Ulrik Haagerup, DR

Thank you. But a few months more, or weeks, depending on when they find the next news director. I work at DR. I've done that for ten years, and I thought that would be enough. And I thought that was something more important for the next phase in my life than try to fight for public service, which is very important, because everybody else, people getting paid for it, try to kill it. So, let me talk about something else. Let me talk about a few years ago. I have daughters, and when they were teenagers, I spent most of my fatherhood telling them what to do. Who not to kiss, when to come home. Where not to go. Which drinks not to drink. And blah, blah, blah. And at some point, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And at some point, my young daughter looked up at me and said, Daddy, sometimes you ought to listen louder. I've never heard that expression before. Because we fathers, we don't listen. We talk. It's just like with us journalists and editors. We don't listen. We like to talk. But what would happen if we started to listen? Especially in the media business. What are people telling us? People are telling us that we are a threat to democracy. When we ask people, who do you trust? Which professions do you trust? We would like to be on top, because we come from the trust business. That's why we are journalists and editors. Because we are the trust business. That's what we tell ourselves at each conference we go to. Do you know the conference called Editor's Day? Heard about that? You know the day of the cat and the day of the dog and the day of Mother's Day? There's also a day in Denmark called Day of Editors. And that's a day when editors are nice to editors because nobody else is nice. So we tell important stories, how bad it goes, but it will... How stupid the audience is. And then the next day, we go on doing what we normally do. And then we, at night, we celebrate and we cheer each other. And we say, we are in the trust business. We are the soul of the democracy. And everybody else, meaning the editors, applaud. But if we ask people, who do they trust? Look up here. They trust nurses. This goes for Denmark, but it will go for any other country as well. Especially the United States. Nurses, doctors, policemen, teachers, electricians. But coming down here. We have bank consultants, taxi drivers, real estate agents, journalists, car dealers, and then politicians and spin doctors. Take that, SAC. But journalists, we are between car dealers and real estate agents. And we think we are in the trust business, but people don't trust us. So maybe we should listen. We know the figures, what's happening with those. We can see people are not using our normal, traditional news media. You see the curves for print. You see now the curves following even faster on Flow TV. Because of World Wide Web. Right? And the Internet. The slogan of this year in Aarhus is called Rethink. And there's a good reason for it. Because that's why you're here for the whole week. And that's what we'll try to do in our new institute at Aarhus University. Try to rethink journalism. And I think there's a need for it. And there's a good, I don't know if it's Danish, but it probably is, saying, which goes, If you do what you always have done, you'll probably end up getting the results you've always gotten. So what if the result sucks? And let's see that again. Right? Maybe we should try to do something different. But what we do in traditional media is for the last years, we have a strategy doing more of what doesn't work. We try to be faster. We try to give people more. We try to get the attention for people having breaking news all the time. Do you know how small this country is? Nothing happens. But we try to have breaking news all the time. You know, look here, watch here, share this, because we want your attention. But what's happening, when you point people on your shoulder all the time, either they get hard skinned, they can't feel it anymore, or they get completely sore. And they say, we don't trust these people. Because they are annoying all the time. So what are the mistakes? We say, people need more news. I don't think so. People are drowning in information and news. What they do need and what they say is, no, we need better news. We say that people need faster news. People say, no, we actually need news that we can trust. The problem is, we don't trust it. People, or we say that people need blood and crime. Blood and crime. If it bleeds, it leads. It comes from America, like every good thing and every bad thing. But what people say is, no, they want meaning and they want understanding. We say, people want to see podcasts. We say, politicians fight. When we ask them, what they actually say, we hate it. We hate it. We want politicians to find solutions. That's why we elect them. But that's not how we cover them in the news media. We create fist fights because that's what we think people want. We say, people want only news on conflicts. No, people say, we also need inspirational news. We say, people want news about problems. People say, no, we also want news about ways out and hope. And some of my colleagues say, people don't want quality. And people say, actually, yes, we do. I had the fortune to visit Helmut Schmidt one year before he died. I wanted to talk to someone who knew about politics. I wanted to talk to someone who knew about democracy and also about journalism. He was, until his death, a publisher of Die Zeit in Germany. And he was, for all the young people in the audience, he was the chancellor of West Germany. So he knew about that. And when I was a young reporter working here in Jyllands-Posten, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, I went down there to Hamburg to interview him about what happened to Europe. And he was brilliant. So I thought, I wonder if that guy is still alive. And I drove down there. And he was sitting in the same office. He was now 95 years old. He was smoking 52 cigarettes in the office. He had