Has the internet ruined Journalism & News?
It promised unlimited reach, direct engagement, and a more informed world. But instead devalued expertise, creating a ‘clicks and outrage’ economy where speed reigns over accuracy.
In this conversation, John DeDakis - an award-winning novelist, writing coach, public speaker, and former CNN Senior Copy Editor - discusses the profound changes in journalism brought about by the internet. He highlights the challenges of maintaining trust in news, the impact of AI and misinformation, and the importance of media literacy.
We also delve into the need for public broadcasting and the role of citizen journalism in shaping the media landscape. DeDakis concludes with a hopeful outlook for the future of journalism, stressing the importance of curiosity and discernment in the pursuit of truth.
Gareth King (00:28)
John, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show.
John DeDakis (00:31)
Thanks, Gareth. It's good to be here.
Gareth King (00:33)
Before we get into it, can you tell us a bit about what you do and the journey that led you to this point?
John DeDakis (00:38)
What I do now is I'm a writing coach, a manuscript editor, a novelist, a public speaker, and I've been doing that since I retired from CNN in 2013, although I was doing some of those things while I was still at CNN. I was a journalist for 45 years, covered the White House when Reagan was President, went to CNN in 1988 in Atlanta, and was with the network for 25 years, the last seven as an editor for Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room.
Gareth King (01:10)
Yeah, wow, so there's quite an extensive repertoire and background that you've got there. So obviously you've been in the world of journalism and writing long enough to have seen the arrival of the internet, and also its effects play out. From your perspective, what's been the most fundamental change across the industry?
John DeDakis (01:23)
I think that the most fundamental change, at least for me, because I existed before the internet did, the biggest change is the connectivity of it. You and I are half a world away, and we are able to talk in real time, being able to see each other. I mean, that was unheard of when I was growing up.
And so I think that's the biggest thing, the reach that we have to be able to connect with people around the world. I mean, that's just spectacular, I think.
Gareth King (02:01)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think just on that point of reach, as you said, it would have been unheard of. But looking back to that time, what did the initial impact of the internet and technology look like on the industry? And what was the reaction at the time?
John DeDakis (02:16)
Well, in journalism, there was certainly a fair degree of skepticism about the internet. I mean, we used it, but we had to be very careful about knowing if the information was reliable. And so, for the longest time, the internet was available as sort of a tip service.
We would get heads up about things, but we would still check it out the old way where you pick up the phone and call somebody in authority at a reputable organisation, a government agency or one of your contacts or something like that. So it took a while for the internet to become more insinuated into daily life.
Gareth King (03:00)
Yeah, interesting to hear that it almost generated those leads easier to people, which you then still had to investigate. And I think one of the things we'll probably get into as well as we go through this conversation is the speed that everything operates at these days and how that plays out.
Would you say it the internet as a tool for journalism was taken seriously right off the bat, like right away? Or do you think the industry was a little bit slow to react?
John DeDakis (03:27)
It's been a while now, but I think that there was a fair amount of skepticism. And I think, you know what? I think at reputable news organisations, there's still a lot of skepticism for good reason, because there is just so much BS out there.
And there's so much, there are so many lies and conspiracy theories. It's just gotten like it's the Wild West. And so I think I think reputable news organisations are still cautious about it, and yet it's used quite a bit as well.
Gareth King (03:52)
Yeah, yeah, especially, I mean, your point there around reputable news organisations. And I think as we know, as it expands and, the rise of, say, citizen journalism as well, the lines are kind of getting blurred. And as I guess we've seen play out over years now, that trust even in these reputable organisations seems to be breaking down quite a lot too. So obviously that's another challenge to try and address as everything keeps going.
But I guess on that point, what would you say beyond maintaining that reputation and I guess that trust from the audience? What would be the biggest challenge for an editor trying to manage an outlet or publication in the digital age? And how would that compare to previously when it was kind of just implicitly trustworthy?
John DeDakis (04:48)
I'm not sure I can add much to that just because journalists are skeptical. And so, the problem is the sources that are making things up, and it's just a matter of trial and error. mean, the sources that journalists tend to rely on are sources they trust.
