inside the circle yeah thank you very
much for deconstructing my profession
that I really appreciate that
I don’t know if you’ve noticed there’s a
butt camp right here that’s the one I’m
worried about
what are they hoping to capture anyway
cuz I’ll leave that one there the moral
arc of the killer whale is long but it
bends towards truth I’ll show you today
how this has given certain of their
species
a brutal economic dominance over their
closest rivals for resources namely
human beings and in one of natural
selections more delightful grace notes
has allowed them to achieve every
journalists dream which is how they eat
for free based on your reputation okay
killer whales are also fascinating
because they’re one of the few animals
that experiences menopause as they get
to live a long time after they’re no
longer able to reproduce
now leave that one with you think about
what that might be and we’ll return to
the wild life in a moment because here I
have to make the inevitable this is not
the talk I was going to give our
confession and the reason is this as I
began to talk to friends and colleagues
about the talk I got a near unanimous
response and it went something like this
oh thank goodness it’s time we had a
expose of the media and the rubbish that
were being fed now this was before I’d
mentioned the word of what I was
intended to talk about to anyone so
clearly there’s an appetite there well
uh oh I thought I’ve misread my audience
again not for the first time at least I
won’t have to change the title of the
talk today won’t be any different
they’ll hate me all over again
but the French playwright harassing said
there are no secrets of the time does
not reveal and so I’m going to adopt a
French level of discretion today and
leave the secrets to time I think
I also have to make another confession
which is that I don’t even have that
most basic of Ted’s commodities and idea
worth spreading I doubt I’ll tell you
anything that you don’t already know
today however the recently departed
columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote that rage
is the only quality which has kept me or
anyone I’ve ever studied writing
newspaper columns and so what I have for
you today is a little rage worth
spreading I guess and see how far we get
with that I’d like to start by spreading
a little bit of it on that idea of well
that I think the phrase what we’re being
fed is probably better read as what
we’re choosing to consume because rather
than vestee me expose today I’m going to
go with the classic good news bad news
gag and in typical media fashion I’ll
start with the bad news because all
going well never saw the paper and the
bad news is is the future of journalism
is in your hands
in fact it gets worse the future of
journalism is in this finger or this
finger if you’re left-handed every time
you click on a story that click is
interpreted as a photo click on enough
puppies on surfboards and who can resist
the cute puppy and that’s what you’re
going to get so that gets grumpy sort of
facet so get to be grumpy so um and it’s
it’s not as if there are you know a
shortage of problems with regional
papers yeah you see the papers getting
thinner every week what would I be
telling you if you don’t really know
here you see the papers getting thinner
week after week you see how the Internet
has taken away the classified ads
formerly the lucrative little backbone
of papers everywhere it’s obvious how
Facebook is siphoning the advertising
activity from local communities how
local advertisers have proportionately
greater sway
over the papers you see how old content
years old is literally and liberally
recycled you see how the principles of
shareholder value are corroding those of
journalism and so on and so forth so
yeah it’s fun to watch my blood pressure
rise and it gets sub-orbital fast but as
Harry Dean Stanton said to John Travolta
in that movie by John Cassavetes son
Nick put the gun away
it’s not that kind of an evening sir
yeah
so I’ll pivot artfully here to a moment
of audience participation which seems to
be doing well tonight the the the great
journalist and critic a che Liebling
wrote that freedom of the press is
guaranteed only to those who own one
freedom of the press is guaranteed only
to those who own one so quick hands up
how many of you own a press I thought
there’d be one or two
Rupert couldn’t make it today oh okay
and another another quick question how
many of you have posted anything to
facebook in the last week or so right
you see where I’m going with this right
how many of you in the press nobody how
many of you posted to Facebook okay
congratulations you’re in it press all
right and you’re all Orcas now almost
Orcas now and we get to the the good
news and the good news gets better
because it’s the same as the bad news
the future of journalism is in your
hands you see what I did there the good
news is the same as the bad news right
so no writers trick you can learn it and
you’re gonna have to learn it because I
address you now in your role as you
guessed it citizen journalists which
brings us back to rage worth spreading
and and my purpose here today which is
to show you how to do that responsibly
if I can time to check something I’ve
