**The Importance of Responsibility in Content Creation**

As creators and consumers of content, we all have a certain responsibility to approach our work with integrity and consideration for others. The topic of conversation on my channel revolves around the need for creators to be mindful of their actions and words, particularly when it comes to responding to comments or engaging with other creators.

**Personal Experience and Reflection**

I want to start by sharing my personal experience with this issue. Recently, I found myself in a situation where someone left a comment that was perceived as negative, which sparked a reaction from me. The comment was not directed at me personally, but rather it was a critique of my content or approach. I have to admit that I took it quite personally and considered quitting YouTube altogether.

However, I did some reflecting on why this happened and what I could do differently in the future. I realized that I need to be more mindful of how others perceive my actions and words, even if they are not directed at me directly. I also need to recognize that as a creator, I have a responsibility to set an example for my audience.

**The Pressure of Keeping Up with Trends**

One of the challenges we face as creators is keeping up with trends and staying relevant in our industry. With the rise of social media and online platforms, it's easy to get caught up in the hype and feel pressure to conform to certain standards or expectations. However, this can lead to a lack of originality and creativity, which is something that I believe is essential for creating high-quality content.

I've noticed that many creators feel like they need to produce "pump-up" garbage just to stay relevant, rather than focusing on producing quality content that showcases their skills and expertise. This is not only a disappointment to me as a creator, but it's also a disservice to my audience who deserve better.

**The Importance of Journalism**

Another topic that came up in our conversation was the importance of journalism. As someone who reviews cameras and other photography equipment, I've realized that this type of content falls under the umbrella of journalism. However, many creators feel uncomfortable with this label because it implies a level of objectivity and expertise that they may not possess.

I want to assure my audience that I take my role as a journalist seriously, and I strive to provide honest and unbiased reviews of the products and services I feature on my channel. This requires a level of maturity and professionalism that I believe is essential for creating high-quality content.

**The Responsibility to Be Better**

Finally, I want to emphasize the importance of taking responsibility for our actions as creators. We all have a role to play in setting an example for others, whether it's through our words or our actions. As someone who values authenticity and honesty, I believe that we all need to strive to be better versions of ourselves.

For me, this means being more mindful of how my words and actions affect others, as well as being willing to learn from my mistakes and grow as a creator. I hope that by sharing my experiences and reflections, I can inspire others to do the same.

**The Value of Listening**

As we wrapped up our conversation, it became clear that listening is an important part of creating responsible content. Rather than trying to force apologies or explanations for our actions, we should take the time to listen to others and understand their perspectives.

I believe that this type of listening can help us avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications in the first place. By taking the time to hear each other out and consider different viewpoints, we can create a more positive and supportive community.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, I want to thank you for listening to my thoughts on this important topic. As creators and consumers of content, we all have a responsibility to approach our work with integrity and consideration for others. By taking the time to reflect on our actions and words, we can create high-quality content that showcases our skills and expertise.

