 Would you believe me if I told you that alien artifacts were found on the ocean floor in the Mariana Trench? Or would you believe me if I said that HPV vaccines can help protect you and your partner from multiple forms of cancer? One of these is actually true, but how do we tell which one? Well, do you believe everything you're told on the internet or on TV? And if you don't, as none of us should, how should we decide? Well, I, for one, get most of my information from print media. We are the minority today. Subject to contention. Yeah, you struggle so hard. Mis-trust is natural. It's a bit more natural than trust because we are talking about things that we don't have a direct experience with. Mommy, I want to be a journalist, and I said to her, if you say that again, we're going to have a long trouble. It's true. I'm being realistic. Let's do a fundraising for Tucker Carlson, because I think he deserves that. Welcome to Standard Time, a euro's in production. This is a talk show with guests from all over Europe. Here we discuss issues that keep us up at night, from Berlin to Gaziantep and well beyond. I'm Reiko Kingopop, editor-in-chief of said euro's in, the magazine presenting this show, and a co-founder of the Display Europe platform. I mean, that is euro's in, the co-founder, not me, I'm not that important of a person, but I am important to some extent, at least to me. Since this is a digital production, you get to watch it on your own time. Your respective standard time. So take your time. And today we're talking about whether we should believe what the media say and how we decide whom to trust. Research shows that political fragmentation is constantly rising. So what it means is that we experience less and less of a shared reality across society. Some people are afraid of migrants, others of losing their homes. Some people don't believe COVID exists. And some religiously believe in science and objectivism. Yet others attribute anything they don't understand to aliens. Why aliens? Why always aliens? Sometimes even ancient aliens. And also, if they're so ancient, we should have had enough time to get to know them by now, don't you think? And then they're not aliens anymore. They're acquaintances, they're friends and family and neighbors, and the annoying dog owners from the park. Anyway, our societies are more saturated with media than ever before. The proliferation of content for the sake of content makes it that much harder for the viewers to identify relevance. But as unique as our situation is, in the sheer volume of media we gobble up, this upheaval is far from unprecedented. This is what happens every time a major technological shift pushes society out of its established habits. 70 years ago it was television. Before that, the radio, the virus, colored print, the printing press, we can go on. Plato, of all people, was in over his own head thinking that the revolutionary technology of writing ruined people's memory. He straight out called it a pharmacon, a substance that can kill you as well as cure you. In the 17th century, parents were terrified that the spreading of literacy and, most of all, the reading of novels were going to destroy the morals of coming generations and deform their minds. We're talking about the novel, today's most authoritative literary genre, and frankly, a very conservative form for today's kids. I wish my kids were reading novels. Might I add, those terrified parents were right. Their children did get dreadful ideas, and society did end up changing, among others, women eventually started to wear skirts that showed their ankles and began to demand authority over their own bodies, estate, and their children. Now they seem to want to study for themselves. But let's be fair for a moment, although this transformation is not entirely alien to society, it is, in fact, truly threatening to many of us. Our kids are getting eating disorders from Instagram. Back in my day, we used to get our eating disorders from TV, like a normal person. Our grandads may have talked over at the Sunday lunch about how America is the root of all evil, but they didn't have hundreds of thousands of strangers to mirror this back to them, while also selling them boner pills. Just a few decades ago, digital progressives used to promise a new age where the internet and its amenities would bring about freedom, democracy, and would make our lives easier and more enjoyable. Today, most media diets are dominated by garbage adverts, political propaganda, and a constant pounding from content farms. And now even some random Eastern European woman can start talking to us all of a sudden. So, who do we blame for all this? And more importantly, who's got solutions? Mersi Abang is one of the founders of Host Rider, based in Berlin, Germany. Lina Shavaf is the leader of Radio Rosana, based in Gaziantep, Turkey, broadcasting in Rebek, to a Syrian audience. Abita Treko is a political scientist and social psychologist working at Alta University, who also just so happens to be the head of Political Capital Institute, an independent think tank based in Budapest, Hungary, and a recurring author and friend of Eurazine. We meet with them at this spectacular library of the School of English and American Studies at the Ötves-Lorraine University, aka Alta, in the very heart of Budapest, Hungary. It's a women's strong conversation, which is great. So, I would like to start with a straight white man. Yeah, it's like we are the minority today, so just to make it clear at the beginning. Subject to contention. Yeah, you struggle so hard. I mean, you struggle because you overwork yourself, but that's very on brand. One of your big topics is trust. So, tell us about this crisis of trust. The ground is sort of slipping from underneath the feet of, let's say, professional media workers. What's happening and what isn't happening that we're scared of? What is true of this post-truth, Shebang? I would start by saying that the abstract concept of trust, I think, has its deficiencies, because modern societies are built on the notion that we not like in ancient societies, just trust the people that we know, but we also trust the abstract others and we trust the authorities that are governing our life. And to a certain extent, in some