The role of the press in Chile’s new constitution. Global Journalism Seminar with Francisca Skoknic | Otter.ai

The role of the press in Chile’s new constitution. Global Journalism Seminar with Francisca Skoknic

Reuters Institute1h

Meera Selva

00:21

Hello and welcome to the Reuters Institute for the Study of journalism and the global journalism seminar series. Two years ago, Chile citizens took to the streets to demand political reform of a constitution that dates back to Pinochet's military role in the subsequent years, we have seen an absolute sea change in politics, in civic society and in journalism, there's going to be a referendum in the country next year on a new constitution, and next month the country goes to the polls to elect a new president. This is a moment where it's absolutely vital to have a informed citizenry and a proper conversation about the parks ahead. It's also a country that is rethinking its media system and its relationship with journalists. Most protesters in 2019 felt that the media was there at the time to back the establishment and to express the interests of the kind of big economic powers in the country. That's why I'm so pleased to have Franciscus connect with us join today. Francisco is an editor and one of the creators of Laborde a journalistic platform that includes a new chatbot a newsletter and investigative reporting. She also worked at the Pandora papers that were released in recent weeks, with findings in Chile that are really reverberating throughout the country. The President faces impeachment, just before the presidential elections, and again we're having conversation about what journalism can do and what how it can impact the politics, Francisca, thank you so much for joining us.

Francisca Skoknic

01:44

Thank you very much for the invitation and good to be here,

Meera Selva

01:47

really delighted to be here with you. Thank you. So you have a presentation so I'll hand over yeah you could do that and then we have actions. And if you do have questions, please do put them in the q&a box below.

Francisca Skoknic

02:06

So, good morning from Santiago, Chile, first of all I want to introduce you to La BoT. She was born four years ago, she is also known as Robot La Bot with his his social media handle, And she was a created by three female journalists and during Susa Paula Molina and I that were all female journalists that had other jobs, but were worried because the Chilean pressing not to realize that there was a digital revolution that demanded to change how we tell stories. The Chilean press we're still living in the 20th century printing the newspaper as user. And we feared that without change. The risk was that it disappeared or become irrelevant. So we decided to launch our own project, we had to be 100% digital and focus, focus on where people are, meaning, mobile phones. So, in 2005 people were here. Nice big newspaper were in the middle of the debate, but now we're here. So, we have to be there. That was our strategy. So we started to analyze different platforms where we can publish or work, and, and we decide for that news tab chatbot was very innovative. We love political his political his Spanish chatbot, so we can talk with one of his creators, a lot of us have Suarez maybe, you know him, because now he works at the Reuters Institute. So we asked him to rent us, his platform. And that's, that's how a labyrinth was born. And we had a lot of fun experimenting, how to tell stories on a chatbot, which means you have to tell complex issues we were not talking about like life stories, we are talking about elections, and statistics and politics and public policy, and we have to use short text and gifts and emojis, so we have to learn a whole new language. That was the language that people were using to communicate to herself, using WhatsApp or whatever app you use. So then we wanted to grow and fill the gaps. Yeah, we're not covering. So, we have like two grants, built our own platform and created new products, including this one, which is a tab but that teaches you how to do your own fact checking, and a website regarding human rights relation. That's called documents are much more recent project, they was to work with ICG on the Pandora papers with the center of investigative reporting in Chile called sipper. and it has an unexpected and unprecedented consequences or precedent is current currently facing an impeachment process, an extremely scribbly investigate. But it wasn't, it was it was invited to talk about a. Another project that is about continuity in that here, this is our new hub, you can see all our work we have different products in different parts so we just reunited here and here, you can look at all of them. And Leverkusen, there is a weekly newsletter about how we are writing the new constitution. So, first some context, Chile has a constitution that was written in 1980 during the dictatorship. It was amended several times after the return of democracy in 1990, but changes were very slow, in part because the Constitution was this was designed to avoid change. It was instructor. Just to mention an example, we had senators that were picked by the armed force until 2005 and also former presidents were selected for their lifetimes. That's why, when the former dictator Agusta be the tip was the dean in London, in 1998, he wasn't an Senator until it, and he argued that he had immunity. And so this is our Constitution, this is some street art I collect that I have a website when I put it on the political street art, and that's the book, where the Constitution is printed, and you can see there's now there's a crime scene. It's dying, and we're building a new one.

