LIVE: Mana Taurite - From Eurocentric to equitable newsrooms | Global Journalism Seminars with Carmen Parahi, journalist, news media specialist, equity champion
11:30AM May 8, 2024
Speakers:
Mitali Mukherjee
Keywords:
maori
newsrooms
eurocentric
organization
people
news organizations
lens
indigenous
marginalized communities
journalists
new zealand
change
news
audiences
colonialism
journalism
work
create
communities
representation
Kia ora and welcome to the global journalism seminars. This is the briefing in 2020. New Zealand media giant stuff issued a public apology for 160 years of monocultural news coverage that had simultaneously sidelined and created a distorted and oppressive image of the nation's indigenous Maori people. The Apology came off the back of our truth tama to Pano a month long investigation by 20 Reporters into stuffs news coverage days in back colonization in the mid 1800s. We polled our journalists fellows to ask if they thought their newsroom operated with a Eurocentric lens 75% said yes 12.5% Each said no or that they were unsure. We also asked if they thought their audience would benefit from a newsroom that operates with a multicultural lens. 75% said yes 25% We're not sure. The Tama 2.0 project was the first output of pootie archy a working group conceived by today's guests common Perai to help staff achieve better representation common joins us today to explain the poor tiaki philosophy and approach to adopting a multicultural lens in newsrooms. That's the briefing. Let's begin.
Hello, and welcome again to everyone that's joined in virtually to everyone in Oxford. Here we are back again with another global journalism seminar. delighted to introduce and welcome Carmen Pereira. He, as you heard, she's been doing a lot of work around multiculturalism. In essence, is it important to have more diverse voices in the newsroom and why? You know sort of native intelligence will tell us the answer is yes. But Carmen has spent a lot more work breaking that down and explaining why it's important and how you can do it. Carmen was of course formerly with New Zealand's large media outlet stuff. She is now an independent journalist but continues her work in that regard. Not least she deserves our respect and drop of the hat because it is currently midnight for Carmen in New Zealand and you're for lack of a better term. You're a bigger man than I am komen which is amazing to see you sort of give us your time, insight and to do that all at midnight. So I'm going to hand the baton to you but I will sort of perhaps using an opening placeholder for those joining which is if you could walk us through the idea of multiculturalism before you make your presentation. And that's a little bit of a switch around today, which is that Carmen is going to present some of her findings. And then and then of course as always, we'll open up the house for questions both from our journalist fellows and from the audience carbon multiculturalism,
mono culturalism love it or hate it. I have to say if mono culturalism exists in your newsroom or your news organizations, I can guaranteed so does discrimination. Mono cultural as a means that the word itself says that all mono culturalism there is no other room for other cultures. I do not know a single newsroom or news organization in Aotearoa, New Zealand or anywhere in the country. In the world. That doesn't that if they have monocultural newsrooms and organizations, it means they're not actually representing the multicultural communities in their in their country. And when we refer to multicultural communities so it's that multi lens it's a mono Lynn's view of the world and a multi lens view of the world. And if you're monocultural and you have a mono lens and your news organization individually systemically and as an organization as part of the industry. You are leaving at all those cultural communities cultural communities, including indigenous peoples, your different migrants of color. General generally migrants of color, depending on where you are in the world. Our disabled people, our rainbow community and all those communities that are marginalized generally by sight by society. So that to me is monocultural ism. It doesn't serve journalism and it doesn't serve or set us up for the future.
