Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Vanan Murugesan - The Importance Of Community-Based Journalism

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Interview Only w/ Vanan Murugesan - The Importance Of Community-Based Journalism · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: Yes Local News Day on April ninth, circle your calendar's
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Speaker 1: local news Day in April ninth. One of my goals has
1:55
Speaker 1: been to essentially profile, if you will, a different types
2:00
Speaker 1: of local news startups that are out there, and obviously
2:04
Speaker 1: part of the goal of Local News Day in April
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Speaker 1: ninth is to create more awareness out there. And there
2:09
Speaker 1: are a lot of local news startups in your neighborhood
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Speaker 1: that you may have not heard about. Some of them
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Speaker 1: are very community specific, maybe for a smaller community that's
2:20
Speaker 1: a part of your area. Maybe it's geographic, maybe it's ethnic,
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Speaker 1: but these startups are everywhere. And in fact, the profile
2:28
Speaker 1: of the organization I want to showcase today is the
2:32
Speaker 1: Sahan Journal. It's based in Minnesota, and we have the
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Speaker 1: publisher here with us, Vanan Muru Gayson. He's not the
2:41
Speaker 1: original founder. He actually just he has essentially taken it
2:45
Speaker 1: over and expanded it from its original intent. It is
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Speaker 1: a news organization that has been vital to the immigrant
2:52
Speaker 1: community in Minneapolis in particular. But it's not just about
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Speaker 1: one community. You know, what's been interesting about Minneapolis over
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Speaker 1: the last couple of decades and what's given it some
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Speaker 1: amazing cultural features, if you will, that make it even
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Speaker 1: more unique place to visit today than it was thirty
3:10
Speaker 1: years ago when Prince was walking the city the city streets,
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Speaker 1: is that it has a lot of new communities, the
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Speaker 1: Somali community among community, in addition to sort of maybe
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Speaker 1: more familiar immigrant communities that many of you have out
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Speaker 1: there and they're just doing gangbusters. And this is a
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Speaker 1: story of a local news outlet filling the vacuum for
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Speaker 1: a community that was just completely underserved. We know that
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Speaker 1: there are geographic news deserts, but sometimes there are community
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Speaker 1: news deserts. And I think what the Sohan Journal was
3:45
Speaker 1: able to essentially a gap they were able to fill,
3:48
Speaker 1: is for a community a news organization that doesn't just
3:53
Speaker 1: meet them subject on the subject matters that they care about,
3:57
Speaker 1: but also on the platforms that they use. And I
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Speaker 1: think this is something a lot of traditional newsrooms don't realize.
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Speaker 1: The various ways immigrant communities get their information. They're in
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Speaker 1: a lot different apps than the apps you see, whether
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Speaker 1: it's WhatsApp being a big one, even telegram, and so
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Speaker 1: the work that the Sahan Journal has done there I
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Speaker 1: think will serve as as something of for some of
4:20
Speaker 1: you out there in this space. There's going to be
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Speaker 1: a lot to learn. So, without further ado, let me
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Speaker 1: bring Vonon into the conversation. Vonon, Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Thank you Chuck for having me. It's a pleasure to
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Speaker 2: be here today.
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Speaker 1: Well, before we get started, tell me how did I
4:38
Speaker 1: do In the introduction to the news organization, and please
4:40
Speaker 1: fill in some gaps. What did I miss? How would
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Speaker 1: you if you're in an elevator with me and we're
4:46
Speaker 1: riding up fifteen flights, how are you describing it to somebody?
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Speaker 2: Oh, fifteen flights? Well that's quite generous.
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Speaker 1: A few here, yeah, I'm assuming we have five minutes, right.
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Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Thanks for opportunity.
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Speaker 3: It's so great that yoursel reading you know, local news stap,
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Speaker 3: but also looking to uplift the different types of news
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Speaker 3: outlets that are working in this space, and in particular,
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Speaker 3: I'm here to talk a little bit about immigrants serving newsrooms,
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Speaker 3: and so I'll try to talk a little bit about
5:14
Speaker 3: SAHAN and so also maybe it gives your audience a
5:18
Speaker 3: little bit of context around how immigrant newsrooms work. So
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Speaker 3: SAHAN was started twenty nineteen. You are right, I am
5:25
Speaker 3: not the founder. The founder is actually his name is
5:27
Speaker 3: Muktari brought him. He's a traditional journalist, really really good journalists.
5:31
Speaker 3: He worked for the Star Tribune and he worked for
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Speaker 3: the MPR for Minnesota Public Radio News and at that
5:37
Speaker 3: time he noticed something that you know, was not something
5:42
Speaker 3: that he wasn't able to cover. You know, Minnesota has
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Speaker 3: one of the best local news scenes in the country.
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Speaker 2: As you know, that very true.
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Speaker 1: Look, it's funny you bring up Minnesota Public Radio, probably
5:51
Speaker 1: one of the strongest affiliates of the NPR system that
5:55
Speaker 1: there is.
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Speaker 3: Exactly particularly exactly exactly, and and yet he felt working
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Speaker 3: for both of these organizations, he felt there were still
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Speaker 3: important stories that were being missed that was important to
6:09
Speaker 3: be covered, and the stories around the immigrant communities. You know,
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Speaker 3: he was somewhat disappointed at that time where he was
6:15
Speaker 3: packed as the Somali journalist and he would cover Somali
6:17
Speaker 3: issues and whatnot. And you know, at that time, unfortunately
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Speaker 3: and even in some places in some instances today, issues
6:27
Speaker 3: from immigrants are talked around from a crime perspective or
6:30
Speaker 3: things that of negative in nature.
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Speaker 2: Right, he grew very frustrated. And now this is the man.
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Speaker 2: Mind you. His wife was pregnant with his third maybe
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Speaker 2: fourth child, I think the third child.
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Speaker 3: He quit his job in the cold month of December
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Speaker 3: because he just couldn't take it anymore. And so he
6:45
Speaker 3: started Sahan Journal because he felt like some of these
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Speaker 3: important stories were not showing up. And that's why newsrooms
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Speaker 3: like SAHAN exist in Minnesota today. And I just want
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Speaker 3: to I think it's important to also mention and this
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Speaker 3: is not a Minnesota thing. It's you know, it exists
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Speaker 3: all around the state, all around the country.
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, right, Oh, I mean I could tell I
7:12
Speaker 1: know growing up in so I grew up in Miami,
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Speaker 1: I grew up in South Florida. And one of the
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Speaker 1: hallmarks of the last ten years of local media is
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Speaker 1: how micro and community oriented it is. If you want
7:26
Speaker 1: to talk to the Caribbean communities, there's actually individual you
7:32
Speaker 1: need to talk to, this Instagram influencer, and you need
7:34
Speaker 1: to talk to this person here. The demand in these
7:38
Speaker 1: immigrant communities for somebody that looks like them, that understands
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Speaker 1: their life telling them today's news is through the roof.
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Speaker 1: I get it, and I think that this is why
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Speaker 1: I think this is. You guys are the best example
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Speaker 1: of I think one that's getting traction and creating a
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Speaker 1: revenue stream and all of this, because I think that's
7:56
Speaker 1: the more difficult part is how do these become finanially sustainable? Right,
8:01
Speaker 1: And this is all part of what we're working on
8:03
Speaker 1: with Local news Day.
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Speaker 3: You know, I chucked, I'm going to use this line,
8:06
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure how to resonate with you in
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Speaker 3: your audience. But I've said this before in the past,
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Speaker 3: I feel the impulse behind the creation and the need
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Speaker 3: behind immigrant newsrooms is very much the same impulse that
8:17
Speaker 3: built kind of like Fox News where it is right now.
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Speaker 3: It's basically a community that for the most part has
8:25
Speaker 3: felt either unseen or where traditional media their realities were
8:32
Speaker 3: not reflected there in traditional legacy media. Now I would say,
8:37
Speaker 3: obviously there is, That's where the point of similarity would end,
8:41
Speaker 3: and how we would use that moment would be different.
