Lord Nicholas Stern gave a lecture at the London School of Economics on 16 March (last week as this is posted, listen here). In addition to calling Freakonomics “cute,” Lord Stern defined the role for the media in the dialogue surrounding climate change, a role that needs to be more socially responsible than it has been.
Here’s what he said:
“If you look at why it is that people are more skeptical about global warming and ask them is it because they read all about the emails at the University of East Anglia or the glaciers in the Himalayas. Some of them, most of them, it’s a cold winter… so I think laying out the evidence if it’s a bad winter… explain to people they live on a planet and different parts of a planet, and have different kinds of experience and here they are, this isn’t so mysterious right?
“And this is the kind of explanation we have to do and you there on Panorama [BBC documentary TV series] ought to be doing exactly this kind of-- you’re there to provoke responsible, serious discussion not to say-- I’m not accusing you directly, let’s talk about the media. If you find someone that says the earth is round and someone that says the earth is flat, do you give them equal airtime? If policy depends on this, giving them equal airtime is deeply irresponsible. And that’s the kind of thing you’ve got to think through.
“If you find out that somebody may have been less than transparent about emails less than transparent in their academic work and may have been because there’s a report coming in about what happened at UEA, you ask yourselves the question: if that person’s work was deleted what difference would it make? … Let’s just suppose it’s deleted, what difference would it make to the 200 year old scientific argument? Joseph Fourier the great French scientist, mathematics, and physicist, who first worked out by looking at the heat stability, heat equilibrium of the earth that something was trapping the green house gases in 1820. Was he part of a conspiracy? This must be a conspiracy with a time machine!
“This is absolutely incredible that people in the media do not ask what is the relevance of the news I’m reporting for the big issue that we’re trying to understand--that’s where the irresponsibility lies-- not in the reporting-- of course these things should be reported, of course we have to have transparent discussion, that’s absolutely fundamental, very important. Yet the IPCC report is 1,000 pages, there must be 15 or 20 mistakes there. It would be an incredibly low number of mistakes in 1,000 pages. But we must open them up to scrutiny, ask ourselves where they are; let’s discuss them, put them right. But also what difference does it make to the basic policy argument about the risks we run from global warming.
“… So there’s some very big questions of how the media have behaved in all this that I think they ought to reflect on and reflect on very carefully and talk to academics who do the work to try to help that process, not just you, it’s all of us. But I found the nature of that discussion, to be rather irresponsible.”
Think before you speak is a concept we all should have been taught as children. And the media has always had a role in history as a rallying force -- the point is, sometime after the second world war (in an abstract, vague sense) the media’s role became more as provocateur, espousing less actual news and more extreme opinion. There is an argument to be had for creating a useful dialogue in airing different opinions, even extreme points of view. But it’s become sloppy, like a great big pile of loose stools. Airing different sides of the argument is no longer constructive.
In the media’s quest for page hits, provoking controversy is the easiest way to go about that. Say something extreme on your channel (webpage, etc.), direct your users to your blog to comment -- your blog that you’ve filled every available centimeter with flashing adverts-- and voila, instant page hits.
I’ve pitched social responsibility in media as a topic for many an editor and I have yet to find one that wants to have this discussion, really and honestly.
The kind of responsibility Stern is talking about may or may not step beyond the “unbiased” media paradigm. But I believe media has never been unbiased, there’s no such thing as unbiased. Even if a news story is reporting the facts-- which facts are being reported, why was the story covered at all, what makes news news and what parts of it are news worthy? Everything is a judgement call. Even considering the nature of being “unbiased” implies a judgement call.
We, the media, have always played an important role is shaping, broadly, the public dialogue on any topic. We need to think about that role again, not only for the future of the planet but perhaps more importantly, for the future of journalism.
Showing posts with label new media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new media. Show all posts
Social responsibility in journalism, new media, niche media at the start of the 21st century-- an indictment
I’ve had an odd confluence of events yesterday:
In the morning I interviewed Mark Brayne for a feature I’m writing about the psychology of climate change. And in the afternoon I had a fight with my boss about the content for the green blog video site I blog professionally for.