got a few quotes that I need to get to
and I don’t want to have to muck them up
if I’m more excited about the idea of
journalism than I am about say citizen
surgery and an either or without their
risks it’s it’s because we’re born
journalists every day we perform
countless little acts of micro
journalism right you come home your
partner asks you how your day was
they’re expecting a little moment of
journalism from you and we should answer
in a way that informs enlightens and
arouses at least curiosity so some of
you got that didn’t you argue I’ll give
you a good example a bit more of a
significant example that’s happening not
too far away from here
up the hill is a coal mining town it’s
got over a century of proud tradition
but economic industrial environmental
political and social pressure have made
it a very interesting time to be a
Collier as you can imagine what’s
happening up there is for obvious
reasons epochal and it’s the same
obviously in towns like this around the
world the stories are so just so
far-reaching the ramifications are so
far-reaching but the so-called
traditional media are Paris the way the
locals would like the locals activists
or the citizen journalists if you prefer
and so they’ve taken matters into their
own hands and a group of people led by
some of the maintenance workers wives
have set up a Facebook page which has
become the go-to site for news
background and insight on some issues
which really have national importance I
think labor issues industrial issues
needs to be coal and renewables and this
sort of thing so this is despite an
obvious agenda of course they’re a
partisan group of course they have their
point of view but that turns out not to
be a problem at all in fact it’s helpful
having so obvious an agenda because it
helps you to know how to read the
material traditionally this was the
purpose of editorials in newspapers
editorials are tools to help you read
the rest of the newspaper you can sort
of see what
worldview the editor has and you can
apply that to help and use is reported
elsewhere so this myth of objectivity it
turns out to be not such a big deal
recall recently a major media company
issuing a memo to its staff saying that
their papers were going to become more
business friendly presumably the court
corporate advertisers or political favor
or whatever you start to see another
example of the objectivity as a myth
in fact objectivity is a byproduct of
certain specific standards of journalism
right of reply for example corroborate
your sources don’t rely on a single
source make sure you hear it from at
least two people separation of editorial
content and and straight reporting these
sorts of things if these basic things
are done objectivity somehow occurs it’s
like happiness happiness can’t be your
goal happiness is what happens when you
you’re doing something that makes you
happy the problem comes from trying to
focus on that objectivity is the same
sort of thing that rises out of the
following of some specific standards so
having demolished the myth of
objectivity it turns out to be not just
dumb non-existent it’s actually
unnecessary in papers you don’t really
need it so having demolished the myth of
objectivity and we’re doing pretty well
today we now come to the lecture part of
the proceedings and I’m sorry about this
but it’s inevitable I was warned against
electri know I’m going to get into
trouble for it today but never once have
a journalist been in the presence of an
editor and not received a lecture and a
proud tradition will not end with me
today so I’ll try to keep it short and
useful here are the three things and
number eight will blow your mind
here are the three yeah here are the
three things you need to know to be not
just a journalist but a better Orca in
your particular pod I’ll go through
these pretty quickly the first thing
obviously is the difference between
journalism and public relations this
quote you’ve probably heard
journalism is is publishing something
that somebody else doesn’t want
published everything else is public
relations that gets attributed to George
Orwell it’s possibly legendary that he
said that I haven’t been able to find it
anywhere a lot of other people have said
it in various ways
so the sentiment holds now the big
difference of course public relations
the main the main method of that is the
press release the press release is never
a story at best it’s an indication that
there might be a story there if you go
looking for it but the thing you need to
remember is that public relations is
essentially a subset of advertising if I
were to draw the diagram of the
relationship between journalism and
advertising you’d have the circle with
journalism here and then right next to
it but not touching you’d have the
circle with advertising and then inside
that you have a smaller circle with
public relations no PR obviously
addresses journalists but it’s not
journalism itself and those two circles
they’re very close and journalists love
to keep the lights on and that’s what
advertising does so they’re very close
but they never touch if they do you
don’t have journalism anymore just a
form of of advertising second thing that
I think is essential is that empathy