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Speaker 3: But I you know, I'm not a journalist, I'm not
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Speaker 3: a I'm not a trained journalist, and I've always.
8:50
Speaker 1: A mechanical engineer. Yeah, but you certainly are a numbers
8:54
Speaker 1: guy and a mechanical engineer.
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Speaker 2: I did m my MBA. But I'm also a consumer.
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Speaker 3: I love business models, and I'm a consumer of news content,
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Speaker 3: and I've always observed news from a not just from
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Speaker 3: a reader. But hey, what's going on over here? And
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Speaker 3: I you know the fact that the first of all,
9:11
Speaker 3: things have changed dramatically and I would say improved quite
9:14
Speaker 3: a bit since since twenty twenty and since Shan has
9:17
Speaker 3: been since created. But for the most part, people felt
9:21
Speaker 3: their reality was not reflected in how traditional news media
9:26
Speaker 3: portrayed it right, and so it was very important for
9:29
Speaker 3: Sahan when we were when we were founded to make
9:32
Speaker 3: sure that, yes, we are speaking to the facts, but
9:34
Speaker 3: we are also making sure that people's lives are reflected
9:38
Speaker 3: accurately in that space.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, now I get what you're saying, and I think
9:45
Speaker 1: I can tell you my experience that meet the Press is,
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Speaker 1: particularly with immigrant audiences, is that a lot of I
9:51
Speaker 1: had a lot of first gen viewers for generation viewers,
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Speaker 1: and they and they would tell me and it would frankly,
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Speaker 1: it's the same thing I do when I'm in a
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Speaker 1: foreign country, even for a week, which is I want
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Speaker 1: to assimilate and understand what's going on locally as quickly
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Speaker 1: as I possibly can. What's the best way to do it?
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Speaker 1: A lot of times it is through the news, and
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Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's a language barrier, and so maybe
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Speaker 1: I'm finding anything that's in my language that still reflects
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Speaker 1: what's going on in the community, or maybe you'll find
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Speaker 1: your expat community in a specific city. But the thing
10:22
Speaker 1: is is that you know the sort of I think
10:26
Speaker 1: the ignorance sometimes that we portray about like how we
10:30
Speaker 1: behave when we move to a new area, we quickly
10:33
Speaker 1: want to assimilate. Is how anybody behaves when they move
10:35
Speaker 1: to a new area, which is they're constantly looking, but
10:38
Speaker 1: they want to understand the place they're living in. And so,
10:42
Speaker 1: you know, I know, the first thing I'd be doing
10:44
Speaker 1: if I lived in Malaysia would be to find the
10:46
Speaker 1: Sunday whatever the equivalent of the political programs are, just
10:50
Speaker 1: so I understood the lay of the land, I understood
10:52
Speaker 1: the politics.
10:52
Speaker 2: Of the area.
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Speaker 1: Frankly, it's a survival. It's for survival. You're not doing
10:57
Speaker 1: it because you want to know. You're doing it because
10:59
Speaker 1: how do I navigate this new community? Let me learn
11:01
Speaker 1: the politics and economics of the new community exactly exactly.
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Speaker 3: And yeah, so in a nutshell, that's how that's what
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Speaker 3: SAHAN was was was was created.
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Speaker 2: You know, since then, you know, I have colleagues and I.
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Speaker 3: Know the leaders of MP, of minist of public radio
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Speaker 3: and Stout Tribune and whatnot, and things have dramatically changed
11:22
Speaker 3: since then.
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Speaker 2: But I would say, just the thing though SAHAN, our.
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Speaker 3: Coverage is one focused on issues that impact immigrants and
11:31
Speaker 3: communities of color, right, And I like to use this analogy,
11:37
Speaker 3: So start Tribune and MPR, they're like, you know your
11:39
Speaker 3: targets you know, or you know, I don't know what's the.
11:43
Speaker 1: Grocery department store, but you're what you're saying is they
11:46
Speaker 1: have a little bit for everybody, and everybody can find
11:50
Speaker 1: something in a target that is meant for them. But
11:54
Speaker 1: maybe that target doesn't have everything they're looking for, but
11:57
Speaker 1: they have a couple of things they at least acknowledge
12:00
Speaker 1: my existence exactly exactly.
12:04
Speaker 3: But if you want something very specific, and I use
12:06
Speaker 3: grocery stores because I cook and eat a lot, But
12:09
Speaker 3: if I want that bock CHOI vegetable, right, and even
12:11
Speaker 3: though target sells it for whatever thing, I'm going to
12:14
Speaker 3: go to that Asian stall two miles away just because
12:16
Speaker 3: I know it's legit for whatever it is.
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Speaker 1: Right, And then you think that they're more likely to
12:21
Speaker 1: find the smart, the better growers or back choi and
12:24
Speaker 1: they know where to.
12:25
Speaker 3: Get exactly exactly exactly. They're going to care a little
12:28
Speaker 3: bit more. They care, They care much more. Frankly, for
12:31
Speaker 3: that matter, they care much more. And they could also
12:33
Speaker 3: provide insights that that the target may not have, right,
12:37
Speaker 3: and that's not targets business podul.
12:39
Speaker 2: They shouldn't care.
12:39
Speaker 3: They cut care for everything, right, and so that's why
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Speaker 3: Sahan exists. We exist within this ecosphere if you care
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Speaker 3: about immigrants, and if you care about issues that the
12:49
Speaker 3: main papers may not have the resources or time to cover,
12:52
Speaker 3: which it does happen right there on the daily cycle.
12:55
Speaker 2: That's why you come to Sahan.
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Speaker 3: Because you come to Sahan because you're curious, you're interested,
13:00
Speaker 3: and you seek to understand issues more than just the
13:03
Speaker 3: surface level.
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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about Sohan specifically, because you are doing
13:07
Speaker 1: something that on paper wouldn't be easy to do, because
13:10
Speaker 1: you're basically saying, look, we're going to cover all of
13:12
Speaker 1: these underserved immigrant communities. And then while they have some
13:17
Speaker 1: things in common, they actually don't have a lot in common. Right,
13:20
Speaker 1: a Somali community versus among community versus a first generation
13:25
Speaker 1: Mexican American community, right, like it is? It is not
13:30
Speaker 1: so that actually I wonder how difficult that is. That's
13:35
Speaker 1: your north star. But you're basically you know that that's
13:39
Speaker 1: a pretty wide breadth of coverage. So, yeah, give me
13:44
Speaker 1: a specific how does it? You know, what when do
13:48
Speaker 1: you decide, Hey, this community needs we need a we
13:51
Speaker 1: need a full time reporter for this community.
13:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well we well, thank you Chuck Fall putting
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Speaker 3: my problems in a nutshell essentially, but thank you for that.
14:02
Speaker 1: Thank you, and part of our goal here, right, we're
14:05
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to solve how many of
14:07
Speaker 1: these problems can we solve individually, and how many of
14:10
Speaker 1: these problems are we going to have to build a
14:12
Speaker 1: collective network for. I mean, I know I have a
14:14
Speaker 1: vision of a of a collective network that can where
14:18
Speaker 1: you get to keep your independence, but maybe there is
14:20
Speaker 1: ways to share some expenses, right, and that's you know,
14:24
Speaker 1: to make all of us a little more affordable.
14:27
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, So let me try to answer a question.
14:29
Speaker 3: So a couple of things. So you know, Sahan is
14:32
Speaker 3: six years old. So some of the things that you
14:33
Speaker 3: bring up, we're still trying to crack the code, right,
14:35
Speaker 3: you're trying to solve it, right, So a few things.