No, and I think it sort of it feeds back into some of our research at Reuters both around gender and diversity and how sorely lacking that still is in newsrooms, but shall we get right into it with your seminar and presentation and then we'll have more questions after
a couple of
I'm hoping you can see the presentation Absolutely. Help I Mana 30 P chiamato. Manuel mighty mood in the coop, Manuel mighty modied and he caught the Modi clear him Modi Tibor Capaco remind people whom year who year by year here can you eat Calcutta? He did see it Tina Tata Sinatra can we convey King monofin walkie tell him he mile ha keep the Reuters Institute curio Alma no my No my Heidi my he they monitor reality from Eurocentric to equitable newsrooms in the male hockey Akoto head so who will tell why? It's it is the time of fetal so in tell Maori and from my motherboard view. Today Tonight it's midnight and it is the time of fetal which is the new moon and that is the time of endings and new beginnings. So even though fetal can sometimes be quite a difficult time and period of time for Maori. It is also a time of new beginnings and endings so I do think it is a good taco cut to carry your pie to keep it close your eyes. So you can see. I'm asking you to close your eyes to close your eyes. And open your hearts and minds to hear my quarter or today. And before we go I just wanted to share one why it's up which means a lot because I just also wanted to set the tone and era beaucoup rule how Arnade taka Narco, btw my thought doll Mikey Sofia PT NEDA feel free to donate. So it's my money and greetings to you all a karakia and a while later to set the tone at this time on federal. So why, why? Why are we even talking about this? We all know that the news industry is in a crisis, not just an old hero, New Zealand but across the world. We all know that we need to improve our audiences and revenue to strengthen and sustain us businesses against a range of challenges. From avoidance to trust erosion, myths and disinformation. Accelerating technology and Jenner Gen AI. Mega social media platforms decline in ADS market political undermining, etc, etc. And so why I wanted to present an indigenous perspective and indigenous perspective on behalf of marginalized communities as well is what if one solution not the only sort of solution but what if one solution was simply newsrooms news organizations simply changing your perspective and culture? of the organization?
And indigenous perspective, why endogenous? Well, obviously we're the first people that first storytellers, our culture language was created by the land. I just want to reiterate that point because an altar in New Zealand Aotearoa New Zealand we do have a lot of people who refuse to see Maori as indigenous. But indigeneity or indigenous peoples are defined by themselves and there's this whole this whole definitions of what is indigenous, but indigenous our culture and language was created by the land. So we are the people of the land because when we came to Ottawa from the Pacific, we changed our culture, our traditions, our practices and our language to suit the land, the water, the ocean and everything that existed in Aotearoa. And that's why Maori our indigenous Maori are unique and that's why all indigenous peoples across the country or across the world are who they are. And as the land remains, so will we try to defend it or to determinate the indigenous solutions or models are not the same as using diversity inclusion. Affirmative action or or a voice referendum. Those terms sent a Eurocentric or mono cultural perspectives on what they think indigenous and marginalized communities need. Here I'll just pause and say indigenous and marginalized communities know what they need. It is up to the organization's to go and talk to them and find out what they need. So we're in a climate crisis, accelerating AI technology, increasing political, social and cultural unrest. The world needs different thinking and actions. To restore balance. monitored at monitored at the media reflects and research shows us also influences society we need to restore balance in the media. So mana toady, then is restoring balance or equity if you would need an English term, share power, share power and resources and prove media representation. So monotone et it's a model. It's I've kept it simple. We use that we use this type of model that stuff and stuff we call it boots yaki but for for for the model itself, it is simply restoring balance and his monetary theory. And so it's a model to help improve representation in your organization. And as your organization's reflects and influences society. There are only four steps called wake we know who you are, know your history, and how it defines and creates your organization and you individually sued Tobu acknowledge, toady did restore quarter he thrived together
