Readers are overdosed on listicles and clickbait Lara Setrakian, founder of news website Syria Deeply, sprung into people’s minds after a recent TED talk. We talk reportage, ethics, and domain knowledge
Ihave to admit to feeling utterly inadequate watching your super impressive TED talk and then reading up on your work with Syria Deeply (where you leave readers with an in depth understanding of the situation on ground). Do you get that a lot from people whether or not in the news biz? Sheer awe?
That is incredibly kind of you to say!
What surprises most people is that I left a cushy, beautiful job on television, to launch a website, a news startup — that my teammates and I had the courage to go out on a limb and do something different, based on a simple desire to improve the way our world works. That strikes people as wildly optimistic. But sometimes in life you have to follow your highest motive, work hard at it, and hope for the best. I’m very glad we did that. It has made a contribution to our field that is needed in our times.
People must be congratulating you on your TED talk a lot recently. Have you been getting flooded with whatsapp messages, calls, emails since the talk? And have any ideas emerged from there? Any requests to look at another Deeply series?
We have gotten some wonderful feedback and a few great ideas for new Deeply platforms. Most notably, we’ve been asked to look at Amazon Deeply (looking at the state of the rainforests) and Ageing Deeply (sharing lessons on health and ageing societies). We’ll definitely explore them both.
The first point in your talk is the bit about domain knowledge. The other two being about how journos must have something of a Hippocratic oath, and embrace complexity. What are simple things reporters can do to acquire domain knowledge. Any tips?
Of course, in a perfect world, reporters can set aside time to read voraciously, to get up-tospeed and keep up with new developments in a given domain.
The next thing reporters can do is to organise their database of sources and contacts. At Bloomberg News, we were taught to do this from day one. Keep a diligent record of the experts and academics you come across in a given field, so that on a quiet day you can call them and simply catch up — hear what they’re working on, ask them about the most important trends they’re seeing in their arena. If you cultivate expert contacts and keep in touch consistently, they will help you develop greater knowledge, at the frontier of their field.
And what can organisations and newsrooms do to create more domain knowledge in their reporters?
It’s very difficult, at least in the US, for newspapers to have specialised reporters focused on one ‘beat,’ or area of expertise. There’s a lot of pressure for journalists to do a thousand things at once. To the extent they can, newspapers should allow their journalists to stay focused on specific issues, so they can develop domain knowledge and deep contacts in that field. The result will be better and more unique stories that outshine the competition. Choose a beat and learn as much about it as you can. Whether it’s health, business, environment, or a specific region of the world, pick a topic and study it as much as you can — learn the language, understand the issues. It will make you a better reporter, more valuable to the newsroom, capable of explaining sophisticated issues in a way that many people can understand.
This is very broad, but what about covering Syria changed you as a person? Can you talk about the emotional grit needed to cover the stories that you have reported?
It’s hard to cover a conflict without sometimes feeling numb. New numbers and new atrocities hit your desk every day. You put it perfectly — it takes emotional grit to keep going, especially for our reporters in the field. You learn a very particular kind of resilience. In parallel, you see stories of Syrian resilience — teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, everyday people who keep going when they’ve lost so much. That helps keep things in perspective.
How do you deal with reader/viewer fatigue at war reporting? Is there such a thing? And do you think there is a dearth of empathy in a reading/viewing audience today? What kind of interest is there in the species-level issues that you talk about?
I do think there are readers who tune in and out of a story like Syria. There will be times of peak interest and times when their attention is elsewhere. But we have seen that within that, there is subset of the audience that has sustained interest in the topic. We aim to serve that subset of readers who want to keep up with the story. We do that by looking closely enough to always find something new. It’s never the same day twice, there are always good stories, new perspectives, and emerging trends we can capture. That helps keep the story fresh, even six years into a conflict.
There are readers who are interested in environmental issues and public health — we’re developing sites on the oceans, ageing, diabetes, natural disasters, and food security. These are species-level issues that have a definite audience around the world. We see it as an unmet market opportunity, to provide information on these issues for the people who need it.
Where do you think social media will go from here? What’s post-Twitter for journalists?
We have seen a number of news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, experiment with Snapchat. But with a US president who has made Twitter a major part of his online presence, I think the platform will stay relevant for a while.
You’ve mentioned your discomfort with sound bite reporting, not getting deep enough into the story for complexities and nuances to be brought out. How does this play out in a world of shrinking attention spans and listicles?
I think we have overdosed on listicles and clickbait — the wildly exaggerated headlines that are simply designed to capture clicks. As for shrinking attention spans, even short form video can be done in a way that is smart and explains something useful. We’re exploring collaboration with Now This; they are a digital media company that produces videos for Facebook. Those videos get 2.5 billion views per month and often cover very serious issues.
There is an appetite for intelligent content; it just needs to be served in creative new ways.
In the age of the Trump presidency, with so much confusion over what constitutes news and truth, we need trusted channels of information. More than ever, they will be found in digital native news outlets — the ones that can earn the trust of their readers. In the end, I think that trust will come from providing authoritative, high-quality information. Not from just selling the sexiest headline.
Lastly, many congratulations on your baby. How has motherhood played out with respect to your work?
Thank you! More than anything motherhood has made me thankful for the power of family. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and my whole village — especially my mother and sister — are helping me out as I balance motherhood and startup duties.
In parallel, motherhood has made me a much more dedicated entrepreneur. I want my little girl to grow up in a better world with a more constructive global conversation. Our media systems in the US overly emphasise sensational stories and divisions between people. We need more constructive dialogue, built on stories that help people understand each other and the world around them. I am a big fan of the Solutions Journalism Network, I believe in producing news that helps us find solutions to the challenges we face. It may sound optimistic, but I have dedicated my life
to making it happen.
We need trusted channels of information. More than ever, they will be found in digital native news outlets... that trust will come from providing authoritative, high-quality information. Not from just selling the sexiest headline. Lara Setrakian
nivriti@khaleejtimes.com Nivriti favours human interest stories. And she has a thing for the quirky, oddball stuff