Charles Sennott interviewed one of the minds behind ‘World News Day’ editor-in-chief of the Daily Maverick Branko Brkic, who is stepping down from his position later this year. [Insert top here]
Charles Sennott: Tell us about World News Day.
Branko Brkic: This day was started by David Walmsley, who was the editor of The Globe and Mail, and kind of in a situation with the kind of journalism association and it’s been held through it, it’s been worked together with on the two through one issue, which is the role of newspapers, especially those for which the parts are running. And in the last couple of years, they have been growing steadily. And then this year we spoke about what we could do.
I was at the moment of starting my project called Choose Truth, and we agreed to join forces and do it together this year. And I am I cannot be more appreciative of the help running for that time, especially in our time. And they’re going to be and lots of people are just incredible. We got an opportunity to speak to the people, the media all over the globe and to talk about issues that actually matter to all of us. And perhaps the biggest issue that all of us right now are concerned about is the frontal attack on truth and the meaning of truth. And this is basically the beginning of a much longer campaign and a much longer, I’d say, continuous campaign whose goal is to educate people and readers all over the world and to actually give. Her certain level of encouragement to our brothers and sisters all over the world who arrive now. Mostly feel as a part of the you know, how would I say profession under cook and globally and I would almost call it to all emotionally are on a downward spiral right now.
I explain to people it’s very difficult. To feel comfortable and positive and optimistic about your future when you’re staring at the barrel of a gun and either figuratively or really a real gun. You know, in many countries around the world, journalism is a very dangerous way to make a living if you just do an MBA…Was it that conducting publishing business in South Africa is eight times more difficult than in a country sort of first world just gives you an idea of the level of pressure under which all our colleagues around the world are operating and the personal price they had to pay for the let’s go to art, you know, not necessarily ask, but you know what mean.
Sennott: This campaign just really speaks to the heart of The GroundTruth Project. I love the framing of it. I did want to ask you about Choose Truth. It’s an interesting title. And I want to push a little bit and say, I never thought of truth as a choice, but I think it’s fair to say it’s becoming one. It’s like we’re going to have to choose to really work harder. To get at things that are built on discernible facts that we call truths, and be clear that’s a possibility. And that is what is so elemental. But like the name itself. It kind of drives home this big point, which is we are in a time when it’s we’re not just seeing journalism fail and flounder in many places and work hard to succeed in others. We’re also seeing truth faltering. The concept of truth, the definitions of truth, seem to be forgotten. So walk me through the titling of Choose Truth. What did you mean by that?
Brkic: Well, you know, I believe that. If we do not have a healthy informational ecosystem around us, we have a serious problem. I believe that not only that democracy is under threat. If you don’t have an understanding of what is true, truly not true. I believe that you have a civilizational.
Let me explain; if you cannot discern what is true and what is not true, if you cannot understand what is right. That’s right. If we if we can’t, you know, discern the basic points that all the, you know, systems of radio are based on, and we don’t have a system. We don’t have a civilization. So it is upon us as first journalists to pursue truth and defend it for the rest of our lives without fail. It’s also it’s a call to readers and a call to citizens and participants in a democracy, not through innovation to choose, through to they can verify and through that they can trust. It is quite fascinating because, conspiracy theorists are wonderful to listen to because they give you it’s almost like a flight sometimes for a few seconds, you know, and depending on what the political positioning and what ambitions are and stuff we may choose to do, you know believe almost like orthodoxy that is imposed to our own groups that we live in. It is absolutely crucial that at the end of the day, we need to choose that we are driven by truth. And I think it’s a choice. So, you know, when I started thinking about this and I spoke to a lot of people, possibly the most common question that came back was who stood?
And quite often from journalists. You know, that was an incredibly boring issue for me because. If you don’t publish the truth if you do not believe that what we publish is truth, then why are we actually in journalism at all? Because I believe that we. It’s not an official oath, but to be in our hearts and minds be we swear an oath to put you on board, to deliver it to the best of our ability for the rest of our lives. And we also are victims in that way because there’s so much pressure and there’s so much attack. From many, many corners. Sometimes we start questioning the very basic things, you know, and also we as many of this and I wrote in this op-eds, we published for this, for this, for this audience day. Sometimes the word truth actually means lie today. And that is the ultimate success from the people who, you know, made it their goal to their ability wasters. So the question is for us. I’ll be going to sing from this big tusk. Are going to end it and withdraw from the battle. Are they just going to say, no, we’re not going to let the meeting go deep? Everything we are. Everything we have everything we have everything we are is based on mistakes. There is objective truth and you know that deeply. I have facts to prove it or we deeply understand, you know, as I said in Austin, that in that, as you say, it is a self-evident truth and sells the evidence values that we as a media, you know, protect. So I think it’s very, very dangerous to shrink from that challenge and to admit that just because people are shouting lies and packaging them as a truth, that doesn’t mean that we actually cannot publish and which cannot that we cannot claim that we publish it. It’s a really, crucial civilizational issue right now.