those are the four elements so cool. Wait, quit know who you were when I spoke earlier. So I am an article renew. Hate video will not occur or Cahuenga know when it Amadou Bronwyn for kata me those are my that's those are my ancestors and that's who I descended from. And it's really important for Maori to know who they are, where they come from. So we and that's defined in our Mahi and our Pipi how we call it. So whenever we introduce ourselves, we always introduce our ancestors, our connections to land and water first before we actually tell you what our name is so good to give you I could give you 10 sentences before I even tell you who I am. So from that model, we asked you who are you? Who are you all news organizations, news media organizations have been around for hundreds of years. You have been a part of society for hundreds of years, influencing and shaping society for hundreds of years. Who are you? What is your history? Do you know? So we all know what we do. We hold powerful to account we seek truth we champion free speech, without fear or favor. We're objective for the state those are the high ideals but in society, you are the powerful the media organizations and journalists, you are the powerful. You seek truth, whose truth from whose perspective you champion free speech, from what perspective? Who's free speech, your free speech, when Maori indigenous people or people from marginalized communities stand up? Do you champion their free speech without fear or favor and objective again, from what worldview? The fourth estate the fourth estate is Eurocentric, colonial and monocultural? Let's check out the Eurocentric lens. So our Eurocentric lens, which is just a worldview, it's not personal, and it is not based on individuals. It is just a worldview and ideology that comes from Western Europe. And often when we talk about Eurocentrism I do find that people can get uncomfortable and uneasy around that and I just like to remind them that as journalists, we like to be objective, so please stay objective. So you're the Eurocentric. Lens is the worldview dominating global media including us? Why is that? Well, you started in Europe, Western Europe, hundreds of years ago. And from there it has developed, but what it means is is that the traditions of news across the world, even in non European countries and non colonized countries, in new Western news and newsrooms, sorry, we continue to use Western principles to define our news. So the end Eurocentric care characteristics, the dominant European group holds power and authority in news rooms, news organizations, if you look around it, who owns news organizations? I'm not trying to say they all look the same, but they definitely came come from the same socio economic group. They very much look very similar. And they're generally not female or any other gender and media, its feelings and practices dominating people culture and content. When you have a Eurocentric lens and that is the only lens that is applied to content people, and the organization itself, discrimination is present. And when I talk about discrimination, I'm not just talking about racism, racism. Discrimination is good because it's the term that covers racism, sexism, homophobia, and all the different isms and OBS that we phobias that we use, and to my marginalized communities. Also Eurocentric is that adversarial lens that adversarial and it's not just gotcha, it's adversarial judgment. Thus them and us that adversarial principle or that is part of newsrooms is very difficult for engineers indigenous imagine most people to deal with because that adversarial nature is also involved a part of our justice system. And our justice system we know is very unfair to just digitus peoples, not only in New Zealand, but across the world. That adversarial justice system education system. It pervades all systems. So in our Eurocentric lens, so we have in the Eurocentric lens and our newsrooms, it's a tradition of news, so you need to know that if you don't know this history about yourself, why do you think there's a lack of trust and trust and hate that comes from indigenous and minoritized communities and marginalized communities and your country towards the media? There's a lack of distrust because of the way there be a bit because because of that Eurocentric lens, colonialism oh my god don't no one wants to talk about colonialism. Very few people want to acknowledge colonialism, and very few people want to want to acknowledge that colonialism actually exist within newsrooms and organizations and alZahra and around the world. It's the unmentionable seaward, it's not the other C word, that's the unmentionable, it's colonialism. Because we see colonialism as belonging in the past. What we don't realize is that all the systems or practices that our country that are currently being used in every country set up through European colonialism carries Eurocentric principles. And because of that, and it still exists today, people like to put the colonialism in the past is not in the past. It is still current and around us. It's an our justice systems, it's everywhere. And just because European, so we've got Eurocentric, we've got colonialism, but those two things, it doesn't mean that that a newsroom and Britain cannot also think about its history. And also think about colonialism and how journalism was used during colonial era was a quote colonial colonization tool. Journalism and the media and newspapers were colonization tools used by European settlers around in the country's to help get settlers and migrants into the country to set up land transactions to use hold the government and in developing authority and power in those countries. European authority but as soon as Maori tried to push back or claims, then the media would instead of holding the ground of objectivity and putting the viewer across and some would and some, but most wouldn't, and they would often side with the process of colonization and that's really important that newsrooms understand that tradition of the newsrooms.
