A Visitor to the Future - 55 - News Reporting
Another week passed by before I knew it. My time was split between working on Human language exercises, actual exercise along the nature trail, and my lessons with Chisom. Not surprisingly, Chisom was a very good teacher and I was beginning to reach the early stages of grasping the fundamentals - though I still had a long way to go.
I talked with Sarkona a lot about the things I'd seen and experienced so far, and even started making a basic list of the things I wanted to see and learn about as Robin had suggested. One of those was simply said see what the Earth Reclamation Project is about. Sarkona had mentioned them briefly on our way to IJmuiden and my curiosity had been piqued. No more than mere curiosity was needed as Sarkona arranged transport immediately, and this time we found ourselves heading west over the Atlantic towards North America.
"I've found a group that are willing to talk us through the basics," said Sarkona, "It should be super interesting to learn more about the project. I only know what I've read on various news feeds."
That reminded me of something else. "How do those work, actually?" I asked, "Back in my time we had the various news media companies - is there something similar?"
Sarkona shook their head, "It's a lot smaller scale than that, given that you don't really need a full news team to investigate or produce reports any more. If you have something interesting to share about what's going on, you can submit it to one news feed or another on the Infranet. You tag your submission with various labels. Then you can subscribe to news feeds with those labels, or your favourite sources. Orgs also have their own feeds."
"As it is more personal, then, do you have any problems with bias?"
Sarkona laughed, "Not really with bias, no - just with pride! Some of the scientific Orgs are very competitive, and they're determined that they will be the ones that will crack FTL travel or figure out the next great model in Field Theory, that sort of thing. That means that some of the submissions they make seem more like they're trying to psych themselves up than actually report on anything. But bias - no - considering that you can ask the Consortium to fact-check any article produced, it means that reporters more or less have to restrict themselves to the facts. Some of the most popular reporters are the ones who report issues in an engaging, easy-to-understand way. Think of news articles you like as little teasers of a subject - then if you want to learn more you could start with documentaries or take a course on the subject, that sort of thing."
"What about social media personalities, or influencers, that sort of thing?" I asked.
Sarkona looked confused, "You'll have to explain that to me," they said.
I explained about how public social media in my time allowed individual people to attract fame and followers by showcasing their personality, or going to various places or doing various things. They would then use that fame to attract sponsorships or sell products.
"It sort of sounds like you're describing celebrities. I mean, there are some people who are popular, yes - some of the finest scientific minds in the Consortium have people hanging on their every news post or research paper. Then I suppose there are the fashion personalities who come up with new designs - those are popular to some. But I wouldn't say they're as - how can I say this - revered as in your time. The only reason we make a big show out of something is if we want to make a big show out of something. I went to a ballroom dance on Eru Ilúvatar once that made me feel a bit like royalty - long, old-fashioned dresses, smart suits, that sort of thing. But we wouldn't treat someone like a big deal just because they're popular. People are people."
"On that note, are there still royal families around?" I asked, "Like the Dutch royal family?"
"No," said Sarkona, "Not outside of role-playing parks. The corporate years eroded a lot of that, and the Consortium did the rest. After all, saying that someone has a born authority to be superior to you is hardly compatible with a society where everyone is supposed to have the same rights. Some people might claim they're of royal heritage, but I don't really get why they consider that important. It's who you are that's important, not who you're descended from."
"In theory," I asked, "Could I set up an Org with a monarch? You said that Orgs could have their own rules about how they govern themselves."
"You could try," said Sarkona, "But I don't think you'd get many people to join for long - what would be in it for them? Orgs with actual overall leaders are pretty rare these days. Remind me to talk to you about how the overall political system in the Consortium works at some point, I really need to build up your knowledge there. For now, let me show you how news feeds work."
Sarkona brought up a series of articles on my tablet and showed me how Consortium review markup worked. Any statement of the author that could be verified by the Consortium was underlined in green. Statements of personal opinion, thoughts, or feelings, were underlined in purple. Scientific theories yet to be conclusively proven or peer-reviewed were highlighted in yellow. Statements that were outright false were underlined in red - though Sarkona had to specifically look for an article written to be false on a parody news feed to show me that.
"You can customise how the Consortium labels things for you too. And if at any time you want to see why something has been labelled as a certain thing, you just ask the Consortium and it'll walk you through why," pointed out Sarkona, showing me through various options, "You can also see the opinions of various Auditors on the article, or on the Consortium's markup itself here."
I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief, "I knew whole countries that would have paid ridiculous amounts of money for the ability to verify information quickly like this. This could have solved so many problems."
"Transparency and easy access to knowledge are critical in any society, and especially in the Consortium," said Sarkona.