When Did We Stop Making Our Own Decisions? | Kira Shishkin

What if we’re not under-informed… just over-stimulated?

In Episode #29, Frank Zaccari sits down with Kira Shishkin, founder of informed.now, to discuss how modern media shifted from informing to capturing attention.

With trust in mass media at historic lows, headlines are increasingly shaped by algorithms, engagement metrics, and advertiser pressure. Identical facts can be framed to trigger emotion, fear, outrage, urgency, subtly influencing how we think.

Kira’s response? A radical simplification.

informed.now delivers one brief daily SMS highlighting only the most consequential global developments, no clickbait, no commentary, no emotional manipulation. Just essential context so readers can make up their own minds.

As Kira says:

“We give you the power to make up your own mind.”

Having grown up in Ukraine, lived in Israel, and now residing in the U.S., Kira has witnessed firsthand how information shapes public understanding—and sometimes distorts it.

His mission is simple but bold:
Restore clarity. Restore independence. Restore trust.

In this episode, we explore:

• How algorithms shape perception
• Why trust in news is declining
• The impact of sensational framing
• How to reclaim clarity and independent thinking

This isn’t political. It’s about agency.

🔗 Connect with Kira Shishkin
Website: https://informed.now
Email: team@informed.now
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirashishkin

🎧 Listen now and ask yourself:
Are you informed… or influenced?

#BounceBackPodcast #MediaLiteracy #CriticalThinking #Leadership #DecisionMaking #DigitalTransformation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever felt stuck in pain, loss, or failure? Wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again? Then Bounce Back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sakari.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life. Let me ask you all a question. When did we stop making up our own minds? There was a time in the United States in my lifetime when news came out on television at 6 o'clock p.m. and ended at 6 30. It was Walter Cronkite, Hunley Brinkley, or Frank Randall. And they simply told us the news. No commentary, no talking head, no influence peddling, no one-sided propaganda. We, the viewers, could make up our own minds. That even print gave us facts. If you wanted opinions, they were in op-eds or the colonists wrote those. Then came 24 news and TV. And the host makes a statement, and then a bunch of talking heads come in and they talk over each other and they get a one-sided story. Now we're forced to endure juvenile behavior of people who constantly talk over each other, talk louder, don't answer questions, promote propaganda, and tell us nothing. Those of you are old enough, probably remember a song by the Eagles called Dirty Laundry. That's what the news has become. So if you're tired of this daily bombardment of negativity, and you stop watching or paying attention to the news, someone you need to meet. The guest today is Kira Shishkin, and he is developing a new news delivery system. Kira, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life. Tell us about your background. How did you get to this point in your life where you decided that this needed to be done?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Totally. And I love the and I love the the tone that you set early on in your intro around just how frustrating it's been to consume information in the United States and really around the world. My background has sort of seen this pattern echo across very high-stakes environments. I was born and raised in Ukraine. I came of age and spent almost a decade in Israel before coming to the United States and living on the East Coast and the Midwest on the West Coast. And I find that the two sort of horsemen of the apocalypse, being misinformation and the information overload, which I kind of combine into misinformation overload, has just been a common theme that I've observed over and over again in my life. And after seeing this show for the third time in a row across different cultures, I felt like, you know, I want to do something about it to effect some sort of change.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

So you've come up with inform.com. So how's it going to change it?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

What are you doing that's different, that's better, that's easier?now, which is both our brand name and our website, is it was really a reimagining of the news reading habit. Everyday American has only two options. She can either isolate herself from news altogether, or she can read and consume news that consumes her and that is going to trigger, it's going to infuriate, it's going to sort of agitate and ultimately misinform her. And so the everyday person has a lot of options in the United States when it comes to pure factual news. There's no shortage of news commentary, as you hinted at in your intro. There's no shortage of sort of people telling you what to think, how to align yourself, how to feel about certain kind of news stories. But there's really no news infrastructure when it comes to just getting the straight facts without all that noise. So with informed.now, we have created a service that does a lot of the cross-checking, referencing, fact-checking for you so that you can move on with your day, only having exposure to confirmed facts and not any of the commentary bias or opinion. So it's actually about the things we refuse to do rather than the things that we do that kind of define our mission.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned it's half technology, half human. Where are you going to get all the data that you're bringing together? And then what are the decisions that made on what to put out?