I hope that by sharing my experiences and reflections, I can inspire others to do the same. Let's strive to be better versions of ourselves and create a more positive and supportive community.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso this is a different kind of video I realize this is a topic that is not going to get a lot of clicks it's not going to get a lot of traction it's not going to go viral but it's an important conversation that we need to have about a subject that impacts all of us in the photography community we need to be better this is something that impacts youtubers it impacts all the photography websites and news feeds that we love and enjoy and it affects you as a viewer we all are in this together and we need to be doing a better job I realized that your time is valuable and if you're watching this on youtube click on the description below I've taken the liberty to go ahead and index the entire video I realize it's kind of long there's a topic that you want to jump to in a specific moment it is listed there and of course conversation is encouraged so please feel free to agree or disagree with anything that you're hearing us talk about so now that I've set this up on with the conversation this is a special video presentation I've got my friend Jaron Schneider it's this guy we have an important topic that we want to talk about today that deals essentially with ethics in the photography niche in our line of work and we're talking about stuff that is now sort of seen as quote-unquote journalism so YouTube certainly has an influence as a youtuber you have people who watch you there's podcasting there's also websites there's if you have a blog there is you know it's kind of this new wave of journalism where you have an audience that watches what you say and there was a specific event this last week where a story was posted about Steve McCurry's Afghan girl and we wanted to address that a little bit and the way this kind of came about is I've done two videos on Afghan girl and it's been a while they're like almost a year right and all of a sudden I'm getting all these comments and people like if you really know the truth you know you're covering up and I'm like what is going on and then I realized that someone else had posted a video essentially making an accusation of something that may have been an abuse of power that went on the video is no longer posted but it was kind of interesting because I did go watch that video and this is where our topic kind of comes from because there was an accusation and a point of view that was trying to come across in that video that was really not backed up by sources it was more or less an opinion or an assumption presented a fact am I getting this straight Jam yeah this is and also it's important to note here is this is just the latest symptom of a series of issues over the past like this is not the only reason that we're talking about this it's because it's happened multiple times and it's just like you kind of ignored it and dust it off but this is sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back sort of thing like yeah sure this need we this is a subject that talks about the this specific video but it is not the one that is like this is the only reason we're talking about it there's a lot more that goes on and and it's not the it's not the only time this has happened with a specific source Oh Minh you and I started talking about it I mean we realized that this is part of a much much bigger picture I mean there's been and not just YouTube there's been different platforms that will basically present something and and you know I did it because I do this for a living and part of the problem is is that you know you there's a lot of competition with anything so if you go to a news feed or if you go on YouTube to the home page there's a lot of thumbnails you have a lot of options of things you can watch and so creators that want to get views because that is the goal whether you write or make videos or whatever it is that you're doing so you see this in mainstream news to where an article is about a certain thing but the the title is stalled up a little bit - yeah and them nail the thumbnail takes advantage of it as well absolutely that's playing the game but then well there's a third topic about that though and then that is actually the content so if you're doing a video on just two dudes playing tennis and you know you can title that and thumbnail it as much as you want it's not an interesting topic to a lot of people so people will pick controversy as a means to have something to say as well and I think that is a bigger problem that really any product by Google whether it's search or YouTube or what-have-you comes into play because then we know that controversy gets clicks and so let's feed this beast a little bit yeah yeah what I'd like to do is take a slightly a step back and look at investigative journalism in general and also state like a for anyone watching or listening why I would have an opinion on this at all like Wyatt Webb what makes me any any type of expert on the matter it's because I have personally written three investigative journalist pieces I know what goes into it in addition to that I read investigative journalism like I enjoy The Washington Post and The New York Times and they do great work they're something I do want to point out real quick though is when I say that very few will actually know the name or names often it's many people of the people who write these big blockbuster pieces the people who exposed Watergate for example very few people know those people's names they only know the Washington Post or in New York Times because being an investigative journalist and expen talking about true matters is not about making yourself into a superstar it's never been about that it's about seeking truth so if that's not the main goal from the get-go and you can sense that then it should be part of you should be asking why was this piece made if it's not about finding the truth is it about setting a specific story that would they want to tell or is it about actually finding true stories that's something that the ego becomes involved and that shouldn't be the drive for yeah right gotcha so anyway I've written three pieces I'm gonna briefly say what they are one of them I'm sure almost all of you who saw this cuz this thing blew up a while ago maybe two to three years the veritasium video Ted hell yeah yeah it's probably good three years now the veritasium released a video which talked about how BOTS hide themselves by trying to appear real on Facebook by liking topics a vast range of topics so that they can then use that that BOTS to then follow specific pages and hide better veritasium made that video and it went viral that video was based entirely on an expose that I wrote for The Next Web and he does reference it like very quickly one time but I just know that that was my story and it's I'm really glad people watched his video because that's the story got out I am not hurt that I did not necessarily get all the fame from it because it's not about that it's about the truth yeah the other two stories I've written I wrote one on how f/stop gear basically defrauded all of their customers by faking a product and putting it on Kickstarter or think maybe an IndieGoGo and then with no intention of ever making that product and I wrote about that and then the most recent one I have was about a photographer named Sal Sin Cara who entered and won his own portrait competition and the basically the ethics behind something like that so I all of those pieces that I just referenced all of them took minimum a month to put together to research to go and find more information and to vet my own sources minimum month probably minimum month so that's the part I want to focus on to start with is vetting sources when it comes to a real investigative journalist it's their job to hear a story from a source and they may or may not believe that story but if it sounds credible it is up to them to then go and find out if it is and that requires hearing what the story is and this may seem like a huge deal but not jumping in feet-first and trying to go ahead and prove that thesis immediately you have to go ahead and find out if it happened and this is there's some examples in modern journalism where this has happened where someone has tried to fool for example the New York Times and get them to publish a story that is made-up and they find out and the reason is is because they don't jump on the story and publish as fast as they can they try and figure out if it actually happened because they want to get it right it's about true it's not about clicks so I think you know just to put this into a context where people might understand what you're talking about like Watergate obviously is the famous one and in Watergate you have this character deep throat who just refers to himself as - he's an anonymous source and he's good so what you're talking about is you hear something from a source and then your responsibility is to actually go make sure that's legitimate and not somebody just be estimate right right because sometimes you only get one source yeah and when you only have one source and you can't cross-check him with another source you have to find other ways to see if it's true and that's what takes real work takes leg work you have to do actual god forbid research you also have to care that you're it's true you know what I mean it's like it's like you you you care about the story to the extent where I'm going I have something to prove here something has to back me up because that's the difference of saying this is my opinion or my gut feeling or you know you have to have that it legitimate is what it is that you're right a lot of these a lot of these investigative journalists who do this or don't come up with this idea of a story they want to write and then try and find the facts to back it right for the for the most part these stories appear in front of them as possibilities they have as a giant board of like these are the the things we're hearing from individual sources or whatever and we are interested in trying to see which one of these are true rather than man that's Steve McCurry guys sitting up there too tall on his horse what can I do to pull him down like that sort of thing like that that that I'm not saying that's what happened but that's not the mentality you doing in this case but there has been a lot of that in particularly with Steve McCurry and I wanted to fin Steve McCurry for just a second because he's first of all African girl is and I'm not I'm just giving you facts here the African girl is probably one probably it is one of the top three most iconic photographs ever made that image has been reproduced its mosquito be they says it has wings of its own it flies beyond the realm of just the magazine the photographer there's a number of reasons why that could be it's the viewers interpretation of what the eyes mean of what you know put a face on a refugee in the 80s to Western culture that hadn't normally seen that in fairness National Geographic is not a new source necessarily it is the photography and they've always been known for photography in that magazine but it is not trying to be to call it journalism I think is a little bit of a stretch and went slightly yeah yeah when people or journalism then it's not he felt like a tourist photo but not right it's not hard journalism either no Steve McCurry and they're hard photos to get I mean you know like the flood pictures that he's famous for I mean you know jumping in water with leeches and stuff I yeah it's it's difficult to get those photographs Steve McCurry has a great eye he's done some amazing work a couple of years ago there was one of the the big websites did this investigative reporting on on the fact that he photoshopped some images that Ron's website because you could find the Photoshop bears well first of all those were not published under the guise of photo journalism those were worked he was preparing for gallery work and I know that does create controversy and that's enough to make you want to post an article to get clicks but there's at that point I think it became very trendy to start dragging Steve McCurry through the mud so anything McCurry is controversial gonna get my Envy and these days now you like those who don't know the full story like you just stated sure can now go back and be like oh well it makes sense that he would have done something like this because in the past we've already proven he's some kind of a liar because he'll Photoshop yeah so like they it builds on itself when when you have these types of stories that aren't that the truth is not fully revealed so whether or not you like Steve McCurry as a person is irrelevant it's about it's about the story I've never met so I don't know I mean I know people who know and speak very highly of you I respect his work and the work that he's done and like I said I did two videos on African girl it's an incredible photograph it's legendary you know I'm not going to dispute that and so why not use that as an example in in context I was talking about the intention of a photographer in those videos and and in terms of composition color end result and what the vision of a photographer is going into that now I wouldn't do that with somebody who's a hardcore photojournalist even though most hardcore photojournalist still have kind of a style they shoot in there's a look there's that's composition that's photography I don't think you're ever gonna get a solid version of photojournalist photography some some to some extent I mean you can find examples of things that really were misleading but it's not an iPhone snapping an image just randomly it's somebody who's taking care of that and who's a good photographer and so there is going to be some level of interpretation that goes into anything I'm off strap up topic already it didn't take me long well anyway so to kind of lead this back so we're not necessarily here gonna just just talk about this one in snow we're but I'm gonna lead off of it in a way that might make a little bit more sense so when we start talking about sourcing and when we start talking about doing real real journalism sources are important and in this particular case I wasted half a day where I went and I read every source that was in fairness I did too because it was a strong accusation that was made and he's like wait a minute yeah and it's from somebody that that you know I would I would do that he's in a yeah he's in a position where right and in a position to give information he's in the thought leader to a lot Oh any and by the way every website picked that up every one of them I'm gonna come back to that later but go ahead yeah so it got seen here is where I think there's some this this fault on both sides one there's fault on the sorcerer or the giver of sources which was the YouTube video and those who watch the YouTube video now the responsibility is on both of those people so the sources were given so if you went to the the video you were listed yes as of yesterday was still in Facebook and what they were still there and I went and I did it again I actually went back and made sure I watched all of them there are he has links to programs put on by the National Geographic Channel so there's like a whole documentary there's an interview done by the BBC there's two articles from National Geographic itself and then there's like an Oprah interview