Life Uncut - PART 2 - Journalism and social media with JAN FRAN - LIVE SHOW BONUS

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

Ya'll asked for it! The cut down interviews from our LIVE SHOW!We will be dropping 4 bonus episodes with all the amazing guests from our Sydney Live show. The first 2 guest are dropping Wednesday and the final 2 on Friday.WELCOME TO PART 2On this episode we speak to Journalist, TV presenter and podcaster Jan Fran on women in the media, how social media is impacting journalism and how misinformation spreads.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hey guys, welcome back to a very special little episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura.

And this is one of our bonus episodes from the live show. We have packaged up all of our amazing guests and giving them to you right here. If you haven't listened to part one, that was with Chantel Otten. And this is part two, who was our second guest of the night, Jan Fran. Now Jan Fran is an award-winning journalist. She is the host of Question Everything on the ABC. She's also a reoccurring host on The Project and during the live show we spoke about misogyny in the media and also how social media is impacting journalism. Let's get into the chat. Jan Fran, get on out here. Yeah. Hello. Jan Fran, take a seat.

Can I get you a champagne? Sorry, I have not seen this many people in this room since the last Lebanese wedding that I went to. It's fantastic. You all look so beautiful. I'm so glad you're here. Hello. Cheers.

I can't be sure that no one hasn't already drunk out of that one. So if you're not, you know, as hard as COVID, go for it. Okay. Well, you know what? Let's just roll the dice. We all hugged earlier. It's fine. Jan, Fran, we are so excited to have you here.

I, look, you might not have ever listened to an episode of the podcast, but I'm quickly going to tell you. I reckon she did her research. She's a journalist. She knows what she's doing. We start every episode, as everyone here would know, with someone's accidentally unfiltered story. We thought we'd throw you under the bus, metaphorical bus.

Do you have an accidentally unfiltered you would share with us slash livestream slash the 1,300 people in the room? Yes, I did. I did a little bit of planning before I got here. And there's a couple, because there's a bunch of embarrassing moments that I've had. You've got to go to the worst one because I talked about shitting in my kitchen this one made me feel the most embarrassed like deeply on

the inside so a couple of years ago I was doing a like a triathlon which is insane I do not do triathlons and you just you have to admire like the hoods bar required to think that you can do a triathlon when you've never trained for triathlon um or you can't spell triathlon but I'm like I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do a triathlon and so it was a mini triathlon and what it was was it was like a one kilometer ocean swim a 20k bike ride and a 5k jog so it was like it was intense you know and the swim was the first thing that we had to do so we're all there like in like shivering in speedos waiting to get into the ocean and the the people who run the show were giving us you know just some tips okay this is what we're going

to do this is how you're going to do it cool cool cool and one of them says now if you feel like you're tired or you're drowning or you know you need a bit of a break just swim over to the nearest boy sounds like my sort of game Never heard the word boy before So I'm thinking They've got like young boys In the water That I'm supposed to be swimming over to

If I get tired and in my mind I'm like that's insane but I'm looking around and everyone's like yeah no worries yeah I can swim over to the nearest boy just cling on that's yeah no problem and I'm just like did they say nearest boy and I looked over at my friend who's like you know listening intently and I was like I'm sorry are you okay with this she's like okay with what and i was like like grabbing onto a boy and she's like yeah that's what you're supposed to do grab onto a boy so i'm like all right i mean damn if that's the rule that's the rule so i guess i'm gonna grab onto the nearest boy

so i'm out there swimming it's ocean it's ocean boarding you know what i mean like i'm used to the 25 meter heated pool at Reesby like that's that's where I'm at right now I'm in the ocean and you're swimming and I'm like oh you're getting a bit flustered and there's like someone next to me and I'm looking around like there's no boys like where are these boys you know like what do these boys look like like what are they wearing like there's just there's so many questions at this point And I'm in mid-swim, and this is a competition, mind you, so people are, like, and I was, you know, I'm, like, trying to, like...

