GMPOOG: Nick Bryant on how journalists could be covering climate change.

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Every now and then on the A Rational Fear Podcast feed we have a long-form conversation about climate change with climate leaders from all walks of life.

We call them — The Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation.

On this episode of GMPOOG: Dan Ilic hosts a conversation with journalist Nick Bryant — Media watchers in Australia would certainly know Nick's work from the BBC and of course twitter.  He's often got one of the clearest eyes on Australian and global politics.

Nick is doing a special episode of his podcast, Journo, with journalists who cover climate, so he came on ARF's Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation to chat about it.

You can listen to the Journo Podcast here: 

https://jninstitute.org/education/journo-podcast/

On this episode we talk about News Corp's supposed move to embracing climate change, how Pasifika journalists see themselves, and also great yarns about Greta Thunberg and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

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Dan Ilic  0:00  
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation. Daniel, it's with you here for another episode of The Greatest more podcasts of our generation on the irrational fear feed. If you haven't heard the gumboots before, it's largely conversations about climate change with Climate Leaders. Good and bad. We'll be back with the regular irrational fears show probably I reckon July maybe August, I'm taking a few weeks off because I am freaking exhausted after the election. I need to recharge. Think about this show. Think about how to make it better for the future. And all that stuff. You have any ideas hit me up on Twitter or email Dan at irrational fear.com We'd love to hear from you. Despite

Robbie McGreggor  0:41  
global warming, or rational fear, he's adding a little more heart here with long form discussions with Climate Leaders. Good.

Unknown Speaker  0:53  
This is called Don't be great. Heat waves and droughts. greatest mass extinction moral when facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate criminals,

Robbie McGreggor  1:07  
Jenner raishin.

Unknown Speaker  1:09  
All of this with global warming and a lot of it's a hoax

Robbie McGreggor  1:13  
book, right. That's my role podcast about generation.

Unknown Speaker  1:17  
For short,

Dan Ilic  1:18  
many folks who listen to the podcast, you'd be familiar with the works of our next guest, Nick Bryant, BBC senior correspondent to Australia, South Asia, in Washington in New York. One thing you may not know about him is he holds a doctorate in American politics from Oxford. Like Nick has also been seconded by the Judith Nielsen Institute for journalism and ideas to host journalists, a podcast about journalism, those who dabble in it. My first question to Nick is have you ever been on a plane when they call for a doctor? Dr. Nick, Brian.

Nick Bryant  1:46  
I've always yearned for that moment. And to go out the front and to say, you know, what, what do you want to know about American history? But alas,

Dan Ilic  1:54  
let me talk to you about gerrymandering.

Nick Bryant  1:56  
Exactly. I could talk you through the sort of checks and balances of the US Constitution. But I don't think that would particularly help as this guy's of chokey God is, you know, first class mail. No, I haven't done that. But it's very sweetly mentioned the doctor. I mean, I've I've started deploying it for the first time in what 30 years, I've, I've left the BBC now and you've done

Dan Ilic  2:16  
the work. So you know, you've got to use those Doctor titles whenever you can. Like,

Nick Bryant  2:21  
I've hooked up with Sydney University, actually, where that kind of title carers a bit of clout, you know, so I have actually started using it again. But yeah, it still feels very odd when anybody calls me up to Brian, I gotta look around. There must be somebody else.

Dan Ilic  2:36  
Yeah. Well, I do think that American politics is so diseased that they could use your help. Brian,

Nick Bryant  2:42  
that is a great way of putting it. But I think, you know, is beyond the help of a physician at the moment, America, I think it is such a sickly state. Terminal, maybe it's too strong. But yeah, it's certainly got problems. I think it's terminal in terms of United States of America as a cohesive country right now. I think we're talking about to Americans, and, you know, across the board, I think you're going to, you know, the end of Roe versus Wade will mean there's an America where you can legally get an abortion as America where you can't get an abortion, there's going to be an America where you're more prone to get a pandemic, suffer from a pandemic, like COVID, as eras of America, to Americans is going to play out in so many different aspects of American life.

