do two things one is to tell you a little bit about what monica of our line the c. e. o. at mother jones is a comp store there's here's and then i won. is about but i think she is you may from her today. the country. reaching eight million people every month. with investigative reporting. that has changed the culture. and change the out of presidential elections and it's thanks to

people like you that that has been possible. we're deeply appreciated to everyone. who reads our work supports us and really finds the rationale for reader supported journalism. as a central part of what they the kinds of organizations i think support for social change. this is why- the- monica and clara jeffery our editor in chief were awarded the two thousand nineteen i. f. stone metal for journalistic independence earlier this. from the name of foundation on her. they get money and clara could recognize of their enduring support of investigative reporting an independent journalists went on to say that tomorrow- and clara on a spectacular job. of bringing mother fully into the digital age and continuing the groundbreaking investigative reporting that owns it known for since we launched in

nineteen seventy six in the aftermath of the watergate scandal. it's also why in two thousand seventeen mother jones which is as magazine of the year. by the american society of magazine editors and wipe hand cuffs a recognized monica and clara- as having been the leaders entrance forming mother jones from what was a respected. on publication to nash okay powerhouse not bad. it's just fun to work with. so who is this woman she's a smarty pants. but first and foremost using journalist deeply curious about the world that we live in. and with the remote openness to be surprised by what she learns from enquiring about the world. she's a super writer and editor. who expertly deploys

your craft to introduce all of us as readers two stories through character driven narrative. she takes it next crucial step. turning personal problem as c. wright mills a political scientist wrote many years ago. a public issue in lifting the story up into an analysis of systems of oppression and control but also pointing us toward solutions. and actions. as a journalist. monica is professionally sceptical of extravagant claims and looks at the world through a lens of five verifiable facts but i think what you're going to hear as well in just a moment is it. someone who has a deep held. moral and ethical view the world. and is motivated primarily by the passion and promise of what

humanity is capable of achieving one report bestseller. she has a. because of being fully present with someone well never losing sight of the work at hand and like gravity. she seems to be able to do that edit it's- and i want to close my introduction by- quoting from- a note that we received from a- three thank you in response to a hundred letter. that we sent. special very murray we're doing these days in the stone made of love country. to us for every and went on to a head note on the car back. they would like. your i already what. when hitler assumed power on january

thirtieth nineteen thirty three i remember only too well how difficult and full of dealing anguish life is third right for our family. from jones the camp we're doing brings me hope in our current terrific moment in history especially here in the usa my donation and pledge come. it was. please welcome barney. he starting with is a picture of mary harris jones who is the badass lady that mother is named after. and i wanted to do thatecause she was somebody who took on a really impossible challenges a very tough time. of more than a hundred years ago and she prevailed and so may that be an inspiration to

us. i came back not long ago from a gathering of investigative journalists from all over the world and this was a workshop. that i saw there. and it was really a reminder of how many journalists all over the world deal with- the same problem which is that there is. this rise of authoritarian in and demagogue ache leadership in many many places and one of the first things that is. leaders do everybody is they go after the press this is in turkey which is. back leave the work to learn of journalists in the- in india and denmark in. three and all the places you know so the journalists are murdered sometime they are put in prison. some oligarch gets their money's i up. news organ.

three of problem as some it's just the car war over to. and attacks on credit. and you know cries of news and- not familiar at all. in fact- you know the united states has fallen every year now in the last three years in the press freedom index of reporters without borders puts together. because this is now a country where journalists are under attack all and then this is you know i hope you can see this but you know what. bring between yes. i do these autocrats do this what are they so. with getting control of the press it's because- the truth is really really dangerous to them it is. one of their worst enemies and they can't have it which is also why the people who. wrote the constitution with all their flaws and all their blind spots but they were trying to prove it. anti democratic governance and so- in fight against here

they saw an elisabetta free press. as a rich sensual. the end and so to. the rise in civic energy that we've seen in this country in the last few years. has been- among other things are rallying to. journalism and to the role of truth. in empowering an engaged community. but this all goes back of you know well before of that's me trying to get a source on the phone. there's all those back you know well before president with you know it it's you twitter finger and all of that- and so i wanted to spend a little bit of time. analyzing how we got- really when it comes to this field that i work in- so i've been a journalist all my life and- when i started out i was living in germany where i was born and