Have you ever tried to tap someone on the shoulder while you're doing an ocean swim? It's fucked. And I was, like, I'm sorry, like, can you see any, like, boys? And she's, like, yeah, like, that's a boy. And points to a very small flotation device. Imagine if you had just swum over and grabbed onto something there. I'm drowning.

But that's what, like, that's what I was on the lookout for. Like a young boy that I can go and just cling to during the ocean swim. And, like, you know, it dawned on me mid-swim. That that's illegal in multiple countries? In the ocean. Exactly. So many things dawned on me and I was like, I've never felt more humiliated but also more relieved you know this is this mix of emotion

this sounds like producer Keisha in my Saturday night looking for boys and humiliation I feel like this is like standard shout out to you Keisha whatever a flotation device will do you know Jen look going from talking about boys to talking about misogyny in the newsroom kind of a bit of a stretch but we're going there we're heading deep No, but that's, like, I thought, like, the whole thing about it was, like, a bit misogynist. Like, I don't need a boy. I don't need no boy. I'm an independent woman.

I don't need a boy. But then, like, how quickly did I just change my mind and go, yeah, okay, I can hang on to a boy. I need a boy. I need a boy. I do actually need a boy. And I literally asked the person, like, I need a boy. Where is there a boy? Anyway, yeah, that's what happened.

Something we've spoken about multiple times on the podcast is, I mean, you're a woman who works in journalism. this is your day-to-day everyday job you are around it all the time but something that's been this common thread that we've come back to in our conversations that we've had is around how a lot of the media has a misogynistic current that kind of runs through it you see it in headlines you see it in news articles and I wonder what is your experience with misogyny in the news and as a journalist I mean I kind of look at it sort of okay the one the biggest difference is that as a female journalist or a presenter you're expected to look a certain way and because you're expected to look a certain way what ends up happening is that you spend an extra two hours getting you know

doing hair and makeup and getting the costume sorted so that that actually ends up being more work like people don't necessarily look at that as labor but it is it is actually an extra two hours on top of what your male colleague is doing just so you're able to look the way that you do we got here a paid day two extra hours fyi i have never thought about that and that is so interesting because it's just something that you expect that you have to do to be on tv but when you add that up it literally takes one and a half to two hours to have professional hair and makeup done for tv and that is one and a half to two hours that you're not being paid for 100 and and the especially if you work in daily i'm angry yes going back for my wine

but it's like if you work in daily television as well it's you know things move so quickly and you find yourself sometimes sitting in the makeup chair where you and you get really stressed because you're like I don't feel like I have the time to do this because I'm running behind because a number of things have happened um and it kind of kind of adds to like a level of stress and what it comes down to is that the expectation is different on women versus men do you I mean like off the top of your head what are some other differences or expectations that you have found in the industry besides obviously what we just discussed getting ready the extra two hours have you felt like uh you have an uphill battle in any other aspects and compared to your male

counterparts um well it's it's interesting you should ask that because i i had a baby 14 weeks ago. Thank you. It was the longest three and a half minutes of my life. But I'm very fortunate to work for, I host a show called Question Everything at the moment for the ABC. Very fortunate to be in an environment that provides a space for me to be able to express. Very fortunate to be in an environment that has a lot of women working there and women who have children as well who are able to say, oh, you're coming back to work, that's cool, we know that you can only work three days a week,

we know that when you're with your kid, it's going to be difficult for us to get in touch with you, you know. And so for me, that's been really fortunate, but it's made me think of all of the places that don't have that, that see motherhood as a liability and not an asset and we keep getting told over and over again like oh your motherhood is the most important job being a mum is the most important job in the world it's the most important job well fucking pay me like it's the most important job you know like I want to walk into a restaurant like I'm the CEO of Mac Bank like if if that is in fact if it is if

