What are the most common distortions? 

People are used to the media offering the most important or latest news first. But the economic model of the internet, selling users attention to advertisers, leads most sites to show the ones most clicked on. And the typical mistake is that the most clicked is not the most important. The most clicked news is always the news that attacks the emotions, the limbic system.  Any message that conveys fear, anger, generates more interest. The typical bias is that people think, that what they see on the mobile phone, is what everyone sees. In reality, each of us see something different, even the opposite. Online platforms equipped with digital footprint knowledge tailor content, not just ads, to the user. Social networks thus draw you into social bubbles with the content you gravitate towards. They overwhelm you with self-affirming tendencies, the optical illusion of truth. See also what we have seen in the age of covid.

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What is the main problem with social networks? 

They are not accountable for what they deliver, with genuine exceptions. And they benefit economically from not being subject to media laws. If the media are banned from showing the face of the shooter at the philosophical faculty, the names of the victims, etc., social networking sites are going full throttle on all such opportunities. Or another example - fake ads. Traditional media can de facto remove them instantly, on multinational platforms they can live without reaction for months and months. At the same time, not everyone is aware of their proportions, their share in the media landscape.

 

How so? 

Not long ago, social networks became a major source of news, not just mainstream information. In the Czech Republic, on average, people spend almost two and a half hours of time on them every day, while on traditional media sites, it's a matter of minutes. Netmonitor, a collective measurement of the Czech Internet, does not show social networks or search engines. That is to say, a half of the whole space that people refer to as their news source. There is an optical illusion of who plays what violin. Platforms do not like to boast about their size on the markets. Yet even in the Czech Republic, Google's search engine is already above 80% market share, its YouTube reaches 8 million Czechs, Facebook 6 million. In other words, their role in shaping the media space is crucial. Thus, the influence on the moods of the population, people's decision-making, the topics that society lives by. I say again, that with their own rules, not the same rules as the media.

 

How long did it take to develop the project Kyber tabu?

The project itself took about a year and a half. In June 2023, the script was ready, from August to December the drawings were done, in early January 2024 the studio stanrted filming with Tereza Kostková, then came the animation phase, the addition of sounds, etc., and on April 8th Nova went on air. The basis was the creation of the drawings, the visualization of the invisible. The artists made several hundred drawings as a basis, more than five hundred in fact. For each one there had to be, the idea, the understanding of it and the final form. There wasn't much to go on. The jingle, for example, was created as a graphic representation of the real visualization of the growth of the Internet since 1997.

 

Why did you choose studio DRAWetc.?

Drawce have been recommended to me by the editor-in-chief of ABC magazine, who has decades of experience with comics. Plus, it soon became clear that the range of illustrations needed to be done by multiple artists simultaneously. Drawce had several dozen of them around. So the drawings began to appear in three levels,  one Doodle-style, one highly elaborate, and the third was charts. And as Hanina, the Drawci's producer, said, we hit it off immediately with Troy, who did most of the drawings. With the philosophy, the approach.

 

What was the assignment given to the graphic designers? 

That the goal is to imagine the ungraspable. That we will not make robots, no artificial intelligence with antennas!! And that the characters would be like the characters from the Train of Childhood and Hope.

 

The form of the videos was clear from the beginning?

Yes, for the sake of communication, for the leading visual component and communication with the viewer. Because no similar project exists, I helped myself in explaining the concept through Jiří Grygar's Windows of the Universe Wide Open as Windows of the Media Universe Wide Open. The title Kyber tabu was designed professionally and with soul by Jindřiška Strejčková. At a time when the drawing was already in progress, we met by chance during the break of a concert. We knew each other x years back from Parallel Polis, I had no idea that she had become the wife of the founder of Drawc in the interim, that she was from the “predators”. The conversation in the how are you, what are you doing circle was from her - but I know! And the result was our several Sunday breakfasts and the name Kyber tabu.

 

What was the most difficult part of the project?

Coping with the time. It was a ride for a few months, free time zero, vacation zero, weekends went to hell. In November we confirmed with Jirka Bartoška that he would be the moderator, the production had fixed shooting dates. A week before Christmas, Jirka called to say it wouldn't work. The next day I called Terezka. I could follow up on a phone call I had made to her a long time ago on Nova when I was probably the first one ever to offer her to start moderating as well. It was clear even then that she was a great talent. Today I would add with very rare sincerity. Terezka says she remembers exactly where she was at that moment on the phone. She said she was in the pool with her mother :-).

