Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ John Adams - Bringing Local News Back From The Brink

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Interview Only w/ John Adams - Bringing Local News Back From The Brink · The Chuck ToddCast

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1:51
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about both my next guest and to
1:54
Speaker 1: announce a new thing I'm involved with. I've dropped some
1:59
Speaker 1: hints about it earlier on earlier podcast, but I am
2:02
Speaker 1: a participant. I'm on a steering committee. I am here,
2:07
Speaker 1: rabble rouser, whatever you want to call me to promote
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Speaker 1: Local News Day, and the idea of Local News Day,
2:13
Speaker 1: which is April ninth, is essentially it's an awareness day,
2:17
Speaker 1: you know, similar to the whole premise of Earth Day
2:21
Speaker 1: way back when it first started in the early seventies,
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Speaker 1: which is, you know, take a day to think about
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Speaker 1: you know, your role in the environment and things like that. Well,
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Speaker 1: with Local News Day, this is look our information ecosystem.
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Speaker 1: You've heard me talk about it. Why am I even
2:36
Speaker 1: here as an independent operator these days? Right? The information
2:40
Speaker 1: ecosystem as fragmented in a huge way. The revenue streams
2:47
Speaker 1: for news organizations have dramatically shrunk and changed. As I
2:53
Speaker 1: often joke, a man named Craig decided classified ought to
2:57
Speaker 1: be free, YadA, YadA, YadA. We ended up with know
3:00
Speaker 1: local news organizations in half the country. But the But
3:05
Speaker 1: as much as that seems like there's been bad news,
3:07
Speaker 1: there's been an incredible right that. You know, I always
3:10
Speaker 1: say politics and ports of vacuum, Well, the information ecosystem
3:14
Speaker 1: of whoors a vacuum and where people live? People want
3:19
Speaker 1: to know what the hell's going on? As I always say,
3:21
Speaker 1: look at you know, look at social media. How do
3:24
Speaker 1: you know that we all like local news because we
3:26
Speaker 1: think whatever's happening around us is important enough to share
3:29
Speaker 1: with the world. Well, hey, that's local news. Well that's
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Speaker 1: the purpose of Local News Day. In April ninth, get
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Speaker 1: people more aware of people working in their own communities
3:42
Speaker 1: already trying to rebuild what was an important part of
3:48
Speaker 1: frankly civic life, uh for so many Americans over the
3:54
Speaker 1: last two hundred years. If you want to go and
3:55
Speaker 1: read Democracy in America by Detokeful, one of the things
3:58
Speaker 1: that he will he marked upon when he toured America
4:01
Speaker 1: to try to understand what made this democracy work. He
4:06
Speaker 1: was incredibly blown away by how engaged Americans were locally. Well,
4:13
Speaker 1: that was thanks to what was an incredible local media
4:16
Speaker 1: that we had in the nineteenth century. Well, we're all
4:19
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild the information ecosystem, and we know trust
4:23
Speaker 1: is built from the bottom up. Well, somebody had to
4:27
Speaker 1: come up with the idea of doing this, and that's
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Speaker 1: who my next guest is. It's the founder an editor
4:32
Speaker 1: of the Montana Free Press. It's John Adams and those
4:36
Speaker 1: of us that cover the issue of campaign finance. I
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Speaker 1: was involved in the Meet the Press film festival back
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Speaker 1: in the day and one of the films we featured
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Speaker 1: had a starring role for John Adams, and it's how
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Speaker 1: I first got to know him. So, John Adams, welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Hey, Thanks so much, Chuck, and thanks for being a
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Speaker 2: part of this effort, and thanks for having me on
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Speaker 2: the show.
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Speaker 1: Well let me start with Look, I've put it in
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Speaker 1: my words. How'd I do fill in the gaps? Tell me?
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Speaker 1: Tell me what? Tell me what your elevator pitch is
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Speaker 1: when you tell people about Local News Day on April ninth,
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Speaker 1: mark your kelliler.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well my hope, Chuck is in one of
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Speaker 2: these days I can get you to, you know, say,
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Speaker 2: if it's April ninth, it's local news Day.
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Speaker 1: There it is. I love it. If it's April ninth,
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Speaker 1: it's local Newsday, absolutely, But in all seriousness, I mean
5:27
Speaker 1: it is.
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Speaker 2: It is.
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Speaker 1: I know what you expressed. It was sort of when
5:34
Speaker 1: I think we last saw each other at the Texas
5:36
Speaker 1: Tribute Festival, and you know, it's all about how how
5:40
Speaker 1: can we take what is? There are a ton of
5:42
Speaker 1: incredible entrepreneurs around the country. There's a lot of incredible
5:48
Speaker 1: people attempting to try to fill the void in places
5:52
Speaker 1: like Montana or frankly now where I live here in Washington,
5:55
Speaker 1: d C. Where we've become a local news desert, and
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Speaker 1: I wish I were being facetious, not a it's a
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Speaker 1: serious issue. And and and this was one way you thought, well,
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Speaker 1: how do you begin to build a network of local
6:09
Speaker 1: news entrepreneurs. Let's start with a shared day of awareness.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I think it's you talked about
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Speaker 2: the fact that there's been this crisis in local news
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Speaker 2: and obviously, anybody who's paid attention in the last ten
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Speaker 2: or fifteen years, that's that's that's an old narrative, right,
6:24
Speaker 2: we know that that's been the case for a really
6:26
Speaker 2: long time. That's not news. But I think, you know,
6:30
Speaker 2: the idea for Local News Day is that there's actually
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Speaker 2: so much going on on sort of the revival of
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Speaker 2: this you know, critically important civic institution, which is your
6:40
Speaker 2: local news organizations. And you know, this Local News Day
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Speaker 2: is really about helping Americans know where they can find
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Speaker 2: that those sources of information where they live. You know,
6:53
Speaker 2: we are as we've lost sources of local news, our
6:57
Speaker 2: attention goes elsewhere. People are curious, people want to stay informed,
7:01
Speaker 2: people want to be you know, in the know on things.
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Speaker 2: And we all carry around these incredibly powerful supercomputers in
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Speaker 2: our pockets that are that are radically connected to the
7:10
Speaker 2: entire world, and so we can find out what's happening
7:14
Speaker 2: in in you know, Israel or Iran within minutes of
7:18
Speaker 2: it happening. But in terms of you know, what happened
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Speaker 2: to you know, why is that street closed three blocks
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Speaker 2: from my house? You may wait days to find the
7:27
Speaker 2: answer to that, and you might have to find it
7:29
Speaker 2: out on social media. You might have to find it
7:31
Speaker 2: out by asking your neighbors. And you know, in a
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Speaker 2: lot of communities, they kind of left their attention which
7:39
Speaker 2: was you know, often started their day on their doorstep,
7:44
Speaker 2: right a paper delivered to their door. You wake up,
7:47
Speaker 2: you drink the coffee, you unroll the paper, you read
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Speaker 2: the headlines, you you swear at the opinion page. Then
7:53
Speaker 2: you check the local sports box scores for the basketball
7:56
Speaker 2: game that happened the night before, what have you. And
7:57
Speaker 2: then you end your day watching the newscast and knowing
8:02
Speaker 2: what's going on. Sure that you might tune in for
8:04
Speaker 2: the national news, but then you stick around to find
8:05
Speaker 2: out about what's going on with the weather, what's going
8:07
Speaker 2: on in your community. And you know, a lot of
8:11
Speaker 2: those traditional sources of information didn't adapt very efficiently to
8:17
Speaker 2: the information environment that we're currently in. But there's a
8:20
Speaker 2: lot of us who understood, you know, saw that that
8:24
Speaker 2: reality kind of taking shape and kind of hit the
8:28
Speaker 2: ground trying to figure out what the next phase of
8:30
Speaker 2: this was. The need for local news has never gone away.