Francisca Skoknic

06:50

In October, 18 2019 Two years ago now, there was a social uprising in Chile demanding more and more equal and fair country, which involve massive protests, a lot of violence, and also human rights violations, the political forces were really worried that the cows was menacing, it still is still its stability and institutions, and there was a demand for a new constitution, you can, you could see in the streets. So parties from right to left, figure out that the new constitution might be the answer to the social discontent and a referendum, took place in a third 2020 and 80% of the team supported the idea of a new constitution written by a Constituent Assembly within Chile we call constitutional convention, so I will refer to it as the convention. And it was a very special word, Because the voting procedures made this the first constitution in the world, written by an equal number of men and women. And also, if block 70 of the 155 seats for indigenous people. The result of the election was surprising. This is from let them sit, but you can see that they are very different to the representative of other elected bodies. They were young, the average age is 45. Two thirds of them are independent. So, political parties are becoming irrelevant in this context. And there are a lot of lawyers that A, which is expectable in goes around constitution but there are also a lot of school teachers, university teachers, journalists, scientists, and most of all, local activists in different different areas so this is people that come from a local perspective to this a national product in, and also that he says that, that this convention looks much more like our country. A we're used to elite Elite bodies, where all, all the representatives come from the same private school the same elite universities, and you can see here that 1/3 of the representatives come from public school will serve from Charter School. And when only 1/3 from Elite, a private school so it looks much, much, much more like us. So, the convention started its work in last year, the last Fourth of July, and it was a very eventful day because there were marches around the former Congress building where the ceremony took place, to accept their mandates and the police repressed, the demonstrators so after some hours of delay and some fear that it would they wouldn't be able to do the ceremony, the representatives took their oath and elected an indigenous woman as their president, which is a very symbolic choice, she's a salon con. She's Maputo, with her the indigenous people from the South of Chile, and she's an academic she has a PhD in linguistics and she's an expert in the Maputo language, which is called Maputo. And so, this is a very huge political event in Chile, and a challenge for the press, but this is not the best moment for the press. Here's more street art from October, 9, you can see that the press was an issue for the protesters in the left, it says, turn off the phone. In the middle you can read a mom's saying to her child. Don't trust the media and in the right you can see the

Francisca Skoknic

10:57

logo of the main newspaper in Chile, they put a big nose, like they are liars. And this is the, these are the soft one. There were also faces of TV journalists, and I started, like, in the back with a dog in their faces, or even hanging up like dying. So a, the, the trust in the press is very very low. I think the distress, there, there's some explanation I will mention what some of them. One of, one, one explanation is that all the, there's a huge distrust distrust institutions, in general, including the press, which is also good argument for any new constitution. Also there is a lack of the diversity in the mainstream media, mostly conservative and leaning right. And as the digital, digital news report from the Rochester Institute shows in showed in 2020. After the protest of a couple of years ago, the trust in media plan 15 point, which is a lot, I don't know if you've have seen that before. And part of the problem. During the protest was the people have had this feeling, this is from Italy with, which probably this is not a Chilean problem but people had them, the idea that they were demonstrating 100 of felt and even enough people on the streets, and if you turn on the TV, what you see was looting violence, and they were not really trying to understand what was happening in the country. Here's the digital news report you can see that there, there was 15 points. If follows in the news overall. And on the other hand, the trust in news in social goes up to 34% So this is an explosive, a mixture of distrust in the press, and trust in social. I agree with interpretation of the report that says that a Chilean journalists were seen as aligned with the elite and the political class, and there was resentment, resentment, about the courage of TV. So this is a. The moment a well. The next year, improve a bit, but it's still worried, so this is the background of the press, when the convention took place, you have to take into account that this is a condition that represents for at least theoretically, represents what happened in the streets so the distrust is always is also in the convention. So the first thing I heard about the press, during the convention, and was, was that they, the forum, left wing representative who said that it was important to promote the presence of the press that allowed them to be elected, they were referring to independent and small outlets that covered the elections, sometimes with social media, as their own platform, and not always using professional journalists. It's the kind of outlet that flourish with the social uprising, and were very useful to show what was happening on the streets, and the media didn't publish, but sometimes they're covered or closer to activism, and then to conventional journalism, so they were very grateful for them and they weren't in there but the guys that were outside the building trying to cover the convention, we're not them. Only the traditional media professional media outlets can afford to have a journalist working every day there. So, the tension with the media started early in the convention, you have to take into account, two special characteristic of this process, the convention started without any institutional support, they had to create everything from the ground because the institution didn't exist before. So, there was not a communication department, or even a journalist that could provide official information about the conventions work, not even to inform the work schedule. The only tool to communicate, were the social media accounts of each representative at the same time, we're in the middle of a pandemic that limited the capacity of journalists of being in the same room, or even in the same building where the Constitution was, was being written. So,