and then one or two other things anyway I watched and read them all most of these I had seen before and when I'm looking at these and actually vetting the source as the the viewer because I want to see where this stuff was said I could not find any place that backed up a majority of the accusations that he stated and when you say that this is my source and this is what I took from my source you gotta have like where's your quotes your bibliography like where it let's go here let's work in this exact section is from this exact thing this is how I know this and I could not find that anywhere and that to me is a problem with the person presenting the sources it's also a problem for those who absorbed the final information because I guarantee you most of the people who watched that video did not check the sources and so that's on us as the viewership who is now either defending or not defending the YouTube video it's on us because we didn't check we we just believed the thought leader rather than checking the sources and sourcing it's so important and the story like this when you're taking on someone or something big that always is the case you have to have backed up sources or your credibility is completely gone or at least to be at least it used to be that your credibility was gone and I just this was a this was a case of that for me so just to kind of like reiterate what the accusation here is is that that the accusation was made against McCurry is that during the shot of the Afghan girl which was 1984 SH is that he abused a position of power being a white guy in with a child who was an Afghan refugee is in essence what it is and that is a very strong accusation to make for one and I can see possibly where somebody might make the assumption but I just wanted to clarify that that's what was being made but in going through the sources to see if there was anything that backed that up there was zero in fact usually the opposite yeah was even or something that would suggest the opposite so anyway my point is is I wasn't there this person wasn't there you weren't there if you're watching this you weren't there so nobody really knows what's going on but to make an accusation land this is a really strong accusation to make especially it's gonna be an assumption right and there's nothing wrong with making that type of accusation if you have proper sourcing like I would if he acted if this video for me had proper sourcing and this was like oh man he's got like this is backed up this is a big deal then I'm like I would clap my hands like this is a huge worry that has been broken it's absolutely worth reporting on and but that I don't feel like that was the case here and so that's that sparks another end of this question or this whole topic where we're talking now we were looking at okay so whose responsibility is it to check source as well as everyone's but on in addition to that now I want to talk about because the reason we're even having this conversation is there's a response to that and this is not just us who's done it a lot of people have done this and this touches on another subject that is worth considering and it's called peer review and there is a process right now where if you do a medical study of any sort let's say you have found that you your your your thesis is that chocolate actually helped posts put off the instances of a very specific type of cancer and I'm actually pretty sure that is a study someone has mr. say I've heard of that yeah yeah and so the way this works if you don't know is in in the in the medical field these studies are hard to do because they require money so you get funding to do whatever study you're working on and that step right there alone already has a chance to taint your results because what if it's for example Gatorade wants to do a study on the difference between drinking Gatorade and water and what if the results of that study show that there is no difference they don't want that therefore they'd hush it or they would try and make it so that it doesn't say necessarily that so like they depends on who you're where that's coming from but that aside it's actually even worse when it comes down to this individual people who are doing these studies wanting to gain fame and acclaim because if you come up with something incredible some crazy or maybe it doesn't seem crazy but it's like this wow this a big deal that gets you attention in the medical field which leads you to more money which is exactly what these studies are designed to do journalistic studies there is both incentive and disincentive to so let's say you do you do a study and then you publish your results and it gets a huge deal let's say that for the sake of this argument that that study only used ten people and they only use those ten people over a six to 12-month period which is not enough and let's say that there was not it was not double-blind so look there's a lot of things in there that are like ok maybe we should retest this that's called peer review unfortunately peer review doesn't bring nearly the accolades or attention that the original statement did so let's say I go and I disprove this and I'm like look I've disproved that it's too late stories already gone nobody cares media doesn't care the the cycles over writes that cycle is over and that doesn't that sound really familiar to how like news yeah news and today we call that a hit job right yeah well it's what it is it's a hit job piece it's it's a door in and out and it's over you know your tornado of conversation and by the time anyone's left there to rebuild city you've already moved on to another city - tornado down well in fact that's kind of annoys me because even us talking about this is almost too late you know what I mean it's already done the stories that then that's what's frustrating that's why I wanted to talk about it because let's say we peer-reviewed this and I think that's what we're doing we're peer-review very much yeah yeah we're using the same source material that the original one did that at least that lewis said and shown to us as the source material and you'd think that of the sources because he did also say on twitter that these aren't all of his sources just the ones that he remembered because he wasn't quote taking notes which if you if you're listening to this you can't see my crazy eyes I thought crazy eyes right now because if you if you're writing an investigative journalist beast and you're not taking notes and you publish on that I'm almost shaking right now like know what yeah well I need to take a breath because my brain is like firing off cuz that that right there like I'm sure I'm literally shaking right now well it comes back in Sharon I think this is important to say it comes back to if if something unethical did happen then yeah we want to know about we see more oh absolutely absolutely if Steve McCurry like go kill the guy you know it's like I'm exaggerating maybe this was on the lines of yeah but white sling what's worse is if this story is true the lack of evidence presented and the way it was presented makes it easy to undercut it that's the problem if this story is true then I want it to be true and I want there to be sourcing but I can't know because he didn't take notes well and and what's not fair is that if you're making an accusation the person being accused you know what I mean it's like trial with no jury at this point and in no evidence and no facts exactly and no court no nothing you know in in defense of having Steve not be able to respond or didn't respond I mean I actually can take that at face value because personally I have reached out to people before with regards to do you want to comment on this story and either they don't respond or they they actively become aggressive or I've had to go so far as I've had a story killed before and I can't even talk about it at this point due to threat of litigation I because we weren't able to defend ourselves did I have enough evidence to fight this oh yeah I don't I don't don't go after stories unless I got truth there but but you have enough money to pony up for a bunch of lawyers correct you stall it we're out I worked for a small blog at the time and it's just we don't have the money to do that they could kill this in just just in the threat of lawsuits so it's like okay well then whatever but well and some people don't understand that it's like if you ever get tangled up with the corporation and they're going to quote-unquote sue you for something they may not have a case and a judge would laugh it out a court but the problem is is they're going to make you do so much work and spend so much money in legal recourse to back that up that's another thing about investigative reporting is sometimes I think an author really has to believe in something to go through all that you know what I mean it's a long road it's also it's also nice to have the backing of a news organization that has a history of this sort of thing well and would one eat I mean they had that way to go out of gate sure and yes the most New York Times and The Washington Post both have very strong standings there sometimes people don't you know what you know what's something else is important about both those organizations if they make an error they front-page their apologies ah redaction yeah that's called the redaction and that's important too and they don't just delete their story and pretend it didn't happen they say this is what we published this is what was wrong this is why our opinion or a has or has not changed and this is the section that we still think is valid to look into and here are our sourcing zhan that that is how you properly redact and you know what that does that doesn't make you a lesser reporter that makes you a better reporter that makes you just believe you again yeah I I've seen it was very recent actually the New York Times actually had to say we made a mistake here we're sorry this happens sometimes and we understand that that's the risk we take when we do this type of work but and we're gonna say we're sorry right now but that's a huge deal and when I'm one of the reason I'm bringing this up is because as mentioned earlier this video is not on YouTube anymore it was just pulled not really on every photography website yeah I can hike yeah talk about why that why you think that's well that's what I said earlier I mentioned I said I'm gonna come back to it earlier I mentioned and I made the point of saying that every website that I'm aware of I saw that reposted on right and I think this is what's indicative of a wider spread problem in our business or in our niche of photography because as a creator if I can get I'm just gonna throw names out F Stoppers peda pixel somebody to pick up my video that will result in exposure for me to an audience that may not know who I am it results hopefully in subscribers and a lot of views now I have had it to where I have a certain type of video feature that's not particularly shocking or anything it's kind of interesting people will comment and they you know so and so forth but if you can shock and make controversy then what happens is you get all the comments on that websites web page below the video and people come back to check comments so if you could start a fight you're gold right it's kind of it sorts acting a little bit like reddit in that regard because it becomes a discussion page now what irritates me about it is that the the websites that are set up in this fashion that basically it's a reposting of information no work went into that at all from that website and I'm not saying that's bad it's I'm always grateful to get the feature but then it's a piece of content that is searchable via Google etc where no effort went into it and the controversy still stays up with no ethical redaction whatsoever from that website so as far as I'm concerned even though you didn't write anything story you just featured a YouTube video and then summarized it what you should do is go back in there and say this video was taken down we're not sure at the very minimum we're not sure why or close the page yet you know but some kind of redaction is important even if you're not sure of and I don't know what the details are of why the videos is taken out specifically and I'm not going to assume that I do um that's the business of the person that made the video and any other parties involved I don't know but what I'm saying is if I had a big website that got a lot of views it is irresponsible to leave that up to continue to get people to view that page you know what I'm saying yeah it's not like you need to say something as someone who's worked for three of what sites like this one of them I just mentioned even one of them I have it I was an editor at stop F Stoppers for it did occur to me that it was kind of like easy of like dusting your hands off it's not your issue all you did is report that someone else reported and in the photo industry this is not the only place that happens it happens like you'll see someone will report it on New York Times or The Washington Post and then Business Insider and slate and there's a couple others that'll pick up this story afterwards and they're basically just relying on the fact that the New York Times in the Washington Post got it right it's not their story they did they say he said cheese that sort of thing yeah so it's an assumption that this is correct were we posting it right and that assumption is based on usually that past excellence in journalism however in that's because there's huge repercussions if you get that wrong in those industries like the politics or government or economics or whatever but in in photography and in an area that is now being very much a lot more influencers and youtubers no offense Ted or guy I'm not offended right yeah yeah these are folks who did not go to necessarily not all of them some of them probably did go to school to learn how to be a journalist did not learn how to have journalistic ethics are not tied to those same ethics and don't care about those ethics they care about the clicks the views and therefore the money that comes out of it and I'm not making assumptions about anyone I'm just saying that that is the case for people out there who are influencers and that's in the and the reason it sort of scares me in this industry specifically is I've watched it happen over the glass reviews where the major real quote-unquote real journalist sources where there there are vetting stories they have an editorial calendar months in advance they're doing the things like the old school way those places do not exist anymore they are all going out of business because of the the I mean use the word economics even though it's not really a cannot be economics of YouTube essentially the way that we ingest information as people has change or shed write and the because of that we haven't actually taken the standards the old standards and applied them to the new methods new media so that's what that leaves us where we are right now it's it's been it's been a classic case of it's still the Wild West and III told you yesterday we were talking I get a little bit tired of people using that as an excuse the Wild West well it's not television it's but it's been around long enough to start maturing but the biggest problem that we have and and I don't mind being vocal about this at all is the way it's set up and I alluded to this earlier that you have products owned by Google whether it's search whether it's video on YouTube Google owns all