Love love love love love more than football online. Love. Twenty sixteen was an exciting year the results of the u. S. President ial election in the bronx and referendum in the u. K. Surprised a lot of people in the run up to those votes there was a lot of fake news floating around some observers said that facts had become less important. The post truth age had arrived. At the time i was working on a film about journalism and i wanted to find out more about this new phenomenon. I had always believed that the truth was the truth and that anything else was just false so i decided to talk to colleagues and experts to see whether this was actually the case. The ship the. Kind of postmodern. Ideas that truth doesnt exist because we can try to find there are certain levels of truth theres verifiable truth. That means that what you wrote cant be verified so we need a media that. Is able to filter those lies out expose them so that we can. Shape our society and the most honorable way that we can the government always lies they may not be lying all the time but when its in their interest they have to lie in order to protect their ability to govern and i think so if youre dealing with a political figure and a political figure makes it plain. You would be wise to check that out with two or three other people. The world has become more complex and there are few simple answers anymore there have always been liars but these days theyre being elected to Political Office many voters are poorly informed and they take those lies as truth. Is have fun political rant passionately made of people are always trying to be the first to put out a tweet that creates a lot of media noise and our society is the worst informed in Human History even though we have all the resources we need to get information and study but not. I used to think that todays technology and our almost unlimited access to information would make things easier but today journalists have to work harder than ever to make sure they get their facts right. I decided to find out about these challenges that journalists face this new journalism. To do that i talked to a veteran american reporter. Gate talisa is eighty five but he loves his job and has no plans to retire he still remembers his first day on the job at the New York Times in one nine hundred fifty three the opens the doors from the Reception Room into this enormous city room hundreds of typewriters hundreds of editors and writers and smoking cigarettes and typing and making noise the machines had built the lives they used to tell of the typewriter had to fill every time you hear the bells you hear the so many people working for the next days newspaper the activity the atmosphere was exciting it was like a movie it was like walking in a big movie set we have a common our desire to tell the truth we have in common that power wants to control us. So many of those who talk about a post truth era take advantage of the fact that a lot of people dont trust journalists and that can be dangerous. I see journalism more as a mission than exactly a profession its the oxygen of a Democratic Society or i just cant. Think you know with my life that big of journalism we know that in order for democracy to work citizens have to be informed they have to know what is being done in their name they have to know if the two towns over there are starting to frack in the oil wells and that might affect your Drinking Water my grades were always near the bottom of the class except in one thing my curiosity was on down did my curiosity was intense it was it was incessant people are interesting and if youre the kind of person whos interested in people then journalism is a great job for you when journalists come to us its generally to complain that theyre not being allowed to be the kind of journalist that they want to be. I didnt know what else to do would be a journalist. Journalists and newspapers now face a serious existential crisis. Many reporters are worried about the future of their profession there are a lot fewer jobs for journalists these days. Were looking for one hundred. People out of a newsroom of about seven hundred fifty eight hundred people so its not a huge cut but its a big cut. You know the guardian will still be a huge News Organization will still be a huge newsroom we will still do great journalism the problem is you can only do that so many times before you start really cutting into the core of what makes the guardian the guardian i think were seeing. The least number of people who could do the job right now. In tough Economic Times newspapers try to do the best they can with reduced staff a lot of the journalists have to juggle several jobs at once its called multitasking. So they have less time to focus on their top priority. To report the facts. We know that Media Outlets are laying off journalists that the journalists that remain are overworked reporters will tell us for example well i used to have to write one story a week and now i have to write a story a day what does that mean practically well what it means is maybe the journalist can even get up from their desk to go talk to somebody to get a story it means they are increasingly reliant on those press releases those press packages if you are and you have a deadline a half an hour you need to do a story i think its very difficult to avoid going to that preprepared thing that youve got thats got a quote in it thats got a name in it thats got Background Information and it is fed to you to make it easy for you to tell it that way. Many people are unaware that these days information flows directly from the centers of power and its later circulated as independent information. Journalists have become increasingly dependent on these sources and that in turn has hurt their credibility. It seems as though theyve become mere cogs in a machine thats run by political and business interests. Polish journalist and author Richard Capuchin skee wrote in the late one nine hundred ninety s. That business understands the truth doesnt matter. Nor do political disputes. Business wants to turn information into entertainment. And as soon as that happens it can be sold. And the more controversial information is the better it sells thank. You. Ive come to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Near boston to talk about that