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Mara Silvers on Shared State · A New Angle

0:09
SPEAKER_01: This is A New Angle, a show about cool people doing awesome things in and around Montana.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Justin Angle.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: This show is supported by First Security Bank,
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Blackfoot Communications,
0:22
SPEAKER_01: and the University of Montana College of Business.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: Hey folks, welcome back and thanks for tuning in.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: This week we're bringing you an encore presentation of my conversation with Mara
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Silvers about Shared State,
0:35
SPEAKER_01: a collaborative reporting effort between Montana Free Press,
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Montana Public Radio,
0:39
SPEAKER_01: and Yellowstone Public Radio.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: There are stories in Montana's history and in Montana's present that transcend this
0:47
SPEAKER_02: level of partisanship and being shut off from one another.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: There are stories that just challenge that.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: And let's go find them.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Shared State explores the strange political moment we're living through.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: And as we approach this next election,
1:03
SPEAKER_01: this conversation seems like a good reminder that truth,
1:06
SPEAKER_01: or whatever version of it we can find,
1:08
SPEAKER_01: usually lies in the middle.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: We'll be back to our regular schedule in part two of my conversation with Heidi
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Wallace and Regime Seabrook next week.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Mara, thanks for coming on the show.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: So tell us, where did you grow up and what did your parents do?
1:24
SPEAKER_02: I grew up in Helena, Montana.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think I'm used to saying Helena,
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Montana as like a full location since I lived out of state for so long.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I grew up in Helena and my parents are mental health professionals.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: So my mom's a
1:41
SPEAKER_02: licensed clinical social worker.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: My dad was a licensed clinical therapist for a long time.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Now he's a school counselor.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: So maybe a different kind of stress, I guess, from the work he used to do.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, and my sister is actually a school counselor as well.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: So everybody is kind of a social worker or a mental health professional.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: So you escaped that family trend in employment.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Tell us about your path into journalism.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to go into journalism from a pretty young age.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: Like when I was in high school, I remember telling people that I wanted to be a journalist.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: And that was at a time when the newspaper industry especially was going through
2:19
SPEAKER_02: such a low point that people kind of gave me this,
2:23
SPEAKER_02: you know,
2:23
SPEAKER_02: weirded out look of like,
2:25
SPEAKER_02: why would you want to go into such an unstable industry?
2:28
SPEAKER_02: But I always just kind of wanted to be able to be curious for a living, right?
2:34
SPEAKER_02: Right.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: And get to talk to people about whatever they're interested in and the lives that they're leading.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: But then I kind of went a different path.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: When I got into college,
2:43
SPEAKER_02: I was looking more into nonprofit work and eventually circled back around to storytelling.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: It just felt like the right calling for me and I think a great opportunity to be
2:54
SPEAKER_02: creative and communicate through written and spoken words.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: But still be really tied into real urgent,
3:03
SPEAKER_02: you know,
3:04
SPEAKER_02: real life issues as they were coming up for different people.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: So,
3:08
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
3:08
SPEAKER_02: so I did some campus publications when I was in college and then eventually got
3:14
SPEAKER_02: really hooked on podcasts,
3:15
SPEAKER_02: as I'm sure so many people have.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: And I came back to work for Montana Public Radio as an intern in the summer of 2016.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: And that was my first real experience doing radio.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: And I was obsessed.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: It just felt like the coolest medium to work with words like that.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: So after that, I just kind of stuck with radio for a while.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: Went to New York City and then with WNYC and a brief stint at Slate.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Tell us about those experiences.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it feels like it was the longest and shortest chunk of my life, both at the same time.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: It happened so fast, but they were really rich, transformative years for me.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I went out to New York to work as an intern on The Takeaway, a national news show.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: And pretty soon after that,
4:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:02
SPEAKER_02: WNYC is this amazing organization because there's so many shops that are under one roof.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: So there's always like different shows that are looking for producers or looking
4:12
SPEAKER_02: for part time,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: workers for different projects that are coming up.
