Latest / The Real News Podcast / Corporate Profiteers Destroyed Journalism. Worker-Owned Media Can Save It.

Transcript

Corporate Profiteers Destroyed Journalism. Worker-Owned Media Can Save It. · The Real News Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Ah, I got.
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Speaker 2: Oh right.
0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome every one to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs,
0:11
Speaker 1: dreams and struggles of the working class today. Working People
0:15
Speaker 1: is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network
0:18
Speaker 1: and has brought to you in partnership with In These
0:21
Speaker 1: Times magazine and the Real News Network. This show is
0:24
Speaker 1: produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support
0:27
Speaker 1: of listeners like you. My name is Maximilian Alvarez, and today,
0:33
Speaker 1: amid so much you know, bleak and awful and overwhelming
0:38
Speaker 1: news bombarding us at all times from all over the world,
0:42
Speaker 1: We're gonna do something different and we're gonna talk about
0:45
Speaker 1: some good news for once. Because this week a new
0:49
Speaker 1: worker on cooperative launched in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it's called
0:54
Speaker 1: The Pittsburgh Progress. Here's their story, which you can find
0:57
Speaker 1: on their website. Well. The Pitts Progress is a cooperative
1:01
Speaker 1: news organization owned and democratically run by its workers and members.
1:06
Speaker 1: It was formed in the weeks and months after owners
1:09
Speaker 1: of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette announced on January seventh, twenty
1:13
Speaker 1: twenty six, their intention to close the newspaper. This move
1:17
Speaker 1: by the Post Gazette came just weeks after unionized workers
1:20
Speaker 1: there had won a strike lasting more than three years.
1:25
Speaker 1: Those workers and their community supporters initially formed the organization
1:30
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Alliance for People Empowered Reporting or Paper, with a
1:34
Speaker 1: mandate to research the creation of a daily news outlet
1:38
Speaker 1: more deserving of Pittsburgh. Paper quickly resolved that any new
1:42
Speaker 1: publication would, unlike the block owned Post Gazette, respect its
1:46
Speaker 1: employees and address the concerns of all working class people
1:50
Speaker 1: in the region. The publication would serve as an essential
1:53
Speaker 1: and sustainable source of communication and connection in the Pittsburgh region.
1:58
Speaker 1: Workers and their supporters decide I did on a publication
2:01
Speaker 1: name the Pittsburgh Progress, in a nod to the striking
2:04
Speaker 1: Post Gazette workers award winning strike publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress.
2:10
Speaker 1: Work continues on the Pittsburgh Progress website, marketing strategy, and
2:14
Speaker 1: the building of a newsroom. We continued to raise funds
2:17
Speaker 1: to lift up worker center journalism in Western Pennsylvania, and
2:21
Speaker 1: those funds will be used to hire full time staff
2:24
Speaker 1: and freelance journalists dedicated to looking out for and telling
2:28
Speaker 1: the stories of the working class people who form the
2:31
Speaker 1: heart and soul of our diverse communities.
2:33
Speaker 3: End quote.
2:34
Speaker 1: So to talk about the birth of the Pittsburgh Progress
2:37
Speaker 1: and what it means for working people in and beyond Pittsburgh.
2:41
Speaker 1: I am really grateful to be joined once again on
2:43
Speaker 1: the show by some familiar voices. Steve Mellen is a
2:47
Speaker 1: journalist who was on strike at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette
2:50
Speaker 1: for more than three years and is now a founding
2:52
Speaker 1: worker member of the Pittsburgh Progress. And Natalie Douleba is
2:56
Speaker 1: a former Post Gazette striker. She serves as local sectary
3:00
Speaker 1: of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and is now also
3:03
Speaker 1: a founding worker member of the Pittsburgh Progress. Natalie, Steve,
3:08
Speaker 1: it is so great to see you both, and thank
3:11
Speaker 1: you so much for coming back on the show. You know,
3:14
Speaker 1: for for over three years, well, you guys were on
3:17
Speaker 1: strike at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. You know, we've gotten
3:20
Speaker 1: to know you and your co workers over the many
3:23
Speaker 1: conversations that we've had on this show on the Real
3:26
Speaker 1: News Network. When I was at breaking points like it's
3:29
Speaker 1: been a long road, did you ever think that it
3:32
Speaker 1: would lead you here?
3:33
Speaker 4: I know I certainly did not. You know, our hope.
3:37
Speaker 4: I think Natalie probably feels the same way. I won't
3:39
Speaker 4: speak for you man, Natalie, but you know, we were
3:41
Speaker 4: hoping to win the strike and get a contract. That
3:43
Speaker 4: was our goal. And you know, we thought we had
3:45
Speaker 4: accomplished that. We you know, we had you know, we
3:49
Speaker 4: had an incredible community support during the strike. You know
3:54
Speaker 4: that was a long, hard battle, and Max, you know
3:57
Speaker 4: that you guys covered the strike, Bethan that more than
4:00
Speaker 4: any other publication, more than any other organization, you know that.
4:04
Speaker 4: But you know, we we did win the strike. You know,
4:07
Speaker 4: we won. We went back to work. Things were going
4:10
Speaker 4: pretty well. You know, we had a big rally in
4:12
Speaker 4: front of the Post Gazette. All the community showed up
4:15
Speaker 4: to support us. We went back in things were going
4:18
Speaker 4: pretty well. I think we were, you know, as acrimonious
4:21
Speaker 4: says the strike was, we were working together, we were
4:24
Speaker 4: resolving conflicts. We were actually producing good journalism. You know
4:28
Speaker 4: that all changed on January seventh, when the company announced
4:31
Speaker 4: it was just this came, Max. This came just about
4:35
Speaker 4: an hour and a half after the Supreme Court had
4:38
Speaker 4: denied the Post Cazette post caase AT's request for a
4:43
Speaker 4: stay on a healthcare issue that was related to the strike.