that it's it's a massive information and the way that lets just use YouTube is the example the way the YouTube sees it is it doesn't delineate video for video they're just widgets what it does is it's going to use data in the way video performs that's how long people view at how many times people view it's how many clicks it has in the velocity of the first hour there's an enormous amount of data that goes into how YouTube makes a decision that this video is something people want to see I mean he gets down on a macro level of behavioral patterns like you who are watching this or me or jaren like how are habits on YouTube are if I watch that you've all seen it if you watch it if I watch one movie trailer then YouTube that's all they're recommending to me right on that note like was it yesterday the day before like I because the athletes right story I know I hadn't actually watched heads video for me I said I said to Jaron we were on the phone I said you know I did of it I'm getting all these comments I did a video and he's like I've never seen your video on that so it's up there you open YouTube and and they're served his video so listener why he's probably getting convert like he's getting conversations in on old videos because YouTube is serving them as new content yeah I don't believe I don't believe that that that YouTube is listening to our phone call I do believe that they saw that you looked it up previously and they yeah but I've seen it and they're like oh we need to keep him watching let's give him another video to watch about the subject maybe and and I think for the for those of you who either have YouTube channels or who have had do tried to do a YouTube channel you're gonna realize that it's very competitive it's very difficult you had to be very patient it takes a long time and it's an enormous amount of work and there's four I don't want to get too far into this but like a low-end youtuber there's no money for a middle-class which is a lot of youtubers like my channel I would consider to be kind of middle to lower class I I've got 500,000 subscribers which I'm very proud of but that also took 10 years to get I wish I had that many views per video that I put out it doesn't work that way but it's very difficult to scrape by on the money that you make doing this so money does become a driving huge thing yeah because you make more money well I can and I'm not trying it's not out of greed or gluttony it's like how do I keep the lights on and pay the rent exactly put gas in the car and eat you know yeah that's what I'm worried about and and that's what a lot of us worry about at night and then we take on a sponsorship with somebody or say you know see it's it's strung together through all these things but if there isn't sin it but the bottom line is that you want people to watch your video you need those views if you're going to be successful so then you have an unethical part that comes in and I'm not calling anyone unethical necessarily typical II let's forget about the African African the African girl video just in general you see this on YouTube is then people start making content that is only going to get clicks and then the quality of that content goes down and we have this really poor form of edutainment that's barely lay there's no there's no edge you involved it's just entertainment it becomes vapid it becomes lame there's no thought put in and it I've leave leave everyone out of it I there are people that I know that our fabulous creators do really good work they should be viewed they're doing important work and the way that algorithm works it's just stacked up against them until they start to and camera reviews or this you know what I mean it's yes yeah the system is set up where essentially a robot is curating our content another example if you if you were interested in a camera let's say let's say I want to go check out the new Panasonic s1 and so I type that into the Google search this is not video this is just Google search it's going to give me just this indefinite list of websites well you're gonna click on one of the first one or two right because you're assuming that Google has curated the best content based on your search which is let's be honest it's impossible to do Google has an algorithm they look at backlinks they look at an enormous amount of data to determine what that order is but that also makes it very difficult for younger people who might have a blog about that camera or something that's been interesting that does give some really good information to get into that vortex don't nobody even knows the work so then you have to go look what do I running ads on Facebook do I do this do it it's very difficult because you're dealing with machines that are curating the content you know in the old days you get a newspaper on your doorstep pre-internet or you'd look at the news well there's a whole team of people that were coming up with you and they felt was the most important yeah and the most relevant and the most insight right a little more often yeah to drag the to aim this back the those cases of let's say something wasn't like they do weren't solid on it you can't just go and hit publish you have a review of people that go up and like hmm maybe we should do a little bit more research yeah and that doesn't happen anymore and that leads back to what I said about the the real quote/unquote again I'm air quotes the journalists sources in our industry are gone that you lose that you lose that chain where you get more than just someone else with your own input into something and there are benefits to not having that chain you can go faster you can make content that's more tailored to what you personally believe it can be at the moment exactly can be yeah and so like that's the advantage the disadvantage is you run into the issue where maybe you're not right and that's oh I need to stress this really really strongly it's okay to be wrong it's really okay I'm wrong so much I'm wrong a lot and I think that helps me grow as a journalist now I consider I actually consider myself a journalist and I'm younger than you Ted but I consider myself part of the old guard because I came from journalist what you studied Yeah right it's and I still write for a site that consists from like the 90s that is still journalism we still do the the the research I mean that's why it took us three and a half weeks maybe to may have been even longer than that to release any review of the sony a6000 weeks after anyone cared because we were dedicated to getting the story right we wanted the correct story we wanted to test it three times we wanted to get it right and this is another example Ted I think you would agree with this there were cases where stuff was put out like the night we got that camera dude that wasn't me well you how that was not correct so we were this is this is and I'm not gonna name names because I'm not trying to tear anybody down I'm at the point here is to see this is the monster that's been created by the system I just described on YouTube this is the monster so I'm we're at the a 6400 event we go to the Sony HQ for for the presentation that they gave us and then we got the cameras and we had a little bit of time shooting there we are on the bus to go to our first shooting location right and we're gonna spend the day evaluating said camera and understanding how it works and finding how we want to take an angle of whether we like it or not in what we're going to report well because the way YouTube is set up in this this this dire need to be first when a topic is hot and that day because of the rumor sites so and so forth that that camera was was newsworthy right I'm on the bus I look over one of my colleagues has already posted his video like how and this is somebody that I like a lot and I have an enormous amount of respect for it and and in fairness he he he did a he talked about one characteristic of the camera that's a very simple video to make he's done this with a lot of cameras and so I don't think his information was bad and so what he does he just immediately went out back did that style of video because it was it was a small little aspect of the camera and he later did did stuff but anyway it's like seriously we haven't had the camera in our hands an hour and you've already posted a videos and then I look over and another guy that I have an enormous amount of respect for he's an incredible colleague I have nothing but love for the guy he's over there with his laptop open editing the video so we can get it posted before we're even done with all the shooting and it's not their fault no it's not their fault that's the key here they're not your fault that's why keeping the names out it's the it's just another symptom of this virus that we're in yeah we actually they have they're trained to do this in order to be successful they have to do this if they don't do this they don't succeed and my immediate reaction is oh I must be slacking yes I'm doing something wrong it's and we're on a long bus right so I think the guilt is coming in and so but and then ultimately I didn't do that because I had some time to think about it and we work together on a couple things and and you know I've also seen another colleague that I have a lot of respect for like how to do a test of a function the camera set up incorrectly you know redaction no removal and here's the deal like you said mistakes are cool I will be the first to admit I have made a lot of them there everything from little tiny things like I did a bio video on Ansel Adams years ago and I say off the cuff in the video I have the year he died wrong off by two years or something okay and people call me on the comments and they oh you check anything well no I'm doing a video I'm speaking off-the-cuff and so I kind of let that go corrected in the notes in there there has been several instances where I finished a video looked at it and before I looked a little and hit post I was just like no I can't this just it's too too much mounting information too much yeah or just yeah exactly and so I've held it there's been maybe one or two instances where I've actually removed a video because that same thing you know I did the it's different reason but but that interview that I did with with Neil last year I pulled down at his request and so it you know there's certain times where I don't know it's like I think it does more harm than good to leave things up or or proceed when you don't have your information accurate just in the name of staying relevant in your career and and that's hard and building on top of that is once you have a name let's say you're a big deal yeah and you make a mistake and you make 300 videos a year that mistake is then defended by the people who put you up on a pedestal of knowledge even if they vet that for you so then there's now your being what you've done is you've created a false statement or a false belief and it will then be believed because of who you are and that's problematic if you don't personally take in that responsibility that's a lot of responsibility there are thousands thousands of real people who will then create an idea because of what you said and if you say something wrong and you don't admit to saying something wrong you are helping push the term I hate saying it yeah well but you know it's not real it comes back to I mean you hear people say this all the time yes in the United States we have a bill over it's the First Amendment of the Constitution protects that which is freedom of speech now that does not mean that you can the classic example you can't run into a movie theater and you'll fire that's not freedom of speech right I think that the problem is is then then it requires an interpretation of what that means and it does III don't know if I'd do it great I'm not the biggest channel in YouTube obviously I do okay I I do treat the content that I do with that restart try to I realize that I have a responsibility and I'm not trying to say that that you know my poop don't stink supposedly but it's it's um and I don't always get it right either but but I I think the reason that we're having this conversation is that and it's not just YouTube channels we're picking on that right now but there's it's a lot of the media that surrounds our niche as photographers that doesn't get things right and they don't have that standard yeah it because they haven't they've never been held to it they never agreed to it it's just well be responsible you know so like I guess what I want anyone who watches or listens to this to come away with is in this era of new media all the information that is presented to you you are equally burdened with vetting the truth of that information as the people who present it because you can't necessarily trust the presenters anymore unless you go to a place that has been known for a very long time of getting it right who goes back and says we're sorry made mistakes and then yeah even then don't necessarily believe it unless you check the sourcing check sources remember who where he's coming from look at link they don't just read titles that's another problem just reading titles is enough now yeah to mess you up like you have to actually put effort in I know this is so hard to hear because putting effort into anything really sucks but you have to put effort into this and or just put it this way if you're reading a story that that something is fishy with then the redaction hasn't been made because the story you know what I mean it's like you're not gonna see the read action you can't take it at face value at that point you'll see it two days later when it's you know so I guess so this this sucks but like II don't necessarily listen to us don't trust us every time check our source vet other people who have talked about the same subject watch the same stuff from other people make sure that you're getting the full story just just hearing the words from from one person especially the more inflammatory they are the the more skeptical you should be before getting out those pitchforks and torches like these days it's so easy to be a keyboard warrior because you're in your own little vacuum just like when we create our videos we're doing it on our own vacuum it can be that's where mistakes are made because we don't have a chain to put them up those same mistakes that same issue falls upon you as the recipient of that media and it's it's just a really challenging time when there is so much not true that can't be called not true because of the rage that builds around it and once that tidal wave gets going it's really challenging to stop the last thing I want to mention about the peer-review thing because I we kind of like dangled off it is because there's not a lot of response for doing a peer review you don't get the same love that you get for either proving because the the risk you're taking is you'll prove the peer review correct and then they're deaf there's definitely no okay well that guy could set it first but if you prove the peer review wrong nobody cares anymore because it's gone because the next topic has already come up and I said this to Ted before a lot of a lot of YouTube channels that are good at controversy are like a guy in a car with a truck full of Molotov cocktails and they're just chopping them out the windows burning down different buildings because of the controversy and so while other people who are trying to get in there be like well hold on a minute we need to double check on this we're there they're over there putting