4:15
SPEAKER_02: So it's just an amazing creative environment to be in and definitely was around 2017.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: So the takeaway is right next door to the WNYC newsroom,
4:24
SPEAKER_02: which is like the local NPR station for the New York City metro area.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know anything about New York City politics or New York State politics, but I
4:35
SPEAKER_02: was really curious about becoming a better producer at the time.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: And so they were looking for somebody who could be a stand-in producer on their All
4:44
SPEAKER_02: Things Considered program.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: So I did that on a freelance basis for a couple of months and then
4:49
SPEAKER_02: eventually just kept kind of like warming my way into the door, I think.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: Like first a toe and then a foot and then an elbow.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: And after a while, they hired me full time.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: And I got to be a producer on the evening news for about two years and then rotate
5:06
SPEAKER_02: through being a general assignment reporter every once in a while.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes I'd
5:10
SPEAKER_02: be on my way into work and my editor would call me and say,
5:13
SPEAKER_02: I need you to go down to the Southern District of New York's headquarters because
5:18
SPEAKER_02: the attorney general is giving a press conference on something.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: And I'd suddenly be in a world of a white collar criminal investigation that
5:27
SPEAKER_02: prosecutors were getting ready to unveil.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: So it's just a hugely diverse learning experience,
5:33
SPEAKER_02: both from a political angle and from a technical skills angle of just learning
5:38
SPEAKER_02: radio and learning how to do that
5:40
SPEAKER_02: And be a local news contributor among some of the most experienced reporters and
5:46
SPEAKER_02: editors I've ever worked with.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: And now you're back at Montana Free Press in Helena.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And tell us about the issues that you're particularly interested in.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: What's your what's your beat?
5:56
SPEAKER_02: So I've always been interested in health and human services reporting,
6:00
SPEAKER_02: maybe not surprisingly,
6:01
SPEAKER_02: given that's my parents' background and kind of the shop talk that I grew up around,
6:08
SPEAKER_02: so to speak.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: But I think in Montana,
6:10
SPEAKER_02: that can look like so many different things because those are issues that overlap
6:15
SPEAKER_02: with health.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: all of these different systems.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: So I've been doing a lot of COVID reporting,
6:19
SPEAKER_02: but then also doing different looks at Montana's mental health care systems or the
6:26
SPEAKER_02: lack thereof in some situations,
6:29
SPEAKER_02: the gaps in systems that people are trying to plug and different ideas that they
6:33
SPEAKER_02: have for fixing them.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: So
6:35
SPEAKER_02: It really spans quite a few different topics.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: And then,
6:39
SPEAKER_02: of course,
6:40
SPEAKER_02: as a lot of people might expect,
6:42
SPEAKER_02: it's difficult to be a reporter in Helena and not get pulled into political news,
6:46
SPEAKER_02: especially with new administrations and the recent 2020 election and the
6:50
SPEAKER_02: legislative session.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: So I definitely have my fair share of political reporting.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: That's just part of my daily life, too.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: And so that's maybe a great moment to pivot the conversation to shared state, this amazing collaboration.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: Let's start there.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Like how did this kind of collaboration among the many amazing public media outlets,
7:09
SPEAKER_01: nonprofit media outlets in the state of Montana come together?
7:13
SPEAKER_02: So I came on to Montana Free Press in May of 2020.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: And pretty soon we had the primary that just landed, you know, in the middle of the new cycle.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: And after the primary in June,
7:26
SPEAKER_02: we were looking at all these candidates and listening to all the talking points
7:32
SPEAKER_02: that they were giving about why they were going to be the best candidate for their
7:35
SPEAKER_02: office position.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: for the state of Montana.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: And for so many of them,
7:39
SPEAKER_02: they kind of came back around to this refrain about Montana values and how they
7:44
SPEAKER_02: would be the best candidate to support Montana values.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: And it just kind of felt like we were in this moment of needing to step back and
7:52
SPEAKER_02: question that premise a little bit.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, what are Montana values?