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Totally. I mean, it's a few questions and one there that I think all are very important. Firstly, is we have an insane loyalty to primary sources. So we don't regurgitate content from other journalists or other creative writers or other units of any kind. We have no respect for that. And we don't appreciate the storytelling of news that has been kind of going on. And we can call it propaganda, you can call it conspiracy, you can call it just influence as probably the softest term to use. We don't regurgitate the type of information and don't focus on it. We do what we call news research when it comes to really getting to the primary source, understanding what are the facts that are confirmed, that are factual, that we know to be true, and stopping short of providing any further commentary beyond just those essentials. We do that through kind of a mix of what we call tech and talent. We've got an expert human team, research team. Funny that I have to specify that they're humans in this day and age, right? And we do also use a lot of software to help us get to scale and get to a larger coverage. But we like to use the right parts for the right task, where you're never talking to a robot when you're talking with us or with our team. And you're never, you know, it's never a robot taking responsibility for the content. We take responsibility as a brand, as a company, as a team. It's not used at your own risk. It is fully kind of credible, and we take full reputational accountability for the content. And so we answered like two of your questions there. That's the spirit, that's the mixed approach.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Now you're pulling this data from just sources everywhere. Are you going to different news outlets? Or are you going to press releases? Are you going to interviews? Where do you pull all this data from?

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Totally. So we really pretty exhaustive, like boiled the ocean approach as it comes to monitoring world-changing world news. We don't just focus on a specific theme like just politics or just the economy or just technology or a certain geography, like just the US or just China or just Europe. We are covering all like life-changing phenomena around the entirety of the world. And when it comes to kind of where we go to source these things, I mentioned that a very large share of our sourcing, of where we get our information, comes from primary sources themselves. That could be government agencies, could be everywhere from the White House to the Bureau of Economic Analysis to Census, to the Federal Reserve, to central banks of other countries, to other countries' formal agencies, right? To also public companies and these kind of like initial prime movers, so to speak, that initiate the action that's being talked about. Instead of getting it from another journalist that's talking about the issue in their own storytelling way, we source directly from the original source. And we have a pretty high hit rate when it comes to being able to, I think over 80% of our coverage comes directly from primary sources, right? So there it becomes a lot less of a question of where are you getting your information? Because you're getting it from the ultimate source, not from this journalist or another journalist. In that 20% case where there isn't a primary source, right? Maybe it's a wartime update and there isn't a credible source, we can say, okay, well, we don't really know what the truth is. We don't really know if there is a primary source that can be trusted in this case. In that environment, we kind of cross-aggregate and cross-reference all the available reporting on the matter. And again, not better writing journalism, but reporting-level journalism where folks are on the ground in the conflict or is in whatever environment and they're reporting on the issue. In that case, we rely on the collective knowledge of primary reporters to find out what is sort of worth sharing and what can be confirmed as factual.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

It's outstanding. Now, one of the things that we hear, at least in the United States, is from primary sources is a very well-rolled propaganda machine, not to pick on any governmental entity, but there's a lot of nonsense to put out for shock value. I was in the military during the Vietnam War, and one of the classes we had to take was rumor and propaganda. And the thing they told us was propaganda succeeds by telling an outrageous statement and then following it up daily with another outrageous statement or a uh an outrageous action. And it just bombards and numbs you to point where you just acquiesce and give up. So do you screen that stuff? How do you screen that stuff if you think it is coming out as propaganda?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

We play in such a specific niche of news where we don't really focus on any gossip or, you know, whether that's celebrity gossip or political drama gossip or any sort of rumors, right? Or any kind of updates that are maybe true, may not be true, you don't really know, and have a sort of sensationalist flair to it. We don't really operate in that environment because the news that we focus on are so life-changing and like world-shaping that these are tend to be very like tectonic shifts in culture, economy, politics, policy, healthcare, immigration, war and peace, things of that nature. And that sort of space is a lot less, not that there aren't attempts to infuse it with propaganda, but rather that those are much easier environments to sort of triangulate. Okay, is this just somebody trying to tell us something, trying to influence, or is this sort of factual phenomena that we can confirm and report on? I feel like maybe our job is a little bit easier because we're not trying to deal with all information that's going on, right? All the propaganda that surrounds it, but rather these really large phenomena that are inevitably going to shape people's lives, right? We like to kind of use this tagline where we focus on world-changing world news. And at that scale of news stories, we're not looking at any gossip or any rumors or any sort of like loud, flashy statements that are outrageous because the the bearing of that information is really high. We're not looking at social media. We're not even looking at official Twitter sources, where we're not looking at you know loud statements by politicians, whether that's like Gavin Newsom versus Donald Trump and kind of feud, or it's something else of that kind of that nature. We don't focus there at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