The interview with Brayne was mostly about how society becomes convinced enough about the prospect of climate change to actually change our behavior. As a former journalist and current psychotherapist, Brayne has a unique perspective on the ability of the media to influence behavior (scroll down to hear a podcast of our conversation about the media). He also has a very profound indictment of the state of the modern media.
Taking a step back, during and before both world wars propaganda campaigns were waged by governments to aid the war effort. More specifically, during World War II, the British government needed the British population to behave in a certain way: austere behavior in the buying and use of goods. Austerity, green-economic experts like Andrew Simms believe, needs to be revived to make the public transition to the mentality necessary to adapt to climate change and continue to survive on this planet.
Post WWII, Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna and his nephew Edward Bernays were instrumental in spreading consumption as the driver of economic growth. Post-war people were too frugal, the market for newly produced goods wasn’t big enough. Bernaise figured out how to appeal to our animal instinct in order to get us to buy things and fulfill subconscious needs.
Brayne has a rather profound indictment of early 21st century journalism andit’s its effect on human behavior: “The concept of modern independent free media that I can write what I like and that’s it’s really just about ratings and sales is profoundly irresponsible.... The media don’t want to be regulated, actually they don’t want to be accountable to anybody. Journalists have a massive responsibility to take their profession more seriously than they do.”
“And if journalists say ‘well, I’m only in the business of giving people what they want, and entertainment,’ I think the media at the beginning of the 21st century is not fit for purpose. I don’t think politics is fit for purpose. And I don’t think consumerism--economics-- is fit for purpose.”
(To listen to our conversation about the media in full, click below: )
What does this have to do with my day job as a professional green blogger?
The site I blog for professionally is partnered with NGO's, businesses, and government agencies. My vision for the blog is to make a discussion space for different views about transitioning to a sustainable economy: like juxatopsing Alstom and their “green” plans for carbon capture and storage next to Greenpeace which opposes coal power (we have videos from both). Without saying too much about the dispute: there are plenty of frivolous green websites that sell themselves using celebs, nudity, and material-culture to consumerize green. The green video site I blog for has a responsibility to be bigger than consumerism. And it is well positioned in the UK market to be exactly that.
Franny Armstrong in a 1010uk.org video says about the stakes of climate change, “It’s everything you know, everyone you love, everything’s at stake.” Brayne is right, the media helped consumerize our culture and now it has a deep and profound responsibility to contribute to the sustainable transition. That’s the kind of journalist I want to be.
*for more information about Brayne's work on climate change psychology, see his consortium website
Update 20 Sep: My boss and I did have it out and I've retained my editorial freedom for now on the basis of the success of the blog. But if it comes to blogging about celebs and porn I'll quit first. And that would be sad for the green video site because I am unpaid labour: if I walk the blog shuts down. The environment is too important for failure.
In the morning I interviewed Mark Brayne for a feature I’m writing about the psychology of climate change. And in the afternoon I had a fight with my boss about the content for the green blog video site I blog professionally for.
The interview with Brayne was mostly about how society becomes convinced enough about the prospect of climate change to actually change our behavior. As a former journalist and current psychotherapist, Brayne has a unique perspective on the ability of the media to influence behavior (scroll down to hear a podcast of our conversation about the media). He also has a very profound indictment of the state of the modern media.
Taking a step back, during and before both world wars propaganda campaigns were waged by governments to aid the war effort. More specifically, during World War II, the British government needed the British population to behave in a certain way: austere behavior in the buying and use of goods. Austerity, green-economic experts like Andrew Simms believe, needs to be revived to make the public transition to the mentality necessary to adapt to climate change and continue to survive on this planet.
Post WWII, Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna and his nephew Edward Bernays were instrumental in spreading consumption as the driver of economic growth. Post-war people were too frugal, the market for newly produced goods wasn’t big enough. Bernaise figured out how to appeal to our animal instinct in order to get us to buy things and fulfill subconscious needs.
Brayne has a rather profound indictment of early 21st century journalism and
“And if journalists say ‘well, I’m only in the business of giving people what they want, and entertainment,’ I think the media at the beginning of the 21st century is not fit for purpose. I don’t think politics is fit for purpose. And I don’t think consumerism--economics-- is fit for purpose.”
(To listen to our conversation about the media in full, click below: )
What does this have to do with my day job as a professional green blogger?
