My biography on my Twitter page says
I am a skeptic and an optimist.
I believe in science, and infinite possibilities
and that kind of sums up what I am going to be talking about today.
What a world we could live in
if we were a truly informed society.
A society that, by and large, understood every facet
of the social, political, environmental, economic realities that we face everyday.
Well, a news culture often indicates
its potential for being truly informed.
Hi, my name is Coleen Christie.
I am a news anchor, a broadcast journalist, if you will,
and I am a little hesitant to say that because I recently found out
that broadcast journalists rank number six on the list of most despised professions.
(Laughter)
We are just above tax auditors.
That's right,
most people like tax auditors better than broadcast journalists.
(Laughter)
It sort of feels like when Sally Field made her Oscar acceptance speech,
but it is the opposite; you hate me, you really hate me.
(Laughter)
Not me personally, give me a few minutes, you might.
(Laughter)
But at least we are doing better than lawyers, they are at number three.
That gives me hope.
(Laughter)
I anchor for CTV Vancouver, an affiliate of the number one network in Canada.
I got my start in news in a rather unusual way.
I started in marketing and promotion so it gives me a unique perspective,
on the business of news; you see, I have always understood
that news is a product that needs to be sold.
But it is a really important product.
I grew up in a home where news was important.
My mother would pour over the morning newspaper
on the days that she was not working.
She knew all of the issues, all of the players,
and she had a grade-8 education.
As a family, we would watch the nightly newscast together,
and we actually paid attention.
I think that because my parents came from poverty,
they were very aware of the importance of informing us and educating us.
Conversations over the dinner table were often political, often heated.
"Please pass the gravy, I cannot believe you are such a socialist!
Would you like more potatoes?" That sort of thing.
(Laughter)
Yeah, back then, our choices for news sources
were a little more limited than they are now, that is for sure,
but wherever we got our news,
we pretty much trusted that it would be trustworthy and dependable.
Boy! Things have changed, haven't they?
In this modern news-age, information is power,
and never has our ability to leverage that power been more at risk.
In the last ten years, there has been a remarkable change
in our news consumption habits.
Due, in large part, to the explosion of digital media.
That explosion has created more competition,
and it has changed our legacy platforms, being newspapers and televisions,
and it has actually changed what we consider "newsworthy" to be.
In a recent survey
- you might find this interesting -
nearly 90% of North Americans said they were "hungry for their daily news",
but get this;
nearly 50% of them said they could not trust it.
Trust is an issue,
and I think part of that trust issue is wrapped up in our sense of bias in news.
Yes. of course, with polarized news organizations like Fox News on the right,
and MSNBC on the left, it is absolutely clear that bias exists,
but as a journalist on the inside,
I think it is an oversimplification to say that all media is biased.
In fact, I propose to you today
that the problem with media is not bias at all.
The problem with news today is you.
The question I put to you is not which news you can trust,
but can you trust yourself to consume it wisely?
News, in essence, is factual storytelling.
Everyday, journalists attempt to share information through stories.
But let's make something very clear from the get-go.
There are essentially two kinds of sources for news.
There is mainstream credible news, and then there is everything else,
and based on your lack of trust,
the line between the two must seem pretty blurry to you.
Now of course there are exceptions. There are always exceptions.
The simplest definition of "credible news"
is: information reported after a rigorous series of checks and balances
to ensure accuracy and fairness.
Most people consume their news everyday
without knowing that, or even thinking about it
and I think it is important we understand the process.
So for example, in television, news ideas come from anywhere and everywhere.
It is our assignment editors job to assemble those ideas
and create a potential list of the stories that we will cover.
The next step in the process might surprise you.
We actually debate and discuss each one of those stories' ideas.
A group of highly experienced, trained,
knowledgeable, diverse individuals,
practically anybody in our news room who wants to participate,
weighs the news value merits of each story.
Is it something our audience wants? Is it something our audience needs?
Next, we assign stories to our reporters, our "boots on the ground".
They go out and they find facts, and they assemble those facts,
and they provide context for the story.
Yes, some stories are more complex than others, but generally speaking,
if, at the end of the day,
a new story does not have enough news value,
or if it does not pass the 'sniff test', it does not make it to air.
That is how most news rooms throughout the world work.
For the most part, that process works.
The one thing we cannot escape
is the perception of bias.
We fight very hard to avoid it, but we cannot, somehow,
avoid the perception of bias in our reporting.
Let me give you an example.
We are accused of two things whenever we cover an election campaign.