a fire out on the first building and the car with the Molotov cocktails is already a block down the road with six other burned buildings behind it like it is just too much work to keep up with that beak and there's almost no value in it in terms of like monetarily or press wise or getting any of those just there's no the follow-ups are never as good as the original especially when it's such a highly inflammatory concept or search or conversation and so it's it's really hard for anyone to want to go in there and correct wrongs unless the person who's throwing those molotovs wants to stop and help put the fire at once in a while mm-hmm I get it's just I get really emotional about this because I know how much work it is to do a good story I know how much work it is to be a person who cares about that sort of thing and then when I watch it not happen with someone who really should have taken those steps and watched the response of the people that believed in those those folks it it hurts it like physically hurts my chest like it's like you know that feeling of when you you're told that the person that you love doesn't love you back it just hurts that's that's what it does to me and it's it's physically painful and that's why I felt like we really should we needed to make this Ted is I need to definitely say it I have if I don't say it then what am i doing I'm just bottling it up and pretend no I agree with you completely and in a lot of it the the the problem that I'm hearing is is is this is the modern world we live in with this stuff and I call it the monstrum and it goes that you know we've got it's this short cycle that has to be you know race through everything has to be quick and and what it does is it starts lowering the quality and I think you said the key words you know what time it takes to do this I know when I did I'll share something with with some folks that that really put me down a dark path and you know I did the artists I do the artists series I still do it where I do about five a year interviews with living photographers people just see the end result they're just sort of these documentaries maybe they've heard of maybe they haven't those are hard to do the first time I did them I did a crowdfunding thing and even then I not only used all that money up I also poured I matched it with my own finances going into it so it's expensive to do so I have a lot invested with it the other part of the problem is those are not hip and trendy they take forever to make the they are the labor of love that you're talking about and when I released the first season I almost quit YouTube I mean I was ready to delete my entire channel and the reason is is because they just flopped they nobody was interested they performed I mean the the artists that I worked with enjoyed them and and I made a lot of you know but I really I mean it just like I felt like in some ways that first round all of them were the best work that I had done with video as a medium in telling a story because I got into this I never wanted to be called a journalist that's a tag that's been thrown on me recently I got on YouTube because I'm just a nerd who loves photography I love sharing it I'm fairly good at teaching and so it was a it was a really nice outlet for me too my goal was to it still is to share my enthusiasm for the subject with others like-minded people right and here I had felt like I had done that and it didn't work and the reason it didn't work is it didn't play into the the stratosphere that is topical content of the moment things that are hip and trendy you know so and so forth and it would it guts me when people will leave comments in those videos you should just do these and it's like I know you're complimenting me but I can't just do those I will be dead in the water I there's no physical way I could just do those I appreciate the kind words I appreciate the compliment and so now we're looking at the twist of that I I do a lot of videos on photography I'd review cameras I mean we do everything that's of the moment but even those things you know if you're not putting the time in you're getting things wrong and in we know the time it takes to do that right and we're forced now into this thing where there's just so much competition that you don't have a choice but to make pumpup garbage you know that's a strong way of summarizing all that but and I don't mean to call other people's content garbage it's not but it's and I probably took it too personally you know and I didn't quit YouTube and I still make those and you did there no did not quit YouTube I seriously I I really almost did and I've never said that on the channel before because I don't want to have this oh woe is me you know and that that's the hard thing about this whole discussion at all because it's so hip and cool on YouTube to pick these like 90s gangster rap fights with other YouTube channels yo you said oh in west coast East Coast arts you know that that's stupid and I I don't want this to appear that we're doing that because we're not it's just a general call to our industry to say we are better than that and I put myself on that line too I need to be better than that I need to make better content I need to constantly be pushing myself like I told you I never wanted to be called a journalist the only people who started doing that we're camera companies when they want to invite you to their event they're not going to pay you they want an honest opinion and I I didn't like that term initially but like it or not if I'm going to do any kind of reviews on work like that then guess what that is journalism and you're going to have to approach it in that way and so I don't know we're kind of talking in circles at this point and I feel like I did a whole lot ëismí and I really didn't mean to do that but I hope we've at least gotten the point across that it's important all of this is important for us as both creators and as consumers of content that we all have a certain responsibility epps and we need to take that responsibility seriously that's it for me at least I mean I I wanna I here's a long time to come back to that but that's all it is right I'll personally get angry about certain videos and I and I'm okay with being here at home and and texting you rapidly about how angry I am and I love it jaren but I don't I don't want to go out there in public and and and like to just shame someone for it I feel like those who do do that like those who have made the mistakes it's on them to say I'm sorry I don't want to force them to say I'm sorry then it doesn't feel like a real apology so I'm not asking for anyone to apologize for anything I just want everyone to think more about the media that they consume I know it's asking well that's asking a hell of a lot and maybe people to think more you know and it could be that we're just a couple old farts sitting here worried about the good old days when we used to have newspaper no internet no ice no maybe that up until last year I was still getting a physical newspaper - Mike I think that's cool man I lightened it yeah I have nothing else on this topic I think it pretty much came down to it I think there's a lot to get off her chest - I mean it's yeah sorry fanny and heard a bit hopefully it was we at least provided some sort of an interesting topic to listen to throughout it but we appreciate everyone listening to this or watching it that's what you're watching and by the way yeah we this is this is basically a visual version of our podcast and so you know if you want to hear us ramble more about certain topics we don't they're not always this passionate sometimes we're having fun with things actually most the time we are yeah we need to have fun on the next one for sure we will definitely have fun so you know link in the description where podcasts are listened to and until the next vid we'll see you guys then laterso this is a different kind of video I realize this is a topic that is not going to get a lot of clicks it's not going to get a lot of traction it's not going to go viral but it's an important conversation that we need to have about a subject that impacts all of us in the photography community we need to be better this is something that impacts youtubers it impacts all the photography websites and news feeds that we love and enjoy and it affects you as a viewer we all are in this together and we need to be doing a better job I realized that your time is valuable and if you're watching this on youtube click on the description below I've taken the liberty to go ahead and index the entire video I realize it's kind of long there's a topic that you want to jump to in a specific moment it is listed there and of course conversation is encouraged so please feel free to agree or disagree with anything that you're hearing us talk about so now that I've set this up on with the conversation this is a special video presentation I've got my friend Jaron Schneider it's this guy we have an important topic that we want to talk about today that deals essentially with ethics in the photography niche in our line of work and we're talking about stuff that is now sort of seen as quote-unquote journalism so YouTube certainly has an influence as a youtuber you have people who watch you there's podcasting there's also websites there's if you have a blog there is you know it's kind of this new wave of journalism where you have an audience that watches what you say and there was a specific event this last week where a story was posted about Steve McCurry's Afghan girl and we wanted to address that a little bit and the way this kind of came about is I've done two videos on Afghan girl and it's been a while they're like almost a year right and all of a sudden I'm getting all these comments and people like if you really know the truth you know you're covering up and I'm like what is going on and then I realized that someone else had posted a video essentially making an accusation of something that may have been an abuse of power that went on the video is no longer posted but it was kind of interesting because I did go watch that video and this is where our topic kind of comes from because there was an accusation and a point of view that was trying to come across in that video that was really not backed up by sources it was more or less an opinion or an assumption presented a fact am I getting this straight Jam yeah this is and also it's important to note here is this is just the latest symptom of a series of issues over the past like this is not the only reason that we're talking about this it's because it's happened multiple times and it's just like you kind of ignored it and dust it off but this is sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back sort of thing like yeah sure this need we this is a subject that talks about the this specific video but it is not the one that is like this is the only reason we're talking about it there's a lot more that goes on and and it's not the it's not the only time this has happened with a specific source Oh Minh you and I started talking about it I mean we realized that this is part of a much much bigger picture I mean there's been and not just YouTube there's been different platforms that will basically present something and and you know I did it because I do this for a living and part of the problem is is that you know you there's a lot of competition with anything so if you go to a news feed or if you go on YouTube to the home page there's a lot of thumbnails you have a lot of options of things you can watch and so creators that want to get views because that is the goal whether you write or make videos or whatever it is that you're doing so you see this in mainstream news to where an article is about a certain thing but the the title is stalled up a little bit - yeah and them nail the thumbnail takes advantage of it as well absolutely that's playing the game but then well there's a third topic about that though and then that is actually the content so if you're doing a video on just two dudes playing tennis and you know you can title that and thumbnail it as much as you want it's not an interesting topic to a lot of people so people will pick controversy as a means to have something to say as well and I think that is a bigger problem that really any product by Google whether it's search or YouTube or what-have-you comes into play because then we know that controversy gets clicks and so let's feed this beast a little bit yeah yeah what I'd like to do is take a slightly a step back and look at investigative journalism in general and also state like a for anyone watching or listening why I would have an opinion on this at all like Wyatt Webb what makes me any any type of expert on the matter it's because I have personally written three investigative journalist pieces I know what goes into it in addition to that I read investigative journalism like I enjoy The Washington Post and The New York Times and they do great work they're something I do want to point out real quick though is when I say that very few will actually know the name or names often it's many people of the people who write these big blockbuster pieces the people who exposed Watergate for example very few people know those people's names they only know the Washington Post or in New York Times because being an investigative journalist and expen talking about true matters is not about making yourself into a superstar it's never been about that it's about seeking truth so if that's not the main goal from the get-go and you can sense that then it should be part of you should be asking why was this piece made if it's not about finding the truth is it about setting a specific story that would they want to tell or is it about actually finding true stories that's something that the ego becomes involved and that shouldn't be the drive for yeah right gotcha so anyway I've written three pieces I'm gonna briefly say what they are one of them I'm sure almost all of you who saw this cuz this thing blew up a while ago maybe two to three years the veritasium video Ted hell yeah yeah it's probably good three years now the veritasium released a video which talked about how BOTS hide themselves by trying to appear real on Facebook by liking topics a vast range of topics so that they can then use that that BOTS to then follow specific pages and hide better veritasium made that video and it went viral that video was based entirely on an expose that I wrote for The Next Web and he does reference it like very quickly one time but I just know that that was my story and it's I'm really glad people watched his video because that's the story got out I am not hurt that I did not necessarily get all the fame from it because it's not about that it's about the truth yeah the other two stories I've written I wrote one on how f/stop gear basically defrauded all of their customers by faking a product and putting it on Kickstarter or think maybe an IndieGoGo and then with no intention of ever making that product and I wrote about that and then the most recent one I have was about a photographer named Sal Sin Cara who entered and won his own portrait competition and the basically the ethics behind something like that so I all of those pieces that I just referenced all of them took minimum a month to put together to research to go and find more information and to vet my own sources minimum month probably minimum month so that's the part I want to focus on to start with is vetting sources when it comes to a real