- 6 months ago
How do we balance guiding and empowering youths to protect our information ecosystems? ABC journalist Jeremy Fernandez joins us to unpack shifting news consumption habits and building trust with digital-first audiences.
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00:00Hello and welcome to It's About Youth. I'm Faye Kwan. With me in the studio today is a special guest.
00:13His name is Jeremy Fernandez. He is a journalist and presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC.
00:21He was born in Kuala Lumpur, moved to Kota Kinabalu, and then to Australia.
00:25But he is back now and joining me in the studio after flying in from Sydney. Jeremy, welcome to the show.
00:31Thank you so much. How wonderful to be back in KL. It's a very special place. I'm so thrilled to be here.
00:37Wonderful to have you here. Welcome back to KL. And welcome back to Astro.
00:41Thank you. I did work experience here more than 20 years ago. And that was the last time I was in this building.
00:47How full circle to be back here.
00:49It's a full circle moment and I feel very proud to be able to come back and still be part of the industry now.
00:54Right. I think we need to get the most important question out of the way then.
00:58Since you landed in KL yesterday, what was the first thing you've had to eat since you got back?
01:04Kung Fu Chow with the prawn sambal. It's one of my favourite foods in the world.
01:10And as soon as I landed, my auntie, I'm staying with family, and they know that's one of my favourite things.
01:15And so we have the Kung Fu Chow, the Hokkien Mi, a bit of rasam, a bit of rice, just good local food.
01:23Very, very satisfying.
01:24It's that multicultural pot.
01:25Exactly right.
01:26Everything different cuisines on your table.
01:28Exactly right.
01:28That's what it's like to be Malaysian.
01:30Yeah, exactly.
01:31And I'm glad to hear that you are reuniting with family over here.
01:34But also speaking of family, your father himself was a journalist.
01:38He was the chief editor with the Daily Express in Sabah.
01:40Daily Express in Sabah.
01:42So journalism is really something that runs in the family, runs in your blood.
01:47You know, having that kind of upbringing in Malaysia, in your experience working in CNN in London,
01:53and then back now in Australia, how would you say that sort of upbringing and global experience
01:57has kind of shaped the way you approach journalism in your career?
02:00Do you know, it's really interesting because as you say, my father was a journalist and I saw the work that he did.
02:07Journalism, like a lot of other jobs, it involves shift work, long hours, sometimes a bit of confrontation and conflict.
02:16And it's a job I swore that I would never want to do when I was a child.
02:20I did not want to become a journalist like my dad.
02:22But I fell into it.
02:24And I think part of it is a curiosity about the world.
02:28But when I was a little boy growing up in KK, I was born in KL, but when I was one month old, we moved to KK.
02:34Right.
02:35And it was a very small town back then.
02:38And there was nothing to do.
02:40One of the things my mum used to take me to do was to go to the airport and just watch the planes at the airport.
02:45And it's one of my first memories of realising that people lived in different places and they came and then they went to different places.
02:54And I was always curious about people being from elsewhere and living slightly different lives.
03:00And what do we have in common?
03:02What do we have different?
03:03And I think that's helped shape who I am and my curiosity about the rest of the world.
03:09So, you know, moving from KK and coming to KL very regularly and then moving to Australia, living around Australia, living overseas in the UK, helps me feel like a citizen of the world.
03:22I think I have this really strong feeling that when you travel and when you go anywhere and when you visit your hometown, you take a little piece of the place and the people with you.
03:33And that's how I feel about coming to KL.
03:36It feels like coming home.
03:38When I go to Sydney, it feels like coming home.
03:40When I go to London, it feels like coming home.
03:43And I think all those things become a part of you and you leave a piece of yourself behind in those places as well.
03:51So that's how I think of myself now that I'm, I kind of belong everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
03:57That's really that saying, right?
03:58That home is where the heart is.
04:00And so you left a little bit of peace of your life in those different places.
04:04And talking about your career that's spanned quite a number of decades now, two decades, two, three decades?
04:10Yeah, two and a half.
04:11Two and a half decades.
04:13I'm sure you have quite a lot of stories to tell and hearing about your background, that curiosity and also that passion for storytelling.
04:19I'm sure that's evolved a lot over the years because especially right now, I think one thing that journalists face is, or rather a universal challenge, whether it's in the UK, Australia or Malaysia, is misinformation and the spread of disinformation, the rapid spread of that.
