Markus Spieker
Reporter and Historian, Germany
@mrsspieker
Markus Spieker has talked about several secrets of good journalists. He said that these qualities are essential for providing quality journalism:
- Curiosity
Curiosity in necessary for doing something unusual and accept opportunities that we may encounter.
- Empathy
Empathy is necessary in order to understand where people are from. We need to have humility to listen to people’s stories.
- Fantasy
Fantasy is an important ingredient for finding good and interesting stories in events. We take something that everyone sees and find the most hidden part of it.
- A sense of history
The history is full of conflicts and they have a tendency to repeat. Good journalists should know well the history to identify those patterns and anticipate them.
- Deploy two thinking mots
Every human has two conditions: a fast-thinking system (intuition, gut feeling) and slow-thinking mode (difficult). The good journalists need to benefit from both thinkings.
Mr Spieker has also discussed the big stories and trends that have impacted our lives and journalism during the last several decades.
‘’If you were asked in 2050 what story impacted the first half of the 21st century, what would you think about first?’’
- The world is getting better but we don’t appreciate. We have less wars, people are living longer, the poverty rate is decreasing with the growth of the population.
- The population is growing, but at the same time it is getting younger. The younger generation has a different view of life. The average age in India is less than 30 years old. Young people are energetic and dynamic, they want to change the world.
- The world is getting more unjust and the wealth distribution will not help.
- The world is getting angrier. The psychologists say the reason for this anger may be about fear, about the loss of control and about the insecurities.
- The world is getting more artificial. 2050 will mark a year, when singularity will happen. This means that the artificial intelligence will be able to think on its own.
- Of course, within certain countries we have more terrorism and war. The world is getting generally safer. The reason for that is that countries have understood, that we don’t benefit much from war. So, the choice is between freedom and safety.
- The world is getting more authoritarian. The right wing extremism is growing all over the world and Europe is not an exception.
- The future is Asian. The Asian economies are booming with rapid growth.
- The world is becoming groupish. Bowling alone is neither interesting nor helpful, it is a loss of social capital.
By Viktorya Muradyan