you really believe that it is the most important job then you will sort of act accordingly um in in your business and in in your profession and sometimes journalism in the media because there's a lot of pressure to travel there's a lot of pressure to look a certain way there's a lot of pressure to be available all of the time uh you you do feel like you're slightly on the outer when you become a mum I want to talk about social media uh we I mean I have a love-hate relationship with it sometimes I'm sure everyone here sometimes you love it sometimes you want to throw your phone in the ocean and never have it again but then I can't write back on Bumble so I need it um what is your what is it that was serious what is your thought on social media do you love it do you

hate it because I have heard you talk you've got an interesting outlook on it uh I'm I mean I would probably bet that most people in this room have that love-hate relationship with social media like am I correct in saying that a lot of people yeah we know what's destroying our brains yeah you know like you you you love it because it's it's fun and you feel like you can connect with people you see things and it's new and it's interesting but you know the way it's like eroding your attention you know the way that it's making you feel anxious you know all of the ways that it does sort of damage to you but you can't stop using it and in some instances like I'm sure you guys would be the same it's a source of income it's a source of building you know the brand of

your podcast and promoting all of the work that you do so actually you need it it's not just you know a thing that you can choose to turn off at any time and you mentioned something when we were speaking about how it erodes your relationships as well in terms of how it erodes your ability to be present yeah and to actually like connect with people and I'm sure we're all guilty of this where you'll just you'll be at home with your partner that could be time that you could be speaking to them and with them but instead you're on Instagram and they're on TikTok or maybe I'm just talking about my own relationship but it really is this kind of like caveat that can be between you but the thing that's so interesting and I guess in the world that you work in in journalism is that

not only is it part of your job but it's now a completely unavoidable thing we all consume the news through social media and it's also shaping how the news is presented how it's written about how have you found that has shifted in the last couple of years I found that we deal we deal with headlines a lot more we've always sort of dealt with headlines like even newspapers really like I don't know if anyone is that old that they can remember reading a newspaper but you would normally open it yeah you'd read the headlines you'd read a couple of like paragraphs you know you might not read the whole thing back to front so we've always sort of dealt that but social media has really shrunk the amount of time that we spend on each story and also added 1000 more

stories in that time so what you're then getting is just the top line and furthermore to that you're not just getting the top line but you're getting someone's opinion on the top line so sometimes what you guys might find depending on what social media app you're on even though they're all sort of similar in this way is the first time you come to a news story might be when somebody that you follow shares it and if somebody that you follow shares it they're sharing it because they've got a thought about it it's either really good or it's really bad or it's emotive in some way so immediately you're coming to that story with an emotion or an inbuilt emotion you haven't even read it right you've just seen the headline you've just seen the share and when you come to

something with an emotion what you're more likely to do is react to it and react to it quicky quicky you are on a sex and relationship but we can't I believe you've already had the sex talk um you you react to it quickly um and so what there's this really good saying that I that I really love that's kind of just helped me you know get a bit grounded it's there is a space between stimulus and response right so a space between something that you see hear feel what someone said to you a story that you've read anything and the way that you respond to it and the bigger that space and the more you foster that space the more present you are the better your life will be 100 what social media does is shrink that space so what you're doing is you're

getting the stimulus and the response is immediate you're getting something and you're responding because either you're angry or you really love it or you're proud or whatever it might be but it's an immediate response so in that sense it almost makes it feel like i mean do you think that this is what is contributing to outrage culture to this feeling of cancel culture and that's where it's all stemming from because we not all but you know having an impactful part on this where we read something and then because we're so close to it we are so angry about it yeah and and and it's not it's not just that it's you're angry because so the person who shared the article that you've seen you likely follow them and I always say social media is not about content it's about

community like you guys are all here because you've probably connected or you know you know Britt and Laura from social media but because you have a shared set of values right there's things that you have in common and so there's a sense of community and that's why you're here and so So when you, when somebody shares something and they're angry about it, odds are you'll be angry about it too because it's someone within your community who is feeling like, you know, they've been hurt or they're outraged or something has, you know, happened to them to make them share this, that you will have a sort of a similar reaction as a way of actually connecting with that person. So it becomes a communal thing and that's just, that's one of the things that contributes to like outrage culture. there's a thousand talking about how as a journalist the landscape has changed because of social media there's a lot of people that do go and get their news from social media they don't read the newspaper anymore it used to be it used to be dominated by like these two juggernauts