04:35How would you say, how would you describe the state of misinformation and disinformation in Australia and your experience working there?
04:45I think people's literacy about it is okay.
04:48I think it's fair.
04:49And I think it's similar in Australia to the rest of the world.
04:52You know, as an example, when I grew up, if you wanted a piece of information, you would go to the library and you would get a book.
05:00And that was the piece of information.
05:02And if everyone was given the same assignment at school, everyone would be after that one book.
05:07They'd be scrambling to get that.
05:08There was no such thing as computers and certainly mobile phones weren't invented, but you could find reliable sources of information that things in books were fact and you could rely on them.
05:21Now, you could find information on anything to prove absolutely anything you want, any time.
05:28So the explosion in the availability of information has changed drastically in a relatively short space of time, in a couple of generations.
05:38It's really changed.
05:39And I think we're still catching up as societies in Malaysia, in Australia and around the world with how to grapple with information that is incorrect.
05:50It's disinformation, misinformation.
05:52And I make that distinction because sometimes it's information that people don't realize is wrong.
05:57Sometimes it's unintentional.
05:58And sometimes it's intentional disinformation.
06:02You know, we saw that during COVID-19 when people were advised against taking vaccines.
06:08We see it in foreign interference during elections.
06:11So I think people are broadly aware that not every piece of information can be trusted.
06:17But I think it's also about educating people globally about how to find sources of information that are reliable.
06:26And I think it's a work in progress.
06:27And I think because of the availability of information around the world, my personal belief is that media literacy and digital literacy needs to be taught at a very, very young age.
06:39It needs to be increasingly part of the school curriculum because it's not like it was in my day when you could just get a book.
06:47Young people should be taught how to discern information and find trusted sources.
06:53And that's really a point that we've brought up or has been brought up in multiple episodes throughout our program about having it involved in the education system, driving it from young, starting it from home.
07:07But really, how do we then get the point across for you?
07:12How important is it for young people especially to have the skill of media and digital literacy?
07:19It's a tremendously important thing.
07:22I tend to approach it in the way that I am not there trying to debunk, as a journalist, every piece of information that's put out in bad faith.
07:34It would be an impossible task for us to go out and police wrong sources of information all the time.
07:40The focus of the way I approach my journalism is that I try to be trusted, I try to be reliable and transparent in the way I gather and disseminate information.
07:52And over time, what I hope is that it builds my credibility.
07:56And so I work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and there's a very strict set of editorial policies that are governed by government legislation that the ABC is specifically set up to serve the public.
08:12It's not to serve the ABC.
08:14It's not to serve the government.
08:16It's not to serve corporate interests.
08:18It's to serve the public.
08:20And in order to do that, we have to earn the public's trust.
08:25And that comes down to being fair and impartial in the way we report, being balanced about the way we seek information and publish information, being very, very careful.
08:38So we make sure that as much as possible what we've got is right.
08:42And sometimes it's impossible to verify information.
08:46And so we're transparent with our audiences about that and say, you know, we've tried to verify this information independently.
08:53We don't know for sure, but we give it to you, the viewer, the listener, to make up your own mind.
08:59It's my very strong belief that journalism shouldn't be about persuasion.
09:04Journalists shouldn't be mounting persuasive arguments.
09:08You know, there are historians for that.
09:10There are special interest groups and lobbyists and activists for that.
09:14But for a journalist, the primary job is to be as fair and impartial and then hand over the information to our audiences and say, we respect you enough to be able to make your own mind up with this quality, reputable information.
09:30And then leave it at that.
09:32At the end of the day, you're just presenting the facts.
09:34Presenting the facts.
09:35And that's for the audience to take in and then make their informed decisions.
09:39Yeah.
09:39And it's not an act of persuasion.
09:40I think a lot of time when people look at the way we approach journalism, they think that we're up to something, that we're trying to persuade anyone.
09:48And I'm absolutely, look, I don't even have the energy to persuade people and get into arguments about, you know, kind of what they believe or what they think I'm trying to persuade them of.
09:56I'm not trying to persuade anyone as a journalist, but I want people to have good quality information so that they can make up their own minds.
10:03You're already busy chasing your deadlines.
10:05Yeah, exactly.
10:06We're flat out.
10:08I'm curious, though, because working with the ABC and how that audiences and the way they consume news is shifting a lot towards digital and online platforms.