And so a lot of people are competing for attention. The problem now is that, I mean, you even look, you even have the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who, I'll be honest, he lies constantly, reflexively, you know, and so if he says it, you have to be skeptical. But of course, if you ask him questions, then you're considered treasonous.
You know, it's gotten to the point where, you know, Trump himself has done a tremendous disservice to the internet because of the falsehoods that he spews and then claims that the mainstream media is fake news. And what he's done, and he's not just undermining journalism, he's undermining the intelligence community, the judiciary, the scientific community. And that's what dictators do – they undermine trust in everything so that you believe them. I mean, he said when he first ran for President, only I can solve it.
Gareth King (06:19)
Yeah, look, that's an entire, I guess, world that we could probably spend hours, going down. And what it appears to me, you I'm in Australia, I'm not on the ground in the US seeing what it's like over there. But what I can kind of see around all of that is the way that him or his team or whoever it is, is kind of using the internet in like, internet culturally rather than an official sense.
And I think that not just him, I think all officials do it to varying degrees where they've got a team that manages their social media or something. And the team is not staffed by people like them. It's staffed by young people totally plugged into, you know, the way to communicate to people online.
So, so that communication is formatted as internet information, not kind of official information. And then I think, wires get crossed somewhere along the line. That's obviously one of the disservices that the democratisation of information provides via the internet.
John DeDakis (07:25)
Yes. One of the things that's happening right now in the White House press corps is that they have made room for what they call new media. And it's a rotating thing. And they get the first question in the briefing. They sit to Karoline Leavitt’s immediate right, along that Rose Garden wall. And the New York Times just did a piece on one of the new media people. And the guy makes stuff up. I mean, he's already got a reputation for not being reputable. But that's OK for the White House because he says what they want him to say. And he slavishly asks, softball questions.
It's complicated because you're right about young people using the technology to get the message out as effectively as possible. They're not necessarily dealing with the content. They're dealing with the way to make sure that the reach is as far as it needs to be. But you've got people in the White House, in the briefing room, who aren't journalists, but they've got hundreds of thousands of followers, but there's no editor on their shoulder going, where'd you get that? How do you know that's true?
Gareth King (08:45)
Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting point as well around kind of, guess, the speed that everything needs to operate. We know that headlines drive clicks, which drive revenue. And the byproduct of that, of course, is the need to create that kind of viral content that you know is going to get a lot of eyes, a lot of clicks, and get that revenue to keep the network or your own small publication, whatever is going.
But seeing somewhat of the model head down that path, where everything is just, we've seen the rise of opinion pieces as quite polarising by their nature for that, I guess, for that purpose. Does that kind of cheap form of content, does that mean that expensive investigative journalism and writing just becomes too expensive to produce for the most part?
And does that shift towards clickbait and headline, you know, lot of people don't read beyond the headline. Is driving things through headlines rather than content simply a necessity of a business model that might be struggling?
John DeDakis (09:49)
Yes. That's a real danger. And what's happening is, in fact, the internet is probably responsible for a lot of newspapers going out of business because they had to monetise what they were doing, but people wanted free news. So they were, you know, a lot of newspapers were late to put up a paywall. And so they were kind of caught flat-footed responding to the internet.
And so you're absolutely right, it really puts a chill in investigative reporting because in order to do effective investigative reporting, you have to be backed up by a news organisation that has deep pockets, and skilled lawyers that can protect you. You know, if you are branching out on your own and you're doing investigative reporting, you are very likely going to get sued.
And even if you are in the right, even if truth is an absolute defense, someone with deep pockets and a lot of patience can run out the clock and run out your bank account. Even though, I mean, look at, we’re seeing Trump shake down, you know, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, the New York Times, you know, he's suing, you know, some of these people for $20 billion, and they're settling. And these are big news organisations. You know, they're not settling for 20 billion. They're settling for 16 million.
Gareth King (11:11)
Just to kind of get it off their plate. No, of course. And look, it's, I guess, just for context, it's very different over here in terms of the litigious nature of things. I think over here, our legal system doesn't allow, well not from what I can see anyway, like that level of suing over kind of everything.
But you said something there around orgs and publications being slow to put up a paywall around their content. Why did they originally just decide to start giving away the content for free? What was the strategy behind that? And how did they imagine they could capitalise on that economically?