14:40
Speaker 3: I think there was a deliberate, very deliberate decision that
14:43
Speaker 3: was made when we were started. We published in English,
14:46
Speaker 3: and that was deliberate because our mission is not to
14:49
Speaker 3: just serve one pocket of immigrants, right, Like, as you mentioned,
14:53
Speaker 3: we have a whole host of communities. We primarily suff
14:56
Speaker 3: East Africans, Amongs of Hispanic, but it was also equally
15:00
Speaker 3: important for us to show all Minnesotas, so the non
15:04
Speaker 3: immigrants to a more equitable state. And that only works
15:07
Speaker 3: if we have non immigrants of non immigrants reading our
15:10
Speaker 3: work as well. Now, and we don't really bucket our
15:14
Speaker 3: stories into Somali among Hispanic. We we do traditional beats healthcare, education,
15:23
Speaker 3: social justice, you know, uh, police reforms uh sorry uh,
15:28
Speaker 3: and security and crime, criminal justice and stuff like that.
15:34
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes those stories relate to a Somoli
15:37
Speaker 3: community modern than among community. As you can imagine, some
15:40
Speaker 3: of the fraud coverage that we were covering right right
15:43
Speaker 3: would would center on a particular community, So we don't
15:47
Speaker 3: necessarily cover them by community. But about topic issues, now,
15:52
Speaker 3: one of the things that we've noticed is that people
15:55
Speaker 3: are not jumping from let's say I'm among person. I'm
15:59
Speaker 3: not necessarily going to jump to the Hispanic main story
16:04
Speaker 3: or a Mong story, sorry, a Somali story. And that's
16:07
Speaker 3: something that we're trying to work through right now. But
16:10
Speaker 3: for you, for the fact is that's one of the
16:12
Speaker 3: challenges that we have. So we don't we we try
16:17
Speaker 3: to cover things that matter to a particular community regardless
16:21
Speaker 3: of their regardless of their background. Now, this is what
16:25
Speaker 3: I would say though, and this is a little bit
16:27
Speaker 3: of like a business model where you if you serve
16:30
Speaker 3: the outlier case, you tend to also serve the general
16:33
Speaker 3: public when it comes to education. Right, we wrote a
16:37
Speaker 3: beautiful story. We've written step one. Our education reporter is
16:41
Speaker 3: absolutely amazing and everywhere I'm blessed that everywhere I go
16:46
Speaker 3: people talk about the reporters more than and the ones
16:49
Speaker 3: that I've inherited from this job, so they're really good.
16:52
Speaker 3: But when you talk about the education needs of the
16:55
Speaker 3: current community or the Somali community, and it is uplift
17:00
Speaker 3: it and regardless of your background, when you read it
17:05
Speaker 3: and you're trying to improve the school system and you
17:07
Speaker 3: care about the immigrant that particular community, you do uplift
17:10
Speaker 3: your education system for your own child as well. And
17:13
Speaker 3: so that's one of the things that we've learned that
17:16
Speaker 3: we've seen where you know, the majority non immigrant population
17:21
Speaker 3: in Minnesota still use our news content as their source
17:27
Speaker 3: of not just information, but to advocate for their own
17:30
Speaker 3: child's education system. I can't tell you the amount of
17:35
Speaker 3: moms that I've bumped into who use our education stories
17:38
Speaker 3: in their mom's chat group, right, because we are at
17:43
Speaker 3: the end of the day, it is a meltic body,
17:45
Speaker 3: is a multi racial society, and what's best for this
17:48
Speaker 3: child is also good for my genile And so it's
17:51
Speaker 3: not as binary as you think as one would think,
17:54
Speaker 3: you know, which is what I walked into. But I
17:56
Speaker 3: you know, I learned quite a number of things as
17:59
Speaker 3: into my new role.
18:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you said that, you guys, are
18:03
Speaker 1: you always publish in English? Do you think you're leaving
18:06
Speaker 1: any readers on the it is? I mean, does the
18:12
Speaker 1: effort to publish in multiple languages? I mean, is that
18:15
Speaker 1: a how much of that is a financial decision? And
18:17
Speaker 1: how much of it is Look, I know, like I said,
18:20
Speaker 1: had grown up in Miami. When I grew up in
18:21
Speaker 1: Miami in the seventies and eighties, I knew many I
18:25
Speaker 1: had many friends whose parents insisted that English bespoke in
18:29
Speaker 1: the house, even though they were Spanish first parents, because
18:32
Speaker 1: they wanted their kids to assimilate to America. So I
18:35
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of immigrant parents who are here
18:39
Speaker 1: with their kids and they're like, no, no, no, no, you've got
18:41
Speaker 1: to we want you to assimilate into American cultures. So
18:45
Speaker 1: we'll do this. So I understand that five there, but
18:48
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you looking at the numbers, if you've
18:52
Speaker 1: ever contemplated, well maybe we should or I don't know.
18:56
Speaker 3: It is an ongoing conversation. And let me let me clarify. Yes,
19:02
Speaker 3: we do publish in English, and last year we started
19:04
Speaker 3: Sahan and Espaniels and then you can imagine what that is, right,
19:08
Speaker 3: and so we do have translations in Hispanic, and we
19:12
Speaker 3: chose Hispanic because they are the largest immigrant population within Minnesota.
19:17
Speaker 2: It is okay, it is, I mean, Somali is very
19:21
Speaker 2: close to second.
19:22
Speaker 1: But but this is state wide versus city. If you
19:26
Speaker 1: just did this in Minneapolis proper, would it be Somali
19:28
Speaker 1: over Latino.
19:29
Speaker 2: Yeah?
19:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, the numbers I mentioned was statewide. Yeah yeah, absolutely right,
19:33
Speaker 3: yeah yeah. And so here I'm not going to throw
19:38
Speaker 3: anyone under the bus here, but I got to tell
19:40
Speaker 3: you the founder and our editor in chief, they are
19:43
Speaker 3: really picky if they feel like they cannot get the
19:46
Speaker 3: translation right. They were not going to do it at
19:48
Speaker 3: all because they felt like it would insult that population,
19:51
Speaker 3: that community.
19:52
Speaker 1: That is also true, and they're looking forward to how
19:55
Speaker 1: Ai blows this exactly.
19:57
Speaker 3: So and if you if you want to think about
20:00
Speaker 3: AI explosion and technology. This we're talking about the last
20:02
Speaker 3: twelve months. But before I, when I came on board,
20:05
Speaker 3: it was that was what I heard, like, we can't
20:07
Speaker 3: do if we can't do this right, which means actually
20:10
Speaker 3: have actually having a human translator translated from a cultural
20:15
Speaker 3: context chunk. Don't forget, I'm not talking about word usage here,
20:18
Speaker 3: but it's a word for a word.
20:20
Speaker 1: It's crazy. No, no, no, no, that's always much much
20:24
Speaker 1: harder to connect.
20:25
Speaker 2: Exactly.
20:26
Speaker 3: So our our editor in chief was man and and
20:29
Speaker 3: founders Somali. They were like, Nope, not going to do it,
20:32
Speaker 3: not going to do it, because it's it's too expensive
20:35
Speaker 3: to have a human translator.
20:36
Speaker 2: Right now. I've always wondered when I came on board,
20:41
Speaker 2: you know.
20:42
Speaker 3: And now he's two things that we've that I've I've
20:46
Speaker 3: seen a we've seen a lot of articles where it's
20:50
Speaker 3: published in English and then the comment section is in
20:53
Speaker 3: the native town like someone's yep.
20:56
Speaker 1: Because it's as server posted on our somewhere.
20:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
21:00
Speaker 3: And so the the the assumption that we're pulling is
21:04
Speaker 3: that people are just reading it, but then they're communicating
21:06
Speaker 3: to the community about the content in their own language.
21:10
Speaker 1: Right, So that's perfectly normal. Yeah, perfectly normal.
21:12
Speaker 3: And I've seen that in my own life. But then
21:17
Speaker 3: now I'm seeing now news from like, huh, that's interesting.
21:23
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22:54
Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. We've all experienced this.
23:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly, and that's probably the second generation immigrant
23:06
Speaker 3: population that we're referring to. And now the third thing
23:08
Speaker 3: is this AI thing. It is ridiculous how you can
23:11
Speaker 3: press a button here and people, there's two options. We
23:16
Speaker 3: can provide the button to be pressed so that the
23:18
Speaker 3: language is translated, but you could also just click on
23:22
Speaker 3: a page and google whoever it is your your provider
23:26
Speaker 3: is going to say translated yourself. Right, So we are
23:29
Speaker 3: at a crossroads right now. My one of my team member,
23:33
Speaker 3: my growth person, brought this idea to me and say, hey,
23:35
Speaker 3: do you just want to have three buttons up there, English, Somali,
23:39
Speaker 3: mong up the top and so people can just click
23:41
Speaker 3: And I would say, at this point we could explore it.