The site I blog for professionally is partnered with NGO's, businesses, and government agencies. My vision for the blog is to make a discussion space for different views about transitioning to a sustainable economy: like juxatopsing Alstom and their “green” plans for carbon capture and storage next to Greenpeace which opposes coal power (we have videos from both). Without saying too much about the dispute: there are plenty of frivolous green websites that sell themselves using celebs, nudity, and material-culture to consumerize green. The green video site I blog for has a responsibility to be bigger than consumerism. And it is well positioned in the UK market to be exactly that.
Franny Armstrong in a 1010uk.org video says about the stakes of climate change, “It’s everything you know, everyone you love, everything’s at stake.” Brayne is right, the media helped consumerize our culture and now it has a deep and profound responsibility to contribute to the sustainable transition. That’s the kind of journalist I want to be.
*for more information about Brayne's work on climate change psychology, see his consortium website
Update 20 Sep: My boss and I did have it out and I've retained my editorial freedom for now on the basis of the success of the blog. But if it comes to blogging about celebs and porn I'll quit first. And that would be sad for the green video site because I am unpaid labour: if I walk the blog shuts down. The environment is too important for failure.
Open access to data breeds corruption. Open access to data breeds transparency. Which is it? Both.
Free the data. Open access to data breeds corruption. Open access to data breeds transparency. Which is it? Both.
You’ll notice I haven’t posted on either of my blogs in a while. That’s partly to do with most of my ideas have gone to my professional blogging, but also because I’ve been cooking this post and having trouble with the argument and linking all the bits together. Leave a comment: tell me if I’ve put the pieces together right, what I missed that’s related. I’m relatively certain this is still a naive viewpoint:
At the end of July I was at a Barcamp Transparency mini-conference in Oxford. Most of those attending were open source guys. The connection between information transparency and open source technology is that information, especially statistical information, can be used to create software that can tell businesses about consumer behavior, for example. Advertisers collect this information on the internet, on blogs and online newspapers.
And therein lies the issue: do you want data on your spending habits to be available to corporations, or your credit card monitored by government for suspicious activity in ostensibly to predict crime? Tie these two together and you get something like Amazon deleting copies of 1984 from it’s Kindle via remote (admittedly, the government was not involved in this but thinking about it, it’s not a large step to think it could be-- see Farhad Manjoo on the topic).
But what if freedom of access to information also leads to your ability to monitor government and know when they spend tax payer dollars on duck hutches and moats (for the Americans in the audience, see MP allowance scandal)-- sounds good in that instance. Transparency in government is another issue in the open access to information hemisphere.
More broadly, thinking about transparent information also brings up the changing model of journalism: the pay model for online newspapers. As a blogger (prefer bloggess, actually, but...) I can’t do what I do unless I have access to news articles and reports. For bloggers in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran, the ability to view free news (stories, full reports) and have free access to information diffusion services (google’s Blogger, Facebook, Twitter) means something completely different-- those who live in oppressive regimes can hold their governments to account on the world stage by using the free information and information services online to do everything from blog about injustice to launching full scale campaigns.
Social media comes into play here, witness Iran’s tw-evolution. Social media is access to real time information. And there’s a fantastic argument to be made (as @apesphere does) for making Twitter a social enterprise to guarantee freedom of speech as a universal human right.
NPR’s Kevin Anderson was on the Guardian’s Media Talk podcast recently (31 July), teaching the British how NPR continues to free information: it asks for money. MoJo does something similar by putting the tipjar on it’s page. LinkTV displays a huge link, “Support LinkTV.” These site explain exactly what certain dollar denominations buy the consumer: however many $ = an episode of “Morning Edition.” That makes it explicit and that’s why it works. (The British I’ve noticed, are uncomfortable explicitly asking for money. They need to get over it.)
As an aspiring journalist I realize that if the pay model isn’t figured out, then I won’t be able to make a living. But as a bloggess, if the pay model is too heavy on the pay bit, then I won’t be able to make a living either. Some bloggers make money through advertising (admittedly, not very much).
