PIB responds to misleading news on study

The Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) yesterday said confusion has arisen over certain information involving various media outlets, including Prothom Alo, in a study on the withdrawal of news.

In a clarification, it said not all retracted reports may necessarily be misinformation. "Incomplete and unclear reports have been published by some media outlets on the study findings," it added.

At a seminar titled "Recent Trends of Misinformation in Bangladesh's Media," held on Saturday at the PIB office in Dhaka, consultant Mamun-or-Rashid from an ICT Division project presented findings from an ongoing study. He conducted the research on behalf of the PIB.

A section of Mamun's presentation mentioned that Prothom Alo had withdrawn the highest number of "false reports" in six months, which was 121 in total. Next are bdnews24.com, Jugantor, and Samakal.

However, in the same presentation slide, a chart showed Kaalbela in the second place, Ittefaq in third, and Jugantor in fourth.

After the PIB seminar, some media outlets published reports citing the statistics of retracted news. The issue drew attention on social media.

Some fact-checkers posted on Facebook, suggesting that the research methodology might have some flaws.

In this context, the PIB issued the clarification. It said various journalists from different media houses, including the keynote presenter, spoke at the seminar.

Later, some media outlets published "incomplete and unclear" reports on the event.

"One part of the presentation was a comparative analysis of data on retracted reports and misinformation in online media. But some media reports presented this in such a way that it created confusion. In some cases, headlines were even written against certain media houses," it said.

Mentioning the analysis of 404 (page not found) links from news websites, PIB in its clarification said the numbers presented in the slide identified retracted reports, which may also include misinformation.

While the presentation speech clarified that not all data points are necessarily misinformation, this was not stated on the slides themselves, leaving room for confusion, it said.

Meanwhile, to verify the authenticity of the information about retracted reports, Prothom Alo contacted the researcher on Saturday.

In a written statement last night, he told Prothom Alo that misleading reports had indeed been published regarding Saturday's seminar. He condemned such reporting and urged a more professional mindset in news presentation.

A 404 message means the report is no longer available at the corresponding link. This is commonly known as a "dead link."

According to experts, a 404 message may appear if a report is withdrawn, but there maybe many other reasons as well. Dead links can also result from website redesigns, archiving policies, or broken URLs, among other factors. News reports are not withdrawn solely due to false information; there can be other reasons too.

Meanwhile, Prothom Alo also requested the mentioned dead links from the researcher on Saturday. After he sent those, according to Prothom Alo, upon primary review of a few of those links, it was found that some content had been published multiple times. To avoid confusion, duplicate links had been removed, keeping just one. This had no relation to the publication or withdrawal of false news, said the newspaper.