I really want to talk about journalism
and whether there is still a point ilysm
real reporting and also what is the role
for you for audiences particularly young
audiences as to whether you think there
is a need to still have real reporting
in life because what exactly does
journalism do what does incredible
journalism do so I’d like to explore
this and also see what can we do if we
do believe that real journalism is
needed what can we do to save it things
have changed a great deal I’m often
called a dinosaur because I represent a
foreign car the work of being a foreign
correspondent for many years and do we
still have a role today but I do want to
look a bit as to you know why I became a
journalist and particularly for young
people because I’m often asked this
question why did you do it how did you
do it and what is the role of journalism
now in many ways I I wanted to become a
journalist from very early age I loved
writing and I believed that journalism
reporting could make a difference in
life could make a difference in the way
people think could make a difference in
the way government’s operate or don’t
operate and this is perhaps a bit naive
but many ways I still think the same
thing and I don’t think it’s naive but
why did I become a journalist like many
of you have gone to the international
schools in Switzerland we’re very
privileged here in Switzerland we have
access to different languages we have
access to different cultures we go to
school with kids who come from different
parts of the world but as with a lot of
young Americans and I say this in
obviously my accent is not American but
I did go to Paris after University in
order to become Hemingway I think if any
of you have not read Hemingway I do
think you should because he’s very much
a young person’s author he felt very
strongly about the honest word and if
you really want to cheat he could watch
midnight in Paris and there is a had met
Hemingway character in the film who goes
on and on about the honest word about
the truthful word also Hemingway did
have an adage of a journalist is someone
who has to be able to sup or dine with
beggars and kings that means you have
got to be able to sit down and talk with
anyone in a language that they can
understand and then of course your job
is then to communicate what has been
said but you need to have access to all
these different sources
now I didn’t become Hemingway obviously
I did grow a beard this actually is a
shot from Afghanistan with Othman shah
massoud who was this extraordinary
commander resistance commander who was
very sadly killed several days before
9/11 in 2001 and i was actually up there
to see him he didn’t turn up I left two
days early because my wife’s birthday
was always on September 13 and I had to
get back in I told the Afghans I can’t
wait for my suit because I can face the
Taliban but I cannot face my wife if I
miss her her birthday so one of the
things of course we did we all the
journalists and the aid workers in order
to look like Afghans we all grew beards
of course none of us looked like an
Afghan that we felt quite good about it
and it did help me at least to get a bit
closer to Hemingway because once in
Paris I went to the Ritz Hotel to see a
friend of mine the coffee shop and I
turned up at the Ritz and I was walking
in and the receptionist said excuse me
you have to go over there and I said no
no I’m meeting someone in the the coffee
lounge listen oh no you have to go there
so I went to what became
was is known as the Hemingway bar and I
walked in and there are about a hundred
men all between forty and seventy eighty
all with beards and all looking like
Hemingway and it it was the Hemingway
look-alike contest so at least at least
I got there but what what are reporters
what a foreign correspondents supposed
to do now again to sound a bit like the
dinosaur I do want to remind you that
the role of the foreign correspondent is
and was to report we had I mean looking
at today we had a golden age in a way of
the foreign correspondent which is not
happening today you would go out to
different countries for example the
major newspapers TVs radios would have
correspondents based in Nairobi in
Johannesburg in Delhi but unfortunately
those days are more less over because
it’s too costly and many media are
simply not willing to invest in this
sort of reporting the reason why I think
we need to get back to having fern
correspondence is because you are on the
spot now of course you can argue well I
live in London where I live in Paris in
New York and I can parachute him that’s
not the same thing what happens when
you’re on the spot is that you have your
local contacts you talk to people very
often they may be a duars and during the
80’s 90’s leading up into into the 2000s
you would have your network of aid
workers of diplomats of other
journalists you exchanged information
yes there was competition between the
journalists but we all helped each other
you were in Mogadishu in Somalia one day
you might the next day being Colombo in
Sri Lanka or in Kabul in Afghanistan and
you would bump into the same people and
you would have a reputation the aid
workers would say oh you can trust
so-and-so the New York Times or of the
Guardian because they understand
what goes on on the ground and they
