It's good to be wrong

Last week I got an email from my ex-partner regarding a birthday gift for our daughter. Upon first reading, I thought he had once again failed at the very minimal parenting job he had been assigned. His participation in our family life amounts to video calls and sending gifts for Christmas and birthdays. And given that very limited role he has managed to screw it up from time to time by not sending the gifts that were requested.

Due to minimal contact with the kids, my ex doesn’t know what they like, are interested in or take part in on a day to day basis; so, we give him suggestions for gifts. He doesn’t always take those suggestions and when he doesn’t it’s aggravating. What does a middle-aged man know about what a toddler, a child a teenager wants—nothing.

 

When I saw an email asking if I had gotten the lights that our daughter had asked for, my years of experience suggested that he had not bought them and thought I did. After a moment or two of frustration, I read the email again—always best to take a beat to reinstate calm before you reply to an email—and saw that what he wrote could be interpreted in two ways; he either thought I bought them or he mailed them and wanted to know if they were delivered.

 

In the spirit of peace, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and chose to respond as if the latter scenario was playing out. And, to my surprise, it was. Two days after the email exchange, the lights arrived in the mail. I was very pleased to have been wrong.

 

That started me thinking about how good it is to be wrong. Most of the time being wrong is horrible. It’s definitely not good to be wrong when it results in plane crashes, nuclear reactor meltdowns and sunken ships. But there are instances; many of them involving interpersonal relationships, where it is good to be wrong.

 

Many people can never admit when they are wrong. They feel it reduces their power and status. But being wrong and admitting it can be beneficial.

 

Admitting you’re wrong is a real power move. People respect those that can admit to being wrong. They don’t respect people who are wrong all the time, but if on occasion you change your ideological position, admit to a mistaken idea, accept that your answer is flawed or in error; this increases the confidence others have in you. It demonstrates that you are capable of change, are open to ideas, and are willing to accept criticism. Wouldn’t everyone appreciate a partner, boss or political leader that had those qualities? Because not one of us humans are always right.

 

It is only in the past 10 years or so that I have been able to easily admit to being wrong, to see the grey areas in my political and religious beliefs and be more accepting of others and the ways they are wrong too.

 

The good thing about being wrong is that you can learn. You don’t have to maintain that what you thought when you were 20 is still correct when you are 40. Life will teach you time and time again that you are wrong; frequently. The thing to do is accept it.

 

There’s nothing in life that will teach you more about being wrong than being a parent. If there is one thing that I am sure I am right about, it is this phrase that I have made into a mantra over the last 20 years, ‘There’s no right way to be a parent and about 1,000 ways to do it wrong.’

 

The people you need to say ‘I was wrong’ to the most are your kids. It took me a while to learn that but luckily not too long. It’s even more important if you have more than one child because you will be called out for unfair treatment no matter how hard you try to behave and apply the same rules to each child.

 

Being wrong in everyday life is a reason to rejoice. It means you’ve learned something new. You’ve opened the door to other possibilities and imaginings. Being wrong widens your world as you search for the answers you thought you already had.

 

Admitting that you are wrong promotes peace. If every person, religion, nation was steadfastly correct and unyielding in their positions and beliefs—war would be never ending. If we all have to be right, and none of us can be wrong, there is no room for compromise. You’ll be stuck on the last page of The Butter Battle Book with no hope for what might be written in the sequel.

 

I recently watched the tv series Little Fires Everywhere. (Spoiler) In each episode, the main character Elena sees one good intention after another fail and set off a cascade of negative outcomes. Despite that, and what her husband and others try to tell her, she constantly replies to any criticisms by stating that she is ‘a good person’. I believe that she means to be—she’s just a good person who is wrong. But episode after episode she keeps walking the path of the self-righteously correct.

 

In the finale, as she sits watching the results of her numerous efforts to correct others’ mistakes and hold them accountable, she finally sees that the person most wrong, most responsible for everything falling apart, is herself.

 

Unfortunately, this is fiction, and rarely do we see so clearly our own mistakes or admit them to others. But if we do, life will be better. For Elena—only through admitting that she was wrong can she hope to retrieve her life and loves from the ashes around her. That might be true for us all.

 

 

Media is the message

A bit of news snuck in under the mess of commentary on Trump and vaccine rollout this week and you don’t know it yet—but it's ground-breaking and will impact your life from now on.

Google has acquiesced, in part, to the demand by the Australian government on the behalf of news organizations, that Google pay for the right to use what these organizations create.