8:35
Speaker 2: The appetite for local news has never dissipated. It's just that,
8:38
Speaker 2: you know, the business model that had supported it for
8:41
Speaker 2: so long had kind of failed in our current information environment.
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Speaker 2: And so what this is all about is saying, like, look,
8:49
Speaker 2: people are reinventing the business model. There are successful local
8:52
Speaker 2: news organizations all over the country, for profit, nonprofit independence creators,
8:58
Speaker 2: you know, people who are committed to finding out the
9:00
Speaker 2: facts about what's going on in their community and sharing
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Speaker 2: it with with as broad of an audience of local
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Speaker 2: folks as they can. And there this campaign Local News
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Speaker 2: Day is really about highlighting, uplifting, celebrating, and connecting the
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Speaker 2: public with those sources of local news that they may
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Speaker 2: not even know exist.
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Speaker 1: You know, It's and I think we've I feel like
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Speaker 1: we kind of sort of joked about this in one
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Speaker 1: of the steering committees, but you know it, you know,
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Speaker 1: local news now kind of feels like the craft the
9:36
Speaker 1: craft beer, you know, boom, and I hope that and
9:41
Speaker 1: I think what we all figured out is, huh, we
9:44
Speaker 1: don't want three national beers Cores, Miller, and Budweiser. Right
9:49
Speaker 1: as soon as it became that, people suddenly said, wait
9:52
Speaker 1: a minute, you know, and you know, I know it
9:55
Speaker 1: seems like a weird but but now there's truth to this. Right,
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Speaker 1: every town you go to now has their own beer.
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Speaker 1: And we see this as, oh, isn't that great. You know,
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Speaker 1: there's a local flavor or there's a local diss and
10:05
Speaker 1: there's a local that. But in some ways it was
10:08
Speaker 1: because we didn't like the whole commoditized aspect of this. Right,
10:12
Speaker 1: yet the big companies scale was everything, right, There's less
10:16
Speaker 1: money to be made if you somehow made two hundred
10:19
Speaker 1: and fifty different kinds of recipes of beer. And I
10:24
Speaker 1: think that's what hurt local news is it tried to
10:27
Speaker 1: sort of participate in the scale economy when actually it
10:30
Speaker 1: was just antithetical to scale and then ended up being
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Speaker 1: a mistake. But I sort of now I look at
10:37
Speaker 1: it and it's like, yeah, local news looks different. Craft
10:40
Speaker 1: beer is different. Sometimes you put a lot of fruit
10:43
Speaker 1: in yours, or oh, your local news is based on
10:47
Speaker 1: just this one neighborhood association, you know, and yet different.
10:55
Speaker 1: You know, if you're serving a community, then you're doing
10:58
Speaker 1: a good version of local news, right, And maybe I'm
11:01
Speaker 1: butchering it a little bit.
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Speaker 2: But I love the metaphor.
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Speaker 1: The craft beer boomlet tells me that, you know, actually
11:08
Speaker 1: people do care about their local identities.
11:12
Speaker 2: You know, I think I think you're really onto something there.
11:14
Speaker 2: And I could take that a lot further actually, because
11:18
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know if you know this, Chuck,
11:20
Speaker 2: but I was also for a period of time the
11:22
Speaker 2: correspondent for the Rocky Mountain Brewing News, So you know, I.
11:25
Speaker 1: Did not know that one that was not a that
11:28
Speaker 1: was not a feeder question.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's not on my resume. I should put
11:31
Speaker 2: it on there, But you know, it's really that's a
11:34
Speaker 2: great metaphor because you know what local breweries are. You know,
11:38
Speaker 2: I'll take Montana for example, which I know well, you know,
11:41
Speaker 2: they're public houses. It's not just that people go there
11:45
Speaker 2: for the unique flavor, right, they also go there for community.
11:48
Speaker 2: They go there for connection. And I think that's one
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Speaker 2: of those things that local news really has the power
11:53
Speaker 2: to do, which is connect people. Like you can have
11:55
Speaker 2: disagreements and whatnot, but you're disagreeing at least around the
11:59
Speaker 2: same set of facts about what you read in your
12:01
Speaker 2: your local paper, heard on your local newscasts, or saw
12:03
Speaker 2: on your local you know, your local evening newscasts, and
12:07
Speaker 2: so you know, and like those those local beers, you know.
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Speaker 2: I think what we have found has been so successful
12:14
Speaker 2: in you know, particularly what I've experienced mostly in the
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Speaker 2: last ten years in the nonprofit news space, is there
12:21
Speaker 2: isn't a one size fits all business model or editorial
12:25
Speaker 2: strategy or solution to the local news challenge. The organizations
12:32
Speaker 2: that we're seeing that are having so much success are
12:35
Speaker 2: you know, entities that really know their community. They know
12:39
Speaker 2: what their community, you know, is looking for what's the gap,
12:42
Speaker 2: you know, what what is the information that people most
12:44
Speaker 2: need or most want, And so you know, they're they're
12:50
Speaker 2: so tied in with what is happening. They're part of
12:52
Speaker 2: the community that they build trust, They're reflecting the flavor
12:57
Speaker 2: of the community in many ways, like you you can
13:00
Speaker 2: sense the familiarity because you recognize the people, you recognize
13:06
Speaker 2: the voices, you recognize, you know the issues that are
13:09
Speaker 2: happening around you, and you know, like you know, you know,
13:13
Speaker 2: a lot of craft breweries will you know, the water
13:16
Speaker 2: that they have access to is part of what makes
13:19
Speaker 2: their beer special. You know, the makeup of the water
13:22
Speaker 2: is a big deal. You know, people use local barley,
13:25
Speaker 2: local malt, local hops. You know, maybe if you're in
13:30
Speaker 2: certain parts of the country, like Montana, you might add
13:33
Speaker 2: a huckleberry beer to your mix during huckleberry season. And
13:37
Speaker 2: you know, these are all things that people see kind
13:39
Speaker 2: of reflected. They see their lived experience, their world reflected
13:43
Speaker 2: in this thing. And that's something that they feel an
13:45
Speaker 2: attachment to. And and I think that is what we're
13:47
Speaker 2: trying to do with Local News Day is sort of
13:51
Speaker 2: recreate that same kind of connection, that same kind of
13:53
Speaker 2: attachment with the information about what's happening around them and
13:58
Speaker 2: empowering people.
13:59
Speaker 1: I like, look, let's talk about your origin story a
14:02
Speaker 1: little bit with the Montana Free Press. I mean it
14:05
Speaker 1: when you were telling me pieces of it because we
14:08
Speaker 1: have a mutual friend, Phil Kent, who was a longtime
14:12
Speaker 1: executive at the in the early days with Ted Turner
14:14
Speaker 1: at CNN, and I serve with Phil Kent on a
14:16
Speaker 1: board at GW for the School of Media and Public Affairs.
14:19
Speaker 1: And you tell this great story where he saw the
14:23
Speaker 1: documentary that you were in. Let's talk about the documentary
14:26
Speaker 1: is a documentary about dark money and Montana's you know,
14:29
Speaker 1: sort of the and this was a story about how
14:32
Speaker 1: there was a bipartisan effort to try to you know,
14:35
Speaker 1: Montana is different, right, the whole fight against the copper
14:39
Speaker 1: against the longtime copper barons. I guess you might call
14:43
Speaker 1: them really sort of create you know, there really is
14:47
Speaker 1: a legacy of you know, skepticism of outside money, skepticism
14:53
Speaker 1: of outsider whether you're left or right. You know, it
14:55
Speaker 1: sort of explains why Montana politicians in general are not
14:59
Speaker 1: cookie cutter, right, no matter which side of the isle
15:02
Speaker 1: they send. You're like, now, a Montana Republican is not
15:05
Speaker 1: like a regular Republican, and a Montana Democrat is not
15:08
Speaker 1: like a national Democrat. They're just there. And because there
15:11
Speaker 1: is a Montana identity that that is distinctive, that goes
15:15
Speaker 1: all the way back, frankly to it to its sort
15:17
Speaker 1: of early days as a state. And you were sort
15:23
Speaker 1: of the featured reporter in this documentary. But but but
15:25
Speaker 1: tell me about the doc and then what happened to
15:28
Speaker 1: your career in the middle of the dock.
15:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it's one of those situations that
15:35
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't really have any idea what I
15:38
Speaker 2: was getting into. When Kimberly read the documentary, filmmaker reached
15:43
Speaker 2: out to me. Kimberly is a Helen, a native born
15:46
Speaker 2: and raised here in Montana. And you know, interestingly, Dark
15:51
Speaker 2: Money is you know, it was a national documentary. It
15:54
Speaker 2: public you know, it was. It was It aired on
15:56
Speaker 2: PBS stations all over the country at a big natural
15:59
Speaker 2: national theater release, and certainly the audience for it is
16:03
Speaker 2: a national audience, but it really is local reporting in
16:06
Speaker 2: a large part. It's it's it's one of those stories.
16:08
Speaker 2: It's sort of kind of drives home how you know,
16:12
Speaker 2: the powers and the influence of uh, you know, at
16:16
Speaker 2: the national level can really impact you know, local communities
16:20
Speaker 2: and local uh public policy. And that's what Dark Money
16:23
Speaker 2: was about. And I was a reporter for the Great
16:25
Speaker 2: False Tribune. I was the capital bureau chief for the
16:28
Speaker 2: Great False Tribune, which was you know, at the time,
16:31
Speaker 2: if not the most, definitely one of the most prominent.
16:35
Speaker 2: And and uh why the newspapers that was Gannett. It
16:38
Speaker 2: was the only Gannett owned property in Montana still is
16:42
Speaker 2: Lee Newspapers. Uh, Lee sort of famously liberated UH five
16:49
Speaker 2: of the largest state dailies from the copper collar, which
16:53
Speaker 2: was ownership by the Anacona Company, which you know alludes
16:56
Speaker 2: back to that history you talked about with the copper barons,
16:59
Speaker 2: and you know, that one hundred year old history of
17:01
Speaker 2: corruption and big money interest trying to buy our politics
17:06
Speaker 2: at the local, you know, the legislative level and on
17:10
Speaker 2: up is a fight that we've been just steeped in
17:14
Speaker 2: here in Montana forever. And in nineteen seventy two, Montana's
17:18
Speaker 2: got together and called a constitutional convention. We just celebrated
17:22
Speaker 2: the fiftieth anniversary a couple of years ago the passage
17:25
Speaker 2: of the of the new Constitution. But that new constitution
17:32
Speaker 2: was really aimed at limiting the role of outside corporate
17:38
Speaker 2: influence in our politics. At had strict limits on campaign finance.
17:43
Speaker 2: And what we saw in twenty thirteen, twenty fifteen and
17:47
Speaker 2: beyond was, you know, we had my reporting had started
17:50
Speaker 2: to reveal like how this dark money was really infiltrating
17:53
Speaker 2: these these local legislative elections, primarily super local.
17:57
Speaker 1: It was a stunning discoveries. You're just like, wait a minute,
18:01
Speaker 1: this company's doing what in what little state praise.
18:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, candidates were coming out of nowhere and
18:07
Speaker 2: just getting enormous support through you know, mostly through post guards. Right,
18:13
Speaker 2: so people's inboxes just filling up with these campaign mailers
18:16
Speaker 2: with some really heinous messaging and allegations, sometimes just a
18:21
Speaker 2: week before the election, right, just a few days before
18:23
Speaker 2: the election. So the person on the other side of
18:24
Speaker 2: that attack didn't even have a chance to respond. You
18:29
Speaker 2: didn't know who the attacks were coming from, and you
18:32
Speaker 2: didn't have an opportunity to respond. And it turned out,
18:36
Speaker 2: and the documentary kind of really spells all this out,
18:38
Speaker 2: but it turned out that there was a kind of
18:41
Speaker 2: a group that was orchestrating all of this on behalf
18:45
Speaker 2: of candidates and in some cases illegally coordinating with those
18:49
Speaker 2: candidates campaign. So they weren't disclosing they were providing very
18:54
Speaker 2: valuable political resources to a campaign, very valuable you know,
19:01
Speaker 2: attacks and other services, but there was weren't being disclosed.
19:05
Speaker 2: And so we you know, those of us who liked
19:07
Speaker 2: to spend time digging around in files in the basement
19:10
Speaker 2: of the Commission of Political Practices office, we couldn't see
19:13
Speaker 2: who like this was a totally undisclosed money. We didn't
19:17
Speaker 2: know how much they were spending. We didn't know who
19:19
Speaker 2: was spending it. We didn't know, you know, whether or
19:21
Speaker 2: not these candidates were you know, directly involved with it.
19:26
Speaker 2: Fast forward a few years, there was a series of
19:30
Speaker 2: trials that aimed to bring some of these elected officials
19:36
Speaker 2: to account for this illegal coordination. And during that period
19:39
Speaker 2: of time, I had also been laid off at the
19:41
Speaker 2: Great False Tribune, and so I followed this story as
19:44
Speaker 2: a political reporter for the state, one of the state's
19:47
Speaker 2: largest dailies. And then I found myself without a job
19:50
Speaker 2: in the middle of the twenty fifteen legislative session. And
19:54
Speaker 2: that was what sort of gave birth to the idea
19:57
Speaker 2: of Montana Free Press, because I looked around the state
20:01
Speaker 2: at you know, where could I continue to do this
20:03
Speaker 2: kind of brand of journalism, And I didn't really see
20:06
Speaker 2: any viable options. You know, I saw a continued decline
20:11
Speaker 2: of the print newspapers that were still you know active
20:15
Speaker 2: in the state.
20:15
Speaker 1: How many how many quote reporters were you competing against
20:20
Speaker 1: in the Capitol press corps.
20:22
Speaker 2: Well at the time, you know what, by the time
20:24
Speaker 2: I left, it was, I know, there was you know,
20:27
Speaker 2: a handful of TV reporters that would kind of cycle through.
20:29
Speaker 2: Usually they weren't there for more than just a session
20:33
Speaker 2: or two. Yeah, and then Montana's a very small media market,
20:37
Speaker 2: so any of the good TV reporters im mediate as
20:39
Speaker 2: soon as their contractor was up, went to a bigger market.
20:42
Speaker 1: So you didn't have a lot of except for our
20:44
Speaker 1: friend Mariza.
20:45
Speaker 2: Except for our friend Mariza exactly. She's She's one of
20:48
Speaker 2: the exceptions for sure. So you know, there was two
20:53
Speaker 2: sort of legendary longtime state state House reporters, Chuck Johnson
20:57
Speaker 2: and Mike Dennison, who were anchored the lead newspapers. And
21:00
Speaker 2: those are the guys who I really kind of looked
21:02
Speaker 2: at as my competition. Chuck had been doing it for
21:05
Speaker 2: that point, you know, probably close to forty years. I'd
21:09
Speaker 2: followed a Mike and Chuck's footsteps in both the Great
21:11
Speaker 2: Falls Tribune and and then they went on to the
21:14
Speaker 2: lead bureau, And so we were friendly competitors, you know,
21:19
Speaker 2: much as I'm sure you kind of experience, you know
21:21
Speaker 2: in DC, you know, you want to beat them on
21:23
Speaker 2: a scoop, but you also, you know, have fun conversations
21:27
Speaker 2: in the basement of.
21:27
Speaker 1: The team press score against those those partisan you know,
21:32
Speaker 1: guys left and right trying to keep the press out.
21:34
Speaker 1: You know, we all band together on that stuff.