10:20Would you say TV broadcasting news still holds relevance?
10:24It not only holds relevance, but certainly in Australia, television broadcasting is still the biggest form of consumption, whether you're doing it through a streaming service like Netflix, or you're watching mainstream free-to-air television like the ABC, or you're watching the equivalent of Astro, which is Foxtel in Australia.
10:43People are still watching on big screens.
10:46I use my phone a lot and I scroll myself.
10:49So I consume a lot of my news on social media as well.
10:55But I guess I'm very mindful of the use of AI.
11:00I'm very mindful of the sources where I get my information.
11:04And I'm always investigating, you know, if someone is giving me a piece of information, just wondering what is the reliability of this source?
11:12What are their motives and can they be trusted?
11:15I think that's the thing that's always in the back of my head.
11:18And that's not to say to distrust everything out there.
11:21I think that would be a very exhausting thing as a viewer to be constantly in a state of distrust of the information ecosystem.
11:27But to just be discerning about it and to keep an open mind.
11:32And I think it's a reflection of a robust and mature society.
11:36If we can have ideas openly debated, rather than having them shoved into a corner of the internet, that we can have ideas openly debated and tested.
11:46And sometimes when you have a good idea or a bad idea put in front of you, you can test those ideas.
11:54And sometimes it actually can confirm your beliefs using a reputable source of information to back up what you felt might be right or what you felt might be wrong.
12:05So I think that's globally a thing we're all experiencing, this idea of how to be discerning about the source of information that we're getting.
12:14Definitely. I'd like to get a little bit more into that.
12:17But first, let's head for a quick break. Stay with us.
12:35Welcome back to It's About Youth, where today in the studio we are speaking to Jeremy Fernandez, a journalist and presenter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
12:43Now, earlier before the break, we spoke a little bit about the relevance of TV and news broadcast today and a slight shift in news consumption where we are also tuning into our phones and looking at news on social media.
12:56Jeremy, how has ABC sort of, or your own experience as a journalist, how have you kind of navigated this change to an audience that increasingly prefers digital and social first?
13:07You know, when the internet first started becoming widely used as a source of information, I remember I was a radio journalist and back then you are either a radio journalist or you're a TV journalist and that was pretty much it.
13:23And over time, we've all become a lot more multi-skilled.
13:27Yeah, multi-platform.
13:28Multi-platform. And so I file, I work mostly in TV, but I file for radio all the time.
13:35I work in radio pretty often. I've got my own podcast.
13:39I work with a different team for social media sort of output as well.
13:44And we collaborate a lot.
13:45So I think it's a dangerous thing to kind of treat them as separate entities.
13:51Journalism is very much alive and critical in our modern society.
13:55Definitely.
13:56It's just been transmitted in different forms.
13:59So the need for journalism remains, but the platforms with which we're doing it are changing.
14:04One of the complications is that you can't take a piece of TV and just put it on the radio.
14:10You can't take a piece of radio and turn it into a digital product.
14:15So each of these things has to be created in a bespoke way for each medium.
14:22And that can be a bit fragmenting because it takes small teams doing a bit of this and a bit of that.
14:27It's a lot of work.
14:28It's a lot of work.
14:29And production, as you know, takes time.
14:33And it's not particularly quick sometimes.
14:35So it's an interesting thing, but it's a really interesting challenge to me.
14:40And I think it's one that I'm not shy of.
14:43The ABC, as far as Australian media goes, has been very front-footed about being present in the digital space.
14:50So the ABC is number one on TikTok.
14:52It is the number one, number two news website in the country.
14:57Congratulations on that.
14:59But it's something that we've worked very hard to do to be able to be front-footed and to be digitally present to meet audiences where they are.
15:07And that will continue to change over time.
15:10And the technology is evolving so quickly.
15:13But I think it's important that we don't think of, you know, TV as being less watched or more watched
15:19because the work that goes into making content for TV is equally repurposed for digital audiences and for audio audiences and vice versa.
15:31It all gets mixed together.
15:32So I'm very proud to be able to kind of work across all those mediums equally and to try to reach different audiences.
15:39So in that sense, it's not really about staying on top, but rather adapting and being quick to shift and change our ways.
15:46Another challenge, though, I'd like to ask you is, along with trying to curate our content for different platforms,
15:57there's also this sort of debate about how attention's fans are shrinking.