Sennott: I agree, we are in an epic challenge to truth, there’s no question. But it’s good to be reminded it’s not the first time and truth wins. And the key is not to, as you say, don’t shrink from the task. Don’t lose the plot. So thank you for doing it. We’re excited about it here at The GroundTruth Project. You’re in our in our in our thoughts as you as you launch this. Let’s dig in a little bit. 100 countries are behind this. What are you trying to achieve here? What is the goal?
Brkic: The goal is to issue a challenge and also issue a call to our colleagues to get our attention to this issue and also to ask them to get together and actually organize ourselves. This is but the beginning and the end of one of the brothers that we had so far. They go to World Press Freedom Day and the religious day there, which are wonderful events and they should be supported as much as possible. What they will try to do is try to make it permanent rather than just a single day because we are in a deep expansion of trouble. And, you know, usually a conference or someplace in between. A really great panel is to be and learn more about different people. But also then we can go back home and just continue doing what we’re doing. Same thing with this, you know, dates, which are really, again, it’s crucial importance, press freedom. And it is crucially important.
But I was thinking about it a lot and what I actually want to do, I want to make this permanent because, you know, this issue, this cause is. Way too big to be left to, you know, to be observed once or twice a year. We need to get together. We need to agree on a lot of things. And again, I’m going to repeat myself. Somebody heard it before. Please forgive me. But right now, we, the media are essentially blessed. We have quite a few of us see each other as enemies. Let’s be honest. But what we are, we are neighbors in a rapidly impoverishing part of town that has been looted and stripped of everything good.
And we are left behind due to fighting over scraps, you know? And we fight quite often. We fight instead of agreeing on certain issues that we can work on together. You know, and to me, one of the most urgent issues right now is, is the media literacy problem globally, media literacy really at a low level. And you know what we can do? We can continue as we are and try to leave media literacy to the government and to the respective organizations. But, you know, my question when I hear those things is, how are you going? You know, and it’s not going really well at all via again, the Internet. The Internet was supposed to put this together to expose us to the entirety of human knowledge as opposed to. Improve the humanity. What it did, actually, it put us into even stronger, stronger bubbles than before.
So this is going to morph into this gigantic media literacy campaign where we are going to be looking for partners to do it for us on a continuous basis. And the we put together, I think, quite instructive proposals, a set of proposals where our public publishing partners actually have benefits. Financial benefits out of out of this collaboration as well. And, you know, this is not going to be solved by one day in two days, in a week or month, even a year. This problem that the end has been created is the nucleation for the last seven years. So it’s going to take a long time before they even start. If nothing else. Stop the wheel turning in that direction. I’m not saying pulling or pushing back. I’m just saying let’s just not go towards destruction, you know? Yeah. And and. And the. But what I do know is that if we don’t do anything right now, we are all going in the very same direction. And it’s not good. It’s a it’s a you will within ten years if you don’t do anything, if you don’t change anything if you don’t restructure seriously, if you don’t reframe the media business as a public service, I think we’re going to just end up with having couple of top companies in every market. We will have a lot of statements of the above two states on media houses. You know, Russia today. So the world and the rest will be just out. And the entire ecosystem right now is is seriously under stress and in danger of extinction. And anybody studying a lesson that I promise you is not seriously looking at this stuff. And again, the last 15 years I’ve been you know, I was editor in chief of Daily Maverick. I launched in 2009 with my business partner, Julie Haralambous. We went through every every stage of grief to evaluate this. And let me see if 15 years later we are the second biggest in South Africa, arguably the most influential in Africa, and still we are struggling to pay the bills. That is nuts. Right? You know, and again, we are seen as the most successful. Can you imagine people who are less successful than they are? So the entire ecosystem is under under change. And, you know, in the old days when things were going well, media houses could sometimes wish that their competitors go on there so they can own the market today. If your competitor goes down, you’re alone and nobody is there to protect you. You know, and we have multiple levels, multiple angles that we attack from. And I do know that together we are much stronger.
Sennott: I want to shift gears and talk about the Daily Maverick, more specifically about the blackout in April and why you did that. And I want to talk generally about the challenges you face at the Maverick and what it will mean going forward.
