Latest / Voices of the Albemarle / Ep. 3: The Evolution of the Newspaper Industry

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Ep. 3: The Evolution of the Newspaper Industry · Voices of the Albemarle

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the Voices of the Albemarle.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have two very special guests at my own special request.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today is December 12th when we're recording.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's my 25th birthday, so I have asked Happy birthday.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Two important men in my life to join us to talk about something quite prevalent in the last 25 years of my life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are joined by our editor-in-chief, Chris Day.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And my own father.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: My own father, a former employee of the Daily Advance, Robert Kelly Goss.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And with me as always is my co-host, our publisher, David Prizer.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Your wacky sidekick.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, my wacky sidekick.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for joining me today to talk about the evolution of the newspaper industry.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for flying me in.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yes.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is our first out-of-state guest, everyone.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're a big pub, big budget production, yeah.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so diving in, I just want to give our listeners some background.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I usually let our guests begin with the background, but since today is a special episode, I'm going to insert my own voice a little bit more than I usually do.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: My father Robert worked at the Daily Advance throughout the majority of my childhood, although that's probably not a surprise to a lot of our listeners because I don't ever shut up about it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think I tell everybody that I come across that my father's time with the newspaper is what sparked my interest in journalism and is a huge reason why I do what I do today.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I spent many hours in the old building on Water Street, which is now the senior center, watching the hustle and bustle of the newsroom.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then about a year ago, I got into contact with our now retired editor Julian, and he and Chris, whom I've known for 20 years, sort of guided me into the newsroom as a reporter myself.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So again, thank you for joining me.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was hoping we could start.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, we can start with you.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just give us a brief overview of what led your journey into the newspaper industry?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um all my life I've had interests that had been geared toward journalism, but I just didn't realize it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: Like, for instance, when I was in the Coast Guard, uh I was the ship's photographer, um, I put together our morale uh day events, I wrote the scripts for like our uh Black History Month.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I'd already I'd always had that, the the writing interest, even before then.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_05: But uh I didn't think I was gonna go into journalism until one weekend during the reserve I was it was on a it was uh after I'd gotten out of active and I was in the reserves, I was at a reserve drill with one of the friends of mine, he's retired Master Chief now down in Beaufort.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_05: He uh he and I were talking, he's an East Carolina fan, and we were talking about college sports.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'm a Clemson fan, so we were talking about ACC.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: And we were talking, and I said, you know, don't make me go back to school Monday and change my degree to journalism, become an ACC sports writer.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_05: And if there's ever the moment where, you know, the clouds parted and the trumpets blew, it was it was then, and uh it made sense.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Because in the past I'd been working toward like a career maybe for one of the alphabet agencies, federal agencies, you know, uh but it just seemed to make more sense that this was something I was more comfortable with with doing.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_05: And so I just followed it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_05: So I went back to school the next day, uh Monday at Tywater Community College and changed from Associate Science and Associate Arts, geared toward journalism, and then transferred to Virginia Wesle, and that's where I got my degree in uh communications with an emphasis in print journalism.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then my first newspaper was a small weekly in uh upstate South Carolina, where I was the was the sports editor.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_05: I left there and went to uh another newspaper in upstate South Carolina where I covered uh O'Coney nuclear power plant, Clemson University, uh the town of Seneca, police, crime.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_05: And then eventually Mike Goodman offered me the education reporter position here in March.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so I started here in March of March 14th.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, March 14th, 05.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_05: So I've been here since about mid-March, 05.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess technically I've known you 21 years.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was four years old.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I literally started up there uh February 28th, 2005.
• 4:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I know a little bit of your story.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: My mother has told me a little bit of how you got into journalism, but I would love if you called our readers.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, she was.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so it began.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So first of all, I went to design school in Los Angeles, and uh my goal was to be a uh graphic designer and illustrator.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: I had uh actually had a uh a friend of mine who was uh uh an illustrator for uh the Arkansas Democrat before it became the Democrat Gazette.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and I went and visited him in his workspace at the at the newspaper building.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this was back before computers were being employed, and he, you know, had the whole drawing board and he was doing you know all these uh marketing illustrations and and all of this.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just enamored.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what I was gonna do.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I did uh I had a couple of friends that were publishers, and uh uh one of them uh encouraged me to go to work for the other, and I became his designer and cartoonist.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we had a there was a national trade publication for the transportation industry, uh it came out every two weeks.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so I was doing uh page design, ad design, and uh uh and editorial cartooning uh for them.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh when uh your mother, uh Robin, and I uh got married, uh, she was accepted into graduate school in Columbia, Missouri.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a publication there, the Missouri Business Journal, absolutely gorgeous publication.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to be a designer for these guys because I just loved the look of the publication.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I kept going to the publisher and with my resume and my portfolio.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one day it was uh I'd been working um a job, uh, it was summer, it was hot, I'd been uh out uh side and I was sweaty and dirty, and I was mad because I was like, this guy needs to hire me.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I went in there and I went in and I talked to him and I said, Bob, I said, we've done this so many times.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I said, When are you gonna hire me?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And Bob's memory wasn't great.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, You're that reporter, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: I need a reporter right now.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I looked at him and I thought, because I by the way, it in the in the midst of this, I'd gone back to school at the University of Missouri and I was studying creative writing and philosophy and uh uh and religion.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I had like a three-tiered degree program, and uh um and I just lied to him and I said, Oh yeah, that's me, sure.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: No problem.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: Give me some work.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as it turned out, uh that was uh uh a great moment because uh the the assignment, uh, and nobody knew how big this was gonna be, was the very beginnings of the great flood of 1993.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, 500-year flood uh from St.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Louis all the way back uh to Jefferson City.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they sent me down to Jefferson City to report on the businesses that were uh underwater.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I was having to take boats out.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, wow, and you know, and I I mean, honestly, I I think I used every bit of uh skill I gained from the movies watching, you know, actors portray journalists out there, got out there.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: But here's what happened: I I wrote this article, and um it turns out, and I didn't know anything about this sort of thing back then, but uh uh uh Mid-Missouri Business Journal back then was the uh uh Division I publication competing uh with uh the likes of the Kansas City Star and the St.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Louis Post Dispatch.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh uh my my my work uh covering that uh uh I I got my first award uh right out the gate, which was uh third place in the uh Associated Press Managing Editors contest.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh beat out, I mean the top two papers in that category were Kansas City Star and St.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Louis Post of Dispatch, and then the third was us, beating out a lot of other big dailies.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, that motivated me.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I was uh I went to work for a weekly uh and uh became their everything reporter.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh then I would travel with your mother uh overseas, and I wrote for six months I wrote a uh travel column and uh every week.