with social critic nom chomsky. Is a media. If you think about them from a kind of a structural point of view of the major media say New York TimesWashington Post a c. B. S. News privately owned major corporations which sell a product to a market like other businesses the market is advertisers thats where their income comes from not from subscriptions of the product that theyre selling his audiences. For several decades weve been diluted with infotainment. Its produced by the mass media and reaches us via our t. V. s computers and smartphones. Many of us seem to enjoy it particularly the flood of information and social media. Journalists and big businesses are not responsible for this we are. It comes from our natural desire to be entertained. A real understanding of the world will require some taking on some depth and our real story of an event needs to have some Historical Context and some social context and a range of views and youre just not getting that from a place thats just playing you a clip downloaded from my t. V. Show in another country and then a few three sentences under it saying isnt this neat look at this you know this is entertainment and this is not news but one of the consequences is just what you describe the effort to reduce capacity for independent thought and independent action but diverting people giving them a limited amount of awareness of what the world is like. To try to prevent serious understanding or critical of the gnosis the over her early. The. Can journalists do their jobs properly under increased time pressure the answer is no the reporters now have to stop every thirty or forty five minutes and update the story that they filed an hour ago because it has to be updated for the web. That means someone covering a Congressional Committee doesnt really have time to do anything but run into the committee here to Committee Members talk and then run out into the story. Need all that together in a way that makes sense and is documented it is virtually impossible thats why i say that. The pressure of Quick Reaction time it get it up get it up fast is reducing the ability of the journalists who are trying to document their fruition of actually do their job it takes time to create Good Journalism the New York Times understands that. To my mind the New York Times has done this is the model so the New York Times has cut and cut and cut and cut but not in the newsroom the New York Times is very deliberately protected the news room knowing that thats why the New York Times exists and thats why people pay for it. When you walk around manhattan you see lots of nail salons reporter sara mouseland near decided to investigate this phenomenon. What was really interesting about the nail salon story is that every Single Person involved in every source had no reason to speak with me people in my story are undocumented immigrants working illegally in this country terrified of being discovered and yet they spoke i did approach four hundred and ended up interviewing about one hundred twenty five minus edition took thirteen months by just focus on the story and the only thing is occasionally there would be some really big news story and theyd say everybody all hands on deck drop it for a day sarah but now i work exclusively on the story of my needing to with them sometimes we talk about nothing especially in the beginning we would sit down and talk about their lives and have coffee and even want to heard something really compelling i would prevent myself from asking about it i had that approach with all these people and developed a level of comfort and report with them that eventually they wanted to tell their story my story yes it took thirteen months but it had a magnificent payoff the times investment made last change the governor changed a lot of my story came out and made life change so i dont think the times is willing to short change stories for journalism no matter what the economic climate is. I dont believe that journalists intentionally pass on Incorrect Information but because of the time pressure they do publish information that hasnt been checked properly. But how can it be that many people now accept obviously false information as the truth. The founder of isis is the founder of us. The founder. Over the past several decades the media have become more competitive their goal is not to provide their own interpretation of the days events or an interpretation of the truth as they see it their job is to stay ahead of their competitors so they all go out and cover the same stories that means that just a few big reports will make it onto the air or appear in print and other topics wont be covered at all. Once they finished covering a story journalists pack up their gear and move on to the next one. This behavior could raise doubts about their motives. Are they doing it just to keep up with the competition. Or are they trying to create a social consensus that could benefit business or financial interests. Look at how all whole the wall street coverage is how wall street bankers or a little more the thing has got away with all these kind of criminal acts which they dont get punished for the journalism is terrible there are hundreds of channels on television and radio on the internet. But we often get the chorus of the same voices and what we need is that true diversity of voices i think it has to be. More about fairness and more about fairness to the range of perspectives and people that exist and when those voices are there not your typical pundits that you get on all of the networks you know it seems to me you may have a number of networks theyre all interviewing the same people the small circle of know nothing pundits of pundits who know so little about so much if journalists were able to achieve the highest goal of their profession and that they were freed from the institutional control theyd be presenting written for an. Easy of access the most Important Information if youre talking about issues of war and peace most people deeply care if youre talking about Climate Change the things of the planet people care the growing inequality between rich and poor people care independence just means that you are willing to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may and you dont have to keep looking over your shoulder because say your own or or