4:45
Speaker 4: It was think of the last gasp effort of the
4:49
Speaker 4: owners of the Post Gazette to delay the consequences for
4:52
Speaker 4: their law breaking actions. Don't forget that this strike was
4:54
Speaker 4: a result of a law breaking action by the owners
4:57
Speaker 4: of the Post. Case att so you they announced the
5:01
Speaker 4: closure of the paper within I think, what, Natalie, two
5:04
Speaker 4: hours or so after that announcement came down that the
5:06
Speaker 4: Supreme Court had had denied their request for a stay.
5:12
Speaker 4: They announced the closure of the post because that, you know,
5:14
Speaker 4: and it's like, at that point, I think among a
5:17
Speaker 4: lot of us, Max, there was a lot of anger
5:19
Speaker 4: and frustration is that, you know, we did all this
5:21
Speaker 4: stuff to win and yet like the system still fails.
5:25
Speaker 4: You you know, the system's not going to let workers win.
5:30
Speaker 4: And at that point, I think a lot of us
5:32
Speaker 4: we were angry, we were frustrated. That very quickly settled
5:36
Speaker 4: into we have to do something about this. We cannot
5:39
Speaker 4: let this stand. And we had an extraordinary meeting that
5:44
Speaker 4: night I think January seventh was a Wednesday, Natalie, I believe,
5:50
Speaker 4: and that night we had an extraordinary meeting of our
5:52
Speaker 4: membership and we just decided like, no, we're not you know,
5:56
Speaker 4: you learn things about yourself and your community when you
5:58
Speaker 4: strike for three years about your colleague. You know, I
6:00
Speaker 4: looked at Natalie and Aaron and and and all, you know,
6:04
Speaker 4: all the people we've been to strike on. I thought,
6:06
Speaker 4: we can do whatever we want. We have a community support,
6:10
Speaker 4: we had the skills, we had the talent, we had
6:12
Speaker 4: the determination, and you know, after a series of meetings,
6:15
Speaker 4: we thought, let's form our own publication, one that we
6:19
Speaker 4: can inoculate against corporate abuse, against the influences of money.
6:26
Speaker 4: And the result was a worker, community owned cooperative, a
6:31
Speaker 4: multi stakeholder holder. So no I had no idea I'd
6:34
Speaker 4: be in its position to be like a co owner
6:37
Speaker 4: with so many other people in the community and my
6:39
Speaker 4: coworkers of a publication. So no I did not expect
6:44
Speaker 4: to be here. But it feels good.
6:47
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, like we you know, during the strike, our
6:50
Speaker 2: goal was always to get back to work, but also
6:54
Speaker 2: to you know, build a postcazette that ourselves but also
7:00
Speaker 2: journalists that came after us could build a life with.
7:02
Speaker 5: And you know the posters that still remains.
7:04
Speaker 2: The Venaitula's Institute for Journalism did buy the posts at
7:08
Speaker 2: from the from the blocks, and Steve and I were
7:11
Speaker 2: among the uh, the journalists who were not retained, we
7:15
Speaker 2: were not hired by by Venaitulas. But you know, we
7:19
Speaker 2: do still have a former strikers who were at the
7:22
Speaker 2: Post Gazette doing the good work to get a new
7:24
Speaker 2: contract with new owners. And you know, we're hoping that
7:29
Speaker 2: the the the victories that we got during the strike,
7:34
Speaker 2: you know, are are carried forward in that bargaining. There's
7:39
Speaker 2: a bargaining session that's happening today and I think that
7:43
Speaker 2: you know, the the Venaitula's at least knows that the
7:46
Speaker 2: journalists of the newspaper Gilla Pittsburgh and are fregative of
7:49
Speaker 2: a fight. But you know, I think that the strike
7:55
Speaker 2: really taught us that, like, if you want something, you
7:58
Speaker 2: got to get at yourself. And when we're looking at
8:02
Speaker 2: the the possibility there was no Post Gazet, like a
8:05
Speaker 2: huge vacuum in Pittsburgh, they're like, well.
8:10
Speaker 3: Something should replace it.
8:11
Speaker 2: And you know, some of the other publications in the
8:13
Speaker 2: city were circling like vultures, and some of them have
8:16
Speaker 2: expanded into areas that they didn't have they weren't in before.
8:20
Speaker 3: But even with the Post.
8:21
Speaker 2: Cazett continuing, you know, they did the new owners did
8:24
Speaker 2: cut the newsroom by about forty percent, eighty percent of
8:28
Speaker 2: which were strikers.
8:30
Speaker 5: We all have an intimate, you know, understanding.
8:33
Speaker 2: Of the gaps in the coverage and communities that told
8:37
Speaker 2: us during the strike and after the announcement of the
8:39
Speaker 2: closure that they felt underrepresented, misrepresented those of us.
8:45
Speaker 3: Before we were not re hired.
8:46
Speaker 2: We were willing to bring that that knowledge and that
8:49
Speaker 2: trust in the community to Venatulis, to you know, maybe
8:53
Speaker 2: start to repair the damage and reputation the Post Gazette
8:56
Speaker 2: suffered underneath the blocks, but they weren't interested.