does not equal sympathy of all the
skills that a journalist requires it
seems to me the most important one and
the least insisted upon today is empathy
but I think a lot of people confuse
empathy which the Oxford Dictionary
defines as the power of mentally
identifying with and so fully
comprehending a person or object of
contemplation with sympathy which is the
state of being affected by a feeling
similar to or corresponding to another
person or a very interesting difference
empathy is the power of identified
sympathy is the state of being affected
you’ve got power and you’ve got the
state of being affected over here now I
think a lot of people think that
expressing either empathy or sympathy
means that you’re condoning the purse
or behavior the object of your attention
that’s never true with empathy it’s
never true and it’s not automatically
true with with sympathy either I can
empathize with Isis in order to try to
understand them but I don’t sympathize
with them because of their methods and I
hope it goes without saying that I don’t
condone them so sympathy can offer offer
solace but it’s empathy that allows
understanding and without it there’s
usually very little to behead the third
thing and this is this is a really great
once it’s a fantastic idea it’s the idea
called framing from a cognitive
linguists called George Lakoff and it’s
one of the most powerful ideas you’ll
ever hear framing is basically the
toolbox that lets you take apart all of
the language coming at you to see how it
works and that lets you put it back
together tuned
just the way you like it’s basically the
assumption or the idea that the words
and phrases that we choose to use or
adopt have certain connotations or
assumptions certain frames of reference
built into them now the first example
that you always hear is tax relief and
who doesn’t love a little tax relief
politicians use that phrase all the time
the relief part of that axe to paint
taxation as a kind of affliction or
disease from which relief is required
you see the relief but what do we get
relief from aches pains disease
sicknesses sort of things so if you put
those two things together tax relief you
get a lovely little phrase but it’s
working subconsciously in your mind to
paint taxation as an evil thing that we
need relief from another couple of
favorite examples the sharing economy is
a good one if I have a pie and I give
you a piece of my pie I’m sharing my pie
with you if I if I ask for money for I’m
not sharing the pie with you I’m selling
the pie pure and simple all right
sharing an economy don’t go together in
the way that that phrase would like us
to think that they do all right another
one popular around here outlaw
motorcycle gang outlaw motorcycle gang I
know this
you don’t hear a lot about outlaw
country women’s association it even
though I bet not all of those ladies are
declaring all the income they’re making
off that jams and preserves it’s a
pernicious menace in society if if
outlaw motorcycle gangs were real
the police would simply come and shut
them down having the laws by which they
could do that
but while murder or extortion or drug
trafficking or any of those things are
illegal being a member of a motorcycle
club is not despite the fact that that
phrase would like you to think otherwise
and then one of my one of my all-time
favorites think outside the box I hate
this one so much think outside the box I
never thought there was a box you had to
think in or out of until I heard that
phrase right think outside the box
there is no box human beings always
creating boxes for ourselves even when
we’re encouraging each other to get out
of them so we’re this surrealist thing
yep so if all of this sounds like a bit
of semantic sophist tree it’s not for
nothing that lack offs best-selling
introduction to the concept of framing a
book called don’t think of an elephant
is subtitled know your values and frame
the debate and on the subject of values
the journalist Thomas Rick said
something really powerful recently on in
an interview with NPR that with Terry
Gross on NPR Rick’s has a new book out
about Winston Churchill in George Orwell
and and their relationship to I guess
commonly held ideas of truth and the
gross was asking him about this and he
was talking about the importance of
these common ideas of truth and he said
it really comes down to a formula he
said first you need principles you need
to remember those principles and stand
by them
second you need to look at the world and
see the facts and not just have opinions
look at the world and see what are the
facts of the matter and third you need
to act upon those facts based on your
principles that’s not just good advice
for journalists that’s good
appeared and it seems to me but that’s
really the engine room of a healthy
relationship to reality there is a
fourth thing of course there’s one more
thing that you need to know to be a
journalist and that’s how the tie up
loose ends which brings me back by the
skin of my teeth to killer whales and
menopause you knew it was coming right
why do that why do they live so long
after after you know they can’t
contribute to the gene pool anymore
it seems from the point of view and
natural selection it seems like a bit of