environments, it's working, but we, I think, still have to see that it's an artificial trust, to a certain extent, because you have to trust in something that you don't know, and it's true for trust in the institutions, and I think it's true to a certain extent in trust in the media as well, because also you have to trust the information you receive indirectly. So I'm just saying that, to a certain extent, mistrust is natural. It's a bit more natural than trust, because we are talking about things that we don't have a direct experience with. A lot of people feel that the media is this elitist organization where people tend to think and say that they know much better things than other people, and we are living in a populist age, then people who have their opinions are less likely to accept other people's opinion. They rather like to shape their own opinion and try to challenge the authority of the eggheads who are talking in televisions, who are talking as journalists, as the ultimate sources of knowledge. And one other aspect of that, and it's a common place, but true, that in the age of social media, where everyone can become to a certain extent a content producer, the traditional authority of not just the journalists, but also of scientists, for example, of politicians. So let's say the traditional knowledge producers is slowly winning. So I think it's a real thing. I do think on the other hand that it's a certain extent natural, and also we do not have to be really hysterical about that. I think it is getting hysterical also, because a lot of energy and money and effort is invested into historicizing the discourse. But when we're talking about media elite, we might not be thinking about an elite media worker say as accomplished as Merci, who I would put that like, you know, if we have to go around and look for a very accomplished journalist, that will be my pick, Merci. Do you feel like the trust or the reception of your work has changed through this time? Or do you feel like your audience trusts you less or more? I think the major, you know, the big early fans in the room here are the gatekeepers who have been able to, over time, control how news is being told in a way that it's now we're not looking at the media in questioning what we've done over time. Have we won the battle? Are we losing the war? So these are the kinds of conversations that are going on. I think the Reuters Institute did a very good analysis of where a generation Z are consuming their news. And about 60%, if I'm not wrong with my data, are opting for new media channels. They're not interested in what we're reporting, right? So it tells us where the conversations around trust and mistrust lies. So if I'm to answer your question, like I said, if I want to get my paycheck, it depends on who is paying me to be able to be in the newsroom. But if I have my own voice and I'm able to independently publish my own content, those who have followed me over time will say, no, this is where Messi stands on this issue, because this is her own opinion. And I think that's the best way for me to respond to your question. So you say that the people who have been following you personally know that you don't bullshit around and you will have built up a reputation and your credentials. So does then highlighting the person help with this? I mean, it depends on who is, when you're casting your ballot, these voters will tell you, oh, I don't vote in the political party, we're voting the candidate, right? That tells you, that gives you an answer to that. Journalists who have been able to say, I'm not interested in the politics of the left and the right. I am interested in the politics of the truth. I'm interested in the politics of the facts. I want us to be able to stand aside and have a person of my own, have found a way to navigate through that structure. But if you want to be a journalist who is still tied to your paycheck directly or indirectly to your organizational structure, there's so much and so less you can do in taking a side, right? So I think that there's a level of independence that comes with being able to stand to have your own person in the media, right? But I think I just wanted us to understand that our audience are not stupid. That is why we're seeing how times are changing and how they are questioning who to trust and how we're having the level of polarization we're having. And it sort of puts the mirror back to the media. You've been reporting all the structures of the world, all the institutions and the agencies and the political elites. Now it's time to look at yourself and say what have you been doing over time? Are you doing the right job or not? And now a word from today's sponsor. This program is supported by my aunt, Koti. She provides me with pickles and bacon, which keep me going through a long working day. Thanks aunt Koti. Please come visit me in Vienna sometime. You can also become a supporter of the show and you don't even have to feed me. All you need to do is pledge your support at patreon.com slash eurozine, that is eurozine, the magazine presenting this program. You can pledge as little as 3 euros a month or whatever you can afford and I promise we won't buy pickles from it. Instead, you'll get access to bonus materials, invitations to the taping of the show and even get to suggest topics and questions. The radio you work for broadcasts in Arabic for a Syrian audience from Turkey. I assume that would be Syrians in Syria and Syrian diaspora in Turkey, which is a gigantic diaspora group. Are you sort of closer with your audience than we would expect like a national mainstream outlet? Yeah. Yeah. It's, if we're gonna talk, it's so different what Mary said, because we have this like duty to really deliver. To the community. This is why we are community media, as you said, and we are closer to our audience. We are doing this with the audience so they feel they are producing the news and the story, like you said, the story with us. So this make the audience trust the media more. I'm pretty sure and I know that it's really nowadays is less trust, especially in Syria, because we grown up on something like this 45, 50 years like this. So changing this mentality, it need time and it need years. So what I always say and