21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then a few months after I, uh, after
21:40
Speaker 2: I was let go from the Tribune, Mike and Chuck
21:43
Speaker 2: were basically forcing a retirement from Lee. And so within
21:48
Speaker 2: just a matter of months, the you know, three of
21:51
Speaker 2: the most experienced Statehouse reporters in the capitol were out
21:57
Speaker 2: on the street, so to speak. And and there was
22:00
Speaker 2: a lot of concern about who was going to cover
22:03
Speaker 2: what's going on. And we were still in the midst
22:04
Speaker 2: of all this dark money stuff, and you know, the
22:07
Speaker 2: need for legislative coverage certainly hadn't gone away, and that,
22:12
Speaker 2: you know, and that's what I really understood. You know,
22:15
Speaker 2: Montana Free Press was founded on the belief that this
22:18
Speaker 2: journalism has value, whether or not it is uh, you know, clickbait,
22:24
Speaker 2: whether or not it is the kind you know, ass
22:27
Speaker 2: as news models had really kind of focused on on
22:29
Speaker 2: views over news. It's sort of like the main value
22:34
Speaker 2: proposition to advertisers. I still believe that there were people.
22:39
Speaker 2: There might not be as many advertisers who are interested
22:43
Speaker 2: in it, but the individuals still cared about that kind
22:46
Speaker 2: of reporting. So I found a Montana Free Press is
22:48
Speaker 2: a nonprofit kind of focused on state house coverage with
22:51
Speaker 2: the with the idea that those who understood how important
22:54
Speaker 2: that coverage is would support it through their you know,
22:58
Speaker 2: charitable giving their fill and throught support.
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25:40
Speaker 2: You know.
25:40
Speaker 1: I was talking with somebody the other day about this
25:42
Speaker 1: issue on news and it was just sort of this
25:45
Speaker 1: person made a point of how particularly the larger local
25:51
Speaker 1: news operations didn't didn't ever bring the readers into the
25:59
Speaker 1: challenge that frankly, local news was facing for the last
26:02
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Right this issue, you know, the concern
26:07
Speaker 1: about shrinking newspaper coverage of state capitals was a huge
26:12
Speaker 1: issue in the nineties, and then it became a really
26:16
Speaker 1: problematic in the early odds, and it was the sort
26:19
Speaker 1: of the first round of consolidation, you know, the initial
26:22
Speaker 1: ganetification of local news, right when Gannett gobbled up all
26:27
Speaker 1: these dailies back in the late eighties early nineties.
26:31
Speaker 2: Kindly the one my hometown daily that my mom worked for.
26:34
Speaker 1: And then you had night Rider was doing it. McClatchy
26:37
Speaker 1: was doing it. The night Ritter swallowed McClatchy or McLatchy
26:41
Speaker 1: swallowed night Rider, I can't remember which. And but this
26:47
Speaker 1: person pointed out they never brought the reader in to explain,
26:53
Speaker 1: you know, how the economics were changing, and hey, this
26:55
Speaker 1: is why the Sunday paper is now seven dollars instead
27:00
Speaker 1: of a dollar fifty. This is why you can't just
27:04
Speaker 1: use pocket change to go to a newspaper vending machine
27:07
Speaker 1: and get a copy of the paper. Right it was
27:09
Speaker 1: we were getting up to two dollars of paper, three
27:11
Speaker 1: dollars of paper, which is still a bargain considering everything
27:14
Speaker 1: you got in in. But it was necessary in order
27:17
Speaker 1: to do that. What I think is interesting, it's sort
27:21
Speaker 1: of like local news didn't bring the community along with
27:24
Speaker 1: its problems in the eighties and nineties and the nineties
27:27
Speaker 1: and odds. But now as we're read as local is
27:31
Speaker 1: reinventing itself, you do get the sense that people understand.
27:34
Speaker 1: And I guess part of it is social media has
27:36
Speaker 1: taught us the power of community, right, And it's like, well,
27:40
Speaker 1: you can create you don't have to create a community,
27:43
Speaker 1: this one already exists. Just just just tap into it.
27:49
Speaker 1: But if you let readers know what you're up to,
27:52
Speaker 1: then you'll find out what readers want, right.
27:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that will support and I think that, you know,
27:57
Speaker 2: I really kind of cringe and roll my eyes. You'll
28:02
Speaker 2: hear some folks talk about, you know, the need for
28:04
Speaker 2: media literacy, and I don't disagree that they're you know
28:07
Speaker 2: that that that that's a real challenge, but I think
28:10
Speaker 2: it also really sort of under sells the general public's
28:14
Speaker 2: like desire to be informed. And I don't think it's
28:17
Speaker 2: just that, and I don't suggest that that's what you're saying, Chuck,
28:20
Speaker 2: But it's not just that the news industry did didn't
28:23
Speaker 2: do a good enough job bringing readers along on the
28:25
Speaker 2: on the problems. You know, part of it is I
28:27
Speaker 2: think audiences were distracted you know, we had these new, shiny,
28:33
Speaker 2: very attractive objects in smartphones that were uh, in social media.
28:38
Speaker 2: I mean these things. I mean, in my personal opinion,
28:45
Speaker 2: we let this genie out of the bottle without really
28:47
Speaker 2: thinking it through when it comes to, you know, putting
28:49
Speaker 2: super connected supercomputers in everybody's pocket and then unleashing social
28:55
Speaker 2: media and algorithms on the population without any real like
28:58
Speaker 2: thought about what that would do and how those those motive.
29:02
Speaker 1: I've got good news for you, John, is that we're,
29:04
Speaker 1: you know, this time, as we're rolling out artificial intelligence
29:08
Speaker 1: and AI for everybody innybody's hand, we're we're doing such
29:12
Speaker 1: a better Oh wait right, yeah, we're literally the tech
29:16
Speaker 1: companies who already completely broke the information ecosystem, totally distorted it,
29:22
Speaker 1: totally ruined it, and we're trusting these people that come
29:26
Speaker 1: up with sort of permanent facts on behalf of society,
29:30
Speaker 1: which is essentially what AI is going to. They're going
29:32
Speaker 1: to normative, as somebody put it to me, you know,
29:36
Speaker 1: AI is sort of what becomes normalized. Yeah, eighty percent
29:41
Speaker 1: of what's normalized is factually true, but twenty percent of
29:44
Speaker 1: what normal is normalized over time is not. You know,
29:48
Speaker 1: you know, take the take the myth about I mean,
29:51
Speaker 1: this just came up recently. We were watching a new
29:55
Speaker 1: documentary and Catherine the Great and of course there's this
29:58
Speaker 1: infamous rumor about Catherine the Great and her and her
30:01
Speaker 1: sexcapades with a supposed horse. Okay, well, this is a
30:05
Speaker 1: piece of misinformation that has actually survived hundreds of years
30:10
Speaker 1: and there are still people who factually believe it. And
30:14
Speaker 1: now we're going to take AI and essentially take what
30:17
Speaker 1: normalized rumors that become factualized. And you know, I have
30:22
Speaker 1: people that are in the world of worrying about, you know,
30:25
Speaker 1: the rise of anti Semitism and the history of Israel
30:28
Speaker 1: getting sort of distorted by AI chatbots. This is these
30:34
Speaker 1: are the same people that have algorithmed us to death,
30:37
Speaker 1: and now we're doing this. So it's anyway, I don't
30:40
Speaker 1: mean to digress there, but is this is why we
30:45
Speaker 1: need new sources of information to continue to feed these
30:49
Speaker 1: language models who are gobbling up and potentially spitting out garbage.
30:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you're making a really strong case.
