"Journalism must continue to fight back against misinformation"
Nick Barnets
Nick Barnets is the founder and host of the Global Niko YouTube channel. Before that, Nick worked in news for 8 years, starting in Vermont, then his native New York City at CBS News and NY1, before moving to his ancestral home country of Greece to work as a freelance journalist. There he covered the refugee crisis, Greece's debt crisis, and the Cyprus conflict, among other things, for various news outlets as a reporter and fixer. After receiving a master’s degree in Political Science- International Relations at Syracuse University, Nick is back in the field in a much different capacity, with his own project through his YouTube channel that focuses more on travel content and the kinds of stories that come about when traveling to interesting places around the world.
What is the current state of journalism in your opinion?
The current state of journalism is very complex in my opinion because there are many good and bad things happening at the same time. The bad is that there is less trust in journalism among the public than there used to be. That's very bad because that allows for disinformation and the extremism linked to that to be more effective. It also makes it easier for anyone to just call themselves a journalist just because they post content on the internet even though what they're doing is not actually journalism. Also, the fact that there's more reliance on freelance work for very low pay per story/project, and fewer staff jobs that have benefits & financial security. That is a very bad thing and is one of the biggest things that drove me away from working for big news outlets anymore.
If a journalist wants to succeed, what skills does he need to develop?
Besides the most basic skill, which is having good writing skills, you need to have good interpersonal skills and be a good listener. You also must be willing to let your own biases and preconceived notions about whatever it is you're going to report on be challenged, because sometimes either the reality, or the perspective of the reality you'll get from a source or interview subject on whatever you're reporting on might be quite different than you thought, and you want to be sure you're telling the story in an accurate and fair way.
How do you define a good story?
A good story is one that informs the public about something it should be informed about but also engages with the audience for that story. Those who are consuming news content must be able to see why they should care about the story and oftentimes it must relate to them in some way. A good story reveals something new and interesting to the public, and the way it's told must keep their interest, but without straying from what the story is about, or the factuality of the story.
How can journalists engage their audiences in our digital age?
We live in a time of endless platforms and outlets, so the best way to engage your audience is to be consistent and to show them something they can relate to and would be interested in. This may seem next to impossible when true journalism is about informing, not entertaining, but for enough people to see what you're reporting on for it to be effective, you must grab their attention. It's not always easy to do that without going down the awful path of infotainment and unimportant sorts of stories reported on only for clicks & views rather than newsworthiness. But telling the story in a way that keeps your audience interested, and consistent so that they know what to expect from you, and know to expect content from you at all, will help journalists engage their audiences in our digital age. Producing multiple elements to a story. Making it visually appealing (whether with video or photos). Going in-depth but having shorter clips to keep people's short attention spans. All ways to engage audiences in the digital age.
Why did you launch your Global Niko YouTube Channel and what motivated you in your journalism career?
The short version- the Covid lockdowns drove me crazy enough to do it. The longer, fuller version- 3 years after I gave up on trying to make it in the news industry as a foreign correspondent and trying a different direction by going to graduate school, and teaching English online on the side to earn income, I was eager to produce content again, but it had to be very different this time. I wasn't going to go back to begging editors many time zones away to accept an article or a radio story on something for like $100 or $200 while bearing all the expenses myself and bankrupting myself again. I wanted to do something completely different than anything I'd ever done before, and have it be something I'd do on my own terms, that would be my own project, that I would have full control over. So having spent a lot of time during Covid watching and living vicariously through travel YouTubers doing something I thought I could very much do myself since I have photography, video editing, and storytelling skills, I thought why not try it myself. It's not journalism in the traditional sense, but it is a form of journalism, even though many travel YouTubers may think they're not journalists. But they are because many of them are telling stories, and through sharing their experiences and perspectives on visiting places around the world, they are producing a sort of informative content to their audience.
Since I only started the Global Niko YouTube channel a few months ago, it's still a small channel and doesn't earn me anything yet. But I have enough remote work through online teaching and writing that I can start the channel and try to get to that point, because travel is very important to me, and is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to be a journalist in the first place, for the opportunities to travel and see the world up close. So, using some of the skills I developed in my 8 years of working as a journalist in the more traditional sense, I'm doing my YouTube channel now and seeing how far I can take it. If I can grow Global Niko's audience to the point that it generates enough income to be self-sustaining, then there's virtually no limit to what I would do and where I would go for the channel being able to work on it full time.
What was a story that shook you and what lessons did it teach you as a journalist?
One of the biggest stories I covered during my time in the news was the refugee crisis of 2015-2016 in the Aegean and the Balkans. Since I have never been on the ground in places like Syria or Afghanistan or Iraq, and don't speak Arabic, this was my closest contact with people at the heart of one of the world's worst, most consequential conflicts. Talking with them as they first set foot in Europe on the Greek island of Lesvos. Talking with them in their tent in the cold, muddy fields of Idomeni, on the Greece-North Macedonia border. Walking with them across Croatia to the Slovenian border as they try to get to Germany by any means possible. Despite how much I prepared for the kind of stories I'd hear from people, and the kind of things I'd see, it still left a mark being looked at in the eye by victims of the world's most vicious wars telling me how they'd lost everything and are desperately trying to do what they can just to survive with a tiny bit of human dignity. Seeing then how refugees were treated in places they'd arrived in Europe and seeing the kinds of politically motivated misinformation and fear-mongering that was treated as big and heart-wrenching as a human migration crisis are complex but consequential. So, even when we don't agree with them, it's important to explore and understand why people have the perspectives they do on these sorts of situations, and the conflicts that cause them because that is part of the wider story. The conflict, the migration, the integration, all of it, and oftentimes stories about these things are very narrow because it's hard to fit all these different parts into one cohesive story, so it takes a series of stories to properly grasp such an event.
How do you see journalism changing in the next decade?
This is very hard to predict in my opinion because the world seems to be changing faster than ever, and there are so many endless outlets and mediums for journalism now, that it's hard to see that becoming even more so than it already is. But I think there will always be a need for journalism, and a desire by the public to be informed about what is happening in the world. Journalism I believe will be challenged even more by disinformation going forth, since the digital tools that exist today have allowed for the tactic of disinformation to be more easily deployed by nefarious actors than ever before. But journalism must continue to fight back against that, and of course, the companies that oversee the larger platforms most people consume content from have a responsibility to make sure they are fighting against disinformation as well, regardless of their reluctance to do so.
You will see more non-traditional forms of journalism, such as independent content creators with their own YouTube channels, so even though I don't think the big brands in news, like CNN, CBS, New York Times, etc., are going away in the next decade, they're certainly not going to go back to being the big titans of the news industry that they were before the age of social media and digital nomads.
What are your main concerns and hopes for journalism?
My main concerns are mainly about the fight against disinformation and whether journalism can effectively win against this phenomenon that's reared its ugly head so much lately, especially with the covid19 pandemic. But I have hope that in the end journalism will win out even if it doesn't always seem that way every day because the truth usually gets out eventually, and being vigilant and forceful in the fight against disinformation is key to not letting it and its nefarious intentions take over.
I also hope that the larger names in traditional news, like CNN, CBS, etc. would find a way to reverse this long-standing trend in reducing international news coverage, and really start to pour more resources into covering international news. I don't have a lot of hope that it will ever change, but it would be nice if it did.