Francisca Skoknic

15:53

the government put a dent, outside the building where journalists can follow the sessions on TV, and there is a place where they can put the magnetic microphone and camera and representative, talk to them better. I think you can see it here. This is the place where the place where did your nice work, but this is the new tent. It used to be much smaller, they take it this week. And these are some of the, I apologize in advance because probably my destination had very, very bad grammar, but these are some quotations from for from representatives, and from a very influential journalists about how they work of the journalists should be made in the convention, it this was a debate that had been when they, at what point the journalist has started to ask for better condition of work, and right wing representatives started to push to open the building for journalists to report, and the reaction of the some of the left wing representatives, was they did not want to be edited by journalists, because they were going to destroy or distort their message. And it was better is the better public use, what this previous session, we are talking about. One day calculate that, even if I watch the sessions, 24 hours a day, it will be impossible. So, there are some people, they call it the You Tube committee that what the convention, every day, but you need someone to make to highlight what is important what happened so the role of the media is really really important. In this in this process. But, no, no, the distress was high, and even in this case there was a journalist, that was a former adviser to President but to let that work in an outlet that covered the convention who said, during one of her shows that the breast. The breast doesn't need to be there. If the breast is an open quotation mark. When the brace is there, they don't transmit the information, they start to interpret and are instruments of operations from groups of interest, and there were some representatives that they were they said, We don't want them in here, this is not a show, we don't want the TV. And on the other hand, you can see it here in the right, there's a quotation from President le salon con. I think she's just meeting systems meeting, something that a lot of representative share is that there is a campaign against the convention. And there are people that are saying lies, They say they are lazy, they don't work. They are censoring people, etc. They raise their salaries that all that is light and the press is threatening domestic okay that's how they feel it. And fortunately a after that impasse, the border the compassion in agreement with the press, and now they can enter by turn, but just for making pictures and videos for the DV, and they are still working in that tense. So, your nails are most or most of the time there are talking to the representative in the gardens of the building. But there is still a strong distrust of the press, among many representatives, they feel that the press does not inform about the important debates, and only focuses on the problems, there is some truth in this acquisition. But part of the problem is due to the behavior of some representative on social media, because they are making personal accusation to each other and sometimes is informing about what really took place in the convention, because a part of them, and don't want the process to succeed. So

Francisca Skoknic

20:11

we all know that controversies are part of the DNA of the press, and if they fight, publicly, the press cover it so it changed the focus from the work, and other companies controversy have attracted the attention attention of the press, that also focus more on the difference than in the agreements, also in chilly morning shows are very important in shaping public opinion, I don't know if it is like that in other countries. And even though journalists work there, and they look like news program, what drives them is entertainment. I think that the public, and even the representatives or something confused about this morning shows, they think it's the press, but it's not the press. And here you can see, in a study made by the company called Connect the media in the left you see, this is a statistic about this morning shows, okay. It takes into account three months from July to September, and it's a lot if 56,000 minutes of morning shows a referring to two, that's the total time of the, of the morning show, and you can see that 56% of the coverage in this morning show was a focus on the Rodrigo Rojas case that was a scandal, it's true. It was a representative that was elected with an agenda about fighting the cancer and how the public system failed to the people, and it was the score that he had not cast. So it's true, it was a big issue, but it's not reasonable that in three months, 56% of the coverage is that, that's why I mean that it's they're more focused on Scandal, and those kinds of things but people watch it a lot. And on the right you can see that that's news. And you can see that 61% of the coverage of the convention is on a digital media, and this is Second place is the newspapers, and the leading newspaper. So, The one that cover more the convention is in Korea, which is the conservative newspaper. I think that they don't have a lot of readership, we don't have a very, we can trust the numbers but you can feel it, but they are still very influential among the elite, and they have even a section for the convention. Every week they there, I don't know, 10 pages about the convention in and covered is very, there's a lot of criticism towards the convention, and you can feel they feared, what can happen if there is a change in the constitution. So, there are other a more balanced coverage, like let's say a newspaper, but a liquid is much more extensive. I mean, and there's no too many minutes on TV, with the exception of a teenage son in a tea that has even a program about the convention. The other TV. TV channels doesn't cover it much and don't cover it much, and this is important because after Social Media TV is the main source of information for the Chilean and I as an editor of the TV told me once, he said, every time that we say convention on TV. The rating goes down. So the challenge is to inform about the convention and attire the attention of the public, without us forming into a show to play a public service role so what do I do about that. I'm not that if you tell him that I was worried too about what will happen with the coverage of the convention because I, we see at Labatt that