an extravagance but pork is a very
intelligent and social animals and a lot
of people think that there’s such value
in keeping the old folk around because
they can pass on the wisdom and
knowledge to the younger whales but what
if this some economic dominance in
achieving every journalists dream that I
mentioned earlier
well since at least the 1950s when this
behavior was first observed by Japanese
fishing cruise pods of whales in the
Bering Sea have learned to take the Cod
and halibut off the the long lines one
by one until the boats are pretty much
calling in empty lines yeah
pods of whales forty or fifty strong
have learned the sound of individual
boats not just or that’s a fishing boat
they know which boat it is and they’ve
taught themselves to identify the sounds
of the hydraulics so that when the lines
go into the water that its Gino time
it’s like a dinner bell to them you know
they go they they become so good at this
they’ve effectively shut down the
aleutian fishing industry now think
about what’s happened here
a whale has discovered a supply of food
strung out in front of it like Christmas
lights it’s learned to pick the Cod off
the line one by one without itself being
injured by the hooks and then it did an
amazing thing it convinced other whales
that this was a cool thing to do and the
other whales believe this first whale
who had returned
talking of practicable matters rather
than say
it’s favorite color or what it had been
watching on television and consequently
consequently
wails throughout the Aleutians now
literally have their food court for them
every journalist tree but what if that
first whale had been a liar or what if
it had returned speaking only of trivial
things or what if it had kept the secret
of the cod to itself well then the the
pod would still be toiling for its
supper and that first whales reputation
would be in tatters or as it seems
should not cry cod any more than we
should cry wolf unnecessarily yeah truth
in both parables is baked into natural
selection think about it remember what
happened to the boy in that original
story he didn’t get to contribute to the
gene pool I don’t the wolf ate him he
may have read the the sanitized version
of that to you kids in the original did
the wolf eats the kid there are
consequences for this sort of thing a
lie
may benefit at an individual whale but
the truth feeds everyone so maybe there
is an idea worth spreading here after
all a simple one to be sure and it’s
this you don’t shut down the Aleutian
fishing industry and dine for free by
speaking thank you very much
[Applause]
much for deconstructing my profession
that I really appreciate that
I don’t know if you’ve noticed there’s a
butt camp right here that’s the one I’m
worried about
what are they hoping to capture anyway
cuz I’ll leave that one there the moral
arc of the killer whale is long but it
bends towards truth I’ll show you today
how this has given certain of their
species
a brutal economic dominance over their
closest rivals for resources namely
human beings and in one of natural
selections more delightful grace notes
has allowed them to achieve every
journalists dream which is how they eat
for free based on your reputation okay
killer whales are also fascinating
because they’re one of the few animals
that experiences menopause as they get
to live a long time after they’re no
longer able to reproduce
now leave that one with you think about
what that might be and we’ll return to
the wild life in a moment because here I
have to make the inevitable this is not
the talk I was going to give our
confession and the reason is this as I
began to talk to friends and colleagues
about the talk I got a near unanimous
response and it went something like this
oh thank goodness it’s time we had a
expose of the media and the rubbish that
were being fed now this was before I’d
mentioned the word of what I was
intended to talk about to anyone so
clearly there’s an appetite there well
uh oh I thought I’ve misread my audience
again not for the first time at least I
won’t have to change the title of the
talk today won’t be any different
they’ll hate me all over again
but the French playwright harassing said
there are no secrets of the time does
not reveal and so I’m going to adopt a
French level of discretion today and
leave the secrets to time I think
I also have to make another confession
which is that I don’t even have that
most basic of Ted’s commodities and idea
worth spreading I doubt I’ll tell you
anything that you don’t already know
today however the recently departed
columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote that rage
is the only quality which has kept me or
anyone I’ve ever studied writing
newspaper columns and so what I have for
you today is a little rage worth
spreading I guess and see how far we get
with that I’d like to start by spreading
a little bit of it on that idea of well
that I think the phrase what we’re being
fed is probably better read as what
we’re choosing to consume because rather
than vestee me expose today I’m going to
go with the classic good news bad news
gag and in typical media fashion I’ll
start with the bad news because all
going well never saw the paper and the