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that was fun because uh uh we still had to mail that kind of stuff in.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was I'd write a column, I'd sit, write it out, mail it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we got back, um we launched a newspaper in a resort community and uh sold that to a publisher uh a year later, and I became an editor of a paper in Colorado, and that's where you were born.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, 25 years ago today.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of the the the the uh the genesis and then we moved here eventually in in 2005.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, uh see we your older sister, you, and then uh your mother uh was pregnant with that's as it turned out with twins.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: So there were two to one ratio, children to parents, and we needed grandparents.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we moved out here, yeah.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I was there.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm sure I wasn't there as much as I remember, but I was in my mind there all the time.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting, I would sit at your desk on the floor, yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just watch, yeah, I would watch everybody like walk back and forth.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you would uh when you were smaller, you'd sit under my desk.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I would.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think I continued to do that until I was probably too big to do.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then when you're older, you'd pull up a chair and you'd hang out.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I loved it, but it was such a I feel like a unique viewpoint, you know, you're a a child.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, like growing up, the newspaper was different in a lot of ways than it is now.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I would love to hear, like, I would say what it was from a grown-up's perspective, uh during, I don't know, I guess what a lot of people would describe that as like the last great era of strictly print newspapers.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is like right when I was a child, right before the social media boom.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I would say that I would say that me, um, I got in just in time for the dawn of the decline of newspapers.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_05: Really.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nice job, Chris.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: I know, it's my fault.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but uh well it was uh let's re reframe that it was the dawn of a big change, a C change.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because at that point, you remember the conversation was about what are we gonna do with the internet.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, that's right.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean nobody knew.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and I mean, from the from the word go.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And you remember we had um, and I was telling Izzy this, um, of course, uh Facebook didn't really pick up uh uh en masse until around 2008.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And what we had at at the Daily Advance was a uh a chat board.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I remember we all had to monitor that.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was a task.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_05: Matter of fact, we didn't get a we didn't do our Facebook page probably to what, 2012, 2011?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_05: Somewhere in that neighborhood, yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_05: I mean we were late.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_05: As far as businesses, I would imagine.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what was uh the the the Mercury News in San Jose.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: They they were the first newspaper on AOL, I think, or something like that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's right.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh a friendly acquaintance of mine was uh he became editor of that paper later, and uh uh he uh but and they kind of uh walked it into uh the digital age.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I worked out there for a while, yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of time in the San Jose community building, but they talk a lot about that, yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think uh I mean I think we had uh with the chat board though, I mean, we we had a version of of what we have on social media today that was real interesting and and it could be constructive, but it was also very destructive, and we'd have to shut it down.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: By destructive.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because people would use the uh the chat board, they would abuse it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we had uh, for instance, we had one individual who had three accounts and would go on there under assumed names and uh very political individual and and just rail on people and horrible things.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I I mean, and I was telling Izzy, I don't mind saying this.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh Mike Goodman, uh, who was the former executive editor and then publisher, and I we actually had a sort of come to Jesus moment on for me because I mean I broke protocol um because this individual uh did some things to some people on our chat board that were horrible, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I exposed the individual.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, and I told Mike, I said, I'm I I am willing to uh die on this hill.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you have to fire me, then I accept it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: He did not, of course, but I mean, you know, it was really kind of and that was sort of the end of that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and uh, but and I know you know who I'm talking about, but that was sort of the end of it, and uh uh the chat board was taken down really right after that, and we didn't have social media presence for a couple of years.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, we made that decision when you were still here to turn off commenting on stories because oh that's right, because the comments would dealt would just border libel would yeah, not just that, but also kind of like turn into like a whole nother thread about something that had nothing to do with with the article.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_05: And so it was just too much to keep up with, and and the you know, the language and uh you know the questionable comments about people and uh I think after Bob border racism, if not racist.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we just had to so we made the decision just not to have that headache anymore and to avoid any uh uh confrontations or problems.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't it with uh so Bob Montgomery was uh he was sort of uh the assistant editor to uh under Julian, and then when he left, I think you took over that role, didn't you?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Or or you took over some some duties.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_05: Bob replaced me as assistant news editor when I when it took I got put in charge of design.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Was that what it was?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but then but yet at some point you had to be solely responsible for all that comment.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: That was a job.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: What a job.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's what I'm getting to.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: We still have to I still have to watch it on uh but you know Facebook page.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_05: On Facebook, but it's not it's not bad on Facebook now.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: No, you get, I mean, and when it is, somebody will will text me or or email me and say, look, man, go check out that comment and we'll take it down.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: If we agree.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I do feel like, you know, I I think that a lot of people understand there's a different social media etiquette now.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, today today they do.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, that's what I mean.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is is like there was like the with the chat boards, that's a chat board, but there's there's so much our uh our little um sound engineer Cole is shaking his head.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want that on note in the podcast.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's giggling in the corner.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why why is he giggling?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just because I feel like social media can be divisive, still.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure, of course.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I think that social media online online article publishing uh has affected the way that newspeople newspapers run and and are perceived.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And well, I I think that it's interesting because in and I know you and I on the way back from the airport uh last night were having this discussion and and and uh about sort of you know the the perspective of newspapers and you know from a reader standpoint.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, prior to social media, you know, uh so my my philosophy was uh as a reader, you I I'm asking you to trust me.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm asking you to trust that I'm telling you the truth, that I'm giving you all the facts, because I can and and I did, you know, I could verify them, whatever, you know, and so there was a relationship that kind of transmed into a uh a conversation, ongoing community conversation.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And what what took place was uh an exchange uh in in the streets, if you will.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you write an article and somebody say, uh, you know, I want to challenge you, or good job, or you know, I never thought of that, whatever.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there was a conversation.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And when social media came into play, um suddenly that conversation changed.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And there was somebody out there that apparently knew better than the person that was in the meeting, taking the notes, uh uh recording the documents, and they're calling you a communist, they're calling you all sorts of names, they're attempting to discredit you.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it didn't bother me, but but it it it hurt the I think the overall perception in the public of the media, uh print media, uh, and I want to of all print media, though, not just the daily advanced.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about all print media, but I want to pause and say this.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: When I talk about the media, I'm talking about print.