I love the fact that you brought up social media because I was going to bring it up if you didn't. Many people that's what they use as their source of news. Right? And when we spoke a few weeks ago, you said that 90% or I believe I read it and you confirmed 90% of what's put out on social media is put out by 10% of the users. And most of those are bots. So it's an attempt to influence. And you're doing just the absolute opposite. We're not influencing, we're just giving you the facts. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

That's right. I love that you brought that up because I think it may even be more skewed. I think an even smaller percentage of the overall user base is responsible for a larger percentage of the overall content. You mentioned 1090. I think it's probably even more. And so our intention is kind of very much the opposite. You know, we are informed.m as a project, as a venture, as an endeavor, is very much a protest against the noise and the sort of flooding of channels that has occurred across legacy media for a really long time now. And of course, amplified by social media, also so much so that now we just take it as a given, as like that's the way things are. Well, things don't have to be this way. That's kind of our whole thesis, right? It's like you don't have to get your news from social media. I'm sure it's something you're consuming all the time, but it's an unsafe environment or factual kind of information, right? It's an unsafe environment because it's not properly checked, not properly verified. The things that spread virally are not the same things that are accurate. In fact, sometimes they're the polar opposites, right? And there's this crazy disproportionate like who's consuming, who is producing. Very confusing, disorienting, and messed up. And so we're here to offer an alternative for news information specifically, because we believe that's the most important kind of like infrastructure knowledge base that an everyday person has access to. And if that kind of well is poisoned, how we feel, how we interact with the people, how we socialize everything is affected by kind of how we feel about the world, which is affected by how we feel about news and what news we consume. We're looking sort of like, you know, clean up the poisoned well or at least offer an alternative to people who are seeking it.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

I love that statement. I I interviewed a neuroscientist who told me what's been going on is a psychic nummy. And I love the term. It's just so much bombardment of bad information or bad news because bad news people read. That's where they gravitate. You know, the good story of some uh happy ending, oh gee, that's nice, but then they go right back to the negative again. How do you deliver the news to your customers? How do they get it?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you've you've used our product, and we you know we're lucky to have you among our readers, but for for folks who are not aware, we pioneer a news by SMS service where we don't email you because nobody reads their emails anymore. We there's no app, there's no website, there is no pigeon. It's done through SMS. It has incredibly direct level of access from kind of our debt to yours. And we send you a single text every morning, every workday of every weekday, that has sort of we call an executive news briefing around what's been happening in the last 24 hours that has changed or somehow shaped the world. And so we operate via SMS. We are the leading in news by SMS service uh in North America, and we're really excited to be kind of pioneering this category and leading it.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

For those few people who are not sure what SMS is, it's a message to your phone. I think everybody understands SMS now, but it's the old people like me who say, Wow, what is no reason? I am getting it now, and it is it's it's short, it's a short burst. You look at it, and if you want to go more into more depth, you can, correct? There's the option that's deeper.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah, yeah. Don't find that time to really read the news at all. And that's why they wind up getting it from these secondhand channels, either social media or their friends, or like random kind of hearsay residue. And so the effect we're trying to, the change we're trying to affect is give everybody the sort of like infrastructural, integral briefing. And so it's meant to be very brief. It's meant to be very, very, you know, high accuracy, high signal, very low footprint on your attention, very low footprint on your time. Now, if you want to go deeper, there are so many other places where you can read op eds, analyses, you know, do the whole kind of digging uh process. And of course we enable that for our product as well. But that's not kind of what where we want to shine. We want to shine in terms of being that service that lets you be informed in 30 seconds a day.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

And most of our users, they don't have the time to go and dig deeper. They only have those 30 seconds before they get to work or before they start parenting or before they have to travel, or before it is whatever their that busy their day is, they only have 30 seconds to get updated to get an form. And that's the category of both person and need that we really excel at and want to continue to to uh to lead in.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

And that's very important. Uh I think all the listeners understand you don't have time to sit down in the morning and drink coffee and read a paper. Those days are gone. They're gone. You are running out the door with your phone, you're in a cold weather place while your car is warming up and you're clicking. That's when you're getting your nerves. Because it's quick. It's right there, it's fast. All right, that's good. So, what's the feedback then that you've been getting?