23:46
Speaker 3: It's a slightly lower list I have my my it's
23:50
Speaker 3: a it's a lower lift and what it was twelve
23:52
Speaker 3: months ago, that's for sure, right. And my curiosity around
23:56
Speaker 3: audience growth is not necessarily around language, but it's around
24:02
Speaker 3: the needs, the information needs of a particular generation. So
24:08
Speaker 3: I hope that answers your question, because it wasn't curiosity
24:11
Speaker 3: that excid that I was curious.
24:13
Speaker 2: I was thinking about, Well.
24:14
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where you know, newsrooms make
24:18
Speaker 1: the mistakes sometimes where they think, we know we have
24:21
Speaker 1: to do this, let's not use an outside tool, let's
24:24
Speaker 1: not assume, and sometimes your own readers will do it.
24:27
Speaker 1: So go ahead and embrace what their tools may be,
24:30
Speaker 1: and then you just offer them all right. You know,
24:33
Speaker 1: it's almost like you let your readers some of you
24:36
Speaker 1: want to translate this, how do you want it done?
24:39
Speaker 1: You know, do you have a favorite. Most people might
24:40
Speaker 1: have their own way. You know what, I use my
24:42
Speaker 1: own translator. I don't need you. Maybe you guys can
24:45
Speaker 1: come up with a better one. But you're reinventing the
24:47
Speaker 1: wheel here, and you know what, it turns out none
24:50
Speaker 1: of us have the resources to reinvent wheels. In the
24:52
Speaker 1: local news space, We've got to save every dollar that's
24:55
Speaker 1: possible here. So you know where you can share a resource? Well, great, Hey,
25:00
Speaker 1: here's Google. Here's the button for Google Translate. Here's the
25:03
Speaker 1: button for Apple's version. Here's the button for open Ais
25:06
Speaker 1: and Clauds or whatever. Right, and I buy that. Let's
25:09
Speaker 1: talk about your business model. Yeah, do you imagine that
25:12
Speaker 1: you're always going to be a nonprofit or do you
25:14
Speaker 1: see the do you see a vision here? Because you know,
25:18
Speaker 1: being when you're serving an underserved community, your opportunity to
25:23
Speaker 1: have a classified ad system, I think is probably higher
25:27
Speaker 1: than a more general news local news outlet. The opportunity
25:32
Speaker 1: that you have specific businesses that want to target, you know,
25:36
Speaker 1: your community that you're serving because they provide services that
25:41
Speaker 1: over index with immigrant populations. Right, So I imagine there
25:46
Speaker 1: is some interesting business opportunities that you have. What's working?
25:52
Speaker 1: What do you think is underutilized that you're hoping to
25:55
Speaker 1: experiment with, and do you think this can move from
25:58
Speaker 1: nonprofit to for profuit?
26:04
Speaker 3: You know, I as part of my homework, I did
26:07
Speaker 3: hear the interview that you did with John and there
26:11
Speaker 3: was a line that he said that I think resonates
26:13
Speaker 3: with a lot of people. The nonprofit for profit that's
26:16
Speaker 3: essentially a tax status right at the end of the day.
26:20
Speaker 2: Yep.
26:20
Speaker 3: And the key here is sustainability. That's all what we
26:23
Speaker 3: that's all we want. We want to have enough money.
26:25
Speaker 1: Whatever the whatever, the your whatever your tax is, are
26:30
Speaker 1: you sustainable or unsustainable?
26:32
Speaker 2: Exactly?
26:33
Speaker 3: I think one big difference is if you are a
26:34
Speaker 3: nonprofit and you have a banner year, you are reinvesting
26:37
Speaker 3: those dollars into the community and into the work as
26:40
Speaker 3: opposed to going to a shareholder or whatnot. Right, So
26:45
Speaker 3: the goal here is so let me try to talk
26:47
Speaker 3: about it from a sustainability perspective.
26:49
Speaker 1: Chuck, that's a great way, perfect, perfect is that?
26:51
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah?
26:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we move the for profit, so be it that.
26:56
Speaker 3: I'm guessing I'm going to have to pay lawyers a
26:58
Speaker 3: bunch of money to make that happen. But this is
27:00
Speaker 3: what we really want.
27:01
Speaker 2: So he's either way.
27:03
Speaker 1: Lawyers, either way, because you gotta pay a smart account
27:08
Speaker 1: and a lawyer and the not for profit and nonprofit
27:10
Speaker 1: all of it, right, like, no matter what. So that's
27:12
Speaker 1: why everybody tells tells their kids a go to law
27:14
Speaker 1: school because there's always a job.
27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, Yeah.
27:18
Speaker 3: So let me talk about sustainability here and you I'm
27:22
Speaker 3: not I'm sure you are familiar with this, but let
27:25
Speaker 3: me share out this story for your audience if they're
27:28
Speaker 3: not so familiar, but local for a nonprofit entity, it's
27:33
Speaker 3: usually the national funders who come in to catalyze a
27:37
Speaker 3: news room, right, and so they see a need, right,
27:39
Speaker 3: hey in Minnesota, great news ecosystem, but man, that's the
27:43
Speaker 3: huge segment of the population that's been neglected.
27:45
Speaker 2: Boom, let's invest in sahanj you know, Okay.
27:48
Speaker 3: And then from a national foundation perspective, they like that,
27:52
Speaker 3: you know, they they catalyze they whatever you want to
27:55
Speaker 3: call it, the shiny object kind of thing. But eventually
27:59
Speaker 3: they belief and I agree with them that the work
28:02
Speaker 3: needs to be sustained from a from the local foundation perspective,
28:06
Speaker 3: from the local readers perspective, and whatnot, right and that's
28:09
Speaker 3: the journey where Sahana is in this midpoint. We still
28:12
Speaker 3: have national funders, but the conversation is that, hey, we
28:16
Speaker 3: need a little bit more time. But we are slowly
28:18
Speaker 3: moving into local foundations, in local readers. Right if eventually
28:25
Speaker 3: we end up becoming like a public like the NPR model,
28:28
Speaker 3: where I think you're I don't know what's the number,
28:30
Speaker 3: but anywhere between sixty to seventy percent funded by your audience, right,
28:36
Speaker 3: and then the remaining to other maybe it's foundations, a
28:41
Speaker 3: couple of foundations here there, but other business ventures. I
28:44
Speaker 3: think that is where we need to be, whether we
28:47
Speaker 3: are for profit.
28:48
Speaker 2: So for profit is going to be like a paywall system.
28:51
Speaker 3: I guess if you want to call it but nonprofit
28:53
Speaker 3: then people are paying twenty bucks a month. They pay
28:56
Speaker 3: twenty bucks for Netflix. Now they're paying some twenty dollars
28:59
Speaker 3: a month. And that's the key piece here because when
29:01
Speaker 3: we have a lot of majority, if our revenue comes
29:04
Speaker 3: from individual donors, then we are not beholden to some
29:10
Speaker 3: of this.
29:11
Speaker 2: I mean, it does happen. We are not beholden to
29:13
Speaker 2: lunch lunch. You know, big.
29:16
Speaker 3: Donors and and and and and and big onus, right, the.
29:21
Speaker 1: Right you don't want to have, right, No, I know,
29:23
Speaker 1: I know what you mean, meaning like you're you're you
29:25
Speaker 1: either have shareholders. That's one thing and they demand and
29:29
Speaker 1: it really is look they they demand. It's a judiciary
29:33
Speaker 1: responsibility that that word means something for a reason. Right,
29:36
Speaker 1: It is about maximizing your profits hard stocks, actly right.
