Ideas - Lisa LaFlamme: In Defence of Democracy

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

These are anxious times for journalism and democracy. As part of an event hosted by the Samara Centre for Democracy, former news anchor Lisa LaFlamme tells IDEAS what can and must be done to bolster journalism so it can better safeguard democracy. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 15, 2024.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. All we've got are pieces. We can't seem to figure out what the puzzle is supposed to look like. John Mitchell resigns as the head of CREEP.

Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. Forget the myths that the media's created about the White House. The truth is, me and I are very bright guys, and things got out of hand. Hunt's come in from the cold. Supposedly, he's got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag. Follow the money. The glory days of journalism, when the heroes of movies, like all the president's men,

were dogged reporters, holding the powerful to account and upholding the principles of democracy and devotion to the truth. I just want to cover the truth of it. And the truth is muddy. Democracy is muddy. And it's bloody. But these are perilous times for both democracy and journalism. There is a relationship between democracy and journalism that I don't think we are connecting the dots enough

to really say this is happening on our watch. We're letting it slide. Both are under siege from interconnected forces, a general distrust of established institutions, the dominance of social media and tech giants, a toxic mix of polarization, misinformation, and conspiracy mongering, and the rise of populist authoritarianism. In her 35-year career, Lisa Laflamme has seen democracy at its most resilient and at its most

vulnerable. She spent almost 12 years as the chief anchor and senior editor of CTV National News, beginning in 2011. And she's won 13 Canadian Screen Awards. I interviewed her at an event called In Defense of Democracy, presented by the Samara Centre for Democracy in Toronto in November 2023. Thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you all for being here tonight. I wanted to begin by acknowledging the difficult context in which we're meeting tonight, all of us. It's an inflection point in history, I think is an understatement, but obviously for all those who are caught up in the moment abroad, but also here in Canada, of course, and also around the world. So Lisa, in times like these, normally, you would be getting on a plane and going somewhere. I'm just wondering what your

thoughts are as you watch this time from afar. Well, you're absolutely right, Nala. I mean, I think this is the first conflict I haven't covered in over 22 years. And it is very different to be watching it than to be watching your back on the ground wherever that conflict is. Big news abroad, though, and we are just seeing the direct impact on neighbourhoods and communities here in Canada. And I have to say the Islamophobia, the anti-Semitism that is unfolding in this country right now is so painful to see and is so wrong. I feel like we have to say out loud again

and again, there is such a difference between free speech and hate speech. And it's important to know that. But in the context context of journalism it's more than ever the reason why experience and context and history is so critically important whenever anything like this happens it does feel like we're a bit of a turning point but i heard an expression the other day you know that democracy is such a cliffhanger right now that even Gen Z is paying attention. So to all the Gen Zs out there, thanks for coming. And the boomers, you know who you are. As long as you don't become doomers, we're okay. Speaking of history, it's often when you and I cross paths is when we were covering,

you know, the first draft of history. And I think that I last saw you in person was in Egypt in 2011, which was a very big moment, again, in the history of that region and the rest of the world. So much has changed in our business since then. Wow, it's so true. I remember that so vividly. Arab Spring, of course, started in Tunisia, where I just was not that long ago.

But that experience in Egypt, for in Cairo first of all was terrifying if you remember I could not go out with my camera person with his big camera it was too dangerous because the mob was turning on the media and I mean we have subsequently seen that in so many places in so many different times so I literally and so many others were out shooting on our iPhone and using that phone footage for broadcast purposes but what I really remember as far as boy have times changed or that was the turning point then is Twitter was just becoming a thing really so I was like okay I'm going to embrace this why the hell not let's embrace the new technology the new social media platform and I was interviewing

all of these incredible women and and men in the moment and recording them sending them writing a text to go with it and then by the time because of course the time zone by the time it came to write my national news script it felt like I was writing news that had happened yesterday because that's the nature of the beast then I learned it there and now of course it's just writ large that reality it is and so if we fast forward from that time, 2011, what is the math, I guess 12 years later, we as journalists are really fond of saying that journalism is integral to democracy. But I wonder when I look around, and I often ask this question, in the face of so much evidence that trust is waning in traditional media, is it still true in your