won’t misuse this information there was
a degree of trust and the same with the
diplomats with the people parachuted in
very often they arrived they expected to
start reporting within 30 seconds
literally and I remember seeing a report
during the first Gulf War or the second
Tiger Woods where CNN had a camera set
up and that the correspondent was
actually saying well I’m not quite sure
what’s happening over there but it looks
like and he went on like this for one
hour and my immediate thought was switch
off the bloody camera get over there and
find out what’s going on and then come
back and report it’s not entertainment
which unfortunately a lot of it is so
what’s the point of becoming a
journalist now I had an enormous
advantage I had a job which for me I
thought was the best job in the world
and I often thought that you know what I
should do in my second life I could
become a doctor but I always felt that
it my third life I’ll become a
journalist again because you were paid
to do the sort of travel that anyone
would love or I imagine anyone would
love to do
so I spent before I was married I spent
eight months a year travelling to
Mozambique Angola all over the world
unfortunately covering a lot of
conflicts and also meeting some
characters such as this gentleman here
bin Laden who I met twice actually
toward the end of the 1980s in
Afghanistan that’s a whole different
story which I won’t get into but the
fact is that is also what journalist is
about you would meet people who had
murdered friends of yours but you have
to as a journalist it is your job to
talk to them no matter how uncomfortable
this might be because your job is to
report your job is to present a sense of
what is happening on the ground so that
when people back home can read about it
can watch it on television and it really
doesn’t matter whether you read it on an
iPad or a mobile phone or in a newspaper
or an
zyne what matters is the content that
you can trust so can this still happened
today
unfortunately no they’re very very few
media that are reinvesting in journalism
the Washington Post actually is
obviously the Guardian the New York
Times they are reinvesting they have
realized there is a crucial importance
of having reporting that not only can
you use but actually informs you whether
you like it or not because the whole
point of journalism on the ground
journalism is to enable you as a reader
as a viewer as an audience to understand
and to make informed decisions right or
wrong but at least to make informed
decisions about what is happening in
certain countries and places or
situations when you arrive in a place my
editor at the Christian Science Monitor
newspaper in the States used to ring me
and say Edie isn’t it time you went back
to the Horn of Africa there was no
particular news story happening at the
time but he felt it was important that
we cover it we provide a certain
consistency you go back again and again
and again and your report so that you
would provide the sort of necessary
background you would nurture your
contacts and you would be able to
provide the on-the-ground reporting that
is absolutely crucial evidence sadly not
happening in many places so we have all
these different things TRO farms in
Russia and I’m sure you’ve heard about
manipulating information social media
what is true what isn’t and then again
the point of storytelling I believe very
strongly in storytelling and I use that
in a journalistic sense meaning that if
you cannot convey a story
if you cannot convey a sense of what is
happening in Mozambique or what is
happening in Iraq or today very sadly
and Yemen then you’re not doing your job
and we need the sort of information so
who are we relying on and what sort of
storytelling will
in vain because we’re trying to reach
the Swiss banker we’re trying to reach
the the the student at the the Olek
school we’re trying to reach everyone
but they need to be informed in a manner
that is accessible and that they
understand and usually storytelling
based on facts is actually a very good
way of doing it so who do we trust today
one thing which I notice is that before
I used to think journalists were pretty
much at the lowest end of the the
spectrum and then I found when I went to
the States and did a fellowship at Yale
Law School that lawyers were even
slightly below journalists and I think
now we can all rest assured that
politicians are really at the rock
bottom but who do we trust Fox News for
me Fox News or Fox Television has
nothing to do with journalism I think
couples will be extremely impressed with
Fox News but I think we have to ask
these questions who do we trust even the
BBC is changing I listen to the BBC I am
a great fan of the BBC however its
website for me has now become almost
unreadable it’s become the Daily Mail if
you want to read the data mail you read
the Daily Mail I want to read the BBC
it’s not that is changing and there is
this pressure of always reaching the
lowest common denominator so let’s take
very quickly some examples in the States
during the Trump election I think we
journalists failed we fail because we
did not realize that America is not one
country America is many Americas we
should be covering America the way we
cover Africa or Asia realizing there
many different groups of people there
