Our Speaker David Gray

Posted by David Holden
 
With more two decades of experience as a journalist, David Gray has covered stories around the world, focusing on Europe and North America. Seven of those years were spent as a travelling correspondent for CBC-TV's top-rated business documentary program, Venture.  Gray is a former president of the Alberta Press Gallery and for six years was the national host of CBC News: Today on Newsworld. He's also hosted the Business Network on CBC Radio One, and is a guest host on CBC's Cross Country Checkup and As It Happens.
 
Ali Gursoy introduced our guest speaker, David Gray of CBC Radio fame, host of Eyeopener.
 
  • David Gray saw our billboard on 9th Ave
  • Rotary has been in Calgary for over 100 years and David knows of all the good work that Rotary does.
  • No slides … radio guy
  • He is one of an endangered species in the city, an actual working journalist
  • Journalists have been replaced by bloggers, editors just eliminated
  • “Journalists by definition are people who comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
  • He is not paid to promote other people’s opinion, not told what story to cover, not told what subjects to talk about.  Not at the mercy of a publishing algorithm that filters content and consumers
  • He is not, and never has been, a member of any political party
  • David’s job is to seek out answers and ask questions on the radio
  • Some people state that broadcasting media has gotten too big for their britches, stopped serving the public and started preaching to them.  According to David, even the CBC has to wear some of that too
  • But there is more going on today …
  • Fake News – definition:  stories written and publish with a singular intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically
  • Real News, news that is from balanced opinions backed up by verifiable facts
  • Glorification of opinion in the news has become rampant of late
  • We have gone from I think therefore I am to I believe therefore I am right
  • Several theories about this including one from Douglas Copeland, author:  Our’s is the last generation that remembers what it is like to have a pre-internet brain
  • Learned from books, told stories (most of our stories had a beginning, a middle, and an end) and certainly had a point.  We described our own lives in chapters, we valued experts and we read the classics
  • These days, we are all part of a new neural reality: our attention spans are collapsing.  We want movies and music, and unfiltered information and Game of Thrones Episode 7, and we want it all right now!
  • Copeland calls this Omniscience fatigue (Editor’s Note: source and validity confirmed … by the internet)
  • Net effect of having access to all answer is information has become slightly boring
  • If everyone has access to facts, there is a whole new regard for opinion
  • One of the victims in all that is people who actually know what they are talking about
  • Huge disregard for experts.  Open disregard for the scientific method
  • People are losing the ability to know what to believe … which is (or will be) a dismantling of our informed democracy
  • Facts are under attack
  • Some fake news sites are obvious, others can be really subtle
  • Selected facts or half-truths designed to give more (or less) credence to a point of view can be very subtle
  • This is far more insidious and modern news platforms sell their product to fit that reality
  • They do so unchecked because the gate keepers (editors) have been eliminated
  • Decline of print media is real and death may be inevitable
  • Repackaging gossip from a computer is cheaper than employing reporters and editors
  • Unfiltered video is more popular than ever because of people’s phones
  • Most people get their news from platforms algorithms sort content and your feedback
  • Algorithm take people where they vote by clicking.  Most people vote for crap.
  • Celebrity news and extremist views that titillate the senses
  • Real news can be messy and required verifiable facts.  To achieve that, editorial judgment is required, either the individual or a professional
  • So … big brother is not only watching, he is pushing each of us into a silo only with people who we agree with and blocks dissenting opinion
  • Good scientific explanation of what radio is (Editor’s Note:  I am no electrical, but it sounded right to me)
  • Satellite radio threatens lock content from radio even further than the changes to the industry in the last 30 or 40 years
  • To survive, radios must be all that is was: high civic value, investigates power, reach local and underserved communities (Editor’s Note:  This is starting to sound like a pitch for a reason to continue funding CBC … but I am a cynical … and am starting to think of it like the Senate, not that expensive in the big scheme of things and providing some value to some Canadians)
  • How to lure new audiences, younger audiences (Editor’s Note: that is also starting to sound familiar)
  • The ask: next time on the internet, verify your source.  Double verify is possible.  Also, click on a story you disagree with and you will mess up the algorithm, may even broaden your own mind, then show a young person how to buy a newspaper
  • “Thanks for having me”
After many interesting questions and answers, George Brookman thanked our guest speaker.
David Gray