Dan Ilic  3:24  
Yeah. Anyway, let's talk about something that is a little bit more existential for the entire globe. You have been doing some reporting recently on people who have been doing reporting on climate this is, this is great. This is our wheelhouse here at irrational fear, Nick, as you may know, and so tell us, you have a bit of a strange climate journey in your own right. As a journalist, one of

Nick Bryant  3:46  
the things I do now is present a podcast called Gerardo and we look at sort of the biggest news of the day. And one of the things we decided to look at was was climate change.

Dan Ilic  3:54  
Why did you do that? Because the major parties in the last election totally forgot to mention anything about climate so strange that you would do that

Nick Bryant  4:00  
either. That's the reason we did it is to make sure that people remembered Hey, there's a planet under threat here. We need to be talking about this a lot more in the media. And of course, one of the areas. One of the surprising developments since I've come back to Australia is the greening of the of the Murdoch tabloids. So we we talked about a lot of things in this this podcast, and maybe we can talk about, you know, the some of the broader issues later on. But we started with this extraordinary turnaround in the run up to the Glasgow Climate Change Conference cop 26. Just before Christmas, we woke up that day and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, it turned green, talking about breeding cattle for Australia and the possibilities of Australia becoming this sort of renewable powerhouse.

Dan Ilic  4:45  
We had Joe Hildebrand on our podcast when that whole happened. We lost about 20 Patreon subscribers.

Nick Bryant  4:53  
Right What what Joe was part of this wraparound Well, exactly. Joe wrote a wrote a column they had the 16 paid wraparound it wasn't only in Sydney in The Daily Telegraph, it was the Tiser in in Adelaide for Adelaide, South Australia. That's the advertiser down in Adelaide, the Courier Mail, which is in Brisbane, the was it the Herald Sunday in America, Melbourne. I mean, all of the Murdoch tabloid came together. Agreed.

Dan Ilic  5:18  
It was a great six weeks, Nick, it was a great six weeks of climate change journalist.

Nick Bryant  5:23  
Yeah, we were fascinated with how that came about. I mean, you know, these are titles traditionally that that have been associated with climate change skepticism that are really had a go at things like the carbon tax, they've run headlines like the zombie carbon tax, and all this kind of stuff. And we were absolutely fascinated with how that turnaround had happened.

Dan Ilic  5:40  
Let's have a listen of from Ben English, the editor of the Daily Telegraph,

Unknown Speaker  5:44  
the issue of climate change had never been tackled from a disinterested objective, and a straightforward journalistic investigative approach, we felt that a lot of the journalism had actually veered into activism. And there'd been a lack of curiosity about a lot of the data that have been presented, we felt that it had been written from a viewpoint that we will characterize as more elite. And I think that's why we felt that it hadn't really resonated with our readers that it had been from a lofty height and element of guilt and shame around it all. We felt it was an opportunity to actually be right at the heart of the conversation, but do it from a viewpoint of everyday Australians. Now,

Dan Ilic  6:22  
Nick, I'd look at some of those wraparounds at the time, and you know, who was writing some of those articles? Who, Gina Reinhardt? Twiggy Forrest, would you call them lofty and elite, the richest woman in Australia? Would you recall her? Luffy lit. And the other thing about Ben English is quite there's like, never up until September 2021. Has any journalists covered climate change at a disinterested, objective and straightforward manner? Wow, thank God, thank God for being English and The Daily Telegraph to finally come to the party to tell us what was really happening with climate change.

Nick Bryant  6:54  
I look down at that boat leapt out at me as well. But we were just fascinated with how this turnaround came about how they decided they would attend the party

Dan Ilic  7:05  
six six specials in the lead up to COP is not a turn around, though. It's it's like a marketing spin for the 2050 program that Scott Morrison took to the to cop like it's such a weird, such a weird thing to kind of looking back at in retrospect. Now, that happened last year, and we haven't seen anything about climate from The Daily Telegraph since then.