30:55
Speaker 2: And I think that is one of the reasons why
30:58
Speaker 2: people are so excited about local news day and you
31:00
Speaker 2: know where I think we have this incredible moment right
31:03
Speaker 2: now where you know, I think the public. You know,
31:07
Speaker 2: there's studies out there that show that a lot of
31:09
Speaker 2: younger people are a lot savvier, They're a lot hipper
31:12
Speaker 2: to these things than we give them credit for. And
31:16
Speaker 2: it truly is my parents generation that it is, you
31:18
Speaker 2: know that love local news currently, who are the ones
31:21
Speaker 2: that like struggle the most to sort of like draw
31:25
Speaker 2: the distinction between what's real and what's fake online? And
31:28
Speaker 2: you know, my parents can't tell what's AI and what's not.
31:30
Speaker 2: I'm John.
31:31
Speaker 1: I can't. I you know, I sit there and I
31:35
Speaker 1: you know, You'll see on social media and I'll see
31:37
Speaker 1: people say, well, this is obvious AI slop And I'm
31:39
Speaker 1: always like, how do you know? Yeah, and how do
31:43
Speaker 1: you I want to know how you know this because
31:45
Speaker 1: I want to see it. I want to know it's
31:47
Speaker 1: a slop. I now just assume it's all a I slop.
31:50
Speaker 2: Well, and that's why you go go to the source, right,
31:52
Speaker 2: I Mean, that's the first thing that we do when
31:53
Speaker 2: we see something. When I see something that I don't
31:56
Speaker 2: know if it's real or not, I go, well, what's
31:57
Speaker 2: the source? Where did this come from? And you know,
32:00
Speaker 2: if I can't find a person behind it, like an
32:03
Speaker 2: actual human being. Right, If I can't trace it back
32:05
Speaker 2: to a real person, then I just assume that it's
32:07
Speaker 2: probably not worth trusting. And I think that's how a
32:09
Speaker 2: lot of people are getting right. I mean, it's you
32:12
Speaker 2: use the brewery analogy. One that's really kind of feels
32:16
Speaker 2: relevant to me is just the dramatic increase in vinyl
32:20
Speaker 2: record sales in recent years. And now you're seeing, you know,
32:24
Speaker 2: magazine sales are starting to pick up, and you're starting
32:27
Speaker 2: to see or some places are even going back to
32:30
Speaker 2: print or increasing print because more people are kind of
32:34
Speaker 2: seeking the tangible nature, the more permanency of an analog product.
32:39
Speaker 2: And so I'm not suggesting that we all go analog overnight,
32:42
Speaker 2: but I do think that local news is something that
32:47
Speaker 2: you can It's tangible, right. You can go to an
32:49
Speaker 2: event and meet the people who are producing it. You
32:51
Speaker 2: can you know, you can go to a website and
32:54
Speaker 2: see that they have the same you know, zip code
32:58
Speaker 2: or area code is you and and you know, as
33:01
Speaker 2: people are looking for what's real and what's not, connecting
33:04
Speaker 2: with local news sources who you know and you know
33:07
Speaker 2: they're real because they're they're in front of you, they're
33:09
Speaker 2: they're participating, they're in your community. I think there's going
33:13
Speaker 2: to be a strong demand for the authenticity of local
33:15
Speaker 2: news over the uncertainty of everything else.
33:18
Speaker 1: John, I think one thing that we haven't talked about this,
33:21
Speaker 1: but I imagine you feel this because I can sort
33:24
Speaker 1: of say because I feel the same way as I'm not.
33:26
Speaker 1: I've never been comfortable trying to cheerlead doing this job,
33:32
Speaker 1: and reporters in general are uncomfortable cheerleading. And social media
33:37
Speaker 1: change this right it said, no, no, no, no. If you
33:40
Speaker 1: don't cheerlead your information, no one's going to see it,
33:43
Speaker 1: No one's going to read it. And I'm trying to
33:48
Speaker 1: get religion on this, and you know, every day I
33:50
Speaker 1: get a little more comfortable realizing, yeah, you got to
33:53
Speaker 1: you got to sing for your supper. You know, as
33:56
Speaker 1: an old saying goes, just how hard is it? I mean,
34:02
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't strike me as somebody who you
34:04
Speaker 1: know wants, hey, look look at me, put the spotlight
34:07
Speaker 1: on me. And yet you know, in order to drive relevancy,
34:12
Speaker 1: in order to make sure people are looking at their
34:15
Speaker 1: stuff that should be looking at her stuff, you kind
34:18
Speaker 1: of have to do that, so how did how did
34:20
Speaker 1: you sort of how have you broken through whatever whatever discomfort?
34:25
Speaker 1: And I always say as journalists, we were sort of like, hey,
34:28
Speaker 1: let the facts speak for themselves, right. That always is
34:30
Speaker 1: sort of a phrase that like rolled in my head
34:34
Speaker 1: the early days of early editors that I work for.
34:37
Speaker 1: And yet it turns out that's not it's it's that's
34:40
Speaker 1: not a way to build a successful local news startup.
34:46
Speaker 2: You know, I think we can. It's an interesting question,
34:51
Speaker 2: And again I don't know that there's necessarily one size
34:54
Speaker 2: fits all answer to that either, because again I think
34:56
Speaker 2: it really kind of depends on the community you serve.
34:58
Speaker 2: And you know, we're a state organization. We we still
35:01
Speaker 2: consider Montana Free Press local. We do have local reporters
35:06
Speaker 2: in three communities in the state, and we're looking to
35:08
Speaker 2: expand in a fourth and billions this year. So we
35:12
Speaker 2: do have local reporters on the ground covering local issues
35:14
Speaker 2: and UH and we send our reporters to the two
35:17
Speaker 2: local communities to report on for and about those communities.
35:23
Speaker 2: But I think showing up first and foremost. I think,
35:25
Speaker 2: you know, being present and showing up is really important.
35:28
Speaker 2: I think showing your work is another one. I think
35:31
Speaker 2: there's you know, a lot of people just don't understand,
35:34
Speaker 2: you know, they've got a conception of what reporters are
35:36
Speaker 2: from the media, the popular media where usually you know,
35:39
Speaker 2: it's a it's a jerk, you know, with a camera
35:42
Speaker 2: or microphone, you know, you know, trying to catch somebody
35:45
Speaker 2: in a in a in a hard spot or you know,
35:48
Speaker 2: a tragedy or what have you. And like, sure, that's
35:50
Speaker 2: part of it too, but a lot of us, most
35:53
Speaker 2: of us, really it's it's about you know, showing up,
35:55
Speaker 2: being there to represent the interest of audience, Like what
35:59
Speaker 2: what what's the audience going to care about? What are
36:02
Speaker 2: my readers? And as a as a print reporter, what
36:04
Speaker 2: are the people who read Montana Free Press? What do
36:08
Speaker 2: they want to know? And what information do I need
36:11
Speaker 2: to get because I want to, you know, interpret their
36:14
Speaker 2: their questions even before they ask them. And and this
36:19
Speaker 2: really came clear to me even before I lost my
36:22
Speaker 2: job at the trip where I had written I was
36:26
Speaker 2: one of the first reporters in the state the blog,
36:29
Speaker 2: not the first, but one of the first. And I
36:32
Speaker 2: had a blog and in my blog, I had taken
36:34
Speaker 2: the Attorney General to task over what I thought was
36:36
Speaker 2: an inappropriate attack on the Associated Press, which had you know,
36:41
Speaker 2: very reasonably asked for public information, and instead of producing
36:45
Speaker 2: that public information or denying it and you know, going
36:48
Speaker 2: through the necessary you know channels, you know, sometimes they
36:51
Speaker 2: deny it and then we sue them and then the
36:53
Speaker 2: courts decide whether we have access to that information or not.
36:57
Speaker 2: Rather than kind of go that traditional route, the Attorney General,
37:00
Speaker 2: you know, issued a press release denying it and saying
37:02
Speaker 2: that he was protecting gun owners' rights from the prying
37:06
Speaker 2: eyes of you know, the news media that you know,
37:09
Speaker 2: was asking for information about concealed carry permits. You know,
37:15
Speaker 2: which communities have the most concealed carry permits. This is
37:17
Speaker 2: information they've been asking for for years and publishing stories
37:20
Speaker 2: that would say, you know, they would report on the trends,
37:23
Speaker 2: you know, never like listing who has concealed carry permits.