just gotten a new girlfriend. She was 80. So I thought there's hope for everyone. He was fantastic. What he said was, we live in a world where the idea of democracy and the idea of media is made in Europe. And we have exported it to the rest of the world. It ought to be good, but it is not. And it is not because now we live in media democracies. We live in media democracies where news media are more influential than politicians. Because politicians are more keen on their own re-election than solving people's problems five years from now. And that's why they spend all their energy now talking into the news criteria for news media in order to get access to the voters through the media. Media is Latin. It means through. Right? And when the news media angles stories in a tabloid way, he said, on crooks, on victims, on conflict, and on drama, politics will be about crooks and victims and conflict and drama. Right? Which are tabloid news criteria. Which have moved from tabloid news media into local TV stations in the United States, into national TV stations in the United States, into the serious news media all over the world. Because that's the culture. That's what we do in the news business. And then he said, news media no longer help democracy. Remember, he was 95. News media now so full of negativity. And media democracy produce populists, not leaders. And then I said, Mr. Schmidt, who are you thinking about? And this was in late 2009. In late 2014. So he said, Silvio Berlusconi. I'm wondering, if he hadn't died in November 2015, who do you think he would have mentioned? You have heard about one presidential candidate today. But did we create another one? We, meaning the news media. Donald Trump, before he was big, got media exposure. In American news networks. That if he had to pay for it in advertising, he would have to pay 1.9 billion US dollars for it. Why? Because, as Donald Trump put it at that time, news media loves me. Why? Because he fitted completely into the news criteria of all American networks. He created drama each time he said something. He created conflict. He was entertaining. And he divided everybody into crooks. Mexicans, Muslims, and victims. All you. You are losers, but I will make you winners. Vote for me. I'm afraid it is as simple as that. And then there's globalization, and people have lost their jobs. But let me get back to that. Media created Donald Trump. Media created Donald Trump. Very early in 2016, before the presidential election really fired up, there was fierce criticism against CBS, which is one of the big networks in the United States. Why they were overexposing Donald Trump much more than any other candidate. Much more than Bernie Sanders. Much more than any Democratic candidate. Altogether, all the Democratic candidates. More than any Republican candidate. The exposure of Donald Trump was tremendous. And the CEO of CBS News was being asked, why are you doing this? And his answer tells you what's sickening with the news industry. He said, it may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS. The money's rolling in. Bring it on, Donald. Go ahead. Keep on going. He said that. And he meant it. Because, because our whole industry has been affected with the business school logic that journalism is just a product to be sold. And yes, we need an audience. Yes. And we want a salary. Yes. But journalism is much more than that. And if we don't remember that, we do not support society. We do not help democracy. We cripple it. And that's why we need to change the culture of what we are doing. And that's what I want to tell you about. A very good professor at Harvard, where SAC is going right now, Thomas Patterson is saying, the real bias of the press is not that it's liberal. Its bias is a decided preference for the negative. A few years ago, when I was editor-in-chief of Jyllands Posten in this town, I wanted to invite a journalist who could tell the staff what journalism can do. It can tip presidents. If the story is important enough, if they are talented enough and have the guts. So, many years ago, I drank coffee with Bob Woodward. This is Woodward and Bernstein, right? I drank coffee with Bob in his kitchen in Georgetown. So I called Bob, said, Won't you like to come to Viby, Denmark? Yes, he would love to if I paid him $100,000 for a speech. That was a little over budget, even back then. Then I said, What about the other guy? He's not that smart and therefore maybe not so expensive. So I called Carl Bernstein, and he came because I told him how pretty the girls were in Aarhus. And he believed it and it is true. So he came and he said one fantastic thing. And for me, it's the definition of journalism. He said, Journalism is not stenography. Journalism is the best obtainable version of the truth. The best obtainable version of the truth. There's not something as the truth. But the best obtainable version. We could strive for that. And let me tell you my moment of truth. The moment I realized I had to do something was when I came home a late Friday evening, one year after I got my present job. I was in charge of TV vision and audio vision and DRDK and text television and all kind of stuff. And suddenly I came, you know, Friday evening, you come home late, finally after a long week and you, finally weekend and you get home. And the wife is sitting there. She's pretty and the girls are clean. And the baby is asleep. And there's red wine in the glass. And there's methadonics in the bowl. And there's a movie later and X Factor. And who knows what will happen later. It will be fantastic. But first, first we have to watch the news because that's what grown up people do. Right? To see the best obtainable version of the truth. And here it went. It was like this. Welcome to TV vision. There's a terror threat against Denmark. Shooting incident in Copenhagen. New regional trains delivered. Not exactly on time. They're from Italy. What did they expect? Serial cancer now a danger to young girls. Strike among bus drivers continues. Woman