Francisca Skoknic

24:22

if the breath is against the convention that that was what we were thinking before the press is against the convention, a nice good faith. So, we need good information to be provided to the public, because this will be, will be overwhelming, a lot of information, and also a newspaper can do in depth reporting, and now, every, every newspaper is behind a paywall, so I call them was against the truth, because what happened with paywalls is people strive to start to move to not so trustable free online media or social media. So I think it's a problem for the public debate. So we create a leveled constitution, which is the this weekly newsletter. It's not a traditional coverage, though, we already have our chat bot character robot level, and we decided that she will be the one writing the newsletter. So she uses her own language, and the newsletter opens. Oh, always with a gift that aims to show the status of the condition or the feeling we had about the convention that week. And the text mimics the dialogue, like, like with the chat. To explain the most important issues of the week. So, it's a q&a format that the lowest will explain in the easily possible way, what is going on, what are the consequences of what is happening, and what can we expect from the near future. We also use emojis to make it funnier, and some dope to add a bit of humor to events, this very dense topic. Each week, we are the visualization, or a Twitter thread. Sometimes we publish short interview to the with the representative, and we share recommendation of news articles, or podcast about the convention. I have to be honest, I don't go much to the convention. I'm a true believer in shoe leather reporting, but in this case, I've learned that to follow in detail what has happened in the day, in the debate of the convention, I need to be alone. What in the streaming of the session, sometimes there are seven or 10 committee sessions at the same time in different streaming channels, so I need to pick the most important which is always a risk, or have two, even three screens at the same time. I also have sources to call, or to tap, every day about what is happening, and, and they gave me, they give me details of what you can see, you can be inside anyway so doesn't make much sense. Interpretations interpretations explanations so one difference is that I really quote them, because it doesn't fit well with the format, it's, it needs to be the authoritative voice of rule of law, both telling you what is happening, but they helped me to understand and to give context and some background that is not always in the news. Of course, we are not the only ones, realizing how important convention is, there are other two digital outlets focused on the convention, one of them follow minute to me to minute to minute in social media and publish daily reports, and the other one does fact taking and publish web stories. In our case, we think that the amount of things happening around the convention is overwhelming, and hard to understand. So our focus is to pick the most important and explain it in simple door readers. So far, it works. We don't expect to be massive, but to reach people that, that are really interested in the process, and need someone to tell them what's important. After three months we have more than 6000 subscribers, we then operate around 50% We have heard that is a lot. We also have an agreement with cheaper, very respected Center for Investigative Reporting, that has 1000s of readers have more than 1 million followers on Twitter so they republish our work every week and amplify a rich. We have a great feedback from our readers who seem to respect and value our work, they share it on social media. So our live readership is much higher than our subscriber, because they just read it, even without having a subscription. And we have even heard of people, printing and collecting our newsletters as a record of the constitutional constitutional work. Here are some of what people say about us on Twitter, the first one on the left is then correspondent from The Guardian newspaper, and is the only one in English but I think it is a well,

Francisca Skoknic

29:16

when something happened the convention, people say, Oh I want to explain this Friday to read how blah blah, is going to tell me what happened. So it's been, it's been a very interesting experience, we are still starting. Actually, the real convention, a constitutional work started this yesterday, normally on Monday. And we have nine months ahead. So it's a big challenge for us. Thank you.

Meera Selva

29:46

Thank you so much Francisca that was brilliant. Do you want to stop sharing your screen, and then I get the signal. Great, hi. There is so much to unpick there but pages and pages of notes and questions flying in the image of the journalists, literally in the tent outside the room where decisions are being made is is very very striking. And the thing that comes across it across, in all of this is that there is very little trust in the media, a great deal of hostility and yet you've created this product that seems to be trying to navigate this. Do you feel that your presence and you're in this intermediate ecosystem in Chile is changing people's levels of trust in the media as a whole, or is it very much an engagement between you and your readers,

Francisca Skoknic

30:38

yeah it's it's an engaging with our readers, and also there's a phenomenon, I don't know if it happened in other countries regarding the distrust on the press but when one outlet, a publish something that are not in other outlets, I mean independent outlets, the feeling of the people is that the media is not covering these, but, you know, this is also a media outlet, it's part of the ecosystem, but somehow people like make it a they share on social media, things that are in the media, and they are accusing that they are not calling. That's universal

Meera Selva

31:19

to BBC fair saying why is the BBC not reporting this while people link to a BBC story on it.