John DeDakis (11:54)
It's hard for me to know for sure, but my hunch is they still had the physical newspaper and they, I don't think, realised that people were moving to the internet. And I think that they still trusted in the history that people will still gravitate toward the actual paper. And I think they just were slow to realise the tectonic shift that took place in news consumption.
Gareth King (12:19)
And that makes total sense. And on that point, do you think the rise of that citizen journalism that we mentioned a couple of minutes ago, which is obviously fueled by the internet and the ease it is to publish and share your own stuff, how do you think that changed the way traditional media outlets do their jobs? Like now with the ability for anyone to curate their own unique interest newsfeed, is the one size fits all, let's say, broadcast model a thing of the past? And how much future do you reckon it has?
John DeDakis (12:53)
That's an intriguing question. I think that the search for truth, I don't think that the principles involved with that have gone away or will go away. You still need to verify your sources. If you're getting something anonymously, you need to be able to confirm it with two other sources at least. There are still reputable news organisations, the Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, just to name a few.
So I still think that the fundamentals of journalism still exist, but the problem of course is that even the Russian government, I mean the military, they have, what are they, troll farms. They are planting false information. That is something they're doing on an industrial strength level, on a state level. And it's weaponising falsehoods. And that's hard to fight against. It's hard to fight against.
Gareth King (13:38)
No, absolutely. And I think that, you know, that's something that I'm sure you'd understand that comes up here as well. You know, anytime there's an election or anything to do with government going on, it's this kind of, whether it's real or not, it's almost the go-to now that these Russian troll farms are doing these kind of interference jobs. And I'm sure that they're not the only ones. Like, I'm sure basically every nation is probably doing, yeah.
John DeDakis (14:21)
China as well, you know? And one thing you haven't mentioned is artificial intelligence. I mean, the deep fakes that are becoming much more sophisticated.
Gareth King (14:27)
We can segue into that now because that's it's a great, great thing to talk about. I remember, you know, when it must be a few years ago now playing with the first kind of image generators and they were terrible, you know, they were laughable at what you would get back from them.
And then seeing the first examples of when you could kind of make an image of somebody doing something. And then when the first video came out where you could just take an existing video of put someone else's face on it, even then, you know, I remember having conversations with people around this is going to be really bad. Like once this kind of starts exponentially increasing quality wise.
You know, it's so funny, we've, we've spent the last decade. You mentioned the term fake news just before, and whether anyone likes it or not, that has just become part of the vernacular for everybody now. And it kind of just refers to everything that somebody doesn't like. They can kind of call it that. And it's so interesting to me that we've spent so much of the last decade fighting against fake news and things that are misinformation, disinformation, et cetera, to now be barrelling at super speed into a digital world full of stuff that's fake and we’ll have no way of telling.
And it's just an interesting irony that all of that fight against fake stuff seems to have fallen by the wayside as we now embrace, you know, generative AI and other forms of AI. How do you think that's going to happen and play out?
John DeDakis (16:12)
Well, here's the thing. I mean, technology is morally neutral. And the problem is the people and what people do with it. And going forward, I think that one of the points you made about AI being so sophisticated that we won't be able to tell the real from the fake. But I think that there are ways that there might be able to put watermarks on things or a digital watermark for authenticity's sake.
I mean, this is way beyond my understanding or ability to deal with. And in this country, there's the First Amendment, freedom of speech. And so you really want to be very careful about fiddling with content because that was always the case, even when we're talking about the printing press. You could still lie and use a printing press to do it and reach a lot of people. So, lying is nothing new. It's just that the technology and the pipeline is more sophisticated. But the responsibility is still on us to be discerning. There's no surprise that there's lying out there. So that means we've just got to be alert to it and not just swallow everything whole.
Gareth King (17:27)
Yeah, no, totally. And I think that your point you raised there about watermarks or something like that. I have seen certain pieces of content that might be shared on various platforms that will have kind of a watermark identifier built in. People do want that, because we've seen the amount of what they call, slop out there in terms of text and writing is insane. And everybody, you know, they have these debates around how you can tell formats, it's got a certain tone, et cetera, like the use of em dash is like a big one.