your boss or your sponsor has a lines that they dont want you to cross it really has a lot to do with your freedom to say things that other people dont want to hear i mean i think the media reflects the establishment consensus. It represents power instead of challenging power. Those who seek to distort the truth can take advantage of this and offer alternatives to big media News Coverage they do this directly on social media. This information goes public without being checked for accuracy by professional journalists these days people can not only get news via traditional sources like newspapers they can also find it on news that and social media networks. I think a lot of journalists dismiss buzz feed because they say well its fluffy content and thats not thats you know and they conflate fluffy content with share ability and i just dont think that actually right this is why facebook for example is making such a Huge Investment in instant articles and doing so many partnerships with serious News Organizations thats the same reason that snap chat is making is doing serious partnerships with serious News Organizations because they know that Quality Content travels well as those platforms as well. Even in the age of this new form of journalism reporters have to find new stories to cover. They can either do this by working from press releases. Or they can hit the streets and dig up a story themselves. But you have to know your city you have to talk to people real life working people. We get out there every day and try to come up with new stories. Its tough to be an investigative journalist in an environment where all the bosses seem to care about is the number of hits that a story gets. I think a lot of times journalists conflate the number of clicks a story gets with impact and resonance and i think that is a mistake or plyometrics that were actually designed to measure the success of advertisements to measure the success of journalism and thats a problem driving people to a story is job number one and it almost doesnt matter what they see when they get there i think this is extremely troubling if you say the top ten best something people want to look at that it seems like its a comprehensive people like lists people like short items but thats not what we need and theres a difference between the kind of News Coverage or Just Entertainment coverage short stories. That you might enjoy reading and the kind of stories that you really need to know in order to make an informed decision about you know who to vote for or whats happening in your in your community. Of course information can be edited in various ways. The important thing is for journalists to get their information from a reliable source and present it accurately. Reporting sure it is a very good sort of finding the discontents organisations and drawing them out and getting them to talk off the record sometimes the way i do it is i approach them and tell them very openly. That i am very curious about them and explain why you have to go to the cop car and thats how he developed leases versus you dont do it by you know coming to their office and demanding to meet the people who want to story perhaps a whistleblower someone who feels very strongly about something goes to media they trust which is why its so important to be trustworthy to not stand they are protecting those in power that have a tradition of holding those in power accountable. Sometimes sources agree to provide information only on condition of anonymity. But the use of Anonymous Sources can cause problems. One of the reasons i have. Left reporting it agreed to become an editor was that. I was reporting in washington in order to get. The information you needed from a source who knew the information. You had to agree to protect them a source said an anonymous source story and that bothered me i just had trouble doing there if that source had a name they could be accountable you know the reason you put names on sources is that it when they lied to you you want to know who it was who lied to you so that you dont go to them again if you allow them anonymity then they can lie to you forever i have no secrets with my reader i insist when i talk to someone for the record that they use their name and if they dont use their name i dont want to hear them i dont care whatever theyre telling me if they dont have their name on it i can do without it. Theres another disadvantage to the use of Anonymous Sources the public becomes used to information thats not been technically speaking properly attributed. So someones opinion becomes information. What happens when people dont check information against the facts or when they distribute only information they agree with then facts and lies can become interchangeable. People who have access to power often captivated by it and journalists are no exception. Reporting is the gathering of factual information the writing is taking that factual information that youve gathered and shaping it. And putting it into phrases using words that make a picture for the reader but we needed that those seem pretty young too good reporting takes time. But deadlock as you often get in the way youre meant to be dismissed because i didnt does my eyes or the first thing i visualize the story i see people that are going to represent my story let the students how do you structure your story and decide what information goes into it theres not enough room for all the details in the left in the cupboard to look and then i have to interview him to get the facts right i mean it is that you focus on whats important and make sure that the text flows through the move through you listen to then the real part of the work is what your first sentence what is the first words of the first sentence how apt you write a sentence you rewrite it. And how do you improve it how do you improve it change some words or you eliminate some words or you try with that first sentence and then with the second sentence and then with the third sentence to write a paragraph that is the lead of the story and that first paragraph has to be so compelling so was visual so interesting that the reader is going to read the second spiral graph and then the third paragraph the fourth part of a read the whole story it can move with. The material must be presented as accurately as possible. The