How We Decide What’s Important.

Rorshok produces ten-minute audio updates in English about particular countries. We think they will be especially interesting for migrants who live in these countries. But migrants are so wildly heterogeneous as a group, even in a particular country, that it is a bit of a stretch to consider them a single group, lumping together people who have been there for decades and have little connection to where they were originally from, along with people working there for a time, retired people, refugees, visitors who have delayed their exit for whatever reason.

But there are other possible audiences. People who care about somebody connected to that country. They want to know enough to have some idea of what is happening there. People from and/or in that country who want to hear a bit about what is happening there don’t mind that it’s in English. Maybe get a different point of view. People whose job it is to have some idea what is going on there. People who hope to one day go there.

Why audio? Most internet time is spent on the small portable pocket computers often called phones. These devices themselves and their software are not designed to help people read or learn, they are designed to encourage them to scroll. Which is what we do. But audio information is different. Scrolling via audio is much less of a thing than visual scrolling. Listening is a good way to bring in information and is under-appreciated in our visual world. Besides, while we are listening we can use our eyes for something else; to cook, walk down the sidewalk, drive down the road, to watch the children.

It is important but difficult to remember that getting information via social media or even through search engines delivers our time and attention to algorithms designed to find consumers and hone in more precisely on what pleases those consumers. People like their opinions and points of view validated. The more validated they are, the more they will scroll, watch, and click. So with the assistance of the corporations that control social media and other platforms where we get our information, we isolate ever more snugly into our silos. We see our updates as anti-silo. We brashly choose what we think is ten minutes of the most important stuff each week, from and within that country. Most who follow the news will know a lot about that country, but they still can learn a thing or two. And for those who don’t follow the news, there will be lots that will be new.

We only give ourselves ten or so minutes, how do we decide what is included?

The main idea is to let people know what is important and what is being talked about inside that country. Most countries only appear in the international news periodically when some significant event happens, such as anti-government demonstrations involving thousands of people, natural disasters, wars, or elections. Articles or clips in English by sources that try to be international spend 90% of their modest time discussing these “events” trying to cover the background, assuming that readers or viewers will know almost nothing. Rorshok’s weekly updates are different because they themselves are the background. Listeners will, by virtue of listening regularly, have much more background. We are less certain and more curious than most media outlets about the nature of the difference between “background” and “an event” being reported. Or even what’s more important to know about.

So, first of all, we focus on what is being discussed in the country. These are the things that a large portion of the engaged people who are from there and live there will have heard about. Some of those things may have big consequences, others are just interesting and people discuss. We try to give enough detail and context so that listeners will hear the basics but not too much more.

Beyond this, we mention but tend to deemphasize things that are mainly of conversational interest unless they are quite big. These things include sports, crime, and celebrities, but we may cover local or national customs for internationals who may not know about them.

At the same time, even if they are not at the top of national discussion, we will emphasize things that have a structural influence on the country. These can be many things; often big structural issues come up in a way that makes them politically important at a given time. These can be many, but we find that they tend to be in three broad areas: democracy, corruption, and climate change. It’s not that other areas are not important, but we see these as the main structural tectonic things in a given country just as they are on earth.

By democracy, we don’t mean politics, although politics can of course be important, we are particularly interested in changes for better or worse to the democratic arrangements of the country, the franchise, rights, legal structure, and simple electoral habits. These can often anticipate the direction a country will move in other ways.

Similarly, individual cases of corruption may be discussed or even influence politics, but we are particularly interested in the big movements’ intolerance of corruption, legally, socially, and politically. What efforts are there to prevent corruption? Do they succeed? Are there changes in how corrupt those with power are allowed to be? How transparent is all this and what is the trend in terms of mandated and observed transparency?

And finally, climate change. It is the most important problem the earth has faced that we can do anything about since our species has been around. It is also one that requires unprecedented international cooperation and long-term thinking in order to be solved. For these reasons, in addition to being our biggest long-term problem, it is a near-perfect ethical weathervane for other issues of progress and reform. By looking at the way a country, a state, a party, or a culture deals with climate change, we can understand a great deal about it.

And remember, we do not seek profit, and don’t advertise. So why are we doing this? We believe that anybody with internet access and a little time, and no money, should be able to easily become familiar with a particular country.