are many different countries and we
didn’t do that we equated America with
being Washington or New York or
California but it’s not Idaho it’s not
Kansas the same thing with brexit
Briggs’s I think was based largely on
lies disinformation it was not democracy
it’s being pandered as democracy today I
think it failed at democracy if you want
to see a professional and credible
referendum you come to Switzerland in
Switzerland
every three months and boy you are
informed about the issue Pro and against
in the documents that you
and you are expected as a citizen even
though the voting rate doesn’t often go
above 50% but you are expected to inform
yourself and you have the opportunity to
inform yourself to simply put out a
piece of paper saying yes or no or
remain or leave that is not democracy
that is not a referendum very quickly I
live in a village in France there’s a
lot of destruction of local cultural
heritage seventeenth eighteenth
nineteenth century buildings no one is
reporting about it I reported about it
I wrote a big piece in The Sunday Times
of course the Sunday Times editor was
delighted to run a piece which show that
the French were destroying their own
culture but the whole point is that you
need reporting to local reporting not
just international to keep the local
politicians weather or the property
developers or whoever they are you
people have to be informed and that’s
not happening in France they a lot of
laws that constrain freedom of speech
they constrain free reporting which I
think person Mac Hawk now appears to be
looking at and then of course who’s
covering the rest of the world who’s
covering the yemen’s of today there are
seven million people under threat in
danger there are no good people in Yemen
amongst the players they’re all pretty
nasty but the fact is once again
civilians are the ones who are
struggling to survive so who’s going to
do that sort of reporting and can we
afford not to be informed this is what
you have to ask yourselves and I have to
ask myself can we afford not to be
informed particularly this day of age
where it’s acceptable for an American
president to lie through his teeth and I
think there’s enough in to indicate that
it’s true
also social media is simply a platform
it’s not journalism who is providing the
content if you write blogs is that
really content no no it isn’t it’s based
on needs to be based on reporting and on
factual truth so where do you
particularly young people where do you
get your information from and what do
you believe in what are your sources we
did actually a little mini survey
yeah through the Oh lack but also people
elsewhere answered and the interesting
thing is that really most of the the
people the students who answered mainly
16 17 years old felt that they had
access to good information most of them
said they relied on journalism and also
whether the information came through
their friends and teachers or parents it
didn’t matter interesting – not a good
news for the print newspapers but
certainly still a willingness to – to
read what is online and also the fact
that over 90 percent said that they
would be willing either now or later in
life presumably when they have jobs to
actually pay for journalism which is
what we need to do so and you know can
we afford not to have real journalism
I think democracies are danger if we
don’t have it so we have to ask very
quickly how can we do it and I think
there are ways of doing it we have what
are known as the Global Compact
companies nearly 10,000 of them but
12,000 members of the Global Compact
group a lot of them are actually working
in sustainable development that they’re
providing support they also need to
provide support for journalism because
who is going to inform credibly about
what is happening you can have all these
wonderful sayings but is it PR or is it
really talking about what is needed so
why not have a global fund for Public
Interest reporting which goes out as
grants to journalists all over the world
and once the money is contributed
whether it’s from tobacco companies or
from Nestle or whatever it doesn’t
matter once it’s in there you have no
say over where it goes it goes to Public
Interest journalism and very finally I
do want to say that the journalists here
we’ve been talking about about what we
do in life as journalists we may be
dinosaurs we have a lot of experience
behind our belts under our belts but we
can help however I think it really is up
to young people to bring about the
change that is needed and it’s not going
to happen without you it’s your it’s
your world now and you are the
generation that can make it count
I think you need to make a demand I just
wanted my parting shot I just want to
throw this in this is a poem that was
given to me actually when I was a
student I was hitchhiking from London to
Nottingham and with some new-age people
driving a Rolls Royce and as I got out
the game in this poem of princes and
kings isn’t it strange how princes and
kings and clowns that kept it in sawdust
rings and common people like you and me
are builders for eternity each is given
a list of rules the shapeless mass a bag
of tools and each must fashion air life
is flown a stumbling block or a stepping
stone and this applies to journalism and
it applies to life thank you [Applause]