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: And and of course we extend that into digital because I I I what I find is, and this kind of goes into the social media conversation too, somewhat, but what I find is when people criticize uh what we do, what when I listen to them, what I'm actually hearing is they're being critical of broadcast media.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and and I like to pause them and say, you know, are we talking about did you get that off the you know, off the cable news network?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's because most people, more people get news from broadcast methods than from broadcast and from social media.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my I feel like my generation, a lot of us will go to social media more often than not.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and that has pros and cons, you know.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I feel like when you look at my generation, we are kind of bringing bringing it back around a lot of us, not all of us, but to the point where we are are reading articles, we're just reading them online.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I and so am I.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm reading them online, but but I I think people uh it still have a misconception about the difference.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of my favorite quotes um back in the 90s was uh uh from Peter Jennings.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh for those who don't know who Peter Jennings was, he's deceased now, but he was the anchor for ABC News, and he was a very respected journalist.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and his quote was this he gave it to the uh a national press uh association um luncheon.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: But he said, uh if you want the headlines, come to me every 30 minutes uh for 30 minutes a day.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: He said, if you want to know the real story, go read a newspaper.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and and that still holds true.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean I read multiple newspapers every day, but that's the advanced see, this is my thing.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: And jump in there because you know I'll talk and you know this.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm talking to Chris for those who can't see our faces.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: But no, um, you know, I read multiple newspapers every day.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh my big thing uh is is is uh media literacy.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I want the consumer to know that there is a way to gather information through the media uh outlets uh and and and be informed.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can I stop you for there?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: What format are you using?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you literally using the paper?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm using their website.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: So the New York Times for big example.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll go on there.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: I have a subscription, I read that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: I read uh the UK Guardian.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I live in Colorado, so I I read the Denver Post.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: I read the Daily Advance, although I don't have a subscription if it's over if the article's open.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um I know, I didn't do it, but but I'm out of state guys.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: But uh you got work to do, young lady.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, apparently.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: I keep up.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I well, I mean, I was contributing articles up until what, a year and a half ago.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but at any rate.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that brings me to my next question, which is obviously for those who aren't aware, he does do some editorial cartoons again for a newspaper in Colorado.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: But from a like an a different editorial perspective, you have essentially become more of a consumer.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what what do you feel like is the biggest difference from from a reading readership standpoint between what it was then and what it is now?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you've just talked about about you are able to read multiple newspapers, some overseas because of online, but but I feel like there I'm sure there's a lot of differences.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I yeah, I think so.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um you want to jump in there too?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I I don't want to take all your time out.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have I have questions for Chris too.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh I mean, I I one of my big things, and uh so I had I I had the advantage of teaching uh uh three semesters of journalism.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh that was nice.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh what I what I began learning was um just the the the the craft of writing uh is not being taught.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and students come and they don't know how to write.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh a lot of times, and and I mean this from you know New York Times all the way down to smaller papers, I'll read articles and I they're not well edited, they're not well written, um, I mean they're passable, but I think that there is an element of uh storytelling um that is necessary, especially in today's environment, because uh we are we have so many different media outlets, whether it's visual or audio, you know, uh the written word, et cetera.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and we're competing.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you have to be a really good storyteller.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I I uh when I interviewed at the Daily Advance in 2005, Julian Ur, you know, who retired as the managing editor.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that question.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I knew it was a trick question, but he asked me, he said, uh, are you a writer or a reporter?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, I'm not sure.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: He asked me that question as well.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, he loves that's that's his stock question, but but I I paused, you know, and I'm like, I mean, I know what he was asking.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh and I just I told him 50-50, which was really fair because I cared about uh my writing, I cared about my voice as a writer, but I also knew that you know the reporting has to be outstanding, it has to be factual, it has to be accurate.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because again, what I said earlier, uh you're if you're reading me, I'm asking you to trust me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's that simple.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're going into an unspoken social contract as journalists.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it's important to remember, and we don't, I was thinking about this last night.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: We don't use this as much these days, but remember who we are.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: We are the fourth estate.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a big deal.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's not just a name, that's a big deal.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: And for those who do not know what the fourth estate is, there are three branches of government in the U.S.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: uh constitutional system.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: We know those administrative or executive, legislative, and judicial.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the fourth estate established itself through the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, um, freedom of press to monitor the other three.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why we were known as the fourth estate.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I took that, and I still do, very seriously.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, you brought up the editorial cartooning, the uh the publisher that I that I uh uh work for uh or contribute to uh her publication, we were talking the other day.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I mean, they see them.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: She's an outgrowth of what's happened over the last 10 years or so.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, a lot of my colleagues, a lot of people our age, have have gone uh to the nonprofit side.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh especially in Colorado, it's big.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: There uh there's a history of uh there are uh of a lot of big journalists doing this.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she and others consider themselves defenders of democracy.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's how they frame it.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: And everything we do, whether it's local, regional, state, or national coverage, uh is viewed as such.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what the fourth estate is.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that when we lose sight of that, we're losing sight of so much precious history and important work.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, locally, the daily advance is uh, you know, keeping, you know, or you know, working to keep local government uh accountable.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: And without the daily advance, there would be no accountability.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit beyond the the daily advance.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what you're saying, uh I'm t I I look at it a little bit differently, but I don't have a journalism background, my more of a business background.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And what has evolved with the we're we're still in the as a publisher, I've got to be focused on overall revenue and and things going on.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I know you understand that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: But but part of that is the revenue coming in, and in in the good old days, as people want to put it, which I was there, advertising was a big portion, 70 or 80 percent.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Huge.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the New York Times right now, which is very unusual, but it's still the anomaly, it's well, it is the anomaly, but it's still what people look at.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Over 50% of the revenue is now circulation.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And people generally aren't going to spend money on something to disrupt how they think.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: They generally pay money to reward what they think, which has really resulted in our our our the need media going one way or the other.