Caretaker Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting, and Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Solangi Wednesday said that the mechanism for fact-checking will have to be improved in digital media to counter fake news and misinformation. Delivering his speech at the 2nd International Media and Communication Conference here, he said that 2024 was the year of elections in different countries, including Pakistan, India, Indonesia, and the United States of America. He urged the media industry to play a responsible role, as its responsibility was to protect the public interest. “Journalism is primarily about defending the public’s right to know,” Murtaza Solangi maintained. The minister said the digital age challenges were also significant, as artificial intelligence, deep fakes, voice cloning, and misinformation factories have made it difficult to sift fact from fiction. He said that besides the benefits of modern technology in media, many risks were also involved. He said many tasks are being done using artificial intelligence and voice cloning. The fundamental principle of journalism was the gatekeeper system to verify the facts. Still, the new media had ignored “the gatekeeper.” In the era of artificial intelligence, deep fake, cyber cloning, he said it had become difficult to bring the truth to people, Murtaza Solangi opined. He said that to counter this problem, there was a need to build verification laboratories, and newsrooms must create fact-check departments.