So monocultural news, Eurocentric news column. So new, Eurocentric lens, colonialism, lens or our colonial Islam, colonial practices that still exist in newsrooms, and one a cultural lens. So we're, so often people don't want to people want to feel oh, we've progressed a lot common. We no longer talk about Eurocentrism because we've moved on where we're five generations away from our British ancestors and we no longer were monocultural. We're not Eurocentric, we're very New Zealand and our perspective. Well actually what we are as monocultural because we're still carrying that Eurocentric. Urus interest isn't through that monocultural lens. And so there is a reluctance to accept the term Eurocentric preferring monocultural. Even though that is a bad term. It's not a bad term. It's just a term, but just remain objective to all these things. And it's just it's just a term. So not all news organizations are Eurocentric, but our mono cultural, monocultural is problematic and she has similar characteristics as zero centrism, which is the dominant group holds power and authority as their their lens and practices dominated people culture and content as well as newsrooms, news organizations, discrimination is present. And it does not include the worldviews of all people in the country, say for example, and Africa. So, while it's not Eurocentric, yep. But in some newsrooms, we know it as monocultural and the people holding power, power and control in the country also hold power and control in in their newsrooms, which is the same as in Russia, which is same as in China. So they continue it's that mono cultural newsroom that is that is challenging. It doesn't allow for other perspectives and actually marginalizes people because you're, you are putting this lens on and it means everybody outside that lens, their context, there is no context for why things are happening. To them. And there is no understanding and basically you've put them on the artists so non risk. The other thing I've learned as is that I've seen as even a New Zealand and Maori media newsrooms. We haven't fully develop their own communications, we haven't fully developed. So what I mean by that is that non western newsrooms will apply Western European and American new standards to validate the news instead of using their own traditional communication practices. So you see some of it but it's not purposeful and so I'd really love for more of our indigenous and marginalized communities to develop their own products and news products and develop their own ways of telling stories and doing news that takes the best of Eurocentric monocultural news and applies it and uses it and puts an indigenous lens over it as well. So it seat so, that's the first step. So step one is simply knowing who you are. Knowing your history, because if you don't know who you are, you won't know where you're going in the future. So to tell who is the acknowledgment and to tell who is really important as well. So first, you must know who you are. You've you've fully realized all you've done with your how you've reported the news, and then you acknowledge your position, you acknowledge what you've done, and it doesn't have to be a full apology. Like some news organizations have done around the world very few I have to say there are 1000s of news outlets around the world, and only a handful and only a very few national news organizations have actually apologized for their representation of a group of people. So stuff to put his stuff group so they are the case study. And I did work there and I loved working there and they gave me lots of opportunities, from journalism opportunities through to leadership opportunities. So called tiaki hotteok. He was created by a group of 15 D. Senior to junior journalist who came together collectively to ask the owner, the first New Zealand owner which was Sinead Beltran, who bought the company in 2020. To ask her if we could, together find ways to improve representation of Maori people, because we had had enough we, especially the seniors, we had seen what we'd done what how we'd represented Maori indigenous peoples. And we asked if we could change it and she was very open to change. So we created this metodi t this this model, and to put in a staff, the model is called puts yucky so it has its own name, and that's what I would encourage, if you were to think about changing the culture of your organization, is using those false support steps, but use the names of your own country and have your own people use the names of the indigenous peoples of your land. If you believe you don't have any, which I would argue you do. Then, you know, find ways that expresses this model in your own language and using your own concepts as well. But because I'm Maori I'm indigenous, these are the concepts I use. So is that a pool Jackie? One of the key things to do for for this model is to teach everyone, not just a few leaders here and there, everyone to be their own put tiaki so everyone needs to understand their history. And to work to improve representation of indigenous marginalized communities. Every single person from the receptionist to the goddamn CEO to the board member and the owner. They all need to do this. Because if you rely on one or two people and if you rely on the people of color or the indigenous one or two people in your newsrooms, you will