investigative journalist it's their job to hear a story from a source and they may or may not believe that story but if it sounds credible it is up to them to then go and find out if it is and that requires hearing what the story is and this may seem like a huge deal but not jumping in feet-first and trying to go ahead and prove that thesis immediately you have to go ahead and find out if it happened and this is there's some examples in modern journalism where this has happened where someone has tried to fool for example the New York Times and get them to publish a story that is made-up and they find out and the reason is is because they don't jump on the story and publish as fast as they can they try and figure out if it actually happened because they want to get it right it's about true it's not about clicks so I think you know just to put this into a context where people might understand what you're talking about like Watergate obviously is the famous one and in Watergate you have this character deep throat who just refers to himself as - he's an anonymous source and he's good so what you're talking about is you hear something from a source and then your responsibility is to actually go make sure that's legitimate and not somebody just be estimate right right because sometimes you only get one source yeah and when you only have one source and you can't cross-check him with another source you have to find other ways to see if it's true and that's what takes real work takes leg work you have to do actual god forbid research you also have to care that you're it's true you know what I mean it's like it's like you you you care about the story to the extent where I'm going I have something to prove here something has to back me up because that's the difference of saying this is my opinion or my gut feeling or you know you have to have that it legitimate is what it is that you're right a lot of these a lot of these investigative journalists who do this or don't come up with this idea of a story they want to write and then try and find the facts to back it right for the for the most part these stories appear in front of them as possibilities they have as a giant board of like these are the the things we're hearing from individual sources or whatever and we are interested in trying to see which one of these are true rather than man that's Steve McCurry guys sitting up there too tall on his horse what can I do to pull him down like that sort of thing like that that that I'm not saying that's what happened but that's not the mentality you doing in this case but there has been a lot of that in particularly with Steve McCurry and I wanted to fin Steve McCurry for just a second because he's first of all African girl is and I'm not I'm just giving you facts here the African girl is probably one probably it is one of the top three most iconic photographs ever made that image has been reproduced its mosquito be they says it has wings of its own it flies beyond the realm of just the magazine the photographer there's a number of reasons why that could be it's the viewers interpretation of what the eyes mean of what you know put a face on a refugee in the 80s to Western culture that hadn't normally seen that in fairness National Geographic is not a new source necessarily it is the photography and they've always been known for photography in that magazine but it is not trying to be to call it journalism I think is a little bit of a stretch and went slightly yeah yeah when people or journalism then it's not he felt like a tourist photo but not right it's not hard journalism either no Steve McCurry and they're hard photos to get I mean you know like the flood pictures that he's famous for I mean you know jumping in water with leeches and stuff I yeah it's it's difficult to get those photographs Steve McCurry has a great eye he's done some amazing work a couple of years ago there was one of the the big websites did this investigative reporting on on the fact that he photoshopped some images that Ron's website because you could find the Photoshop bears well first of all those were not published under the guise of photo journalism those were worked he was preparing for gallery work and I know that does create controversy and that's enough to make you want to post an article to get clicks but there's at that point I think it became very trendy to start dragging Steve McCurry through the mud so anything McCurry is controversial gonna get my Envy and these days now you like those who don't know the full story like you just stated sure can now go back and be like oh well it makes sense that he would have done something like this because in the past we've already proven he's some kind of a liar because he'll Photoshop yeah so like they it builds on itself when when you have these types of stories that aren't that the truth is not fully revealed so whether or not you like Steve McCurry as a person is irrelevant it's about it's about the story I've never met so I don't know I mean I know people who know and speak very highly of you I respect his work and the work that he's done and like I said I did two videos on African girl it's an incredible photograph it's legendary you know I'm not going to dispute that and so why not use that as an example in in context I was talking about the intention of a photographer in those videos and and in terms of composition color end result and what the vision of a photographer is going into that now I wouldn't do that with somebody who's a hardcore photojournalist even though most hardcore photojournalist still have kind of a style they shoot in there's a look there's that's composition that's photography I don't think you're ever gonna get a solid version of photojournalist photography some some to some extent I mean you can find examples of things that really were misleading but it's not an iPhone snapping an image just randomly it's somebody who's taking care of that and who's a good photographer and so there is going to be some level of interpretation that goes into anything I'm off strap up topic already it didn't take me long well anyway so to kind of lead this back so we're not necessarily here gonna just just talk about this one in snow we're but I'm gonna lead off of it in a way that might make a little bit more sense so when we start talking about sourcing and when we start talking about doing real real journalism sources are important and in this particular case I wasted half a day where I went and I read every source that was in fairness I did too because it was a strong accusation that was made and he's like wait a minute yeah and it's from somebody that that you know I would I would do that he's in a yeah he's in a position where right and in a position to give information he's in the thought leader to a lot Oh any and by the way every website picked that up every one of them I'm gonna come back to that later but go ahead yeah so it got seen here is where I think there's some this this fault on both sides one there's fault on the sorcerer or the giver of sources which was the YouTube video and those who watch the YouTube video now the responsibility is on both of those people so the sources were given so if you went to the the video you were listed yes as of yesterday was still in Facebook and what they were still there and I went and I did it again I actually went back and made sure I watched all of them there are he has links to programs put on by the National Geographic Channel so there's like a whole documentary there's an interview done by the BBC there's two articles from National Geographic itself and then there's like an Oprah interview and then one or two other things anyway I watched and read them all most of these I had seen before and when I'm looking at these and actually vetting the source as the the viewer because I want to see where this stuff was said I could not find any place that backed up a majority of the accusations that he stated and when you say that this is my source and this is what I took from my source you gotta have like where's your quotes your bibliography like where it let's go here let's work in this exact section is from this exact thing this is how I know this and I could not find that anywhere and that to me is a problem with the person presenting the sources it's also a problem for those who absorbed the final information because I guarantee you most of the people who watched that video did not check the sources and so that's on us as the viewership who is now either defending or not defending the YouTube video it's on us because we didn't check we we just believed the thought leader rather than checking the sources and sourcing it's so important and the story like this when you're taking on someone or something big that always is the case you have to have backed up sources or your credibility is completely gone or at least to be at least it used to be that your credibility was gone and I just this was a this was a case of that for me so just to kind of like reiterate what the accusation here is is that that the accusation was made against McCurry is that during the shot of the Afghan girl which was 1984 SH is that he abused a position of power being a white guy in with a child who was an Afghan refugee is in essence what it is and that is a very strong accusation to make for one and I can see possibly where somebody might make the assumption but I just wanted to clarify that that's what was being made but in going through the sources to see if there was anything that backed that up there was zero in fact usually the opposite yeah was even or something that would suggest the opposite so anyway my point is is I wasn't there this person wasn't there you weren't there if you're watching this you weren't there so nobody really knows what's going on but to make an accusation land this is a really strong accusation to make especially it's gonna be an assumption right and there's nothing wrong with making that type of accusation if you have proper sourcing like I would if he acted if this video for me had proper sourcing and this was like oh man he's got like this is backed up this is a big deal then I'm like I would clap my hands like this is a huge worry that has been broken it's absolutely worth reporting on and but that I don't feel like that was the case here and so that's that sparks another end of this question or this whole topic where we're talking now we were looking at okay so whose responsibility is it to check source as well as everyone's but on in addition to that now I want to talk about because the reason we're even having this conversation is there's a response to that and this is not just us who's done it a lot of people have done this and this touches on another subject that is worth considering and it's called peer review and there is a process right now where if you do a medical study of any sort let's say you have found that you your your your thesis is that chocolate actually helped posts put off the instances of a very specific type of cancer and I'm actually pretty sure that is a study someone has mr. say I've heard of that yeah yeah and so the way this works if you don't know is in in the in the medical field these studies are hard to do because they require money so you get funding to do whatever study you're working on and that step right there alone already has a chance to taint your results because what if it's for example Gatorade wants to do a study on the difference between drinking Gatorade and water and what if the results of that study show that there is no difference they don't want that therefore they'd hush it or they would try and make it so that it doesn't say necessarily that so like they depends on who you're where that's coming from but that aside it's actually even worse when it comes down to this individual people who are doing these studies wanting to gain fame and acclaim because if you come up with something incredible some crazy or maybe it doesn't seem crazy but it's like this wow this a big deal that gets you attention in the medical field which leads you to more money which is exactly what these studies are designed to do journalistic studies there is both incentive and disincentive to so let's say you do you do a study and then you publish your results and it gets a huge deal let's say that for the sake of this argument that that study only used ten people and they only use those ten people over a six to 12-month period which is not enough and let's say that there was not it was not double-blind so look there's a lot of things in there that are like ok maybe we should retest this that's called peer review unfortunately peer review doesn't bring nearly the accolades or attention that the original statement did so let's say I go and I disprove this and I'm like look I've disproved that it's too late stories already gone nobody cares media doesn't care the the cycles over writes that cycle is over and that doesn't that sound really familiar to how like news yeah news and today we call that a hit job right yeah well it's what it is it's a hit job piece it's it's a door in and out and it's over you know your tornado of conversation and by the time anyone's left there to rebuild city you've already moved on to another city - tornado down well in fact that's kind of annoys me because even us talking about this is almost too late you know what I mean it's already done the stories that then that's what's frustrating that's why I wanted to talk about it because let's say we peer-reviewed this and I think that's what we're doing we're peer-review very much yeah yeah we're using the same source material that the original one did that at least that lewis said and shown to us as the source material and you'd think that of the sources because he did also say on twitter that these aren't all of his sources just the ones that he remembered because he wasn't quote taking notes which if you if you're listening to this you can't see my crazy eyes I thought crazy eyes right now because if you if you're writing an investigative journalist beast and you're not taking notes and you publish on that I'm almost shaking right now like know what yeah well I need to take a breath because my brain is like firing off cuz that that right there like I'm sure I'm literally shaking right now well it comes back in Sharon I think this is important to say it comes back to if if something unethical did happen then yeah we want to know about we see more oh absolutely absolutely if Steve McCurry like go kill the guy you know it's like I'm exaggerating maybe this was on the lines of yeah but white sling what's worse is if this story is true the lack of evidence presented and the way it was presented makes it easy to undercut it that's the problem if this story is true then I want it to be true and I want there to be sourcing but I can't know because he didn't take notes well and and what's not fair is that if you're making an accusation the person being accused you know what I mean it's like trial with no jury at this point and in no evidence and no facts exactly and no court no nothing you know in in defense of having Steve not be able to respond or didn't respond I mean I actually can take that at face value because personally I have reached out to people before with regards to do you want to comment on this story and either they don't respond or they they actively become aggressive or I've had to go so far as I've had a story killed before and I can't even talk about it at this point due to threat