But that's short form content, obviously you're, you've got a background in but you're now a longer form writer in the world of novels. Yeah, yeah, but I guess that's coming from your own mind. How do these, are these tools, are they starting to impact that world at all or are they, okay, in what ways?
John DeDakis (18:07)
Yes. I want to say one thing though to go back to the future. I think a lot can be said for the education system. I think that there really needs to be not just in education where people learn how to use it, but I think that there needs to be some classes in being more sophisticated in using it responsibly, and being able to discern what's real and what's fake. So, I think education in elementary school on up you know I think is is important.
But as far as AI is concerned that's something I've been playing with because I teach a lot I do a lot of writing classes, and so the question comes up a lot and so I've you know I've fiddled with AI a little bit, and it's here to stay and I found that it can be useful as a research tool as long as you get you know, sources that you can check out.
But you know, AI isn't really creative. It just regurgitates information. And I actually tried that. I had to write a short story, which is not my specialty. And so I plugged in the parameters. I need a short story. Five thousand words. This style. This is the title. These are the elements. And it spit out something in nanoseconds. And it sucked. It sucked.
And that then was a reminder that I hadn't lost my chops, and that there is something to say for the human element here. And it is definitely, I mean, there's a lawsuit in the US about copyright infringement because people's books are being used to train AI, Chat GPT is not buying these people's novels, they're just stealing them.
And that's still going through the courts. So copyright infringement is an issue, but it's almost a moot point because the damage has already been done, although it could protect people who are now writing, but their stuff hasn't been published yet.
Gareth King (20:15)
Yeah, and on the kind of, guess, copyright infringement stuff, as you've alluded to there, it is just pulling from all information available to it and kind of summarising it, which if you play that out over a long enough time, the more it does that, the more of itself it's putting out there. And then the more of itself it's kind of drawing from. So, it should theoretically just come to this ultimately beige point that it's just nothing, you know what I mean? Once it loses, as you said, all that humanness, that's, yeah, not very exciting to think about.
John DeDakis (20:54)
I would bet though that AI is becoming, is going to become much more sophisticated to the point where it really can replicate, the human thought and the emotions. I read or I heard a story recently that, you know, unstable people are using Chat GPT or, you know, generative AI to be their therapist, and that it actually can talk them into committing suicide.
Gareth King (21:20)
Yeah I’ve seen a couple of the same stories and that's very, very scary that not only are we so insularised, I don't know if that's a word, but we're so insular into our devices and things in our digital lives where we're not interacting with real people offline that turning to a screen for therapy is, it seems like a very dystopian next step.
And then seeing, as you said, these stories of these young people ending up kind of committing suicide because of what it said, or whether it's because of what it said directly or not. It's just, it's so tragic. And hopefully there gets to be some guard rails and, you know, regulations around that because that's awful. If you were a nefarious actor, you could easily sabotage that and commit some kind of op. But that’s a very dark place to go down.
But what I did want to talk to you around, as you said, those large language models and generative AI to make pieces. If we rewind back to the context of say, let's say a book publisher or even a newsroom or anything that deals in words. Theoretically, could they get to a point where you could be running just, agentic AI systems producing all the content drawing from what's happening out there in the world? And so you could be running an entirely fake newsroom or book publisher.
John DeDakis (22:49)
Yeah. Yeah, have a nice day.
Gareth King (22:52)
Awesome. Yeah, God, that sounds awful. Okay. Another thing, if we go back to citizen journalism, I'm sure you've heard of platforms like Substack, right?
Would you say that on an individual level that the Substack model is potentially a viable future for journalism, or is it just a niche where I guess if you've got a big enough name a platform already you can capitalise on that?
John DeDakis (23:20)
I think you can definitely do that. I mean, there are a couple of people who left the Washington Post and started their own Substack. I've always seen Substack as more of a newsletter kind of thing. But technology evolves. I don't see it necessarily replacing day-to-day journalism, but it certainly supplements it. And it can be a useful, valuable contribution to the search for truth. And I mean, that's the thing.
I think that anything is possible and it can be used for good or for ill. And it goes back to being discerning and being able use things responsibly with the understanding that there are going to be a lot of people who don't use it responsibly or use it nefariously or even in an evil with evil intent. But that's been the human condition since the beginning. It's just more sophisticated now.