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we're losing the whole concept of reporting the news as it is, being right down the middle.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting more towards opinionated one size or the other because we have to sell.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, yeah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: You know, all the all three of the main, you know, are the mainstream networks, cable, msnbc, and fox.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: The the format is basically maybe you'll get an hour in the morning, maybe maybe the first two or three hours from like six to about ten, you'll get some news reporting.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_05: Correct.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_05: But then after that, it's one opinionated show after another.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, it is.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: And when I say opinionated, I don't mean the person is telling you their opinions, but they're bringing in panels of people and give their opinions.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: So well, even journalists, they're bringing journalists onto the panel too, which I think really shoots us down.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: It defeats the our purpose.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: I agree with that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think if you're a if you're if you're an op-ed journalist, I mean, I mean, that's one thing.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh, and somebody from New York Time.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're if you're a White House reporter and you're sitting on a panel giving your uh opinions, I mean, and I've always had this problem, and I think you and I, based on what you just said, pretty much see eye to eye on all that because I mean, you know, this is it's really hurt us in the public view.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: That said, I'll say this, uh uh to close that thought out.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, been doing this a long time.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that a lot of people have strong opinions about journalists or journalistic organizations, but I know way too many journalists that have worked for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, all the way down to weeklies and so forth.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: And every one of them has had integrity and a desire to do what's right.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and that's what I tell people like, read this guy and know that he is actually trying, working to give you accurate information without, you know, with as much fairness.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I use the word fairness, a friend of mine, a colleague of mine in Colorado ages ago pointed out to me, and I think this is correct.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about objectivity and journalism.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's really no such thing as objectivity and human behavior, but what we can do is strive for fairness.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and I do believe that, and a lot of journalists out there are doing that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I know people will scoff and the laugh emoji will show up and all of these things, but but that's my experience.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I find it frustrating that you know so um when when President Trump says fake news, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_05: He's not talking about the Daily Advance, he's talking about these mainstream networks.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_05: You know, he's talking about CNN, you know, not so uh Fox at times.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_05: He's criticized Fox and MSCBC.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_05: And sometimes it's probably warranted.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_05: But um but he's not talking about us.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_05: But we've but the problem is at our level down here, our readers and local residents don't have access to those national reporters.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_05: So we catch the fire.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_05: We catch the fake news fire.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and I've I've seen the the criticism, which is, you know, uh you're pursuing the the Democratic or liberal agenda.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And what I what I challenge you to do right now is just put that manifesto out on the table and read it to us.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's a joke.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, circle well, but kind of circling back and getting us a little bit closer back to the track.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a lot, not that we were super off track, but I feel like a lot of that can somewhat be attributed to to the downsizing, not just of the Daily Advance, but of all more local newspapers across the nation.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: Not so much downsizing, it's disappearing.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: But you and I were we were right in the middle of it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we Chris and I went well we went to work for Cox News Service.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean part of my decision to go to work for the Daily Advance was they were with Cox.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: I had I had a five-year plan.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my if if the plan had worked out, we would have been living in Atlanta.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it was actually working.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, you know, I mean, I was connected, uh the uh Atlantic Journal Constitution, which was our flagship paper at the time, was running my stuff every week, for example.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a relationship uh with them.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I was, I mean, and and you know, uh Isabella Izzy's mother knew this, and and this she agreed with it at the time, and it's like uh, you know, I'll make the leap, you know, at some point.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then Cox announced that they were divesting.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: Cox Cox had Cox had AJC, uh-huh.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: They had the Austin State.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Austin, they had the Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Post, Dayton, they had Dayton Dayton.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so we they had some big hitters.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_05: They kept the big hitters.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_05: Well, two of them.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think they've been until this coming eventually January where the the Atlanta Journal Constitution will no longer be in print.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, I haven't kept up that's my goodness.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as a matter of fact, what I don't know what their circulation was at their heyday, maybe 600,000.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it went down to 40,000.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I mean, I I worked in Chicago and I was at the the Chicago Sun was across the street, the Tribune.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they would quote a million circulation on like on Sunday.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think Wikipedia is not the source, but it's the only place I can go.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 70,000.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh and I worked at the Sun Times and and we were like one of the top 15 newspapers.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: So circulation is 40.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I mean, how much of that is attributed to um you know people like me reading off the internet?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: That see, that's that's the point.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Arthur Salzberg, he's quoted as saying, you don't define a newspaper uh play in in so many words, don't define a newspaper uh by the second word, define it by the first word.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many ways to go out there and capture the good information that newspaper personnel are pulling in.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just done at a much lower revenue base.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why that's why the diminishing uh uh numbers are out there.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you're still those that are still there are still trained to bring in the news the best way possible and report it the best way possible in a digital format.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's I mean, uh, you know, the the from your side of it, I mean the big question.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: I remember this conversation in '93 when I first started out uh working for a uh full-time for a publication, and and you know, how are we going to handle the internet?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: What is that gonna look like?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: And nobody, and I don't think anybody's really figured it out yet.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember going to newspaper association conferences, and I'll and I won't occupy this, but remember the the Kevin Castner movie, uh Field of Dreams, where build it and they will come.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: They would use that literally, that tagline when the internet was coming out.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just build a website and people are gonna gravitate towards us, you know.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I don't think so, you know.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I I remember uh you know this is something you might not know, Isabella, but is uh the the Japanese uh had produced, and it didn't take off, but they produced a uh uh sort of a paper thin uh device that mimic it was would be like a broadsheet size, and uh yes, and it and it literally would put your paper digitally on there and you could hold it.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have I have heard of that.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I've seen one of those, yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a newspaper company developed a tablet reader before Apple did.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Nate Ritter did that.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: He Chris introduced me to the first tablet newspaper when we were in the newsroom.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the it was called the news, wasn't it?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember to be honest.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_05: It went out of it went out of business.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't say very long.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_05: It was fantastic.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_05: It was absolutely fantastic.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: That merely speaks to business models.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the newspaper company's business model.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: The newspapers still have a huge audience, it's just in different formats.