Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Lauren Gustus - How The Salt Lake Tribune Reinvented Itself & Local News

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Interview Only w/ Lauren Gustus - How The Salt Lake Tribune Reinvented Itself & Local News · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: and rates may vary well. As part of my participation
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  Speaker 1: in promoting Local News Day, and we are now Local
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  Speaker 1: news Day is coming up. It is letters away by
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  Speaker 1: the time you hear my next interview. And one of
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  Speaker 1: my goals has been to you have different versions of
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  Speaker 1: independent media that are out there in the local newsphere.
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  Speaker 1: We've got startups the Sahan Journal and the promotion and
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  Speaker 1: the conversation I had with the found with the person
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  Speaker 1: that runs.
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  Speaker 2: That's a journal.
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  Speaker 1: We've had the folks from Deep South today and Warwick
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  Speaker 1: Saban and about dealing with those Southern news deserts. My
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  Speaker 1: guest today is in a different place. It's Laurene Augustus.
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  Speaker 1: She is the CEO and executive editor of the Salt
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  Speaker 1: Lake Tribune. And some of you may say, Salt Lake
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  Speaker 1: Tribune isn't that legacy media. They've been around a while.
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  Speaker 1: They have been, the brand has been around a long time.
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  Speaker 1: The Salt Lake Tribune has reimagined itself as it has
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  Speaker 1: gone fully independent. It is, and in fact, Lauren's going
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  Speaker 1: to tell the story here in a minute, but it
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  Speaker 1: is an example of a quote unquote legacy media company
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  Speaker 1: essentially reimagining itself in the independent space in this twenty
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  Speaker 1: first century, new revenue model, new revenue stream, the not
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  Speaker 1: for profit status and all the different ways that you
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  Speaker 1: can be more efficient with your resources while still trying
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  Speaker 1: to be a robust news organization. And look, Utah is
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  Speaker 1: not a thankfully is not a local news desert per se.
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  Speaker 1: So this is a in Salt Lake is a is
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  Speaker 1: a community that I think is going to is very
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  Speaker 1: supportive of local institutions. But I think this is a
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  Speaker 1: model worth learning, especially if you're at a smaller news
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  Speaker 1: organization that may be owned by a parent company that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't care about you anymore. And I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: name names, but we all know who those companies are.
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  Speaker 1: Where you realize, boy, if boy, this this brand has
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  Speaker 1: a lot of station locally, if we could just break out,
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  Speaker 1: break through and go from there. So with that my
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  Speaker 1: little intro there, remember Local News Day April ninth, it
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  Speaker 1: is an awareness day, and yes, the Salt Lake Tribune
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  Speaker 1: is a part of this.
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  Speaker 2: Let me bring Lauren in. Lauren, welcome to the Toddcast.
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  Speaker 3: Nice to meet you, Thanks, Chuck, happy to be here first.
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  Speaker 1: How'd I do in the introduction there? And fill in
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  Speaker 1: the blanks here because I do think this is different right.
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  Speaker 1: I've featured brand new startups like the Nevada Independent orck
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  Speaker 1: sabing what they've been doing with Deep South today, and
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  Speaker 1: I know you're familiar with all these players, the Sahan Journal,
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  Speaker 1: which is covers immigrant communities in Minneapolis. You're a legacy publication,
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  Speaker 1: so I like Tribune and theory has been around decades.
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  Speaker 1: But you're a new independent organization.
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  Speaker 2: Explain.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, Todd. So next week or two weeks time,
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  Speaker 3: April fifteenth, we will celebrate one hundred and fifty five
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  Speaker 3: years of publication, which is pretty wild. And we still
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  Speaker 3: do publish a print product, which folks sometimes forget, which
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  Speaker 3: is okay, that's fine, but we do have some loyal
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  Speaker 3: print readers out there. And yeah, for many years the
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  Speaker 3: Tribune was family owned and then it was transitioned to
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  Speaker 3: a hedge fund. And so I worked at the Trip
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  Speaker 3: as a cover reporter way back in the day in
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  Speaker 3: the early aughts, and we had, you know, hundreds of
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  Speaker 3: folks in our newsroom. I ran a high school sports
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  Speaker 3: desk that sent fifty people out to games on Friday nights.
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  Speaker 3: And in the headship this pause.
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  Speaker 1: There is I'm obsessed with local sports being the gateway
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  Speaker 1: to gluing communities back together.
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  Speaker 2: A fifty person desk for high school sports. Yeah, wow,
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  Speaker 2: was that?
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, had that shrunk compared to what
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  Speaker 1: it was ten years earlier?
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  Speaker 3: That's a good question. I joined the Trib in two
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  Speaker 3: thousand and four, and I'm not sure that I could
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  Speaker 3: speak to what it looked like prior to that in
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  Speaker 3: great detail. Some of them were freelancers of course, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: who were calling in on their course right from you know,
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  Speaker 3: the McDonald's parking lot where there was Wi Fi, so
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  Speaker 3: that we could get the two graphs we needed, so
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  Speaker 3: we could get them in the paper and then you know,
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  Speaker 3: get the paper out to the printer. But yeah, I do.
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  Speaker 3: I'm with you on that check. I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's interesting and I'm sure we'll get into this. So
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  Speaker 3: many of today's stories are difficult. So many of today's
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  Speaker 3: stories are depressing, and we find that when we write
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  Speaker 3: about the new bakery that's just opened around the corner,
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  Speaker 3: or the high school sports athlete who's done something tremendous,
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  Speaker 3: you know, or today we have a story on a
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  Speaker 3: bull rider that's that's being incredibly well received. It's a
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  Speaker 3: story about how he chose his LDS faith for a while,
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  Speaker 3: went on a mission, and then came back to bull riding.
