Christiane Amanpour: How to seek truth in the era of fake news
TV news legend Christiane Amanpour is known for her uncompromising approach to reporting and interviewing. Full bioChris Anderson - TED Curator
After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
great to have you here.
that in the last few years,
developments that you're seeing.
to the earlier speakers,
in what they've been saying:
cities, the threat to our environment
understanding the truth
of what we're talking about
of the science on climate
with a handful of deniers,
certainly this last year --
in a way that's truly alarming
to be thrown around.
between the truth and fake news,
difficult time trying to solve
in this question of,
what is impartiality,
reporting the Balkan Wars 25 years ago.
one simply cannot be neutral about,
aren't heeding that advice
objectivity is the golden rule.
what objectivity means.
very young in my career,
violation, not just of human rights,
cleansing and genocide,
in the highest war crimes court
what we were seeing
trying to tell one story.
was accused of siding with,
who were being attacked
accused of this.
that what people wanted
our democratically elected government's,
of human rights --
that all sides are equally guilty,
of ethnic hatred,
slaughter and ethnically cleanse
giving all sides an equal hearing
or a factual equivalence.
that crisis point
of international and humanitarian law,
what you're seeing,
in the fake news paradigm,
an accomplice to genocide.
these propaganda battles,
the stand you took back then.
of the free world,
in the entire world,
of the United States --
country in the whole world,
in every which way --
its values and power around the world.
who only seek the truth --
looking for the truth
in various parts of the world
about things that are vitally important
accusing you of fake news,
it starts to chip away
and maybe they're thinking,
of the United States says that,
been critical of the media --
looking at the avalanche of information
and Facebook and so forth,
than they've ever been.
will say what they'll say,
what they will say.
How is there an extra danger?"
upon which we get our information
of truth and transparency
the information superhighway,
and all the rest of it,
into certain lanes and tunnels
on areas of their own interest
that with algorithms, with logarithms,
channels of information,
about this phenomenon.
the internet came,
our access to more democracy,
is incredibly dangerous.
of this country and you say things,
undemocratic countries the cover
and their own journalists --
is what happened, though,
media that you worked in
because they weren't credible,
for publication and for amplification
excitement, click,
is that part of what's caused the problem?
and we saw this in the election of 2016,
was very sexy and very attractive,
and fake news items
and by happenstance being put out there,
in the creation of fake news
in real space and in cyberspace.
to proliferate this stuff
or light, just about --
such a massive amount of information
leads them to abide by the truth,
and a code of professional ethics.
people who work at Facebook
with good intention --
of those companies,
incredibly well-intentioned,
an unbelievable, game-changing system,
on this thing called Facebook.
economy for themselves
to wake up and smell the coffee
to us right now."
a global community.
community going to look like?
of conduct actually are.
he probably believed this --
could be tinkering and messing around
in the last few weeks?
a major problem in that regard,
and figure it out.
what they can now
for a long, long time.
journalistic investigation --
but somehow, you know --
as a matter of warfare
by other means, of hybrid warfare.
where they've tried to interfere,
right now, Emmanuel Macron,
and confronted it head on,
from some of this, isn't there?
of it is also about technology,
some kind of moral compass.
but you know what I mean.
with a moral compass --
moral technology.
CA: You know what I mean.
with so many people across the world.
I don't know if others feel this --
what's happened recently,
bites the dust."
impressed by, inspired by?
the world in crisis,
immersed in this crisis --
of a nervous breakdown.
vacuum of leadership,
I ask all these --
I ask about leadership.
president of Liberia today,
heads of an African country
after her prescribed term.
to do that as a lesson.
of certain names,
of the new French president,
when I say his name?"
leadership vacuum."
an interview with him.
It was great. It was yesterday.
saying that in an open forum,
it was his first interview,
and you know what?
to-come-back-to-the-point.
renowned for doing,
to answer the question.
I'm the listener.
nationalism and tribalism here today.
to confront the prevailing winds
nationalism, populism
in the United States
in many European elections
on my continent,
just for political expediency,
common denominator
in other political elections.
who is a very dangerous woman.
into the minds of everyone here,
where you get your information from;
for what you read, listen to and watch;
brands to get your main information,
a wide, eclectic intake,
names that you know,
at this moment right now,
our problems are so severe,
as global citizens
empirical evidence and facts,
going to be wandering along
to Emmanuel Macron
enough love going around.
is the subject of global obsession."
or an elected leader about love.
he actually answered it.
she is part of me,
to have somebody at home
It's all about the truth.
Ideas worth spreading.
so much. That was great.
CH: That was really lovely.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Christiane Amanpour - JournalistTV news legend Christiane Amanpour is known for her uncompromising approach to reporting and interviewing.
Why you should listen
Christiane Amanpour is CNN's chief international correspondent and anchor of the global a airs program "Amanpour," broadcast from the television network's London bureau. She's covered the most relevant conflicts of the last decades, exposing both the brutality and human cost of war and its geopolitical impacts. From the 1991 Gulf War to the siege of Sarajevo (the city later named her honorary citizen), from the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq to the trial of Saddam Hussein the following year, Amanpour's fearless and uncompromising approach has made her popular with audiences, and a force to be reckoned with by global influencers.
During the Balkan wars, Amanpour famously broke with the idea of journalism neutrality by calling out human right abuses and saying that "there are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice." Since her interview show "Amanpour" was launched in 2009, she's spoken to leaders and decision makers on the issues affecting the world today while continuing reporting from all over the world, including the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
Christiane Amanpour | Speaker | TED.com
Chris Anderson - TED Curator
After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading.
Why you should listen
Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.
Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in 1957. He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education. After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.
Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.
Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users website IGN. Chris eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people.
This success allowed Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, most of all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left Future to work full time on TED.
He expanded the conference's remit to cover all topics, including science, business and key global issues, while adding a Fellows program, which now has some 300 alumni, and the TED Prize, which grants its recipients "one wish to change the world." The TED stage has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.
In 2006, TED experimented with posting some of its talks on the Internet. Their viral success encouraged Chris to begin positioning the organization as a global media initiative devoted to 'ideas worth spreading,' part of a new era of information dissemination using the power of online video. In June 2015, the organization posted its 2,000th talk online. The talks are free to view, and they have been translated into more than 100 languages with the help of volunteers from around the world. Viewership has grown to approximately one billion views per year.
Continuing a strategy of 'radical openness,' in 2009 Chris introduced the TEDx initiative, allowing free licenses to local organizers who wished to organize their own TED-like events. More than 8,000 such events have been held, generating an archive of 60,000 TEDx talks. And three years later, the TED-Ed program was launched, offering free educational videos and tools to students and teachers.
Chris Anderson | Speaker | TED.com