FT Future of News US 2019- Keynote Interview with David Remnick

I'm delighted to be joined here by a David Remnick the editor of the night appear thank you very much for for coming thank you we've talked about lots of things here today and some of things that keep coming up I actually think they keep coming up because I keep bringing them up so and this sense of polarization in in the media and polarization in society and I was reading I've got it here the excellent piece on the future of the press by Jill Lepore jazz in The New Yorker a few months ago and she quoted Alan Ross Roger the format of the Guardian saying that social media heightened the social divide of sorts and he said chaotic information is free good information is increasingly expensive which meant that good information is increasingly for smaller elites do you agree holy I think it's you know I when I was when the web the internet started to show its muscle and to present itself I made it a point any time I got invited to a some sort of event some evening where people were going to discuss the ins and outs of the internet and the news business and all the rest to accept the invitation I knew I was being invited I was some sort of you know dinosaur editor at a magazine that represented by a guy in a top hat and a monocle I I knew my role knew a place right I was going to be the stegasaurus at the petting zoo and I did nothing but learn and learn and learn by these evenings and everybody was a bit young or a lot younger and there were many things said in those evenings that turned out to be absolutely true but there also turned out to be things said that we're absolutely nonsense number one nobody will read anything online that's longer than 400 words nonsense complete and utter nonsense I how many people do sit next to on the subway reading not just New Yorker pieces but even things slightly longer like anna karenina it happens the other thing that was said all the time was information wants to be free well the impulse of that was information wants to get around it wants to be fluid it wants to have a fluidity in international terms and maybe interplanetary terms and all the rest but what was not taken into this kind of angelical terminology of the internet was that there's there is as Alan says information that's good information and information it's crap that's false that's a lie that's underreported that's not fact checked much less spell check whatever there's a lot of that so Alan is absolutely right that in order to cover the war in Sudan or City Hall or the complexities of a presidential can campaign or incipient authoritarianism all over Europe in the rest of the world much less in the United States that's expensive it requires people of skill training editors travel budgets yes things can be done in a new way in a different way and there are economies that can be made I'm told that constantly by my corporate overlords but information that's provided from a foreign country by a correspondent who speaks the language and knows something and knows how to write or to broadcast or to edit as opposed to somebody who knows nothing and is writing it off the top of his or her head is immensely different so I think that that's number one number two on the question of it's for smaller and smaller no because I look information even good information can cascade to use the corporate term at this point in the United States which is a country of 300 odd million people almost everybody knows who Harvey Weinstein is and I don't think it's because of Shakespeare and love the collected circulations of the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine which did that story I don't know 5 million I don't know what the numbers are but it's immensely less than the number of people who now know at least the crux of the story that led to the me to movement mm-hmm so information has a way of getting around right but elite media produces the report does the reporting really I use elite advisedly and it spreads because of it because of the quality of the story because the story has punch and impact and write spreads because of the quality the reporting it spreads because we have the technological means to do it right we have even the technological means to steal it yes which is another subject that I'm sure was discussed all day long I mean that story the Weinstein story had huge impact and people you know does he say yeah social political we were talking earlier about whether the the press has lost its lost any there's been a waning of power in the press and I'd mentioned the you know the those of us in my agency who to see this period as a particular heyday but the early 70s and you know Watergate and the Pentagon Papers and things things happening as a consequence of politically as a consequence of reporting and and quality journalism do you think the old the old model was David Halberstam 29 year old reporter is in Saigon and he starts to realize that he's being lied to by generals and politicians and starts to send dispatches back into the New York Times saying this is a lot of hogwash the old model is Rachel Carson and the pages of The New Yorker tells us that in fact DDT is maybe not good for the bloodstream and that report which reaches several hundred thousand people flows out into the bloodstream of the media so that Walter Cronkite eventually gets up on the air and CBS Evening