Gareth King (24:08)
Yeah, on that point, you said something there, obviously the search for truth and you've got to be a bit discerning around whether it's your sources or what you're producing. A little while ago, we touched on kind of how the internet affected, say, newsrooms and journalism right at the get go. How has that changed over time, now that there's this 24 seven news cycle and just constant demand for new stuff and the speed that everything operates at?
John DeDakis (24:46)
Well, in some ways, it's very useful because one of the things I noticed when I was at CNN is that, you know, it was hard for us to do interviews with people who didn't live in a bureau city. In other words, you had to get a camera in front of them. And, you know, that took time, it took effort, travel, all that kind of stuff. So you know, the newsmakers were in the big cities near where we had a camera.
Well, now with the internet, we can hook up to somebody in function junction Utah, and that's great because the technology allows us to reach more people, and draw from the expertise and the experience of people who aren't just in the elite gatekeeping kinds of places. So I think that's a value.
You have now, you know, everybody who's got a cell phone. Cell phones are very sophisticated in that, they have that camera function and the video function. So, people can go live, during a traffic stop that goes south. And, you know, people see it in real time. Sadly, however, mass shooters have also live streamed their crimes. It's sick. But just because the ability that is there doesn't make the internet sick, it means that people misuse it.
But as far as journalism is concerned, it's been wonderful in terms of getting video fast people right on the scene. You know, if you've got, if you know, when Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, everybody had it on tape, you know? I mean, you get so many different angles of the same thing. And that is helpful to law enforcement as well.
Gareth King (26:23)
Yeah, look, I think that that as well as you said, theoretically any event that happens, you've got somebody on the scene and we know that people not even interested in producing news, they're just interested in getting likes online, putting a video out there. And one of the things that we've all noticed is whether big or small, it doesn't really matter, sources of news do scour the internet and social media platforms to find those stories that might originate on someone's Instagram or TikTok account, or as you said, a video just shared somewhere.
How much of that goes on? Would you say there's people that that's their job just to like be trawling the internet for things like that that can turn into stories, or do you hear the story and then find?
John DeDakis (27:19)
I don't think news organisations are doing that. Again, we're talking reputable news organisations. I don't think that's where they get their news. Now, there's a friend of mine in Baltimore when the key bridge was hit by a barge and it collapsed. There was video, was surveillance video, and they had to go through a rigorous check to make sure they had to check with the police. This is what we see. Is this did this happen?
And so, that then means, though, that there are people out in the hinterlands who will, you know, send you a video and say, isn't this amazing? And it is amazing, but it's is it true? And so I think, again, the reputable news organisations, they're not searching for that kind of stuff because the stuff comes at them. One of the things I'd like to see and maybe they actually exist is, look, if you've got a video of some event that, you know, is stunning, but there's no, you know, no one else happened to be there with a camera. Did it really happen or is it fake?
I would think there need to be people in newsrooms that are able to tell if a news event is really a news event. There have been a couple of cases where Fox News, which is sort of a very conservative network in the U.S., sort of Trump's personal, almost personal website, they were, giving stories about, you know, burning down cities, but the video was from, something entirely different. But, you know, you got to be able to show where the original came from, show how they're using it. And I mean, that's investigative journalism.
Gareth King (29:01)
Yeah, look, that's a great point. And I think that that is one of the problems with this. And as we mentioned a little while ago, a lot of people are not doing any deeper digging on anything. They see the video, that's the truth. They see a claim, that's the truth.
You know, I’ve seen things like that, even those US ones that you're talking about, like I might've seen it in my feed and I'm like, this just seems absurd, whether it's about, fires or something else. And within a minute of further, you know, amateur investigation that I can do, I can find that it's fake, but let's be honest, the vast majority of people aren't doing that. So, it's totally understandable how this stuff spreads and I guess
John DeDakis (29:26)
Which goes back to my feeling that the education system needs to step up as well because people are, you know, they're sheep in many ways. They'll believe whatever they want to believe. And when you have an informed electorate, when civics is taught, when science is taught, you know, the education system, I think, really needs to step up to let people know that at a young age that the dangers of falsehoods, the consequences of that.