7:56
SPEAKER_02: But also, why is that such a
8:00
SPEAKER_02: relied upon phrase for politicians who are trying to communicate to Montanans, right?
8:04
SPEAKER_02: Trying to communicate to their constituents.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: So I kind of got this idea in my brain that we could have an opportunity if we
8:11
SPEAKER_02: worked with our,
8:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
8:13
SPEAKER_02: independent nonprofit media partners who also got to make creative work like us,
8:19
SPEAKER_02: we could step back and question that premise a little bit and not take the bait of
8:25
SPEAKER_02: just assuming,
8:26
SPEAKER_02: sure,
8:27
SPEAKER_02: like you have an idea of Montana values that's true for you.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: So we started having these conversations about broadening our election coverage to
8:34
SPEAKER_02: be a little bit more narrative focused,
8:37
SPEAKER_02: to be an audio project that got to tell stories about the political moment that we
8:43
SPEAKER_02: were in in Montana in 2020.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: And through a lot of conversations with Montana Public Radio and Yellowstone Public Radio,
8:52
SPEAKER_02: we started thinking about how we could dig into the idea of Montana values and what
8:58
SPEAKER_02: issues Montanans care about outside of such a polarized black and white kind of lens.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: And that's really the whole idea behind Shared State is just not starting from the
9:10
SPEAKER_02: presumption that everything is automatically polarized.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Looking at the issue first and looking at the history of the issue first to try to
9:18
SPEAKER_02: see if we can just get into the nuance and get into the gray area first instead of
9:23
SPEAKER_02: a this side or that side,
9:26
SPEAKER_02: this party or that party focus.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: So it was actually Corin Cates Carney who came up with the idea for the first
9:31
SPEAKER_02: season to look at the Montana Constitution as a framework for what are Montana values.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: So we based the whole season kind of around that.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: the themes and the values that are laid out in the preamble to the Constitution as
9:45
SPEAKER_02: a way to try to understand what Montanans care about.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: And that brought us all the way up to election season.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: And then after that, we were all sucked into the legislative session pretty quickly.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So we kind of had to step back from the project and just focus on the fire hose of
9:59
SPEAKER_01: political news that was coming out.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: And so here you are, you know, season two just released.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And folks can binge it because I saw all seven episodes, right, dropped just today that we're recording.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Eight episodes.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Eight episodes.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I miscounted.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, season two is fantastic.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: I encourage folks to,
10:17
SPEAKER_01: well,
10:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to say listen right now,
10:19
SPEAKER_01: maybe finish this show and then head over to Shared State.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, the second season, as amazing a conceit as Montana values were for season one, this notion of
10:30
SPEAKER_01: thorny political quagmires for season two is really powerful and and and i think it
10:36
SPEAKER_01: kind of like does a similar it does a similar work of framing issues is not
10:41
SPEAKER_01: necessarily automatically black or white or polarizing so i mean they're certainly
10:45
SPEAKER_01: polarizing but it's not automatically black or white tell us about season two and
10:49
SPEAKER_01: how you arrived at that idea
10:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: So I remember this meeting that we had in the spring of 2021 after the legislative
10:58
SPEAKER_02: session was wrapping up.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: And it was a bunch of team members from our three organizations who were on that
11:05
SPEAKER_02: call hashing out just what we were observing in the political moment.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: And everyone sounded so – I think this is okay for me to say – everyone sounded so tired.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that that was just because we had just come off the legislative session.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: It seemed like so many people who are covering news for a living were looking at
11:25
SPEAKER_02: the politics of the political moment that we were in and just feeling exhausted
11:31
SPEAKER_02: because there was so much –
11:34
SPEAKER_02: This feeling of stuckness of so many issues that people were just their heels were dug in.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: They were looking at each other from across some kind of barrier and just either
11:46
SPEAKER_02: yelling at each other or feeling so tired that they were throwing up their hands
11:50
SPEAKER_02: and everybody was walking away instead of being able to have some other kind of
11:53
SPEAKER_02: interaction around a political issue.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: We started trying to explore that a little bit and see how we could create a series
12:00
SPEAKER_02: that was listenable,
12:02
SPEAKER_02: like it wasn't just negative and sad and depressing.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
12:08
SPEAKER_01: the number of story headlines I see in the media that sort of are some variation of
12:14