Nick Bryant  7:25  
Well, that's something you need to take up with Ben English. And those are questions. Those are questions that that we put to him. The you know, what I think was interesting about it, talking about the sort of longer term ramifications of it. I mean, some people thought, you know, is this Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch telling these guys to do this and telling these these editors to do this, or is this something that is or more organic and bottom up rather than top down? And, you know, very clearly bad English said, you know, wasn't a murder initiative. You know, like, they say, they've got autonomy, they can do what they want. And they decided they were going to do this, like, I saw a lot of money heading into the sort of new energy space. They follow that money that he said, all that kind of thing. And what it didn't do, Dan, as you know, is is bring about a bigger kind of, you know, come to Jesus moment, if that's indeed what it was. And I mean, I know you're skeptical about that. And me too, what it didn't do was signify something broader within the Murdoch Empire, which was this, you know, were we going to see a change in the Wall Street Journal, were we going to see a change of Fox News? Obviously, that just hasn't happened either.

Dan Ilic  8:29  
Do you think this is News Corp trying to keep the coalition in power by making the move on climate in a meaningful way?

Nick Bryant  8:37  
Oh, there's a lot of talk that the politics behind it was to give them cover before Glasgow wasn't there's a

Dan Ilic  8:44  
lot of talk behind it that the six issues of The Daily Telegraph that came out, up until the six weeks of cup.

Nick Bryant  8:51  
Yeah, and the idea of being you know, you make the deal easier between the Nationals when you're trying to get to that emissions target. I think one thing it might have done is help labor neutralize the issue. So much of Labour's political strategy ahead of the federal election was obviously, to neutralize climate changes. And this year, I remember talking to Anthony Albanese this Sunday, maybe it was the week after his. He released his climate change policy. You remember he did it a Friday afternoon a classic sort of bury the news strategy. And that's right. He had a soft launch of his campaign, just two days after that. And I remember talking to his aides just before that launch, and, and they were just delighted with have, you know, little attention was being paid. I think I think the announcement made the kind of front page of The Daily Telegraph that morning but it was kind of it was right at you had to have almost a microscope to see it. And I remember sort of, they pointed me towards a pizza Archer pizza which in the Sydney Morning Herald that talks about Labour's Environment Policy not not so much as All target as a as a zero target as a no target. And I thought they maybe they wouldn't be that happy with that characterization. But they absolutely love that characterization. They love the fact that they, they'd launched this climate change policy, and it really hadn't made any kind of tabloid splash. And maybe, you know, that change of

Dan Ilic  10:21  
attitude for added to have the telegraph? Yeah, if

Nick Bryant  10:23  
it was meaningful. I mean, one thing it did do, seemingly, is to neutralize the issue of climate change. But I mean, you had you had an election, obviously, where it was hardly discussed, which is, you know, extraordinary. I think, you know, if you're, if you're going to be looking back on the federal election in 2022, and in 100 years time, and climate change doesn't even really feature. You know, I think people are going to be thinking about what was going on.

Dan Ilic  10:47  
Just absolutely astonishing that, you know, the media kind of skipped over climate change a lot with this election, and the major parties weren't talking about it at all. Yet. The election result is all about climate, you had these climate independents, pretty much dismantle the Liberal Party, you had these greens on the rise. The one thing that everyone wasn't talking about was the actual clincher for this election. Yeah, I

Nick Bryant  11:10  
think that's absolutely fascinating. And it's a brilliant point, you know, this will be regarded as the climate change election, but it wasn't the Climate Change Campaign. from it. I thought that was fascinating. I mean, the Guardian did some quite interesting research, I think hooking up with a university, I think it was one of the ones in Melbourne, they looked at the discrepancy between the questions that were being asked on the campaign trail, and the sort of questions that were really in the uppermost in people's minds, actually, cost of living was number one, on both. But climate change, there was a discrepancy, you know, it was far higher in the minds of voters than it was in the minds of journalists, when they're asking those questions. Yeah, look, it was a really small ball campaign, I think, you know, I think journalists need to have a bit of a think about how they covered it, to be honest, because I think the the gotcha line of questioning, which rarely went into climate change, did it, it was more on the kind of it spoke about the financialization of politics in Australia, and how, you know, obsessively people focus on economic indices often rather than mental health indices, or environmental indices, or that kind of thing. You know, I think that media probably does need to have a bit of a rethink about how habit covers these campaigns, because those kind of big issues just weren't given the airing that they should have been given.