we spent a lot of time- in italy. well and in those. that i am the memory of fast. and j. by and war. alive you know all the old people around me had. living memories of these things that had been you know participants. were affected by them in some way or not. and that gave me. a real. creation of how fragile democracy can be. and how. did you rip it is up to not fight for it- at every step the **** when they took power one of the very first things like all these other autocrats they went after the press and they melted down. printing presses and you know what they did. to books. so this all seemed none the less really distant and sort of important but not you know present living history when i came to the country and so ended up in an incredibly

vibrant and strong press landscape and the- twin cities of minneapolis paul where i spent a lot of my early years. as a journalist the daily newspaper you know to all of the week days african american newspapers native american difference among papers doesn't dozens of neighborhood newspapers. and you know those are just the papers and then there were you know hello. the outlets and all of them with compliments of journalists and sometimes investigative teams. so you know a huge amount of journalistic firepower directed ads- sometimes the powerful. at of pause there to say that this was not the golden age of journalism that some people in my profession sometimes sort of wax. nostalgic about you know that there were a lot of blind spots there were a lot of stories that were not being told. there were a lot of

communities being ignored. the elite. news organizations in particular were very bought into the status quo and they were. very white and very male. so that was already a problem and it became more of a problem because of the way that these news organizations were owned because ownership in the view of follow the money is what we say in my profession. the way with it for journalism in this country historically is by bundling up eyeballs so all of you you know gathering you up and tying you into little bundles and selling. that attention of one minute or ten minutes or two seconds to advertisers. and that was profitable for really long time and like any profitable activities of people who were. doing it and particularly people who owned the profit making wanted to do more of it and so. there was- an incredible amount of kind of

corporate is ation and consolidation. in the business some of you may remember you know many years ago when ben bagdikian. sounded a warning about there being fifty corporations that controlled much of the media- we're actually down to. six and the chart is already back in and out of date this has been an ongoing problem at it's worse by the fact. believe there are. to court tions that control lot of new. that many people get this is what happens you google. facebook big brother google big brother do people have. basically all had the same idea. and google and facebook have this incredible amount of power i want to kind of nerd out with you on the details a little bit because- i don't have enough of a conversation of what happens under the hood of how. we get information- they have this inordinate amount of power and it's not. by you know people walking around and saying you know elevate this story barry that

story it's- you know it's robots its algorithms its- algorithms that are programmed by humans and you know in facebook's case for instance the algorithms are programmed in such a way as to maximize profit for facebook. that's what they're there for and so the way facebook makes a profit is the more people spend more time on the platform and share and like and engage. the more money they make by them being that people who do the bundling of i calls and selling them. to advertisers so it turns out one of the easiest ways to get people to like and share and engage is to cater to anger and fear whatever your anger or your fear may be armed when you push those buttons you know there are biochemical responses that happened. and so. people who create content for facebook- understood that some

people who were just trying to sell you know- cat videos and some people who had much more of an ulterior motive- and we saw that in the twenty sixteen campaign- how much. content was shown in people's feeds that people. accepted as news coverage that was actually just designed to manipulate them. but if it gets worse and it gets even a little more complicated because facebook gets a black eye for all of this- after the election. and so they decide to ratchet way back the amount of news that they show in your feed. period not just the you know the fall stuff but all of it- because mother jones is a nonprofit and we are. accountable to our readers we can actually show some of the stuff in a way that a for profit corporation- couldn't then we can also say things about it that. maybe not everybody would. this one for a

creative director and we can show the numbers behind it so there you see that you know over a period of time a lot of people became very engaged with our journalism on facebook because they're passionate about it and then suddenly it falls off a cliff. it's the middle of two. because people's being interested in news in fact there are more people now who follow mother jones on facebook than there were then but because facebook tweaked the robots and the algorithms in such a way that use less news in your feed even when. told facebook you want to follow news. and that has a huge impact not just on the information that people see. but also the resources that are available to make that journalism so you know that's just a you know not very well made chart that shows you how

google and facebook. sucked up the vast majority of the dollars from the eyeball bundling business that you go to pay for journalism. and you know. that stories it all the way to the press and what happened is. facebook still shows people. news but the news this is a this this this is something i did yesterday with a tool where you can see what's trending on facebook and you see you know the top. of the on the right are the top five stories that happen to be trending at that moment and it's basically. an all news of you know lad magazines and conservative you know right wing propaganda. and what it looks like every day is you know fox news. breitbart celebrities stuff- raids and repeat. and the result is you know what has happened to news all over the country this is a photo of the philadelphia