estimate that journalism is foundational to protecting democracy? More than ever. Honestly, more than ever. I think the two go hand in glove. It is the public's right to have accurate, fair, unbiased information. It is their right to have that in a democracy. More than ever, though, because of the misinformation and disinformation that is just so rampant. And honestly, if people don't realize, and a lot is, you know, on the shoulders of the consumer here, the difference between journalism and noise, news and noise, it's past time to focus down on that. But I would say in so many countries, I've been throughout the world where people and journalists would really risk their entire lives

for something we totally take for granted in this country, and that is a democracy. And believe me, when you are in a country where there is no free press, that is when you realize that the two are completely linked. If you let journalism die, you are irreparably damaging your democracy, is my view. Yeah. At the same time, though, there are countries, and I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, where journalism is really strong, but the democratic backsliding is worse. How do you square those things? How is it possible for those two things to coexist? Well, that's a great point. And I'm going to mention Tunisia here, because after the Arab Spring, there was this amazing feeling of freedom. The journalists that are friends of mine to this day felt it. They could say what they want. A president was brought in. They thought, this guy is a Democrat. This is a new world. Well, guess

what's happened in these 12 years? He is now more of an autocrat. There are reporters, once again, being imprisoned, intimidated, harassed. But you might be referring to closer to home. I'm talking somewhere closer to home. I am. See, she didn't want to say it. I'm going to make you say it, sister. There are some incredibly strong journalists in the U.S. and people who do wonderful investigative reporting and excellent political reporting, and yet sometimes they're preaching to the choir. There isn't the reach that one would hope for these traditional media, like, let's name them, New York Times, Washington Post, you know, other organizations.

What's your sense? I mean, could that tide reverse? Well, I believe it could reverse, but things need to happen now. Why? Because the same rules that allow Breitbart to exist, for example, are the same rules that allow, you know, here in this country, the Hive, the Norwalk to exist. I mean, it is the loudest bullhorn, if you will. And it has to also come back to society. People are so disenfranchised, they're depressed, they're deflated for any number of reasons that they're going to look to something that speaks to them. And I'm not going to say, although I'm about to say,

this conversation could be divided between before Trump and after Trump. I'm not saying he created the polarization, but he 100% gave it oxygen enough to overload the system with lies and basically short circuit thecuit the system. And that is where we still are. I mean, to refer to journalists as the enemy of the people, people were listening. In terms of specifically the media, and it gives me no joy to say this, the level of trust in traditional media is as low as it's ever been. Where do you see the most evidence of that in the circles that you move in? Well, I mean, you can see it in the numbers. You can see it in newspapers that are dying. You can see it in television broadcasts

that are dying. Certainly, social media had a role in it. There's no doubt about it. Misinformation had a role in it. Media literacy, or lack thereof, had a role in it. It is a bit of a mess when you look at, for me, local news. That is where this all has to... The erosion of local news. The erosion of local news. It's the most basic thing. Every single one of us, no matter what community you grew up in, and depending on your age, you would have known the whole, you know, action team.

The Ron Burgundy action news team. Let's face it. And that's gone. And the centralization of news is really impacting what to me was essentially relationship building. I mean, when I was a local reporter, I'm sure it was the same for you. Maybe you think the every Wednesday night council meeting was boring or the school trustees meeting boring, but actually that's where the stories emerged from those were where we built those relationships the community trusted us as the reporters covering

that city town whatever it was in whatever platform and and that's gone yeah it's such a great point because that is where relationships are formed. I remember covering the Nepean City Council in Ottawa and it was where you meet people and make connections and also show them what you do. I want to talk briefly about whether there's any culpability

with the traditional media itself. How much of the blame could be actually put on the media itself? Because there are a lot of people out there who say, well, you did this. Not you, but the traditional media. I was in it for 35 years. All of us. All of us. But the foundation is local. So I need to just further explain why I see that relationship as so critically important. I'm going to go right back to when I was 23, 24 years old. I had just graduated. I had my degree. I thought I've got the world by the, you know, can I swear on radio? I don't think so. Sometimes. Anyway, you know what