9:00
Speaker 5: In that, at least from us. So yeah, that it's
9:06
Speaker 5: it's is wild to think that we're we've we've we're.
9:10
Speaker 2: Building our own news outlet. That's not I mean that
9:13
Speaker 2: any of us thought was going to happen. You know,
9:15
Speaker 2: we were we wanted to get back to the Post Gazette.
9:17
Speaker 2: But now we're in control of our own destiny in
9:22
Speaker 2: a way that we weren't during the strike, because yes,
9:25
Speaker 2: we were out there fighting for ourselves, but also you know,
9:27
Speaker 2: at the mercy.
9:27
Speaker 5: Of the the slow you know.
9:31
Speaker 2: Cogs of the justice system, and this is like we're
9:35
Speaker 2: setting the pace worth you know, doing the work ourselves,
9:38
Speaker 2: and it's fully under our control, which is really amazing,
9:43
Speaker 2: but it is also a lot you know, it's like
9:45
Speaker 2: it's our responsibility. Yay, it's our responsibility, you know.
9:50
Speaker 1: I know it intimately. I mean like and it's it's Yeah,
9:54
Speaker 1: it's such a head spinner right where you're like, oh shit,
9:57
Speaker 1: like now.
9:58
Speaker 3: We got to do that. Oh shit, we get to
10:01
Speaker 3: do that, right.
10:01
Speaker 1: It Like it forces you to confront the sort of
10:05
Speaker 1: decision making you know, that affects our lives on a
10:10
Speaker 1: day to day level, and it is both liberating and
10:14
Speaker 1: terrifying to like have more of that decision making power
10:18
Speaker 1: yourself instead of just you know, trusting it, you know,
10:22
Speaker 1: to be done for you by our higher ups. But like,
10:27
Speaker 1: you know, so many of us, for that reason, like
10:29
Speaker 1: I don't think have even considered what it would look
10:33
Speaker 1: like in our day to day work lives to have
10:37
Speaker 1: that agency, to have that democratic, cooperative sort of a
10:41
Speaker 1: model rather than the kind of top down authoritarian model
10:45
Speaker 1: that we're all so comfortable and used to by which
10:49
Speaker 1: we've been conditioned to be used to by force for
10:52
Speaker 1: many many generations. But I digress. I wanted to sort
10:56
Speaker 1: of like hover on that for a second. And ask
11:00
Speaker 1: like about your time at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Like, like,
11:04
Speaker 1: what did working and striking at a paper like the
11:07
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh Post Gazette teach you about what a project like
11:12
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Progress needs to be and why it needs
11:16
Speaker 1: to be.
11:17
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we learned several things during the strike,
11:22
Speaker 4: you know, because it put quite honestly, you know, when
11:24
Speaker 4: I was a journalist, you know, I tried to be
11:26
Speaker 4: out on the street a lot and talking to people,
11:29
Speaker 4: but it wasn't until I went on strike that I
11:31
Speaker 4: was put into conversations with people in various communities that
11:37
Speaker 4: were under represented. And I learned a lot during the strike,
11:43
Speaker 4: especially after the strike it was over, Like after we'd
11:47
Speaker 4: won the strike and the Post Gazette announced its closure,
11:51
Speaker 4: and at that point, Max, we had conversations with people
11:54
Speaker 4: in the community. You know, one of the first questions
11:57
Speaker 4: we asked, I remember, was what does it mean to
12:00
Speaker 4: lose the Post Gazette, Like what does it mean to
12:01
Speaker 4: you in your community to lose the Post Caaseette newspaper?
12:04
Speaker 4: Because at that point we didn't know that the Venezula's
12:07
Speaker 4: Institute was going to step in and buy it. And
12:09
Speaker 4: you know, some of the One of the responses really
12:13
Speaker 4: stuck with me. As a young woman stood up and
12:15
Speaker 4: she said, the closure of the Post Caasette doesn't mean
12:18
Speaker 4: anything to me because they've not been relevant to my
12:21
Speaker 4: community for years now. As a journalist who spent his life,
12:25
Speaker 4: you know, a good chunk of my professional life reporting
12:28
Speaker 4: on this city, that was heartbreaking to hear that, you know,
12:31
Speaker 4: these institutions that I'd given my life to were irrelevant
12:34
Speaker 4: to the communities that had supported us during the strike
12:37
Speaker 4: and had had leaned into our effort. Max. That's like, well,
12:41
Speaker 4: what's wrong with this? Like, what's wrong with this? This
12:44
Speaker 4: is an issue, and it gets not just to journalism.
12:46
Speaker 4: It's like we're seeing the crumbling of communities all over
12:49
Speaker 4: this country. There are a lot of forces, and you know,
12:52
Speaker 4: there are a lot of forces that profit from creating division,
12:56
Speaker 4: you know, and newspapers, news organizations have failed in their
13:01
Speaker 4: duty to be the cohesive force, you know, And it's like, Okay,
13:06
Speaker 4: that's an issue. How do we solve that. We kicked
13:08
Speaker 4: around several different ideas, you know, and one you know,
13:13
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about co ops, Max, but when
13:16
Speaker 4: when we in our discussions, when we brought up the
13:19
Speaker 4: fact that how because we talked about nonprofit models, these
13:22
Speaker 4: different models. When somebody said what about a co op?
13:25
Speaker 4: People got really excited about that. And when we started
13:29
Speaker 4: talking about a co op, that's when we started to
13:31
Speaker 4: see a lot more people to show up.
13:34
Speaker 1: You know.
