Written by: Nqobile Msomi

The International Convention Centre (ICC) hosted a high tea with Baria Alamuddin who is a leading Middle East Commentator and Foreign Editor.

Alamuddin attended the Commonwealth Businesswomen Network Women in Trade Conference as a speaker at the South African International Trade Exhibition for Retail products (SAITEX). She spoke on issues of Girl-Child Project, businesswomen, and effective communication.

CEO of ICC Lindiwe Rakharebe said that they were privileged to be part of the high tea with Alamuddin.

Alamuddin opened her speech by praising the journalism industry

“Journalism is one of the most honourable (and) interesting professions especially in the western countries where the press can bring down governments and pick up a minister,” said Alamuddin.

On the issue of using social media as a source, she urged journalists not to use social media as a source because it is not easy to verify the credibility of the source.

“It is very easy for us to look at social media to write a story, please do not use it as a source of news because you do not know who posted it. Use old fashioned methods, where you check your story multiple times. You cannot be a respectable journalist if you cannot check your story. Anyone can spin a story,” stated Alamuddin.

As citizen journalism continues to grow due to the rise of global technology, Alamuddin warned of how it can perpetuate distruction.

“What scares me about social media, is that the positivity of social media could be easily reversed to the negative because we simply don’t know who is behind it,” she warned.

“For an example somebody said to me, I read your tweet and I said I don’t have a twitter account and I don’t want one because I am far too busy and for someone like me, any word I say can go around the world in a second. So I have to be very careful,” added Alamuddin.

Rakharebe shared similar sentiments with Alamuddin as both agree that the world’s practice of effective communication would lead to fewer misunderstandings and disagreements, and conflicts would no longer exist.