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  Speaker 3: And those kinds of stories do create community, and I
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  Speaker 3: think that's really important for any nonprofit, be one that's
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty five years old or one that's
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  Speaker 3: you know, five or ten years old. So anyways, the
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  Speaker 3: Tribune extracted from a hedge fund by a guy named
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  Speaker 3: Paul Huntsman, who may be a familiar name to some
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  Speaker 3: of your listeners.
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  Speaker 2: Is that the father of brother of brother of got it? Okay?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was it was dad's ask. Essentially, the
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  Speaker 3: patriarch of the Huntsman family really wanted to see the
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  Speaker 3: Tribune be on better footing, and so Paul Huntsman extracted
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  Speaker 3: the trip. He ran the trip as a publisher for
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  Speaker 3: a few years, and the family gave a lot, a
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  Speaker 3: lot to the Tribune and a lot to the community.
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  Speaker 3: Point I think the thinking was, well, gosh, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we'd really love some help here, and so Paul petitioned
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  Speaker 3: the IRS. The Tribune became the first major metro to
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  Speaker 3: receive nonprofit designation from the IRS in twenty nineteen. And
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  Speaker 3: at that point in time, we focused on rebuilding right.
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  Speaker 3: There was no governing board. We didn't know how to
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  Speaker 3: accept a donation. We asked someone or excuse me, someone
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  Speaker 3: asked us if they could donate in crypto, and that
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  Speaker 3: like took week for us to figure out. So we
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  Speaker 3: had to reshape a lot of how we operated. We
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  Speaker 3: did reduce print days at that time. We went from
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  Speaker 3: seven days a week to one. Now we're at two
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  Speaker 3: days a week. And then you know, after a period
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  Speaker 3: of months and it took us time, we had the
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  Speaker 3: bandwidth to turn to the journalism itself and we stopped
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  Speaker 3: doing some things, and we started to do some things
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  Speaker 3: differently in that we stopped chasing the same stories. I
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: would say that TV we're chasing at the time. So
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  Speaker 3: you know, the five car pile up, the crime story
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  Speaker 3: on the west side of maybe you know, deleterious back
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  Speaker 3: to the community, but not long lasting in terms of
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  Speaker 3: sense making right from a journalistic perspective, we doubled down
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  Speaker 3: on accountability. We start doing solutions oriented reporting, which was
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  Speaker 3: new for us, and that we have this big problem
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  Speaker 3: out here in Utah. It's just set my window to
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  Speaker 3: the left, and that our lake, our great Salt Lake,
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  Speaker 3: is drying up. And so we built something called the
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  Speaker 3: Great Salt Lake Collaborative. It includes over a dozen news organizations,
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  Speaker 3: and it includes institutions that are focused on how we
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  Speaker 3: put more water back into the lake. And all that
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  Speaker 3: reporting is shared across news organizations. So TV, public radio,
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  Speaker 3: legacy media, digital startups, they all participate in this Great
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  Speaker 3: Salt Lake Collaborative, and they're all able to pull each
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: other's reporting, all focused on again, how do we put
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: more water back into the lake. We also launched something
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  Speaker 3: called the Utah News Collaborative, so we share our reporting
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  Speaker 3: from the state capitol with some of the smallest news
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  Speaker 3: organizations in the state. They're weekly papers, they don't have websites.
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  Speaker 3: They might have a reporter who's also accepting ads and
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  Speaker 3: who's also delivering the paper.
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  Speaker 2: Right right now, it's one man, really is, and they can't.
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  Speaker 3: Get up to the capital, right so we'll provide that
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  Speaker 3: service for them. And so all along the way, I
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  Speaker 3: think over the last six to seven years has been
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  Speaker 3: an evolution, right, how do we continue to grow into
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  Speaker 3: our status as a nonprofit. We call ourselves a one
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  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty year old startup. And next month we
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: will remove the paywall, so we are a legacy news
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  Speaker 3: org that's asked people to subscribe, you know, for decades, right,
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  Speaker 3: subscribe to print, subscribe to digital. And in May we
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: will take that paywall down for sltrip dot com, so
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: anyone will be able to read stories on sltrip dot
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  Speaker 3: com without having to pay for the privilege of doing so.
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  Speaker 3: And that's because we believe that the news should be
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: accessible to everyone.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: It's taken us a few years to get there, right,
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  Speaker 3: but independent journalism is a right. It is not a luxury.
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  Speaker 3: And at a time when misinformation is spreading faster than ever,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: expanding access is it just important? We believe that it's necessary.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the revenue, the various look whether
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you're a for profit or nonprofit.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I'm I am, I am.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not agnostic on this issue, but I'm I'm not
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: meaning I think ultimately, I think you want to be
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in a for profit situation because if you're relying on donors,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: you never know when you hit donor fatigue, and that's
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: an uncomfortable position to be in.
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  Speaker 2: But you could have market fatigue too.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So this is not and I what And I think
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  Speaker 1: the fact is some solutions make more sense in some communities,
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  Speaker 1: like you don't you don't need to be nonprofit in DC.
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  Speaker 1: You can be a for profit. There's plenty of revenue
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: in the reader reader system. So I do accept the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: premise that everything is different in different ways. So, but
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: having a variety of revenue streams is what most news
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: organizations need. You know, I had a I've really spent
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the last few years trying to learn this space better.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a better way to scale local news things
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  Speaker 2: like this?
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  Speaker 1: And I ran into a colleague one person who said,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know who was working on an effort to help
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  Speaker 1: news organizations buy the buildings that they produced the product in. Again,
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  Speaker 1: because what happened with when when these private equity firms
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: scooped up both you know, particularly newspapers. For newspapers had
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: some of the best real estate in downtowns all across
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the country, so they grabbed all this great real estate
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and essentially, you know, didn't care about the product itself.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Is that what happened to you guys? How much did
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  Speaker 1: the private equity ownership extract out of the news organization?
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  Speaker 1: How hollowed out were you when the Huntsman's came in
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  Speaker 1: to try to rescue what was left?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there were two factors at play for us.