37:27
Speaker 2: But that's sort of like that attack on that a
37:30
Speaker 2: P reporter led to a doxing incident, one of the
37:34
Speaker 2: early docing incidents, where that AP reporter his his name address,
37:39
Speaker 2: Google images of his house were posted on an extreme
37:42
Speaker 2: far right you know, extremist network. And I took issue
37:47
Speaker 2: with that and I called I made my my attitudes known,
37:51
Speaker 2: and that very quickly led to an invitation for the
37:55
Speaker 2: Montana Tea Party Association to come basically answer for my
38:00
Speaker 2: my attacks on the Second Amendment. So I took that invitation.
38:04
Speaker 2: I went to an evangelical church out in the out
38:06
Speaker 2: in the helen and of our valley, and they wanted
38:09
Speaker 2: to know, like why I wrote what I wrote, and
38:13
Speaker 2: why I think journalists should have access to that information.
38:16
Speaker 2: And we had a really interesting conversation where we heard
38:21
Speaker 2: each other right, like, I heard what their concerns were,
38:24
Speaker 2: and then I said, let me tell you how we
38:27
Speaker 2: do our job, why we do our job, why this
38:29
Speaker 2: information is important, why the Montana Constitution has a right
38:32
Speaker 2: to know. And I kind of explained just sort of
38:35
Speaker 2: like the whole process and how the role that journalism
38:38
Speaker 2: plays in representing the public in holding their government officials accountable.
38:44
Speaker 2: And it didn't take long for them to make those
38:47
Speaker 2: connections and see that this was a more complex story
38:51
Speaker 2: than the sound bites might have you believe, and that
38:53
Speaker 2: takes work. Right. Every journalist doesn't have time to go
38:56
Speaker 2: out there and have individual conversations about every single story,
39:00
Speaker 2: but we do. We do through the technology and the
39:03
Speaker 2: platforms that we have access to now, like what we're
39:05
Speaker 2: doing right here, we can show our work to a
39:08
Speaker 2: broader base of people. We can talk more about not
39:11
Speaker 2: just what we do, but how we do it, why
39:14
Speaker 2: it's important, and it doesn't all have to be negativity,
39:20
Speaker 2: and it doesn't all have to be accountability. Some of
39:22
Speaker 2: it is, you know, we provide a public service that
39:26
Speaker 2: isn't always just you know, getting people in trouble or
39:30
Speaker 2: you know, quote unquote holding public officials accountable. A lot
39:34
Speaker 2: of what we do is just informing people.
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42:41
Speaker 2: You know.
42:42
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've come to, you know
42:45
Speaker 1: what the biggest difference between local and national And I
42:48
Speaker 1: used to say and sort of why national media trusts
42:51
Speaker 1: you know what, guy? What has gotten me into the
42:55
Speaker 1: local space is my conclusion that the law loss of
43:00
Speaker 1: trusted local character references or national news media. You know
43:07
Speaker 1: that that in some ways, if you trusted your local
43:09
Speaker 1: news outlet, then you were more likely to trust the
43:13
Speaker 1: national news outlet that local news outlet was affiliated with.
43:16
Speaker 1: And now we've gone the other way, which is, you know,
43:19
Speaker 1: it's like Fox News viewers nationally only trust the local
43:22
Speaker 1: Fox right, And it used to be the other way around.
43:26
Speaker 1: If you trusted your local then then that worked its
43:28
Speaker 1: way up. And so and the conclusion that I drew
43:33
Speaker 1: as to why that was, well, one is you fact
43:36
Speaker 1: check local every day, right, you find out what the
43:39
Speaker 1: weather is, you know, or little things like that. And
43:42
Speaker 1: if they're misinforming you on the weather and traffic as
43:45
Speaker 1: you're getting ready to work or whatever it is, well,
43:47
Speaker 1: you're not going to trust them for anything else. Right.
43:49
Speaker 1: If they take at the they take at the weather, right,
43:51
Speaker 1: they're got to get the other stuff. But local also
43:55
Speaker 1: served a different purpose than National. Right, National told you
43:59
Speaker 1: the things that you should know as a citizen. Local
44:04
Speaker 1: was informing you of things that you both needed to
44:08
Speaker 1: know to live your life. But sometimes stuff that you
44:10
Speaker 1: kind of it's kind of cool to know, right right.
44:13
Speaker 1: That might be local sports. That might be you know,
44:16
Speaker 1: the local play that's coming to town. So it's it's
44:21
Speaker 1: finding out what's happening in the neighborhood. It might be
44:25
Speaker 1: where do I find cheaper groceries I'm a little you know?
44:29
Speaker 1: Or or hey, what grocery stores accept snap benefits in
44:33
Speaker 1: which grocery stores don't write, or things like that, And
44:37
Speaker 1: it was just sort of the the consumer. It was
44:42
Speaker 1: the consumer aspect of of helping the helping your reader,
44:49
Speaker 1: who's also a consumer, right, be helpful. And I will
44:54
Speaker 1: say this, my biggest concern with the rise of a
44:58
Speaker 1: lot of local use outlets right now is that I
45:02
Speaker 1: think we all want to, you know, as my my
45:05
Speaker 1: friend Richard Gingris, who was at the Google News Initiative
45:08
Speaker 1: for a very long time and he's now working with
45:12
Speaker 1: a company in Canada that's doing some interesting local news
45:16
Speaker 1: work called Village Media by the way, But Richard said
45:21
Speaker 1: the worst thing to happen to journalism was all the
45:24
Speaker 1: presidents men, because it's a whole generation of us all
45:27
Speaker 1: wanted to be Bob Boarder, right, and it was all
45:29
Speaker 1: about accountability when there's a service part to journalism right
45:33
Speaker 1: where we're just sort of a public servant. Right, we're
45:35
Speaker 1: letting you know, hey, there's going to be a rise
45:39
Speaker 1: in electric bills this week, but we're also going to
45:42
Speaker 1: let you know that, hey, there's a sale. You know,
45:45
Speaker 1: sometimes you saw the sale via an advertiser, or sometimes
45:49
Speaker 1: you found out, hey, if you you know, there's there's
45:52
Speaker 1: cheaper chicken at the Aldies this week versus the Trader
45:55
Speaker 1: Joe's this week or wherever it is. And I think
46:01
Speaker 1: sometimes with some of our journalism colleagues, it's hard to
46:04
Speaker 1: tell them and hey, you know, you got to just
46:06
Speaker 1: help people live their life too, And you may not
46:09
Speaker 1: see that as journalism, but that's how you build trust.
46:14
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And I mean we do that. You
46:16
Speaker 2: know at Montana Free Press. That became really obvious to
46:20
Speaker 2: us in the pandemic, right like, there were just a
46:22
Speaker 2: handful there were three of.
46:23
Speaker 1: Us useful items, right like, how do I do this?
46:26
Speaker 1: Where do I find this? Yeah?
46:27
Speaker 2: And you know, the beautiful thing is we have such
46:30
Speaker 2: incredibly powerful to us some of the technologies and some
46:32
Speaker 2: of the platforms and some of the things that you know,
46:35
Speaker 2: we could point to that said, you know, these are
46:37
Speaker 2: part of the problem.
46:38
Speaker 1: They're also saying there's other things. You're right, there's other
46:41
Speaker 1: things they do for the solutions.
