SWABI: Speakers at a workshop held here on Saturday urged the government to launch digital skills learning programmes, particularly focusing on artificial intelligence, for journalists to help them meet modern-day needs.

Swabi Press Club organised the workshop on ‘social media impact on print and electronic media’.

The speakers also stressed that though social media was a ‘quick’ source of news, it was also a hugely ‘unreliable’ medium of information.

Prof Khalid Sultan, dean of social sciences faculty at the National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, was the chief guest on the occasion.

Journalists from both print and electronic media, as well as social media activists, also attended the workshop.

Prof Sultan said: “Social media is not yet a perfect platform of authentic news, as it always focuses on sensationalism. The news published in a newspaper is always more authentic than the social media.”

He said although social media had a great impact on electronic and print media across the world, it was still passing through a transitional period and the mainstream media had not yet accepted it as a genuine platform for disseminating information.

However, he said digitalisation of the society was so rapid that Pakistan would also have a cashless economy in five years.

“Digitalisation has already taken place in the developed world, and it has made inroads into the developing countries as well,” he said.

Shaukat Ali Anjum, central president of Pakistan Workers Federation, said digitally unskilled individuals would suffer if they failed to catch up with the ‘extraordinary’ development of digitalisation.

ARRESTED: The police on Saturday arrested four youngsters for indulging in a wheelie on the Tarbela barrage bridge.

DSP Topi Shakeel Khan said the youth were shifted to the police station, where they regretted indulging in dangerous stunts and pledged to comply with the traffic laws.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2026