fail to change and you will fail your own people as well as those communities. So equitable fair representation. What they did was more useful to their Maori the Maori language. Had a range of integrated actions, training programs, various measures, always, always use data, set your own measures. And those measures are simple things like okay, we had 120 articles were published today. How many of those were focused on Maori? How many of those Maori ones were positive or negative? How many included? female voices? How many included? Was there a story where there's stories on our disabled community, our rainbow community and New Zealand we have, we have the largest Pacific representation in the world. As here in our tiara. The numbers so love data, very, very helpful to tell the story of your discrimination. Projects love projects. So one thing we learned is multiple consistent actions over time. It's a long game. We're talking about changing hundreds of years of journalism practices. It's gonna take time to change. People get frustrated, people get angry people say you're not doing enough. But if you do multiple consistent actions over time, one day you'll look up go Well, shit, we've changed a lot. So Tamato porno was one of those projects we worked on. It was it took us two or three months. It took us three months 20 of us. We went in did a full scale look at everything from business sports, different papers across the country, like different regions across the country. The website we looked at every part of the business part of the news business, and we what did we find? Find and surprisingly, we found a Eurocentric monoculture of New Zealand's colonialism existed industry said exists in industry news or instruction and in our individual journalists as well, because we were over represented and Pakia which what New Zealanders compared to the working age group working group, age group and underrepresented in Maori and all other marginalized communities. We, most of our people also came from middle class backgrounds and we created negative social stigma and stereotypes against smiling. One of the stories we did was around child abuse. So one of our very clever reporters, Charlie Mitchell, he investigated how we had created and he found that over time, not just stuff, but other news organizations announced out or had also created racism, stigma and negative stereotypes about Maori and child abuse. New Zealand's child abuse problem, but they flipped it and it became a Maori problem. So in view abuse involving Maori children, adults were amplified abuse against non Maori children adults were muted. When I saw this story, I got very upset. I was upset for our non Maori children, because they deserved their stories to be amplified. As much as our Maori kids. Their stories were amplified. I was very angry at how we had muted they abusers, now Maori abuses, and so it was a very disturbing investigation and publication and it really struck home with our readers. Also, there's the we're talking about editorial coverage, like editors of newspapers, lead news leaders. They were writing articles and writing opinion pieces about Maori being the problem that the Maori leaders and Maori communities needed to sort out this child abuse problem. Not realizing that they had created this misinformation. And this is one of the problems with Eurocentrism and mono cultural newsrooms and colonial newsrooms is that you can create misinformation because you're using that just that one lens and non Maori abuse was an individual problem, not a society problem. Terrible, terrible our children
so tau dt which is to restore that photo there is was another project we did which was to Matera, which is an online animated training program that covers a range of subjects for all staff to do. It's not compulsory, but all staff at staff are encouraged to do it. And part of it was a one on the one and only one and we've had, which is a gathering together for a day of newsletters from across every news organization and Ulterra to come together and to talk about how we can improve representation and that's what we did last year. And so let's talk about cultural cultural safety. Cultural safety is cultural safety is critical awareness of role organization, culture, power dynamics and how it impacts others. And your organization externally and addresses discrimination. So a culturally unsaved newsroom is Eurocentric, monocultural. It's it has discrimination, systemic, structural and or individual colonialism, power imbalance, fragility centers the majority and the microaggressions that I've experienced personally, is unreal. misinformation, ignorance, lack of context. tokenism means that if you see those words and you think oh, that looks familiar, but you can create culturally safe newsrooms, it's using this multi lens approach. It's easy in a model like Manitoba at the big one is relationships built where your relationships with your indigenous peoples and your marginalized communities. Every country in the world has marginalized communities, you know who they all are. Build relationships with them. Because you build relationships you will improve audiences you will improve trust and prove audiences and create business and partnership opportunities. The beauty about this if the beauty about a culturally safe newsroom is the innovation that