SPEAKER_01: everything is terrible.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't recall living through a period of a couple of years where it's just like that.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: And I understand all the incentives in for-profit media to kind of drive that kind of storytelling.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, this is thankfully a departure from that.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: It's very accessible.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad to hear you say that.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: That was part of our motivation.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: We were thinking about the tone and the tenor of the political moment that we were
12:42
SPEAKER_02: all observing squared with just what we know to be true about our state and about
12:48
SPEAKER_02: the people that we've met in this state,
12:50
SPEAKER_02: our neighbors,
12:51
SPEAKER_02: legislators we've watched for decades.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: And I think that there was just kind of this feeling of like there are stories in
12:58
SPEAKER_02: Montana's history and in Montana's present that transcend this level of
13:04
SPEAKER_02: partisanship and being shut off from one another.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: There are stories that just challenge that.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And let's go find them and weave them together to be our second season.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: So that was the idea.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: so maybe let's dig into a couple of those stories and we can talk about water,
13:21
SPEAKER_01: pandemic,
13:22
SPEAKER_01: Badger II medicine,
13:23
SPEAKER_01: conservation.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Where should we start?
13:26
SPEAKER_01: What are some of the issues that just captivated you in this whole series?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: So originally,
13:30
SPEAKER_02: I think I was expecting that the stories that were going to come back to us were
13:33
SPEAKER_02: going to be a little bit more nitty gritty local disputes about,
13:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:38
SPEAKER_02: neighbors who I had never heard of before.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: You know,
13:41
SPEAKER_02: like the school superintendent in Circle having,
13:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:46
SPEAKER_02: a debate with his school board back in the 90s.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: Like I was imagining these really super local nitty gritty stories.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: And really what we got more of was people coming with these big sweeping problems
14:00
SPEAKER_02: and debates that were just – had a type of longevity,
14:05
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
14:06
SPEAKER_02: that have lasted for decades.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: And –
14:10
SPEAKER_02: It makes sense that reporters were bringing back those stories and they ended up
14:13
SPEAKER_02: being so rich and exciting to dig into.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: But some of them, of course, are about environmental themes.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: Some of them,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: two of the episodes are about affordability and about figuring out where you can
14:26
SPEAKER_02: live in Montana these days when the cost of living is changing so much.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: We definitely knew that we had to hit on the pandemic and some of the culture wars
14:35
SPEAKER_02: that have come out of COVID policies.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: So those are just a brief sampling,
14:42
SPEAKER_02: but they definitely are these big picture themes that are rooted in local
14:47
SPEAKER_02: communities and with real people who have been dealing with them for a long time.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: We'll be back to our conversation with Mara Silvers after this short break.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: A New Angle is proudly presented by First Security Bank,
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Blackfoot Communications,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: and the University of Montana College of Business.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: This show does not happen without these pillars of our community,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: and I'm so grateful for their support and encouragement.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: And speaking of support, have you checked out our new website yet, anewanglepodcast.com?
15:19
SPEAKER_01: There you can support our show directly with a variety of subscription options.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Subscribers get access to bonus episodes, additional segments, writings, and other benefits.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: So check it out at anewanglepodcast.com.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: This is Anne Helen Peterson,
15:33
SPEAKER_00: and I am a senior culture writer at BuzzFeed News,
15:35
SPEAKER_00: and you're listening to A New Angle.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to A New Angle.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking with Mara Silvers of Montana Free Press about the current season of Shared State.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe without giving too much away for listeners, can we dig into the Badger 2 Medicine story?
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Great episode.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
15:56
SPEAKER_01: that episode does such a good job of kind of illustrating these complex issues
16:01
SPEAKER_01: where I learned so many layers to this that I hadn't considered before.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Maybe set the stage for listeners on what to expect.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Why is that issue particularly compelling and complicated?