Dan Ilic  12:26  
The perfect metaphor was I think, elbow second big stuff up on the campaign trail when he couldn't remember the NDIS policy. You know, that, you know, the, the forum for that press conference where they were at that at that press conference? No, where were they? They were at the Smart Energy Council.

Alex Dyson  12:44  
prints, there are this Smart Energy Council Expo Albo had just jumped out of an electric semi trailer. And we're walking around the conference floor cut, like surrounded by batteries and solar panels and wind farms, right. And the thing that the journalist asked about with his NDIS policy that he didn't know the answer to and had to get a press release to read off, that is the perfect, it's a perfect summation of where this where this, this media pack was at. You're at an you're at a green tech conference, not asking anything about green tech, but trying to catch the opposition leader off off track on something other other than green tech.

Nick Bryant  13:21  
Dan, it's a brilliant metaphor. I'm going to squirrel that away and use it sometime in the future, because I think it's absolutely perfect. You're right. I was actually with Alba the next day. I was with him. He went to a homeless shelter. I don't sorry, a place that was a food bank. That was that was giving people food for people that were struggling as largely a result of COVID. You know, they've seen people they've never seen before. And again, the questioning really wasn't about that. What was what happened was a rerun of the NDIS. Gotcha for the day before. So we had a cut a two day gotcha, where the reporter who asked the NDIS question kept asking it the day later. Yeah, it was kind of nuts. I think what I saw for this time, though, Dan, and I, you know, I've rarely seen this in Britain. I've seen it a lot in America, journalists getting booed, especially in Trump rallies and things like that. Yeah, I'm kind of used to that. But it's, it came as a surprise in Australia. I spent a day with Morrison and I spent a day with Albanese. And these days did not I mean, you know, they put on these kind of dreadful photo ops, you know, they, they were their high visibility jackets, you know, it looks like it's sort of transcontinental costume party. And, you know, then there's this half hour that, you know, all the journalists sign themselves up for they get to ask the questions now. My David Morrison, Mia with elbow. Those press conferences, both ended up with the journalist being heckled by members of the public, who just thought their questioning was was going too far. It was turning the election into a game a trivial pursuit. It was, you know, not treating. And it was really interesting. And, you know, what, what really worries me? I mean, talking sort of big picture is this disconnect between the public and the press now and you're seeing it across the world? You know, misinformation is the kind of benefit free of this breakdown in trust. And it really worries me. And, you know, we need to raise our game, whether it's political coverage, or whether it's climate change coverage. I mean, I just think that is an obvious thing that we all need to do as journalists, one of the things I think we should do as climate change journalists, you know, how are our kids going to look at our coverage, and when they grew up, how future generations I think that should be the test of our, our climate change coverage. And I think, you know, frankly, most of most of us are found and wanting on that front.

Dan Ilic  15:32  
Yeah, I mean, I'm Ben English isn't I mean, he's obviously making great strides by alerting Tim Blair and Andrew bolt and Peter cradling set the climate coverage for The Daily Telegraph by saying it's not real.

Nick Bryant  15:43  
I mean, I'll tell you one thing I did get to do in New York, which was really interesting. I got to cover the Greta tunberg speech at the United Nations. Remember when she sort of stood there and just harangue the delegates? How dare you? It was just this electrifying moment. I mean, you know, a lot of the speeches at the United Nations are known for how long they went on. I think Fidel Castro used to speak for about three days. Greta Thunberg, gave this extraordinary speech. And I mentioned it, not only because it's an extraordinary historical moment, I got to interview a couple of days before, oh, how amazing. That was fascinating. And partly because they told me beforehand, rather, doesn't do small talk,

which for a prayer is kind of paralyzing.