Brkic: You know, it’s very difficult in our country, in any other country to explain to people what the media does for them, you know. And essentially the question was, is this what you want, South Africa? That was it. But, you know, we need to come to a point where the severity of the move is matched by the severity of the situation vis-Ã -vis the severity of the situation that you meant by the madness of the move. We needed to show people how it is to deal with us in America, you know, And to be honest, I’m hoping one day I’m going to be able to do it with the entire tradable media and we look we enjoy the great success. Lots of people were finally convinced to support this. But nowhere near what we had to be. Unfortunately, you know, we used to be in a space, maybe a highly profitable activity… And I kind of see that tale of people just thinking, you know, media doesn’t need that help. You just appear out of nowhere out of thin air you know and the situation now is upside down. We are on life support and yet, you know, the situation doesn’t change. You know just to give you an idea of. Perhaps the greatest damage to the French people is to their morale. You know, suddenly it can be replaced in about 15 years. We didn’t mention anybody ever, and we were extremely proud.
That was a main, main point. No desire to retrench. The morale is the first one to suffer. And that’s what we wanted to, you know, with the growth. We thought we’d start down to just, you know, get people’s attention to the issues. Again, look, I mean, did it work? Of course, it did not work. The desired effect, because we probably would have to shut down for 2 or 3 weeks for the desired effect. And, you know, that’s what we can do it. We cannot, you know, our duty to South African people is, I mean, if something big happened, they would be, of course, broken. That’s the thing.
Sennott: I got to ask you like those of us in the fields out there fighting the good fight and seeing people like you who’ve done extremely well at this. It’s important to understand. You’re making a pivot, right? You’re going to step down as editor-in-chief as well? Tell us what that’s about…Why are you stepping down?
Brkic: Just to clarify, I decided to step down a year ago. And it’s very simple. After founding Daily Maverick and then going through the pain, I came to a point where I just mentally and emotionally was nothing anymore. And physically, you know, I used to be an amendment to this. And look, look, if you look at what he did to me, I can’t show people the picture or my administrator did the first day and took you to two different human beings. So I came to my limit. 15 years of those days. So that moment, 14 years of running, built America in South Africa in an extremely short environment, you almost never know if you’re going to be able to pay the next months of any career. You never know what kind of traits are going to turn into real stuff, you know? And living in this space, which was anything but safe. It just takes it takes a toll. And so last year in September, I made a decision and my business partner and then my editor, Jillian, and we started this process in which I was starting and starting to develop my duties. And the idea was when this woman comes, instead of being a problem of destruction, it is just a Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever that was. And it turned out that’s why I’m extremely pleased with the way the handover happened.
Sennott: What advice do you have for the next generation as they find that path, how do you guide them? In the full assessment, are you hopeful for this next generation?
Brkic: Look, this is not the way you’re going to make a living. I say make a good living. None of us are going to become rich. You know, we may be able to have a reasonably okay living, but this is not about getting rich. But, you know, I consider myself a relative. Relative. Or the lottery of life, you know. And these are the reasons I wake up every morning and I know there’s a reason why I wake up. There’s a motivation. There’s a there’s a deep sense of meaningfulness to what they do. You know, at least to me, you know, the second thing is that, you know, I consider myself extremely rich. I can go throughout the day without having to lie. You know, and I can go to the day. Almost never believing that I’m making it, that they pay me to do this and that they don’t have to lie. And it’s an incredibly rewarding part. So I think from…Emotional fulfillment…There are few jobs if well done, that are as good as the fulfillment journalism can offer.
I am hopeful. It’s very simple. If you get to go through this crisis, that’s going headstrong head-on. So right now, one of the main reasons is because the media held its ground. And use media. So you have the ground and you know how tight and again, you know, the fights that fulfill you and the fights to the guys in the fights that define the ambitions of one of those. And, you know, if they came to that point, I don’t think they can go back and do anything else. Honestly, I just don’t think this gives you meaning beyond anything that you could ever get anywhere else. And, you know, the new guys are coming into the space and competing with us in a space where, you know, the climate crisis is going to upend the entire debate about societies and communities. I think that those those kids are going to have a meaning more than anything meaningful. You know. And maybe one day they’re going to come to your situation or my situation, which can actually, you know, jump into something because remember what we’re doing now. It’s not even that much different, is just that you go into kind of different challenges. But what I was always, always, always, you know, advice is that whatever you do, you just do 200% of what you have. I mean, I personally, you know, I’m in this 40 years and right now I’m mortgaging everything I’ve done to do something meaningful on the other side. So, again, if you have the meaningfulness of everything else and you sort of and again, there are not many things you can do in life to be more meaningful than this, especially when the truth is under such pressure, under such constituted attack by nihilists and disinformation peddlers.
The post Celebrating journalism on World News Day with Branko Brkic appeared first on The GroundTruth Project.
from The GroundTruth Project https://ift.tt/ms4XcCp
https://ift.tt/ce3RSPN
No comments:
Post a Comment