Francisca Skoknic

31:26

Yeah and I think that what should happen in the, I hope shut them, is that the public, start to understand that all these small outlets are also part of this of the media ecosystem. So, it. I understand that we, I wish to the TV, and the mainstream media had more wide coverage of things, but I don't know if this is going to happen. So in the meantime, we have digital media, and, and we have to work to spread, spreading more, but we don't quite have the ecosystem.

Meera Selva

32:09

A good restrict some of the questions from our journalist fellows because they're all very inspired by your work and the work Eduardo saris ahead of Commerce has done with pilot bought in Spain from cloudy and Guatemala, which who saying, we do need more tech approaches like Labatt and what, what advice would you give to any journalist across Latin America, on how to disrupt the traditional mindset of media outlets and journalists,

Francisca Skoknic

32:33

I think we have to assume that we're not going to make a career in legacy media, as it was done, 1020 years ago. Okay, so this scenario demands for us to innovate and to try new things. Because if journalists don't do anything to change the ecosystem, it will not change because companies, they don't have the, at least in Latin America, they don't have the motivation to do it because they have the support of the elite and the elite has the money. So, we have to doing digital journalism is not expensive, it's not like, like 20 years ago if you wanted to have a newspaper or a TV channel, it wasn't possible you need to be a company. Now, you don't need to be a company where Foundation, non for profit, and our golf costs are really low. We don't have offices. And so, our main in asset is our work. And that's true for Journalism, in general, so we can do it. I really think that we can do it and we should try

Meera Selva

33:49

and the and the relationship you have with the convention. How worried are you that this narrative that's recent inside the room where it happens that the journalists are a disruptive force in this process really they're criticizing they're copying they're lying. How worried are you that this will kind of become embedded in political life in Chile.

Francisca Skoknic

34:09

To be honest, I think that the biggest main us risk is social media. And it's spread much more than, news, and a people don't feel it sometimes, they heard about a they're raising their salaries, which is not true and they don't know where it occurred. So probably the job of the press, should be more actively fight that. Not just informed about happening but stress that this did not happen. And I think we're not doing it, not enough. And yes, I think that the coverage, and the social media campaigns against the convention is affecting the way that people see it, actually you can see it in the polls in the expert, there was a very high expectation about the work of the convention in July. And you can see how it planned, and now they are very low, close to other institutional institutions in Chile, but I think they are aware that they have to find that that they have to build the trust with the people. And I hope that the press, doesn't become factor to a difficult that work, but fairly covered, just like we cover a usual core everything. But also, I don't. Some representative, they don't realize that now they are a power. So, they also not must be covered as that with all with with involve investigation about their work, their conflict of interest, etc. So I think we're in adjustment period. Then with the press, the press with them, the people with them, and I hope that we will move to a more like regular relationship, like any other institution with a fair court.

Meera Selva

36:11

Okay, thank you. And how does, how are other kinds of establishments in Chile dealing with you, with Labatt in particular, are they trying to fight the messaging do they work with you, do they not notice you.

Francisca Skoknic

36:25

If they don't notice me know that they, when I, when I talk to other journalists that guard the convention, they're really nice to us. It's not nothing against us, because I think what what what thing is important to me, it's all with me being the. It's also to be fair with other outlets interior there is like this pirate thing that everybody copy to everyone without attribution. And I think I would not be able to do my work. Without reading all these paper, all the sides, listen to radio. It helps to build a view of what's happening in general, and I caught them, and even there's a section on his lecture that shares the best articles of the week. So I feel that they value that because they feel that I also value they were, I think their journal is doing a very good job of covering the covering the convention, the problem is their overall ecosystem

Meera Selva

37:29

is toxic and that leads very nicely to our next question from Tom in the Netherlands, which is what can we as journalists do to improve confidence in our profession. How can you how can we kind of improve the quality of the plight and reflection. And then where does your inspiration in particular come from because you're kind of passionate sleeping through the screen here.

