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Meet Civil — The Startup That Wants to Put Journalism on the Blockchain | Freethink - YouTube
Channel: Freethink
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- The journalism industry today
[1]
is on a dangerous path.
[3]
- There's only really a handful
[4]
of ways to pay for the news.
[9]
Journalism is sometimes referred to
[11]
as the first draft of history.
[13]
- This is a sacred
institution that is facing
[15]
an existential threat like never before.
[17]
- Papers have been closing
and downsizing for years,
[19]
and that affects all of us.
[21]
- The world is changing.
[21]
Technology introduces new
challenges, new opportunities.
[25]
- We need a radically new business model
[28]
or we're going to see
journalism be eradicated.
[31]
So, we're using blockchain
[32]
and cryptoeconomics to pursue that end.
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(inspiring music)
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- I'm Matthew Iles, I'm the
CEO at the Civil Media Company.
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Our mission is to create a
network committed to the cause
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of independent, sustainable
journalism around the world.
[55]
The funding models of
journalism have been eroding
[58]
around us for the last 20 years or so.
[61]
The internet kind of wrongly taught us
[63]
that stuff should be free,
and then you monetize
[66]
the attention that you've accrued
[67]
to third-party advertisers.
[70]
- Print advertising, digital
advertising or classified,
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a lot of those have basically disappeared.
[75]
And local news organizations
[77]
are under terrible, terrible duress.
[80]
- And it's systematically starved
[82]
entire swaths of population
[84]
from having real, critical information
[87]
about what's happening around them.
[90]
- And that's not conducive
to serving citizens
[92]
and finding and reporting
on under-reported stories.
[94]
We need to flip this
incentive model on its head,
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and that's what we are
trying to do at Civil.
[100]
- When I first thought of Civil,
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I wanted to create a
decentralized marketplace
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for sustainable journalism,
[105]
having no idea how to actually build it.
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And then I discovered blockchain.
[110]
- The point of Civil is to
take the big media company
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out of the equation.
[115]
- We're trying to effectively
rewrite the technology stack
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of the entire journalism
industry from the bottom up,
[120]
in a permanent and publicly-owned manner.
[123]
I'm passionate about journalism
because of what it means
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to a free and open and just society,
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but as an entrepreneur, I'm obsessed
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with the business model problem.
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I think it's one of the most
wicked business model problems
[136]
that any industry is facing.
[138]
- Public trust in the media
is at an historic low today.
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We think there's an opportunity
to build a new model,
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quite literally from the ground up,
[146]
that prioritizes the process
[147]
that goes into reporting these stories,
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and that provides a new level
of transparency to readers.
[152]
Civil provides journalists
with the tools they need
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to build sustainable businesses.
[157]
From subscription businesses
to crowdfunding models
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and beyond, businesses that prioritize
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the process of quality journalism.
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And we're recruiting a community
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that will govern the platform and ensure
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that publishers on Civil
are always adhering
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to the highest journalistic standards.
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- Civil is built on the
Ethereum Blockchain.
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This is, as much as
anything, a decentralized,
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publicly-owned concept, so
we need to get ourselves
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out of the way as rapidly as possible,
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and we're using technology
called Tokens to do that.
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- The Civil
Token is a consumer token.
[188]
It is a voting stake on the platform.
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Token-holders will have a vote
on who can publish on Civil,
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and will play a pivotal role
in holding them accountable,
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with economic incentives built
right into the technology.
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It's a unique opportunity to
shape the future of journalism,
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and help preserve it
for generations to come.
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- We can't do this without you.
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We can't do this without
distributing our tokens
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to as many mission-aligned
people, journalists,
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organizations as possible.
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- The first set of
newsrooms that have signed
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onto Civil are known as The First Fleet.
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They have been in the
trenches of journalism.
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They've seen the problems of making good,
[225]
quality news and journalism
in the 21st century.
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- Civil is seeking to be a
platform for us, not a publisher.
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The journalists you see up here today
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are the owners of the Colorado Sun,
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and we will be the ones calling the shots.
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- Civil has deliberately chosen to focus
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its initial newsrooms
on local, international,
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investigative and policy journalism.
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- We have a ton of newsrooms
that we're launching with,
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and we're really excited about.
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When you encounter a newsroom on Civil,
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you'll know that that
newsroom has committed
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to publish according
to the purpose, values,
[257]
and working standards of our platform,
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which is called the Civil Constitution.
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- The point of the Civil Constitution
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is to make sure that we all
have a common understanding,
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so that we can have a
generally agreed-upon framework
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that any newsroom, any journalist
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on the platform agrees to abide by.
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- The Civil Media
Company is not the arbiter
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of whether or not you're doing that.
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The public is.
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We're at the very beginning of
what we think is a long road,
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but it's one we believe
will inject new life
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into journalism at a critical time,
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and ensure it survives and
thrives long into the future.
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(inspirational string music)
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