journalist now the media as we know it
is dying the media is losing influence
anyone can publish and often they do and
that means they can go around people
like me journalists like me are now
bystanders in a world where there’s
something called fake news and people
don’t know what’s true anymore
in fact people look at me and call me
fake news because they don’t trust
because they don’t trust me I’m sure
we’ve heard all of these things and I’m
here today to tell you that all of them
are wrong journalists are still the
gatekeepers and the truth will survive I
started as a journalist that a long time
ago 17 years ago and on one of my first
jobs or in fact my first job I was a
night duty reporter otherwise known as
the lowest of the low the graveyard
shift where we would ring police
officers and ask about car crashes cats
up trees or fires and try and get a
brief in the paper before it went to be
at the next day now one day I was
working and the journalist called
Bernice Bernhard oarsmen came in and
broke a great story he said that the
tree on One Tree Hill was going to be
chopped down the very next day the
council the politicians and the
bureaucrats had kept us from the people
of Auckland because they wanted to make
their own lives easier they didn’t want
people to say goodbye to the tree and
the inevitable pain and suffering that
would go with losing something that was
there and for those of you who don’t
remember that there was a tree on One
Tree Hill that’s what it looked like so
on the day after burn its story I came
into work on my night shift are ready to
call up about cats up trees and fires
and car crashes and the chief reporter
at the time said can you go out to one
tree hill I reckon there might be a
couple of people up there to say goodbye
to the tree so I went down and the first
thing I had to do was sign out and Nokia
cell phone which was about this big
because that’s what you had in those
days you didn’t have your own one you
hit the sign one
out and they were pretty big and you
could only share them and I went to One
Tree Hill and I started to walk up it
and the cheap reporter with his Ricans
was right in fact there was heaps of
people there and when I first got there
I noticed that there is actually quite a
crowd there were hundreds of people
starting to walk up the hill in the
evening like I was and I had my notebook
and my cell phone and I stopped to talk
to them and I remember I talked to
someone and I took their name and I
asked them why they were coming they
said they wanted to say goodbye to the
tree because they knew it was going to
morrow and I walked a bit further and
there was another person who wanted to
say goodbye to the tree and I took his
name and wrote it down and another
person another person I slowly made my
way up the hill and I remember I stopped
and I’ll never forget these people and I
talked to one man and he said that his
kids were now grown up and living
overseas and jobs and stuff like that
and he was said that they would never
get to see the tree on the hill again
and I remember I kept moving and talking
to more and more people and writing it
all down in my little notebook and then
when I got to the top I got the Nokia
cell phone out and I rang up the chief
reporter and he said Gow what have you
got up there and I said there’s hundreds
of people they’re emotional they’re all
coming for different reasons from
different parts of Auckland and New
Zealand to say goodbye to the tree and
they’re telling all these different
stories and you said have you written
down any of their names I said I’ve
written down every one of their names
have you got any quotes I’ve got all the
quotes he said get your butt back here
and start writing and I remember I went
back and we wrote it up and then I got
up the next morning because that’s what
they had to do in these days it’s only
17 years ago and the paper had come out
and the headline was funeral for a
friend of the city and the byline on it
was Bob Bennett oarsmen and Patrick
Gower and I was really proud when I saw
my own name there to be part of history
but then I was even prouder when I saw
some of the people that I had spoken to
and their quotes were in the paper and
they too were a part of what is the
first draft of history of Auckland
losing that great tree and I remember
one woman that I quoted that I saw up
there and I quoted in
quote was along the lines of that tree
is Auckland when I come home and see
that I know I’m home and I remember just
feeling really special that I had been
able to take not only what was a big
story for Auckland in New Zealand but
also to make some of the people that
were there a part of it and when I look
back at the time I was just really proud
but now as I kind of get on a bit I look
back and something else happened that
day because what I realized then was
that I’d found my calling in life which
was to go out find out stuff and then
get it at get it back out to people and
the most important thing when I look
back now is that it’s not fake news it
really happened there’s no tree up there
so it was real now my job now as a
political reporter is not quite as
black-and-white as whether there’s a
tree on a hill or not I still have to go
up a hill to find out my stories but on
the way up is I go through the chicane
area of Parliament and politics there’s