Francisca Skoknic

37:49

I know, I think that there is a part of the problem of the restaurants, is that is journalists do not, they're not able to always a to transmit to their editors or owner of the big media in the most important thing of their work. I mean, they do a good work, but the companies, set the line, you know, so, in what we can do is if you can find the return line of your media and this thing your work is important, you have to. And you have to look work to do your job in the future is of journalism thing is not in companies is in the journalists shoulders, and, and we should be very aware of the importance of our job as actors as public actors, and we are doing a public service. That's how I see it. So just find a place where you can do a public service.

Meera Selva

39:11

Thank you, Christian, I'm from Gideon Sarpong in Ghana about collaborative journalism so you've worked on the, on the Pandora papers and, as you said you're probably one of the smallest if not the smallest outlet in the in that network. Would you encourage media organizations to follow this collaborative model to gain a wider readership and you know other pitfalls to this approach.

Francisca Skoknic

39:34

Yeah, it's, it's very challenging because journalists tend to be very competitive, you fight for a scoop to other media outlets so this work when you work together with your competition, or with other journalists in other countries, it's not in our DNA, we have to learn to do it, but when once you learn to trust is a very, very interesting, interesting process that helps you to grow your and the road you're in how safe is like you're bigger, you know, we are a small outlet but when we work together with other journalists. We are like a big outlet correspondent around the world, and they feed you with information they help you put information in Latin America for example we have a chat group and we're launching the Pandora paper and one was offering to translate a story to make graphs to. So it's very, very, it's like your news room is bigger, so it's great. It's really, really impressive in an offer, yes, if there was just about a small outlet publishing this or impact would be much smaller, but also we work with cPanel tiller, which is a Center for Investigative Reporting that is very very well respected, so I worked there, I was part of the foundation of that center. And so that gave us much more, much, much more coverage, but also being part of the Panama Papers, a protect us for something that happened very very often with politician, is that they say they have always the temptation to say this is a good campaign against me, they choose the worst Berman to publish this because they want to make me lose, you know, and here they can say that it's the ICJ who choose the date of publication. These are the documents, they were available for everyone. We publish, lots of articles and you are in the middle, so it's not personal. It just means

Meera Selva

42:07

that the agents understand that point using the readers in Chile, get that

Francisca Skoknic

42:11

A, I don't know if the readers understand I think yes. Actually there was even a comment about that. There was the spokesperson of the in the comment, there was a spokesperson of the, of the government saying this is a complaint against us, and there was a journalist, saying that 600 people in the world. They coordinate this to hurt your president, and the spoken person was like this, I don't know if that people understand it but I at least the government must restrain to do acquisitions to get stuff about the intentions. No, thank

Meera Selva

42:51

you. And the question from outsmart about the bot in particular because it's a very interactive model it's built on interactions, yeah. How many of you are there doing these interactions with the audience and how much work did you have to do to ensure that it met the kind of audience expectations, you know, was it something you set up at the beginning that you know we will have this many posts on Twitter and this is how much time we spend interacting, or is it something that's evolving,

Francisca Skoknic

43:19

it's evolving as we didn't have matching expectations. We started thinking and experimenting, but when we launch it because in the middle of Congress, electoral campaign. And very quickly, we became part of the conversation. And we were, we were experimenting, but we are experienced journalists, you know, so I don't want to sound, but in some way this is easy for us who know how to do our job. It is a new platform. So, A, it wasn't so hard for us to figure out what wasn't a cover for the mainstream media, and to. So they, our stories were repeated by other media and our work was amplified. Even though we think that, in that moment. Our work was much bigger than we thought we were still I think our peak, the Chatbot had then seven followers, which is not too much, but that's why we started any platform that the lowest publish on the web, the stories and the top bot, because we, we realize that if people need an app like Telegram, or Facebook Messenger, if they needed up to access to us there is a barrier, and that some of some, some time. They stopped reading. So we create this platform that allows us to publish on the web. It looks like a tough one, but it's a, in a webpage, and you can share it on social media. So, that allows us to have an impact that sometimes is very very related to the content. If we have stories that shake something, it gets weak, or not, but it depends on the, on the content

Meera Selva

45:26

of the story. That's really interesting, it's kind of going in the other direction with development starting on social, social and an app and going back towards the web. Yeah, I have a question here from Marcos artists from a hotel video, just kind of chillin. Yeah I think so and congratulations on the great work, and he'd like to know your opinion on the coverage done by legacy media, what's your opinion for example on what else material. Newspapers doing every Friday. And, and also do you think that in the future when people come back to reading about the convention, they will read about loot box look there. Are you focusing only, only on a weekly coverage, do you see yourselves as writing history here.