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Format.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's and I think like a lot of things in our world today, it's decentralized.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and it, you know, I I mean, I I don't even pretend to to have a grasp on the business side uh of uh journalism anymore.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you know, I can see that uh clearly everybody's still struggling to uh uh kind of create an identity.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what I think you alluded to this, David, which is the identity really simply is in the first part of the name, news.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I I feel like using that to circle back to my next question to Chris, with that that dwindling state comes comes dwindling staff.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what a lot of people don't realize is with kind of what David was talking about, that that that lesser circulation, there have been cuts made.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: The staff is sure is half what it used to be, not just here, but in in all newspapers across America, not just even like the local ones.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_05: Look, I I've I've told people this in the community before.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's no secrets, no inside baseball.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_05: You all you gotta do is just look and you can see how we've been reduced.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_05: When I first started here, when Rob and I were here, we had 48 people in the building at the old paper.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_05: That included upstairs and downstairs.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_05: Downstairs was advertising, creative, um, customer service.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_05: Upstairs was business and editorial.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_05: And design.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_05: And design, yep.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_05: And now we're in photography.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and we and we had two full paid, we had full two full-time real photographers.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_05: Not people photographs.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_05: Photojournals.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_05: Not just out there with the point and shooting, but paid and we bought real gear.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they were using Nikon D5, uh, D3, uh, D3s, and D5s.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_05: There was a$3,000,$5,000 body.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, I like my little rebel.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_05: I know, I know.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_05: But I'm just saying that's what it was.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_05: And eventually, and I was be honest with you, coming from the first two papers I did where all the reporters were just given a little four-meg Olympus point and shoot to come here to a paper even the size of Elizabeth City, it wasn't a metro, but to come here and have two full-paid photographers who were actually trained in photography with actual gear, you know, blew my mind.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and and throw in, don't forget, I mean, and Cox pushed us to this, and I was so grateful for it.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was great fun.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: Video.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, video.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we did some great, great.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we David, we had a staff of terrific reporters, designers, photographers, uh, and we did we did some really great stuff.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we had I had some really decent, I had, I think it was frontline.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_05: Oh no, not frontline.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: What's the name of that software?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_05: What's the name of that editing software?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: Not front, but uh um begins with an F.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: I can't remember it now.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_05: We don't Final Cut, thank you.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_05: Final Cut, yeah.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_05: I still have it on my old Mac.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: Do you really?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh I mean we could make decent videos with with Final Cut, you know.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_05: Didn't have to do anything fancy, do a fade in, a little bit of subtext, you know, subtitles, a fade out, and you're golden.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_05: It was like three minutes, you know.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Izzy, you talked about dwindling audiences.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, I I I feel like dwindling's let me rephrase.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Staff.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, you did say staff.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, you did say staff, didn't you?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I did say dwindling audience.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like maybe not dwindling so much as it's it's changed the way people consume newspapers.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily that people aren't reading the news.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's just how they're reading it that's changed.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: All all this about news and circulation paints a really dire picture.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Then when you try to turn it around, it's what I was alluding to earlier, the audience is still there.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and unfortunately, the news takes news reporting, good news reporting takes the hit.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but on the other side, the revenue producing, how we produce revenue.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've got people working for us that can make revenue for the company that never touches the newspaper.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and we do that on a regular basis, whether it's Google, Facebook, websites, and we do a very good job of it.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's a commercial, but at the same point, it doesn't help the the newspaper part.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I think unless we can trans take that money and move it over.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and David, I think Izzy said something earlier when we began, and and and you know, um we people are still responsive and they're but they're but they're changing their habits as well.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that goes back to what I was saying about, you know, uh media literacy.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, you know, I would love for university students to to have at least a section in some course about media literacy.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I could literally, you know, sit down and show you, you Know six articles about the same subject and and and show you how each one is kind of I mean, like I would tell people, you know, two reporters can sit down with you and walk away with two different stories.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, this guy over here, he may have asked you a whole set of different questions, and they're all relevant, but he came up with a different perspective.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't mean that my article and his article are are, you know, or you know, one or the other's better or or worse or or less factual.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that as people, and this is about human behavior, we have perspective.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, you put those articles together and you get a bigger picture.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I've always told people, you know, don't read just Chris's piece, read Chris's piece and read my piece.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: How many people do that, you think?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, not very many.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not, I mean, it it's it's I I actually, when I worked at the university and they still had a journalism section over there, I pushed for them to teach media literacy.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I I you know, I had hoped they would.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: They got rid of their journalism section altogether, but um, you know, because I think it's uh of great importance.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: But to is Izzy's point earlier, you know, people are s are evolving with the news.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think we're gonna lose an audience.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that we have to be relevant.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and what does that look like?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the question.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think we still write, I think we need to write better, uh, but I think we also add all the other pieces in, like this right here is is a great example.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Different format.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and and like I was saying, like different format, you know, my generation is I think leaning for the most part away from from television news.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's a large generational crowd that, you know, with that television boom, that cable generation, they were all watching the news.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: But now I think my generation with social media, with things like like X, which was Twitter, now X.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you see a lot of of article links there.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and to X's credit, they do um, they you know, they push people to read the articles.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: They have like a disclaimer that shows up if you try to repost something and they they know you haven't clicked on the article link, they ask you, do you want to read this before you and I think that's actually changed a lot of people uh in my generation?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, obviously everyone in this room is still of working age, but I mean, I think there will come a time where you guys will have to pass the torch.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I want to know.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's I may die with a pen in my hand.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't surprise me.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you were born with one too, but what what do you think?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do you hope to see from my generation?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like as we start to make an impact on the professional world of journalism.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, I I consider you my mentor.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've been made aware of that.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, you know, I don't see the internet as this as a threat to our to our livelihood.