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  Speaker 3: One was certainly the Hedge Fund. The other was a
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  Speaker 3: joa with the church. So the LDS Church owns the.
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  Speaker 2: Other Deseret News, the Deseret News.
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  Speaker 3: Right Desert News. And yes, I.
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  Speaker 2: Didn't realize that was a JO.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was joint operator for those we're speaking a
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  Speaker 1: little bit and a lot of I had to do
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  Speaker 1: a paper on this in college about these joint operating
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: agreements that Detroit and Seattle. It was an antitrust thing
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff, and how there's always been some
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: legal there's actually been some legal vagary here about how
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: how legal are these joint operating agreements as it is,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: but a lot of two newspaper towns. For the newspapers
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  Speaker 1: to survive, they basically started to share back operations like
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: printing presses and things like that.
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  Speaker 3: But anyway, go ahead, yes, thank you. So we shared
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  Speaker 3: until twenty twenty printing press and advertising operations with the
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  Speaker 3: Desert News. And I think that complicated our financial certainly
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  Speaker 3: our financial independence, but our financial picture because over time
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  Speaker 3: that spread changed because the hedge fund wanted more cash.
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  Speaker 1: Out of it, so they wanted to extract more cash
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: out of the agreement.
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  Speaker 3: Recisely precisive. So, yes, we didn't have a building when
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: we became a nonprofit, we didn't.
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  Speaker 2: Have Did they sell the building? By then? They edge
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  Speaker 2: fund and sold the building. Yep. That happened in the
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Miami Herald. That happened.
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  Speaker 1: It's happened to so many of these great news institutions.
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  Speaker 1: They'd have great real estate right, some of the best
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in the downtowns or if you were on water, on water,
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  Speaker 1: things like that, and yeah, private and they, in theory
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  Speaker 1: could have been lifelines for the news organization to survive
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in tough times.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that's fair. I
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: will say I walked in this morning and there's this huge,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: big green mess of graffiti on my window in my
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: office and I thought to myself, I'm really happy I
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: don't own this building right now. Fair enough, So that's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: short term thinking, short term thinking. I think the revenue
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: diversification question that you're asking is a big one. And
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: I think if you look at some of the nonprofit
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: media landscape, and I deeply respect what Deep Sealth Today
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: is doing and what my friend Vaughan is doing at
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: Sahan Journal, but if you look at the spread, you
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: know we are over indexed in terms of you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: either major donors or donors for a large at the Tribune.
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  Speaker 3: Right now, we're about a third to third to third.
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  Speaker 3: So we have this kind of legacy muscle that a
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: sustainable split.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Or do you think you need to rearrange that split?
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  Speaker 3: We always need to pivot. There is no way that
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: we don't need to keep.
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  Speaker 2: Moving like a true CEO. Yeah, Laurels.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: A third of our revenue is in advertising. A third
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  Speaker 3: of our revenue is in subscriptions that will transition to
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: memberships when we become a nonprofit, voluntary memberships. And I
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: do think it's harder. It's easier to compel someone to subscribe, right,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: You just got to pull a lever. You got to
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: make them subscribe to read the story. And here we
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: really need to add value to their lives. Right in
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: the membership space, we're moving from transactional to relational, and
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: that is a big challenge. I think it keeps us
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: up at night. And then the third bucket is the
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: major donor bucket, right, And so yes, we've got a
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: little bit of royalties revenue. You know, we did have
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: a little bit of rent revenue when we sublease some space.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I do think we are always interested in how we
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: can further diversify our revenue. But and that can also
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: come by bucket.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So we've got forty five thousand people that pay to
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: support the Tribune. That's a diversification. They aren't all going
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: to go away on day one, unless you know, we're
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: bought by a billionaire and things change significantly that can't happen, right, So, and.
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  Speaker 2: That comes with its own baggage, right. I always say this.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Billionaires are neither benevolent or malevolent. They can be either
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: or usually depending on the circumstances of their situation at
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the moment, whether they feel like a benevolent or a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: malevolent owner at any given time.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's fair. I think for us it's a
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: matter of independence. Right. We are independent of the church, right,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons why we feel like
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: we've got to be free, because the Church news is free.
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  Speaker 3: But we are also independent of any one person and
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: how they may feel or what their positions may be
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: in any given day or week, or month or year.
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  Speaker 1: second time. I have also use the code, the todcast code.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: If you use the promo code podcast at checkout, you
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as a
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It is
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: There is nothing like having an artesion bakery in your
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: freezer to chase away the winter chill. Now is the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: best time to stay in and enjoy some comforting homemade meals.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: With Wild Grain.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I obviously highly recommend it. It is worth giving Wildgreen
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  Speaker 1: thirty dollars off your first box plus free croissants for life.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Come on when you go to wildgrain dot com slash
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• 17:50
  Speaker 1: visit wildgrain dot com, slash podcast, or simply use the
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  Speaker 1: promo code toodcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely embrace, so use that code. Let me ask about
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the decision to get rid of the paywall? How many
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: different hybrid solutions did you guys look into before coming
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion you came into So, like I've always been,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I've always wondered. I'll give you just a simple question,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: which is why not make today's news free and everything
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: else behind a paywall? Yeah, which, I'm sure I'm not
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the first person to throw this idea out there, so
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: that's for sure.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You guys looked into it. What was why did you
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: choose not to go that round? Well?
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I want to if you would not mind check. There's
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: a couple of people on our team, Danielle White and
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: cl Hunter, who have worked incredibly hard on this, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: we've been testing the model for the better part of
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: two years, and so we took a cohort out and
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: we said, here's you know what you will get, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: here's the experience that you're going to have, and we
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: watched them over a period of a couple of years
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: so that we could understand what their behaviors look like.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: So we're ready to move.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: So you had a sort of a You had a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: just a group of readers that just agreed to be
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a control group of some sort.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, statistically significant. We didn't give them a choice, but
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: we did off them out and then their communication.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Flows Congratulations, you get this for free? Is that sort
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: of the idea?