and whether there is still a point ilysm
real reporting and also what is the role
for you for audiences particularly young
audiences as to whether you think there
is a need to still have real reporting
in life because what exactly does
journalism do what does incredible
journalism do so I’d like to explore
this and also see what can we do if we
do believe that real journalism is
needed what can we do to save it things
have changed a great deal I’m often
called a dinosaur because I represent a
foreign car the work of being a foreign
correspondent for many years and do we
still have a role today but I do want to
look a bit as to you know why I became a
journalist and particularly for young
people because I’m often asked this
question why did you do it how did you
do it and what is the role of journalism
now in many ways I I wanted to become a
journalist from very early age I loved
writing and I believed that journalism
reporting could make a difference in
life could make a difference in the way
people think could make a difference in
the way government’s operate or don’t
operate and this is perhaps a bit naive
but many ways I still think the same
thing and I don’t think it’s naive but
why did I become a journalist like many
of you have gone to the international
schools in Switzerland we’re very
privileged here in Switzerland we have
access to different languages we have
access to different cultures we go to
school with kids who come from different
parts of the world but as with a lot of
young Americans and I say this in
obviously my accent is not American but
I did go to Paris after University in
order to become Hemingway I think if any
of you have not read Hemingway I do
think you should because he’s very much
a young person’s author he felt very
strongly about the honest word and if
you really want to cheat he could watch
midnight in Paris and there is a had met
Hemingway character in the film who goes
on and on about the honest word about
the truthful word also Hemingway did
have an adage of a journalist is someone
who has to be able to sup or dine with
beggars and kings that means you have
got to be able to sit down and talk with
anyone in a language that they can
understand and then of course your job
is then to communicate what has been
said but you need to have access to all
these different sources
now I didn’t become Hemingway obviously
I did grow a beard this actually is a
shot from Afghanistan with Othman shah
massoud who was this extraordinary
commander resistance commander who was
very sadly killed several days before
9/11 in 2001 and i was actually up there
to see him he didn’t turn up I left two
days early because my wife’s birthday
was always on September 13 and I had to
get back in I told the Afghans I can’t
wait for my suit because I can face the
Taliban but I cannot face my wife if I
miss her her birthday so one of the
things of course we did we all the
journalists and the aid workers in order
to look like Afghans we all grew beards
of course none of us looked like an
Afghan that we felt quite good about it
and it did help me at least to get a bit
closer to Hemingway because once in
Paris I went to the Ritz Hotel to see a
friend of mine the coffee shop and I
turned up at the Ritz and I was walking
in and the receptionist said excuse me
you have to go over there and I said no
no I’m meeting someone in the the coffee
lounge listen oh no you have to go there
so I went to what became
was is known as the Hemingway bar and I
walked in and there are about a hundred
men all between forty and seventy eighty
all with beards and all looking like
Hemingway and it it was the Hemingway
look-alike contest so at least at least
I got there but what what are reporters
what a foreign correspondents supposed
to do now again to sound a bit like the
dinosaur I do want to remind you that
the role of the foreign correspondent is
and was to report we had I mean looking
at today we had a golden age in a way of
the foreign correspondent which is not
happening today you would go out to
different countries for example the
major newspapers TVs radios would have
correspondents based in Nairobi in
Johannesburg in Delhi but unfortunately
those days are more less over because
it’s too costly and many media are
simply not willing to invest in this
sort of reporting the reason why I think
we need to get back to having fern
correspondence is because you are on the
spot now of course you can argue well I
live in London where I live in Paris in
New York and I can parachute him that’s
not the same thing what happens when
you’re on the spot is that you have your
local contacts you talk to people very
often they may be a duars and during the
80’s 90’s leading up into into the 2000s
you would have your network of aid
workers of diplomats of other
journalists you exchanged information
yes there was competition between the
journalists but we all helped each other
you were in Mogadishu in Somalia one day
you might the next day being Colombo in
Sri Lanka or in Kabul in Afghanistan and
you would bump into the same people and
you would have a reputation the aid
workers would say oh you can trust
so-and-so the New York Times or of the
Guardian because they understand
what goes on on the ground and they
won’t misuse this information there was
