Kelly Mcbride Transcript.Pdf

everywomanChangemakers Podcast Transcript How can more diverse newsrooms change the way we see the world for the better? Anna (00:06): Progress. It's in the actions we take right now and in daring to think differently. Each one of us can do something to change things for the better right where we are now, and a thousand small things done with intent adds up to real change. For some people, that initial spark becomes a fire. Anna (00:26): Welcome to the Everywoman Changemakers Podcast. I'm Anna, your host, and every month I'll be talking to inspiring leaders and activists who are changing outlooks, challenging perceptions, and making a difference in the worlds of inclusion, business, the environment, sport, travel, and more. We'll be discussing their work, motivations, and vision. And most importantly, how a revolution of one can lead to a positive, powerful change for the many. Anna (00:53): Today, we're talking to Kelly McBride, Senior Vice President of the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school and research organisation based in Florida that champions freedom of expression, civil dialogue, and compelling journalism that helps citizens to participate in healthy democracies. She's also the chair of the Craig Newmark Centre for Ethics and Leadership so welcome Kelly. Kelly McBride (01:12): Thanks for having me. Anna (01:13): Let's start with a context question. I mean, when we're talking about media ethics, what are we talking about for the lay person and why is it so important, especially now, I imagine, in an age of digital journalism where it's a free fall, isn't it, anyone can publish anything and have it read by a lot of people and create a lot of influence. Kelly McBride (01:32): Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why journalism ethics are important. The main one is that the information that you get, you have no idea where it's coming from, and so you really want to gather information as a citizen, whether it's deciding where you're going to eat tonight, or who you're going to vote for, or whether you're going to get an immunisation shot, you really want that information to come from a system that is designed to get you the most accurate, up to date, thorough information. And that's what journalism ethics is, it's about getting the information right. Now, it seems really simple when you say it like that, in such a simple way, but if you look at serving any sort of community, you have to also include notions of diversity, and how do you make sure that the information isn't just for people who are at the top of the power structure, but the information serves everybody? Kelly McBride (02:38): And so you really want to think about the information that you get, sort of like the way you would think about the healthcare that you get, or the air that you breathe. You don't actually know what the systems are that make sure that those are good, but you assume that they're there, you assume that somebody's looking after that. And that's sort of what journalism ethics is. Kelly McBride (02:58): Now, the interesting thing is, is that for the most part, I mean, certainly in the United States, but even in many other places, journalists are unlicensed. So unlike doctors, or lawyers, there's no one system of ethical decision-making that journalists are tested on, expected to understand, and there's all these different forces that can undermine that value of public good. And good journalism organisations understand what they're after, who they're trying to serve, how they're trying to meet the public's need, but there's plenty of other journalism organisations that are really just about the commercial interests, just about serving their bottom line, and they don't really care about the public good. And so they're going to create a very different product. Kelly McBride (03:52): So journalism ethics, it's hard to describe it because it doesn't exist in one place, every single news organisation has a different set of ethics and a different set of ethical expectations. There are some general values that we can apply to journalism such as independence and fairness, not letting conflicts of interest push the information in a way that would deceive people. Unlike doctors, like if a doctor lies to you and tells you that you don't have cancer and you do, that doctor's going to get in trouble. A journalist doesn't have that same level of accountability. Anna (04:35): Also, I would imagine, ethics drives the way in which we see the world, and the way in which the world is explained to us by these sources. And I talked about the age of digital journalism. I mean, is it fair to say that before the advent of the internet and this sort of sense of citizen journalism, which is another adjunct, I mean, if not a sense of personal ethics, there was a sense of professional ethics. You knew that if you read a newspaper like The Washington Post or The London Times, that it would have at least checked its facts, even though it obviously would have had a spin, it would have had some kind of a perspective, but it would have been a reliable source, we weren't living in an age where opinion and fact were necessarily consecrated. Would you agree with that? Kelly McBride (05:18): I actually think that it's a little more complicated than that. I mean, there was a simpler time, right? There were fewer sources, and those sources were more dominant. And so, the ethical standards that they embraced seemed more universal at that point. The reality is though that, even in that time period, there were variations on what the standards were by region, by medium, and even by department, the ethics and the sports department were not the same as the ethics and the news department. Kelly McBride (05:54): I think things got more complicated as the barriers to publishing and disseminating information were lowered so that everybody could participate in it. I actually think that we think more and talk more about ethics now than we did back then. And back then we sort of took a rule obedient approach to the news in ways that didn't serve everybody. So it was much harder to challenge assumptions back then than it is now, now you can very easily challenge the assumptions of journalism, back then it was almost impossible to do it. Anna (06:41): You are the chair of the Craig Newmark Centre for Ethics and Leadership. In terms of elevating discourse, what do you think the biggest challenges are now to a better discourse? Kelly McBride (06:51): I think there are two big categories of challenge. So the first is the economics of journalism. It used to be that journalism was predominantly supported by a advertising model. And so, there were certain standards that were baked into that model so that the advertisers would have faith in it, and it was really about the advertisers believing in the ability of the model to reach an audience than it was the audience having faith in it because the audience didn't have a lot of choices so they had faith in it because they had no other choice, they had no other place to get information. Those economic changes are profound, they are driven by the internet and by social media, and they've changed a lot about journalism. Kelly McBride (07:42): In addition to that, the other thing that's happening now, particularly in the United States, but I'm detecting it the world over is, in every society there's a group of people who are, who are at the centre of power, and journalism has traditionally reflected their point of view. So in the United States, the white middle upper class point of view, there are many journalists in the system now who are bucking against that and saying, "It is unethical to assume that white is the default, and that middle class is the default, and that every other interpretation of the world is a variation or a difference. It's certainly in the United States where in the younger generation, close to 50% of the demographic is people of colour, it certainly is a bad business proposition. If you were creating a product and you start with the assumption that a white person's reality is the reality and that every other reality is a divergence from that reality, you've harmed your audience, and your potential audience really because you're not going to get the audience that you really want, you're not going to get that diverse audience. Kelly McBride (09:11): But a simple sort of example that illustrates this is we recently had a mass shooting here in the United States that targeted women of Cambodian and Vietnamese descent. Many of the stories pointed out that the bulk of the victims were Asian, but most of the stories did not point out that the shooter was white. Why is that, because we default to white, we assume everything is white, unless we say otherwise. There are people in journalism who are saying, that decision alone is emblematic of hundreds and hundreds of decisions that you make every day that you don't recognise are an ethical system, that you have created this world where white is the default.

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