The people who populate traditional, or legacy media, are notoriously shy about blowing their own trumpet — worse when it comes to calling out the most unsavoury tendencies of social media.

It is better, they seem to think, when others make the point for them that traditional media are more needed now than perhaps at any other period of its existence, as social media descends into an abyss of misinformation, disinformation, character assassination, hate speech, and the vilest of offerings.

In that breach, on Sunday, stepped prominent hotelier Mr Christopher Issa, addressing Western Jamaica journalists — right at the time when the Press Association of Jamaica was at prayer to kick off National Journalism Week — on a note of sober reflection.

“We know the challenges traditional media faces with the rise of social media and online news. Digital platforms deliver news faster, but there is so much noise that people are still searching for credible sources,” he said from the Western Jamaica Media Association.

Mr Issa could not have hit the nail more accurately on the head, declaring that, in an era defined by speed, algorithms, and viral headlines, “The country still depends on the steady hand of professional journalists… In an age of misinformation and sensationalism, Jamaica needs your accurate reporting so we can know what is truly happening.”.

The tragic irony of social media is that it is a devilishly double-edged sword. On the one hand, spawned by the Internet, it has brought about a revolution that has been liberating and enabling, creating spaces where people can meet, talk, trade, and connect, and for endless masses of ordinary people who suddenly gained a voice after eons of being shut out by the privileged and well-connected.

On the other hand, social media has become a veritable jungle of information, often making it well nigh impossible to distinguish fact from fiction, and wreaking incredible harm to both guilty and innocent alike.

Indeed, as we speak, there are copious examples of disinformation from the many social media platforms covering the war in the Middle East as Iran retaliated against attacks from the United States and Israel. As with all wars, no side can be relied on for the facts.

People who crave the truth, fortunately, are able to turn to the traditional media, whose tenets are balance, fair play, accuracy, ethical consideration, professional approach, and good taste — time-honoured practices that they have come to depend on.

Mr Issa was right in saying that when digital platforms falter, or credibility erodes, the nation still turns to trained journalists. These are people who are taught to spend time cleaning up information before disseminating it, resorting to the maxim, ‘When in doubt, check it out; still in doubt, leave it out.’

We in this space get a sense that as people run out of institutions that they can trust and regard as credible, they are looking to the traditional media to keep faith with society. In the dark quarters of social media there remains a seeming preference for all the blood, filth, perversion, and the sewage of human degradation that they can get.

Jamaica has some way to go with advancing its digital literacy and building regulatory capacity through the development of algorithms to monitor content online and to protect against various harms.

Mr Christopher Issa sheds a light on an important issue.