of litigation I because we weren't able to defend ourselves did I have enough evidence to fight this oh yeah I don't I don't don't go after stories unless I got truth there but but you have enough money to pony up for a bunch of lawyers correct you stall it we're out I worked for a small blog at the time and it's just we don't have the money to do that they could kill this in just just in the threat of lawsuits so it's like okay well then whatever but well and some people don't understand that it's like if you ever get tangled up with the corporation and they're going to quote-unquote sue you for something they may not have a case and a judge would laugh it out a court but the problem is is they're going to make you do so much work and spend so much money in legal recourse to back that up that's another thing about investigative reporting is sometimes I think an author really has to believe in something to go through all that you know what I mean it's a long road it's also it's also nice to have the backing of a news organization that has a history of this sort of thing well and would one eat I mean they had that way to go out of gate sure and yes the most New York Times and The Washington Post both have very strong standings there sometimes people don't you know what you know what's something else is important about both those organizations if they make an error they front-page their apologies ah redaction yeah that's called the redaction and that's important too and they don't just delete their story and pretend it didn't happen they say this is what we published this is what was wrong this is why our opinion or a has or has not changed and this is the section that we still think is valid to look into and here are our sourcing zhan that that is how you properly redact and you know what that does that doesn't make you a lesser reporter that makes you a better reporter that makes you just believe you again yeah I I've seen it was very recent actually the New York Times actually had to say we made a mistake here we're sorry this happens sometimes and we understand that that's the risk we take when we do this type of work but and we're gonna say we're sorry right now but that's a huge deal and when I'm one of the reason I'm bringing this up is because as mentioned earlier this video is not on YouTube anymore it was just pulled not really on every photography website yeah I can hike yeah talk about why that why you think that's well that's what I said earlier I mentioned I said I'm gonna come back to it earlier I mentioned and I made the point of saying that every website that I'm aware of I saw that reposted on right and I think this is what's indicative of a wider spread problem in our business or in our niche of photography because as a creator if I can get I'm just gonna throw names out F Stoppers peda pixel somebody to pick up my video that will result in exposure for me to an audience that may not know who I am it results hopefully in subscribers and a lot of views now I have had it to where I have a certain type of video feature that's not particularly shocking or anything it's kind of interesting people will comment and they you know so and so forth but if you can shock and make controversy then what happens is you get all the comments on that websites web page below the video and people come back to check comments so if you could start a fight you're gold right it's kind of it sorts acting a little bit like reddit in that regard because it becomes a discussion page now what irritates me about it is that the the websites that are set up in this fashion that basically it's a reposting of information no work went into that at all from that website and I'm not saying that's bad it's I'm always grateful to get the feature but then it's a piece of content that is searchable via Google etc where no effort went into it and the controversy still stays up with no ethical redaction whatsoever from that website so as far as I'm concerned even though you didn't write anything story you just featured a YouTube video and then summarized it what you should do is go back in there and say this video was taken down we're not sure at the very minimum we're not sure why or close the page yet you know but some kind of redaction is important even if you're not sure of and I don't know what the details are of why the videos is taken out specifically and I'm not going to assume that I do um that's the business of the person that made the video and any other parties involved I don't know but what I'm saying is if I had a big website that got a lot of views it is irresponsible to leave that up to continue to get people to view that page you know what I'm saying yeah it's not like you need to say something as someone who's worked for three of what sites like this one of them I just mentioned even one of them I have it I was an editor at stop F Stoppers for it did occur to me that it was kind of like easy of like dusting your hands off it's not your issue all you did is report that someone else reported and in the photo industry this is not the only place that happens it happens like you'll see someone will report it on New York Times or The Washington Post and then Business Insider and slate and there's a couple others that'll pick up this story afterwards and they're basically just relying on the fact that the New York Times in the Washington Post got it right it's not their story they did they say he said cheese that sort of thing yeah so it's an assumption that this is correct were we posting it right and that assumption is based on usually that past excellence in journalism however in that's because there's huge repercussions if you get that wrong in those industries like the politics or government or economics or whatever but in in photography and in an area that is now being very much a lot more influencers and youtubers no offense Ted or guy I'm not offended right yeah yeah these are folks who did not go to necessarily not all of them some of them probably did go to school to learn how to be a journalist did not learn how to have journalistic ethics are not tied to those same ethics and don't care about those ethics they care about the clicks the views and therefore the money that comes out of it and I'm not making assumptions about anyone I'm just saying that that is the case for people out there who are influencers and that's in the and the reason it sort of scares me in this industry specifically is I've watched it happen over the glass reviews where the major real quote-unquote real journalist sources where there there are vetting stories they have an editorial calendar months in advance they're doing the things like the old school way those places do not exist anymore they are all going out of business because of the the I mean use the word economics even though it's not really a cannot be economics of YouTube essentially the way that we ingest information as people has change or shed write and the because of that we haven't actually taken the standards the old standards and applied them to the new methods new media so that's what that leaves us where we are right now it's it's been it's been a classic case of it's still the Wild West and III told you yesterday we were talking I get a little bit tired of people using that as an excuse the Wild West well it's not television it's but it's been around long enough to start maturing but the biggest problem that we have and and I don't mind being vocal about this at all is the way it's set up and I alluded to this earlier that you have products owned by Google whether it's search whether it's video on YouTube Google owns all that it's it's a massive information and the way that lets just use YouTube is the example the way the YouTube sees it is it doesn't delineate video for video they're just widgets what it does is it's going to use data in the way video performs that's how long people view at how many times people view it's how many clicks it has in the velocity of the first hour there's an enormous amount of data that goes into how YouTube makes a decision that this video is something people want to see I mean he gets down on a macro level of behavioral patterns like you who are watching this or me or jaren like how are habits on YouTube are if I watch that you've all seen it if you watch it if I watch one movie trailer then YouTube that's all they're recommending to me right on that note like was it yesterday the day before like I because the athletes right story I know I hadn't actually watched heads video for me I said I said to Jaron we were on the phone I said you know I did of it I'm getting all these comments I did a video and he's like I've never seen your video on that so it's up there you open YouTube and and they're served his video so listener why he's probably getting convert like he's getting conversations in on old videos because YouTube is serving them as new content yeah I don't believe I don't believe that that that YouTube is listening to our phone call I do believe that they saw that you looked it up previously and they yeah but I've seen it and they're like oh we need to keep him watching let's give him another video to watch about the subject maybe and and I think for the for those of you who either have YouTube channels or who have had do tried to do a YouTube channel you're gonna realize that it's very competitive it's very difficult you had to be very patient it takes a long time and it's an enormous amount of work and there's four I don't want to get too far into this but like a low-end youtuber there's no money for a middle-class which is a lot of youtubers like my channel I would consider to be kind of middle to lower class I I've got 500,000 subscribers which I'm very proud of but that also took 10 years to get I wish I had that many views per video that I put out it doesn't work that way but it's very difficult to scrape by on the money that you make doing this so money does become a driving huge thing yeah because you make more money well I can and I'm not trying it's not out of greed or gluttony it's like how do I keep the lights on and pay the rent exactly put gas in the car and eat you know yeah that's what I'm worried about and and that's what a lot of us worry about at night and then we take on a sponsorship with somebody or say you know see it's it's strung together through all these things but if there isn't sin it but the bottom line is that you want people to watch your video you need those views if you're going to be successful so then you have an unethical part that comes in and I'm not calling anyone unethical necessarily typical II let's forget about the African African the African girl video just in general you see this on YouTube is then people start making content that is only going to get clicks and then the quality of that content goes down and we have this really poor form of edutainment that's barely lay there's no there's no edge you involved it's just entertainment it becomes vapid it becomes lame there's no thought put in and it I've leave leave everyone out of it I there are people that I know that our fabulous creators do really good work they should be viewed they're doing important work and the way that algorithm works it's just stacked up against them until they start to and camera reviews or this you know what I mean it's yes yeah the system is set up where essentially a robot is curating our content another example if you if you were interested in a camera let's say let's say I want to go check out the new Panasonic s1 and so I type that into the Google search this is not video this is just Google search it's going to give me just this indefinite list of websites well you're gonna click on one of the first one or two right because you're assuming that Google has curated the best content based on your search which is let's be honest it's impossible to do Google has an algorithm they look at backlinks they look at an enormous amount of data to determine what that order is but that also makes it very difficult for younger people who might have a blog about that camera or something that's been interesting that does give some really good information to get into that vortex don't nobody even knows the work so then you have to go look what do I running ads on Facebook do I do this do it it's very difficult because you're dealing with machines that are curating the content you know in the old days you get a newspaper on your doorstep pre-internet or you'd look at the news well there's a whole team of people that were coming up with you and they felt was the most important yeah and the most relevant and the most insight right a little more often yeah to drag the to aim this back the those cases of let's say something wasn't like they do weren't solid on it you can't just go and hit publish you have a review of people that go up and like hmm maybe we should do a little bit more research yeah and that doesn't happen anymore and that leads back to what I said about the the real quote/unquote again I'm air quotes the journalists sources in our industry are gone that you lose that you lose that chain where you get more than just someone else with your own input into something and there are benefits to not having that chain you can go faster you can make content that's more tailored to what you personally believe it can be at the moment exactly can be yeah and so like that's the advantage the disadvantage is you run into the issue where maybe you're not right and that's oh I need to stress this really really strongly it's okay to be wrong it's really okay I'm wrong so much I'm wrong a lot and I think that helps me grow as a journalist now I consider I actually consider myself a journalist and I'm younger than you Ted but I consider myself part of the old guard because I came from journalist what you studied Yeah right it's and I still write for a site that consists from like the 90s that is still journalism we still do the the the research I mean that's why it took us three and a half weeks maybe to may have been even longer than that to release any review of the sony a6000 weeks after anyone cared because we were dedicated to getting the story right we wanted the correct story we wanted to test it three times we wanted to get it right and this is another example Ted I think you would agree with this there were cases where stuff was put out like the night we got that camera dude that wasn't me well you how that was not correct so we were this is this is and I'm not gonna name names because I'm not trying to tear anybody down I'm at the point here is to see this is the monster that's been created by the system I just described on YouTube this is the monster so I'm we're at the a 6400 event we go to the Sony HQ for for the presentation that they gave us and then we got the cameras and we had a little bit of time shooting there we are on the bus to go to our first shooting location right and we're gonna spend the day evaluating said camera and understanding how it works and finding how we want to take an angle of whether we like it or not in what we're going to report well because the way YouTube is set up in this this this dire need to be first when a topic is hot and that day because of the rumor sites so and so forth that that camera was was newsworthy right I'm on the bus I look over one of my colleagues has already posted his video like how and this is somebody that I like a lot and I have an enormous amount of respect for it and and in fairness he he he did a he talked