really good it did that for much with a staple simply. In the past newspapers and the news departments of radio and t. V. Stations were defined by their approach to covering stories. And the thing that shapes imaginings character is the types of questions you asked it sort of boy. For that matter then for who shouldnt be turning information into propaganda from a few students get the needle up as you feel you have to provide a balanced account thats based on facts and include as much information as possible so that media is controlled their own conclusions that go to the journalist always has to guard against. The natural bias that works its way into everything we do were clear were human beings and human is dangerous react to the world in a personal way. Thats a builtin by. These points of view help reporters decide which information they include or leave out of their stories. Still powerful people have a vested interest in keeping a lid on information that could be harmful to them. And sometimes journalists feel pressure to just keep quiet about some aspects of a story. No i mean this but as soon as the pressure doesnt bother me i deal with it every day its part of the job people are always calling in telling you not to print something. Is too little believe this news should be what powerful people dont want you to know because after all powerful people have press offices they have ways to get out their story they have ways to get out the information that they want you to hear coolly goes only for a few and. When youre working on a story about politicians. Or business. Hank they always call up and try to throw their weight around who knows but its over. But some journalists told me that they can do their work without having to worry about their bosses interfering im not going after qwest and i dont think their times has a bias of course theres a bias but that doesnt mean you cant have good stories she was dealing with the oppressed victims who were these women working under terrible management standards being underpaid and overworked ok thats good but using that same kind of formula years on power in c. L. For you get i have many friends who are really find out that in journalism. You know they can describe to you the constraints that theyre under you know theyre mostly very well aware of the institutional contracts that. Shape and control the. Effect that you kind of work that can be produced. These constraints often work in subtle and indirect ways. But they are effective nonetheless. Nobody ever says dont do that story because we have an advertiser that will be very angry about that or because our corporate owner doesnt like that kind of story thats not what they hear what they hear is. You know thats not really very sexy you know or thats going to take a lot of resources or thats going to take too much time and when you rather do this other thing is a little. Constraints can influence and sometimes its theyre not even aware of it and think whats in them and you only need to see one reporter fired you know for getting the right wrong person angry to internalize that idea and to realize thats not something you want to do. The mass media are under economic pressure to make profits and that can lead to conflicts of interest. Major corporations can pull advertisements if they dont like the way that a media outlet has covered them. C. B. S. Had done a wonderful series by a reporter named Roberta Baskin theyve done a series on sweat shops by nike nike sweat shops and it was a great series it exposed a lot of hardship and unfairness and it was really hard hitting and it won awards so Roberta Baskin went back to do an update on the nike sweatshop story but in the meantime c. B. S. Had signed a sponsorship deal with nike and so c. B. S. Was running nike ads and in fact c. B. S. Anchors were wearing nike clothes on the air now Roberta Baskin is told you know her nike sweat shop story is not newsworthy is not interesting and shes not going to be able to do it. Obviously powerful people who havent been telling the truth dont like it when this is exposed by journalists. But even if many people are attracted by power and influence they value freedom and democracy even more. We want to be able to throw the rascals out or at least we want to believe that we can. Even in the media savvy twenty First Century people still need Accurate Information. But many still want politicians to provide easy solutions to the complex social and technological problems that we now face. Ive talked to a lot of journalists and have visited a lot of Media Outlets and i still cant predict what role the media will play in the future. But really the thing that i knew of the work were doing today is completely different from what we were doing twenty or thirty years ago its absolutely different. We have to learn new ways to write new ways to tell a story and to reach out to people. Its a process of trial and error and. Were still looking for new ways to be the best journalists we can be. It would. Look in a book or still kind of locked in this mentality that what were creating is a newspaper in digital form and i think that is a fundamental problem i dont even know what a newspaper website means to normal people not to journalists we know what that means its a newspaper website but you know normal people dont think about newspaper websites they think about news there are kinds of things we can do to improve how we tell stories to make those stories more relevant we should be thinking about how to tell stories on mobile what are the needs of readers of news consumers and mobile what are the needs of consumers on desktop what are the needs of consumers at different times of the day. I sometimes ask myself what journalists want complete freedom like they enjoyed at the Washington Post when Katharine Graham was the publisher or a career thats not as risky and provide some financial security. I think there are examples of organizations that are. Oriented around around different sort of paradigm so buzz feed is one of the thirteen ways you know youre from the west and everyone from the midwest and share that whether you think by his feet is amazing or whether you think it is you know the end of the world as we know it is not the point one state about. Sort of found a news are a buzz feed that employs a