abducted and abused in a cottage in Sweden. We have the pictures of the cottage. Crisis in the Social Democratic Party. Old man runs for president in U.S. in a crisis. Court case about airplane accidents with a few hundred people. Who died. It begins now. Suppressed North Koreans works out. A giant mechanical spider creates fear in Liverpool. And finally the weather forecast. The rain continues. And have a nice evening. It was like that. And I went back and said, what's wrong with this? And there's nothing wrong with any of the stories. But is this picture, is this the best obtainable version of the truth? Or is this just what we call news because that's our culture? And I started saying, there's something wrong. I started watch TV programs all over the world. I started reading newspapers. This is a global disease. You see it everywhere. This is culture. This is why we need to rethink. Not to redo. You can't redo until you rethink. And you have to look in the mirror and take the consequence of it. Or break the mirror. I was fortunate not to be invited to the BBC in London. I was lucky enough to go there to learn. And they invited me to talk to the BBC. And I did that. And I took a screenshot that day just to tell them what... Because BBC is the mother of journalism. That's what we copy. This is what we should do. So this is... Just see the words they were using. And you can go every day, it's the same thing. It's death, kills, abandon, terrifying, terrorism. Everything. All good journalism. But the world is a shitty place. I tell you that. Stay at home. It's terrible. People have started to do research about what does it do to your mind with this thing. And this psychology professor says, News media are now so full of stories and misery and negativity controls news flow and therefore also politics and the public debate. Apathy or fear is the result. The risk is that people not only deselect media, deselect media as sources for news, but also that they disengage in the public debate. And if that's the consequence of my job and my colleague's job, and I wanted to do good for society when I entered journalism, I have to do something. We have to understand that journalism is a filter between reality and the public perception of reality. So you can actually measure the gap between it. And you can't say that we don't have a responsibility. If there is a gap. If you ask people in Denmark, Are you more secure now than you were 10 years ago? What do you think they answer? The same thing as they do in the United States, in Great Britain, in Germany, in France, everywhere. We are less secure. And then we ask them, Why? They say, Because of all the murders. Because of the home robberies. The crime rate. The traffic accident is terrible. And the terrorism and the killings. And oh, it's everywhere. Is that in Skive where you live? No, it's in television. And on the internet. And on Facebook. It's everywhere. It's terrible. The truth is, the murder rate in most countries in Europe has never been lower. Even the amount of bicycle thefts are going down in Denmark. The traffic accidents, people dying in traffic in Denmark has gone dramatically down. In 2016 it was a little like this. But it went down from this. Not since they invented the car so few people have died in cars. In Copenhagen where I work, but luckily don't live, not one person has died inside a car unless they put a vacuum clean fuse into the cabin. Have you seen how many cars there are out there? They can't speed. So if they bump into somebody, there are airbags all over the place. They don't die. Do people know that? No. Do they tell people that? No, because then they lose their money from the government. Right? They don't do it. They do another campaign that you have to lower the speed. In the history of mankind, never has so few people died in wars as in 2016, despite of Syria. Did you know that? Did you know that the risk of dying in a terrorist attack in Europe has never been lower? Since the 70s? It was just Badermainhof doing it or Rotarmee Fraktion or the Basques or whatever. It was maybe not Muslim, but it was somebody else. The risk is lower now. But we are covering it. 24-7. And we are trying it. People say negativity is an illness, quote by even serious newspapers, magazines, at least not TV news broadcasters all over the world. And here comes the point. The problem is not that they are lying. The problem is not that the numbers are wrong. The problem is that the picture gets wrong. And if you will remember one thing I said, let it be this one. This is a global survey made in a lot of different countries at the same time about major issues. It surveys the gap between the reality and the public perception of reality. Right? For instance, asking people in France, how many people are Muslim in your country? The right number in late 2014 was 8%. But in people's mind in France, in average, we are talking about French voters. They think that 31% of all Frenchmen are now Muslim. And if you think that one third of your countrymen are now Muslim, and the only Muslim you see are those blowing it themselves, on television, who do you vote for in the presidential election coming up? Let me show you this one. How bad is the economy in your country? What's the unemployment rate? Look at Italy with the bad, bad, bad media in Italy. They have an unemployment rate which is very high, 12%, which is very high. But in average, this Italian people believe they have an unemployment rate of 49%. Where does that come from? And you look at United States. United States, the unemployment rate just before the election in November, fell to all time low for nine years to 4.7. 