Dan Ilic  16:26  
What was your opening line now? Well, I

Nick Bryant  16:28  
said to her handlers, and Greta tunberg, is part of a very sophisticated media operation there. And it's really interesting to see her at the heart of this kind of group that uses her as this, I mean, gives her this platform and also understands the value of what she has to say, and the power of the way she says it. I said to her look, you know, I'm a Brit. I mean, we just talk about the weather, surely, surely, she wants to talk about that. But

Dan Ilic  16:53  
Nick, weather is not climate.

Nick Bryant  16:56  
But I mentioned it, because it was the only time in my career, that my kids actually thought I had a worthwhile job. And I think that's interesting, because I thought, you know, Dad, you should be spending more time doing climate change. And, you know, my kids actually took part in the protest that she led through the streets of New York, you know, they, they took the day off school, or whatever, they went on strike. And, you know, they were there, and they were young kids, then I mean, they were kind of 10 and eight, I think, even nine and seven. Anyway, you know, it was that classic Daddy, what did you do in the war? You know, and I think that's a good question for journalists to ask themselves. When it comes to covering covering climate change?

Dan Ilic  17:35  
I think so I you know, I used to be a regular on insiders up until I put billboards in New York City making fun of climate change. And I got asked not to come on inside is because of that, like, because it was deemed that you know, that act turned me into something more than a different than a comedian and that I couldn't, I couldn't possibly go on inside as any more to make jokes about cartoons that have been written in the newspaper. So they

Nick Bryant  17:59  
had you on inside. It's in that segment where? Okay, right?

Dan Ilic  18:04  
I've done I've done that many times. So, but it was after that it was after I put a funny joke on myself in on a billboard in New York City, that I was deemed an activist and could no longer possibly, objectively make jokes about the cartoons that other cartoonists have done?

Nick Bryant  18:21  
Well, I think it's a really interesting question, because I do think that climate change journalism fits within the model of a great tradition of campaigning journalism. You know, we used to talk about

Dan Ilic  18:39  
like the macro muckraking going way back, you know,

Nick Bryant  18:43  
we talk about the sort of heroic era of British newspapers when they sort of showed, you know, the drugs that cause flu minimized and and, you know, it's seen as great campaigning, journalism. And, you know, I think, for me, I think I don't see the reason why we shouldn't regard climate change as an issue where we should have great campaigning, journalism. And if journalists face the accusation that they are straying into kind of activism. Do you know what I think we can kind of, I think we can live with that. I think we can live with that. I think there are certain crises that require certainly an end to the kind of both sides tourism,

Dan Ilic  19:29  
it's hard to know is James Monroe, an activist is he like, when you when you say folks like for the like, of the strident news COVID. And on the insiders, those guys are just activists for a totally other thing?

Nick Bryant  19:41  
Yeah. And I think a lot of news organizations now sort of getting away from that guy on both sides or as a model. You know, the BBC, for years is sort of said the debate is over about the science. So we're not going to sort of we're not going to start our morning on the Today Show, which is the big radio show in Britain and everybody listens to with a debate Pitzer climate change activists against the climate change skeptic, we're just not bothered with that debates gone. We're moving on, we're gonna think about solutions. And I mean, maybe, maybe some would regard that as, as activism. But it's, it's just, you know, there's a truth bias there. It's not a kind of bias towards it is the truth bias. And I mean, I think that, you know, the truth bias is always the kind of key one that we should we should veer towards.

Dan Ilic  20:27  
It is of course, a global issue. And you've been speaking to people all over the world about how they cover it, including the Guardians Pacific editor from Samoa.