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_05: I really don't.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um there's some aspects of the internet that have definitely hurt the newspaper business, but what back to you.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think there's still room for journalism and for if there's a future for for for young people who want to go to school, but they're gonna have to understand that it's not gonna may not be in print much longer.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: And that's true.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_05: You know, reporting's gonna be the same.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's not like it's not like when we write a story that goes in print, it's not like it's suddenly formatted and rewritten for the web.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: It's the same piece.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um one of the one I think one of the things that's happening on on the internet that I love, by the way, and this kind of goes back to your question earlier about the the sort of you know cutting staff and so forth.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Long form journalism is made a research.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's because nobody's worried about you know how many column inches are we paying for today.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: We can just flow it right there.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's I mean, now a lot of your nonprofit publications today are long form.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the of course, the the you know, the paradox to that is that uh we all seem to be coming increasingly ADHD with all of our devices.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to really focus to read that long-form piece, but by God, long-form journalism is, you know, I mean, if you want good journalism, it's that's where it's at.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_05: I mean I mean, you can't do that in today's papers.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I tell you've heard me before, Izzy, I don't need more than 15, 20 inches.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: You remember, I mean, back in the day, speaking Palm Beach Post was big, uh, some of the Florida papers, the St.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: Pete uh folks, uh, the serials.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: Remember all the the serial journalism?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I mean, you talk about some really fascinating journalism.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was really good.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: But but again, I mean, when we're talking about you know, the cost of ink and paper, you know, everybody's like pulling back.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then to Izzy's earlier question, you know, when Chris and I started Daily Advance, by the way, uh that newsroom in early 2000s was considered a skeleton staff.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah, we were still considered slow.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, we were we were not uh we were not beefed up.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_05: Uh oh yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah, you're talking AJC at one time, Washington Post, all those folks, they had you're talking 400 port 400-person newsrooms.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, well, AJC, their feature department had their own building.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for every inch of space um that can be sold from a business side and the AJC, because of the market, you're gonna, I'm gonna use the wrong numbers, but you get$100.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: You take it to a smaller market, you're gonna get maybe$10 to$10.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so you still got to pay people.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's just harder to support the staff.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: They become more centralized.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: You try to you have to edit things from a remote location, and and possibly though the that local aspect needs to be emphasized from the reporters and the business side, but it's still hard because you're you're like some our papers sometimes are made up in remote locations.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's true.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: There was the um, I remember that this was when we were Chris and I were all over at the building.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: There uh the the guy, I don't know if he bought or or owned it already, but uh who owned the the Pasadena, California paper, uh went completely remote.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Not only did he go remote, he hired reporters in India.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and they would uh have somebody set up a camera at the council meetings in Pasadena.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: And these guys would sit in India and report on it from here.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: It did, I don't think it went terribly far.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was highly controversial for obvious reasons.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but you know, one of the great things about journalism for me, and uh I've told Izzy this, uh, it's you know, I'd be sitting there and sometimes I'd just get up off of my uh chair, and we were downtown, so I'd just start walking down, you know, to Muddy's and and grab a coffee and walk back.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that walk both ways, I mean, it I'll be darned if I didn't come up with a human interest story before I got back to the office.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: And why was that?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm talking now, my you know, you get to know people the longer you're here, uh, but you just start having a conversation.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and this goes back to what I said earlier.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: For me, uh good journalism is an ongoing community conversation, right?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it takes place on the printed page, but it also takes place on the sidewalk uh downtown, uh, at church, um, you know, at at uh you know, rhythm and brews, whatever.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: This is an ongoing community conversation.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, whether you're aware of it or not, it's happening.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can get it down in print and record it, because this is also a piece of journalism that people forget for posterity, because journalism is also a historic record, and that's what we're doing, and nobody wants to get it wrong.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: You know, Izzy, back to what you're saying earlier about you know, advice, you know, for the younger generation coming up and passing the torch.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_05: Another thing aspiring reporters are gonna have to learn how to have to get comfortable with is doing more than just reporting.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, look at you.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_05: Ten years ago, reporters weren't hosting podcasts, just ten years ago.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um you have to shoot photos.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_05: We we you know, we all have to shoot our own photos.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_05: Now I go I do take a lot of photos for events here, but if you I can't do it, then they should y'all you and you and Keisha shoot your own photos.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so there's you know, you have to know, you have to understand the content management system now.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you have to be familiar, you gotta be comfortable working on the web.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it's just so much more that reporters do now, as opposed to just 10 years ago, you know, at the old newsroom, all we had to do was report.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I wasn't reporting then, but when I was reporting here, all I had to do was just all I was expected to do was come in and be where I was told to be by Julian and and write about it.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't have to take photos, I didn't have to wasn't doing a blog.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_05: We tried blogs, but I wasn't doing a blog.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um I wasn't certainly doing a podcast because there was no such word as podcast then.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: But uh so or maybe there was, but um, but you get my point.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, I'll tell you, remember the uh this is a great example of where all of these tools come together, you know, all the pieces.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: When um we it was right after the uh Virginia Tech shooting uh at uh the middle school over uh next to well, I can't remember which school it is, next to Pastor Tank High School.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Northside.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Northside, thank you, or the elementary.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a uh a report of uh R and Gumman in the in the school.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it was real interesting because at first Yeah, that was the first time we got to put together all the time.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we did.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: We did some some work.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all of us, it was great, but it what was interesting about it was the the two top dogs were like, you know, thought we were crazy.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, no, you're the chatter, because it was internet chatter from parents.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: And they and Mike and Julian were looking at us like we were nuts.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we were like, and finally we all went to him and were like, no, guys, something's happening.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: We got to get there now.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so we scrambled, and one of the first things that happened, and this was Chris, okay, your managing editor, and he was right on target.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: He started blogging uh every you did uh real-time reports on our website so that parents had as much information that was being made available at their fingertips, and it was huge.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was, it kept everything.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_05: Because Rob was there.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_05: Rob went out there, yeah.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_05: He went out there, he stayed there for like what, four hours.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was we did video, we did reporting.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was intense.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was a great exercise.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, Reggie, but Reggie wasn't here yet.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: But it was just me and David, David Macaulay.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, Macaulay.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: David McCauley and I.