Continuting on the presentations from the first day, we had an incredibly interesting man grace us with his presence. His name was Arnaud de Borchgrave, whose career has varied from reporting for Newsweek for many years, as well as becoming the editor in chief of the Washington Times, and also the president and CEO of United Press International. Now he serves as a senior advisor for CSIS and the Global Organized Crime Project.
Mr. Borchgrave spoke with us about the evolution of journalism. He made an example of social media becoming a major handicap for this generation. For one, it allows for the interconnection of people across many countries, which is essentially "dissolving national borders." Another problem with social media is that when attempting to use sites such as twitter as a news platform, history is lost. You can only see a 140 character headline from a story, and that is never enough information.
It was an interesting take on social media, as I assume everyone in the room besides Mr. Borchgrave probably has either a Twitter or Facebook account, but I can definitely understand his point. Using social media as a news source can be dangerous, especially as people can choose to "share" anything, and that means you potentially only get the side of the story that they agree with. There is so much room for opinion that it is possible to be falsely educated on an issue. The problem is that most news sources now have turned into almost the same thing. It makes you wonder where you actually can get credible news sources, without twisted words and opinions skewing the truth of the matter.
Mr. Borchgrave spoke about this also. He said that he only trusts few news sources these days, and a couple that we should look into are the Financial Times and the Economist. He said that these are two UK based news sources that tend to have less biased information in them, and that could be beneficial to us.
Another interesting field Mr. Borchgrave spoke about was Cyberwarfare. In 1998, he was involved in a report from the CSIS Global Organized Crime Project called Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, Cyberwarfare: Averting an Electronic Waterloo. This report speaks about the new phase of warfare, in the cyberworld. He talked about the internet having the inevitable fate of hosting the equivalent of a nuclear showdown in the cyberworld. This is a scary thought, but it is definitely something we should look out for, and with current events involving the NSA and SOPA, cybercrime and cybersecurity are topics that should be taken much more seriously.
Mr. Borchgrave spoke with us about the evolution of journalism. He made an example of social media becoming a major handicap for this generation. For one, it allows for the interconnection of people across many countries, which is essentially "dissolving national borders." Another problem with social media is that when attempting to use sites such as twitter as a news platform, history is lost. You can only see a 140 character headline from a story, and that is never enough information.
It was an interesting take on social media, as I assume everyone in the room besides Mr. Borchgrave probably has either a Twitter or Facebook account, but I can definitely understand his point. Using social media as a news source can be dangerous, especially as people can choose to "share" anything, and that means you potentially only get the side of the story that they agree with. There is so much room for opinion that it is possible to be falsely educated on an issue. The problem is that most news sources now have turned into almost the same thing. It makes you wonder where you actually can get credible news sources, without twisted words and opinions skewing the truth of the matter.
Mr. Borchgrave spoke about this also. He said that he only trusts few news sources these days, and a couple that we should look into are the Financial Times and the Economist. He said that these are two UK based news sources that tend to have less biased information in them, and that could be beneficial to us.
Another interesting field Mr. Borchgrave spoke about was Cyberwarfare. In 1998, he was involved in a report from the CSIS Global Organized Crime Project called Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, Cyberwarfare: Averting an Electronic Waterloo. This report speaks about the new phase of warfare, in the cyberworld. He talked about the internet having the inevitable fate of hosting the equivalent of a nuclear showdown in the cyberworld. This is a scary thought, but it is definitely something we should look out for, and with current events involving the NSA and SOPA, cybercrime and cybersecurity are topics that should be taken much more seriously.