can come. It's the things that we don't know because we've not done them. And when you start to do these, you can start to open up to all sorts of concepts so it's tough. We moved our all of our news publications have bilingual titles. The organization itself has bilingual titles. And we we changed one of our news, one of the newspapers used to be called the dominium post. Dominion no longer served its purposes and is now just called the post. The post the ER Mawi. So there's little things that you can do that are actually quite magical. And they may not seem like a big deal to some people. But to others and actually makes a big deal. So multi lens approach a culturally safe newsroom is using a multi lens approach relationships, community and organizational partnerships, projects, pathways, multiple perspectives, improve your perspectives, voices, experiences, and preview audiences business opportunities. Last year, another thing we did is that we partnered with our Big Sky media and New Zealand LTL or New Zealand and we took their to their Maori coverage of the Rugby World Cup and we played that live on our digital platform. And we got 1000s of years it was fantastic. And so those little things that may just seem like a little thing, but it means a lot and so and it means you can be creative and innovative. So a culturally safe newsroom has anti discrimination practices. It's easier for you to see discrimination and deal with it quickly. If you know about it, and you know what it looks like. So you need to teach everyone and train everyone up about what it looks like. What a new a discriminatory news headline looks like or, or or remarks made during the broadcast. And so awareness of monoculture and she had power because Eurocentric, colonial and monocultural. It's all about power. Someone has all the power and it's usually not indigenous and murdered most people. It means instead that the fragility you have up you actually have objectivity. Because you dissenter yourself out of this trying to improve representation and remind yourself actually, it's not about me. It is the past. We know what we've done. We know that part of ourselves. Let's just carry on and fix it. And let's try to do better over time. So, misinformation, ignorance, lack of context, understanding contexts. So if a we had a story about politicians who are punching down by the way because they were punching down calling out students who Marty and Pacifica students who had their own cultural spaces at a university, they said Pollard these politicians waited and says why is that? So? We are one people. We should not have these spaces. We reported on that but there was no context to explain why Maori Pacifica students needed those safe spaces. Obviously they needed those safe spaces because they're in a Eurocentric colonial, mono cultural University. So they needed those spaces cultural spaces to help them feel safe. It's as simple as that. And universities are doing really well at trying to fix all these. They know this because universities are really good at talking about decolonization. And so they push back against the politicians on behalf of the students and I'm glad they did because always these things are about power. Who has the power who doesn't? Who can use their power for good? So intention consistent multiple actions over time is what we need. So I just want to say there's a lot of good stuff happening. And we actually have moved very far across. We're moving, we're moving, we're improving, we're improving. And I just want to say it's okay if people accuse you of being work, wear it with pride, white or when people would call stuff work and it would upset some people that stuff some of the leaders and I would say why it's okay to be woke. Don't. But the problem that news organizations and businesses have is that when they are accused of work, they feel like they're going to lose business. Because the unwired people of the society have all the money and power to so wider and winners. Discrimination. We know this we know what that look we're starting to know what that looks like in newsrooms, more attention paid to newsroom bias. We know this increasing representation of indigenous marginalized people that is happening, but it's not happening enough. You look around your newsrooms, you look around your news, your J schools, who is in those positions of leadership. And of course, how are we representing people and content use data set up your measures, sit your measures and outcomes and they just report on a monthly monthly and just let your your organization institution know how you're doing and reporting. Obviously more work to do but we have moved and can I say this is how we know we've moved when Google has to apologize for not shown achievements of white people. And finally, also he thrives together when you know your history, you have acknowledged it and you've created your own models and ways of being in your organization. Then you come to Kotahi which is to thrive together. So it's stuff we campaigned for. New Zealand to have its own indigenous public holiday, which is called metallicky. And it happened it was a successful campaign and metallicky will forever be part of our public holidays every year so so those are all the amazing things you can do if you just improve your representation Narela did not data catalog.