a degree of trust and the same with the
diplomats with the people parachuted in
very often they arrived they expected to
start reporting within 30 seconds
literally and I remember seeing a report
during the first Gulf War or the second
Tiger Woods where CNN had a camera set
up and that the correspondent was
actually saying well I’m not quite sure
what’s happening over there but it looks
like and he went on like this for one
hour and my immediate thought was switch
off the bloody camera get over there and
find out what’s going on and then come
back and report it’s not entertainment
which unfortunately a lot of it is so
what’s the point of becoming a
journalist now I had an enormous
advantage I had a job which for me I
thought was the best job in the world
and I often thought that you know what I
should do in my second life I could
become a doctor but I always felt that
it my third life I’ll become a
journalist again because you were paid
to do the sort of travel that anyone
would love or I imagine anyone would
love to do
so I spent before I was married I spent
eight months a year travelling to
Mozambique Angola all over the world
unfortunately covering a lot of
conflicts and also meeting some
characters such as this gentleman here
bin Laden who I met twice actually
toward the end of the 1980s in
Afghanistan that’s a whole different
story which I won’t get into but the
fact is that is also what journalist is
about you would meet people who had
murdered friends of yours but you have
to as a journalist it is your job to
talk to them no matter how uncomfortable
this might be because your job is to
report your job is to present a sense of
what is happening on the ground so that
when people back home can read about it
can watch it on television and it really
doesn’t matter whether you read it on an
iPad or a mobile phone or in a newspaper
or an
zyne what matters is the content that
you can trust so can this still happened
today
unfortunately no they’re very very few
media that are reinvesting in journalism
the Washington Post actually is
obviously the Guardian the New York
Times they are reinvesting they have
realized there is a crucial importance
of having reporting that not only can
you use but actually informs you whether
you like it or not because the whole
point of journalism on the ground
journalism is to enable you as a reader
as a viewer as an audience to understand
and to make informed decisions right or
wrong but at least to make informed
decisions about what is happening in
certain countries and places or
situations when you arrive in a place my
editor at the Christian Science Monitor
newspaper in the States used to ring me
and say Edie isn’t it time you went back
to the Horn of Africa there was no
particular news story happening at the
time but he felt it was important that
we cover it we provide a certain
consistency you go back again and again
and again and your report so that you
would provide the sort of necessary
background you would nurture your
contacts and you would be able to
provide the on-the-ground reporting that
is absolutely crucial evidence sadly not
happening in many places so we have all
these different things TRO farms in
Russia and I’m sure you’ve heard about
manipulating information social media
what is true what isn’t and then again
the point of storytelling I believe very
strongly in storytelling and I use that
in a journalistic sense meaning that if
you cannot convey a story
if you cannot convey a sense of what is
happening in Mozambique or what is
happening in Iraq or today very sadly
and Yemen then you’re not doing your job
and we need the sort of information so
who are we relying on and what sort of
storytelling will
in vain because we’re trying to reach
the Swiss banker we’re trying to reach
the the the student at the the Olek
school we’re trying to reach everyone
but they need to be informed in a manner
that is accessible and that they
understand and usually storytelling
based on facts is actually a very good
way of doing it so who do we trust today
one thing which I notice is that before
I used to think journalists were pretty
much at the lowest end of the the
spectrum and then I found when I went to
the States and did a fellowship at Yale
Law School that lawyers were even
slightly below journalists and I think
now we can all rest assured that
politicians are really at the rock
bottom but who do we trust Fox News for
me Fox News or Fox Television has
nothing to do with journalism I think
couples will be extremely impressed with
Fox News but I think we have to ask
these questions who do we trust even the
BBC is changing I listen to the BBC I am
a great fan of the BBC however its
website for me has now become almost
unreadable it’s become the Daily Mail if
you want to read the data mail you read
the Daily Mail I want to read the BBC
it’s not that is changing and there is
this pressure of always reaching the
lowest common denominator so let’s take
very quickly some examples in the States
during the Trump election I think we
journalists failed we fail because we
did not realize that America is not one
country America is many Americas we
should be covering America the way we
cover Africa or Asia realizing there
many different groups of people there
are many different countries and we