enquirer newsroom but the same you know has happened to- the news in wherever you live there were two fifty six some odd thousand journalists working in just daily newspaper all over the- country. twelve years ago and there are now. affect many. journalists have actually been losing their jobs faster than coal miners. and i can that in for seven years- i don't think your city is going to have a daily newspaper if it does today. and this is you know this is capacity that is not being replaced it's not like the internet is generating. content that you know is no longer coming out of these tears rooms. no coincidence that the time frame in which we have seen this ex this this implosion of journalism is the same time frame in which we have seen. a rise of a

different kind of politics. and all of a policy that is much more reliant on. information and propaganda and ultimately anti democratic. impulses and just to you know the cherry on top is in this environment the only people who are investing in news operations are the people who have. often a note but if like rupert murdoch. and like you know sinclair broadcasting is another company that you may have heard of that's buying up of local television stations all over the country and you may have seen a video that went viral a couple of years ago dozens dozens of these local news anchors were forced to read up basically a conservative propagandists. that's it by the end of the cat we can't leave it there because- at pioneers

were about solutions. and there is a solution to this. and it's. you. and i mean they're very specifically and i think the i am convinced her. everything that i've seen in of in the story of what has happened to news in this country and around the world that the only way we are going to have. journalists in that serves the public that serves the democracy that it's a part of it is for the public to take ownership of it. and that is a very different models so you know again at mother jones that's we've kind of been a forty three year experiment in creating. this sort of model we were started forty three years ago as basically a crowd funded. nonprofit magazine and

hey. we are much larger than we were about 68% of our revenue. as you can see there from our there is in the- of a subscription button it and gives us a whole. different side of it said. and a totally. group of people we are unable to because it is not shareholders it's not. murdoch it's not even. this is. you. and that gives you gives us gives you a news room that serves you that can go and do things like you know send a reporter to work inside of a private prison and find out what's really going on in these for profit jails and prisons and detention centers that you know a lot of people especially black and brown people are locked. in and when you do that. elizabeth m. it's a again because it is so threatening to

the powerful it's threatening because it has impact in this particular. story that we published you know bhama ministration then responded by saying okay we're going to have to. scale back on know how the story ended you know the literally the day after the election in twenty sixteen private prison stocks went through the roof but- the arc of history bends slowly and the story is not done yet. wanted to address. i do hear a lot right now which is. okay but we have these great you know national newspapers that are doing all this amazing investigative work how many do we really need like that do you know the new york times or the washington post are getting at of the stuff that i want to know. and they are. really amazing working. i am very happy that there are twelve hundred people working in the new york times news new york times news room. but you don't

want. a situation where too elite news organizations or three or five are the gatekeepers for what news gets gone after and what news you should see and as an illustration of that i wanted to show you what happened on- halloween and twenty six and- which of. today when your time is published a story on the left. in mother jones published a story on the right. and had that that to me is a real illustration of how you want many different voices and many different perspectives. and the great news is those are starting to happen. that collage look you know mother jones is just of one of the tiles over there on the right there are now more than two hundred nonprofit news organizations all over the

country i'm sure there's one where you live there are ones you know focusing on particular issues there are ones focused on particular community there are ones have to. is there when. the there are in total of two thousand people now working in nonprofit newsrooms all over america and this movement is. you can find them if you want at of the institute for nonprofit news i. n. n. dot org- and you can look at what they're doing whether there's one in your town they all do fundraising the end of the year so there are ways you know to get involved. at any level that you want but the great news is this is a movement that's spreading its act by spreading around the world at this conference but i wish that there were not a figment of his age it raised where do i. are

killed and imprisoned and yet they are coming together and making this happen. and you can eat. c. know from two. to twenty. is only a factor of ten x. that's nothing for you know in silicon valley that's- something that could happen over a period of five or ten years and then we would have replaced. a lot of the capacity that we- but we would replace it with something. much more democratic. accountable transparent. and diverse. and will replace it with something that serves you. and i think- ■ñ■ñ■ñ■ññó■c■■■■■■■■■■■x e

that's what the job. the money and other opportunities on but the planet's metropolises being stretched to the limit. more than half the world's population densities of like