13:34
Speaker 4: I was at a journalism conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about
13:36
Speaker 4: two months ago, and there was a lot of talk
13:38
Speaker 4: at that conference about engaging with your audience. How do
13:42
Speaker 4: you engage with your audience? Honestly, if we haven't figured
13:45
Speaker 4: out that at this point, then we failed anyway. But
13:50
Speaker 4: we thought, Okay, well, we're not going to engage in
13:52
Speaker 4: our audience. We're going to ask them to become stakeholders
13:55
Speaker 4: in this process. And I think that is a game changer.
13:59
Speaker 4: I think this model going forward is one that can
14:03
Speaker 4: be replicated. There are co ops, successful news co ops
14:07
Speaker 4: that exist in other places, a list of them, so
14:09
Speaker 4: we're not new to this. But I do think that
14:12
Speaker 4: what we can do here in Pittsburgh is build on
14:15
Speaker 4: those models and take the lessons we learned from the strikes,
14:21
Speaker 4: take ideas from the communities, the people that we met
14:26
Speaker 4: during the strike, the people that we reported on for
14:29
Speaker 4: a pup, and use those to build a publication that
14:33
Speaker 4: where we're not going to have people stand up at
14:35
Speaker 4: a town hall and say the Pittsburgh Progress is irrelevant
14:38
Speaker 4: to my community. We're trying to make sure that that
14:40
Speaker 4: does not happen to us, and our way of making
14:43
Speaker 4: sure that happens is having that young woman in the
14:46
Speaker 4: room when we're making decisions.
14:49
Speaker 5: The things that I learned, you know what the post
14:50
Speaker 5: is that.
14:53
Speaker 2: Besides you know, the things like, you know, the skills
14:55
Speaker 2: that I built there that I'm bringing in. You know,
14:58
Speaker 2: I was a copy editor at a page designer before
15:01
Speaker 2: the strike. It came back to be full time on
15:03
Speaker 2: the web desk. I'm bringing those skills into this. I'm
15:07
Speaker 2: glad that I can bring that extra you know, oop
15:10
Speaker 2: to what I can offer. But also I think that
15:13
Speaker 2: being on strike, we saw what it was like to
15:18
Speaker 2: be on the other side of business interests overriding journalistic ethics,
15:23
Speaker 2: you know, are the coverage of the strike was just insulting, honestly,
15:27
Speaker 2: because we knew where these things are being obfuscated. But
15:30
Speaker 2: it went deep, you know, it went deeper of like
15:33
Speaker 2: you know, the Post is a trying to hide the
15:36
Speaker 2: fact that people weren't talking to them because they were
15:38
Speaker 2: holding our picket line and getting around not saying, you know,
15:43
Speaker 2: the mayor is not responding to comment because on this issue,
15:46
Speaker 2: because he's not responding to any comment, but they're not
15:49
Speaker 2: but you know, not putting in he's not talking to us.
15:52
Speaker 3: At all because he's respecting a picket line.
15:55
Speaker 2: Shades the way that people may have perceived that article.
15:58
Speaker 2: Maybe think like, you know, the mayor is running away
15:59
Speaker 2: for accountability on this issue, or you know, leaving off
16:05
Speaker 2: said in a press release, So it looks like somebody
16:08
Speaker 2: who was holding our picket line maybe gave them a quote,
16:11
Speaker 2: and an average reader might know about the strike but
16:14
Speaker 2: not know that that came from a press release, and
16:17
Speaker 2: then they're like that, you know, maybe they're you can
16:19
Speaker 2: see the way that these perceptions change potentially, or even
16:24
Speaker 2: you know, a local news station that has a business
16:27
Speaker 2: relationship with the Post Gazette had coverage during the summer
16:31
Speaker 2: when the when SAG and WGA were on strike, and
16:34
Speaker 2: they had a segment where they talked about all the
16:36
Speaker 2: active strikes in the country and they didn't mention us
16:40
Speaker 2: the strike that at that point I think had gone
16:41
Speaker 2: on for over a year at that point, like we
16:44
Speaker 2: were deep into our strike.
16:45
Speaker 5: It wasn't like it was brand new and you just
16:49
Speaker 5: see like, okay.
16:50
Speaker 2: So you've interest, like, you know, the business relationship you
16:54
Speaker 2: had with a post caazette. I mean like allegedly this
16:56
Speaker 2: is you know, it's not like I got this confirmed
16:58
Speaker 2: by anybody. But why else would leave it out if
17:01
Speaker 2: not because of that business relationship.
17:04
Speaker 5: There's no other reason why I.
17:05
Speaker 2: Could think to not put the strike that's happening in
17:08
Speaker 2: your own city into report about strikes that are happening
17:11
Speaker 2: across the country. And there's no way that there are
17:17
Speaker 2: you know that that there's not other communities, other issues
17:21
Speaker 2: that have been covered in that way that have felt
17:24
Speaker 2: like the nuance has been left out, or that there
17:27
Speaker 2: has been gaps that have not been filled with the
17:30
Speaker 2: with the you know, with reporting and us being on
17:35
Speaker 2: so intantly on the other side of it, I think
17:37
Speaker 2: really places us in such a great position to be
17:40
Speaker 2: like to poke at that, like what is not.
17:42
Speaker 5: Being said in these press releases?
17:44
Speaker 2: What is what is the the you know, the CEO
17:48
Speaker 2: or the founder of this big you know company obfuscating.
17:52
Speaker 5: With legal with legal language.