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: And they didn't stop paying. Right. We also in twenty
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: and twenty three acquired a small weekly called the Moab
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Times Independent, which is down in the southwestern part of
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: the state. It's the gateway town to Arches National Park
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: as well as Canyon Lands.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: And when we acquired the Moab Times Independent from a
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: family that had owned it for over one hundred years,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: no successor right, nobody wanted to take it over. They
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: didn't want to sell, right, so they gave it to
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: the Tribune. We made the Mollab Times free and those
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: people kept paying, right, And so we had some inclination
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: some instance, some I would say, you know, learnings around
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: where we may be headed. And we have also thought
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: a lot about what benefits are unlocked at what level? So, yes,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: to access older stories in our archive, you will need
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: to donate to comment on our website, will.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So there are some levels of and that's more in
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: this is what membership gets you. Look, we're not going
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to hide the news. But if you want to use
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: this as a research tool for your for your kids
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: high school paper, yeah you're gonna you're going to need
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to buy level two of this membership precisely.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Or if you want the community that comes with our comments,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: or if you want to see the E edition for example,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: those are all member benefits.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: What is it that you've learned that the community wants
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that you didn't know back when you were the cub
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: reporter covering high school sports at the Trib. Frankly, before
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: this entire business. You know, as I joke, a man
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: named Craig decided classifies ought to be free.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: YadA, YadA, YadA. We've had this local news crisis ever since.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: But what what have you learned about? Because I had
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: a friend of mine say this about the Post.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Was you know, we were dealing with our own little
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: crisis here in our community with the Washington Post and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the and the retreat from local and that you know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: essentially a newspaper told you know, it was a one
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: way transaction, you know well, and and they've never explained
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to the community why they've had to cut way back, why,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: you know, they've never explained how the business works a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: little bit, and they've you know, they've never gotten the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: community buy in. What have you learned from this process
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that you wish you knew earlier when it came to
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: being a local news reporter.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: We cannot pull back the curtain enough, you know. To
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: your point, people who are engaged are incredibly curious about
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: both their communities and how we work, right, And so
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: I think we assumed back in the mid aughts when
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: I was a cub reporter, that we had to have
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: all the answers because that's what people tell you, Right,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: you're a beat reporter, You've got to be an expert
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: on the pentagon, you know. And if we're good at
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: our jobs today, it's because we're listening to the signals
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: that people are sending us before we begin our reporting, right.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: And that can be in the data, it can be
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: in serving, it can be in conversations, right. But we've
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: got an engagement director on our team, right. The sole
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: purpose of that role is to more authentically connect and
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: explicitly with communities that we are underserving. Right, so that
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: might be rurals, that might be Spanish speaking audiences on
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: the west side of Salt Lake. How do we do
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: a better job of understanding what it is that people
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: want from us? Excuse me before we begin doing the work.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what is it?
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: What did you What were some of the things that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: they felt as if the trip was not doing it before?
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: They want news that can help them make better decisions.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: So we just surveyed four hundred gen z years.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So it goes back to our friend, what was it,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Mart Zuckerman back in the day with US news news
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you can use?
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Remember that, remember that old nineties.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Saying news you can use you know the other guys
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and we all used to mock it. I remember mocking
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it when I was at the hotline and etched news
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: you can use. You know, we were snobs. But you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: know what, to a consumer, if you give them a
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: piece of information that makes their life a little bit easier,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you've just earned real trust.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had people tell us they use the news
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: to win free MLS soccer tickets. To find out what
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: protest was that I expected that was more sure. And
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: there was one person who responded that they used the
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: news to invest in gold, which was okay, you know, right,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: So they're making financial decisions based on what it is
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: that they're seeing, you know, in the news. And I
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: think we can't underestimate the responsibility that we have to
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: make sure that we're giving people fair and trusted and
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: accurate information.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I've said that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I have a friend of mine that I've
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: gotten to know during this journey, Richard Gingris, who ran
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the Google News initiative, and he's been on this rand.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: He said, the worst thing that happened to journalism was
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: all the presidents met, because it made everybody think that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: good journalism was being Bob Woodward and you know, uncovering
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the Great Conspiracy and holding all these people accountable. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that's a piece of journalism, There's no doubt about it.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But that is anybody that's been a practicing journalist knows
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: there are like three of those stories in your lifetime. Okay,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: ninety seven percent of the stories you're covering, our stories
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that the reader is reading either to be informed or
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: you're trying to help them live their lives. But the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: reporter doesn't think of it part of this way. The
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: local news reporter doesn't always think of it that way.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I thought, or didn't I think they. I think we
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: now understand this is a there's a public service aspect
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of this. Sometimes, you you know, when you lose something,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you suddenly realize, hey, wait a minutebe we were thinking
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: about this all wrong. And you are sounding to me
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: like a public servant now, And and I think that, frankly,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I think that is what local news proprietors need to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: see themselves. They're part of the community leadership team, you know,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and no different than you know, the head of the company,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the largest employer is a member of the community team.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: The mayor is a member. Well, so's the newspaper publisher
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: in the and the CEO. And that is the way
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: it used to work in a lot of small towns
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and a lot of even small cities, and then it
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: got commoditized, right, you know, then it got you know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: then we then get that comes along we try to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: scale everything and and and that's that homogenization is probably
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: what chased the ray readers.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting. You know. The trip one of
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: pullets are about ten years ago for some work that
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: it did down at BYU with respect to BYU's honor code,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: and there's tremendous appreciation and respect for the journalists who
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: did that work. They're still here, but they are also
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: just as excited. Well that might be an overstatement. They
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: are also excited for when we do stories that the
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: community responds to. We wrote about this local sweet shop
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: that was struggling with the price of eggs, and the
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: woman retweeted or reshared, excuse me not retweeted, re shared
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: our Instagram story and then added to it and said,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: the line has been down the block and around the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: corner for the last two days. People have come out
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: to support me, which it gets even better, chuck. Then
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: she reposted the next day and she said, and here
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: are ten other local businesses that you should go visit.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: And then we did the story on her post, which
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: is here, you know. And so there's this economic flywheel
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: that's directly related to the first story that the Tribune
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: did that touched tens of businesses, and and that matters
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: just as much in my book as the awards do.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the advertising side, because one of the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: things I've learned on this journey is how many local
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: businesses miss the local paper all around the country because
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it was they knew whoever was reading that lived in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the community versus look is it, is it in theory
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: easier to advertise anywhere you want around the world. It
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: is with the Google ad thing, and but it's it's impersonal, right,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: It's you don't know always where your ad shows up
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and and and there, and it's sometimes yes, it's supposed
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to maybe be geolocated and all of that, but there's
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: a there's something missing, and what you hear is you know,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: most local businesses, it's just like what you described in
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the in the small paper mentality where they're the reporter,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the publisher and the printing press and the delivery. Well,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: in a small business, you're also the marketing director, you're
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the owner, You're you're the salesperson, You're you're making payroll,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and you kind of want to know the.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Person on the other side that you're selling to.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm just when it comes to local advertising, has
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: this been has been has it been easier? I'm assuming
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: it's been easier, or is it or has it been different?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Is it is there?