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Well, you know, it's been pretty inspiring because, you know, we built intentionally a very simple solution to a complex problem. But the feedback we've been receiving has been so positive and so just overwhelmingly supportive, so to speak, that folks are saying, hey, despite being small, despite being kind of minimalist, it's having this precise effect on what it's meant to be, which is giving me more confidence around going on around my day and feeling like I know what's going on, that I'm not showing up to class without having done the reading, so to speak, as a metaphor. I feel the peace of mind where the noise that's going on around me is no longer getting to me in the way that it used to, because I know what the facts are and I know what's going on without it being sensationalized. So I have my peace of mind back. I'm not feeling anxious every time I hear news anymore. And I think the third is sort of like individual and social at the same time, which is you get to be part of conversations that I think previously you don't really necessarily get to be part of because you don't know kind of what's going on. Right. And so it's it's those three things that we're hearing consistently. It's the confidence, the peace of mind, and being able to almost like socialize and connect with others in a way that's informed, in a way that's more mature, in a way that's more grounded, right? That a lot of folks don't feel like they have access to these days because consuming legacy media is a toxic experience.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, it is. Definitely is. I can recall being in the military, you know, 50 some years ago. I worked for a colonel, and can you go and talk to him? He had briefings, and the operative word was brief. Get to the point quickly. I think that's when I see your stuff coming every morning and I look at it, that's what it is. It's short. Okay, that's good. I see it. Right, that's interesting. Go through the different things. And it's not just in the United States, you're sending stuff from all over the world, which is real interesting because you I don't know what's going on in China or what's what's happening in Ukraine, or I you don't know what's happening because it's all filtered through somebody else. Okay, what do you see next? What's the next evolution of inform.com, or where would you like it to go?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

It's funny, you keep mentioning informed.com. We wish we had that domain, but we our domain is informed.now. We wish we had a domain, but in the word informed is you know a very, very expensive keyword in the digital world because everybody wants to claim right being the source of information, being the kind of the informed provider. Very few are, but we haven't been able to get the informed.com just yet. I think it's like millions of dollars for that domain. So we are informed.now. And that's uh that's kind of where we are now. We want to go is we really want to become a default alternative for consuming news, right? We're looking to change out news analysis, not even news briefing. We're not looking to reinvent all these wheels. But you're looking to help folks rethink the news reading habit. Like how do you actually read news, right? Because today, again, the two options you have is either idol from news, put your head in the sand like an Osrift, or read news that is fundamentally so demanding of your attention, of your time, of your kind of like stress levels, because you have to figure out what is true. You have to cross-reference, you have to research. We want to rethink the news reading habit as something that should only take 30 seconds a day. And it's something that you do as a habit, and that's part of your life, but it isn't consuming your life, right? You meant to consume news, but not be consumed by the news in response. You know, our future is, you know, we were just expanding it to Canada, and we are moving from serving all the states in the United States to also serving Canada now. And we're really excited about, especially for the new generation of newsreaders, giving them an alternative to the legacy default option, giving them a way to say, hey, you can make news part of your life without it dominating your life, without it draining you, and without it taking any more than 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

I love that. I talk at some colleges, and that's the thing you see with the younger people is as you start talking, they're looking at their phones and they're gonna determine if you're basically full of crap in about 20 seconds. And they want it, get it to me quickly, get it to me briefly, and then let me run with it. If I want to fact check, I can't, but give me the data, give me the give me the information. And it's wonderful. So, what last words you want to leave with the listeners around the world here? What what do you want them to remember about informed? Now I got it right to start.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

You know, what I invite folks to think for a second, what are all the places in your life where your attention is being monopolized, is being robbed, is being hijacked, being held hostage by the media that you consume, or you know, by any environment that you're part of. And just think about it. Do you want that force, that thing, to have this control of your attention? You know, our whole thesis is that you should be able to get informed without being influenced. And you should be able to consume credible information without sacrificing your attention for it. And that's the balance that we are sort of striking. And I just invite folks to think about where, whether that's in news or beyond news, that's attention hijacking is happening in your life and claim your attention back because it's your superpower.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

I love that. How do people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Gosh, I'm super easy to reach. Uh informed.now is how you learn more about the informed project. And me personally, I'm very friendly across all social media as Kira Shishkin. I'm the only Kira Shishkin on LinkedIn. And generally, you know it's a pretty unique mix of names. If you want to find me on LinkedIn or any other socials, I'm very, very happy to connect and always keen to talk about our mission and the type of world that we want to build.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

And he will get back to you quickly. I'm shocked how quickly he got back to me. Well, folks, I we're just about out of time. I want to thank my guest, Kira, again, who's focusing on reshaping how news is net is delivered with an aim and focus on solely on getting the facts without the influence pedaling, without the editorializing, without all the nonsense. And isn't it time we get back to making our own decisions about the news rather than someone telling us what to do? Let me leave you all with this. None of us are in this alone. And the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. And today Cura showed us where many of those rocks are. And together through this podcast, we're going to find more rocks and we're going to bounce back better than ever. If this message resonates with you, share it with a friend. Please subscribe. I'll see you next week. Kira again. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Thank you, Frank.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a$10,000 private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to Bounceback Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.