what we believe in our media that change has to beginning from the bottom, from here, from our way of thinking, from the mentality. And this has to be really getting trust from the people. I'm gonna ask Mercy if you get the chance to lead an independent media. Would you have an agenda for this media? Or would you go with this media with your, what your value, what you are doing now? I think at the moment I think I do I do lead an independent media on biased news and we're literally you know, re-correcting the narratives that we think are wrong within the structural dynamics of media, you know, storytelling and who tells the news and who reports the news. We're completely doing different things, but we need to be able to report the news that appeals to the community, the news that appeals to the people and not ignoring them completely. Or the news that it's really happened that this is why what we do, we cross resources, we cross to be really delivering the fact, you know, this is this is a real man, like purpose from media, you know, it's not like where we stand politically or which side. I remember when we were like covering what happened in Syria. I remember there is some specific news, like the all international media asked us to deliver and what happened, all all international media. And some other news, we were begging them, please, please, why you don't cover this? Oh, it's not interesting anymore. So you feel like there is an agenda, you know, and while the men issue is that to deliver everything and I was asking them, you deliver this, why you don't deliver, don't say anything, don't say who killed these people, but say there is 50 people, for example, killed in this massacre this day, don't say who killed them, but at least cover that they died. At least I would hope that it's less a political agenda and it's more like a professional failure. I don't think it's better, so don't get me wrong. But even the audience, they will listen to the, like you said, foreign affairs when they will listen, when they need to listen, when they need services from them, when they need something to know about their life, their need, they will listen to them. And this is what we call the need of the people. I'm an interior psychologist. He has to talk about this, but they were not very territorial. He hasn't had time to pace around the corner, so you can devil in this, devil in this field without a second thought. But what's the difference, sorry, what's the difference with appealing and insisting that the audience is not going to be interested in a particular field of reporterial? What's the difference with that and clickbait? Because conventional media organizations and, you know, professionals will tell you, oh, we don't do this internet thing because they're clickbaiting. But it's the same thing that has been done structurally over time, so which is why I completely agree with her. To be able to build trust first, you have to work with locals. You don't fly in people from DC to come to my country and tell me they know that my country better than the person who is staying in my country. I totally agree with you that that a mistrust can be built back through credible personalities and good journalists who are working good and have knowledge on the lack level as well, like you are. But in defense of big media organizations, in this particular case, I think maybe CNN, I mean the audience of CNN would not view the news about Ukraine at all if you don't have the American journalist traveling there and translating what is happening there to the American mindset. One thing. Second thing, I think you need professional media organizations and you are professional media workers as well. So I think you will agree also to a certain extent, I think, to filter the news as well. And there are many studies from the field that I'm doing research on, conspiracy theories, fake news, that if you just go on and search for the news yourself, you're finally lost in the total false narratives. And it's a hotbed for getting deceived all the time under the flag of that I'm just looking for the truth for myself. For example, people who were watching mainstream news in Germany with much less likelihood got into the trap of conspiracy theories against the vaccines with higher likelihood they vaccinated themselves. Therefore, with higher likelihood survived the COVID. So I think in defense of mainstream institutions and I totally agree that they do not always deserve trust. And it's like it's true in Russia, it's true in Hungary, it's true in Syria. So I am certain it was true for Hungary in the communist era, in certain environments if you trust the authorities, you're stupid. But in some other environments I think part of the problem with post-truth is that this mistrust has become so endemic that it becomes irrational to a certain extent. If we think that mainstream media is the biggest part of the problem, I think it's problem in many cases are people who for political purpose destroyed the trust in the media, for example, and then spreading fake news telling that this is the real truth. This is where I disagree. This is where I completely disagree. I completely disagree. And I'm going to state my case. If you were able to fly Jectapa to Ukraine, you can employ a Ukrainian to report for CNN. And it has been shown statistically that it is the community, it is the locals that are still people are relying on because when all the chips are off the table, the average Ukrainian is going to start looking, let's give it time. Who is interested in this? How far have we gone with this war? Who is funding what? And who has done what? We probably haven't gotten there, but we're going to get there. They are, of course, their geopolitical dynamics to it. And this is where the global, the Western media's influence comes in. The governments don't just sit down at probably the United Nations and the G20 and decide on things and not, of course, influence their own major structural media to push for this agenda. And I think that's what we have seen over time that has been questioned even in countries like Syria. You just said beforehand that your audience trusts you because they know you. I mean, people trust persons and media personalities who they