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: You know, what is that relationship like with the local
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: business community.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. I think relationship is the right
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: word in that we're trying to move from reach to
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: a relationship. And that's not to say we don't have reach.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: The Tribune has got for a major metro, you know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: relatively decent reach.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: We can't.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: We have products we can sell, right, be it newsletter,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: as elgrip, dot com, the printed product and so on
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: and so forth. But we are trying to orient people around.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: You're making a decision about values here as much as
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: you are making a decision about, you know, where to
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: spend such that you get the return on investment that
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: you want or need. The challenge, quite frankly, is that,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: you know, even for the Tribune, much of our reach
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: is off platform. So we reached millions of people on
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Instagram last year. On YouTube we reached twenty five million people.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: And local advertisers think about I.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Want to know, but how many of them are in
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake, right, like shop.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: And Moab right, you know, they don't have the capacity
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: to give us a YouTube ad, and so there's still
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: a disconnect. Now, there's tremendous loyalty for the paper and
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Moab and the advertisers and Moab love that printed paper,
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: but ultimately we need to be thinking about how to
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: transition them.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, this is the case, and it's interesting.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I've often thought that now where we've we've certainly lowered
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the barrier to entry when it comes to making advertisements.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Now that your team can start making the ads on
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: behalf of the small businesses, and we do that right
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: with the help of AI. Now and all this that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: there really is in some ways, there's a variety of
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: services you can provide I think now to local businesses
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that in theory Google could too, But who's the Google
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: rep that they're dealing with? Like, in a weird way,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I think they're more likely to trust somebody that they
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: know shares, you know, the highway with them it's.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: A great point, or they see the grocery store.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would think let's talk about reporter retention.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: You know, in this day and age, this is there's
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of there's a lot of ownership of our
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: own work these days, right. I mean I said this myself,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'll ever want to work for another
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: news organization. Again solely, that doesn't mean I wouldn't want
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: a relationships with multiple news organizations, but to just answer
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to one owner, right, I look at it like, Hey,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate my independence now, I enjoy the responsibility
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that comes with it. I think there's some responsibility, of course,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: but and so I want to and yet at the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: same time, you know, I am, I know I'm not
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the only journalist that wants to be wants to own
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: their own work. And there are there different models you're
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: experimenting with at all or thinking about when it comes
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to the relationship with the reporter. How full time reporters
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: versus part time reporters, versus contributors, versus you know, you
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: know I I sort of think we're going to head
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to what I call an umbrella, you know, where a
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: lot of people will be under one umbrella, even if
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: they're independent on their own type of thing. But is
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: is that is that even feasible? I mean, I'm just
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: curious what where you may have some independent reporters that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: could make a ton of money on substack, right because
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: they're experts in a specific thing. What's your vision to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: dealing with that reporter?
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: For us in Utah as still what one would call
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: it a legacy news organization. I would say, the independent
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: contractor creator freelancer model hasn't really caught on. We have,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: we do have a guild of relatively nascent new guild.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: We signed our first contract with them last year, and
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: it was really important that they secured benefits that are
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: associated with full time work. And by that, I mean
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: they want health insurance, you know, they want a four
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: to one K match. They are looking for new baselines
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: and compensation and you know, merit and cola that are
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: consistent and that they can plan on. And I think
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: the Tribune's done a really good job of creating those conditions,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: as it would let's say, compared to maybe other media
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: organizations out there that have you know, removed the four
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: one K match for cross seamings purposes and so on
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: and so forth. So so we're i think still fairly
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: traditional in that space.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Well that's kind of good.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I think there's plenty of people that also don't want
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: to have to Look, it's a hustle to be an
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: independent contractor. I mean, I'm not gonna you know, and
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it is stressful for navigating the healthcare system on your
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: own without an HR department.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: So there, you know, you know, and and when you
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: have kids out of school.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: When they're out of school, you have a little bit
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: more freedom to do that, But when they're in school,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: you you you value that stability that a job what
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you're describing can give.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I would say that's the probably the dominant
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: kind of thinking at this point in time. But we're
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: also really flexible. We are open. You know, there's nobody
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: telling us what we can or can do. So should
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: we want to have a conversation with someone about you know,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: a sub stack, or you know, if our video producer
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: wants to go do this work work over here, you know,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: all he's got to do is ask, and you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: usually it's yes, as long as there's no conflict of interest.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Right, what's your You've you've already talked about various platforms
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: that the trip is on. Talk to me how platform
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: neutral every story is produced? How many different ways these days?