I mean. And the assignment editor sends me to a neighborhood where I'm not not a word of a lie there is a three-legged cat up a tree cat's name is tripod and I'm thinking I am watching the Pulitzer just that's a great story from my hand that's a front pager but it was a front pager in k-dubs where I'm from but so anyway i get there the whole neighborhood is out by this tree watching tripod who by the way is not budging the firefighter shows up hoist the ladder the whole nine yards but while everybody's watching we're chatting and it's the old wink wink nudge nudge if you really want a story there is there's been like nine children in the last year who've been injured by cars trying to cross this street because the school

was right across that street so I thought oh that's interesting so we CKCO is where I worked then we set up a secret camera you know it was the 80s we could do anything we we did a series of stories and i will say that the city didn't just put in a crosswalk they put in a stoplight and that was the relationship building i'm talking about which takes you from there to a provincial level i mean right where right where we are. It was Emma McIntosh, I think, of Narwhal who cracked the Greenbelt scandal here. I could give you an hour and a half of Bob Fife stories and what he cracked. You know, there's a reason they call him Fife the Knife. But it's about what the public wouldn't know without conventional journalism. So are we culpable in the demise?

Sure, we probably didn't take social media seriously enough. If it started with Craigslist and that knocked out the classifieds in a newspaper, and then Facebook, and then video on Facebook, and it's possible we didn't take it seriously enough then, but we are facing the reality now. So what is the reality now where television news is concerned? It used to be, as you say, kind of king, and then cable networks came along, then social media and all of that. Where does it stand now in your estimate?

It's a crisis time, I would say. I'm not using that word lightly, and especially given, you know, keep it in context. We're talking about journalism and mass layoffs. There are ramifications to all of this, to gutting newsrooms. there's ramifications for the conflict we're seeing right now actually if canadian news outlets didn't have any bureaus in the middle east almost i don't think any did corrects i will be corrected i'm sure if i missed one as far as i know as far as i know and and that means everyone parachutes in. That means you learn on the plane, basically. And you and I have both had to do this. But there's no institutional knowledge anymore.

There are not as many veterans. I think I became a better journalist because I was eavesdropping on the veteran beside me and learning how to push that source, how to build that Rolodex. It made me better. It made me who I am, really. And I feel bad in these shrunken newsrooms where there aren't as many veterans anymore

that some of those skills that we learned, they're disappearing, double sourcing, all of these things. Again, I am a bit of a broken record on this one, but it's danger zone time for democracy because this is what we're looking at. I mean, I think about these family-owned newspapers, family-owned TV station, which is the first one I worked at. And those families, the stewardship was a responsibility. It was a source of pride, and it was personal. Corporations don't have that sense of stewardship. Their responsibility is not to democracy.

It's to the shareholder. And who pays? Canadians pay. Canadian democracy pays. I truly feel that way. I look at television, because I used to work in television too. I don't anymore. And the heart of television was, and it still is in some ways, but it was really the anchor. It's a role that you were in for many, many years. That has really substantially changed too. Do you think there's still a role for that voice, the voice from God kind of sitting at that desk?

No, that was Lloyd Robertson. He was the voice from God. But where does that sit at the moment? Again, when we're thinking about where journalism fits in democracy and where trust is. Well, trust is earned 100%. I will say for me, the role of anchor was never about the prestige of it. It was about the responsibility of it. And I am a news consumer as well as a journalist. So I'm watching everything and I am a news consumer as well as a journalist so I'm watching everything and I am deciding actually who do I trust who do I trust and and it's it's the people who've spent years

and years in the field and know what they're talking about can bring context to the job. So that may be changing. But, you know, viewers got to know me from years of covering war, Iraq, Afghanistan, name the conflict or calamities, disasters, federal elections. Wait, those could have been one and the same. I did not mean that the way it came out. But the point is, they know you. They know you. So I don't know how it's evolved or changed, but I know who I trust, who I watch, and who I respect to tell me the unvarnished truth and the fair, unbiased truth. And trust is something you earn. It is not handed to you because of a job title. I'm curious if you ever watch some of this phenomenon of opinion-based anchors who have tons of followers,

huge, loyal audiences. And I know this is a risky question, but is there anything in what they're doing, you think, that maybe the rest of us can learn? And obviously not talking about the dog whistle type of communication, but what is it that they're doing that we're not, traditional media? Well, we're not because we're fact-based journalists. I mean, I was not trained. Yeah, that should be applauded, because there's a difference. And I love to listen to really intelligent people giving me their opinion on politics of the day or global conflict or anything and put it in perspective.