46:42
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the things that we did
46:45
Speaker 2: that I that was you know, it didn't seem all
46:47
Speaker 2: that novel at the time, but I think in Montana
46:49
Speaker 2: in that moment, it was a degree of a novel
46:53
Speaker 2: approach to journalism. Was you know, we there were three
46:56
Speaker 2: of us publishing in the newsroom at the time. We
46:58
Speaker 2: had just hired a business person and you know, our
47:00
Speaker 2: first business person. So we were a team of four,
47:03
Speaker 2: I believe when the pandemic hit and we had the shutdown,
47:06
Speaker 2: and I had a weekly podcast at the time called
47:11
Speaker 2: The Lowdown, which is now the Montana Lowdown, which is
47:14
Speaker 2: now the name of our weekly newsletter. And I went
47:19
Speaker 2: from a weekly podcast to a daily podcast, and it
47:22
Speaker 2: went from being sort of a like a big you
47:24
Speaker 2: know something along akin to what you and I are
47:27
Speaker 2: doing now, to something a little bit more like, hey,
47:29
Speaker 2: here the here are the ten things you need to
47:31
Speaker 2: know today or the three things that you need to
47:34
Speaker 2: know today.
47:34
Speaker 1: So you're almost like the morning drive time radio guy.
47:37
Speaker 2: I was just trying, you know, it was my.
47:39
Speaker 1: Job helping with the local news, helping with the local
47:42
Speaker 1: like good morning of your cup of coffee, A better
47:45
Speaker 1: be careful of this today?
47:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. One of the I remember one of
47:48
Speaker 2: the episodes was talking to the heads of you know,
47:54
Speaker 2: shelters that house domestic violence victims, you know, and like
48:00
Speaker 2: that suddenly in Montana in March, when the temperatures are
48:03
Speaker 2: in the teens are below is a real serious problem, right,
48:06
Speaker 2: So like kind of just shifting what we did to
48:09
Speaker 2: sort of like meet the moment, and then you know,
48:11
Speaker 2: doing things like looking at Google Search console and seeing
48:15
Speaker 2: what are people in Montana asking Google about the pandemic?
48:19
Speaker 2: And then now we know the questions that the public
48:21
Speaker 2: has on their mind. Let's go out and get those answers.
48:23
Speaker 2: And so we went from a weekly newsletter to a
48:26
Speaker 2: daily newsletter and we had a COVID tracker that you know,
48:29
Speaker 2: just provided just a running you know, latest, this is
48:33
Speaker 2: what we know, this is what's happening. And what we
48:35
Speaker 2: saw was just a massive, you know, increase in audience overnight.
48:40
Speaker 2: And what that told us was if you're giving people
48:43
Speaker 2: information that they can use, If if you're doing things
48:46
Speaker 2: that can help them understand the thing that they care
48:50
Speaker 2: most about right now in a way that they feel
48:53
Speaker 2: gives them some sense of comfort, some sense of agency,
48:58
Speaker 2: then they're going to reward you. They're going to reward you,
49:00
Speaker 2: may becomeing a reader. They're going to reward you. If
49:02
Speaker 2: you're a for profit model, maybe they're going to subscribe.
49:05
Speaker 2: If you're a nonprofit model, maybe they're going to donate.
49:08
Speaker 2: And you know, that's what we saw, as you know,
49:11
Speaker 2: and then that became kind of just sort of a
49:13
Speaker 2: big part of the ethos is like give people things
49:15
Speaker 2: that they want. Yes, we're going to also give them
49:17
Speaker 2: things that they we think they need, but we want
49:20
Speaker 2: to make sure that we're not ignoring what it is
49:22
Speaker 2: that they want, because it's not a supply side problem
49:25
Speaker 2: is we need to be meeting the demand, right. That
49:28
Speaker 2: is the issue is, you.
49:30
Speaker 1: Know, it's this fine line of look, what the algorithms
49:33
Speaker 1: do only seem to give people what they want, versus
49:37
Speaker 1: if you know your own readers, you've got to figure
49:40
Speaker 1: out how to walk that line, right, which is, yeah,
49:43
Speaker 1: you know, we know what you want, and but you know,
49:47
Speaker 1: here's something you need to know. You know, And I
49:49
Speaker 1: always say, if they trust you with helping you live
49:52
Speaker 1: their lives, then they'll trust you when you tell them
49:55
Speaker 1: that their city councilman's corrupt.
49:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, And again that kind of goes back
50:00
Speaker 2: is showing up to I mean, we do a lot
50:02
Speaker 2: of live events.
50:03
Speaker 1: We do.
50:04
Speaker 2: We create a lot of opportunities for for public engagement,
50:08
Speaker 2: and our reporters get on the ground in in communities
50:11
Speaker 2: and build relationships and you know, showing up building relationships,
50:16
Speaker 2: being authentic, that's what local news does, you know, And
50:20
Speaker 2: that local news that it's best is is reflecting what
50:24
Speaker 2: the community cares about, what the community's identity is about,
50:27
Speaker 2: what you know, it's it's warts and all, but when
50:31
Speaker 2: people see themselves that their community, the things they cared
50:35
Speaker 2: about reflected in a news source, then they develop loyalty
50:39
Speaker 2: and again, you know, our goal with Local News Day
50:42
Speaker 2: is to really highlight those folks who are doing that,
50:45
Speaker 2: to get people who didn't maybe know that they had
50:48
Speaker 2: local news in their right. You know, there's a lot
50:52
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people in this in this state
50:54
Speaker 2: who don't know who they've never heard of Montana Free Press.
50:56
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people in Helena, where we're based,
51:00
Speaker 2: where we have a local newsletter, who've never heard of it, right,
51:02
Speaker 2: And that's just because there's so much information out there. Right,
51:04
Speaker 2: people are inundated with information, and so Local News Day
51:08
Speaker 2: our goal is to flood the zone. Right that on
51:11
Speaker 2: April ninth, people all over the country are talking about
51:14
Speaker 2: local news and if they go to Localnewsday dot org,
51:18
Speaker 2: there will be a very user friendly tool there for
51:22
Speaker 2: them to locate local news entities in their area or
51:26
Speaker 2: an area they care about. And our hope is that
51:29
Speaker 2: on this day we can you know, significantly grow audiences
51:32
Speaker 2: for local news and strengthen the local news ecosystem and
51:37
Speaker 2: in doing so, you know, make more connections, bring more
51:40
Speaker 2: people together. Lord knows, there are plenty of platforms and
51:45
Speaker 2: and and you know, profit seeking entities that really kind
51:50
Speaker 2: of thrive off of division, and this is one of those,
51:52
Speaker 2: I think, really unique opportunities to you know, rise all
51:57
Speaker 2: boats with connection.
52:00
Speaker 1: And there's really you know, you know, basically there's no
52:05
Speaker 1: there's no litmus test for being a member of this
52:09
Speaker 1: of of this uh community at this point, right to
52:13
Speaker 1: be a part of the local news, I mean, other
52:15
Speaker 1: than being a legitimate you know, a legitimate local proprietor.
52:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean it's like giving Tuesday or you know,
52:24
Speaker 2: I remember when I was a kid Earth Day, you know,
52:26
Speaker 2: my third grade class going out and planting the tree,
52:29
Speaker 2: a tree that was a little sapling when I planted
52:31
Speaker 2: it back in third grade. And when I drive by
52:33
Speaker 2: my hometown, it's now a giant maple tree. Right, you
52:37
Speaker 2: know these it's whatever, whatever is meaningful to you. I mean,
52:41
Speaker 2: if you're already somebody who really cares about local news,
52:46
Speaker 2: help spread the word, you know, share it on your
52:47
Speaker 2: social media, forward emails from your local news providers to
52:51
Speaker 2: the people in your world who you think would would
52:53
Speaker 2: would be interested in it. If you're a business or
52:57
Speaker 2: an institution who understands the just the critical public service
53:02
Speaker 2: that that local news provides, celebrate it, put a banner
53:06
Speaker 2: in your lobby, you know, put a put a logo
53:09
Speaker 2: on your website.