lots of people instead of just wanted to
help me out it’s trying to say go that
way
back down or go that way but faster up
or stop here and I’ll tell you the
reason why you’re going the wrong way
those people were politicians with
vested interests those people the powers
in society that want the media to do
things a certain way those people are
the spin doctors or the propagandists or
just merely motivated people who want
their own idea of what the tree looks
like without a tree on it or not and
it’s a little bit harder than that first
story that I did but the job is still
the same it’s to go up the hill talk to
some people on the way up there and
hopefully tell people the truth at the
end of it the problem is it’s just
really really hard to do in the modern
last year I went to the home of fake
news and as you can see I got quite
close to it so I feel like I’m pretty
qualified to comment I spent four trips
in America last year and it’s election
year and during this campaign so I got
to have a good look at what was
happening there and not just in the
media but in America in general and
while I was there it was a real
eye-opener in so many ways because one I
would see media and journalists with
more skills more resources more
professional doing things at the very
very top of the game and I just thought
that they were amazing to watch and
we’re doing such a brilliant job but at
the same time as we know we also had
people in America losing faith and
losing trust in those very journalists
in the very places that they came from
and this was something that had built up
over a long period of time and what I
was seeing was that even though some
journalists we’re doing really really
amazing work and it’s not fake news when
you hold politicians to account that’s
real news it was seen as fake news and
they had started to lose this special
relationship with the American public in
the special relationship that all
journalists had with the public and what
I could also see was that Americans had
lost as you’ve all seen to lost trust in
their systems and their democratic
institutions and actually those
institutions including the media
couldn’t cope with what was happening
they weren’t strong enough anymore and
that includes the media it was not
strong enough to deal with the backlash
that it was getting from voters the
trust that had been built up over
decades and you know over 100 years had
been broken in that fabric of trust with
the media had torn and you can’t put it
back together straight away and it
really worried me and so even though I
was able to
myself ask questions of Donald Trump and
see all these other journalists doing it
it was not going to get through as much
as it should to the American public and
that worried me because I was coming
home here to an election year this year
and I didn’t want to see it happen in my
own country I knew the problems weren’t
as deep but I didn’t want to be part of
a media and is it I didn’t want to break
up as a journalist after an election and
be the kind of person that said I didn’t
really understand my own country or we
didn’t get it right and we weren’t there
for our own people and we didn’t do our
job properly
so I was very focused on what I would
have to do in this election to make
things relevant to Kiwis and to keep the
trust of New Zealanders so that we
didn’t have the sort of American
situation we were quickly faced in this
election with big challenges we had some
of the biggest lies that we’ve ever seen
in politics put forward and by our own
politicians in very senior ones at that
we had an 11 something billion dollar
hole that wasn’t real and that’s why
there’s no slide for it because you
can’t see it a joke but I actually mean
that because it wasn’t it wasn’t real
and that created issues for the media we
had politicians putting forward things
that weren’t real and not only going
through the channels that we know like
news hub pool
TVNZ door The Herald or wherever but
also using Facebook and other social
media to push what was in truth a lie
and it wasn’t the only one put forward
in the election campaign there was
another equally serious one that Labour
was going to raise income taxes and that
was also put forward these were by
definition fake news and you know this
was in some
why is what we’ve seen in other places
but it was put forward by our own senior
politicians at the time it really
worried me because I worried that as a
media we didn’t do enough or weren’t
able to do enough to push back on these
things but we could we were able to cool
them out and in fact we didn’t just have
to use radio television the online
aspect of news Hub we used Facebook as
well I remember one night sitting there
and seeing lots of stuff on my own
Facebook about income tax being raised
which raised questions about and the
algorithms that were sort of obviously
trying to pick me someone who’d be
concerned but I didn’t have time to
worry about that I had more pressing
things and I decided well I’ll see what
I can do on Facebook and to fight back
against this myself and so I made a my
own Facebook video where I called it the
biggest lie of the campaign and that got
five hundred thousand views or whatever
it was and it was a pretty useful way of
striking back but what it taught me was