4.7. But in people's mind, Democrats and Republicans alike, in all over United States, in average, thought in November that the unemployment rate was 32. Not that it's not more than that in Detroit, but in average, the economy was actually growing. But that doesn't matter if people think that it's bad. So the overexposure of the extreme on news media and politicians building on that builds the impression that the world is far worse, but I can save you. This is about news culture. Where does it come from? I learned it in journalism school. A good story is a bad story. If nobody gets mad, it's advertising. It runs in my veins. We can do something about it. What's constructive news? Is that some kind of North Korean version of journalism where we ignore problems and paint the sky blue? No, it is not. And it's not cute stories about cats on skateboards on YouTube helping people kill in time. It's stories about important matters. And I'll go through it, what it is. It's saying journalism is a feedback mechanism that should help society self-correct. It's a supplement to normal news criteria. People also need inspiration for solutions. Stories that focus on ways out and hope, and it's about possibilities and people who do something the rest of us might not. I have made this myself. It's very boring, but it's efficient. There are three kinds of journalism. But in journalism school, we are taught only two. One is breaking. It's about now. The goal is speed. We ask the questions what and when. The style is the more dramatic, the better. We play the role of ambulance or police. We roll out with flashing lights. And we angle our stories on drama and conflict, right? And that's not a bad thing, because that's also a job for news organizations. The other thing is investigative. Very costly, very difficult, very important in any democracy that we have journalism digging beneath the surface. What is it actually? It's always about yesterday. It's about putting a blame to someone for the shit we're in. We answer the questions about who and why did it happen. The style is the more critical, the better. We play the role of a prosecutor and sometimes a judge. And we angle the story on crooks and victims. And that's good. We should do that. We should keep people with power accountable. But that's not the only job we have. And constructive news builds on that. And you can't be a constructive journalist if you don't build on a documented problem. Otherwise, it's just cute. But constructive stories about tomorrow, the goal is inspiration. It asks new questions. Which is now what and how? The style is curious and we play the role of facilitator. We angle our stories on best practice and possible solutions. So that's the difference. Does it work? Can I come with one example? One example. We have done a lot of stories about the fact that people, young doctors being educated in Copenhagen and this city, they don't want to move to Skib and Tam and the rural districts of Denmark. Big problem. Because actually we can do breaking news about it. People die because there are no doctors. So we do that. And then we want to do investigative stories about that. Why does this happen? And we invite the Minister of Health in the studio. And he'll say it's not our fault, it's the region. We invite Ben Hanson into the studio for the regions. And he'll say it's not my fault, it's the doctors and whatever. And if we're very lucky, we'll have a commission set down. It will come out in five years with a big report. And nobody will read it. The constructive angle would be to look at a European map and say, would there be anyone else in Europe facing the same problem and did they do something that we might learn from? And then we look at Norway. Have you seen Norway? It's crazy how long it is. How do you get people from Oslo where they educate their young doctors to move to Tromsø? 1,737 kilometers. Talk about rural districts. And then we call them. Have you heard about this problem? Bet we have, they said. Seven years ago, Northern Norway was dying because nobody dared to go there. It was life-threatening because we had no doctors. They didn't want to move there. So we had to do something. So what did you do? Come up and visit us. We can tell you. And we went up. We did a story. I don't have time to show you. But the story was basically they solved the problem. How did they do it? They invited all these doctors. They lowered the interest of their studio loans. They promised that the studio would be built. They promised that the spouse could get a job. Big campaigns about polar bears and northern lightning and clean air and good childhood. Whatever. Point was, it worked. They made a plan. It worked. Was that inspirational? Yes. Because then we can learn from it. If we do one story about villages falling apart because nobody wants to live there and everybody looks terrible, that's a good story. But an even better story, if we can find a village seven kilometers away, who actually did something about it. What did they do? They started to buy more stuff in the local supermarkets so it didn't close. They started to paint. They talked to the politicians and made them tear down the ugly buildings or whatever. Something happened. Suddenly the house prices start rising because people want to live there. It's also a good story. News is something out of the ordinary. Does it work? At DR, yes. 93% of all people in Denmark now get news from DR. It's almost as in the good old monopoly days. We are now the most trusted news brands in Denmark, both on TV, radio and online has had the biggest jump for the last year of any media. And we have the biggest news show. That's all. We weren't before, I tell you that. Far bigger than our competitors. And we have cut down on the coverage of crime and suicide. We have stupid stories that doesn't do anything but killing time for people. Trying to do stories about important issues. I can brag about that later. This spreads around the world. Constructive journalism answers the question of why public media, quality journalism matters to society. Gives our news a clear purpose, they say. At Huffington Post, they introduced it. They said it actually works. People share these stories much more than any other story. BBC has introduced constructive stories. They call it solution-focused journalism. I've written a book. It's