16:03And so the content that we create is something that soon has to be downsized, made into bite-sized, digestible content for people who are constantly scrolling.
16:12Do you see that as a challenge or just as a natural shift in all that you've mentioned?
16:18Look, one of the things I relate to is that I'm a scroller.
16:22I'm on my phone all the time and I'm doing this.
16:25And that's not how it used to be.
16:28You know, in the old days, we used to sit down and watch a TV show for half an hour.
16:32Or, you know, the news that I read is a half-hour news bullet.
16:34And sometimes it's four hours long, depending on if it's a breaking news event or whatever.
16:40I think it's just different because, you know, don't forget that people might be scrolling and they'll watch maybe 57 seconds,
16:47but they'll be doing it several times a day rather than consuming everything all at one go.
16:52So it's not as if people are watching only 57 seconds of news in one day.
16:57They're just doing it much more spread out throughout the day.
17:00So I think one of the things that's important to remember is that when you're consuming information in such short, bite-sized pieces,
17:08a lot of nuance is missing, a lot of detail is missing.
17:11And that can help broaden your understanding of a story, whether you're talking about issues like climate change or energy transition,
17:20which is very, very complex.
17:21You know, how do we decarbonize the world's economies and shift to clean energy?
17:26I do some energy reporting from time to time and it is immensely complex and there's a lot of detail
17:32that's difficult to get through in a short reel on, say, Instagram or TikTok.
17:38So I think being mindful as a consumer, not to only get your news from short-form sources,
17:45but to try to broaden out and to read a little bit, to use reels on social media, watch a bit of TV,
17:53read some magazines, to get a broader understanding of the news.
17:58A mix of it from different sources.
18:00Yeah, diversity of consumption and a diversity of sources, trusted sources, is really useful and important.
18:07It helps us make, as a society, as individuals, make good decisions about the sort of place we want to live.
18:13And the thing about this is that this sort of access to these different sources is so readily available for the younger generation now,
18:21all with their smartphones.
18:23What do you think about the notion that younger people may be more critical or more skeptical of the media now?
18:31I think young people now are actually really smart.
18:35I think young people are a lot of the time not given enough credit for the fact that they grew up with this technology.
18:43And, you know, for older people like me, this is, it feels a bit new.
18:47I'm not a digital native, as they say, but my daughter is.
18:51You know, she's completely au fait with editing videos online and looking for good sources of information
18:58and having a diversity of sources where she gets her information.
19:02So I think young people are often not given enough credit for how sophisticated they are in using different media to get their information.
19:12Having said that, I, you know, I wonder whether young people realise the malicious nature with some information,
19:20the disinformation particularly, whether they understand that there is ill intention and bad faith
19:26in some of the information that's put out there in the world.
19:30And sometimes I think extreme voices, people who have very extreme views about certain things,
19:37are magnified because they are so shocking.
19:39And it shifts our perceptions of where the middle ground is.
19:43And I think most of us in society, and I compare this between Australian society, Malaysian society,
19:49we're all actually sitting somewhere in the middle.
19:52And so I think it is important for older generations to help guide young people
19:59to make sure they're not getting sucked into these extremes.
20:02Those echo chambers.
20:04Those echo chambers that might sound very compelling and convincing,
20:09and attractive, but are actually not a reflection of reality.
20:13So I think, you know, give people the latitude and the credit,
20:18but also guide young people to make sure that, you know, they stay in the middle and they have
20:24a fair reflection of society and that the media they're consuming is reflective of the society
20:31that they do actually live in in real life rather than online.
20:35It's interesting that you bring that up because when it comes, obviously, social media has its benefits,
20:40but there's also the dangers of it, especially for younger people.
20:44Australia has recently moved to restrict social media platforms such as Instagram,
20:50TikTok, and even recently YouTube for those under 16.
20:54What are your thoughts on this, if you're able to comment much?
20:58Do you think bans like this are effective alongside media literacy,
21:03digital literacy campaigns and that guidance from family?
21:06So the legislation in Australia is not complete yet.
21:11It's still up for public debate and it's a very complex piece of legislation
21:16that the government has put forward.
21:20It's far from resolved, I would say.