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great story.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's your craft.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: I you know where else it happened was during Katrina that the Times Picky Yune was obliterated.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: But they they maintained their information gathering and reproduction on Twitter.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it was all the time.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: And look where they went.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when when when the times got tough, they went uh fully internet and they survived it and thrived.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because they proved that it's not necessarily about being on a piece of paper.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the activity of the journalist being out there ready to give you the information that you need to make rational decisions.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what happens.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good point.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so that that speaks to if the physical paper goes away, the business doesn't go away.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, we have to change how we're doing our job.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that uh to your to what you said earlier, it all you know, it is the business model changes.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but but the activity itself, and and and to what I was saying earlier, it does not mean that we become bad writers, by the way.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because that's one of my big pet peeves.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think, you know, along with the facts and the substance of a story, the way we tell a story, because it really I was talking to Izzy about this too.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, remember headline writing used to be a group activity.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my dad was just a headline writer.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but but remember how we would all we would all gather and say, okay, you know, we're hashing out these headlines.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: Every now and then it would be a disaster, but but but you know, but but a good headline, you know, we knew we knew that a good headline was gonna take you to the next step.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna take you to the lead, which is gonna take you to the nut.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if all if all three elements are in line, you're gonna go through and you're gonna come away and you're gonna know what's up.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I some of the reporting out there that I look at, now I I'm concerned that that those pieces are.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a good lead and and and a good nut graph.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, for those who are listening, a nut graph is usually the second or third uh paragraph in an article, which is a summation of what you're about to completely read if you go further.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_05: I always say it's a handshake between the lead and the body.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it it it it's what sums up, it provides a little bit more detail from the lead, yeah, while at the same time telling you what's what's like say the lead might be city council voted 5-4 last night to open a new shelter.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then the next the nut graph would be something like uh uh city council voted after a presentation by so-and-so and the case.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: Councilman John Doe said no, and council, yeah.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, and and it's uh and the city's not talking about a shelter, everyone, just to make sure.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just to be clear.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's it's you know, it's a craft.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I mean, it there, I mean, that is a very important element to it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and uh uh and and my desire for your generation would be to demand that that craft is maintained uh at a high standard so that we can continue to celebrate the written word in whatever form it comes to us.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: So to make sure that that happens, uh all surveys that I've read say that very many, very few people will say that they'll actually pay for news.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, okay, that's that's one thing.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that they don't want news.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the the businesses that are still producing the news need to generate revenue in ways that may not be totally dependent upon the sale of that news.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why the business model of the whole company kind of changes.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, think about it.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what I mean, you you know this.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what happened was uh early on, um, we were all so anxious to be on the internet and be present that we made it free.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, while we were selling copies of newspapers for 75 cents in the box, you could go online and get it free.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were shooting ourselves in the foot.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: 75 cents, by the way.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but that's how much it was when we started at the Daily Advance.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: And but but but we shot ourselves in the foot back then because what you know, uh uh Izzy's mom always reminds me, like, we teach people how to treat us, you know.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's one of her favorite sayings.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, treat people the way you want to be treated.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard that my entire life.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and but we teach people, right?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: And what we taught the reader was, uh, hey, you can get it free over here.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we went to a paywall, you know, it's like, you know, everybody's like, ah, no, I've been getting it free for 15 years.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now you can't read The Atlantic magazine for free.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and there are publications that you can read for free.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but if you want to see journalism disappear, uh keep that up, guys.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think most of us realize that it's just that we're retraining an audience.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: And no, I know that.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I mean, like I use like with the New York Times, I they have a very small fee for basic subscription, and and I just because you know, and so I want the national stories and the games and the crossword.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but you know, and then there's like um uh one of my favorite papers is um, you know, the the UK's observer.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they have a terrific US team, and um what they ask is uh, and I do this, um they ask for a monthly donation um, you know, to keep support on.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: So let me ask everybody just this last question that I have.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously I I feel like we've established the news isn't going to go anywhere.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens to any kind of publication, there will always be news.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: But where do you guys and this goes for all three of you, where do you all see the news industry heading in five, ten years?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see print dying out completely?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or yes.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, okay.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's some people in my generation that don't want that to happen.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_05: But that's that's true.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it's uh yeah the whole the whole the whole argument over the the digital versus the print is all about you know a lot of it stems around reaching young readers.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think young readers, young people will ever be avid news readers until they get older.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I didn't until I started getting older.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_05: That's probably true.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, and there was this rush back like 15 years ago, like, hey, we gotta figure out a way to appeal to younger readers.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you can't really you can't really write a story about the latest happenings at City Council like it's a script from a Michael Bay movie.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_05: There's nothing you can do to make that, you know, you just can't.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_05: You can't be a big few.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_05: So I guess you could be very bad.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: The city vice, uh like Michael Bay script is so outdated.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't even know.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's got a fair point.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_05: Like Michael Bay has always been my favorite director to beat up on the book.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_05: He's always been my favorite director to beat up on because his movies are just so ridiculously over the top filled with uh ridiculous action.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: That's ridiculous.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't he do the first Transformer film?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: So no, but to credit of my generation, I mean, I have to disagree.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would say that my generation, because of social media, has become more socially aware.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: We are more interested than than people in their 20s and in the 80s and the 90s or even in the early 2000s.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that in in reading and being up with the times because there's so much going on and it's so accessible.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's literally at our fingertips all the way.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's great because like I said, it's I don't view internet as a threat to our to our and it's some kind of existential threat to our our industry.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so if they're still reading online, that's great.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_05: I don't I don't, you know, I don't have a problem with that.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_05: I think that's where it's going.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_05: I just I'm just making a point that there was this big rush back like 15 years ago to just go after how do we appeal to younger readers?