know to a certain extent. So you can't, if you would try to replace yourself with someone who probably in a particular case knows better the details than you, maybe the audience would not be interested and you have to take into consideration that personalities do matter. A man who flew into Ukraine for three days is not going to know Ukraine more than a man who has lived in Ukraine all his life. I'm not questioning that, but you as a CNN audience will pay attention to the former and will not pay attention to the latter. I'll offer a solution to this crux, but let's get to Lena. I totally agree with you that even media is built on journalists. It's not like they trust you. I agree with her that the fixer, it's happened in Syria too. It depends where he took the foreign journalist. For example, in Syria, if the fixer is from the regime area, like under the Assad regime, it will take the, and in the opposition is the same. It will take him to what he need to deliver. But at the same time, the problem with the local journalist, what happened in Syria, for example, no journalist left because all of us kicked out of the country. So who delivered the information? We're citizen reporters, so they are not good enough profession. What they have been trying to do all the time, not now anymore, but in the beginning they try to exaggerate just why, because they need help from the, they need to like interfere from the international community. So for example, if there is a massacre, 50 people killed, they said 150. They thought that this will help the people, this will help them. What happened? The international media lost trust in all the citizen reporter in Syria, and they don't, they didn't want to take any information from them. This was a disaster for Syria. We do have to take a short break now, but we'll come back to this, and I'll offer some kind of an in-between solution for you guys, and you can take it apart if you want. And now some words from our sponsors, or shall I say funders and founders, the European Commission and the European Cultural Foundation. 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So what I wanted to say, coming back to this issue of building up the personality, I think your point is right, like there is this sort of tension between building up a personality and identifying with a new source. What I would offer as an alternative, and this really takes us to Massey's work and unbiased news work, is Ukraine had been on the agenda for the longest time. So the war had been going on since 2014, and Ukraine as like a forefront of U.S. internal politics has been there all throughout the Trump years. What I would have hoped to happen instead of this is that in this ample time and also since the war began, let's build up those personalities who are on the ground, who are dependable, great professionals, let's credit their fixers and let's credit their colleagues because we shouldn't act like there is like one person doing all of this heroic journalism, right? And this then leads to your project. You lift these people up as much as I understand and amplify their work. And unbiased news said, you know what, let's open up the space and just get pitches. If people want to send pitches in their communities across the world, let them send pitches. And that test, we got to see stories, really compelling stories that had impact across the world as well. And it also made us to understand and limiting the ideas for journalists to run with within this, you know, the space of one particular area sort of also limits how these stories have been told or also limits the kinds of ideas of pitches journalists have to send. And not often do you get mainstream media opening up their spaces for pitches to be sent. Journalism students that are going to be coming out of this school are going to spend the next five years struggling to get a space because they don't have a byline, because you don't recognize your byline, because whatever they say, you're like, oh, you know, worked for a major platform, we cannot trust you. For me, that is a problem even within journalism. And that's what Ombayazidis is saying. No, if you're able to trust the guy who is within your network, you can trust the one who is at the local level. Why do you think I should trust my brother in journalism? He's not a journalist, but he's my brother. I cannot trust him with my journalism. So that is the kind of conversations that I expect newsroom and editors to be able to acknowledge and have and rather than say, oh, if you're not on my LinkedIn network, I cannot commission you to file a story because I don't trust you. That is bullshit. Peter, you wanted to come back to this, to defend, let's say, established media without just like speaking for the establishment. I just want to clarify my point that of course, I mean, if you want to do journalism on the ground, it's like you shouldn't do the reporting only from the balcony of five star hotels. So don't get me wrong. But I'm just saying that if you use good fixers, who can even some of them can mislead you. But if you find the good ones, they won't. And if you are careful enough for the facts and bringing local voices into your reportage, the mere fact that you are in the forefront of communication is not a problem in itself. So that's all what I wanted to tell, but on the other hand, in defense of local voices, we in Hungary could experience that especially from the state on media that was rather hostile towards Ukraine from the very beginning of the war and did not give enough space very consciously to the victims. I wanted to come back to you, Lina, with a question because you brought the subject that many generations consecutively in Syria grew up knowing or with the knowledge of not trusting the media, not to trust the media. It's very similar to us. Basically, half of our literary studies are about how to learn to read between the lines of censorship, and much of history anyway. So is it possible that the idea that media was trusted at some point is limited to a smaller space? Is it possible that there wasn't a golden age when media was trusted? Yeah, of course. There is like the smallest place, as you said, the community media. If we talk before 2011, in Syria there is no even