 

What was the best part?

There were many. Seeing the light hand of the artists of Draw, the professionalism and modesty of the animators at Nova, when for example one of them accidentally let go unnecessarily even what we had already approved and his boss teased him that he wanted to see it again because he had seen it only a thousand times in the previous days. And he replied that he didn't mind because it was deep... ! Or when the sound editor made a concert of hustle and bustle for every four-minute video so that, even though there's still music almost everywhere, every sound fits the content exactly. Why? Because he can't let it go! I have incredible respect for people like that.

 

Did you enjoy coming back to TV Nova...

Yes, for years I had an office above the entrance where you take your visitor's badge. I used to meet several former colleagues in the corridors who thought I was coming to celebrate Nova's 30th anniversary. No, I went to the basement editing room. And I was in my element there, I admit. 

 

After so many years in senior management positions?

But I came to CEO from scratch. You don't forget your craft. Knowing the craft was and is, in turn, my background for decision making throughout my career in leadership roles. An advantage. Which you can't take away. Now Kyber tabu was a second shift every day after the daily meetings and appointments. In November, I was so tired that I carelessly miss stepped and rubbed my shin almost to the bone.

 

Why did you care about the project personally?

For one thing, I promised to do it. But my personal motive is responsibility for the media environment. The media, the providers of information, have a great influence on society. The impact of the choice of news, those you give the floor to, etc. is as important as what they say. Artificial intelligence today is more reliable than humans in picking out the best clickbait. It's just like a feeding a pro fat-infused chips and sugary cokes, with the alibi that you're offering them what they want. It raises revenue, but it brings sex, blood, anything that expands the pupils and veins on the forehead to the front. The media has a hard time defending this because it's one model, one advertising pie, one audience.

 

Have you addressed this in CNC?

Yes. The first was a conflict in Blesk. Technologically it was possible to raise the number of clicks, to send forward heavy tabloids at the expense of serious and substantial news. The editorial staff revolted, the advertising department screamed that we were preventing the company from having more revenue. The conflict went all the way to the board of directors, with Dan Křetínský standing up for the editorial staff.

 

What can be done about it in general?

We can't change our brains. The size of Meta and Google gives them possibilities over the world that no one ever dreamed of. Appeals to critical thinking are pointless, most people don't know what to picture behind it. Until the situation is resolved by the market or further development of technology to more sophisticated user needs, it's a balance held by the professional equipment, economic condition and ethics of individual sites.

 

What did you lean on during the project? 

There are years of research, studies, conferences, lectures and naturally also experience behind it. I had the unique opportunity to see the actions and reactions of large audiences, i.e. huge statistical samples, up close for years, from the turn of the millennium in peoplemeters at Nova, and later in BI data of CNC websites. Daily, even by the minute, to see the patterns of when people switch channels, to learn why. Today the internet has countless of such data. But what is important in practice is their interpretation.

 

In what sense?

What matters is how and what you use the numbers for. And whether you just flutter behind the numbers, or whether they are a guide to find out what they signal. What their reason is. But for that you need a depth of knowledge of non-technical disciplines, psychology, sociology, behavioural economics. You need to know the work of at least the Nobel Prize winners Kahneman, Thaler, to know what his so-called nudges are, etc., and also to know how to use them, to apply them. That's the higher grade of media, but few have that level of equipment. It allows you to use the data, but in a way that isn't all about the fries. Data has brought incredible possibilities. Unfortunately, it also provided a cover for its own ignorance. With the result that you don't come out of the data, you flutter behind the data.

 

This project is the first of its kind, why?

The scope of the project, the cross-cutting across many disciplines are challenging, it's hard for a non-insider to do it. An insider, on the other hand, rides on the horse of all the phenomena he is supposed to talk about and describing the stew and tracks of his hooves is difficult. That's why the project was created by the PPF Foundation. It was brought to the board by Vladimír Mlynář. The editor's soul is not lost in it either, although he claims that it is.

 

Does Kyber tabu  offer concrete advice on how to deal with the online world?

A central piece of advice is to choose your news source. Go to professional media outlets. Originally, until almost the end of last year, the idea was that each episode would end with a set of advice on a specific topic. To condense them into a few sentences proved impossible; general appeal is rubbish. Kyber tabu wants to give a key to a space that people can begin to navigate, to understand. Ignorance is not a good advisor, on the contrary it breeds mistakes and is exploitable. Knowing, knowing is the key.