News and speaks to tens of millions of people that the Vietnam War is a fiasco and what happened gradually and before technology even so there were alternate institutions that grew up alongside of this for example there was the rise of the counter establishment during the Reagan administration both in academia and in media where you saw the rise of conservative institutions and that's that's one story and then of course technology provides you with other instruments and it's never been used with more bluntness and force and impeccable finesse than by the President of the United States which is to say Twitter yeah and and I'm being incredibly wry by saying bye-bye you or Willian means yeah we have a president who does not hesitate to say that the truth is false and falsity is truth and it's straight out of the pages of 1984 and it's immensely difficult to combat and journalists tie themselves up into knots about whether they should use the word lie or not lie or because we're we're four years grew up in a certain kind of understanding we all knew that presidents and politicians lie but we didn't know that the privilege would be abused at such a scale so how do we how do we deal with that it's a very serious set of problems that that are presented do you think that the press and this country's got it right with the way it is covered Trump well what's the press is the press what Dean Beck a is running at the New York Times and Marty Barron's at the post and what with the setting into Financial Times or is it Breitbart news or is it Facebook or is it or or or what is it mmm you have to I think I think you can't say there's this thing called the media okay well in the job I don't mean to be picky you know I'm just thinking with a difference but there's some corners of the press I wouldn't right we're going to go into which ones have been quite adversarial combative and the way I can say which ones you mean no uh-uh no no I was thinking about about by I guess I guess you CNN I've been pretty calm pretty punchy I think I don't mind say look talker we satirized for what what good it might or might not - yes yes Father president knighted States and I think that's you know that's been a role of the press since you know Thomas Nast caricature a boss tweed yeah no but do you think that that so that helps generally I mean in the same Jill DePaul piece she says the more I have a Sarah all the press the more loyal Trump's followers become the more broken American public life do you do I think it's a complicated subject because again what's the press right I think that it's very important when we're writing a a news report or a a let's say a foreign piece from Moscow or Washington or what-have-you that is a different set of requirements not in terms of true and false and accurate or Interac Europe a different set of requirements than an individual column is saying I think X right so if Jane Mayer is writing a piece about the Koch brothers it is incumbent upon Jane and the whole operation to make sure that we're going to incredible lengths to hear from the Koch brothers or their representatives and not just their critics so there are different kinds of journalists in different forms certain in certain institutions certain publications allow more of a direct point of view than others I would presume that the the folkways of the Financial Times front page is different from the way you Breitbart views itself or even the New York Times on the margins there these debates go on so I don't look let's let's be frank people here are sophisticated about the press there's no code of behavior there's no there's no Bible there's no Ten Commandments of how this has to work Micah I grew up in the Washington Post newsroom and there were certain understandings of things that you didn't did not do and the lengths that you went to and all the rest but the idea that there are rules about every single one of it I think is it's just not quite accurate what about the the readers or the viewers and the sense that they may be coming to have none - a lot of this or tuning out a lot of the things they read particularly about political coverage today I was thinking specifically about we hear the statistic you hear the statistics about confidence in the media being low i I've been at this for a while yeah I don't remember the statistics showing that the confidence in the media were ever soaring lehigh I there are a lot of people who hated the idea of oppositional press about Vietnam and Watergate which was the real breakthrough at least in contemporary terms a moment yeah things changed at that point didn't they I mean the there became more institutions there became more voices I don't think this is necessarily bad it's just a hell of a lot more complicated and it's a situation that the president United States if we're gonna be very contemporary about it has exploited to the maximum look i my salad days were in moscow i lived in in moscow in what we now call as the good old days 1988 through the end of the basically left the day the Soviet Union collapsed take no causal can you know conclusion from that before things got really bad it really did and you know so the phrase broad Neruda enemy of the people this is a Stalin a Stalinist phrase hmm it was used during Robespierre's time as well in French and so this is extraordinarily ugly what's going on and it's not to be underestimated I don't