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_05: We remember we were doing like those special sections, you know, and we were like targeting, you know, um like the the the the 18 to 30 somethings, you know, and and it yeah, but they weren't they weren't ready to read.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I I think you know you you answered her question with an absolute you know sort of perspective that print will disappear.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I when I say print, I mean the physical paper and ink.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I don't think that's entirely true.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it will diminish, uh not diminish, I think that's a bad word, but I think it will Shrink.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: I heard a prediction when I went to a um, there was a big uh Cox Features Editor conference we had at Dayton once upon a time.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was back in 2012.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and one of the guys, uh, and everybody saw the writing on the wall with the divesting of properties and so forth, and they were discussing, but one of the guys made a good point.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I think what we're gonna end up with in terms of print is you're gonna have niche publications.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and and he what was interesting was he included in that small dailies and small weeklies.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's fascinating.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that there'll be a certain amount of that, but you know, cost saving measures, you know, almost demand that we print less.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it does demand we print less um and and we go more digital.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I I I do think that it will shrink even more.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: I hope the web, the size of the paper doesn't shrink anymore, because it's got they've gotten all small.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, but I think we'll we'll I think eventually everybody, as long as we have a digital format, I think everybody will be doing that.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_05: I remember, you know, I'm a I'm gonna paint a very disturbing photo picture here, but you know, I remember 20 years ago saying, and I may have told you, I was like, look, until people can take their computers with them to the toilet, we'll always have a print product.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_05: Guess what?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_05: Now you can.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's your phone.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what I think we're gonna, I I'll tell you just this for fun, really seriously.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: What we're gonna end up with, uh, this is my futuristic fantasy idea, but I've always thought this we're gonna have a holographic uh publication uh where you can uh remember Johnny Pnemonic with uh Canada Reeves?
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, they portrayed this.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: That was a uh I think that was a Philip K.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_02: Dick uh novel, right?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or short story.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so he he kind of created this, but a holographic newspaper where you can project it in front of you.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um, if you can see me, I'm I'm taking my index finger and swiping the air so that you can move the pages.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I really do.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I mean that technology is around in some form already, but I I think that's what you'll end up with.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Jetson's cartoon is a documentary now, right?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're making a film.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: So where's my flying car?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, this is an evolution.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not all of a sudden things off the cliff.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you go all the way back to the late 1800s, which I wasn't around then, but uh William Randolph Hearst, he he didn't have he had one or two newspapers of excellence.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he had a lot of newspapers that weren't considered excellent journalism, but they sold like hotcakes.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the core competency of quote unquote newspapers does not have to be defined as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's information that people want.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as we can continue to provide information people want in whatever format that is, then we have a business.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that we have to make sure we can make the money to support it.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that from a defensive standpoint, I'm saying that means that we have to redefine some of the things that we're doing, generate revenue in different formats, different, you know, different ways we're doing it.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're doing.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not defensive, it's practical.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because without without uh a revenue stream, you know, Chris, you don't and and Isabella, you know, you don't have jobs.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or David.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I, you know, I I'm kind of uh, you know, I have one, you know, barely, I have a few toes in it still, but um, but yeah, I mean, you have to have a revenue stream.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and I mean, even nonprofits, I mean, you know, they have a revenue stream.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it it's not traditional in in in the in the in the print world, but it's still a revenue stream.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of corporate sponsors.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and uh, you know, uh, I mean, honestly, uh, you know, I I get paid for my cartoons, but sometimes some months, you know, I have to wait an extra month, you know, because that's the nature of nonprofit.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm okay with that.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, the reality is is that um in this world we have to pay for it uh uh at some level.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I mean, and we're all trying to make a living, you know, at the end of the day, no matter how altruistic we may think we are.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of sarcasm in that.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_02: But at any rate, uh I no, but I I tell you, I'm grateful for uh journalism and and uh it's it's been terrific.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's I want to say this, uh does I mean my heart grows ten times to see my uh you know my daughter um reporting for this paper and and and doing such a great job, and I I really appreciate it and uh you know uh grateful that something that I worked hard at uh gave you the inspiration to to continue doing this work.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish you great success with it.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_05: Can I end on some good news?
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think it was good news.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_05: You were saying earlier that that schools aren't teaching writing um as much anymore.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_05: I I was very encouraged.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I went back to school at ECSU to get my homeland, I got a degree in Homeland Security, and it was all online, it was a fantastic program, you know, the in-state 500 bucks a semester promise program, you can't beat it.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_05: But what I was gonna say is what I was really pleased with, being the son of an English professor uh and a mother who taught English for 30 years, um the course was very writing intensive.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_05: And you got docked.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you had to write a certain amount.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um and I was I was I was happy to see that that everything required writing, at least for this at least this degree program required intensive writing.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_05: We did a lot of papers, um, and you got docked for it, and you know, they were they were corrected.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I was happy to see that, and and of course it was a I was at a little bit more of an advantage over some of the students because you know I'm I'm I was 54 at the time and I've got life experience and you're a professional writer, right?
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_05: So, but still I was encouraged to see that they're they're demanding students to write more as part of the curriculum.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: So and you know what?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: Adding on to that, to the credit of ECPPS, they have added a lot of new initiatives over the past couple of years, and and one of them has been like reading and writing literacy.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: They have been upping that that's good.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and well, hopefully he's coming back around.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke with uh Mr.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ratzlaff.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is the like he's one of the social studies teachers at Northeastern High School.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke to him during the Northeastern Back to School program, and he really emphasized how much they are trying to push that and ensure that the future generations coming from Elizabeth City are well versed.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and and I would tell people, I mean, you know, get your kids copies of the classics.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, read Hemingway.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, if you want to Read Little Women by Louisa Mayo, read Little Women, that's my favorite book of all time.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, like Hemingway was I mean, Hemingway was a journalist.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: And his style award journalist, award-winning journalist, and his style, if you go read his novels, I mean, it it actually informed uh the way we write in the last half of the 20th century.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a direct line.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh, and I I want to help you promote uh your podcast and say that uh speaking of uh ECPPS, didn't you tell me you're gonna have a special guest soon?
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's true.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, speaking of ECPPS, um, please tune in for our next episode.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be David and I will be speaking with the superintendent, Dr.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: Keith Parker.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be talking about the growth of the area and the school system.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is, he is.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're very excited to have him on.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, I think that's a great way to wrap this up.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to thank you both so much for coming on.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a great birthday gift.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: I hope our listeners have really enjoyed this.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, definitely stay tuned for our next episode with with Keith Parker.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna be a really good one and really informative for anyone in the area, with children or not.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for having me.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, and uh happy birthday.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: Happy birthday.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.