Nick Bryant  20:37  
Yeah, lunga breather, Cheryl Jackson, she is absolutely fantastic about this. I mean, I thought she was really interesting. I mean, first of all, climate change for her. It's a story that dominates the front page, the back page, and every page in between, you know, very little happens in Samoa, that doesn't involve climate change. And, you know, I was intrigued to speak to her about the challenge, you know, how do you keep telling the same story every every single day? You know, the conversation I had with her was really interesting, because she spoke about how patronizing she often thinks Western coverage of the Pacific Islands is, you know, they

Dan Ilic  21:11  
gotta grab for her just

Unknown Speaker  21:12  
Yeah. It has always been the sexy topic in international media to talk about the sinking islands. All the helpless little islands in the Pacific. They are sinking, they are dying. We are not about that narrative in the Pacific. We're actually about empowering. We're a proud people, Nick, you know, Polynesians, Polynesians are not taking anything lying down, you meet the Micronesians. They will not be taking this lying down, and they are not doing that. And so those are the stories we love to tell. Great.

Nick Bryant  21:47  
Yeah, I love that. She's saying, you know, you've got to get away from the doom and gloom narrative, you've got to get away from the narrative that we are helpless, you know, come to Polynesia. She said, an invitation I will happily accept editor and see the laughter You know, it's it's a place that isn't of living with this, you know, kind of mournful way. She said that she said, we don't grieve every day. You know, we are a joyous people. We laugh a lot. And he Polynesians are very faithful people, they wouldn't believe in a bright future. And there's a classic sort of white savior syndrome here as well, isn't it that it needs us as the white west to come and save these Islanders? And, uh, you know, again, she just rejects that sort of paradigm. Yeah. But when it when it comes to the reporting, I thought it was absolutely wonderful to speak to her and, and to hear that because it shows that even sort of well intentioned climate change coverage can can often go a bit of skew.

Dan Ilic  22:45  
Yeah. And you also spoke to Andrew McCormick, adjunct professor at Columbia University, Columbia Journalism Review. What kind of coverage does he do?

Nick Bryant  22:55  
Well, he's a really interesting guy, because he was in the US Navy. And he decided, you know, what's the best way I can sort of serve? And he decided to leave the military and actually to become a climate change correspondent, you know, we were talking to him about, you know, what good climate change coverage looks like this. This problem of, you know, for me, I mean, often climate change is a, what I call a diary story, rather than the daily story. It's a subject that gets a lot of attention around the time that the big summits like Glasgow, but falls off the radar in between. And I think a lot of the coverage that you see around the big conferences is often to expiate the guilt of newsrooms, you know, I haven't been doing an athlete's that's really monster around the climate change summits, you know. And, and he sort of accepts that that's a big problem. I think one of the interesting things he sat down was that COVID has shown how creative, you know, the journalistic profession can be you know, a lot of creative energy was brought to how to cover COVID. You know, so we saw things like, you know, the redesign of front pages to accommodate, you know, daily stats to tell us how many cases there were, how many desks there were that kind of stuff. I mean, he spoke about the New York Times one day had an amazing headline during the middle of COVID in New York. And I mean, this was when 100 people a day were dying in New York City alone. And I had COVID earlier on in the fear that that that brought, you mentioned this Times headline, and that, you know, the New York Times isn't known for its sort of radical newspaper design, far from it. But they had this spike in the death rate that that actually went right through the front page, and up into the masthead. So that kind of disrupted the words New York Times and, you know, he just showed a few examples of how during COVID You know, there was a real rethink, how are we going to tell this dramatic story, how we're going to tell this kind of emergency crisis story. And he doesn't always see that same creative approach when it comes to climate change reporting, and I thought that I thought that was really interesting.

Dan Ilic  24:53  
Yeah, I'd love to see the daily carbon dioxide parts per million stat on the front of the Daily Telegraph. That's what madingley shouldn't be doing. It's 113,000,413 parts per million Ben put that on the front cover.

Nick Bryant  25:07  
Finding those stats is a bit tricky, is it? Because it's kind of like, you know, pretty meaningless. And I think that gets you into another area of climate change reporting, which is how do you turn the stats into interesting stories? And the way to get to that is always through the humans, the human face.