think if you're being honest about the description of our contemporary times you can soft-pedal the seriousness of having a president United States who not only reflects assertive ignorant of the facts or who Lorelei's about him but insists that the media does as well and when the media tells the truth factual terms exerts every every lever he has to undermine it hmm but I was thinking specifically about stories which in another time would have been bombshells like the time six the times tax exposure we know movie years of work multiple pages incredible revelations and within a day I agree with you two advantage from the nice the cycle I think even those of us who work in this everyday have to guard against exhaustion right have to guard against this is a remember the phrase that we all said two years ago or those of us who were inclined to say no normalization meme yeah well that's exactly what's happened what in order to get from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday in order to live your life and pick up your kids and buy a quart of milk and do all the things that you you know enjoy an evening god forbid you psychologically begin to normalize the craziness all around you otherwise you can't get from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday you go out of your mind that's hard on the other hand you cannot allow that to happen to such a degree that we wake up and we live in an in a political culture that's permanently despoiled mm-hmm that's as dangerous in its way as what we're doing to the air and the seas that we depend on mmm it's as serious as all that and there's an entire economy built around it and it is not just one guy it's not one hilarious seeming blowhard is it is a international tendency that you see everywhere of almost almost everywhere of consequence mmm and the United States leadership has given permission to other countries and its leadership stew do this this is extraordinarily serious so I understand the the the numbing effect you're absolutely right but it's part of our jobs to resist it hmm it's it's it's hard is is Trump's my genius a genius in quote marks is the G is his genius to to do this to flood the airwaves in the you know cyberspace with tweets to to create that numbness or or is or is it to realize actually most people don't really care that much I know that's that's what that's what I dreamed of I think it's condescending to say and I don't mean I know you don't mean to be that but but it is something to think about most people it life is tough yeah life is just difficult people are sick your work is difficult you you lost your job you or your somebody and your family is having a different life is difficult mmm life ain't no joke but a lot of the time and to have to concentrate on this very complex set of concerns that we call politics and to have a intimate understanding of it for a lot of people is it's complicated and difficult and not as a horrible mm-hmm and exhausting and Trump depends on this yeah Trump depends on on that the part of the drama of the coming election will be to what degree does he succeed in sustaining the attentions the affections and the loyalties of people who voted for him saying you know what I am I just want to blow it up I just I I know he's a jerk in some way or I know he's dishonest in this way I know his business seems shady to me I don't like the way he behaves with women I know he doesn't tell the truth all the time but all the same I accept that I just don't like her and I certainly don't like Washington I want to blow up you know can he sustain their attentions and loyalties or has he worn them out or has he betrayed them seems to me independent of who the Democrats put forward a huge part of the drama of 2020 hmm with everything that's going on with I mean you've been editor for 21 years well what else yeah yeah do you feel and given what else is happening in the rest of the meet yeah the rest of the media are you optimistic about the future of the business the future of as a media the news media I'm optimistic about the enterprise of journalism right I'm optimistic that there will be talented smart idealistic committed people who will want to do this activity yeah and who see it as fun as a way to see the world way to understand the world and that it that they have some sense of civic commitment but there's a sense of idealism I really I see talk to young would-be journalists all the time we hire people as assistants and fact checkers and all kinds of entries or semi entry jobs or middle level jobs that really want to do this thing or want to write right away I see no shortage of that what we're living through is this enormous disruption of the economy yeah of journalism and the thing that worries me the most it seems that a lot of its at least some of the very you your term for was the elite institutions have are finding a way The New Yorker is finding a way because we have a really loyal readership that's that's growing and that's willing to pay a real subscription price that was not the old model of magazines magazines used to be extremely cheap to subscribe to and there was you know the post Second World War consumerist boom when there were ads everywhere and they're their television was just in its beginnings and it was a different economy would be different and so the New Yorker will find its way the New York Times is finding its way