That was fascinating and I think for anyone in any sort of cultural community come in. There are so many examples that pop up quite immediately while thinking about what our own cultural context looks like and what those who are often ignored or not included in those contexts field. What I'm going to do in the interest of time is first dive right into the questions and then if there's time, I'll pose mine as well to you. So let me first head to our room where our journalist fellows are waiting and there's a couple of questions lined up. Let's go in the order that they were asked. So perhaps we could start with Rebecca, if we could switch the cameras on and the mics on. And just as a note to our journalist fellows to sort of introduce yourself, and where you're from before you pose your question. Rebecca you're up first.
Making doing multiple recording away today that you can pull off Tamaki Makoto Reuters Institute. I would really love to hear about whether you have any insights on how to carry these initiatives forward over time when when it's a period of upheaval in journalism, you have Benjamite changing you have belt tightening. You have lots of journalists being let go. I know that the old Yankee team that stuff is much, much more than it was even in 2022. And it's not publishing as regularly. And I'm just wondering how if you have observed that if you have any thoughts based on that experience, about how to carry through these initiatives about interrogating the news that's been published, and maintaining cultural safety, even when things are becoming a little bit?
Yeah, so everyone moves goes back to the default position, which is really disappointing, because the default position got us here in the first place. So if we're in a if we're in a time of prices, everything that we've done to get to that point is obviously not working. Therefore, how about you look at how about you change the model, and think a little bit more cleverly, and strategically about all the things that you've done in the past that have hadn't worked? So it's not just about the revenue models as well. So, so businesses need audiences, and they need loyal audiences that are going to turn up, pay, watch ads, and subscribe, right? So they need those audiences. If you don't, if you think strategically, you can develop and build audiences with those marginalized communities that no longer trust you. So it's finding though using trust using trusted message measures and strategies to bring bring those communities and to your organization? Because one thing we didn't notice was that the Maori audience didn't change. It stayed that what happened were other audiences. Were up and down. All over the place. It's from the time of the apology and the work that we started doing with Paul TFP was it stayed the same. And that's really important because it means they didn't leave where everybody else is leaving the news and Maori in particular because my I really don't like the media, even my own relations. have told me to eff off now and to give VA cuts. It's quite sad, sad, but it's just means that there's a lot of work to do. But I it is doable. You just you actually just have to commit to it, and do it. And although we're losing news, we're moving into this new phase of news organizations. It's when weaving into news ecosystems. Ecosystems means that you need every all parts going. So in ecosystems, it is there is a lot of variation. And so, if you were clever, and you are a news organization, you would start to build partnerships and relationships with communities who can serve and create their own media content, or news content. Why not help them to create their own product that then you attach to your platform, you get their audience, you get the advertising, shared, of course shared. But those are things that you can think about, right? So traditional news, and you know who I'm talking about when I say people who bang on about legacy news media organizations, because that's their way of undermining legacy news organizations, right? They use that to undermine them, but at the same time, we can say, Oh, well, yes, we can use these platforms to they've already got established audiences. So why not create start to create new products and create products that are representative of all the different communities, build relationships, build partnerships. build products that represent these communities?
Next question, all teed up. I think it's Osama. Osama Go ahead. You're on mute.
i Okay. Now, yes. You. Thank You. Thank You for this presentation. My name is Susana book. I come from Kurdistan Region. I'm Kurdish. I think it's very interesting to hear from you from Coda but I also come from Kenya, so particularly is in Turkey, and almost every city has two names and for us, it is very inclusive one people are using the code name for the cities, because in this case, originally, so I can do a case called Ahmed and so it is part of that is also the name and then being inclusive of like, you know, what the people themselves refer to the place but my question is on you use the user like you know, the new zones are using Western base measures to validate news and then you said the solution is to use traditional communication practices and like to hear more like what do you mean by that? Like, what is it different from the already established measures in the newsroom?