that that’s why journalists are still
important that’s why journalists like me
are still important because even though
everyone had a voice and I could see on
Facebook that there were lots of other
people angry and people were able to do
things in and and and so on and so forth
what was needed was a strong trained
respected voice that was able to have
the courage and use the platforms to go
back against what was essentially a
really dangerous element of New Zealand
politics which was promulgating a lie or
a couple lies as we’ve talked about and
I knew then that journalists like me
would still have a place and we’re still
needed and because I could see it I
could actually watch it going up on my
Facebook page and it was really
satisfying every
view that it got knowing that every few
on there was one person that was
learning that actually labor wasn’t
going to raise income tax and that was a
complete lie and it was good to see that
you know we were still able to do the
kinds of things that I got into
journalism for which was to tell the
truth and and tell it strongly during
the campaign or just before it I had my
own moment of truth so to speak I was at
the doctors and they I was at the eye
doctors and they diagnosed me with
glaucoma which is a eye disease that is
known as the silent killer in that it
takes away your eyesight without you
knowing and the doctors were able to
give me a injection and give me some
medicine and stuff like that and say
that if I care for my eyes I won’t lose
the sight that is so precious to me and
I remember I was driving home and I
thought about that as you do because
everyone’s eyesight is precious to them
and I thought that that was a bit like
the media and what I would have to do in
the campaign the things that I had been
given were precious in terms of our
ability to tell stories and to put
things right for people and to be the
gatekeeper but we have to protect them
and I have to protect them and keep the
trust but like I have to protect my eyes
I have to do things that will keep the
trust there and keep their precious
element of things there one of those was
being accurate we got our polling right
we made politics exciting we took it to
the people we kept on with policy rather
than other things we put on a brilliant
debate and that where people were able
to look at the leadership of New Zealand
and those all those things were a bit
like looking after my precious eyesight
they were doing the special things but I
think as we look forward we need to
think of other ways before we get to the
next election of how we can keep
what’s precious to us in the media and
some of those are really obvious in the
media we don’t have enough people from
other ethnicities we don’t have enough
people who are moldy we don’t have
enough people a Polynesian but also we
now don’t have enough people who are
Chinese and we don’t have enough people
who are Indian we don’t look like the
people we are talking to we don’t
understand them and it’s going to be a
really obvious weakness for us we also
don’t understand people in our rural and
regional communities anymore because
we’re all based in the cities and our
only memories are when we used to live
there or the fact that appearances there
we don’t quite have the voice for that
either the other thing that we don’t
have a voice for is young people we
don’t understand them we really don’t
and that’s obvious by the way that
they’re the ones or you’re the ones
actually as I look out at you that we’re
going to lose so we need to find a way
to work with you and the best way of
doing that is I don’t know why not
enough young people are working with us
not for us with us along this sort of
thing
and I go back and think about One Tree
Hill a lot and if I went up there now
and did what I did today it’d be totally
different because heaps of other people
up there would have already taken pretty
awesome Instagram pictures of people
being up there there would’ve been some
cool snapchat stories they would have
shared it with their relatives on
Facebook Twitter would have let every
journalist in town know that there were
heaps of people up there anyway
and it would have been different then
when I went up and told the story but
the important thing is that while I
would still be the gatekeeper there
would be other people able to come
through the gate being the gatekeeper as
a journalist at a big media organization
doesn’t mean you shut the gate on other
people and the way that I’d like to look
at it is if I went up that hill again my
story could have been better if I
incorporated all the other people who
were trying to get to the top as well
maybe through their Instagram stories
maybe through anything else and if all
those messages were there together so my
messages
I can’t be the gatekeeper alone or we
can’t be the gatekeeper alone but we can
be better gatekeepers together and
there’s a lot that we can look forward
to to doing together in terms of keeping
our media and democracy strong if we
work together and that’s why ultimately
nothing would change about the hill
except we’d do it a lot better and we’d
do it together and that’s why in my
opinion fake news will die and the truth
will always survive because there’s
always people that want to go to the top
of the hill and tell other people about
it thank you [Applause]