didn’t do that we equated America with
being Washington or New York or
California but it’s not Idaho it’s not
Kansas the same thing with brexit
Briggs’s I think was based largely on
lies disinformation it was not democracy
it’s being pandered as democracy today I
think it failed at democracy if you want
to see a professional and credible
referendum you come to Switzerland in
Switzerland
every three months and boy you are
informed about the issue Pro and against
in the documents that you
and you are expected as a citizen even
though the voting rate doesn’t often go
above 50% but you are expected to inform
yourself and you have the opportunity to
inform yourself to simply put out a
piece of paper saying yes or no or
remain or leave that is not democracy
that is not a referendum very quickly I
live in a village in France there’s a
lot of destruction of local cultural
heritage seventeenth eighteenth
nineteenth century buildings no one is
reporting about it I reported about it
I wrote a big piece in The Sunday Times
of course the Sunday Times editor was
delighted to run a piece which show that
the French were destroying their own
culture but the whole point is that you
need reporting to local reporting not
just international to keep the local
politicians weather or the property
developers or whoever they are you
people have to be informed and that’s
not happening in France they a lot of
laws that constrain freedom of speech
they constrain free reporting which I
think person Mac Hawk now appears to be
looking at and then of course who’s
covering the rest of the world who’s
covering the yemen’s of today there are
seven million people under threat in
danger there are no good people in Yemen
amongst the players they’re all pretty
nasty but the fact is once again
civilians are the ones who are
struggling to survive so who’s going to
do that sort of reporting and can we
afford not to be informed this is what
you have to ask yourselves and I have to
ask myself can we afford not to be
informed particularly this day of age
where it’s acceptable for an American
president to lie through his teeth and I
think there’s enough in to indicate that
it’s true
also social media is simply a platform
it’s not journalism who is providing the
content if you write blogs is that
really content no no it isn’t it’s based
on needs to be based on reporting and on
factual truth so where do you
particularly young people where do you
get your information from and what do
you believe in what are your sources we
did actually a little mini survey
yeah through the Oh lack but also people
elsewhere answered and the interesting
thing is that really most of the the
people the students who answered mainly
16 17 years old felt that they had
access to good information most of them
said they relied on journalism and also
whether the information came through
their friends and teachers or parents it
didn’t matter interesting – not a good
news for the print newspapers but
certainly still a willingness to – to
read what is online and also the fact
that over 90 percent said that they
would be willing either now or later in
life presumably when they have jobs to
actually pay for journalism which is
what we need to do so and you know can
we afford not to have real journalism
I think democracies are danger if we
don’t have it so we have to ask very
quickly how can we do it and I think
there are ways of doing it we have what
are known as the Global Compact
companies nearly 10,000 of them but
12,000 members of the Global Compact
group a lot of them are actually working
in sustainable development that they’re
providing support they also need to
provide support for journalism because
who is going to inform credibly about
what is happening you can have all these
wonderful sayings but is it PR or is it
really talking about what is needed so
why not have a global fund for Public
Interest reporting which goes out as
grants to journalists all over the world
and once the money is contributed
whether it’s from tobacco companies or
from Nestle or whatever it doesn’t
matter once it’s in there you have no
say over where it goes it goes to Public
Interest journalism and very finally I
do want to say that the journalists here
we’ve been talking about about what we
do in life as journalists we may be
dinosaurs we have a lot of experience
behind our belts under our belts but we
can help however I think it really is up
to young people to bring about the
change that is needed and it’s not going
to happen without you it’s your it’s
your world now and you are the
generation that can make it count
I think you need to make a demand I just
wanted my parting shot I just want to
throw this in this is a poem that was
given to me actually when I was a
student I was hitchhiking from London to
Nottingham and with some new-age people
driving a Rolls Royce and as I got out
the game in this poem of princes and
kings isn’t it strange how princes and
kings and clowns that kept it in sawdust
rings and common people like you and me
are builders for eternity each is given
a list of rules the shapeless mass a bag
of tools and each must fashion air life
is flown a stumbling block or a stepping
stone and this applies to journalism and
it applies to life thank you [Applause]
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