bad news is is the future of journalism
is in your hands
in fact it gets worse the future of
journalism is in this finger or this
finger if you’re left-handed every time
you click on a story that click is
interpreted as a photo click on enough
puppies on surfboards and who can resist
the cute puppy and that’s what you’re
going to get so that gets grumpy sort of
facet so get to be grumpy so um and it’s
it’s not as if there are you know a
shortage of problems with regional
papers yeah you see the papers getting
thinner every week what would I be
telling you if you don’t really know
here you see the papers getting thinner
week after week you see how the Internet
has taken away the classified ads
formerly the lucrative little backbone
of papers everywhere it’s obvious how
Facebook is siphoning the advertising
activity from local communities how
local advertisers have proportionately
greater sway
over the papers you see how old content
years old is literally and liberally
recycled you see how the principles of
shareholder value are corroding those of
journalism and so on and so forth so
yeah it’s fun to watch my blood pressure
rise and it gets sub-orbital fast but as
Harry Dean Stanton said to John Travolta
in that movie by John Cassavetes son
Nick put the gun away
it’s not that kind of an evening sir
yeah
so I’ll pivot artfully here to a moment
of audience participation which seems to
be doing well tonight the the the great
journalist and critic a che Liebling
wrote that freedom of the press is
guaranteed only to those who own one
freedom of the press is guaranteed only
to those who own one so quick hands up
how many of you own a press I thought
there’d be one or two
Rupert couldn’t make it today oh okay
and another another quick question how
many of you have posted anything to
facebook in the last week or so right
you see where I’m going with this right
how many of you in the press nobody how
many of you posted to Facebook okay
congratulations you’re in it press all
right and you’re all Orcas now almost
Orcas now and we get to the the good
news and the good news gets better
because it’s the same as the bad news
the future of journalism is in your
hands you see what I did there the good
news is the same as the bad news right
so no writers trick you can learn it and
you’re gonna have to learn it because I
address you now in your role as you
guessed it citizen journalists which
brings us back to rage worth spreading
and and my purpose here today which is
to show you how to do that responsibly
if I can time to check something I’ve
got a few quotes that I need to get to
and I don’t want to have to muck them up
if I’m more excited about the idea of
journalism than I am about say citizen
surgery and an either or without their
risks it’s it’s because we’re born
journalists every day we perform
countless little acts of micro
journalism right you come home your
partner asks you how your day was
they’re expecting a little moment of
journalism from you and we should answer
in a way that informs enlightens and
arouses at least curiosity so some of
you got that didn’t you argue I’ll give
you a good example a bit more of a
significant example that’s happening not
too far away from here
up the hill is a coal mining town it’s
got over a century of proud tradition
but economic industrial environmental
political and social pressure have made
it a very interesting time to be a
Collier as you can imagine what’s
happening up there is for obvious
reasons epochal and it’s the same
obviously in towns like this around the
world the stories are so just so
far-reaching the ramifications are so
far-reaching but the so-called
traditional media are Paris the way the
locals would like the locals activists
or the citizen journalists if you prefer
and so they’ve taken matters into their
own hands and a group of people led by
some of the maintenance workers wives
have set up a Facebook page which has
become the go-to site for news
background and insight on some issues
which really have national importance I
think labor issues industrial issues
needs to be coal and renewables and this
sort of thing so this is despite an
obvious agenda of course they’re a
partisan group of course they have their
point of view but that turns out not to
be a problem at all in fact it’s helpful
having so obvious an agenda because it
helps you to know how to read the
material traditionally this was the
purpose of editorials in newspapers
editorials are tools to help you read
the rest of the newspaper you can sort
of see what
worldview the editor has and you can
apply that to help and use is reported
elsewhere so this myth of objectivity it
turns out to be not such a big deal
recall recently a major media company
issuing a memo to its staff saying that
their papers were going to become more
business friendly presumably the court
corporate advertisers or political favor
or whatever you start to see another
example of the objectivity as a myth
in fact objectivity is a byproduct of
certain specific standards of journalism
right of reply for example corroborate
your sources don’t rely on a single
source make sure you hear it from at
least two people separation of editorial
content and and straight reporting these