I think we can turn it around if we educate people. I mean, that's not meant to be a panacea, but I think it is at least one place where we can start to make a difference.
Gareth King (30:23)
Yeah, no, absolutely. I totally agree with you there that kind of teaching digital literacy. I mean, look, if you're a 14 year old kid now, you don't know anything other than having a supercomputer in your hand at all times. So you know how to use all of this stuff, but it's like, as you said, being able to discern objective truth versus the subjective truth is a skill that I know it'd be interesting to see whether people want that, or they want their own opinions, whatever they are to be nurtured and kind of coddled in that regard.
You know you mentioned Fox News there you've got publications on the other end and look, everybody's got their bias and kind of angle to different things. But would you say that journalism is in better shape when you've got a strong public broadcaster that needs to appeal to a broad audience representing the entire nation.
Like in Australia, we've got the ABC, and so obviously being publicly funded, they
need to appear right down the middle, Now, that said, I don't think there's a single person in Australia that thinks the ABC is that. Everybody thinks that it's catering to the views that they don't like, which is probably an indicator that they're actually doing quite a good balanced job. But those publicly funded broadcasters that do need to play right down the middle, how do you think that they keep the truth in journalism alive.
John DeDakis (31:58)
Well, the problem is that Trump is defunding them. And so that's one of the problems we have. It's not that they never were, well, I shouldn't say never, but at this point, it's not publicly funded. There's a public stream of money, but it's a small percentage. But it's enough that when that money goes away, that does have an impact on the quality of reporting.
And I think though that, there really, I have a problem with publicly funded news organisations because if you've got a dictator, that then means the information is curated by somebody who really has an axe to grind. So, I don't see public as necessarily the same as unbiased.
Gareth King (32:39)
I mean, yeah, that's, that's a fair, fair point, I guess the flip side of that is that, hypothetically, let's say Donald Trump destroys it, couldn't someone just reinstate it in a few more years?
John DeDakis (32:57)
Sure, absolutely. And you know, there was a time in the US where they had the fairness doctrine and equal time provisions. It got to be very difficult to administer, and a lot of broadcasting organisations got their licenses from the government. So, in order to to get their license renewed, they needed to play it straight and to be fair to all sides.
And when those particular rules went away, it was the Wild West. It gave rise to talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, you know, people who, you know, who didn't have editors. They could spew whatever they wanted. I think it's a pendulum. You know, we talked about truth, we talked about objectivity. I think on a fundamental level, people really do appreciate truth. We don't like to be lied to. We certainly don't like to be lied to in relationships. And that's really what we're talking about, a relationship between the people and a President, the people and their government. So I think that on some fundamental level, there still is a desirable for reliable information.
Gareth King (33:46)
Yeah, 100%. And I think that that's one of the benefits that the access to finding that truth for anybody that is interested, is you can just see how much this stuff is kind of curated, and you know, it's it's gives you a little bit that doesn't give you the full story that you can find so you can obviously see what anyone's agenda and how much anybody is is lying to you.
Do you think people still value journalism as a public good even if they're not willing to pay for it, and does amount they value it, you know, like I value it quite a lot, and I read a wide mix of things, but do you think for a lot of people that the amount they value it depends on how much it aligns to their own, I guess, mindset?
John DeDakis (34:52)
Yeah, because look, going back to when this country, the US, was founded, they didn't have anything called objective journalism. There were a lot of newspapers, but each newspaper was spouting a particular political position. And it wasn't until probably the 1920s, maybe 100 years ago, where the concept of objectivity even entered journalism, entered the public sphere.
And so that was then curated and it became more sophisticated. It was always controversial. I think the Vietnam War was probably a perfect example of that because, you know, Nixon prosecuting a war and lying about, and it wasn't just Nixon, it was every president up until Nixon and beyond, you know, lying about it.
And during the Vietnam War, the reporters that were actually in Vietnam covering it, they'd go in the field with the troops and then they'd come back and there would be a briefing in Saigon from the military leaders, and they called the briefing the Five O'Clock Follies because there was no coherence, because there was no comparison to the lies that were told from the podium and what these guys were seeing in the field.
But Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew was going around the country calling journalists, nattering nabobs of negativism and a feet core of impudent snobs, which is just another sophisticated way of saying fake news. So, you know, I think we are fooling ourselves if we really think that this is going to be solved. There is no matter what the technology is, as long as people are involved there is going to be funny business.
And I just, I sound like a broken record, but it just means that those of us who care about the truth need to be discerning and need to do what we can to let others know that not everything you see on the internet is trustworthy. I think we all know that, but I think that politics has gotten to be a blood sport. It's all about power. It's all about power and winning, and truth doesn't matter anymore because the bottom line is being in control and that's so sad. It's really sad.
Gareth King (37:10)
Yeah, look, that, that I again, a hundred percent agree with that. And I'm only speaking in an Australian context. And from what I can from the US it seems just kind of on another planet in that kind of sense. But even here, it has kind of broken down to a, a team sport to varying degrees, you know, it's kind of, and just that, that hypocrisy and almost not holding anybody to anything that they say or promise. Yeah.
John DeDakis (37:37)
Do you see any spillover from the U.S. where our craziness is starting to seep into your politics? Really?
Gareth King (37:50)
Of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, rightly, wrongly, good or bad, like obviously the US is probably one of the, if not the most in influential culture in the world, right? And I think that being that highly visible let's say leader of the Western world, that your political, cultural, whatever it is issues definitely bleed over into other Western nations.
I think one of the biggest ones is, it's almost like we have bootleg versions. Like you've got over there, you've got MAGA, right? And then someone will repurpose that here and it's Make Australia Great Again. And, you know, similar kind of sentiments, obviously like Australia put Australians first and, and, you know, same kind of thing. And I think that it's not a, a uniquely Trumpian thing. I think that it's just very easy to spread around the Western world through so much shared, I guess, culture and values in general.
John DeDakis (38:52)
Does that then mean that you don't really have any other places to go for reliable information because the internet has been so polluted entirely?
Gareth King (39:03)
Look, I would, I would say that, look, and I could be completely wrong here. I'll just talk from my perspective. I feel that, as I said, the US being on another level with all of this stuff, again comes down to that. Like I think here people aren't what I can tell as supremely emotionally invested in politics, as what they are in the US.
You know, don't get me wrong, we've got kind of politics super fans here, but they seem to be in far smaller numbers. And I think that that what it's like here is most people generally have this perception that the political class is just completely mediocre, and so that doesn't have this weight to the normal person. Like normal people are kind of somewhat detached from it, and I think that that's a benefit that we can enjoy.
John DeDakis (39:57)
How did it get that way? How can we learn from you?
Gareth King (40:03)
Look, I think, I think find the least charismatic people you can find, the least interesting people you can find. And, you know, like straight down the middle, inoffensive, never rocked, they're careerists right, and look I'm and again we go off on a tangent but it is an interesting one.
But it's like you know we know that politicians are careerists right, like what a what a job like get on that gravy train and you can just ride it. And it's the same here like, you know, except here there's the salaries are probably far less than what you would get in the US, politics here is kind of got that control lever, but it doesn't have the cultural cachet that I guess, you know, during elections, someone might put a corflute or a sign in their yard or on their fence of their local candidate.
But it's like, there's, there's never videos of someone driving their car through someone's yard to smash them down, and fights breaking out and things like that. It's just, it's just not like that. And I think that at the end of the day, for the vast majority here, we are able to kind of interact with each other. It hasn't broken society tribally is what I can observe.
But I think on that, while we were talking around, you know, public broadcasters and the search for truth. I think one healthy thing on that here is this inherent cynicism. Like any claim that you might see from the government, so many people are just like, that's bullshit. You know, I'm going to try and look, I'm going to find why that's wrong. So that's, I guess that's one benefit. And like I said, there is of course sycophants and mouthpieces, but I don't know, it just doesn't have the cultural weight here I think that it might in the US.
John DeDakis (41:54)
I think though that roughly the U.S. is broken into thirds. You know, there's the extreme right, the extreme left, and then I think that there's the middle that really isn't as tuned in anymore. There's sort of fatigue about it. And I think that's where I'm hopeful that those people might actually swing it one way or the other, if they're not persuadable by one extreme or the other.