29:40
Speaker 1: There is not a there is not a character test
29:43
Speaker 1: on that, right, it is just maximizing profits an individual.
29:46
Speaker 1: I always say, you know, you can have a benevolent
29:49
Speaker 1: billionaire or a malevolent billionaire, or you could have a
29:52
Speaker 1: billionaire who's both malevola some years and benevolent other exactly right, exactly,
29:56
Speaker 1: and relying on the whim of one. That means you're
30:00
Speaker 1: always going to be defined by that one, for better
30:03
Speaker 1: or for worse. I mean, you know, look at the
30:05
Speaker 1: Washington Post, They're being defined by their individual owner. I
30:08
Speaker 1: never thought the Washington Post would ever put itself in
30:10
Speaker 1: that situation, right, it was like, you know, most people
30:13
Speaker 1: can't tell you the name of who owns the New
30:15
Speaker 1: York Times. That should be how the Washington Post works,
30:19
Speaker 1: even the Wall Street Journal. I think a lot of
30:21
Speaker 1: people don't fully a lot of you know, I'm guessing
30:25
Speaker 1: if you're in the business, you know who owns it.
30:27
Speaker 1: But I bet you it isn't easily known, right, because
30:30
Speaker 1: the murdocks are so afraid of the Wall Steret Journal
30:34
Speaker 1: losing its prestige, they kind.
30:36
Speaker 2: Of back off, back off.
30:38
Speaker 1: They don't want it. They don't want to be the
30:41
Speaker 1: defining image and brand of that. So I totally understand
30:45
Speaker 1: what I'm curious about, because this is what happened to
30:48
Speaker 1: the successful black press news organizations of the thirties, forties,
30:53
Speaker 1: and fifties in sixties, where it was incredibly necessary until
30:58
Speaker 1: mainstream media finally acknowledge the existence of these communities. Then
31:03
Speaker 1: over time, the resources of those large news organizations suddenly
31:08
Speaker 1: finally covering Black America made it harder for the black
31:14
Speaker 1: press to to you know, survive in that in that instance,
31:18
Speaker 1: I mean, look, this would be a good problem for
31:20
Speaker 1: your communities to have Suddenly the start tribune had the
31:24
Speaker 1: resources to cover it all. Is that something or do
31:27
Speaker 1: you think we're you know, we're in it. This is
31:30
Speaker 1: a generational shift in how the information ecosystem on a
31:34
Speaker 1: local level is going to work.
31:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you work I came from a
31:40
Speaker 3: nonprofit background before this right, And if at the end
31:44
Speaker 3: of the day your job is to kind of work
31:46
Speaker 3: yourself out of the job at the end of the day,
31:48
Speaker 3: that means, like some point.
31:49
Speaker 1: If you're doing it well, if you're using nonprofit, well,
31:52
Speaker 1: that's exactly right, that whatever you're doing, you should eventually
31:56
Speaker 1: not have to be doing that because exactly your investment
31:59
Speaker 1: was so smart and targeted that it got it thrives.
32:04
Speaker 2: On its own exactly. So. But let me go back
32:07
Speaker 2: to what you were saying. Here's so, here's my theory.
32:09
Speaker 2: I do think.
32:12
Speaker 3: Fundamentally we do need to be reader funded by a readers,
32:16
Speaker 3: like a big portion, more than fifty percent, sixty maybe
32:19
Speaker 3: even seventy percent. And I don't know what the exact
32:21
Speaker 3: number is, and and that's something that we have to
32:24
Speaker 3: work it through. I have also I also have a theory. Again,
32:31
Speaker 3: I'm saying this again because I'm not a journalist, so
32:33
Speaker 3: I might be saying things that might make me look
32:38
Speaker 3: dumb or whatnot. But I I'm not convinced. I'm not
32:43
Speaker 3: convinced that audience size is our is it panacea? That's
32:52
Speaker 3: the word panacee. Yeah, we do. We need to do
32:57
Speaker 3: a good job. We need to have a sizeable audio.
33:00
Speaker 3: It's not just from an impact perspective, right you guys
33:03
Speaker 3: talk about here, you write the best article in the.
33:04
Speaker 2: One than five people read it? Who cares? Right?
33:07
Speaker 3: Right? So okay, So if it's not five, how about
33:09
Speaker 3: five thousand volient? How about fifty thousand? What maybe is
33:12
Speaker 3: half a million dollars but half a million. But here's
33:14
Speaker 3: the thing, Chuck. If our reader right now, if our
33:18
Speaker 3: readers we have let's say about two hundred thousand a month,
33:20
Speaker 3: it goes up to three hundred thousand a month or
33:22
Speaker 3: four hundred thousand a month, does that mean our revenue
33:25
Speaker 3: says double? No, it's not right. I don't think so,
33:28
Speaker 3: because it's not. It's not a one for one thing,
33:31
Speaker 3: right we. Part of it feels that we talk about
33:34
Speaker 3: readers size because it's still tied to the old way.
33:37
Speaker 2: Of making money, which was advertising. Right. And the way
33:40
Speaker 2: I look.
33:41
Speaker 3: At audience size is that it is important for legitimacy,
33:44
Speaker 3: It is important for impact. Even if ten people read that,
33:48
Speaker 3: and those ten people happened to be state legislatures.
33:51
Speaker 2: Good for good for saha. Oh absolutely right.
33:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, my NBAC, I can tell you the business
33:56
Speaker 1: model for CNBC is not ratings they've never had. There's
33:59
Speaker 1: not a lot of people that watch the stocks every day.
34:02
Speaker 1: But you know it's the NBC cells. They have CEOs
34:04
Speaker 1: who keep their TV on, So it's the it's they're
34:07
Speaker 1: selling who's watching, They're not selling how many are watching.
34:12
Speaker 1: And what you're saying is the quality of your reader
34:15
Speaker 1: is as important to yours.
34:16
Speaker 3: As important exactly, and so yes, we you know, is
34:20
Speaker 3: that what the girl audience? Yes, I think if we
34:23
Speaker 3: have time to talk about in the future, we'll talk
34:25
Speaker 3: about where we want to grow next.
34:27
Speaker 2: But I I.
34:29
Speaker 3: We we do need an excizeable audience, but we need
34:31
Speaker 3: to leverage that audience.
34:33
Speaker 2: How do I say.
34:36
Speaker 3: The understanding of what SAHAN means the brand right, and
34:40
Speaker 3: how can we make money from that? We've talked about.
34:42
Speaker 3: I mean you've already seen events. They've talked about creating events, right.
34:46
Speaker 2: John fest like that.
34:48
Speaker 1: I mean I could see all sorts of that, you know,
34:51
Speaker 1: a quarterly festival of some sort of cultural might be news,
34:54
Speaker 1: might be you know whatever, right exactly.
34:58
Speaker 3: You know I've talked to out. I think the future
35:02
Speaker 3: generation people are yearning for a sense of community and
35:05
Speaker 3: what can SAHAN do to create that sense of community? Right,
35:09
Speaker 3: and when they have this thing from us, I'm sure
35:12
Speaker 3: they will continue to support Sahan. So I don't have
35:16
Speaker 3: a full answer yet, but I've told this to my
35:18
Speaker 3: team before. It's become a broken record to the point
35:20
Speaker 3: where I actually need to do it. But if I
35:21
Speaker 3: find out that, hey, a laundromat that has a net
35:24
Speaker 3: profit margin of thirty percent, maybe Sahan should just own
35:28
Speaker 3: laundromets and turn the profit margins to fund for newsroom.
35:32
Speaker 3: Because I don't care as long as it's clean, legit money, obviously,
35:36
Speaker 3: but at the end of the day, if we can
35:38
Speaker 3: transfer some of our net earnings from one unrelated business
35:41
Speaker 3: model to support our newsroom, that's a win for me.
35:45
Speaker 2: You know. I find it so unfortunate that.
35:47
Speaker 1: But that's exactly how media has always been funded. You know.