But that's not our job as journalists. We are trained to go out fact-finding. I mean, journalists are the practitioners. We are like the grease in democracy. We go out, we fact-find, we know who to ask, we get both sides of a story. So what they're doing, I mean, are you talking about Fox? I mean, are you talking about Fox? Sure, that could be an example. But I mean, you know, I don't want to be told by any boss how I'm supposed to cover something. As a journalist, I just want to cover the truth of it.

And the truth is muddy. Democracy is muddy. And it's bloody. But you can be there to show both sides of a story. Sometimes there are not both sides. I 100% understand that. But I have wondered, what have we done? What did we do? I've looked at, maybe it's the framework of the stories we cover. I mean, we cover the bad cop, the bad priest, the bad MP. What are we not doing? We are not giving our opinion. Maybe people want to be led by the nose right now, because if they hear someone say something that speaks to them,

and sadly, it is just not at all the values we as Canadians want to share or say out loud or say on network television. It's dangerous. I feel that it's dangerous. And I want to, I always try to stick on the side of facts, which can also be dangerous because part of the reality of today is people don't necessarily agree on what the truth is anymore. Whose facts are you going to believe? Yeah, exactly. So I don't know, but I will say that I spent a long time starting every newscast saying good evening and then spending the next 30 minutes telling people why it wasn't. And so should we be covering better news? I don't know. Would people tune in?

I don't know. I mean, there's a reason for the rise in true crime, I think. Sure. Watching true crime. People obviously are drawn to that. So when we're talking about trust, I mean, none of this, of course, is happening in a vacuum. There is declining trust in everything,

in politics, in experts, in scientists, in medicine. You've lived it. We've all lived it. I wonder what about that bigger picture worries you the most? Wow, so much worries me about it because we see it. I mean, there is a fight going on globally right now between autocracy and democracy. And most of the time, sadly, right now, I see the dictators winning and growing. And it's very worrisome, because it will be the most vulnerable who are left out in the cold here or on a curb. I worry about that a great deal. The question is, what do we do with this? How do we bring it back? And that is a real challenge.

And I don't, if I had the answers, I would literally be in a hammock in Tahiti right now with an umbrella drink because I'd have made millions of dollars trying to figure this one out. You're listening to my conversation with former CTV national news anchor Lisa Laflamme at an event called In Defense of Democracy, staged in November 2023 by the Samara Center for Democracy in Toronto.

Ideas is a podcast and a broadcast heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on U.S. Public Radio, across across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayyad. My name is Graham Isidore. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. I'm Nala Ayyad. feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted from CBC's Personally, available now. The mission of the Samara Center for Democracy is to improve the quality of democratic engagement, and they've uncovered some disturbing trends in our political discourse, particularly on social media.

Their research found almost 500,000 abusive tweets sent to candidates in the 2021 Canadian federal election alone, many of them using profane or threatening language. Racialized candidates were more likely to be targets of online abuse, and women received five times as much online abuse as men. I asked Lisa Laflamme about the impact of this online toxicity on our political culture and journalism. This is the absolute crux of all of this.

What have we allowed, as a society, social media to do to our democracy because now we're talking about certainly so many women politicians and journalists that's the one thing maybe we all have in common as women is that we are the pin cushion for social media I always used to say you know I weigh five pounds and the rest of me is thick skin, because you need it with what is coming at women largely and racialized women even more so, as you've just pointed out. The fear here is that we won't be attracting strong, confident, intelligent people to politics or journalism. It's an easy reason to turn away because it's hard and it's painful. I'm really curious what you say to young journalists or young people who want to be

journalists. I get this question all the time. Should I? Is this the right business for me? What do you say to young people who are interested in doing what we do? I say, if you're asking me, then you don't know because I'm sure it was the same for you. You just know it. It's in your blood. You're driven to it. I can't explain why but journalism is a passion. If you need to do it because it makes you who you are you will keep doing it. But I totally understand why people throw their hands in the air and say, I didn't sign up for this. None of us.