sorts of things if these basic things
are done objectivity somehow occurs it’s
like happiness happiness can’t be your
goal happiness is what happens when you
you’re doing something that makes you
happy the problem comes from trying to
focus on that objectivity is the same
sort of thing that rises out of the
following of some specific standards so
having demolished the myth of
objectivity it turns out to be not just
dumb non-existent it’s actually
unnecessary in papers you don’t really
need it so having demolished the myth of
objectivity and we’re doing pretty well
today we now come to the lecture part of
the proceedings and I’m sorry about this
but it’s inevitable I was warned against
electri know I’m going to get into
trouble for it today but never once have
a journalist been in the presence of an
editor and not received a lecture and a
proud tradition will not end with me
today so I’ll try to keep it short and
useful here are the three things and
number eight will blow your mind
here are the three yeah here are the
three things you need to know to be not
just a journalist but a better Orca in
your particular pod I’ll go through
these pretty quickly the first thing
obviously is the difference between
journalism and public relations this
quote you’ve probably heard
journalism is is publishing something
that somebody else doesn’t want
published everything else is public
relations that gets attributed to George
Orwell it’s possibly legendary that he
said that I haven’t been able to find it
anywhere a lot of other people have said
it in various ways
so the sentiment holds now the big
difference of course public relations
the main the main method of that is the
press release the press release is never
a story at best it’s an indication that
there might be a story there if you go
looking for it but the thing you need to
remember is that public relations is
essentially a subset of advertising if I
were to draw the diagram of the
relationship between journalism and
advertising you’d have the circle with
journalism here and then right next to
it but not touching you’d have the
circle with advertising and then inside
that you have a smaller circle with
public relations no PR obviously
addresses journalists but it’s not
journalism itself and those two circles
they’re very close and journalists love
to keep the lights on and that’s what
advertising does so they’re very close
but they never touch if they do you
don’t have journalism anymore just a
form of of advertising second thing that
I think is essential is that empathy
does not equal sympathy of all the
skills that a journalist requires it
seems to me the most important one and
the least insisted upon today is empathy
but I think a lot of people confuse
empathy which the Oxford Dictionary
defines as the power of mentally
identifying with and so fully
comprehending a person or object of
contemplation with sympathy which is the
state of being affected by a feeling
similar to or corresponding to another
person or a very interesting difference
empathy is the power of identified
sympathy is the state of being affected
you’ve got power and you’ve got the
state of being affected over here now I
think a lot of people think that
expressing either empathy or sympathy
means that you’re condoning the purse
or behavior the object of your attention
that’s never true with empathy it’s
never true and it’s not automatically
true with with sympathy either I can
empathize with Isis in order to try to
understand them but I don’t sympathize
with them because of their methods and I
hope it goes without saying that I don’t
condone them so sympathy can offer offer
solace but it’s empathy that allows
understanding and without it there’s
usually very little to behead the third
thing and this is this is a really great
once it’s a fantastic idea it’s the idea
called framing from a cognitive
linguists called George Lakoff and it’s
one of the most powerful ideas you’ll
ever hear framing is basically the
toolbox that lets you take apart all of
the language coming at you to see how it
works and that lets you put it back
together tuned
just the way you like it’s basically the
assumption or the idea that the words
and phrases that we choose to use or
adopt have certain connotations or
assumptions certain frames of reference
built into them now the first example
that you always hear is tax relief and
who doesn’t love a little tax relief
politicians use that phrase all the time
the relief part of that axe to paint
taxation as a kind of affliction or
disease from which relief is required
you see the relief but what do we get
relief from aches pains disease
sicknesses sort of things so if you put
those two things together tax relief you
get a lovely little phrase but it’s
working subconsciously in your mind to
paint taxation as an evil thing that we
need relief from another couple of
favorite examples the sharing economy is
a good one if I have a pie and I give
you a piece of my pie I’m sharing my pie
with you if I if I ask for money for I’m
not sharing the pie with you I’m selling
the pie pure and simple all right
sharing an economy don’t go together in
the way that that phrase would like us
to think that they do all right another