So that adversarial type of news, but it doesn't, it wouldn't exist, right. So that's the gotcha nice. We saw the what a very bad example of gotcha journalism in Australia the other week on Sky News when a young man won a million dollars and a fishing competition and went on Sky News and they and all he could say to him was oh, you've got a criminal record. Are you gonna pay with that money? You've got to you got to pay it back. What what what what bullshitters it so that adds the sir. So what he did was he he forgot his power. And he forgot that he was punching down to this young man who's I think he might have only been 20. So understanding power is a really good thing. For news organizations, individuals because people forget how powerful news organizations are. Yes, times are desperate and yes, things are crumbling and falling all over the place. But there's still power in media. Because if you look at media depictions of Ain't So this whole change your culture and prove representation. You got to think you actually have to change your mindset and think differently, which is why we say you've got your Eurocentric lens or if you're not Eurocentric you've got your monocultural lens. Understand these colonial traits there as well. That's your lens, move it over what this other leads on. Okay? We want to bring Maori people in, how do we do it? Or why No, go and talk to Maori or we want to bring young people in from poor communities. I really, I got a good idea. Go and talk to those communities, talk to the communities, get their ideas and use their ideas to bring that to bring people in.
Just enough time for one final question then and from your experience of what you saw and built at staff. How do you build accountability and sustainability on what you're doing in terms of being more inclusive of building that and fostering that, particularly in an environment can't have a seminar without saying the word AI, particularly in an environment where AI is perpetuating a lot of those biases?
I'm not gonna blame AI for biases because those biases have been around for hundreds of years. Ai only just turned up so
it's actually really hard. Because it's all parts of the business have to accept the change. So, you know, when you're trying to change a human, it's actually really hard. And if they want to change themselves, they're not going to change so what we do is you that's why it's important to turn everyone into the pool tip. So everyone has the pool to yaki. And actually, everyone is expected to improve representation, not just the journalist because too often we just put her on the individual journalists when in fact everyone needs to shift their thinking, and they just need to put on be taught to put on different lenses. They then when you apply all these different lenses to your worldview, you start to see the world differently and you can start to come up with way better and more innovative ideas and you create sustainability. So you have to get the structure you have to create a structure and put it into into the organization too often and this is the problem with pots yaki is that in New Zealand everyone thought pots Jackie was just the journalists and a section on stuff, it was not pull Jackie was the whole culture. It was a culture at stuff of trying to improve representation and knowing that they had to improve representation. So there was at journalists, the journalists who had poor cheoki titles, but every single journalist was expected to be a Pulitzer lucky journalist. Every single one of them not just the one that had the title pulled crk so they were there for leadership opportunities. And because we were trying to create pathways that's what those students were there for. And I get really haha when people have means I don't even know what each word is when people say oh, you lost all your ports Yankee Jones No, we didn't lose all our ports Yankee Jones, because every single John set stuff is supposed to be their own party, okay? And that's the difference is that every single individual at the organization has to have this has to know and understand what it is, what this cultural shift is and how they can and how they can do it. The other thing is structurally, it needs to be in the structure, so that when people come and go, that kaupapa or that purpose will remain with that organization forever, so that it becomes part of the DNA of the company.
If you don't know who you are, you won't know where you're going. Um, I think I'm going to sort of print that out and hold it. Hold it up for myself. Come on, it's been such a pleasure having you and amongst other first we have also time traveled where you are now on Thursday, and we are still in Wednesday. So in many ways, you're sort of leading the way and we are following you. Thank you very much. Right. Thank you very much from all of us at the Institute and I hope everyone else has enjoyed listening to this as well. So much to take back and think about Thank you, Carmen.
How biker So, Emma here rakia. Well, Marty
that's it for this session, folks. We'll see you of course again on Wednesday. Hope you enjoyed this and we're looking forward to catching up with you again on our next global journalism seminar. Bye from the tea