the Journal you'll find it etc what I really worry about is this in this enormous country in cities like Dayton Ohio or even Dallas Texas you know cities of substantial cities and and - let alone rural areas who's doing who's putting the dishonest mayor in jail there hmm right I grew up in New Jersey can we here for New Jersey no okay you're either exhausted or dispirited Jesse in the house Oh Mike in themselves hurt yeah journalism in the house ten people in the back yeah every mayor of Newark New Jersey when I was growing up went to jail every single one of them Hugh addonizio Ken Gibson Sharpe James until Cory Booker camera and journalism had a lot to do with that and you could say the same with I don't know how many cities judges you know rotten doctors all the things that afflict any society when you see thousands and thousands of journalism jobs disappear when you see endless numbers of newspapers and other media outlets either die or shrivel you have to ask yourself what's taking their place now if there were in those cities incredibly innovative aggressive wonderful digital replacements of those things then you know then you would say well you know blacksmiths and horseshit has disappeared but they were replaced by this other thing that hasn't happened yet there are exceptions I just read a piece about very interesting journalism activity and in New Haven but if that's an exception so we're in this period where a lot of places are screwed and the New York Times is just not going to cover City Hall hmm in Dayton Ohio it can't in fact where is it diminishing its forces most New York City hmm because it's more and more national enterprise yeah so what happens in those places the dishonest mayor stays yeah in his or her seat hmm journalism matters journalism has any number of purposes it can entertain it can bring a community together through you know publicizing the town picnic the high-school football game it covers things from day to day but its primary highest goal has to be putting pressure on power financial power political power if we don't have that judicial power in the world of the intellect as well if that suddenly is diminished and reduced we are in much lesser society and we see it we see it happening I spent four years in Moscow it was absolutely wonderful people had not been able to say anything for decades and decades in fact you could argue millennium hmm suddenly it cracked open gloss toast wasn't just a word suddenly they were there was real journalism movies arts everything to see that flowering is the opposite of what we're seeing in Russia now and what's threatened all over the world journalists and matters intensely it's not a matter of just business plans and subs and all the things that we have to discuss endlessly in our boring meetings with decks on the wall and all the thing it is an activity that matters mm-hm and I think people I think people want to do it and they want to do it well and we have to figure out how that that's an important part of us so to that point a question from Dan jean-pierre this thing you know the audience can submit questions but hasn't trumped as copied Putin's playbook of communications creativity / chaos well up to a point Lord copper um I I don't know it's not the same mmm it's just not I mean it's very important to sound alarms when alarms need to be sounded and I think that's certainly the case where Trump is concerned and the press but if you here's what's different if you go on television in Russia particularly television where 95 and upwards percent of people get their news you will not hear a critical word heard about Vladimir Putin at all you're having Don Lemon yes I'm later I don't think that's the case on CNN or MSNBC or even by the way or even Fox yeah or even Fox during the day during the day yeah at night it's a little we invited folks to come to this today and they said no yeah yeah yeah yeah but you all I answer the question yeah I think so well he says the difference is Trump will pass and the new system is stronger in the West and well you know the Russians have been at it for a longer yeah that yeah and and and and Putin's levers on power are more absolute than thank God this president or any other president yeah what does the post Trump yeah media landscape look like what happened the other day yeah the president United States tweets that AT&T yeah should exert pressure on CNN yeah now in Russia he wouldn't tweet it he would just call up the guy at AT&T and say and the guy ATT would already know yeah that's why he's the head of a TMT yeah yeah yeah or AT&T ski to ski yeah yeah let's guess so the understandings of what normalcy is yeah get eroded to sit in a totalitarian or an authoritarian state get eroded to such a degree that everybody knows what their role is and anybody who defies it is called a dissident yeah we are not at that stage right so you're not entirely pessimistic this I I live in cherish and cradle my optimism this is good this is good yeah and the red light is flashing cruelly but I'm glad to end on an optimistic no I was very much was great [Applause]

Channel: FT Live

Views: 1,008

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Keywords: FT, FT Live, Financial Times, Financial Times Live, FT Future of News USA 2019, New York, New York City

Id: _liKi7a-ZK0

Length: 25min 59sec (1559 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020