Five years ago, I had my dream job. I was a foreign correspondent in the Middle East reporting for ABC News. But there was a crack in the wall, a problem with our industry, that I felt we needed to fix. You see, I got to the Middle East right around the end of 2007, which was just around the midpoint of the Iraq War. But by the time I got there, it was already nearly impossible to find stories about Iraq on air. Coverage had dropped across the board, across networks. And of the stories that did make it, more than 80 percent of them were about us. We were missing the stories about Iraq, the people who live there, and what was happening to them under the weight of the war.
Pre pet godina sam dobila posao iz snova. Bila sam strana dopisnica na Bliskom Istoku koja je izveštavala za ABC vesti. Međutim, brod je propuštao, imali smo problem s našom industrijom, i smatrala sam da bi ga trebalo popraviti. Vidite, stigla sam na Bliski Istok tačno krajem 2007, a to je bilo na otprilike polovini rata u Iraku. No, do momenta kad sam stigla tamo, već je bilo skoro nemoguće naći priče o Iraku na televiziji. Njegovo pokrivanje je opalo širom medija, širom mreža. A od priča koje su dospele u vesti, više od 80 procenata je bilo o nama. Izostajale su priče o Iraku, o ljudima koji žive tamo i šta im se dešavalo pod teretom rata.
Afghanistan had already fallen off the agenda. There were less than one percent of all news stories in 2008 that went to the war in Afghanistan. It was the longest war in US history, but information was so scarce that schoolteachers we spoke to told us they had trouble explaining to their students what we were doing there, when those students had parents who were fighting and sometimes dying overseas.
Avganistan je već ispao sa dnevnog reda. Manje od jednog procenta svih priloga u vestima 2008. se bavilo ratom u Avganistanu. Bio je to najduži rat u istoriji SAD-a, ali informacije su bile tako oskudne da su nam nastavnici sa kojima smo razgovarali rekli da im je problem da objasne svojim đacima šta mi to radimo tamo, s obzirom na to da su roditelji tih đaka se borili i ponekad umirali preko mora.
We had drawn a blank, and it wasn't just Iraq and Afghanistan. From conflict zones to climate change to all sorts of issues around crises in public health, we were missing what I call the species-level issues, because as a species, they could actually sink us. And by failing to understand the complex issues of our time, we were facing certain practical implications. How were we going to solve problems that we didn't fundamentally understand, that we couldn't track in real time, and where the people working on the issues were invisible to us and sometimes invisible to each other?
Izgubili smo pojam o tome, i nije se samo radilo o Iraku i Avganistanu. Od ratnih zona, preko klimatskih promena do raznih pitanja u vezi sa krizom u javnom zdravstvu, propuštali smo nešto što nazivam problemima na nivou vrste jer bi nas kao vrstu ovi problemi mogli da unište. A neuspevajući da razumemo složene probleme našeg vremena, suočavamo se sa određenim praktičnim implikacijama. Kako da rešimo probleme koje temeljno ne razumemo, koje ne možemo da pratimo u realnom vremenu i kod kojih su ljudi koji rade na tim problemima nama nevidljivi, a ponekad i nevidljivi jedni za druge?
When you look back on Iraq, those years when we were missing the story, were the years when the society was falling apart, when we were setting the conditions for what would become the rise of ISIS, the ISIS takeover of Mosul and terrorist violence that would spread beyond Iraq's borders to the rest of the world.
Kada se osvrnete na Irak, tih godina kad nam je priča izmicala, tih godina se njihovo društvo raspadalo, tada smo podesili uslove za ono što će postati uspon ISIS-a, preuzimanje Mosula od strane ISIS-a i terorističkog nasilja koje se širilo mimo granica Iraka na ostatak sveta.
Just around that time where I was making that observation, I looked across the border of Iraq and noticed there was another story we were missing: the war in Syria. If you were a Middle-East specialist, you knew that Syria was that important from the start. But it ended up being, really, one of the forgotten stories of the Arab Spring. I saw the implications up front. Syria is intimately tied to regional security, to global stability. I felt like we couldn't let that become another one of the stories we left behind.
Otprilike u to vreme, kad sam postajala svesna toga, pogledala sam preko granice Iraka i primetila da nam još jedna priča izmiče: rat u Siriji. Da ste bili stručnjak za Bliski Istok, znali biste da je Sirija veoma važna od samog početka. Ali je na kraju završila, zaista, kao jedna od zaboravljenih priča Arapskog proleća. Unapred sam videla implikacije. Sirija je prisno povezana sa regionalnom bezbednošću, sa globalnom stabilnošću. Osećala sam da ne bismo smeli dopustiti da to postane još jedna priča koju smo zapostavili.