We certainly didn't. I mean, some of the stuff, I just can't even believe. And I've gone through this war in my head for years, whether I should call them out. This is disgusting what you are saying. What's an example? Oh, I couldn't even say it. I mean, is it abuse online? Social media. I used to say, thank God my mother is not on Twitter.

They're saying this about, you know, her daughter. That would not go over well. But it's so ugly, so ugly. I'm sure you could tell me the same thing. I mean, let's face it, this is the reality. I didn't often call it out. And I have questioned that. Still today, I question it. Am I giving them more oxygen? Or if we collectively call it out, will it shut it down? But I mean, we all know it's like whack-a-mole. And with AI coming along? Will it shut it down? But, I mean, we all know it's like whack-a-mole. And with AI coming along?

It's going to be worse. So, I mean, I'm the doomer. Man. But back to the bigger frame here with younger people. I mean, some even who are politically engaged are still not the ones who would tend to go to the ballot box and actually vote. The numbers show that those two things are not necessarily correlating anymore.

Do you have any idea what might account for that? Why is it that young people, we can't get young people to get younger people, not everyone, but to be interested in politics and to actually translate that into vote? The apathy is so dangerous. And you look at the voter turnout and it is truly shocking.

It's hard for me to know why this is, but I am going to go back to a feeling of disconnection with the actual community, actual people. You know, so many kids have never lived a moment of their lives without a cell phone. never lived a moment of their lives without a cell phone. And it's really easy to be so focused on something, not to realize that you're actually in this world. We're living this. And you are giving up a right. They might not even realize it's their right. Again, it comes back to media literacy.

You look at countries like Finland, Latvia, Estonia. They teach media literacy in kindergarten. Why? Because they border Russia, the absolute master of misinformation and disinformation. We have not championed this enough. And I actually have to say, you know, the education system also has to recognize the responsibility in civics. I was talking about two months ago to a high school teacher who told me they don't teach civics anymore. And I can't even actually believe that. But at that school, that is a fact. So, you know, where is it? It's the whole community that has to just wrap their arms around this situation we're in and try to come up with solutions. And that includes everyone here. I mean, if you want good journalism, you have to support good journalism. And these days, that could look

like a subscription. There's so much incredible investigative work out there. And it costs money. You have to pay for it. And we have not prioritized it. And the trickle down is kids not knowing or caring to vote. or caring to vote. So on the media literacy front, and the whole picture, as I say, how should journalists respond to this moment in a way that would serve the public interest? Keep at it. Stick at it.

Double down on it. Because there's fewer, so that's a challenge. Fewer journalists. Fewer journalists, for sure. And as I said, fewer veteran journalists, which is challenging. But the values don't change. So I would say we have to, journalists have to stick with it. News bosses have to keep fighting the good fight,

not to allow the erosion to continue and I know before anybody jumps down my throat I know it's it's not that simple to say because these are supposedly revenue generating sadly but you know fixing erosion is not simple and it is incumbent on all of us and again I need to put a little bit of pressure on the public not a little bit a lot of pressure on the public this didn't happen in a bubble if people stop watching stop reading stop paying a subscription for newspaper whatever this is the world you're getting yeah we've talked a lot about the local and i'd like to talk a bit more about the international and the challenge of course with all of this is the cost as you say and there's almost nothing in our world that costs more than covering the international scene and stories like

what's ensuing right now how important do you think it is still to have canadian eyes bearing witness on any of the things that are happening in Ukraine, Middle East, other places? I don't think anything has changed on the importance and relevancy of that. It's where news divisions build their reputations on federal elections and conflict. It's where we show what we're made of. And going to a hot zone and bringing Canadian eyes, Canadian values, I should say, are critically important, especially in this country, because every country is in our country.