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: In an ideal world, Chuck, the story is produced for
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: the platform. Okay, that's not often the way it works.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Right, right, I mean I get that that's sometimes you need.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: You know, do you have one person who knows how
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to speak Instagram or do you have an Instagram person
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that helps take So let's say you're reporting on your
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake. This is probably there's probably more planning about it.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: But you've got an update with some new a new
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: study in the great on what's being done to try
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to replenish the Great Salt Lake. Do you have a
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: one reporter that figures out Okay, this is the Instagram
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: angle this, this makes the most sense as a vision,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and we're going to do this, and here's my text story.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe we have to do a YouTube conversation or you're
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: doing maybe have your own choin. I mean, what are
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the different platforms that the trip uses regularly?
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: If we are prioritizing the story for whatever reason, and
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: that may not mean that we've worked on it for
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: three weeks. We're so, for example, we'll take the No
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: King's protests over the weekend, right, Okay, you know.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: It's going to there's a lot of interest in that story,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: so we know it's going to be Yeah, put in
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of places where.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: So we've staffed I think five or six cities throughout
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: the state. It does big state, so like six hours apart, right,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: and we staffed for video, visuals and site and then
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: social and we know that the words on a protest
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: matter far less than the visuals, right, and so we
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: overstaff on the visuals or the video right, and you
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: know those are quote unquote the priorities for this story
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: specific So when we're doing it right, we are thinking
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: about what the platform is and then you know, we're
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: reverse engineering the other platforms if you will, but we don't.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: We don't always I would say, you know, have the
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: time or the resource to do that. We are very
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: invested at this point in time in YouTube, YouTube shorts,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Instagram less. So TikTok. We're taking essentially what we're making
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: for YouTube and moving it to TikTok because TikTok is
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: not monetizable at least YouTube is, even if it's pennies
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: on the dollar at this point for us.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Instagram's not very monetizable either.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: No, it's not, but the community there is significant and
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: as a nonprofit that matters to us.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: So in that sense it's a nonprofit.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for maybe new donors, right, nice new members,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Instagram is a good marketing platform for that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: We will test that this year. It's one of the
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: one of the things.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: We find out. This episode of the Check Podcast is
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  Speaker 2: And yes, I too, am a customer.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about your an editorial page, because everybody wants
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: to label news organizations, and newspapers fairly or unfairly, always
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: got labeled by the editorial page, when maybe.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: That was just the opinion of the publisher.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Sometimes in some news organizations it was I'm not making
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I do not.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, I can pretend I.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is it is because the parent company wants everything.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I think back in the tribune days, all tribunes leaned
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: one certain direction, no matter whatever tribune news organization there was,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and you would have that situation. I have come down
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: on the idea of why do we think we need
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: one editorial page. Why if there's multiple schools of thought,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Let's maybe have a more diverse editorial page A. And
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: then there's there's some other people who will argue, don't
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: even bother having one have a place for opinion, but
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to showcase other opinions, to let there be sort of
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: free wheeling conversation. So to me, there's a lot of
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: models out there. What's a model you guys have chosen,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: and what's both the challenge to that model and what
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: do you why do you think it works as well?
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Why did you choose that one?
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: When we became a five to ZHO one C three,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: we had to stop endorsing for any candidate who was
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: running for political office. I was I don't think that.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: You got tired of being defined by that, because you do,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: you get defined. You know, you had like snarky news
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: organizations back where I worked at the Hotline back in
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the day, where we would do these surveys of the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: newspapers and then all of a sudden of like who
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate and who endorsed the Republican
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate, And then I actually we kept track of
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: it so you would see, oh, there were only like
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: ten percent of the papers that surely sort of went
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: back and forth, and ninety percent endorsed the same party
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: every time. And it was a reminder. Honestly, it made
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: me very cynical about newspaper endorsements anymore. It's like, well, what,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody looks to them, right, because
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: usually if you're a reader of the paper, you already
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: kind of know where they stand. Ultimately, it's about where
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you stand. So but then there are certain things that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: you know the I would, But then I'm going to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: argue with myself here, you being the publisher and your
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: news organization knows a lot about what the community needs.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, and we should be reflecting that in the prep work,
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: in the pre work right right sent We still send
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: candidates for public office robust questionnaires, and we publish the
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: results of those questionnaires, and they're really fill them out anymore.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: They do, Okay, a lot of these candidates are being
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: advised not to fill them out because we saw what
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: have they saw what happened to Kamala Harris.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: What happens when you fill out one of those survey
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: as You never.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Know when it comes back in an ad that oh
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: just takes your entire presidential campaign.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: But I that's fair I think there's enough reach and
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: influence still with the Tribune that many do want to participate.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: I think in Utah also, there is still a strong
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: rootedness and civic engagement, so folks will participate. But that's
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: the pre work, and it doesn't matter if it's a
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: survey or if it's reporting. Right, but people should have
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: enough information to make their own decisions. They don't need
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: us to tell them how to vote, right, no worries
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: they're on the five oh one C three status, negating
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: the endorsement mechanism that newspapers have long held. But we
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: did a couple of other things differently. Shortly after becoming
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: a nonprofit, we started to welcome community members to our
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: editorial board. So it is not me and it is
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: not you know, the chair of our board who is
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: shaping solely the opinion pages of the Saltly Tribune. We
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: usually write around one to two staff editorials a week. Right,
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: We have an application process. Hundreds of people apply, We
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: interview them, we talk to them about what we're looking
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: for in a candidate, and we try to pick some
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: diverse folks. They don't all have the same views or
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: same politics, right, And so we build an editorial board
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: with intentionality that includes the community because as a nonprofit,
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: we feel like that's the right thing to do. This
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: paper is ovin for the community, right, And so that's
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: been I would say success. And it's also enriched the
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: editorial board.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: It brings in new people. We do it every year.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: We welcome new folks. We're in the interview phase right now,
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: so them another set of people in June. And then
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: on the op ed side, we really tried to move
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: away from how do I want to say this? Those
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: who are expected to know a thing because it's their job, right,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: they're experts you know, on issue ex or y or z.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: And we try to focus on lived experience, personal authority.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Has the topic been undercovered? If so, we should be
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: featuring it, right, is it timely? You know? Is it local? Gosh?