53:11
Speaker 1: Look, the better local news does, the better local businesses
53:15
Speaker 1: can target future customers. I mean, I just I really,
53:19
Speaker 1: I really believe that because I've learned from a lot
53:21
Speaker 1: of local businesses and doing what I was trying to
53:23
Speaker 1: do and tried to scale local news, which is not easy.
53:27
Speaker 1: Scaling local news is in some ways maybe it's impossible, right,
53:34
Speaker 1: just like Gennett proved is it is tough to scale.
53:37
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean you can't network it. It doesn't
53:39
Speaker 1: mean there aren't old ways like UPI and stuff like
53:41
Speaker 1: that where you can sort of recreate systems that actually enhance,
53:46
Speaker 1: help scale certain parts of the operations process while still
53:51
Speaker 1: allowing local proprietors to have their identities. How many participating
53:56
Speaker 1: organizations do we have already? I know, it's a bunch,
53:59
Speaker 1: you know.
53:59
Speaker 2: We're yeah, I think we're approaching seven hundred newsrooms.
54:03
Speaker 1: The goal is five hundred, right, the goal in year.
54:05
Speaker 2: One was five hundred. We wanted newsrooms and all fifty states. Yep.
54:08
Speaker 2: I think we're yeah, we're approaching seven hundred newsrooms. Somewhere
54:11
Speaker 2: in there I might be a little it's between six
54:14
Speaker 2: and seven hundred. And then we've got we've got more
54:17
Speaker 2: than one hundred partner organizations. We're looking to grow that.
54:22
Speaker 2: So if if there are institutions organizations out there that
54:27
Speaker 2: are interested in being a part of this, we'd love
54:29
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Visit Local newsday dot org and
54:33
Speaker 2: and uh click on the you know, the join us button,
54:37
Speaker 2: and what what it means to be a partner is
54:40
Speaker 2: basically saying, yeah, I really love this idea, I want
54:43
Speaker 2: to support Local News Day and we're going to amplify
54:47
Speaker 2: the message on April ninth. And then we've got about
54:51
Speaker 2: a little about a dozen sponsors that are that are
54:53
Speaker 2: supporting this cause with with direct financial contributions. So you know,
55:00
Speaker 2: our goal here is not to you know, to raise
55:02
Speaker 2: a bunch of money and spend a bunch of money.
55:03
Speaker 2: Our goal here is really to get the word out
55:06
Speaker 2: and really energize people all over the country to on
55:10
Speaker 2: one day come together and really express how much they
55:14
Speaker 2: value local news and how much local news elevates their community.
55:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's as simple as subscribe, find out
55:22
Speaker 1: you know, in my I live in Arlington, Virginia, and
55:26
Speaker 1: we have Arlington now. It is mostly a digital feed
55:29
Speaker 1: that's mostly a Twitter feed, but it is the only
55:32
Speaker 1: entity we have that covers Arlington government and what's happening
55:35
Speaker 1: in the Arlington community. It's like that, and you know,
55:38
Speaker 1: various list serves in different communities, at little subcommunities within Arlington,
55:43
Speaker 1: and it's you know, I'm thankful for the gentleman that's
55:48
Speaker 1: behind Arlington now. He's like a one man operation, you know,
55:51
Speaker 1: and he's been plugging away at it for some time.
55:53
Speaker 1: And it is you know, the Washington Post ceased covering
55:57
Speaker 1: local news a long time ago. A bunch of us
55:59
Speaker 1: know notice, but they used to at least cover the
56:03
Speaker 1: city of Washington. Just sort of pulled up stakes there.
56:09
Speaker 1: It is, so you know, if people just to simply
56:13
Speaker 1: subscribe right, sign up for the email alert, if there's
56:16
Speaker 1: an email alert, sign up for the feed, if there's
56:18
Speaker 1: a feed. You know, most of these local proprietors are
56:22
Speaker 1: not going to beg you for money. They'll let you
56:24
Speaker 1: sign up and then you know, yes, we'd like it
56:27
Speaker 1: to if you're if you're getting something out of it,
56:29
Speaker 1: we hope you will give something back or in something
56:33
Speaker 1: that we used to call a subscription.
56:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, for profit or nonprofit really the
56:40
Speaker 2: you know, my.
56:41
Speaker 1: View holdful that we have a for profit model that
56:44
Speaker 1: is sustainable over time, because I do worry the nonprofit
56:47
Speaker 1: is sort of you know, you want you want to
56:50
Speaker 1: you want a self sustaining ecosystem, you know, whether it's Look,
56:54
Speaker 1: I think that there's a case to be made. The
56:56
Speaker 1: classified could make a comeback. You know, ple do care
57:00
Speaker 1: about obituaries. And there are different ways and events you
57:04
Speaker 1: talk about being in person events or another way you
57:07
Speaker 1: can create revenue and and things. And look, you you
57:11
Speaker 1: are going to have to be ah, you know, you
57:16
Speaker 1: gotta gotta be experimental.
57:18
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And you know the what I our
57:22
Speaker 2: friend Evan Smith always like to say that, you know,
57:25
Speaker 2: one of the founders of the Texas Tributne like to
57:28
Speaker 2: say that your your tax status is not a business model, right,
57:32
Speaker 2: I mean, uh, and that's really true. But at the
57:35
Speaker 2: end of the day, local news matters, Uh, only if
57:41
Speaker 2: it's reaching an audience that it can have an impact. Right.
57:44
Speaker 2: If you're doing great journalism but nobody knows about it,
57:48
Speaker 2: that isn't doing any good. And if you're doing great
57:50
Speaker 2: journalism and not enough people are reading it then you
57:55
Speaker 2: don't have a long term path to sustainability. So audiences
57:59
Speaker 2: are critically import for local news from the business model standpoint,
58:02
Speaker 2: both from an impact this is how our journalism matters
58:05
Speaker 2: by reaching enough people that that that a critical mass
58:08
Speaker 2: of uh informed public can can take you know, appropriate
58:14
Speaker 2: action when need be. And also it's about the sustainability.
58:19
Speaker 2: You know, whether your for profit and your your your
58:21
Speaker 2: money is coming from you know, advertising revenue. Those advertisers
58:25
Speaker 2: care about your audience. And if your nonprofit, your audience
58:30
Speaker 2: is a significant source of revenue in the forms of
58:32
Speaker 2: individual donations and and also earned revenue. So it's really
58:36
Speaker 2: about growing audience across the country for local news for
58:39
Speaker 2: sustainability impact.
58:41
Speaker 1: John Local News Day, I'm I'm fired up and every week,
58:45
Speaker 1: uh you're kicking it off, but every week I'm going
58:48
Speaker 1: to be talking to a different local news entrepreneur and
58:53
Speaker 1: just talk about the different business models used. As a nonprofit.
58:56
Speaker 1: There are not for profits, there are ones that are
59:00
Speaker 1: subscription based, ones that are ads supported, you know. So
59:04
Speaker 1: there's all different models and we frankly want to showcase
59:07
Speaker 1: all of them, you know, and sometimes there's different there's
59:10
Speaker 1: ethic based local media that's doing tremendous jobs for different
59:15
Speaker 1: first gen communities. So we're going to feature at least
59:18
Speaker 1: one different type of local news outlet between now and
59:21
Speaker 1: April ninth. I'm looking forward to it.
59:23
Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, we really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure
59:25
Speaker 2: having you on the team. We're excited to have you
59:27
Speaker 2: be a part of this movement, and we appreciate the
59:31
Speaker 2: support of you and all of your viewers and listeners.
59:34
Speaker 1: And look, I'm just glad you picked April Night because
59:36
Speaker 1: April lates my birthday, so you know, and my birthday
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Speaker 1: wishes to participate in Local News Day and April Night.
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Speaker 2: All right, Well let's do it, all right, brother, Thanks, Thanks,
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Speaker 2: Jeock appreciated it.