 

This is the first domino in the social media / information empire universe to fall in the fight for pay by news agencies and journalists.

 

It’s clear, as a journalist, how I will benefit—although maybe not for those who don’t understand how the system works.

 

Most people understand, at least on a surface level, how copyright works—people get paid for the use of their creative work—be it music, words or images—every time it is used. Of course, this doesn’t always happen—this is what that little message before a DVD warns about – piracy. Not that many people are watching DVDs anymore in the age of streaming, but some people may remember what I am talking about – particularly the warnings issued on DVD’s produced by the BBC which are very entertaining in an endearingly British way.

 

Copyright—this likely means little to you, except that it’s a hassle and prevents you from gaining access to the music, movies and books you want. But for the creators, it means bread on the table and a roof over their head.

 

Everyone wants access, but access can’t be free or there will be nothing to access. And while many people see creatives as unemployed or hobbyists, spending nights wrestling the creative muse after their day job; creative fields are the day job and should be recognized as such in the form of remuneration; ie money.  

 

In the news business, it is generally accepted that journalism is a profession. So much so that it has been deemed one of the top reviled professions in North America, right up there with lawyers.

 

What the general public doesn’t know, is there isn’t any form of copyright payment when social media platforms redistribute news media content. And most people probably think that doesn’t matter. But it matters; a lot.

 

If you can get all your news for free, why would you pay for it, and by that, I mean buy a digital or hard copy subscription to a newspaper or magazine. Of course, you wouldn’t. It doesn’t make any sense to pay for something that’s free.

 

But it isn’t really free; nothing is. News is created by journalists and journalists aren’t cobbling it together out of the goodness of their hearts. Although in some cases you’d be willing to do so but then there is the matter of food and shelter which requires some financial gain for the work you do.

 

The day job of journalism is paid for by the media outlet which earns money from advertising and advertising needs eyes—countable eyes.

 

I have to admit that I don’t know that much about the business side of the news industry although I have been part of it for almost 20 years. But I do know that while most people think it is subscriptions that make the money that keeps an organization afloat, it is actually the advertising. And the advertisers want the best value for money. That means eyes on the paper or screen to see the ad which circles back to subscribers.

 

So, in a roundabout way subscribers are what keeps a media outlet above water because without them there are no advertisers.

 

Journalism and news media have been in a transformational period ever since the explosion onto the landscape of social media some 20 to 15 years ago. Independent newspapers, such as the one I work for, have been forced out of business at an alarming rate in the last decade. Even the heavy hitters such The New York Times, The Guardian and the Globe and Mail have been trying to figure out their place in the new media landscape with limited success—or such success so as to drive out smaller papers in the wider market.

 

It comes down money—if the news organizations aren’t paid for their product, they no longer have the means to create it. And you know who doesn’t pay for the news, major internet and social media companies.

 

How many people get their news from stories posted on social media? I would guess most people. Who is paying for it? A very small number of people. That being said, I must add a caveat; sometimes, direction to a news link on social media will result in new subscribers and that is a win for the media company—but I doubt that happens very often for smaller newspapers. Many people are content to read only a headline and never delve deeper into the article which would require them to pay for access.

 

This is an unsustainable model that will result in the collapse of journalism. But now there is hope- the brightest hope for this industry that I have seen since I began my career.

 

Google had threatened to stop providing search results for news organizations in Australia if the government passed a new bill forcing it to pay the country's publishers for the news links and snippets its search engine surfaces. But cooler heads prevailed and with more talk, an agreement was struck. 

 

Today Australians have woken up to less content on their Facebook newsfeeds, as that company has decided to strike back, unfriending Australia before the government passes the law forcing them to pay for content. 

 

The move in Australia, and the PM’s refusal to back down, has been noticed in Canada. This month The Liberal government reiterated its intention to push ahead with legislation forcing Big Tech companies to compensate news outlets for content.

 

I’m feeling a little woozy with all this potential for job security.

 

But the general public, why should they care about this? They might even wonder if it will result in some increase cost to them. The internet is supposed to be free; will that change if tech giants have to pay for news? It’s the rule of thumb that any increase in cost to corporations gets passed on to consumers. So why would Joe Public be in favour of this move?

 

Because despite the amount of vitriol directed at the media lately—especially in the past five years—you need us.

 

Without the media, government and business would not be held accountable, money would be spent in unknown ways, schools would be run according to unknown rules, regulations and curriculums; forest would disappear, people would be deported, and a myriad of other harms would occur or be occurring without witness.

 

The media is the watchdog. A dog that needs to be fed. And food cost money.