Breaking the News Cycle | Diana Fairbanks | TEDxTraverseCity
[Music] please welcome to the stage Diana [Music] Fairbanks I'm a little nervous which is weird cuz as some of you know I was a broadcast journalist for 17 years um sometimes I used to joke that I wasn't actually a news anchor I just played one on TV cuz a it's funny and B it's also it's also true it was a role that I played complete with the the fake eyelashes and the tight candy colored dresses that's not why I went into the business though I went into the business because I thought that I could use my skills to keep our community informed and together we would make informed decisions and make our world a better place right sounds great and I think that that's exactly how the news industry likes to portray itself to the world but there are two problems with that the first is the metric that we use to judge our success is the number of people who watch the number of people who watch that is the same metric that's used to judge the success of Wheel of Fortune Law and Order and every single Kardashian show right so when I moved to a larger market it was a metered Market I really got to see this close up where we had overnight ratings so every morning I would come in and I would know instantly whether or not my newscast the night before had been a success or a failure whether we had won or lost and we weren't just competing against other news stations we were competing against everything we were competing against reruns of Two and a Half Men and not only were we competing against a mediocre sitcom but we were competing and we were losing which leads me to point number two these ratings these are not bragging rights these ratings translate into real dollars the higher the ratings the more you can charge advertisers that's how you pay your bills so during the Great Recession when we had to lay off 2third of our Newsroom staff it wasn't because we were doing a bad job serving the community it was because our ad dollars had dried up so how do you compete in this age of a fractured media landscape where people are fighting for eyeballs more than ever before it's not enough to create good journalism you also have to create good TV so what is good TV what does it have conflict controversy Scandal sex I had to ask myself am I part of the solution or am I part of the problem and I realized that I was in a system that allowed a crackpot politician to say horrible hateful things playing to the camera because he knew that we would put it on TV and we did and I was part of a system that allowed a mad man to become infamous for gunning down a room full of first graders so what do you do right do you leave the only career you've ever known the thing you're good at the thing that you could stay in for the rest of your life and make a good living or do you walk away I struggled with it privately for a really long time and I finally had the courage to open up to a mentor about it and he asked me he said look is this is this the hill you want to die on I thought no like I can do more I need to do more I have to do more even if I don't know what or how I now have the opportunity to work for a college in higher education and I work for a group of thinkers I'm not on the front lines but I tell you what they come at issues from all different angles and sometimes they have debates and arguments but at the end of the day they all honestly believe that what they are doing is for the greater good that they are changing lives and they rally around that and I get to be part of that team I think a lot though about that Hill that I left behind and everything on on it and everyone on it I believe in journalism and I believe we need it now more than we ever have we are living in this information age we have more information at our fingertips than we ever have before but how are we accessing it how are we sorting through it how are we making sense of it how do you know what's true what's for show and what's a lie and what about all the stories that are not getting told sometimes the idealist in me gets me in a little bit of trouble but I not only believe that journalism is a common good that I believe it is essential to an informed and engaged democracy and I also know that the system we have now is driven by ad dollars and if journalism is going to be successful it cannot serve two masters ultimately we have gotten so used to this news being free right free or greatly subsidized at the very least but I promise you it is not free and we are all paying for it dearly earlier this year I heard the head of CBS Les munz talking about this election cycle described it as a circus he said the money though was rolling in he said and I quote it may be bad for America but it's damn good for CBS really like is this what is this what we want is this what we need from our news organizations and of course it's not just CBS it's most American News organizations broadcast print digital you know if I was still in journalism chances are I wouldn't even be up here right now I'd be too afraid of losing my job I know personally plenty of journalists who have and thousands of American journalists are losing their jobs every year as the industry is downsized because the funding model the business model just doesn't work anymore so maybe by leaving my calling I may be able to draw attention to it and maybe help save it and there are some great groups across the world that are working to do just that to find a sustainable business model that also serves the common good with this information that we all need but I tell you what they need your help we all need your help because it will be up to you to decide the future of Journalism and by extension the future of our informed and engaged Society it's going to take a lot of work and it's going to be a probably a rough transition but not only do believe I believe we can do it I believe we have to do it there are some things that we can do immediately though immediately remember I believe that the power to change journalism is in your hands just as in this fast food age right we have to be aware of the food that we put put in our mouths so that we have healthy bodies Please be aware in this information age that the information you choose to consume impacts the future of Journalism and our world Please be aware be deliberate please know that everything you watch everything you read everything you click it matters you are deciding the future of Journalism whether you mean to or not because just as everything you read click watch it all adds up and translates into real ad dollars I promise you it can also add up to real change thank you