Gareth King (42:17)
Yeah, absolutely. And look, that pretty much sounds like here. Most people are in that kind of grey area. And I think that the good thing about that is obviously being able to find common cause with people that aren't on your team as such. And then that's that shared humanity, which obviously can help hopefully move society along.
John DeDakis (42:27)
Yeah. I think you're really onto something. I feel very strongly about that, that common human ground.
Gareth King (42:47)
Yeah, look, fingers crossed. But while we're on a positive note, what would you say one thing that the introduction of the internet and technology has enabled in the world of journalism and writing that's made you more hopeful about the future of it?
John DeDakis (42:50)
Being able to have this conversation, I think, is a perfect example. I mean, you're concerned about what the internet is doing to society, the world. And we're talking about that. We are half a world away talking about it. I think that is what gives me hope.
Gareth King (43:02)
Awesome. On that point then, we obviously need those people to believe in and deliver that hope moving forward from within the industry. What would you say in your opinion is the most important skill for a young writer, whatever form of writing that they're looking to pursue. The most important skill for them to have today that was not needed, say 20 years ago?
John DeDakis (43:38)
Ooh, boy, I hadn't thought about that one because I mean, you know, the obvious skill is just being able to have a vocabulary and be able to put into words succinctly and quickly, whatever it is that you're trying to communicate. I think, here's one thought just off the top of my head, and that is it's almost the antithesis of the blizzard of information that we get, it would seem to me that the ultimate is to be able to say something quickly and succinctly and speak in sound bites. Get the point across without belaboring it. And now I'm going to stop.
Gareth King (44:18)
No, that's an interesting point there around, especially since we've been talking about people reading that headline or just the top level of it. So, I wonder if that's the skill to develop is figuring out a way to deliver a real truthful headline or sound bite that is actually going to deliver that truth, rather than just that click and that intrigue to then deliver, I don't know, something else with a different agenda.
A lot to think about. A lot to think about. Just to finish up then, what advice would you give to anybody, either currently within the industry or thinking of getting into it sometime in the near future or down the line? How would you advise them to not only navigate the current landscape and world of journalism and writing, but also help future proof themselves as well?
John DeDakis (45:18)
Be curious. I think that's fundamental. I don't think that that will ever go away. And not only be curious, but be assertive about your curiosity. Don't be afraid to ask questions. And why is a wonderful question. Five-year-olds get it. It’s time for bed. Why? Because I said so. Why? And so on.
So I think curiosity will never go out of fashion, and asking the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions.
Gareth King (45:53)
Yeah, I think stay curious is a great piece of advice, not just for anybody in that world, but obviously anybody in the world itself. Let’s hope people adopt that as kind of a mindset and we can maybe get through this quagmire of mess using the internet to help find those pieces of truth.
John DeDakis (46:11)
I'm hopeful for no apparent reason.
Gareth King (46:14)
That's good, me too, me too. Thanks so much for that, John. What have you got coming up on the horizon? Where can people follow what you're up to?
John DeDakis (46:23)
Probably the best thing is my website, which is my name.com, johndedakis.com J O H N D as in dog E D as in dog a K I S as in Sam johndedakis.com. And I think that there are actually some dedakises living in Australia that that that yeah, that migrated from Lafka in, in Greece on the Peloponnese. I was just there where my grandpa and great grandpa were born.
Gareth King (46:42)
Yeah, right. Yeah, we do have a decent Greek population here, so it wouldn't surprise me, yeah.
John DeDakis (46:53)
Right, Paziotis is another Greek family that moved to Australia. So yeah, my website is probably the best place to do. I'm doing more public speaking now on helping people use writing as a way to heal from grief. I'm working on my seventh novel. I have a short story that's with an editor and I've written a memoir that's with a publisher and they're deciding whether to publish it. So, I've got, you know, plus I'm teaching classes online and because it's online, on the internet, you could even take one of my classes even though you're in Australia.
Gareth King (47:33)
And where can people find those, is just at your website?
John DeDakis (47:35)
Go to my website, go to upcoming events and you'll find it.
Gareth King (47:39)
Awesome. John, thank you so much.
John DeDakis (47:41)
Thank you, Gareth. It was wonderful talking to you. Thank you.
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