nine entertainment news corp that was the only place you could get your news now and social media is amazing an amazing tool for giving marginalized groups a voice and a place to have their opinion and their say but how do we differentiate fact from fiction how do we how do we stop the spread of misinformation and how do we know what is the right thing to believe because I mean there are times I have read a headline sometimes and like I know better now but sometimes I would read a headline and I was gobsmacked and I would tell someone and then someone would say where did you hear that from and I couldn't have even told you like a headline on social media I mean on Instagram I couldn't have even told you where it came from I was like oh I saw it online

I mean what a for an educated woman what a dumb response I saw it online and I know better now but how can people start to filter through the bullshit and know what is fact and fiction and where they should be getting their information from well I have a hot tip it's called the make a sandwich method and anytime you see something that you're particularly outraged by that you feel like you need to comment on or you feel like you need to tell someone about or you feel like you need to engage make a sandwich just pause for a second go to your kitchen get some peanut butter get some jam whatever it is that you're into some cheese and tomato devon and tomato sauce no one is judging here make a sandwich just sit with it for a minute and when you do that sort of feeling of

and it usually is outrage because outrage is what gets people to share stuff it's there's studies that show that people will share bad news a lot more than they share good news they'll share bad reviews of restaurants a lot more than they share good reviews of restaurants right we get that on the podcast reviews you know we did a really interesting episode with Johan Hari and he said not only do we react to it more but the algorithm anytime that it senses that someone is angry it will populate that to your feeds over somebody being happy because it knows that that will extend the engagement it knows like it's so fucking smart the social media but it knows that you're angry and it will push that out with more like with more power with more ferocity than what it would do

if it was you know a happy beautiful photo or a happy beautiful memory yeah so there's like it's it's actually not an individual thing you know there are there are people who are employed by big tech companies in Silicon Valley to get you to stay on these things. It's not just that, you know, you've decided, oh, this is a personal choice that you've made in a vacuum. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a very deliberate thing

that people are trying to harness your attention. And the best way to do that is to constantly be turning this sort of, like, outrage horse. Outrage horse. I like that. Jan, can you tell us in terms of, like, how does misinformation especially across social media like how does it spread and when you you know especially when there's like you have 90 facts but that 10 that's made that story so much worse or so much more embellished i would say you have um 10 facts and 90 fluff uh exaggeration

rumor salaciousness context missing all of that kind of stuff but it spread so easily there was a study that was done that showed they they took a bunch of like tweets over a period of time about vaccine misinformation this was i think last year at 2020 um and they showed that 90 percent of anti-vax information or misinformation on twitter during this period of time had come from just 12 people around everywhere around the world 12 people 12 people that is insanity but and they they were called the disinformation dozen so like when you talk about how when you ask how does it spread the answer is very easily but when you say 12 people do you mean like 12 journalists 12 doctors 12 like who are the 12 people that are the root of that information i mean one of them

is the nephew of john f kennedy as you do you know there's there's um physicians there's uh wellness bloggers there's there are doctors that are part of them um yeah they have they they are real people they have real accounts and do you know what i think this is this is such an interesting part of this is that it all comes back down to influence like we and i mean we all do it like obviously we have a social media following ourselves but we all follow people who we find influential and often you will like listen to someone give health advice or you'll listen to someone give relationship advice or like things where they're not necessarily completely qualified in because you really love that person coming back to that thing that you said Jen about community

you love the community that they've built but that doesn't mean that the information is necessarily correct this is why we put a disclaimer on every podcast and it's why we get experts in we're not professional but what you just you just said a word um you said many words you said disinformation when we were talking about misinformation what's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? Yeah, so they're two different things. Disinformation is deliberately sharing information that is erroneous with intention to mislead, right?