So when we go and cover a conflict, no matter where it is, we are actually speaking to that community back home. They want to know, and we need to know in this world what is, through Canadian Eyes, is important because it allows you, again, it comes back to trust. on the ground covering a conflict, I believe they're telling me the truth. That's why I feel it's important. I mean, you and I both had to, you can't be everywhere. So melting a story is something every journalist has to do. For me, I was based in Toronto, for you in London, many different places. Melting meaning? Melting means you can't get there fast enough. So the footage comes in. You don't know who shot it. Somebody, an agency that your network pays for,

that agency to use that footage. You don't know who did the interview. So it's their values. Whoever did the interview, it's their values. And you're going to shoehorn them into Canadian values to tell a Canadian story and I get it it's really expensive but it's money well spent because it matters that we have the truth and what we and you know talking about democracy through the framework of our democracy why is it it's it's funny you mentioned the melting because to me I've said

this a few times publicly is it's it's actually you mentioned the melting, because to me, I've said this a few times publicly, is it's actually when I first started to notice that there is a trust issue with what we do, is people would write me and say, you're in London, why are you doing a story about XYZ, you know, using Reuters footage or AP footage, and that was kind of my first experience. You got the nice ones. I got notes that would say, you know, as an anchor, I was in Erbil, a mile from ISIS in Mosul, and they'd be saying,

why are you there? Why are you there? Like, they wanted to mock the fact that an anchor is traveling, and I've seen this so much. It's like, it shows they don't understand what the role should be which is you are a senior journalist so when we saw Adrian in the Middle East it's because you know you're getting the truth from that but melting is something that is

it's really demoralizing as well if you're sitting there watching some incredible story somewhere or something you're drawn to and you are writing to someone else's pictures. But I get it. It's got to be a reality from time to time. Could you speak to a bit more, you kind of hinted at this, of the importance of doing the international, not just so we know what's happening in the world, but because it also informs how we act as citizens in this country.

I mean, it really should. In fact, if anything, it should make us all just feel so grateful, grateful and lucky for the country that we live in, that we live in relative peace. we live in, that we live in relative peace. Not relative peace, we live in peace. And sometimes I think we can lose sight of that. I don't know how to put this, but it's a dangerous thing for people not to realize what we have, to sort of take for granted the democracy and the peace that we live in, in Canadian cities canadian neighborhoods i mean you've seen people vote for the very first time in their lives i have oh i'll never forget it in baghdad i'll never forget it the first time you know under saddam hussein of course it was he used to win by 99 i mean this is incredible and then he's gone and it was the first time with the blue ink and same in Afghanistan women voting it's

critically important for Canadians to see how far we are when we look at this was a new thing for women and of course we could get into what's happening right now in Afghanistan and and see the backslide. You still travel the world doing media training. Well, is that the right word for it? I volunteer for Journalists for Human Rights. I do some media training. I always feel weird saying that because you end up learning far more from these learning far more from these reporters. If I had the guts to be a reporter in the Congo or in Mexico or Haiti or so many countries in the world where you literally are taking your life in your hands. I worked with female reporters in Goma, the war zone in northeastern Congo. And these women had to sleep in their newsrooms because it was too dangerous for them to go home.

And one woman in particular, she made a lot of enemies because she was covering, reporting on this sort of open river bed that was costing people hours to go daily back and forth to get their water. And one simple bridge would have solved it and you've made a 15 minutes to get your water. And of course, she follows the money because the money, international aid organizations had given the money, but it was never built. She follows the money, obviously makes a lot of enemies doing that. And she had just had a baby and she couldn't even go home and breastfeed her baby. It was too dangerous for her to leave that newsroom.

And the crack of dawn, she'd go home, feed her baby. But these are the things they're willing to do. And I've seen this so many times in so many countries, most recently Tunisia, as I mentioned, Kenya, there's really no end. Afghanistan, these women who could report with a, they used to put a graphic in front of their face of a rose, then they weren't allowed to report at all. Now they can't even go to a park or go to school. And this is something happening that we are not even talking about anymore. And that is the cycle of news. We forget so fast. It's so true. I wonder if that contributes

sometimes to the trust issues that are out there, is that we do have such a fleeting look at things sometimes. It's partly, of course, dictated by the pace of news, which I don't know about you, but it feels like it's going a thousand miles an hour all the time. It really does. And that could be. I mean, there's a lot of reasons we, this trust erosion, again, I can't identify a moment where it started, except we should have caught on sooner, and we didn't. So back to that. If you were in charge of a big newsroom like CTV or CBC, but where would you begin? Where would you begin a reinvention?