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
16:12
SPEAKER_02: so that comes to us from reporter Aaron Bolton from Montana Public Radio,
16:16
SPEAKER_02: and it was edited by Nikki Ouellette,
16:18
SPEAKER_02: who used to be the news director at Yellowstone Public Radio and freelance with us
16:23
SPEAKER_02: on this project.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: So Aaron had had this story and this idea of saying,
16:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: the badger to medicine has gone through so much political turmoil in the last
16:34
SPEAKER_02: couple of decades.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: And of course,
16:36
SPEAKER_02: because it's this incredibly beautiful,
16:38
SPEAKER_02: sacred area of wilderness,
16:40
SPEAKER_02: sacred to Blackfeet Nation,
16:43
SPEAKER_02: but also to so many conservationists and people who care about that ecosystem.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: which is right next to Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: So Aaron knew that this was a really a hot button issue, I guess, kind of place.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And he wanted to go back to understand where there had been agreement and
17:07
SPEAKER_02: coalescence around how to protect the Badger from oil leases,
17:12
SPEAKER_02: oil and gas leases.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: And then what happened since that victory,
17:17
SPEAKER_02: so to speak,
17:18
SPEAKER_02: like the fight that so many people were involved in to get rid of the oil and gas
17:22
SPEAKER_02: leases in the Badger,
17:25
SPEAKER_02: and then what those stakeholders are trying to do to figure out the future of the place.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: And that's where the disagreement really starts to become clear.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that I loved about this episode is that Aaron was able to show that
17:37
SPEAKER_02: He was able to show that there was both things happening.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: There was a period of a lot of agreement and a lot of shared values for how to protect this land.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: And then there has been,
17:49
SPEAKER_02: and as the episode will get into,
17:51
SPEAKER_02: a big shift,
17:53
SPEAKER_02: both politically and I think just in the opportunity of the moment that many
17:59
SPEAKER_02: members of Blackfeet Nation have
18:01
SPEAKER_02: Right now before them as as what they can do to advance their ownership of this
18:07
SPEAKER_02: track of land that used to be part of their boundaries.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And so the reclaiming of that sovereignty really is a big issue.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: It gets sort of gets catapulted through the social upheavals that we've experienced in summer 2020.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And talk about some of the conflict between conservation interests.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's differences in how we approach conservation in general and in that area in particular.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And then conservation, again, is a concept that's sort of antithetical to some indigenous belief systems.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, it's a really messy, in a good way, issue.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: One of the,
18:44
SPEAKER_02: I think,
18:44
SPEAKER_02: moments in that episode that just struck me so much was when we,
18:49
SPEAKER_02: Aaron and I,
18:50
SPEAKER_02: went up to Browning to interview several people for this episode.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: And I was his, you know, kind of field producer, so to speak.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: And we interviewed a lawyer and a tribal traditionalist in Browning named Joe McKay,
19:03
SPEAKER_02: who comes in about the middle of the episode.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: I will just say,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: like,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: for me personally,
19:30
SPEAKER_02: there are some times in interviews where you just sit back on your heels and you're like,
19:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm having my mind blown right now.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: And it was a very humbling experience for me.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: And you can hear Joe.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: I won't give too much away, but you can hear Joe when he greets us.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: And when he brought us into his house, he said, let's sit down and figure out what we're talking about.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: And it was a reframing of the issue before we even really got into the subject matter.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: And I think that I guess I'll just leave it there to say that he really represents
20:03
SPEAKER_02: a different way of looking at an issue that I think a lot of people might think
20:09
SPEAKER_02: that they already know the story about.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: And I really appreciate that he was able to do that.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: That is powerful.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: I often find that in these interviews that I do for this show.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: It's like when somebody kind of rejects the premise of your question,
20:22
SPEAKER_01: it is kind of unsettling in the moment,
20:26
SPEAKER_01: but it is the stuff of opening your mind to new ideas and new ways of thinking.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