about one characteristic of the camera that's a very simple video to make he's done this with a lot of cameras and so I don't think his information was bad and so what he does he just immediately went out back did that style of video because it was it was a small little aspect of the camera and he later did did stuff but anyway it's like seriously we haven't had the camera in our hands an hour and you've already posted a videos and then I look over and another guy that I have an enormous amount of respect for he's an incredible colleague I have nothing but love for the guy he's over there with his laptop open editing the video so we can get it posted before we're even done with all the shooting and it's not their fault no it's not their fault that's the key here they're not your fault that's why keeping the names out it's the it's just another symptom of this virus that we're in yeah we actually they have they're trained to do this in order to be successful they have to do this if they don't do this they don't succeed and my immediate reaction is oh I must be slacking yes I'm doing something wrong it's and we're on a long bus right so I think the guilt is coming in and so but and then ultimately I didn't do that because I had some time to think about it and we work together on a couple things and and you know I've also seen another colleague that I have a lot of respect for like how to do a test of a function the camera set up incorrectly you know redaction no removal and here's the deal like you said mistakes are cool I will be the first to admit I have made a lot of them there everything from little tiny things like I did a bio video on Ansel Adams years ago and I say off the cuff in the video I have the year he died wrong off by two years or something okay and people call me on the comments and they oh you check anything well no I'm doing a video I'm speaking off-the-cuff and so I kind of let that go corrected in the notes in there there has been several instances where I finished a video looked at it and before I looked a little and hit post I was just like no I can't this just it's too too much mounting information too much yeah or just yeah exactly and so I've held it there's been maybe one or two instances where I've actually removed a video because that same thing you know I did the it's different reason but but that interview that I did with with Neil last year I pulled down at his request and so it you know there's certain times where I don't know it's like I think it does more harm than good to leave things up or or proceed when you don't have your information accurate just in the name of staying relevant in your career and and that's hard and building on top of that is once you have a name let's say you're a big deal yeah and you make a mistake and you make 300 videos a year that mistake is then defended by the people who put you up on a pedestal of knowledge even if they vet that for you so then there's now your being what you've done is you've created a false statement or a false belief and it will then be believed because of who you are and that's problematic if you don't personally take in that responsibility that's a lot of responsibility there are thousands thousands of real people who will then create an idea because of what you said and if you say something wrong and you don't admit to saying something wrong you are helping push the term I hate saying it yeah well but you know it's not real it comes back to I mean you hear people say this all the time yes in the United States we have a bill over it's the First Amendment of the Constitution protects that which is freedom of speech now that does not mean that you can the classic example you can't run into a movie theater and you'll fire that's not freedom of speech right I think that the problem is is then then it requires an interpretation of what that means and it does III don't know if I'd do it great I'm not the biggest channel in YouTube obviously I do okay I I do treat the content that I do with that restart try to I realize that I have a responsibility and I'm not trying to say that that you know my poop don't stink supposedly but it's it's um and I don't always get it right either but but I I think the reason that we're having this conversation is that and it's not just YouTube channels we're picking on that right now but there's it's a lot of the media that surrounds our niche as photographers that doesn't get things right and they don't have that standard yeah it because they haven't they've never been held to it they never agreed to it it's just well be responsible you know so like I guess what I want anyone who watches or listens to this to come away with is in this era of new media all the information that is presented to you you are equally burdened with vetting the truth of that information as the people who present it because you can't necessarily trust the presenters anymore unless you go to a place that has been known for a very long time of getting it right who goes back and says we're sorry made mistakes and then yeah even then don't necessarily believe it unless you check the sourcing check sources remember who where he's coming from look at link they don't just read titles that's another problem just reading titles is enough now yeah to mess you up like you have to actually put effort in I know this is so hard to hear because putting effort into anything really sucks but you have to put effort into this and or just put it this way if you're reading a story that that something is fishy with then the redaction hasn't been made because the story you know what I mean it's like you're not gonna see the read action you can't take it at face value at that point you'll see it two days later when it's you know so I guess so this this sucks but like II don't necessarily listen to us don't trust us every time check our source vet other people who have talked about the same subject watch the same stuff from other people make sure that you're getting the full story just just hearing the words from from one person especially the more inflammatory they are the the more skeptical you should be before getting out those pitchforks and torches like these days it's so easy to be a keyboard warrior because you're in your own little vacuum just like when we create our videos we're doing it on our own vacuum it can be that's where mistakes are made because we don't have a chain to put them up those same mistakes that same issue falls upon you as the recipient of that media and it's it's just a really challenging time when there is so much not true that can't be called not true because of the rage that builds around it and once that tidal wave gets going it's really challenging to stop the last thing I want to mention about the peer-review thing because I we kind of like dangled off it is because there's not a lot of response for doing a peer review you don't get the same love that you get for either proving because the the risk you're taking is you'll prove the peer review correct and then they're deaf there's definitely no okay well that guy could set it first but if you prove the peer review wrong nobody cares anymore because it's gone because the next topic has already come up and I said this to Ted before a lot of a lot of YouTube channels that are good at controversy are like a guy in a car with a truck full of Molotov cocktails and they're just chopping them out the windows burning down different buildings because of the controversy and so while other people who are trying to get in there be like well hold on a minute we need to double check on this we're there they're over there putting a fire out on the first building and the car with the Molotov cocktails is already a block down the road with six other burned buildings behind it like it is just too much work to keep up with that beak and there's almost no value in it in terms of like monetarily or press wise or getting any of those just there's no the follow-ups are never as good as the original especially when it's such a highly inflammatory concept or search or conversation and so it's it's really hard for anyone to want to go in there and correct wrongs unless the person who's throwing those molotovs wants to stop and help put the fire at once in a while mm-hmm I get it's just I get really emotional about this because I know how much work it is to do a good story I know how much work it is to be a person who cares about that sort of thing and then when I watch it not happen with someone who really should have taken those steps and watched the response of the people that believed in those those folks it it hurts it like physically hurts my chest like it's like you know that feeling of when you you're told that the person that you love doesn't love you back it just hurts that's that's what it does to me and it's it's physically painful and that's why I felt like we really should we needed to make this Ted is I need to definitely say it I have if I don't say it then what am i doing I'm just bottling it up and pretend no I agree with you completely and in a lot of it the the the problem that I'm hearing is is is this is the modern world we live in with this stuff and I call it the monstrum and it goes that you know we've got it's this short cycle that has to be you know race through everything has to be quick and and what it does is it starts lowering the quality and I think you said the key words you know what time it takes to do this I know when I did I'll share something with with some folks that that really put me down a dark path and you know I did the artists I do the artists series I still do it where I do about five a year interviews with living photographers people just see the end result they're just sort of these documentaries maybe they've heard of maybe they haven't those are hard to do the first time I did them I did a crowdfunding thing and even then I not only used all that money up I also poured I matched it with my own finances going into it so it's expensive to do so I have a lot invested with it the other part of the problem is those are not hip and trendy they take forever to make the they are the labor of love that you're talking about and when I released the first season I almost quit YouTube I mean I was ready to delete my entire channel and the reason is is because they just flopped they nobody was interested they performed I mean the the artists that I worked with enjoyed them and and I made a lot of you know but I really I mean it just like I felt like in some ways that first round all of them were the best work that I had done with video as a medium in telling a story because I got into this I never wanted to be called a journalist that's a tag that's been thrown on me recently I got on YouTube because I'm just a nerd who loves photography I love sharing it I'm fairly good at teaching and so it was a it was a really nice outlet for me too my goal was to it still is to share my enthusiasm for the subject with others like-minded people right and here I had felt like I had done that and it didn't work and the reason it didn't work is it didn't play into the the stratosphere that is topical content of the moment things that are hip and trendy you know so and so forth and it would it guts me when people will leave comments in those videos you should just do these and it's like I know you're complimenting me but I can't just do those I will be dead in the water I there's no physical way I could just do those I appreciate the kind words I appreciate the compliment and so now we're looking at the twist of that I I do a lot of videos on photography I'd review cameras I mean we do everything that's of the moment but even those things you know if you're not putting the time in you're getting things wrong and in we know the time it takes to do that right and we're forced now into this thing where there's just so much competition that you don't have a choice but to make pumpup garbage you know that's a strong way of summarizing all that but and I don't mean to call other people's content garbage it's not but it's and I probably took it too personally you know and I didn't quit YouTube and I still make those and you did there no did not quit YouTube I seriously I I really almost did and I've never said that on the channel before because I don't want to have this oh woe is me you know and that that's the hard thing about this whole discussion at all because it's so hip and cool on YouTube to pick these like 90s gangster rap fights with other YouTube channels yo you said oh in west coast East Coast arts you know that that's stupid and I I don't want this to appear that we're doing that because we're not it's just a general call to our industry to say we are better than that and I put myself on that line too I need to be better than that I need to make better content I need to constantly be pushing myself like I told you I never wanted to be called a journalist the only people who started doing that we're camera companies when they want to invite you to their event they're not going to pay you they want an honest opinion and I I didn't like that term initially but like it or not if I'm going to do any kind of reviews on work like that then guess what that is journalism and you're going to have to approach it in that way and so I don't know we're kind of talking in circles at this point and I feel like I did a whole lot ëismí and I really didn't mean to do that but I hope we've at least gotten the point across that it's important all of this is important for us as both creators and as consumers of content that we all have a certain responsibility epps and we need to take that responsibility seriously that's it for me at least I mean I I wanna I here's a long time to come back to that but that's all it is right I'll personally get angry about certain videos and I and I'm okay with being here at home and and texting you rapidly about how angry I am and I love it jaren but I don't I don't want to go out there in public and and and like to just shame someone for it I feel like those who do do that like those who have made the mistakes it's on them to say I'm sorry I don't want to force them to say I'm sorry then it doesn't feel like a real apology so I'm not asking for anyone to apologize for anything I just want everyone to think more about the media that they consume I know it's asking well that's asking a hell of a lot and maybe people to think more you know and it could be that we're just a couple old farts sitting here worried about the good old days when we used to have newspaper no internet no ice no maybe that up until last year I was still getting a physical newspaper - Mike I think that's cool man I lightened it yeah I have nothing else on this topic I think it pretty much came down to it I think there's a lot to get off her chest - I mean it's yeah sorry fanny and heard a bit hopefully it was we at least provided some sort of an interesting topic to listen to throughout it but we appreciate everyone listening to this or watching it that's what you're watching and by the way yeah we this is this is basically a visual version of our podcast and so you know if you want to hear us ramble more about certain topics we don't they're not always this passionate sometimes we're having fun with things actually most the time we are yeah we need to have fun on the next one for sure we will definitely have fun so you know link in the description where podcasts are listened to and until the next vid we'll see you guys then later\n"