Francisca Skoknic

46:04

And I think I already said it, I think that, you can smell the fear of the elites, about the convention. And, and that's very, I mean we worry about that, how they can transmit that that fear, because even though their readership is not so high, they are able to influence the public debate anyway. And I think they, they, they manage to have a weekly interview to someone criticizing the convention. They even publish a communist, in their pages, guess if they want to criticize the convention. And, and I think they, and when they do some more neutral covered, it's very light, like how the, I don't know, it's not about the, the, the, the more important things that are discussing they're discussing there. I don't see I don't know about, about everybody. A lot of people have told me to have like a diary to write about this happened because this, this is history. And probably, they should write something in the future. More than a newsletter. But I'm too absorbed in the daily work during the last few months I've been working on, on the weekly letter at the same time, times under papers in, so it's like, I don't can see, I can think about anything else. But I hope that now that when the papers are done, I can be more focused on the big picture, you know, just not looking at the each week.

Meera Selva

47:54

I really hope so because I think you've talked in your presentation also about kind of, and in your admins and whatnot in the work lab, there's about diversity and the convention is truly representative of the country, the media is not, but your view on this would really be valuable. I do hope that you take some time to look at the big picture. And another question from Alfred Hermida who's a academic who's with us at the moment is a visiting fellow, but how do you feel that the chalky tone of Labatt affects readers interest in the trust in news do you think it, it draws them in more, does it make them feel that they trust you more, and why unpick that Yeah.

Francisca Skoknic

48:32

The original idea and I think that it were the was the one that he scored his first, the word of God, and Maria. Their team is that if you mimic a chatbot you're mimicking the way we communicate now. And, and sometimes it's the opposite of the, the spread of disinformation. If your ankles and you a message saying that the world, the world is ending tomorrow, you tend to believe it because it's your uncle and you trust him. Okay, so we're mimicking that trust, someone is telling you directly to you, and you become closer to it. One of the things of the thing that surprised us most. When we started, was the emotional connection of the people. You can look at the social media because of the beginning with the platform, we couldn't read the answers, but people were sharing it in Twitter, on Twitter, and they were like, Oh, I'm waking up and having my coffee while I'm reading Laborde the best companion, or the share. I'm in love with a boss. A, I want to married her. And it was so emotional, you know, and we're talking about really hard news. And so, we realize that the character has the power. And people love her. So what we're trying to do in, on, on the newsletter is to try to transform this in to in just a written text, You know, there is a newsletter, a Peruvian newsletter, that is, I can't remember the name. It's called Cuadernos, I don't really it's a daily news newsletter about economic news in general. And also it's also CUNY, which makes it much easier to read. It's just not, it's not just plain text, but in a q&a format in somehow. They, they, they, they place themselves in a very common sense position. What question is in the people's mind. So, what we do, it's a bit like that, but we are the character. And we are the fun. And we made a joke about a serious topic without being disrespectful. And I think that makes it funnier, people want to read to the end to see if there's something more interesting. It's not like when you read when you read the lead and you go to the next because this is the structure is not like a pyramid in the opposite side is, I'm telling you a story.

Meera Selva

51:20

Thank you. And we've got a few more questions I'm going to keep the last hardest question to last, which is to talk about money, you had the wonderful side about walls against truth and you're absolutely right that the pain walls keep good information behind walls love misinformation. While misinformation spreads, but what is the solution you're in on, not for profit foundation media but what do you think is really the solution for sustainability and financial viability in the media.

Francisca Skoknic

51:48

Probably a mix of things. We are currently funded by grants. And we have a grant from the Open Society Foundation to cover in court the convention, all, all that happen happens around. But we know that the problem with brands, is that the end, so it's not long. It's not long term sustainability. We recently launched in. Two weeks ago, the possibility of people to donate one time, or like a subscription, without the pay will mean more like membership. And we haven't done campaign, but after Pandora papers we started to receive very a lot of subscription like with small amount of money. I'm talking about a $10 $5. A and but we know that can work if you have a strategy. If you have professional strategy, how to, to manage a membership program for us is difficult because we are too small. And we devote all our time to journalism, so we, we, we really can spend time on that actually the same week, we launched Pandora Weber's, we have an offer of the telco telecom company. Yep, because one of our ideas also copied from a while ago, was to a, to be a service provider for to sell the platform to rent the platform. We have a much better platform than political has more friendly and easy to replicate. And we, So we were we had a client. So we made it in a tablet for another NGO, and we had the offer to me 10 chatbot for it, for, for a telecom company, and we hadn't the time to do it, because we're in the middle of Pandora so, so I won't say what I know, we should do, but I know we want to do is to have someone that a devote his time, or her time in, only to think about money.