20:34
SPEAKER_02: it makes me think actually when you say it that way,
20:36
SPEAKER_02: it makes me think of the way that we start the season with political scientist and
20:40
SPEAKER_02: professor Jesse Benyon,
20:42
SPEAKER_02: who is such a refreshing political analyst for me to listen to because she's I
20:48
SPEAKER_02: think also used to looking at partisanship and then trying to figure out how to go
20:53
SPEAKER_02: a different way or at least how to approach an issue with like fresh eyes and fresh ears.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: She talks about welcoming her students into class,
21:02
SPEAKER_02: into a new semester when she's teaching,
21:03
SPEAKER_02: I think,
21:05
SPEAKER_02: public administration.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: And how she just asks her students to consider being curious and humble and
21:13
SPEAKER_02: entering the conversation with humility first.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: and how that could help us get out of the preset black or white way of thinking about something.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: And I think that whether or not we intentionally crafted it this way,
21:27
SPEAKER_02: we have a lot of people featured in these episodes who return us to that offer,
21:32
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
21:33
SPEAKER_02: again and again throughout their episodes and throughout the exploration of the
21:36
SPEAKER_02: issues that they care about.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that was such an interesting choice.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts about how it came to be for episode one,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: kind of focusing on this interaction between some locals in Livingston and Tucker
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Carlson and his daughter,
21:53
SPEAKER_01: I believe,
21:53
SPEAKER_01: who were traveling through town to go on a fly fishing trip and they had a confrontation.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: And then in classic Montana style, the two folks sort of went off the grid for a while after that.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Into the literal river of no return wilderness, which I just thought was such a good detail.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: So the thing there that's interesting is you have this series that is premised on
22:17
SPEAKER_01: the notion of these complicated issues with no clear sides.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: And then you introduce this character, Tucker Carlson, who's instantly polarizing.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: Everybody kind of has an opinion about this guy, like him or hate him or love him.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Talk about that choice and how it was a great vehicle for actually demonstrating
22:33
SPEAKER_01: some of the complexity here.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: This is Nick Mott's episode,
22:36
SPEAKER_02: who's my co-host in the season and editor of so many amazing Montana-based projects,
22:44
SPEAKER_02: really.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: In case you don't know,
22:46
SPEAKER_02: anybody who likes Montana-based podcasts usually has Nick Mott to thank in some capacity.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: But so Nick brought this story about,
22:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
22:54
SPEAKER_02: this flashpoint moment that people might have seen across their social media feeds
22:58
SPEAKER_02: of like,
22:59
SPEAKER_02: oh,
22:59
SPEAKER_02: my gosh,
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Montana Man is trending on Twitter.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: Somebody got in a fight with Tucker Carlson in a fly shop in Livingston.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: What is happening?
23:07
SPEAKER_02: Is this part of a fever dream?
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, what's going on?
23:10
SPEAKER_02: So people might have seen that and they might remember that.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: But Nick's story was really about what happened afterwards and what happened to
23:17
SPEAKER_02: that couple after they realized that they had become
23:21
SPEAKER_02: a political flashpoint like they were now at the center they were in the eye of the
23:25
SPEAKER_02: storm so i think a lot of people probably like you mentioned have really strong
23:29
SPEAKER_02: feelings about tucker carlson they have strong feelings about dan bailey the guy
23:33
SPEAKER_02: who who went up to him and started this confrontation in the fly shop but i think
23:38
SPEAKER_02: that the episode if you can bear with it is really not about tucker or dan um
23:44
SPEAKER_02: It's about everybody else who got sucked into this moment.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think in the reactions to that video just reified the incredible political
23:57
SPEAKER_02: divide and aggressive feeling of confrontation that's gripping so much of our
24:02
SPEAKER_02: politics these days.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: And it was the reaction to the thing that I think is really worth digging into.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: And there's a part of,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: again,
24:10
SPEAKER_02: kind of just going back to the wonders of audio and why audio is such an amazing medium.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: But there's a section of that episode that's a montage of news clips and political
24:19
SPEAKER_02: commentary that came out in response to that video created by our amazing producer
24:23
SPEAKER_02: and editor,
24:23
SPEAKER_02: Nikki Ouellette.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: And it just...