We are accused
of simultaneously supporting the incumbent and supporting the challenger.
(Laughter)
It never fails. It never fails, and of course, we are not doing either.
You see, mainstream news has no political agenda.
"What?" you say.
It is absolutely true.
Mainstream news has no political agenda.
Yes, there is right-wing conservative news, and yes,
there is its counter-balance on the left,
but I am talking about mainstream media.
For those of us who work in the middle,
the very notion of partisan conspiracies
is absolutely ridiculous.
Except for that lunar landing, that was a total fake, never happened.
(Laughter)
Now, of course, that is not the case
with organizations which use narrative journalism
to promote a particular ideology, a political perspective.
No, and they are harder to spot these days
with the proliferation of online news sources
that do not use journalistic checks and balances
and so easily can be passed off as legitimate.
And mistakes that can be perceived as bias, can be made,
but I believe they are less intentional than you might think.
And when those mistakes are made,
most credible media outlets adhere to their own self-discipline.
The news media has been correcting errors along the way for more than 100 years
and whether to our general satisfaction or not,
it has to be acknowledged that it certainly does happen.
Discipline is big part of the job,
but it is not exactly the toughest part of the job for me personally.
In case you did not get this already, when I go to work in the morning,
I do not have to worry about being infected,
shot, kidnapped, tortured, raped, or executed
like some of my colleagues do.
Shout-out to the colleagues in the field who risk their lives every day.
(Applause)
Yeah, it is a calling, it is a calling.
No, I got it pretty good,
considering tough day at the office for me might be a bad hair day
(Laughter)
but it is not tough for me, it is tough for you because you have to look at it.
See how that works?
The hardest part of my job is keeping my mouth shut.
I am not talking about afternoon meetings
where my colleagues would love it if I kept my mouth shut.
No, I am talking about when I am presenting facts,
I cannot telegraph my own personal opinions on divisive matters.
I cannot let that through.
I cannot risk it.
As a communicator, it is my job to help you understand the story,
it is not my job to tell you what to think.
I cannot risk it, we cannot risk it.
You see the truth is,
mainstream media cannot afford to take sides.
I use the word "afford" on purpose.
Bias is bad for business.
Let me show you how the money works on that,
we will just follow the money.
Our democratic society needs
independet news to keep us informed and free.
And news, the news industry, needs consumers to survive.
So in television, consumers are viewers.
The more viewers, the higher the ratings,
the higher the ratings, the more ad revenues.
Ad revenues maintain operating budgets,
operating budgets pay for journalists to gather information to keep us free.
That is how it works.
Any blatant bias on our part could potentially alienate
vast numbers of our viewers.
That is a bad idea.
Bias is just bad business in the news business.
Some recent studies have revealed some interesting statistics
on our consumption habits.
I should note that most of us still consume our news from television.
But we are branching out.
A majority of North Americans now say they consume news on multiple platforms.
Still, nearly 90% of us are consuming that news
from one single news organization.
So let me tell you what that looks like, I will paint a picture for you.
You are at home, you have got the TV on to CNN,
you have the tablet open to CNN's webpage,
you are following CNN's breaking news on your Twitter feed on your phone,
and you have no social life.
(Laughter)
Myopic?
Yeah, perhaps.
Unless you have got a thing for Wolf Blitzer. Hey, no judgment.
(Laughter)
Here is the ironic part though.
In a survey done this year,
North Americans said they feel more informed than ever before.
Well of course we feel more informed, it feels like we are getting more news,
but what we are getting is more of the same news.
It is coming at us faster and faster and we know statistically,
that our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.
That is changing the kind of news we want to consume.
Trying to keep your attention has never been harder.
In television the average news story is less than two minutes long.
Sometimes as short as 20 seconds.
Think about that.
Wow.
Boredom is your bias,
and if we do not keep you engaged, you are going to leave.
We do not want you to leave.
In television, we spend all day gathering quality information that you can trust,
even though 50% of you do not trust it.
(Laughter)
Your information dinner is served, and we throw in dessert too.
Oh yeah, trending videos.
You know, the bizarre, the wacky, the funny.
They make it into most major newscasts now,
and they are among the top rated segments of those newscasts.
It is true. It is true. Yeah.
A caution; we are very aware of trivializing news,
and we are very cautious not to.
But we are competing with Jon Stewart for goodness' sake.
(Laughter)
We are dancing as fast as we can to keep you entertained and informed
so that you will stick around.