Because my sense is that that's what's required, is a reinvention. Well, I don't know about reinventing journalism because the values yes are the same they should never change great i would say that for news owners whatever strategy they come up with or platform or model, I would say they have to maintain or enhance the ethics, the news ethics that go into it. I mean, people throw the word scoop around. And every time you hear that word, that is a professional journalist who has a source gave him information or her followed it up double source triple sourced um this is not like a rumor on twitter you know it is it is verifiable this information and that takes a lot of guts it takes a lot of money to give a reporter time to investigate and I understand that that is a challenge but I would

say if I could I would try to rebuild rebuild not reinvent rebuild in local especially rebuild those relationships that are disappearing and in some cases have completely disappeared by centralizing systems. You lose those relationships. And I think you can possibly, over time, you could restore that if there was a commitment to it. And it has to be a collective commitment of the public as well. As I say, you want good good journalism you have to support it in the absence of that the trajectory that we're on what's your prognosis what do you see down the

road for traditional media for media in general like what are you seeing are you worried uh sure I'm worried but I'm willing to pivot to wherever like I know as a journalist I know who I whose material I trust and love to read whether it's any newspaper or anywhere in the world any newscast anywhere in the world one of the beautiful things is I can watch nine broadcasts from nine different countries every single day I can read from all around the world. So that's a plus. The challenge is that these platforms, they have to pay their reporters more than a living wage. And if you're giving someone not enough to put a roof or feed their children, that is another reason why they're going to switch industries. And that is a heartbreak to me, especially for

those who are passionate about it but are I mean I know reporters you probably do too who are working at a bar just to and that's because they're you know they're working as vjs and and whenever I'm asked for advice I feel so I mean that the challenges young reporters face right now I didn't have 30 years ago they have to shoot write edit and those are all and worry about your security and worry about your security 100% but those are all skills alone writing is a skill shooting camera work is a skill editing is a skill and not anymore you've got to be good at all of it. Or guess what? There's people in line waiting for your job. And that's

wrong. It should not continue. And again, it's about questions on why does this have to be revenue generating? And I know people are maybe rolling their eyes at that. But there is a relationship between

democracy and journalism that I don't think we are connecting the dots enough to really say this is happening on our watch. We're letting it slide. I just have one last question before we go to our audience questions, which I have with me that many of you have submitted before we even began. Our CBC Massey lecture this year, Astra Taylor said something that's really relevant to this conversation that we've been having.

A kind of challenge to all of us. She said, who would I be to talk about democracy if I wasn't trying to democratize our society? So I wanted to put that to you, I guess, beyond us talking about this. What is it that you think that you and I and everybody here should be doing now to protect our democracy for tomorrow? Well, first of all, to everybody here, you obviously believe, as we believe, democracy is important enough to have, and the Samara Centre talks about this all the time, the importance of these conversations to engage people, to bring young people into the conversation. There's a lot more we could do, and sometimes I think people don't,

they say, oh, nobody will want to hear what I have to say. Or no, you're part of it. Whatever you're doing in your community makes you a reason we want to hear from you, I always think. Or I don't know anything about politics. Yeah. Wow. And yet you're doing something really cool for your community. And that alone makes you someone the rest of us aspire to be, more of a player and less of an observer. And I guess that's the bottom line on that, is what could we do? And it's things great and small. It's not complicated.

Maybe we overthink things as a society, and it really can be done in small doses and together. Even if it's just your neighbourhood, you see a difference. Now we'll let the audience give their questions to you. So it starts here. And some of these are really big questions. And yours weren't? Oh my goodness. It's all democracy. Yeah, exactly. Well, some of this is really big questions um and yours weren't oh my goodness it's all democracy

yeah exactly well some of this is the same oh no what in your opinion should a 21st century reset for democracy look like okay wow no not too challenging there well uh again'm going to sort of say a similar thing the responsibility on the consumer is even greater now to separate the news from the noise and if you don't do your own homework on that you're going to pay the price. I mean, we are paying the price already. So to reinvent, no, it wasn't reinvent. What was it? Reset. Reset, oh my goodness.