Dan Ilic  25:22  
What's it going to take? What's it going to take for news orgs to really focus on climate to bring those stories to bear that are more than just a diary event? The IPCC?

Nick Bryant  25:32  
Yeah. I mean, Sky News is quite interesting study is a very different entity in, in Britain, it is in, in Australia, in Australia, it's not owned by Rupert Murdoch anymore. It's, and they actually have a nightly new show devoted solely devoted to climate, you know, they have made a daily commitment to actually say, you know, I don't know how long the program is 1015 minutes every night, we're gonna bring you a, we're going to bring you climate change news. And I think that is a really welcome development, when you kind of make that that sort of commitment, because that doesn't look to me, like window dressing, that, that that feels that's that feels meaningful to me. And, you know, they've done it. And, you know, it would be good if other other news organizations follow suit as well. Because, you know, Dan, this is, you know, this is the biggie. I mean, I still think 2020 in 100 years time, you know, we'll look back on 2020. And we'll look at the wildfires in Australia as being a more significant event in terms of the future of the planet, then COVID. You know, we're looking at, we're looking at the fact that people in Sydney were wearing face masks, not because of a an infection, but because of the air quality, because the wildfires and we think that was the most significant thing that happened in 2020. A look, I think, often it requires political leadership to dramatize these issues. I mean, I was actually you know, name dropping horribly, I ended up in a small lunch with Antonio Guterres in New York around

Dan Ilic  27:06  
these guys like Greta Alba. Tony a guitar as

Nick Bryant  27:13  
well, you have a Trump, sir, if you weren't, but it really relates to climate change. But

this one does. And it was it was a small lunch with Antonio Guterres, you know, Secretary under the United Nations, it was in the midst of the obviously wildfires. And, you know, because I love AWS and I've pretty close eye on what was happening here, even though when I lived in, in America, you know, I just said to terrorism, why don't you fly to Australia, stand in front of one of these bushfires or sound as close as you can get. And just use it as this dramatic backdrop to say, we are saying something immeasurably different. Here we are, because he makes these speeches in New York and these sorts of doll settings, you know, the stakeout position at the UN, where they come to the microphone, and you know, it's always the same and the words are often the same as well, he just sort of repeats the same warning that he's made every year. But if you actually repeated those words, with a wildfire, a bushfire happening behind you, it would be so dramatic. And you know, guitarist is just really reluctant to do that he never wants to name and shame countries that are laggards on climate change. And Australia's obviously being one of those. And he just doesn't want to go there. And I think that has been a big problem as well. You know, journalists relies on actors who have real power and and often they are the politicians and the leaders of the UN who aren't delivering the kind of graphic pictorial leadership that sometimes journalist journalist needs to be really really effective.

Dan Ilic  28:50  
I do remember a photo of him in maybe you this conversation you had with him. Nick actually had some effect on him. He he I still remember this photo of him in Fiji in his suit, waist height and water. So it wasn't quite this. He did. I can't claim credit. So maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Nick Bryant, you are the you're a faceless man behind the Antonia terrorism's photo shoot.

Nick Bryant  29:13  
Anybody who's seen my face with a faceless version of me with

Dan Ilic  29:17  
that's not true, Nick. You know, the other journalists Nick, Brian in New York City. He's got the got his website, Nick, Brian nyc.com. He's got a disclaimer on his website saying I'm not the BBC next, Brian. He's much more handsome than May.

Nick Bryant  29:31  
Oh, I can't believe that's true. But we're there is another name Brian and he he really focuses on sex abuse against kids and he's become I think a lot of people have taken him up in sort of conspiracy theory, circles and, ya know, we, I'm constantly getting I mean, he he, for instance, discovered that Jeffrey Epstein had that, that black book and I'm constantly getting asked to do interviews about Jeffrey Epstein's black book

Dan Ilic  30:00  
Yeah Well Nick thank you it's been a net oh sorry doctor Nick It's been an absolute privilege to have you on greatest moral podcast of our generation

Nick Bryant  30:07  
it's nice to be on thanks thanks for having me

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