But you say, "Hey, digital news gives me what I want when I want it,"
and that is absolutely true, scarily so.
Your online habits are watched, followed, and fed.
With each click of the mouse,
you leave a digital breadcrumb trail so that you can be fed more of the same.
And social media is contributing to your bias, it really is.
Since 2009,
traffic to social media news sites has gone up by 60%.
A full 70% of people surveyed recently in North America
said they used social media as a news source.
I got nothing bad to say about social media, I like it.
Hey, Twitter is a fantastic tool
for communicating and for delivering breaking news.
But if you are using social media as your primary news source,
you have got to be cautious - because think about it -
It is your neighbor or the person who works next to you,
who likes cat videos, they are your news director.
(Laughter)
And you know what?
Your editorial team on Facebook
is only as good as your friends on Facebook.
So true.
And on Twitter, there is no news director. No, there really is not.
# Competitive. #Sensational. #KimKardashian.
(Laughter)
I am only throwing in Kim Kardashian
because I am hoping that when somebody googles her name,
this TED talk comes up.
(Laughter)
# Shameless.
You are the subjective news curator of your world, and we know statistically
that you like to get news from people who think like you do.
It is a fact.
And on top of that, being well-informed online
requires more effort and more discipline on your part.
You are only going to click on the things that look appealing to you, right?
Think about it, it is kind of like going to a buffet.
You are not going to get two salads.
(Laughter)
But you know, you see those desserts sitting there, they look pretty good.
Nobody is watching.
Take two. What the heck?
We are human.
We like pie.
Our personal preferences feed our biases,
and our personal content curation supports them.
By definition and design, digital media gives us more of what we already like.
You create your own information playlist, if you will.
It is kind of like, I do not know, like the Songza of news.
The system feeds you more of what you want.
It feels good, but how are you ever going to be exposed to something new?
How are you going to see a different perspective?
If you keep listening to 8 on the 80s,
how are you going to hear new music for goodness sake?
Come on. (Laughter)
Whether we realize it or not,
our subconscious bias is driving our news consumption habits,
and it is keeping us less informed than ever before.
You know what? We know what happens.
When our trust in media is at an all-time low,
it means that our appetite
to seek out new and more varied variety of news sources diminishes,
and our biases are strengthened.
We see that every day.
You get camps over here, you have got another camp over here.
These guys are not listening to these guys.
They do not want to; there is no trust.
It is all ego-driven, fear-based,
heels dug-in, no progress.
We are behaving like children except if we were children we would be punished,
but in this sense, the people who are behaving this way,
they get their own TV shows
or their own constituents, as the case may be.
As artist and activist Ruben Blades so eloquently put it,
"We risk becoming
the best informed society that ever died of ignorance."
(Applause)
So how do we achieve the promise of being a truly informed society
when our own personal biases keep us locked in a feedback loop,
giving us more and more of the same?
What would happen if, for example,
we chose a second or third news source
outside of our normal consumption habits?
Well more news diversity would make us better informed,
would certainly make us sound smarter,
that comes in handy at weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, TED conferences,
(Laughter)
but sounding smart is not the goal.
That is not what this is all about.
This is about freedom.
And the news media is the guardian of our freedom.
We hold authority to account, you hold us to account.
You are free to choose whatever news source you like,
but if you are choosing more of the same, is that freedom?
Getting news that reinforces your own beliefs feels good,
but it is a false sense of security
and one that does not promote greater growth or deeper understanding.
It certainly does not challenge us to challenge our own views.
So how do we know if we are getting enough variety in our news diet?
Well, if everything you are consuming makes you feel great,
chances are you need to mix it up a little bit.
And you know what? The news media needs to do its bit too.
We need to make news more relevant, particularly my branch of the news.
We need to help people understand
why a story is important, and how it affects them.
Anybody can collect facts.
We need to provide context.
The old notion of, "Eat it, it's good for you!" just does not work anymore
when one click away there is something more tantalizing.
If we lose you, we lose,
and then we all lose.
As iconic broadcast journalist Charlie Rose so beautifully put it,
"We learn from each other, even when we disagree,
especially when we disagree."
The more we strengthen
the virtues of tolerance, diversity, and understanding,
we will have a bulwark against the hatred and extremism
that has wreaked so much havoc in this world.
So I implore you, battle your biases.
Empower yourself with more diverse news.
And maybe, just maybe, we will have an informed society,
a truly informed society, and enter a new age of enlightenment.
Thank you.
(Applause)