On Good Friday, the BBC News website published an article “Could artificial intelligence benefit democracy?” which featured my failed bid to become the MP of Selby and Ainsty, and my non-profit, the Crowd Wisdom Project. I’ll get round to reading it at some point, for I hate to read articles about myself.
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A few weeks ago, I spent the day filming a documentary about this same by-election for a Singaporean TV station, to be featured in their Becoming Human series, and distributed across Asia. Again, when the program is released, I won’t watch it.
The highlight of the filming, which lasted all day, was when I was, like an ugly version of a male model on a catwalk, walking passed the pubs of Selby one Saturday afternoon, strutting my stuff, until the film crew were happy with the shot.
Then, out of one pub came a rather distinctive looking chap: shorts, in Winter; bald head, with a lengthy beard; powerful frame; and he was carrying a plastic bag, the contents of which he would occasionally swill. The film crew were immediately on the defensive, but he was quite the gentleman.
Whilst being filmed, wearing my mic, he berated all politicians for not going into the pubs to listen to what people wanted. When I explained that it was impossible for any politician to have a one-to-one conversation with every constituent, on every issue, without the use of technology, he was having none of it. (He then explained, whilst being filmed, that he has the initials of his football team tattooed on the end of his man parts. A dull day it was not).
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And then the other week, I had a lengthy and lovely conversation with a political journalist from one of the Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets. I asked them what they thought about the electoral chances for the US Presidential Candidate, RFK Jnr. Despite being a political journalist, this journalist had no idea who I was talking about! (RFK Jnr, if you didn’t know, is the nephew of JFK, son of a Senator RFK, and an environmental lawyer. He’s 22-1 to be the next US President.)
RFK Jnr is a massive hit on TikTok, with his videos being watched tens of millions of times. Yet the Mainstream Media are hiding this prominence. If you are curious about why TikTok is being banned in the US, it is because the powers-that-be cannot control your informational diet on TikTok – a platform where you can see what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and learn about alternative viewpoints, such as those espoused by RFK Jnr.
I encourage all my readers to download and use TikTok, for it is many times more useful than YouTube, due to its candour and potent algorithm.
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Three weeks ago, I was interviewed for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) about the same by-election. The sound quality, together with the lame answers I gave, were so poor that the journalist asked me to record it again on the following week. Rather than using Zoom again, he asked me to try a technique, used over the ages, to get more vivid oral testimony, with better sound quality.
First, I had to take off a sock and put it over my phone – for he wanted to use the voice memo function on my phone, with the sock softening some sounds. Then, I had to lie down on my bed with my eyes closed, allowing a period of silence before the recording commenced.
The journalist then asked me his questions, which I was allowed a period of silence before answering, still with my eyes closed. At the end, he assured me that my answers were considerably more interesting than last time, with far better sound quality. Food for thought, for the next time I need to be vivid in my speech.
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My view is that all humans are journalists, and this has always been true. Speaking to journalists is just like speaking to anyone. Sure, some people are trained in journalism, and some have more readers/viewers/followers than others, but we are a species which communicates through stories, and we all do this, and we always will. The TikTok platform is just the optimal platform for allowing human expression. Use it.
(If you need help in order to get the most out of working with the media, then please get in touch with me.)