also in German. And has our content changed? I took just eight years later. I won't run through it. But we have changed the concept of news and the feeling when you have watched a news program. And just watch even the weather forecast is better. And if I have time, can I play one video? Because what happens was this taps into something that people feel. Especially women. Especially young people. They turn their backs on traditional news because they are sick and tired of it. And now they have alternatives. They go on Facebook being reassured about their picture of the world. Which is very dangerous. Because they don't see other pictures of the world. But we are to blame. We should rethink. I'll show you a video that a woman sent me from Great Britain somewhere. She sells perfume. And she was so sick and tired of the British press that she did a video. And like you, she was not very good with the technical stuff. But she had a boyfriend and he was very good. So he helped her doing this video. And just watch it. The purpose of the news is to engage and inform. Empower people to bring about reform. But their words are being lost by the noise of the storm. We hear about disaster, murder, conflict and violence. And after a while this becomes white noise like silence. Because when there's a bias for the negative, we lose becoming sensitive. And instead we become emotionally dead. You see this negativity has been shown to be destructively informing me. Dividing me from society by creating this fear and anxiety. For many they watch helplessly as if we're damned to be. But that's not the only story of the fate of our humanity. Let's hear about progress. Acknowledge solutions. This excess of negativity is like mental pollution. When we do see good news, it's misrepresented. We hear cats being saved from trees and the conversation is ended. Saved instead for an am finally. But finally these stories of possibility are being shown to be a vital story for society. We need to learn about how problems are being solved. Issues resolved. For the sake of our society. Not for ignorant bliss but because we are better than this. We don't need sugar coating or positive spins. Again that's a cynical view that this conversation underpins. And don't get it confused with entertainment, PR or fluff. Enough is enough. It's rigorous journalism reporting on progress. Reporting on problems but not ignoring success. We publicize failure, corruption and shame. But when it comes to human potential it's not treated the same. And the hypocrisy is killing me. They point the finger at every other industry but leave them be. As this excess of negativity increases in velocity, atrocity, chasing more controversy. But where is the nobility in preying on morbid curiosity? I feel cheated, defeated by newspapers allegiance to profits and click baits. Regardless of if it generates hate and drums up the nation into a fearful state. Some people find it too much to take. And then the stories become lost because people switch off. But if we want a nation that's engaged. And informed. It's time to reform. Make a new norm. Empower. Inspire. Help us achieve higher. Report the good in other people. Not just replay their evil. If we witness the unbelievable it makes it more achievable. A solution seems more feasible. The only option now is to freeze. Or fall. After all, the truth of the world includes the good and the bad. The power lies in us becoming aware. To ensure they take more care about the stories they tell when they look at the world out there. And why should we care? Because the truth is the news is an organization that's intrusive of our minds. And it's a matter of time before their words become our thoughts shaping our opinions more and more. So what we're asking for, as I've said before, is rigorous journalism and reporting on progress. Reporting on problems but not ignoring success. It may sound idealistic, it's been labeled naive, but let me assure you this is not an ignorant plea. The research says it's obvious and to ignore it is preposterous. So it's time for the consumers to take a stand because the industry will listen to us. And that's why I said I'd quit my job. Because I think that's important for the world. And my completely stupid, naive dream is to make a global movement that will change the world. And that's why I'm speaking Danish. And now I'm speaking Danish. That journalism can be a fundament for a democratic debate. Journalism should be a place where you could stick to. Giving you the best obtainable version of the truth. Because if not, your facts are as good as mine. And we can pick each of our facts and the way we want to see the world. And we get a divided world. We get divided nations. And journalism and news media, traditional news media, they have a future if they are more meaningful. Giving stories that people can lean on, trust that are meaningful. Telling important stories, even complicated stories, in a way that people can understand. Not trying to make them vote a different way. Not trying to make journalism look like, activism look like journalism. Don't try to be a politician. We have politicians for that. We shouldn't decide which solution is. But we can inspire to a better debate about which solutions we should pick. And that's also a journalistic tool. And it works. And it helps. And we start this September 1st. And we do a fellowship program. We start with five Danish. And one year from now we will have 12. Six international, six Danish. We'll, with scientists at Aarhus University, do science about what do we do to the democracy. And if we do something else, does it help? We'll create the first engine, search engine for solutions in connection with Google. We will try to, we have just partnered up with Facebook. It's called News Integrity Initiative. We have United States, United Nations as a partner. And all the journalism schools in Denmark. Because, especially young people. They want to change. Our job is to help them do that. So, thank you very much.