After over three decades in the media, Quest believes the fundamentals of storytelling haven’t changed – only the delivery. — AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star
Standing by a large window on the 98th floor of the Park Hyatt in Merdeka 118, Richard Quest points to a flat stretch of land shimmering in the Kuala Lumpur heat.
Halfway through our interview, the veteran anchor, correspondent and CNN Business editor-at-large had risen from the couch to illustrate how he interacts with ChatGPT.
“Okay, so I take a picture, I ask ChatGPT, I say, I’m in Kuala Lumpur, please tell me what this is’. And it replies, ‘that long, flat stretch of land you’ve circled is the old Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah airfield’.”
“My next question to ChatGPT was, where am I? What building have I taken this picture from? Well, it said the KL Tower. Then it came up with another hotel. Finally, I said, ‘No, I’m at the Park Hyatt’. And then ChatGPT immediately makes it sound like it’s given me the right answer, ‘yes, indeed you are at that one’. I said, yeah, thank you,” said Quest. He then laughed, the booming sound unmistakably familiar to anyone who has watched Quest Means Business, revealing that he uses AI as both a research assistant and a creative partner – even for recipes.
“Take a picture of your fridge, send it to ChatGPT and ask for a recipe that’s going to take half an hour to make. It’s amazing,” said Quest.
The 63-year-old Liverpudlian was recently in Malaysia for an event featuring Sophia the Robot and its creator Dr David Hanson, along with Idris Jala.
Several hours prior, Quest sat down for an interview with Life Inspired.
A departure from his signature suit and tie, Quest was dressed down in a red hoodie over a shirt and trousers, saying he thought it would be fun to change it up for once.
Bursting with energy, he humoured us as he playfully posed against KL’s skyline from the world’s second-tallest building.
Having experienced technological advancements firsthand over the course of his illustrious career, Quest embraces innovations in this field and the benefits it brings.
Sophia, created by Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong, represents for many both promise and provocation.
“The challenge with Sophia, we all know the arguments and issues,” said Quest. “We all know it’s still a machine that doesn’t truly think – though it’s getting better at appearing to do so. What’s changed the debate with Sophia, I think, is that we’ve now grown familiar with interacting with ChatGPT.”
“If I’m sitting at home or I’m in a restaurant and I’m on my own, I’ll have whole conversations with it, because what it’s allowing me to do is investigate things in ways that I hadn’t done before. Last week, don’t ask me why, I wanted to know about dollar clearing. And so I started a discussion with it and I kept asking more and more questions. Half an hour has gone by, and I’m going back and forth with ChatGPT – but I’m learning something at the same time,” he said.
“What I find funny is somebody will say, ‘Ah, but it might be wrong!’. If I was asking it about crocheting or knitting, of which I know nothing about, I would be concerned. But I know something about dollar clearing. I can tell when it’s right or wrong.”
The evolution of storytelling
Technology has bridged distances and transformed the way people connect, making communication faster, easier and more immediate than ever before.
It’s also transforming entire industries, journalism among them, as digital tools continue to redefine how stories are told.
After over three decades in the media, Quest believes the fundamentals of storytelling haven’t changed – only the delivery.
“Obviously, information now comes in more digestible bites. The way we slice and dice a story has changed – and so have the tools we use to tell it. That’s what makes storytelling today so much richer and more dynamic,” said Quest.
“That’s a plus and a minus. Because I can add graphics, I can add noise, I can add multimedia, I can add video. But, by the same token, what is more beautiful than a well written article where the words capture the story and the mood?”
For Quest, embracing change is second nature. But he’s also careful not to lose sight of the values that define good journalism.
“People like myself will use AI in a different way than 20-year-olds. They will make it a need, an end in itself. We will be looking at it as always, value adding to what we’re doing,” said Quest. “I do love it when one of my younger colleagues – they’ll come up with an idea, and I’ll say, I’m not sure that’s going to work, you know, with 30 years of doing it, and they’ll say, Well, let’s have a go.
“And it works – and I absolutely love that, because they’re pushing me out of my comfort zone. That’s so important once you reach a certain age. You need to be challenged – not just technically, but editorially. It’s absolutely crucial.”
After decades in front of the camera, Quest remains keenly aware of the delicate balance between experience and reinvention.
“You can’t cling to the old ways,” he said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
To Quest, the trick is to ask oneself why we used to do things a certain way, and if the reason’s still sound, find a modern way to achieve the same result.
Makeshift recording is part and parcel of Quest’s travels – he surrounds his computer with pillows and a duvet when he needs to record audio for his shows.
“At the end of the day, it’s still just the software and the microphone, but you have to learn these things. And I think that one of the reasons for my longevity is that I have been adaptable. I’ve learned,” he said.
Principles in practice
The relentless news cycle continues to excite and energise Quest, who admits that while current events often bring some of the most challenging moments of his career, they have also produced its most memorable ones.
“The children in Africa during Live 8 – you never forget those. Never, ever,” he recalled. “And then there are the stories that you truly enjoy – like covering the final flight of the Concorde. That was just extraordinary. There have been so many – the Queen Mother’s and the Queen’s funeral, elections that one has covered in the United States,” said Quest.
“This is the beauty of our job, the ability for it to come round and surprise you. If you had told me we would be covering what we’re covering now in the United States, I would never have believed you,” he said.
“And that’s challenging at the moment because what you can’t do is let outrage get in the way of journalism. And when I say outrage, I mean norms and values that we’ve all held dear seem to be under threat, and what we also can’t do as journalists is let the unacceptable become acceptable, or, in another phrase, normalise the abnormal.”
It’s this commitment to accuracy and perspective that has kept Quest’s voice distinctive in an increasingly noisy digital world.
“Now, as a correspondent, nobody should care about my opinion. What people should care about is my assessment of the situation, and the assessment of the situation is borne out from decades of doing it. But it’s not my opinion,” he said.
This guiding principle comes from author John Mortimer’s fictional barrister, Horace Rumpole, whom Quest quotes:
“You leave your opinions with your hat and coat at the door. That doesn’t mean you don’t have opinions – you do – but you don’t let them intrude.”
The rise of citizen journalism, influencers and content creators has blurred the lines between opinion and reporting – something he views with a hint of amusement.
“During the P Diddy trial, you had the traditional media reporting what was going on inside,” he said. “Next to us were bloggers and vloggers and they’re all on their selfie sticks ‘And now this is happening!’ It was verbiage, it was gossip – that’s fine, but that’s not journalism. That’s opinion.”
On whether much is lost in the storytelling methods of today, and whether he is hopeful for the future of journalism, Quest responded “It’ll shake itself out”.
“What’s changed is the ability to stay with something. A long read, a book, a demanding documentary that’s not narrative in nature, that actually requires you to watch it and listen to it for 30 minutes.
Podcasts, which he says “in the old days” were called radio programmes, have brought a lot of rich storytelling back.
“In the old days, we called it radio. Now, we call it a podcast,” he says, revealing that a recent listen was a documentary on Mohamed Al Fayed, produced by the BBC World Service.
“It was fascinating. It was a documentary, classic documentary. Classic documentary on radio, which I do love to still listen to, rich in detail.”
As the media landscape continues to shift, Quest stands as proof that adaptability and integrity can coexist.
He experiments with AI and embraces new platforms and tools, but his compass remains steady – guided by the same principles that define journalism.
In an era of instant opinions and fleeting trends, Quest’s conviction endures: assess, report and don’t normalise the abnormal.