So I left my big TV job to start a website, called "Syria Deeply." It was designed to be a news and information source that made it easier to understand a complex issue, and for the past four years, it's been a resource for policymakers and professionals working on the conflict in Syria. We built a business model based on consistent, high-quality information, and convening the top minds on the issue. And we found it was a model that scaled. We got passionate requests to do other things "Deeply." So we started to work our way down the list.
Pa sam napustila svoj veliki posao na TV-u kako bih osnovala vebsajt: "Syria Deeply". Osmišljen je da bude vesti i izvor informacija kojima se olakšava razumevanje složenih pitanja, i u proteklih nekoliko godina, sajt je bio izvor za zakonodavce i stručnjake koji rade na konfliktu u Siriji. Sagradili smo poslovni model zasnovan na doslednim informacijama visokog kvaliteta i na konsultovanju najvećih stručnjaka po tom pitanju. I otkrili smo da je to model koji može da se širi. Dobijali smo strastvene zahteve da i drugo obrađujemo u "Deeply"-ju. Pa smo počeli da se bavimo drugim stvarima sa spiska.
I'm just one of many entrepreneurs, and we are just one of many start-ups trying to fix what's wrong with news. All of us in the trenches know that something is wrong with the news industry. It's broken. Trust in the media has hit an all-time low. And the statistic you're seeing up there is from September -- it's arguably gotten worse. But we can fix this. We can fix the news. I know that that's true. You can call me an idealist; I call myself an industrious optimist. And I know there are a lot of us out there. We have ideas for how to make things better, and I want to share three of them that we've picked up in our own work.
Ja sam tek jedna od mnogih preduzetnika, i mi smo tek jedna od mnogih start-ap firmi koje pokušavaju da poprave loše strane vesti. Svi mi u u prvim redovima znamo da nešto nije u redu sa industrijom vesti. Pokvarena je. Poverenje u medije je dostiglo istorijski minimum. A statistika koju vidite na ekranu je od septembra - pretpostavlja se da je sad još gore. Ali možemo ovo da popravimo. Možemo da popravimo vesti. Znam da je to tako. Možete me nazivati idealistom; ja sebe nazivam marljivim optimistom. I znam da nas ima mnogo. Imamo ideje kako da popravimo stvari, i ja želim da podelim tri do kojih smo došli tokom našeg rada.
Idea number one: we need news that's built on deep-domain knowledge. Given the waves and waves of layoffs at newsrooms across the country, we've lost the art of specialization. Beat reporting is an endangered thing. When it comes to foreign news, the way we can fix that is by working with more local journalists, treating them like our partners and collaborators, not just fixers who fetch us phone numbers and sound bites. Our local reporters in Syria and across Africa and across Asia bring us stories that we certainly would not have found on our own. Like this one from the suburbs of Damascus, about a wheelchair race that gave hope to those wounded in the war. Or this one from Sierra Leone, about a local chief who curbed the spread of Ebola by self-organizing a quarantine in his district. Or this one from the border of Pakistan, about Afghan refugees being forced to return home before they are ready, under the threat of police intimidation. Our local journalists are our mentors. They teach us something new every day, and they bring us stories that are important for all of us to know.
Prva ideja: potrebne su nam vesti izgrađene na istinskom poznavanju materije. Zbog talasa i talasa otpuštanja u redakcijama širom naše države, izgubili smo umetnost specijalizovanja. Specijalizovano izveštavanje je ugroženo. Kada se radi o inostranim vestima, možemo to da popravimo radeći sa više lokalnih novinara, tretirajući ih kao naše partnere i saradnike, a ne tek kao "fiksere" koji nam dodaju brojeve telefona i zvučne isečke. Naši lokalni reporteri iz Sirije i širom Afrike i Azije nam donose priče koje zasigurno sami ne bismo otkrili. Poput ove iz predgrađa Damaska o trci u invalidskim kolicima koja je dala nadu onima povređenim u ratu. Ili ova iz Sijera Leonea o lokalnom poglavici koji je obuzdao širenje ebole tako što je sam organizovao karantin u svojoj oblasti. Ili ova sa granice Pakistana, o avganistanskim izbeglicama koje teraju da se vrate domovima pre vremena, pod pretnjom policijskog zastrašivanja. Naši lokalni novinari su nam mentori. Podučavaju nas nečem novom svakodnevno i donose nam priče koje je važno svi mi da znamo.
Idea number two: we need a kind of Hippocratic oath for the news industry, a pledge to first do no harm.
Druga ideja: potrebna nam je nekakva Hipokratova zakletva za industriju vesti, zavet da, pre svega, nećemo nanositi štetu.