17:56
Speaker 2: Where you know, when you poke at it, you can like,
17:57
Speaker 2: oh well, technically, what they said, is correct, But there's
18:02
Speaker 2: all this stuff that they're leaving out that we learned
18:04
Speaker 2: by talking to the working class memory people of Pittsburgh,
18:09
Speaker 2: the regular everyday citizens that are affected by these decisions,
18:12
Speaker 2: who have you.
18:13
Speaker 3: Know, first person.
18:15
Speaker 2: Experience being like, you know, the little guy who was
18:18
Speaker 2: affected by that, and you know, it sucks to be
18:24
Speaker 2: on that side of it, but it allows it has
18:26
Speaker 2: allowed us to build that extra you know, lens of
18:30
Speaker 2: looking at things that way. I mean, you know, journalists
18:33
Speaker 2: are trained to ask questions and poke at things, but
18:36
Speaker 2: I think seeing behind the veil is for intimately and personally,
18:40
Speaker 2: is going to allow us to easily see where that
18:42
Speaker 2: is happening. And also, I mean, like we we had
18:47
Speaker 2: like a little exercise when you're trying to, like when
18:49
Speaker 2: you're in one of our founder's meetings, about what don't
18:51
Speaker 2: we want our newsroom to look like? What behaviors do
18:56
Speaker 2: we want to avoid when we're building our newsroom and
18:59
Speaker 2: our editorial practices, And a lot of it came down
19:03
Speaker 2: to not understanding why things are being done, like why
19:08
Speaker 2: is this decision being made, why is this policy in place,
19:11
Speaker 2: and why aren't these.
19:12
Speaker 3: Things being communicated to the people who.
19:13
Speaker 5: Actually have to follow these rules.
19:17
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, the transparency that comes
19:22
Speaker 2: in being a worker created newsroom and a worker led
19:25
Speaker 2: newsroom will allow it like a lot you know, when
19:30
Speaker 2: when when someone's laid off, that sucks, but a lot
19:33
Speaker 2: of times you're just kind of like an owner just says,
19:36
Speaker 2: we gotta lay you off because we're losing money, I guess,
19:40
Speaker 2: and you just have to take the word for it.
19:41
Speaker 2: But you know, you know, hopefully we don't have to
19:45
Speaker 2: ever confront that type of thing, but if we do,
19:49
Speaker 2: that'll be a decision that is made collectively where like
19:52
Speaker 2: you understand what's gone into it, why, and it's not
19:56
Speaker 2: a callous just cutting of your you know, the cord
19:59
Speaker 2: there so that the owner you know, I guess doesn't
20:03
Speaker 2: get to, you know, buy a second summer home.
20:06
Speaker 5: Like it's not or what you know, it's like you've
20:09
Speaker 5: been involved.
20:10
Speaker 3: In the whole process and there's trust that you can do.
20:12
Speaker 2: There's just that is just baked into a democratic run
20:17
Speaker 2: newsroom or any business, I suppose, But we're talking about
20:19
Speaker 2: a newsroom here. But you know, we we want to
20:22
Speaker 2: try to not to build a newsroom that is the
20:25
Speaker 2: people are on the same page that it is collaborative,
20:29
Speaker 2: and that people understand the mechanics that are going on
20:32
Speaker 2: and the work and the journalism that that is being
20:35
Speaker 2: done is you know, ethical and not bowing to business interests.
20:42
Speaker 2: And I think that we're well on our way to
20:45
Speaker 2: doing that.
20:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, let's let's like bring this down to
20:50
Speaker 1: you know, paper level and and talk about what what
20:54
Speaker 1: this looks like in the now officially launched publication. You know,
21:00
Speaker 1: I know, as as you know we said in the
21:02
Speaker 1: intro and as y'all say on your website, you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: this is a work in progress. Y'all are growing, but
21:07
Speaker 1: you have officially launched. So tell folks more about, like,
21:13
Speaker 1: you know, what the Pittsburgh progress is, where it's going,
21:17
Speaker 1: and uh what they're going to find there and what
21:19
Speaker 1: they can do to support y'all.
21:21
Speaker 4: Well, you know, right now, we did launch on Monday.
21:24
Speaker 4: Uh it's we're considering that our soft launch. We're not yet.
21:26
Speaker 4: We're you know, we're working up to becoming a you know,
21:29
Speaker 4: a regular daily publication. We just started this process. It's
21:35
Speaker 4: kind of crazy, Max to think that, you know, we
21:39
Speaker 4: this wasn't even a topic of discussion until January seventh,
21:45
Speaker 4: and it took a couple of weeks before we had
21:47
Speaker 4: consensus about to even move forward with the idea of
21:51
Speaker 4: a new publication. And so a lot has happened very quickly.
21:56
Speaker 4: We've had to come up with a business you know,
21:58
Speaker 4: we're journalists, Max, We're not like business people, but we've
22:01
Speaker 4: had to become business people. And it's like, Okay, the
22:03
Speaker 4: learning curve for this is very, very steep. We've had
22:06
Speaker 4: to come up with a business plan. We've had to
22:08
Speaker 4: come up with bylaws. It's over and over and over again.
22:12
Speaker 4: It's your social media strategy. We've had to hire people
22:14
Speaker 4: and and and and to do some of the things
22:17
Speaker 4: that we just don't know how to do and we
22:19
Speaker 4: don't want to mess them up. You know, we have
22:20
Speaker 4: to become incorporated. How do you do that in a
22:22
Speaker 4: timely manner? You know, all these things. So a lot
22:25
Speaker 4: has happened very quickly.
22:27
Speaker 2: Uh.