Meera Selva

54:18

You need some money to pay for this person to start with.

Francisca Skoknic

54:21

Yeah, and that's a problem always, yeah. Oh, but, but some someone could do with memberships, because, you know, people need to have a feedback. I know that I have to write to all those peoples who are new subscribers and I haven't had time.

Meera Selva

54:37

Thank you. This is really interesting. We're just looking at things we can do to support newsrooms as well and this is really worth making a note of. One final question from Monica cola one of our journalists fellows also from Mexico, and you talked about diversity, and the lack of diversity in Chilean media. Are there any efforts being made to improve diversity in today's media especially in the more traditional media and the television and the legacy printer,

Francisca Skoknic

55:03

we're talking, you're talking about the content or the people, the people, a not so, I mean, the problem is more about the content than the people in the media. Okay, there's a problem of gender inequality in the media leadership's are a most in most of the places I are led by men. I think that's the most important diversity problem, immediate, but I think it's more most mostly at editorial diversity. And after the dictatorship, all the opposition magazines that cover dictatorship, they did a lot of investigations. They were very important, they start to close. And what survive what is called they do a polio duopoly. Which are two companies in will Korea which I said that, No, they had low readership but they own all the newspapers in the country, a local newspapers. The main newspaper in every city of Taylor is owned by them. So, yes, I think that the problem of diversity is to have media that really are more like us, like, like the convention, not a news that are not written from the point of view, you know, they write about the elite. And of course the sources, the right wing sources, the right wing representatives in the convention are over represented in the media, that's clear. It's very clear, they have less than 30%, but much more than 30% of their appearance in the press. And so, a, the, the focus of the, of the press, the traditional press in TV is always bottom down, you know, and a regular people don't have voices in the media. They just are the people. And it's the elite who stuck, they think that's a problem, a big problem, sir problem in the campus.

Meera Selva

57:21

So this does sound like that you need to solve the problem in the newsrooms first so you need to have more more of those people more diverse voices, reporting on the stories before you can get any kind of meaningful editorial diversity.

Francisca Skoknic

57:34

Yeah, it would be better but they think that there's diversity is something, something that happens that was once you enter to this big media you become part of a body that A has a way to do things. So maybe you're part of the working class, maybe your audience are indigenous, maybe you're a woman, but once there, it's very difficult to have your own voice, you're part of a body.

Meera Selva

58:04

That's brilliant. Thank you, and very last question I'm finding is fascinating about gender, when you talk about love, but being a very female perspective, and your unpick this a bit more what does this kind of mean in terms of, do you think it changes people's perceptions of, of women in society of the kind of stories they can expect from you, or was it just kind of highlight don't make it, make an assumption that this is a default male setting.

Francisca Skoknic

58:32

It was something that when, really think about it the beginning. But as we were telling people about the pregnancy. Three women did it. It was like, you know, this has to be our. The way we we communicate because this is us, if we're not we're not like feminists very conscious, conscious of what we're doing but in the practice we are. So we started when we realized that we Yes, we had covered very very focused on, on a women issues, which is not what women Madison's seats are in. So we did a lot of stories about a how the women get the right vote, the bias against women and how the parties in. Choose the best men, the best men to candidate but the women were like a quota. We wrote a lot about that. And also at the beginning we had the grant from the International Women's Media Foundation. And that forced us to think about this very constantly because a to justify the grant, it was not enough to be three women but the three women writing about a from a woman's perspective. So it's something that we develop by working that maybe we didn't at least me, I'm not talking about my colleagues but I didn't talk about before.

Meera Selva

01:00:07

I just got thank you so much, we're just on the hour it's been the most amazingly informative, inspiring hour thank you so much for talking to us, we put a link in the chat over how people can support the work of Labatt as well. And there have been lots of references to Hamilton, the musical about being in the room where it happens. Seeing the writing of a new constitution, and seeing all the energy and hope that goes into this so you really are at the forefront of history. We can't wait to see what you do with what unfolds in the coming years as well. Thank you very

Francisca Skoknic

01:00:37

much for the invitation.

Meera Selva

01:00:38

Thank you very much for your time.

Francisca Skoknic

01:00:40

Thank you all

Meera Selva

01:00:41

for joining.

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