number of investigative journalists including Pulitzer Prize winner very experienced people but also a lot of young people who are just talented reporters. And so they package writers material in the sort of sheryl clickable way that they learn from marketing this easier contest the point is that the organization is entirely designed to be consumed on other platforms all of the content the buzz feed creates is designed to be consumed on facebook to be consumed and twitter to be consumed on other platforms you travel via shares not via some sort of broadcast mechanism instead of that were still in this very broadcast mentality of like we speak you listen buzz feed as organize itself around a particular Distribution Strategy that news rooms like this one just simply dont understand and are not investing in to understand and if we dont understand and thats just one example but if we dont understand this we dont we orient around how people are consuming content now and will in the future i mean were dead. But do people these days actually have the time to inform themselves properly do they actually want to be properly informed. They seem to spend a lot of time reading one sided or content free news stories on their smartphones. The idea of good people especially young people kind of obsessed with extremely superficial interactions with others. The little voices they hold in their head in the real news not a healthy thing to live. With that. Much of this content can be classified as fake news or alternative facts this material can be distributed in an attempt to change public opinion. If journalism continues to focus on soft news instead of hard hitting reports consumers may simply lower their standards. During last years u. S. President ial campaign a lot of fake news reports were distributed on social media its alarming that people could actually believe such misleading and oversimplified reports. Questionable content is now passed around as though it were factual. Corrupt. I wonder whether people actually want to hear the truth or do they just want to be entertained should we just vote every now and then and leave Everything Else to the government. Or should journalism empower people. The basic tenants of Good Journalism remain the same allowing people to describe their own experience in their book blur authors bill kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote that democracy is based on a continuous dialogue among well informed citizens. The quality of that dialogue will depend on whether the information is based on lies and propaganda or on facts that have been properly researched. People still have the right to demand serious News Coverage and it is the role of journalists to provide it. But that kind of coverage costs a lot of money and that wont change anytime soon. Journalism verification requires people who are allowed to devote all of their time to verifying information thats. To go into the news for report. That requires money journalism takes effort and journalism requires funding and journalism acquires time to get it right and to extract the truth. I believe that if people want to keep their right to access Accurate Information they have to take responsibility and support independent media sources financially. Today many publishers have decided the consumer should pay for digital News Coverage. While i was working on this documentary a number of new payment models have become popular including digital subscriptions if people are not prepared to pay for accurate News Coverage they could have serious negative consequences. Those who control the media companys finances could then make key decisions on coverage. That will diminish our ability to critically evaluate the events of the day. We could simply be replaced by robots. If youre talking you give us a question if youre not mr president like go ahead personally since you were attacking our News Organization now can you give us a cheer organizations. Those who claim that we live in the age of post truth may be taking advantage of these Uncertain Times or simply want to shut down the press they believe that journalists cant be trusted because they tell people the truth and are less likely to bow down to powerful interests. To close this report i asked game to lease what he thinks about the state of journalism today whats wrong with journalism is the wrong journalists its not journalism is it people who dont know how to be great journalists they dont know how to be they dont have pride in what they do they just mediocre people now you find mediocre people who are in politics you find mediocre people who are in banking if i mediocre people who are in every calling in life journalism is made up of good and bad just like the Police Department just like the priesthood. Not all journalists behave as they should and they bring the profession into disrepute. But if we cant rely on journalists to check the facts if we stop asking critical questions the consequences could be disastrous. Surely a democracy requires people to get Accurate Information so that they can vote wisely. One of germanys best known bands tokio hotel. Exports special. We look at their beginnings as teen pop stars. The secret of their success. And their fans. The tokio hotel phenomenon. Next week in thirty minutes for the w. When im traveling i like to be comfortable. But i also want to stay up to date on the latest news and events. And e. W. Makes that part of traveling easy just because its available and thousands of Hotels Resorts and cruise ships worldwide. Where have you found the domain sign and send us a picture that shows the w in your room you can win a great price go to d. W. Dot com travel quiz germany state by state. The most colorful. The liveliest. The most traditional. Find it all at any time. Check in with a web special. Take a tour of germany state by state. Dot com stories that people of the world over information they provide opinions they want to excite the peons they want to express d. W. On facebook and twitter up to date and in touch follow us. The Prime Minister of lebanon has resigned unexpectedly taking a shot at iran as he went saad hariri accused iran and its allies in lebanon of spreading chaos strife and destruction throughout the middle east i really also suggested political enemies were targeting him for