22:27
Speaker 4: It wasn't until quite honestly, a couple of weeks ago
22:29
Speaker 4: that we were able to sit down and think about, ok,
22:32
Speaker 4: wait a minute, if we're going to publish, we've got
22:33
Speaker 4: to have some stories in this damn thing. So we started.
22:36
Speaker 4: So we put together a slate of stories that we
22:39
Speaker 4: felt matched kind of what we want to be and
22:42
Speaker 4: what we want to do align with our you know,
22:44
Speaker 4: our mission to get people a glimpse of what we
22:46
Speaker 4: hope to be in the very near future. If you
22:49
Speaker 4: look at Pittsburgh Progress dot com right now, you'll see
22:51
Speaker 4: i think five or six stories. Our lead story right
22:54
Speaker 4: now is about the nurses who organized nurses here who
22:59
Speaker 4: are are fighting for our contract. That's a big, big
23:02
Speaker 4: story in this town where you know, these big medical
23:05
Speaker 4: companies have such a big footprint. Nurses on the front
23:08
Speaker 4: lines of that. So that's one of our lead stories.
23:11
Speaker 4: Natalie has a story on third Places for the members
23:15
Speaker 4: of the LGBTQ community. We have a review of a
23:20
Speaker 4: new book on WPA workers. Kim Kelly wrote the forward
23:23
Speaker 4: for that. You know, you guys all know and love
23:26
Speaker 4: Kim Kelly. So we have our origin stories is another
23:30
Speaker 4: part of that. We have a couple of sports stories.
23:32
Speaker 4: We're really going to lean into high school sports because
23:34
Speaker 4: you know, we're interested in not covering the millionaire god
23:37
Speaker 4: love them, our millionaire sports heroes. We are interested in
23:41
Speaker 4: covering the sports played by the sons and daughters or
23:44
Speaker 4: the working people of this region. So that's that's what
23:47
Speaker 4: you'll find when you go there. Now, we're going to
23:50
Speaker 4: continue to build on that. You know, we're still working.
23:53
Speaker 4: We're a small team right now. We're building and adding,
23:56
Speaker 4: but we're a small team, and we're having to walk
23:59
Speaker 4: and chew gum and and tire shoes and baked dinner
24:03
Speaker 4: and comb our hair all at the same time. So
24:05
Speaker 4: it's gonna take you know, it's going to take a
24:07
Speaker 4: minute to get this thing up to where we want
24:09
Speaker 4: it to be. We've learned, Max that this group of people,
24:13
Speaker 4: when we get together we set our mind to something,
24:15
Speaker 4: we can accomplish that thing. And this is a goal
24:18
Speaker 4: we have set for ourselves, and I know we'll do it.
24:21
Speaker 4: I know we have a community of support people who
24:24
Speaker 4: want to support this learn more about it. Go to
24:27
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh progress dot com. You'll find this a button that
24:31
Speaker 4: says join us. It's like a maroon button, red maroon button.
24:34
Speaker 4: Click join us. You can learn about progress, you can
24:37
Speaker 4: learn how to support this effort. You have questions, you
24:41
Speaker 4: can you can reach out to me or Natalie. I'm
24:44
Speaker 4: sure you're willing to answer questions too. We're hoping that
24:47
Speaker 4: that there are you know, I've been in journalism a
24:50
Speaker 4: long time. Max most people that I was in journalism with,
24:54
Speaker 4: most of the people that I knew in journalism all
24:57
Speaker 4: over the country, none of them are in the business now.
25:01
Speaker 4: They've had to get out, Their newspapers have closed, They
25:03
Speaker 4: did not make enough money to support their families. For
25:05
Speaker 4: one reason or another. They're out of the business. That's
25:08
Speaker 4: got to stop. What's the model for that, Well, we
25:11
Speaker 4: think this is a model that can be replicated in
25:14
Speaker 4: other cities. You know. One of the things, we have
25:16
Speaker 4: a couple of goals here, at least at least that's
25:19
Speaker 4: the way I see this. One goal is to do
25:21
Speaker 4: just what Natalie said, you know, provide a news coverage
25:27
Speaker 4: that is ethical and that focuses on the needs and
25:32
Speaker 4: concerns of the working class people in our region.
25:34
Speaker 1: Right.
25:35
Speaker 4: But another goal is to say this can be done,
25:39
Speaker 4: and this is possible. There are other cooperative news organizations
25:43
Speaker 4: that have done this. This is our model. We want
25:45
Speaker 4: to build on those models and say, Okay, we're going
25:49
Speaker 4: to take the baton and run with it. We're going
25:52
Speaker 4: to run like hell with that baton, and we want
25:54
Speaker 4: somebody else to pick that up too. So we're like
25:56
Speaker 4: we're all running here and building new news organizations that
26:01
Speaker 4: are that are engaged in covering the news, informing, being
26:07
Speaker 4: a source of communication, but are also building community. And
26:11
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the things one of the
26:12
Speaker 4: things I learned about working in the newspapers as a
26:14
Speaker 4: young man. This is back in the eighties, worked at
26:17
Speaker 4: weekly newspapers, the newspaper, you know, these weekly, small daily
26:21
Speaker 4: newspapers in small towns were part of the fabric of
26:24
Speaker 4: that community and held the community together by being like
26:27
Speaker 4: a voice that where people could look at that publication
26:30
Speaker 4: and recognize themselves and recognize their community. That's gone what
26:34
Speaker 4: we see in a lot of newspapers, the Post because
26:36
Speaker 4: that is an example of this. We have an institution
26:38
Speaker 4: talking to other institutions, and what happens when that, like
26:42
Speaker 4: worker voices, regular people voices are lost. One of our
26:45
Speaker 4: goals is to do that here in Pittsburgh is create
26:47
Speaker 4: a publication that does not do that, where people can
26:50
Speaker 4: look at that publication and recognize themselves and recognize the
26:53
Speaker 4: community that they care about and that they're willing to
26:55
Speaker 4: invest in. So that's where I see where we're at
26:59
Speaker 4: right now and where we want to go.
27:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pittsburgh Progress dot Com is the is our website,
27:04
Speaker 2: but we're also on Instagram, Blue Sky, and Facebook. You
27:09
Speaker 2: can find us on all all three of those by
27:11
Speaker 2: you know, searching for the Pittsburgh Progress and all the same.
27:15
Speaker 5: You know, the link to how to join us is.
27:18
Speaker 2: Available in all those places, and you know, giving us
27:22
Speaker 2: a follow there is really helpful, and also you can
27:24
Speaker 2: stay up to date on you know, the the next
27:28
Speaker 2: steps in our rollout. But I think that like having
27:33
Speaker 2: you know, edited all of our the stories that went
27:35
Speaker 2: up for the soft launch, that you know, I would
27:39
Speaker 2: encourage people who want to support us to really you know,
27:43
Speaker 2: obviously I'd like you to read all of them, but
27:45
Speaker 2: if you do, you'll see the way that they actually
27:47
Speaker 2: plug into each other, that they build on each other
27:50
Speaker 2: the same you know, concepts of building community. You know,
27:56
Speaker 2: we have a high school football coach who is leading
28:01
Speaker 2: has led an incredible team, but he's also committed to
28:04
Speaker 2: staying at this high school to build up these like
28:08
Speaker 2: young men into not only good football players, but also
28:12
Speaker 2: good young men and having that commitment there. And like
28:16
Speaker 2: there's a football club at Soccer Football who that's for
28:20
Speaker 2: a community football club, and the runner of that has
28:25
Speaker 2: similarly aligned and also like you know, has similar goals
28:28
Speaker 2: of like, you know, making the players better people as
28:31
Speaker 2: well as you know, improving their skills.
28:33
Speaker 3: The review of that Aaron.
28:36
Speaker 2: Put together of you know, American made stories of work
28:40
Speaker 2: like being a you know, it's it's a look at
28:43
Speaker 2: the working class voices of many generations ago and how
28:48
Speaker 2: they echo into today's concerns even if like you know,
28:52
Speaker 2: the technology has changed, but it's still you know, working.
28:55
Speaker 5: Class people trying to carve out a space for.
28:57
Speaker 2: Themselves and and finding connections through you know, the lens
29:04
Speaker 2: of history.
29:05
Speaker 5: Also, it's just like an you feel smarter after reading it,
29:09
Speaker 5: and you know, like my own story, this is these
29:11
Speaker 5: are business owners who like you know, you.
29:13
Speaker 2: Think you know that it's it's likely, you know, the
29:16
Speaker 2: kicker is more than money. You know, obviously they're running
29:18
Speaker 2: a business, but they're they want to build a community
29:21
Speaker 2: with their customers and you know, fill gaps that they
29:25
Speaker 2: see in their own communities. These are all sober spaces,
29:28
Speaker 2: you know, trying to have that safe third space for
29:32
Speaker 2: people to come to and build community and and find
29:36
Speaker 2: like minded people that they can be themselves around, like
29:38
Speaker 2: they're I think, you know. And then the McGee story
29:40
Speaker 2: of nurses trying to fight for the best for their
29:42
Speaker 2: patients because they're passionate about what they do. You know,
29:46
Speaker 2: they're going against big you know, upmc interests, and I
29:50
Speaker 2: think that seeing the way that came together and how
29:53
Speaker 2: when you let journalists pick where they can find these
29:57
Speaker 2: stories and how they do blend together, if we can
29:59
Speaker 2: can continue that, I'll be so happy.
30:02
Speaker 5: And so pleased.
30:05
Speaker 2: And as like Steve said, I think that you know,
30:07
Speaker 2: as people feel more alienated from each other and from like,
30:13
Speaker 2: you know, the bigger interests that control the country, that
30:18
Speaker 2: they will turn to one another and be like, let's
30:20
Speaker 2: do it with each other, with our neighbors, who the
30:22
Speaker 2: people that we know and trust and we can count
30:25
Speaker 2: on to follow through on what they're saying they're going
30:28
Speaker 2: to do. I mean, we were Our strike was sustained
30:31
Speaker 2: by donations from you know, regular people, and I and
30:37
Speaker 2: the other worker led newsrooms that we've spoke to, they've
30:41
Speaker 2: been so open with us about how they did it,
30:45
Speaker 2: how we can follow their example and learn from their mistakes.
30:48
Speaker 2: There's no but there's been no gatekeeping amongst you know,
30:51
Speaker 2: like the worker led newsrooms that we've spoken to, and
30:55
Speaker 2: it's the same, you know, same story of journalists who
30:59
Speaker 2: were let go by a new owner or had their
31:02
Speaker 2: publication shut down, and they just turned to one another
31:05
Speaker 2: and said, what if we did it.
31:06
Speaker 5: We have the skills, we can learn the new skills
31:09
Speaker 5: that we need to.
31:10
Speaker 3: Get it off the ground and get it going.
31:13
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, the contraction of and
31:16
Speaker 2: consolidation of, as Steve said, of like these local newspapers
31:21
Speaker 2: that serve communities, as that continues to happen and be
31:23
Speaker 2: gutted by private equity, I think that I'll be the
31:26
Speaker 2: workers who build those things back up. That we'll see
31:30
Speaker 2: more worker led newsrooms under like various models pop up
31:34
Speaker 2: and fill the gap the business interests left in, you.