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: You know, we probably get dozens of editorials excuse me,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: op eds submitted to us about President Trump. We don't
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: run them.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it, because to what end? You know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I get it. You know, there's plenty of other outlets
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: you can go to if you want to debate his presidency. Yeah, right,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and so so I get that you've brought up the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: church a couple of times, and obviously it's a age
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: you know, there there's no conversation about Utah politics, there's
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: no conversation about Utah media. That isn't going right. The
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: church plays a huge role in sort of day to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: day life.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: So how do you cover the church?
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, faith is undercovered in this country.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: I agree with that, and.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: A huge part of people's lives that we all are
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: afraid of covering as news or news. I think we're
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I'll just be honest, I'll speak for myself and I'll
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: speak for you.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's a right.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: We all know religion is very personal, and we know
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: that people can take offense to something that never was
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: meant to be offensive. And it's like, you know what,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to abide by what the advice my parents
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and grandparents gave to me. Hey, never talk about religion
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: or politics with strangers or in public. And it's like, well,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: that's now what I do for a living. But that's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: neither here nor there. I didn't obviously take that advice
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: very well. But there's a reason we used to say that, right,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: And so I've always thought and I think it's why
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: what you just expressed is so true, which is as journalists,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: we all struggle how do you do how do you
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: cover faith honestly in a way without being insulting to
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the community.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: So, the LDS Church is seventeen million strong and we
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: have a four person faith team, and yes we cover
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: the LDS Church, we also cover other faith I think
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons we are successful and there's tremendous
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: interest in our faith reporting is because the folks on
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: that team understand it well enough to cover it.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Would you ever allow somebody on that team who wasn't
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: a member of the who wasn't LDS.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure we would. We don't have anyone who is
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: not a member of the church on that team right now.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: And I'll give I give them so much credit. Check
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: the otter's name is Dave Noise, and Dave, I don't ask,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: but really certainly goes to church every Sunday, right, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: he shows up and he will hold the church to
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: account if needed on Monday, right, and then he goes
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: back to church and he shows up with all of
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: those folks who know exactly what he did, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: And I just think that takes so much courage and
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: commitment right to both his faith and his work. And
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: I do think one of the reasons that we are
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: successful is because this team is incredibly professional, incredibly committed,
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: and deeply knowledgeable. We have one of the pre eminent
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: faith reporters in the country in Peggy Fletcher Stacks. She's
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: written multiple books on you know, the LDS faith. She
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: heads the Religion Writer's Conference, of which I'm not going
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: to get the name correct, right, And you know, I
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: think faith is a really critical lens as we think
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: about how and why people make decisions. I think, you know,
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: we do the independent.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Work well and in your community there's probably a majority
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: that are members of the church.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: So in the community you.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Cover, the last time we checked, the legislature was like
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: eighty percent LDS, right, And so the intersectionality between faith,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: business and politics here is huge and that's why we
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: talk about it with an accountability lens. You know, there's
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: also a cultural lens Mom Talk, you know, Taylor, Frankie Paul,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: The Real Housewives of Salt Lake, all of those shows
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: are socializing folks to the LDS faith.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine that must just cause all sorts of
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: tensions within LDS communities. How much Hollywood is inserting itself
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: right into the church. I can only imagine those debates.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: There was an article I want to say I saw
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: about three or four days ago about how the question
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: was and this gets it sort of how you tell.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Let me put it this way. I get a question.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I get this question a lot in the political circles
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: about why are the Utah politicians so reasonable? And I said, well,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I said, because they're super polite, right, And then it
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: was sort of my knee jerk answer. But I was
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: reading a piece the other day that talked about how
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the political divide is just as sharp and bright in
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Utah as it is everywhere else, but the only difference
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: is that the conversations are more polite, but it's still
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: deeply divisive. It's just not done with harsher the harsh
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: rhetoric that frankly, sadly most of us are now used
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to in some places on social media.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Is that true?