Buy one of those things on Amazon. It's called a reset button and you just slap it and you're good to go. There's no easy answer to that question, but it is the collective that has to do it. And it's not okay for people to just sit in the background and complain and observe. Oh, the media does this,

the media does that, or my politicians do this, or my politicians do that, or whomever. It's about getting involved, taking some ownership of our own world and our own country. This question addresses

the number of journalists who've been killed in this conflict in gaza in particular um and many others and others what is the responsibility of the journalistic community in canada towards their global peers i'll stop there there's a few parts of this question well i think it's enormous i mean up to to 40 in the Middle East in the last month. I think we're at 17 in Ukraine. I think I looked at, in 2022, 180 journalists killed. It is absolutely terrifying for us to see this unfold. And would say for journalists for human rights where we we go to these conflict zones and try to I don't know this isn't even the right word but validate almost and show they are not alone we're we're backing them um but you know we're backing them

if we're safe somewhere I would like to be right beside them right now is the actual truth of this, because I feel like it's in our instinct to do that, but it's not always possible. So I think it really is supporting whoever they're working for. A lot of these, by the way, are working for very small online operations, not networks. And people need to realize that.

If you want to read an online publication, again, I go back to, sure, you could Google it and find it, or you could pay for the subscription to give that camera person or that reporter some support when they need it so that they have a proper flak jacket, a proper helmet, because there are renegades out there who want to do this, want to cover this, and don't have the support system around them or the insurance if they die for their families. So it is painful.

And we all in the journalistic community are doing so much to try to raise money for families of a lot of reporters and camera people who've died because it doesn't stop at their death they've got children yeah it's horrifying there's a second part to this is is in it's i think you partly answer this how challenging it is to navigate supporting some of these journalists depending on what side of a conflict they might end up on you know whether it's Ukraine-Russia or the Middle East. Does that make it harder to provide support? To me, it doesn't, because a journalist, our obligation is to the truth.

Point final. And I feel that if a journalist is in a conflict zone to try to bring that story to the outside world, then we have some solidarity there on supporting them. From your perspective as an international journalist, if you had to pinpoint one central problem, this is another big one, that is spurring the global slide to authoritarianism and away from democratic processes, what would you identify as the key issue? Well, people feel disenfranchised, for sure, as I said,

but I'm going to say, based on some analysis I have done on this subject, tragically, it is in this world of conflict, I think the last number I saw was 108 million people who are refugees or migrating. They, for whatever reason, had to leave their homeland. And that immigration, tragically, is largely behind so much of the hate that we see, the rise in autocracies, this nationalist thinking. And I always say, you know, if a person, of course they want to be in their homeland with their language,

their granny, their granddad, their cousins. If it is so deadly and dangerous, of course they want to go where it's going to be safer for their children. So I get so upset when I see what's happening. And largely, I've seen it tied back to global crisis. You see mass influx of refugees from somewhere. And it's heartbreaking, really, because it just goes to show you people don't think much further than than you know what's right in front of them one last question here that i have um what do you think about media representation of youth civic engagement do you think that there are perspectives and new ways of reporting on youth activism that could invite them into the political process?

There's always new ways. I think one of the exciting things is that we explore new ways. And I think, you know, any news organization actually does try to do that. During every local, provincial, or federal election campaign, there's always going to be, you know, you might want to call it a gimmick. We're going to drive, I did it myself, drove a bus across Canada, and it was a really cool assignment.

But it was a slightly gimmicky, but what it also did was allow us to go into communities we wouldn't have otherwise seen, hear what they're thinking about. There's lots of ideas to engage people in certainly voting, I think. And the challenge is coming up with these ideas and, you know, getting people to show up and participate in it. But yeah, I mean, I would never say there aren't always a raft of ideas yet to be discovered that will somehow light a firecracker under somebody who then can tell two friends and so on and so on. Lighting firecrackers. Yes. I look forward to hearing more from what you're doing.

Thank you so much for taking all the questions and for being here tonight. Thank you. It's great to be with you, Nala. Thank you. slash ideas. This episode was produced by Chris Watscow. Special thanks to Sabrina Dellen and the team at the Samara Centre for Democracy, to Beth Hanna and Gail Packwood from Ontario Heritage Trust, and the team at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto. Technical production, Danielle Duval.

Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso Acting Senior Producer, Lisa Godfrey Greg Kelly is the Executive Producer of Ideas And I'm Nala Ayyad For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.