There is an interesting dimension to open access to information when it comes to advertising, as Jay Rosen wrote on PressThink , “Advertisers aren’t in business to advertise; they do it to reach customers making a buying decision.” In other words, advertising on the internet is used to gather information. It’s not profitable in and of itself, but because it can theoretically help corporations make better marketing strategies at some point in the future. According to Rosen (via doc Searls), there’s a lot of economic cost inefficiency or market leakages here.
If advertising isn’t a viable business option for funding information sources, then what? Paying by link? No, linking to my sources in blog posts make me accountable.
I firmly believe that access to information has to be free-- it ensures that governments are accountable to their citizens, businesses to their consumers, and the media to the citizens it serves. As long as information is free (not unprotected, mind-- this is another issue) and (most) data transparent, the tools are available to protect us all. The internet and online newspapers must remain free.
You’ll notice I haven’t posted on either of my blogs in a while. That’s partly to do with most of my ideas have gone to my professional blogging, but also because I’ve been cooking this post and having trouble with the argument and linking all the bits together. Leave a comment: tell me if I’ve put the pieces together right, what I missed that’s related. I’m relatively certain this is still a naive viewpoint:
At the end of July I was at a Barcamp Transparency mini-conference in Oxford. Most of those attending were open source guys. The connection between information transparency and open source technology is that information, especially statistical information, can be used to create software that can tell businesses about consumer behavior, for example. Advertisers collect this information on the internet, on blogs and online newspapers.
And therein lies the issue: do you want data on your spending habits to be available to corporations, or your credit card monitored by government for suspicious activity in ostensibly to predict crime? Tie these two together and you get something like Amazon deleting copies of 1984 from it’s Kindle via remote (admittedly, the government was not involved in this but thinking about it, it’s not a large step to think it could be-- see Farhad Manjoo on the topic).
But what if freedom of access to information also leads to your ability to monitor government and know when they spend tax payer dollars on duck hutches and moats (for the Americans in the audience, see MP allowance scandal)-- sounds good in that instance. Transparency in government is another issue in the open access to information hemisphere.
More broadly, thinking about transparent information also brings up the changing model of journalism: the pay model for online newspapers. As a blogger (prefer bloggess, actually, but...) I can’t do what I do unless I have access to news articles and reports. For bloggers in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran, the ability to view free news (stories, full reports) and have free access to information diffusion services (google’s Blogger, Facebook, Twitter) means something completely different-- those who live in oppressive regimes can hold their governments to account on the world stage by using the free information and information services online to do everything from blog about injustice to launching full scale campaigns.
Social media comes into play here, witness Iran’s tw-evolution. Social media is access to real time information. And there’s a fantastic argument to be made (as @apesphere does) for making Twitter a social enterprise to guarantee freedom of speech as a universal human right.
NPR’s Kevin Anderson was on the Guardian’s Media Talk podcast recently (31 July), teaching the British how NPR continues to free information: it asks for money. MoJo does something similar by putting the tipjar on it’s page. LinkTV displays a huge link, “Support LinkTV.” These site explain exactly what certain dollar denominations buy the consumer: however many $ = an episode of “Morning Edition.” That makes it explicit and that’s why it works. (The British I’ve noticed, are uncomfortable explicitly asking for money. They need to get over it.)
As an aspiring journalist I realize that if the pay model isn’t figured out, then I won’t be able to make a living. But as a bloggess, if the pay model is too heavy on the pay bit, then I won’t be able to make a living either. Some bloggers make money through advertising (admittedly, not very much).
There is an interesting dimension to open access to information when it comes to advertising, as Jay Rosen wrote on PressThink , “Advertisers aren’t in business to advertise; they do it to reach customers making a buying decision.” In other words, advertising on the internet is used to gather information. It’s not profitable in and of itself, but because it can theoretically help corporations make better marketing strategies at some point in the future. According to Rosen (via doc Searls), there’s a lot of economic cost inefficiency or market leakages here.
If advertising isn’t a viable business option for funding information sources, then what? Paying by link? No, linking to my sources in blog posts make me accountable.
I firmly believe that access to information has to be free-- it ensures that governments are accountable to their citizens, businesses to their consumers, and the media to the citizens it serves. As long as information is free (not unprotected, mind-- this is another issue) and (most) data transparent, the tools are available to protect us all. The internet and online newspapers must remain free.