one popular around here outlaw
motorcycle gang outlaw motorcycle gang I
know this
you don’t hear a lot about outlaw
country women’s association it even
though I bet not all of those ladies are
declaring all the income they’re making
off that jams and preserves it’s a
pernicious menace in society if if
outlaw motorcycle gangs were real
the police would simply come and shut
them down having the laws by which they
could do that
but while murder or extortion or drug
trafficking or any of those things are
illegal being a member of a motorcycle
club is not despite the fact that that
phrase would like you to think otherwise
and then one of my one of my all-time
favorites think outside the box I hate
this one so much think outside the box I
never thought there was a box you had to
think in or out of until I heard that
phrase right think outside the box
there is no box human beings always
creating boxes for ourselves even when
we’re encouraging each other to get out
of them so we’re this surrealist thing
yep so if all of this sounds like a bit
of semantic sophist tree it’s not for
nothing that lack offs best-selling
introduction to the concept of framing a
book called don’t think of an elephant
is subtitled know your values and frame
the debate and on the subject of values
the journalist Thomas Rick said
something really powerful recently on in
an interview with NPR that with Terry
Gross on NPR Rick’s has a new book out
about Winston Churchill in George Orwell
and and their relationship to I guess
commonly held ideas of truth and the
gross was asking him about this and he
was talking about the importance of
these common ideas of truth and he said
it really comes down to a formula he
said first you need principles you need
to remember those principles and stand
by them
second you need to look at the world and
see the facts and not just have opinions
look at the world and see what are the
facts of the matter and third you need
to act upon those facts based on your
principles that’s not just good advice
for journalists that’s good
appeared and it seems to me but that’s
really the engine room of a healthy
relationship to reality there is a
fourth thing of course there’s one more
thing that you need to know to be a
journalist and that’s how the tie up
loose ends which brings me back by the
skin of my teeth to killer whales and
menopause you knew it was coming right
why do that why do they live so long
after after you know they can’t
contribute to the gene pool anymore
it seems from the point of view and
natural selection it seems like a bit of
an extravagance but pork is a very
intelligent and social animals and a lot
of people think that there’s such value
in keeping the old folk around because
they can pass on the wisdom and
knowledge to the younger whales but what
if this some economic dominance in
achieving every journalists dream that I
mentioned earlier
well since at least the 1950s when this
behavior was first observed by Japanese
fishing cruise pods of whales in the
Bering Sea have learned to take the Cod
and halibut off the the long lines one
by one until the boats are pretty much
calling in empty lines yeah
pods of whales forty or fifty strong
have learned the sound of individual
boats not just or that’s a fishing boat
they know which boat it is and they’ve
taught themselves to identify the sounds
of the hydraulics so that when the lines
go into the water that its Gino time
it’s like a dinner bell to them you know
they go they they become so good at this
they’ve effectively shut down the
aleutian fishing industry now think
about what’s happened here
a whale has discovered a supply of food
strung out in front of it like Christmas
lights it’s learned to pick the Cod off
the line one by one without itself being
injured by the hooks and then it did an
amazing thing it convinced other whales
that this was a cool thing to do and the
other whales believe this first whale
who had returned
talking of practicable matters rather
than say
it’s favorite color or what it had been
watching on television and consequently
consequently
wails throughout the Aleutians now
literally have their food court for them
every journalist tree but what if that
first whale had been a liar or what if
it had returned speaking only of trivial
things or what if it had kept the secret
of the cod to itself well then the the
pod would still be toiling for its
supper and that first whales reputation
would be in tatters or as it seems
should not cry cod any more than we
should cry wolf unnecessarily yeah truth
in both parables is baked into natural
selection think about it remember what
happened to the boy in that original
story he didn’t get to contribute to the
gene pool I don’t the wolf ate him he
may have read the the sanitized version
of that to you kids in the original did
the wolf eats the kid there are
consequences for this sort of thing a
lie
may benefit at an individual whale but
the truth feeds everyone so maybe there
is an idea worth spreading here after
all a simple one to be sure and it’s
this you don’t shut down the Aleutian
fishing industry and dine for free by
speaking thank you very much
[Applause]
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