35:50
Speaker 1: It's interesting take. You know, I sort of joke that
35:53
Speaker 1: a man named Craig decided classified how to be free, YadA, YadA, YadA,
35:57
Speaker 1: we destroyed the entire local news ecosystem, right, Well, it
36:01
Speaker 1: turned out for a lot of news organizations, you know,
36:05
Speaker 1: and this was true of some newspaper publishers. They believe
36:08
Speaker 1: they were running an advertising business and whatever space they
36:12
Speaker 1: couldn't fill an ad they had to have a news article,
36:17
Speaker 1: you know, And and I think that that is how
36:20
Speaker 1: some news publishers felt it was simply a vehicle for
36:23
Speaker 1: advertisement and and you know, and so you know, there
36:28
Speaker 1: is that there there there is that line there that
36:30
Speaker 1: I that I think is that that there was probably
36:33
Speaker 1: some truth to that. But you're not wrong. It's like whatever,
36:37
Speaker 1: you know, you may stumble on, like I've got this
36:40
Speaker 1: theory that there's a lot of money to be made
36:42
Speaker 1: in youth.
36:43
Speaker 2: Sports exactly yep, and that youth.
36:46
Speaker 1: Sports can be a way to become the new classified
36:50
Speaker 1: advertising for local journalism. So youth sports is something that
36:54
Speaker 1: families of all shapes and sizes care about. Everybody is
36:58
Speaker 1: you know what, and there's always a there's we have
37:00
Speaker 1: our kids participating in It is a glue for a community.
37:04
Speaker 1: It they are always you know, it is very niche.
37:07
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's also something everybody has
37:09
Speaker 1: in common. No matter how wealthy you are or how
37:11
Speaker 1: poor you are, you may have a kid who's playing
37:13
Speaker 1: in participating in youth sports. So you may stumble upon
37:19
Speaker 1: a way to showcase youth sports games that make a
37:23
Speaker 1: ton of money that finances the journalism so I totally
37:26
Speaker 1: see where you're going.
37:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thank you for you know, Amazon was not
37:31
Speaker 3: really profitable until they stumbled on I'm not going to
37:34
Speaker 3: use stumble because the person will be insulted, but Amazon
37:37
Speaker 3: Web Service isn't this right finally to quantify.
37:40
Speaker 1: That they're the profit engine, And that's right. I don't
37:42
Speaker 1: know exactly, I don't know if Amazon has ever made
37:45
Speaker 1: money as a retail outlet. It acquired audience, right, it
37:49
Speaker 1: was a loss leader, and you know they just wanted
37:52
Speaker 1: it quickly. I mean, look at how they've suckered us
37:54
Speaker 1: all in on streaming services. Right. It turns out we
37:58
Speaker 1: all got addicted at three and four dollars a month, Like, okay, great,
38:01
Speaker 1: now it's nineteen ninety nine a month. Whoa, whoa? What
38:04
Speaker 1: am I all of a sudden, I'm spaying what up
38:06
Speaker 1: out of the cable bundle? Right, Like, we're all going,
38:07
Speaker 1: exactly where did that go?
38:10
Speaker 2: So?
38:10
Speaker 3: I think that's where we're that's that's where we're looking,
38:12
Speaker 3: that's the that's the moment we're looking for. Like, so
38:14
Speaker 3: I found this is one of my surprising things. And
38:19
Speaker 3: you are probably going to say, yeah, what if you
38:21
Speaker 3: didn't know that? But newsrooms can be conservative at times
38:24
Speaker 3: in terms of what they're willing to try out from
38:25
Speaker 3: a business model perspective. I'm fortunate that I'm not that
38:31
Speaker 3: in that space. You know, I work with I'm in
38:34
Speaker 3: a coalition with other newsrooms, like like newsrooms documented in
38:39
Speaker 3: New York, el Tim Bunnel in the Bay Area and
38:43
Speaker 3: then connect to Arizona, and we are working. You know,
38:46
Speaker 3: it's funded by Press Forward Press Forward Foundation. Yeap, you're
38:51
Speaker 3: familiar with that, and we are trying to identify new revenue,
38:55
Speaker 3: new revenue streams for not just newsrooms, but in the
38:57
Speaker 3: immigrants serving newsrooms, and so we are you know, we're
39:01
Speaker 3: piloting a few things with testing thing mouth, but the
39:04
Speaker 3: spirit of being an immigrant and where you're not tied
39:07
Speaker 3: to sit in traditional legacy media practices allows us to
39:11
Speaker 3: push things out in the boundaries. And hey, if we
39:13
Speaker 3: have some good news to share, I love to be
39:15
Speaker 3: coming back to your show with my colleagues to talk
39:17
Speaker 3: about how we are making money to support the work.
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41:14
Speaker 1: So have you networked with other immigrant focused news organizations
41:19
Speaker 1: around the country, and if so, tell me about that network.
41:21
Speaker 1: How how much of you how how much of it
41:25
Speaker 1: is it? How loose is it or how specific does it?
41:28
Speaker 2: Get? Sure?
41:30
Speaker 3: Yes, So on my first day, on my first week,
41:34
Speaker 3: I even before going to the office, I met with
41:38
Speaker 3: this this group. So we call ourselves in I n
41:42
Speaker 3: C Immigrant Newsroom Coalition. Right now, it's just it's it's document.
41:47
Speaker 3: Like I'm going to say it, names again, documented in
41:49
Speaker 3: New York, SAHAN in Minneapolis, out Timpano in the Bay Area,
41:53
Speaker 3: and connect to Arizona. Each of us have very different,
41:57
Speaker 3: you know, slightly different for sure, different audiences, different business models. Uh.
42:02
Speaker 3: And they've just taken me on board to just not
42:05
Speaker 3: just to educate me about the industry, to welcome me,
42:09
Speaker 3: to tell me, hey, yeah, this is how it is
42:12
Speaker 3: in the in in the space that we're operating in.
42:14
Speaker 3: And and we we meet weekly. This is a very
42:19
Speaker 3: dedicated group of leaders and news rooms.
42:22
Speaker 1: Very so this is national. You do like a weekly
42:24
Speaker 1: zoom or something.
42:25
Speaker 2: We do a weekly zoom.
42:26
Speaker 3: We we meet quarterly for a retreat to strategize, and
42:31
Speaker 3: you know, we we have a few we're.
42:33
Speaker 2: Working through a few things.
42:34
Speaker 3: I mentioned a little bit about our revenue, the different
42:37
Speaker 3: pilots we're testing out to bring in new revenue streams.
42:41
Speaker 3: But we feel but one of the and we're working
42:44
Speaker 3: through a few initiatives right now. I think one big
42:47
Speaker 3: part is to continue to to to impress upon important
42:51
Speaker 3: stakeholders like you know, Chuck, you you got you get
42:54
Speaker 3: the message, and you got the message pretty loud and
42:56
Speaker 3: clear early on in your life. And the same fact
42:59
Speaker 3: is not everyone is in that space, you know, And
43:02
Speaker 3: so we do feel like we do need to champion
43:05
Speaker 3: we do need to champion the needs of immigrant serving newsrooms.
43:09
Speaker 3: You know, we have some really good newsrooms out there
43:11
Speaker 3: around the country that that's still.
43:14
Speaker 1: Something about them. Tell me a couple of partners that
43:16
Speaker 1: you think people ought to be aware of that you
43:19
Speaker 1: look to as where you've learned something, you've taken something.
43:23
Speaker 1: Obviously you guys share best practices. So yeah, i'd love
43:26
Speaker 1: I'd love a couple of shout outs.
43:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, sure, let me So I'm going to use God,
43:33
Speaker 3: you're putting me in a spot where I feel like
43:35
Speaker 3: I'm picking favorites here, then I'm.
43:37
Speaker 1: Going to get on exactly.
43:41
Speaker 3: So one of my favorite So, I think one one
43:45
Speaker 3: key thing that that is in common with all immigrant
43:48
Speaker 3: serving news rooms that I've observed is the lack of
43:52
Speaker 3: adherence to certain practices that traditional media tends to follow.