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Journalists need to be tough. We need to speak truth to power, but we also need to be responsible. We need to live up to our own ideals, and we need to recognize when what we're doing could potentially harm society, where we lose track of journalism as a public service.
Novinari moraju da budu jaki. Moramo govoriti istinu onima na vlasti, ali takođe moramo da budemo odgovorni. Moramo da dosegnemo sopstvene ideale i moramo da prepoznamo kada ono što radimo može da nanese štetu društvu, kada gubimo iz vida da je novinarstvo u službi javnosti.
I watched us cover the Ebola crisis. We launched Ebola Deeply. We did our best. But what we saw was a public that was flooded with hysterical and sensational coverage, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes completely wrong. Public health experts tell me that that actually cost us in human lives, because by sparking more panic and by sometimes getting the facts wrong, we made it harder for people to resolve what was actually happening on the ground. All that noise made it harder to make the right decisions.
Posmatrala sam kako pokrivamo krizu o eboli. Pokrenuli smo Ebola Deeply. Dali sve od sebe. Ali smo primetili da je javnost preplavljena histeričnim i senzacionalističkim vestima, ponekad netačnim, ponekad potpuno pogrešnim. Stručnjaci za javno zdravlje mi govore da nas je to koštalo ljudskih života jer pokretanjem dodatne panike i povremenim grešenjem kod činjenica, otežali smo ljudima da reše ono što se zaista dešavalo na terenu. Sva ta buka je otežala donošenje pravilnih odluka.
We can do better as an industry, but it requires us recognizing how we got it wrong last time, and deciding not to go that way next time. It's a choice. We have to resist the temptation to use fear for ratings. And that decision has to be made in the individual newsroom and with the individual news executive. Because the next deadly virus that comes around could be much worse and the consequences much higher, if we do what we did last time; if our reporting isn't responsible and it isn't right.
Kao industrija, možemo bolje, ali je neophodna svest o tome u čemu smo grešili poslednji put, i odlučnost da sledeći put ne radimo tako. To je izbor. Moramo da odolimo iskušenju da koristimo strah zarad rejtinga. A ta odluka mora da se donese u pojedinačnim redakcijama i sa pojedinačnim izvršnim urednicima vesti. Jer kad naiđe sledeći smrtonosni virus, moglo bi da bude mnogo gore i da posledice budu mnogo veće, ako uradimo što i prošli put; ako naše izveštavanje nije odgovorno i ispravno.
The third idea? We need to embrace complexity if we want to make sense of a complex world. Embrace complexity --
Treća ideja? Moramo da prigrlimo složenost, ako želimo da razumemo složeni svet. Prigrliti složenost -
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not treat the world simplistically, because simple isn't accurate. We live in a complex world. News is adult education. It's our job as journalists to get elbow deep in complexity and to find new ways to make it easier for everyone else to understand. If we don't do that, if we pretend there are just simple answers, we're leading everyone off a steep cliff. Understanding complexity is the only way to know the real threats that are around the corner. It's our responsibility to translate those threats and to help you understand what's real, so you can be prepared and know what it takes to be ready for what comes next.
ne tretirati svet pojednostavljeno jer jednstavnost nije tačna. Živimo u složenom svetu. Vesti su obrazovanje za odrasle. Naš posao kao novinara je da zagazimo do lakata u složenost i da nađemo nove načine kako da ostali lakše razumeju. Ako to ne uradimo, ako se pretvaramo da postoje samo jednostavni odgovori, sve povlačimo niz provaliju. Razumevanje složenosti je jedini način da se spoznaju istinske pretnje koje su iza ugla. Naša je odgovornost da prevedemo te pretnje i da vam pomognemo da razumete šta je stvarno, kako biste mogli da se pripremite i da znate kako da se pripremite za ono što sledi.
I am an industrious optimist. I do believe we can fix what's broken. We all want to. There are great journalists out there doing great work -- we just need new formats. I honestly believe this is a time of reawakening, reimagining what we can do. I believe we can fix what's broken. I know we can fix the news. I know it's worth trying, and I truly believe that in the end, we're going to get this right.
Ja sam marljivi optimista. Verujem da možemo da popravimo ono što je pokvareno. Svi to želimo. Postoje odlični novinari koji rade odličan posao - samo su nam potrebni novi formati. Iskreno verujem da je ovo vreme novog buđenja, novog zamišljanja naših mogućnosti. Verujem da se pokvareno može popraviti. Znam da možemo da popravimo vesti. Znam da je vredno truda i zaista verujem da ćemo na kraju pronaći pravo rešenje za ovo.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
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