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Is that your experience that strikes me as absolute? I've
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: had both experiences. So let's just take immigration for example.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: We're about to open a warehouse here on the west
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: side of town. Folks are very upset. A nice warehouse
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: on the west side of the gown, and I think
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: the response has been significant because in part lds serve
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: to your mission, they are more worldly than one might
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: expect or anticipate.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Right, great empathy because of the myth.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I think this is the reason. It's the mission all
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: learn a new community.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Exactly, and so we are more welcoming I would hope,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: and I do think than potentially you know, other places.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: And so in that instance, I don't see that you know,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: divisiveness playing out because of the experiences I'm assuming of
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: so many lds who did serve on missions. And yes,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: there's also a culture around being polite in this space
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: as we're having conversation.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: And Minnesota and ice, right, we have Canada and ice,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Minnesota and ice.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: There's Utah ice, right, Yeah, there is.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: And yet there are all kinds of decisions that are
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: made beyond those conversations that, yes, I think folks would
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: characterize as more divisive or more you know, extreme.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, but it is interesting that it is.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Utah politicians have been trying to play mediator generally international politics,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: whether it's the governor, whether it's former Senator Romney, current
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Senator Curtis. Now there's Senator Lee who's on the other
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: side of this, who's very much an advocate and a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: spokesperson for for the Mega movement as well. So I
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: mean it's not as if it's not a diverse set
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: of opinions in Utah, but it is not monolithic. And
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I think that that that is what surprises people about
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a so called red state.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'd be very interesting to see what happens as
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: we look at redistricting for the first time here in Utah.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: Will have in.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: All of you guys are having the opposite fight of
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: everybody else, Right, you're trying not to redistrict or they
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: want it. I'm I'm half kidding, but it is sort of.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: I guess there was an attempt to put something on
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the ballot to Jerry Mander and it got prevented.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Do I have it right?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, Trump and you know friends put about
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: four and a half million dollars into Utah in the
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: signature gathering effort, and they picked up a bunch of
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: SIGs by you know, some people will say lying about
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: what they were being asked to sign for, and so
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: there was a big move to remove your signatures from
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: the ballot. And just last week enough signatures will removed
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: such that Prop four will be removed from the ballot,
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: and so we will keep our districts as they are
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: currently constituted for November, which are different than what they
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: were last.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Time we've It's very confusing because you guys also passed
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: a referendum that was supposed to be fair districts, yes,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: previously correct, and then this was a referendum that was
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: going to undo this right it is. It is no
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: wonder why some people say, my eyes are glazing over.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Long story short, we should have one.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Blue read we might, but you know, there's always a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: part of me it's like, why do we plan these
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: things like this is what bothers me about gerrymandering and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: registricting in general, which is ultimately what's in the best
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: interests of the community. What would be a good community
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: based district. These communities all have a lot of this
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: in common, so there should be one person representing that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: in Washington, right, we don't think of it that way.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: It is always done and look we all do it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I do it too, which is, oh, this will be
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: a red district, this will be a blue district. And
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: we wonder why people are so cynical about voting itself right.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: It's been it's a challenge.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: But as I always say, we're only as good as
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: the sources we have, and sometimes it's our sources, meaning
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: the people we cover that are doing these weird things.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Don't blame us. We're just the messenger. We're just carrying
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: a pencil. What's the There's a big and this is
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to me, I think it's an opportunity. But when you
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: think about growth, and this is how I want to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: sort of land the plane here, when you think about
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the next ten years of the trip, and in this
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: next ten years, we're going to have this the greatest
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: consolidation of local TV stations around the country that we've
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: ever seen. In the middle of this massive merger Tegna
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: and next are which is going to consolidate more a
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: bunch of new What newspapers went through in the nineties
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: and the early odds is now what local TV stations
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: are going to go through. It's going to be massive
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: amounts of layoffs and huge consolidations and more less coverage locally.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I actually view it for organizations like yourself as an opportunity. Right,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: we know that landscape is going to shift but you're there, now,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: what are those opportunities?
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Where do you hope to be in five years? And
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: where do you hope to be in ten years?
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Thanks? We focused on statewide, so I mentioned Moab. We've
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: expanded in a couple of other communities. That was the
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: priority for us. Now the big priority is moving to
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: free and make sure we get that, making sure we
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: get that right right, we retain those members.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: And you want to be a state wide paper as
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: much as you are a Salt Lake city paper?
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Siicly right, one and the same almost okay, And.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: We've got reporters, you know, anchored throughout the state, which
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: I think is a great benefit.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Are you going to be a Provo paper though, too?
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Meaning will you cover Provo? And now you see where
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going here, Like, what does that mean your local
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: paper in Salt Lake and your state wide paper?
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Are you going to feel like a local paper in Provo?
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I go back to No Kings. We had a
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: reporter in Provo cover the No Kings protests. We had
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: a reporter in Moab, and in Saint George and Logan,
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: and again these communities are hours apart, right and then
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: here at the hub we pull what is relevant together,
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I think you know the level of support
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: is always a factor for us as we think about
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: where we're headed right, both in the community and in
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the philanthropic space. But we'll continue to expand in Utah
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: after we get free, sorted and straight. And then I
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: do think you know, how do we want to say this? Hm? Yes, TV,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: you know. Also you know I come from Gannett, I
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: come from McClatchy, Right, I spent.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: You've seen the good and the bad of what this did.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: And the good in the bad, and there's plenty bad.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: They're they're the extraction is is real and that is
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: not what we are talking about here. But there are
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: also opportunities for us to learn from each other. Right,
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: we have a tremendous social desk. Why aren't we sharing
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: that knowledge with our friends in Montana or Wyoming or
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: with John at the Nevada Indie. Right, we have the
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: ability to negotiate for better health insurance with multiple partners.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm convinced of this.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Almost you rebuild I've been saying what the opportunity is
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: to rebuild UPI not AP But what UPI originally was
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: was actually a cooperative of independently news organizations who work together.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: In a larger network.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Right, So, if you're asked you what the future is,
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's my future. I think that's where we're headed.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Well, it's the future. I hope we're headed. So and
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: you're actually doing the doing, doing the hard work on
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: the ground.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Lord, this is great. I think it's a hopefully it's
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: a story that may inspire current getting that own news
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: organizations or McClatchy owned news organizations who think, you know, hey,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and they have a local philanthropist who would like to
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: bring the local paper back. I mean, you know, it's
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: interesting with the Huntsmans with what they did for the paper,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: it's very similar to what we saw with the Baltimore Banner.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: They got a they got an initial big investment from
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: somebody who said, I'm going to give you this runway.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: You've got five years to do X, y or z uh,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: and then you become on your own. I do think
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: this is the community. You know, part of the community
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: involvement is the wealthier members of the community involved as
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: well in something like this. But this feels like a
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: repeatable model that you guys pulled off.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Do you think it is Yes, let's find some more
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: communities to do it.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Local news Day. What do you hope to do for
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: with it? What are you guys planning to do on it?
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: Well, we're pretty focused on getting to free.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Well it's good timing, right, We're going to do free and.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Local free on Local news Day. How's that?
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: There you go?
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Which is going to be music to the years of
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: many people who are looking at their credit card boon
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: and go. How many substacks do I subscribe to? Sorry,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: I'm just speaking for myself anyway, Lauren, this is terrific.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Good luck and thanks for being here.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Appreciate it.