43:56
Speaker 3: And so I would one of my favorite stories is
43:59
Speaker 3: from Connector a Reason, So the founders Marizza Felix and
44:03
Speaker 3: I'm going to butcher her origin story, but it's pretty
44:05
Speaker 3: cool for what it's worth. During COVID pandemic, you know,
44:09
Speaker 3: her mom who lives on the other side of the
44:11
Speaker 3: border with she would be on the phone with her
44:13
Speaker 3: mother talking about COVID precautionary stuff and all this stuff,
44:16
Speaker 3: and her mom was receiving incorrect information, and so she
44:20
Speaker 3: would spend a lot of time just speaking to her
44:22
Speaker 3: mother over the phone. She said, And Mariita is a
44:26
Speaker 3: journalist herself, and that phone call became in my mind,
44:33
Speaker 3: it became like an audio newsletter because right now she does.
44:38
Speaker 3: If you go to journal dot com, you're going to
44:41
Speaker 3: see something that looks like a traditional website, and Mariza's
44:45
Speaker 3: connected result does not have that because her primary content
44:49
Speaker 3: is still through WhatsApp channels. Right, So someone could say
44:52
Speaker 3: I have five hundred newsletter subscribers, she will say I
44:56
Speaker 3: have five hundred. I don't know what terminology she uses,
44:58
Speaker 3: like WhatsApp subscribers, right.
45:01
Speaker 1: But I'm so glad you brought up WhatsApp in general,
45:03
Speaker 1: because I don't think people realize how global and how
45:07
Speaker 1: it's such an important lifeline to so many immigrant communities
45:10
Speaker 1: in America because it's global exactly.
45:13
Speaker 2: So I.
45:16
Speaker 3: Can'd of remember when but I was walking past her,
45:19
Speaker 3: she was just filming a WhatsApp, she was reading a script,
45:22
Speaker 3: she was basically reading her content, and she said she
45:24
Speaker 3: was going to send push to all of her subscribers, right, So.
45:30
Speaker 2: Isn't that I mean, that's.
45:31
Speaker 3: Really cool, Chuck how many legacy news rooms would say
45:35
Speaker 3: they would do that to connect primarily with the audience,
45:38
Speaker 3: because there is a deep understanding that my audience are
45:42
Speaker 3: auditory audience as opposed to they would prefer things over right.
45:46
Speaker 1: So I think this is what you know. It's funny
45:48
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of media, and one
45:50
Speaker 1: of the things I like to remind people is that, like, actually,
45:54
Speaker 1: disruption is a feature, not about meaning. It starts with
45:58
Speaker 1: when we figured out how to reproduce photographs, then people
46:01
Speaker 1: launched a bunch of magazines because we could now reprint photographs.
46:04
Speaker 1: When we figured out how to transmit audio, we had
46:06
Speaker 1: radio stations everywhere. When we figured out how to do
46:11
Speaker 1: moving pictures, then we got television right like, and so
46:15
Speaker 1: what we're in now is this fragmenting stage and the
46:18
Speaker 1: specialization stage where there is no barrier to entry to
46:23
Speaker 1: create news and information anymore. There's no you know, look
46:27
Speaker 1: at the organization. I used to work at NBC. We
46:30
Speaker 1: used to have a feature called where in the world
46:33
Speaker 1: is you know, filling the anchor blanks? You know that name,
46:36
Speaker 1: because we're going to go live from the Gobi Desert.
46:40
Speaker 1: We're going to go live from Antarctica, and it was
46:43
Speaker 1: such a marvel ten fifteen years ago that we could
46:46
Speaker 1: take you lot. Anybody can go live from Antarctica. You've
46:50
Speaker 1: got to get there, okay, But you could have an
46:53
Speaker 1: ant correspondent today. You could find somebody that lives there
46:58
Speaker 1: and they could real time transmit information back and forth.
47:01
Speaker 1: The point being is, I think the future of news
47:06
Speaker 1: delivery is going to be personal. It is going to
47:09
Speaker 1: come through trusted curators. The person that conveys the information
47:13
Speaker 1: maybe part of a larger network that aggregates information collectively. Right,
47:18
Speaker 1: we may all work in some of these same newsrooms together.
47:21
Speaker 1: We may bundle like I could see, you know, I
47:24
Speaker 1: bet you in the future, I'm gonna, hey, I want
47:26
Speaker 1: I want to subscribe to all Minnesota publications for one
47:30
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month and I'll get a bundled fee
47:33
Speaker 1: or I want you know, you know, and everybody will
47:35
Speaker 1: get a piece of that, and maybe that's how I'll
47:38
Speaker 1: roll there. But I just think we're going to the
47:42
Speaker 1: way people come into a news organization is going to
47:44
Speaker 1: be personal, not based on a brand, but based on
47:47
Speaker 1: an individual. I just think that, and you just described
47:51
Speaker 1: the individual way that suddenly half a million people showed up.
47:55
Speaker 2: In exactly Yep.
47:56
Speaker 3: It's one individual way and that's just it's with WhatsApp, right,
48:01
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of information that's been shared over SMS.
48:05
Speaker 3: Now Sahans started from it and it's still predominantly like
48:08
Speaker 3: a very traditional outlet right now. We do really good
48:12
Speaker 3: work with social media, with TikTok and with our video content,
48:15
Speaker 3: and that's why we over index with not just immigrant population,
48:18
Speaker 3: but young immigrant population, something that I'm really proud of.
48:23
Speaker 2: But the.
48:25
Speaker 3: I think what I said earlier, what was it? The
48:27
Speaker 3: lack of adherence to legacy practices binds us together not
48:32
Speaker 3: just from a content creation, content distribution, but also from
48:36
Speaker 3: a revenue generation perspective. So we are willing to take
48:40
Speaker 3: a risk. We take a risk coming to this country.
48:43
Speaker 3: We believe in the ideals supports in this country. We're
48:45
Speaker 3: willing to take a risk, and it shows up in
48:47
Speaker 3: the way we run our organizations.
48:51
Speaker 1: Well, look, I anyway, it's very exciting. I think these possibilities.
48:58
Speaker 1: Let me ask this, what kind of of are you
49:02
Speaker 1: syndicating your work yet? Meaning you know it's the Star
49:05
Speaker 1: Tribute said, you know what, we want to improve our
49:08
Speaker 1: coverage and it may be I'm curious if you would
49:11
Speaker 1: do this or would you see this is too close,
49:13
Speaker 1: too competitive?
49:14
Speaker 3: No, no, we actually do that already. So we have
49:19
Speaker 3: you know, I walked into a Kumba.
49:21
Speaker 2: Kumbay.
49:22
Speaker 3: Kumbay is what I'm learning here and Kumbaya, I got
49:27
Speaker 3: you situation.
49:28
Speaker 2: Yep.
49:28
Speaker 3: So you know Sahan was incubated Minnesota.
49:31
Speaker 1: Nice. Please, it's Minnesota nice. You guys are all too cooperative, right.
49:37
Speaker 2: Hey, I that's some friendly competition.
49:40
Speaker 3: But you know, Sahan was incubated at Minnesota Public Radio,
49:44
Speaker 3: like Mukar had a desk in there. They they funded
49:48
Speaker 3: the first million dollars. They was far and so I
49:53
Speaker 3: think I look, first of all, I look about Sahan
49:55
Speaker 3: listening Minnesota Public Radio.
49:57
Speaker 2: So we do have content already collaborating. We are already
50:01
Speaker 2: collaborating the Start Tribune.
50:05
Speaker 3: I believe every Sunday chooses one article that we run,
50:10
Speaker 3: that we've published, and then they put it into their
50:13
Speaker 3: circulation and say this is an article. You know, they
50:16
Speaker 3: because they realize that of the value, our value the ecosystem,
50:21
Speaker 3: and we also realized that they have the reach that
50:24
Speaker 3: we don't. We will never get. Well, I wouldn't say
50:26
Speaker 3: we will never get because my team will slaughter be.