24:27
SPEAKER_02: I think is a cacophony of feedback and political,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:33
SPEAKER_02: vitriol that really came spewing out over the course of that becoming,
24:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:40
SPEAKER_02: becoming a thing that people were talking about.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: So I think that it's a story that helps us observe who we are right now in this moment.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: And it's about so many more people than Tucker or Dan.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: It's actually about us and psychologically about
24:56
SPEAKER_02: what is going on with us in this moment.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: It is a look in the mirror and kind of a scary one at that.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: In our remaining time,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Mara,
25:06
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to kind of hear some of the broader themes of,
25:11
SPEAKER_01: this might be too optimistic a term,
25:12
SPEAKER_01: but resolution.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Like,
25:14
SPEAKER_01: how do you think we find common ground on some of these issues and maybe tone down
25:20
SPEAKER_01: the tension that is so vividly displayed in that first episode?
25:25
SPEAKER_02: You know,
25:26
SPEAKER_02: sometimes I feel more optimistic than other times as a reporter and as somebody
25:33
SPEAKER_02: who's in this political ecosystem alongside everybody else.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: But I think that the offer that we're putting on the table here is a pretty simple one,
25:43
SPEAKER_02: and it's not something that is going to –
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Be any kind of a silver bullet or we're not going to wake up tomorrow and just be
25:50
SPEAKER_02: in a fundamentally different situation.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: But I think that what we're putting on the table is just this the possibility of
25:59
SPEAKER_02: believing that the issue is more complicated.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: It always is.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: And there's history there.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: There's personal history there.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: There's communal history.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: There are wrinkles to this that you can't see from a 30,000 foot view.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: You have to get closer to it.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: And that's,
26:20
SPEAKER_02: I think,
26:20
SPEAKER_02: one of the beautiful parts of my job is just getting to do that with stories and
26:24
SPEAKER_02: with people.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: But I think that there's opportunity for all of us to do that.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: And
26:30
SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: It's not to say that it's easy.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot easier,
26:34
SPEAKER_02: I think,
26:35
SPEAKER_02: to look at something from a 30,000-foot view and just go with your gut reaction and
26:42
SPEAKER_02: go with that,
26:44
SPEAKER_02: whatever strong emotion that it sparks in you,
26:47
SPEAKER_02: and then ride that wave as long as it can take you.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: I think the harder thing to do is to slow down,
26:54
SPEAKER_02: turn down the temperature on your own reactions to things.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: And try to lead with a little bit more curiosity.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: And just speaking personally, I guess the moments when I feel most optimistic is when I do that.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: And the moments when I feel most pessimistic is when I let my emotions take me, you know, far, far away.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Tell us, as we start to close here, where would you point people online to learn more about Shared State?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Where would you want them to find it?
27:23
SPEAKER_02: This is a true,
27:25
SPEAKER_02: in every sense of the word,
27:26
SPEAKER_02: partnership between Yellowstone Public Radio,
27:29
SPEAKER_02: Montana Public Radio,
27:30
SPEAKER_02: and Montana Free Press.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: So you can find Shared State on any of our websites.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: You can also look on whatever your preferred podcast platform is, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, a lot of the people who are making the show are online.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: We're on Twitter.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: People are talking about it there.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: So you can you can look us up on your social media platforms and have a have a
27:53
SPEAKER_02: public engagement with us around this.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to hear feedback.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to answer questions about why we went about things certain ways.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think the reporters would as well.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: Mara, congratulations to you and your colleagues on the second season of Shared State.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: It is an achievement and I encourage all of our listeners to tune in right away.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Our presenting sponsors are First Security Bank,
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Blackfoot Communications,
28:24
SPEAKER_01: and the University of Montana College of Business.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Kelly Larson is our producer.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Maddie Jordan is our production assistant.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: VTO Jeff Ament and John Wicks made our music.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: And Jeff Meese is our master of all things sound.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot and see you next time.