So you deliberately sharing something that you know is bullshit with an intention to mislead somebody who reads it, that's disinformation. Misinformation is sharing information that is erroneous without knowing that it's wrong, right? Which is what a lot of people do and it's not, you know, they have their intention is not to deceive people but they themselves believe this to be true they're sharing it and it's misinformative just off the top of your head and i hate putting on the spot

but can you think of an example around disinformation that you're like this is what springs to mind that this is an intentional act of trying to mislead people about a certain topic um yeah i mean there was like an article um again this was just last year off the top of my head but it was like the pope has uh disendorsed the vaccine right which was just completely false sorry who disendorsed the pope oh yeah oh i mean big news i personally wouldn't listen to anything the pope says but that's a lot of people do but a lot of people do um but you know that was like that was an article that was just flat out wrong um and the point of it being shared was to you know confuse people was to get people to go hang on what I really you know I love the Pope I'm a

Catholic I believe everything the Pope says um there's also things like Russian bots so there's there's a thing called troll farms I don't know if you guys heard of troll farms so troll farms are these like um actual sort of ecosystems I guess you can call them of um people in places like Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe that go online and pose as people. To troll people. Yeah, not just to troll people, but to, like, meddle in US politics.

There was a woman online called Jenna Abrams, this was a couple of years back, who was sort of, like, had, you know, a right-wing personality and she had a name and a faith and a family and thoughts and ideas and engaged with people. And I think it was, like, one ambassador to somewhere, a US ambassador somewhere ended up getting into a tiff with her like Roseanne got into a tiff with her a whole bunch of people got into a tiff with this person she wasn't real she was somebody that

was invented they found out by a Russian troll farm that came out of a Russian troll farm and there are we don't know how many of those are out there so when I say like make a sandwich it's like if you get outraged you're probably talking to jenna abrams who is a 16 year old ukrainian well not maybe not not not now but you know that could be that was not meant to be humorous but you know there is a 16 year old in in eastern europe just like in a basement tapping away what jen friend i also don't i love that call you jen friend yeah i'm like share the jen friend from the project um i also don't want to put you on the spot but i'm going to like laura um what like if you could only have sex in one position for the rest of your life

like you get one shot one position what's what's it gonna be what's the hill you die on that's it one more and think you can look at the shop she is she's like why why would you do this i wasn't a very natural segue oh god i can't even remember the last time i had actually no i can it was 14 weeks and nine months ago yeah Um, one position for the rest of my life? The rest of your life. And you can just do this one? It can just be sleep.

You can say that. It's fine. Yeah, one. I mean, I'd like to be conscious when it's happening. That's not what I meant. Daily Mail, don't write that headline. That's awful. Oh, God.

I would love to be able to edit that out, but we can't. Yeah, Jan Fran. I'd love to be conscious when having sex. God. That's a hundred percent the headline. How did that happen? Well, this is why we just had the chat about misinformation and clickbait. But what is it? Here we are, like

disinformation, misinformation, the thing that gets quoted is, I'd like to be conscious when fucking, please. That's fantastic. How would I, look, I mean, you would have to say missionary on the back, wouldn't you? Of course you have to. Is that what you said?

Yes. What did you say? I couldn't hear you from up there. She said doggy, but fuck. I'm so single and adventurous and I don't get that much back pain yet, so I'd, well, use it while you can. You know what? I would say doggy because you can, if, when you get older and more tired, you don't have to be on your knees, you can sort of, like, plop forward and be like,

it's too fine. Hang on, hang on, hang on. You don't always have to be up. Well, he does, but you don't. Which position are you assuming in doggy? Because there's two, baby. Well, you don't know. I mean, I just did it. You don't need to see me do it. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Ladies and gentlemen,

jan friend thank you so much for joining us thanks guys what a pleasure thank you thank you Thanks for watching!