21:22Australia is perhaps very front-footed compared to the rest of the world
21:27and what that reflects is actually a mood not only in Australia but the rest of the world
21:31that people are concerned about maintaining the integrity of their information systems
21:36without being overly cautious about censorship
21:41because we want to keep in mind that we still want to create open sources of information
21:45and we don't want certain governments or certain corporations
21:50having the power to restrict what information we receive.
21:54So part of it is about achieving freedom but making sure that we're protecting young people.
21:59That's the intention of this legislation.
22:02How it's enforced is actually quite a complex question
22:05because in debating this legislation, Australia needs the big social media companies
22:14like Google and Meta to cooperate with the concerns of citizens,
22:21the aims of the government and it's up to the media to report on this fairly.
22:26How is this going to be enforced?
22:27Does the technology exist?
22:30If you say sit in front of your computer, how is that age verification going to take place?
22:35Is it facial recognition?
22:37Is that a breach of privacy?
22:41Will it work all the time?
22:43How is a computer camera going to know if you're 15 or 17,
22:46whether you're under 16 or over 16?
22:49Some people look very young.
22:50Some people look very old.
22:52And then also, you know, sometimes in the family home, the government can't be there.
22:58The police can't be there saying, oh, no, you can't use TikTok, you can't use YouTube.
23:02So there are a lot of questions about it.
23:04I think we can all relate to the intention behind the legislation,
23:08but how it's enforced and how the technology and the technology companies react and relate to that
23:17is a completely different question.
23:20So I suspect that whole debate has got a bit to run.
23:22But what it does reflect is a concern about the sovereignty of our information systems
23:28and making sure that it's not overly contaminated, particularly for young people,
23:33with all sorts of misinformation and disinformation and bullying
23:38that ends up being detrimental, particularly to young people.
23:42Because the repercussions of that then is we will have to look into mental health for younger people.
23:48Cyberbullying is something that's rampant today.
23:50Yeah, it's a huge issue today.
23:51But at the same time, it's interesting you brought up that balance,
23:55protecting younger people, but also still maintaining freedom of expression,
24:00freedom for especially youth voices to be amplified on social media,
24:04which has been such a great benefit for them.
24:07I suppose my last question for you then would be,
24:09what role then do you see younger people, whether it's aspiring journalists or TikTok content creators,
24:16what role do you see they play in defending freedom of expression today?
24:21I think young people have, you know, not only are they sophisticated in the way they're consuming it,
24:26but they're still learning about the risks out there.
24:30I think young people are very aware of the opportunities that this great technology brings.
24:34And I think on a net basis, it has democratised information.
24:38It has helped us connect people across borders and across oceans.
24:42I think it's a really rich experience.
24:45What I would say is that we don't want to have, certainly in Australia,
24:49an information ecosystem that's so restricted that it pushes debate underground
24:54and people are feeling like they're missing out on information.
24:59They start to start to distrust their own information ecosystems.
25:04As I've said, I think it's a reflection of a mature society
25:07when we can have controversial ideas out in the open and debate them openly and fairly.
25:13I'm very conscious that, you know, I look at my daughter, she's a teenager,
25:18and I'm very conscious that it's coming to the time where my generation
25:21is handing over to young people and saying,
25:24it's time for you now to take this over and to learn about the information ecosystems
25:29and how we collectively use that as a society to produce the lives that we want.
25:37And ultimately, we all actually want the same thing, you know,
25:40regardless of what country you're in.
25:42We want our children to be well.
25:43We want them to be educated.
25:44We want them to have opportunity to travel,
25:48to start their own businesses, to pursue their passions,
25:52and to be safe in society.
25:55An information ecosystem that's reliable and open and fair
25:59helps us all achieve those aims.
26:02So I'm very hopeful that young people are willing to take that on
26:07and see that as a responsibility they have
26:10to safeguard not only the future of the society,
26:14but the sort of future politically, economically, and culturally
26:19that they want as well.
26:21Having that responsibility and stepping up to the role of the world
26:24that they're going to inherit.
26:25Yeah, that's right.
26:26Right.
26:26Thank you so much, Jeremy.
26:28It's been a pleasure having you on the show.
26:29Faye, thank you.
26:30It's been such a pleasure to be with you,
26:32and thank you for your very thoughtful questions.
26:34Right.
26:34Thank you so much for sharing your honest insights as well.
26:37This has been It's About Youth with me, Faye Kwan.
26:40I've been speaking to Jeremy Fernandez
26:42from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
26:45Thank you for watching and see you next time.
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