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Press Panel: The Future of Media in a Post-Truth Age
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Sukhmani Malik
5:24
5:26
Hello and Welcome to everyone! Today, we have a Press Panel at Oxford Union, with the topic of "The Future of Media in a Post-Truth World".
The panellists for today are as follows: Mr Jeremy O'Grady, Editor-In-Chief of The Week Mr Robert Guest: Foreign editor of the Economist; and Mr Jim White, Telegraph columnist, writer and broadcaster.
5:29
Mr Guest addresses the crowd amidst claps. He tells the audience that he is the foreign editor of the economist. he also says, "We live in an era of fake news, and not for the first time, either."
5:32
Robert Guest mentioned that "We entered the period of the great newspapers that tried to describe what was going on in the world with flavour in the 16th century".
5:33
"All the newspapers at that time were trying to sell a daily package that meant if one bought this newspaper it would mean they could trust the package. However, the news was not reliable.", Guest says in the context of history.
5:34
Mr Guest draws parallels to Facebook today and news circulation without integrity.
5:35
Robert emphasises saying, "There’s a real problem with trusting what we read today." He says it is easy and cheap to produce fake news, but gathering real news costs money.
5:37
He highlights the importance of diverting resources to accurate news collection.
He says that either public funds or readers funds need to be invested in the media for news accuracy.
5:38
Mr Guest points to rich philanthropists like Jeff Bezos to help this cause. He ends by saying, "If you really want to find out what’s going on in the world you need to pay."
Jeremy O Grady: "This week's story is about the moon and a goat on the moon."
5:39
Grady notes the work culture at The Week saying, "we have a much easier task; the whole idea of reputation has been settled for us. In contrast to news publishing agencies like the Guardian, Economist, The Times, the Telegraph."
5:40
Mr Grady underlines his area of focus for the evening, "What I hope to be doing this evening is to distinguish between two phenomena. One, the phenomenon of fake news. The other, which is also, perhaps more so, eating away our faith in the news at the moment. It's the idea of partisanship."
Jeremy O'Grady ssaid "In reference to Reuters survey on digital news, a high percentage of people said that their problem with fake news is not the people, as Robert talked about, but the mainstream media."
5:41
Mr O'Grady elaborates, "It's the sense that we can't, any longer, trust the objectivity of what we're reading".
5:42
Mr O'Grady talks about being unable to locate the problem exactly, "I don't know if it's a problem with the producers of the news or the consumers of the news, but it is nevertheless worth pointing out that we don't just have a problem identifying fake stories, or the economic problem that Robert was talking about."
5:44
O'Grady inquires of the room, "In this post-truth or the post-fact age, what we need to talk about is to what extent in this post-fact age, where opinion matters more than fact — is it a particularly novel age or has it always been like this?"
5:45
Mr. Jim White adds to the conversation saying, "There is a difference between purchasing figures and reading figures of newspaper."
5:46
Mr. White notes, "The change from print to digital is so revolutionary that independent newspaper don't even print now."
5:47
"Independent newspaper are entirely online", says Jim
5:48
5:49
Speaking on this online shift, Mr. White talks of the its impact, "This shift is very uncomfortable for existing media because they don't know how to deal with it. Everyone has in their pocket a mobile phone which brings an opportunity to every individual to become a journalist. It permits individual sense and opinions. It is a tremendous advancement."
Mr. White also notes that there are enormous dangers, especially to trustworthiness of the produced content in this day and age
5:51
Robert Guide provides further insight noting, "Intelligence has nothing to do with believability. I have come across Oxford student who believes in astrology."
5:52
"So being intelligent doesn’t mean being smart.", Mr Guide adds.
5:53
Mr. Guide says, "The algorithm on Facebook are good at spotting what you like and what you believe. This leads to pushing out to the extremes and hollowing in the between."
5:54
"It is also possible for completely malicious people to cause trouble. The Russians have spent a long long time undermine the west. They had to pay agents to talk to radical groups back in the 80s the Russian intelligence they planted the idea that the HIV virus was planted by the CIA to kill  black people, which is absolute rubbish.", opines Robert.
5:55
Comparing to how easy this process now is, Guide says, "Today they don’t have to get out of Russia today to do that."
5:56
"We literally have to check the sources today to mount accountability.", Guide notes.
5:57
5:58
The panelists also note how it is impossible to be completely objective.
6:01
Mr. Jim White providing further context says, "During world cup they used the visiting western media to confound the assumptions that western media had on Russia. Russia was beyond on its best behaviour. "
6:03
"Lot of western European fans , they blamed the media, as it was all fake", says White
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