50:29
Speaker 3: We're not We're not there yet, right, yeah, So we
50:33
Speaker 3: are cooperating around along those lines. I'm really excited that
50:38
Speaker 3: we are also collaborating. We are finding stories that we
50:41
Speaker 3: can collaborate on, you know, because frankly, if you I'm
50:47
Speaker 3: sure you are aware of what happened in the first
50:48
Speaker 3: quarter of the year in Minneapolis.
50:52
Speaker 1: And this was a case where the story is so
50:54
Speaker 1: big it doesn't matter. You kind of needed each other
50:57
Speaker 1: as resources and.
50:58
Speaker 3: Exactly so we found some some we found some opportunities
51:03
Speaker 3: to collaborate editorially, and I'm extremely curious to see how
51:06
Speaker 3: that plays out.
51:08
Speaker 1: Let me close with this, you know, I'm I look
51:12
Speaker 1: at I look at local news into two ways, and
51:16
Speaker 1: I think the mistake, the reason national news never has
51:20
Speaker 1: the trust that local news has, I believe is simply
51:26
Speaker 1: national news is news. You you should know. It's it's
51:29
Speaker 1: civics class, okay. And I say that not as a
51:34
Speaker 1: way to knock it. It's what it should be at
51:36
Speaker 1: its best. It is because you know, but local news
51:40
Speaker 1: sometimes is civics and sometimes it's just very personal. It's
51:45
Speaker 1: service journalism, meaning it ain't the greatest, it ain't the
51:50
Speaker 1: sexiest story. Oh you know. But if you're helping your
51:53
Speaker 1: readers save money, save time, live their lives, you're just
52:00
Speaker 1: helping them live their life a little better.
52:02
Speaker 2: It does.
52:03
Speaker 1: It isn't always telling them who's corrupt. Sometimes it is
52:07
Speaker 1: letting them know where to find more affordable chicken, right
52:11
Speaker 1: like you know? And I used to say, the reason
52:13
Speaker 1: that the local newspaper has such a nostalgic field for
52:17
Speaker 1: some of us is because it was they had had
52:19
Speaker 1: something for everybody, right if the news junkie, the puzzle junkie,
52:23
Speaker 1: the sports junkie, the coupon clipper, the whatever you want
52:27
Speaker 1: to look, the person looking for a job. Right, there
52:28
Speaker 1: were there was a It was one entity that provided
52:32
Speaker 1: service to eight to ten different parts of the community.
52:37
Speaker 1: How would you describe at the Shan Journal? What are there's?
52:40
Speaker 1: There's there's the news that we'd all traditionally sense. What
52:44
Speaker 1: are type of this?
52:45
Speaker 2: What?
52:45
Speaker 1: What tell me your service oriented type of journalism? And
52:49
Speaker 1: how much culture? How much you know youth coverage, sports, food, entertainment?
52:56
Speaker 2: You know?
52:57
Speaker 1: Are you are you? I know those are luxury items
52:59
Speaker 1: as you row, right, it's a news organization. But where
53:02
Speaker 1: are you on that? And and what do your readers want.
53:04
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, ultimately you should be only providing what
53:07
Speaker 1: your readers actually correct, what.
53:09
Speaker 2: What would consume correct.
53:16
Speaker 3: We it's it's a let me trying to unpack this
53:20
Speaker 3: question a little bit here, but uh, we we do
53:26
Speaker 3: a really good job when it comes to hard hitting
53:29
Speaker 3: news that impact immigrants, and so we don't we will
53:32
Speaker 3: we will never run away from that.
53:33
Speaker 2: We will not stay away from it, right.
53:37
Speaker 3: We We also strongly believe that if it was if
53:41
Speaker 3: there was something that that that was hot to be
53:43
Speaker 3: covered from an from an immigrant community perspective, we are
53:46
Speaker 3: the best ones to do it because we we bring
53:49
Speaker 3: a lot of perspective that that that that.
53:51
Speaker 2: Matter to the reader.
53:52
Speaker 3: Now along the lines of like what you just said,
53:57
Speaker 3: it's also very my dog just walked in. Sorry, there
54:02
Speaker 3: are a lot of there are a lot of parts
54:04
Speaker 3: about being an immigrant that that needs to be celebrated,
54:08
Speaker 3: that needs to be looked at from a from a
54:11
Speaker 3: joyful perspective that oftentimes is missing in coverage. And that's
54:15
Speaker 3: a piece that we that we also seek to highlight
54:18
Speaker 3: because it shows the whole, the whole, the whole picture
54:22
Speaker 3: of what it means to be an immigrant within in Minnesota. Right,
54:25
Speaker 3: so yeah, we cover we cover you can cover your
54:28
Speaker 3: restaurant openings, but we cover the holidays that are being
54:31
Speaker 3: celebrated by these different communities.
54:33
Speaker 2: Right.
54:34
Speaker 3: We just did a beautiful story about Ramadan and also eat.
54:38
Speaker 3: I have so many I'm not going to share these stories,
54:41
Speaker 3: but I have so many. We have stories about the
54:44
Speaker 3: passing of a father from a Mong father, Monk farmer father,
54:48
Speaker 3: and how it was celebrated by the community that was
54:51
Speaker 3: you know, Mong, but also uh also white in the suburbs.
54:57
Speaker 3: So I we we don't. We don't cover sports, and
55:01
Speaker 3: that's that's okay, that's okay.
55:03
Speaker 1: But you will, I promise you at some point you might.
55:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a bit of art arts are being celebrated,
55:10
Speaker 3: but uh, and and and and and we feel like
55:13
Speaker 3: that's a good opportunity for the population to understand the
55:17
Speaker 3: immigrants space within.
55:18
Speaker 2: The art space. And so yeah, we we do.
55:21
Speaker 3: I call it the candy broccoli analogy. I think you
55:24
Speaker 3: guys used news that people need to have versus what
55:26
Speaker 3: they want. So it's the candy broccoli thing. And so
55:29
Speaker 3: that's a fair mix of that.
55:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
55:31
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, I I've enjoyed this conversation and I know
55:37
Speaker 1: everything I've heard about and and been reading about Sahan
55:40
Speaker 1: Journal has been I mean, you guys seem to be
55:42
Speaker 1: a bright a bright spot here and in these and
55:45
Speaker 1: this growing local entrepreneur space.
55:48
Speaker 2: And thank you, thank you so much.
55:49
Speaker 1: No, I think a lot of Like I said, the
55:52
Speaker 1: barrier entry has never been lower, but you know you
55:55
Speaker 1: still got to jump.
55:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, thank you.
55:58
Speaker 3: I I appreciate you highlight think the importance of local news.
56:01
Speaker 2: I completely agree with you.
56:03
Speaker 3: There's a very very strong there's some study that has
56:06
Speaker 3: shown that local news is also less divisive.
56:09
Speaker 2: Right.
56:09
Speaker 3: We tend to look at news outlets and there's always
56:12
Speaker 3: someone yelling at someone else, and you know, you say, oh,
56:15
Speaker 3: this restaurant opened, this treat me. That's less divisive, but
56:19
Speaker 3: it's helpful, right, And studies have shown when people in
56:22
Speaker 3: the act with the local news, they are most civically
56:24
Speaker 3: engaged and civic minded and stuff like that, and as.
56:27
Speaker 1: Well, and then there's the other stories that, uh, local news.
56:31
Speaker 1: Deserts pay more than taxes, so you know, you know,
56:35
Speaker 1: there's a there's a fiscal Uh, there's a there's a
56:39
Speaker 1: there's fiscal health for people's personal bank accounts at Staycare anyway, yes,
56:44
Speaker 1: uh but it was a.
56:45
Speaker 3: Pleasure, Oh pleasures all mind, Chuck, I if I had
56:49
Speaker 3: this day with you, so thank.
56:50
Speaker 1: Well, let's celebrate Local News Day and I imagine most
56:54
Speaker 1: people in Minneapolis are very very well read city and community,
56:59
Speaker 1: but hopefully those that aren't aware will be more aware
57:03
Speaker 1: of coming all night.
57:05
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thanks for all right starting h
57:10
Speaker 2: m hmmm mm hmm