31:38
Speaker 5: Know, the pursuit of more profit, more money.
31:41
Speaker 2: And I'm excited to be part of the fabric of
31:44
Speaker 2: that that. You know, there's you know other Ross Belt
31:49
Speaker 2: cities or or you know cities that with have maybe
31:52
Speaker 2: who don't have the same kind of working class history
31:54
Speaker 2: as Pittsburgh to be like, you know, we know how
31:58
Speaker 2: to cover our city, we know we know these communities.
32:01
Speaker 2: We don't need permission from you know, a rich person
32:05
Speaker 2: to do this work. Let's do it ourselves. Let's let's
32:09
Speaker 2: get off the ground and they can rely on our
32:11
Speaker 2: you know, our lessons and and the resources that collectively
32:16
Speaker 2: these worker led newsrooms are putting together to offer.
32:18
Speaker 5: And I would I really love to see that.
32:21
Speaker 2: And I'm hopeful that we can you know, find our
32:24
Speaker 2: place there, get our legs under us, and that we
32:27
Speaker 2: continue to see the support that we saw during the
32:29
Speaker 2: strike and during the past six months, which it is.
32:33
Speaker 2: It is wild to think it's even six months since
32:36
Speaker 2: January seventh, I mean a little bit more than six months.
32:38
Speaker 3: But what's that?
32:39
Speaker 2: Is it that Margaret Meade a quote of like never
32:42
Speaker 2: undermeestmate the work that like small dedicated group of people
32:45
Speaker 2: can do.
32:46
Speaker 3: Butchering that.
32:47
Speaker 2: But but you know, that's the sentiment, is that people
32:50
Speaker 2: who are passionate and committed to a thing can achieve it,
32:53
Speaker 2: because that's how everything has ever gotten done, is people,
32:57
Speaker 2: you know, run up their sleeves and putting in this equity.
33:00
Speaker 2: This way, all of our work is going to directly
33:02
Speaker 2: benefit us, not rich owners who don't actually need the
33:06
Speaker 2: money and have never had to worry about, you know,
33:11
Speaker 2: get the food, you know, being able to pay for
33:13
Speaker 2: the food on their table, or keeping the lights on.
33:15
Speaker 2: And you know, Steve said that in his origin story
33:18
Speaker 2: on our website, and it was echoed in the You know,
33:21
Speaker 2: and the conversation that Aaron had with the editor of
33:25
Speaker 2: American made you know, if you resonate with any of that,
33:28
Speaker 2: you're going to resonate with with what we're doing. So
33:31
Speaker 2: if you want to be part of our story of
33:33
Speaker 2: our effort, check us out on Pittsburgh Progress dot com,
33:38
Speaker 2: on Instagram, Blue Sky, Facebook. You can hear everything that
33:42
Speaker 2: we're doing in the next couple.
33:45
Speaker 5: Months as we head toward our hard launch. We really
33:47
Speaker 5: love it.
33:54
Speaker 1: Oh right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
33:56
Speaker 1: us today. I want to thank our guests Natalie Dole
34:00
Speaker 1: and Steve Mellin, both former strikers at the Pittsburgh Post
34:04
Speaker 1: Gazette and both now founding worker members of the newly
34:08
Speaker 1: launched Pittsburgh Progress, a cooperative news organization owned and democratically
34:14
Speaker 1: run by its workers and members. Go check them out
34:17
Speaker 1: using the links that we provided in the show notes.
34:19
Speaker 1: And of course I want to thank you all for
34:21
Speaker 1: listening and I want to thank you for caring. We'll
34:24
Speaker 1: see y'all back here next time for another episode of
34:27
Speaker 1: Working People, and in the meantime, go explore all the
34:30
Speaker 1: great work that we're doing at the Real News Network,
34:33
Speaker 1: where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices
34:36
Speaker 1: and stories from the front lines of struggle. Check us
34:39
Speaker 1: out across our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website,
34:44
Speaker 1: and our different social media pages, and help us do
34:46
Speaker 1: more work like this by going to therealnews dot com,
34:50
Speaker 1: forward slash, donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise
34:54
Speaker 1: you guys, it really makes a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez.
34:59
Speaker 1: Take care of yourself, take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
35:10
Speaker 6: When my fish you no longer seat. I live on, Yes,
35:14
Speaker 6: I live on wherever we go. We're going to roll
35:19
Speaker 6: the union on a song.
35:20
Speaker 3: I live on.
35:21
Speaker 6: Yes, I live on wherever I'm hungry, hungry I'll will
35:26
Speaker 6: just as hungless. Hunger can be your song. I live on, Yes,
35:32
Speaker 6: I live on. Well, mean things are happening in this
35:36
Speaker 6: land it's read or song. I live on, Yes, I
35:39
Speaker 6: live on wherever the book mean things are happening in
35:43
Speaker 6: this land is read. I live on Yes. I'll live
35:47
Speaker 6: on whatever the video okay or media shown. I live on.
35:53
Speaker 1: Yes, I live on.
35:55
Speaker 6: If I have help to make this a better word
35:58
Speaker 6: to be d I'll live on, Yes, I'll live on
36:02
Speaker 6: when my body was solid and then something longs a grave.
36:07
Speaker 6: I'll live on, Yes. I live on When my songs
36:12
Speaker 6: and poems are red, I live on, Yes, I live on.