how to say private media. All the media was a state media. It was like happened in 2005 that the government allowed to open some private media, but they call it under like entertainment license. So you don't have the right to report news. You don't have the right to even do any political program or any program, only entertainment. I had worked in radio there, and we were doing something between the line, like you said, and the people trust this media, because they notice that there is something touching them, and it's not coming from the authority. It's not coming. It's their voice. What happens when the media worker loses trust in the media, that they work for it quite like you've expressed a couple of examples? That's a very privileged question because when you're trying to feed your family, you're trying to end the living in a country where the options you have is to work in the media, you just because I've seen a lot of colleagues do it in a way where there's a subtle way where they tell the news. They have encounters. They have face-off with the editors, you know, they have back and forth. They say, why did you say that? I thought your script had that. You know, when these conversations happen, it happens over time. For those who are able to deal with it, they are able to deal with it, but that's their own way to say, as long as I'm here, I'm going to try my best to do the work I was employed to do, and the work that feeds my conscience. I keep saying that the strongest stories are not the stories that we publish. They are the ones that we kill. You take a position. I'm from a country where most media owners are actively state actors, political elites, extremely corrupt political elites, owning media organizations, and you're working for them. What positions are you supposed to take? And in these situations, people have had to lose their jobs. So back to directly, I directly respond to what you've just said. It's been happening all over the world. It continues to happen, but not everyone has that leverage or the independence or the luxury, I would say, to be able to say, you know what, you suck me. I'm good. Now, I have also directly been in a situation where an international media said, let's come do the story for us. And I did it. And there was an update to the story. And I called the bureau chief and said, Hey, this update is a good one. And she looked at me and said, mercy, this is not why we're in your country. That was the day I stopped working for them. And that was when I realized that these guys don't care if we burn or we make it. And for countries that have had pre-colonial history like mine, the media conversation that you're probably going to be having in Hungary is different from the one I would be having because it's completely different case on you. And I'm going to be extremely bullish about it because there are people who want to see you at war every day. It is the truth. And if there's no war coming out of your country, there's no news. Right? So for someone to look at me and say, this is not why I was sent from this into this place. It tells me all I needed to know. And I was again, I was privileged to be able to say, you know what, and walk away. It's not everyone who is able to say that because sometimes you run into a man who at the end of that task, he has a wife at home. He has two kids at home or three kids at home that he needs to feed. He just bends his head and say, okay, and does what the structure wants him to do. I want to add to this, like in 2011 when the revolution started in Syria, like the owner of the media, even the private media that we were working on it, all of them like businessmen who are like, you know, a partner with, yeah, in bed with government. So when this started, they came and asked, I was editor in chief, asked us so openly that I have to broadcast the propaganda of what they want. And the propaganda was all lie, you know. And I refused. I was having a very good salary. I was living according to good life. After three months, I quit. I left the whole country because I was kicked out from the country because I didn't accept to broadcast this propaganda that they ask for. But there is a lot of journalists, like you said, they could not do it. And they stay and working. Just the recognition that media work is work, it's labor, and it takes time and human effort. And you can't just do it on freaking terrorism. And in fairness, the media is highly underfunded. Because there are so many women in there. Nobody should pay them. Mommy, I want to be a journalist. And I said to her, if you say that again, we're going to have a long trouble. It's true. I'm being realistic because you see people within the field of work, where you worked, or where you study in class, opt for a much more, you know, better paying jobs. And you start questioning your life decisions. You're like, why did I get myself in this mess? Peter, what are you raising your kids to be? Not journalists, I assume. No, and not academics in the Hungarian environment, for sure. Because some of the things that you told about journalism, being underfunded, you can draw some parallels with the Hungarian academic life. I was just thinking about that. Probably it's this dilemma that you presented. It's true for every profession that people choose by love. And I don't think we have easy solution for that. So lone wolves, I mean, yeah, they're all lone wolves who can make change like Tucker Carlson. I'm not necessarily the one. He also doesn't have to make a living. Let's just add that. Yes, he doesn't have to make a living. That helps. Do you want us to break down his salary? Let's do a fundraising for Tucker Carlson, because I think he deserves that. He is the brave man who could exit the evil world of mainstream media. I mean, I'm sure he has a good deal with Twitter right now. So the one thing I can offer as a consolation price is that although professionals have to do this like constant negotiating of the environment, so does everybody in our audiences who sometimes depend on our work for their lives. So I guess we're in this together anyway. Thank you guys so much for coming along and staying this late with us. And I hope I see you around. 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