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This 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:50.080 is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.680 I'm pretty excited about both my next guest and to 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.920 announce a new thing I'm involved with. I've dropped some 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.280 hints about it earlier on earlier podcast, but I am 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.960 a participant. I'm on a steering committee. I am here, 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.560 rabble rouser, whatever you want to call me to promote 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.600 Local News Day, and the idea of Local News Day, 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.359 which is April ninth, is essentially it's an awareness day, 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.639 you know, similar to the whole premise of Earth Day 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:23.960 way back when it first started in the early seventies, 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.560 which is, you know, take a day to think about 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.160 you know, your role in the environment and things like that. Well, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.480 with Local News Day, this is look our information ecosystem. 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:36.239 You've heard me talk about it. Why am I even 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:40.079 here as an independent operator these days? Right? The information 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:47.120 ecosystem as fragmented in a huge way. The revenue streams 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:53.280 for news organizations have dramatically shrunk and changed. As I 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.040 often joke, a man named Craig decided classified ought to 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.320 be free, YadA, YadA, YadA. We ended up with know 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:05.000 local news organizations in half the country. But the But 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.560 as much as that seems like there's been bad news, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.240 there's been an incredible right that. You know, I always 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.920 say politics and ports of vacuum, Well, the information ecosystem 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.600 of whoors a vacuum and where people live? People want 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.840 to know what the hell's going on? As I always say, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.880 look at you know, look at social media. How do 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:26.920 you know that we all like local news because we 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.400 think whatever's happening around us is important enough to share 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.960 with the world. Well, hey, that's local news. Well that's 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.520 the purpose of Local News Day. In April ninth, get 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:42.600 people more aware of people working in their own communities 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:48.600 already trying to rebuild what was an important part of 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.960 frankly civic life, uh for so many Americans over the 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:55.560 last two hundred years. If you want to go and 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.880 read Democracy in America by Detokeful, one of the things 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.680 that he will he marked upon when he toured America 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:06.080 to try to understand what made this democracy work. He 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:13.240 was incredibly blown away by how engaged Americans were locally. Well, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.240 that was thanks to what was an incredible local media 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.840 that we had in the nineteenth century. Well, we're all 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.320 trying to rebuild the information ecosystem, and we know trust 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.960 is built from the bottom up. Well, somebody had to 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:28.920 come up with the idea of doing this, and that's 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.640 who my next guest is. It's the founder an editor 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.800 of the Montana Free Press. It's John Adams and those 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.680 of us that cover the issue of campaign finance. I 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.320 was involved in the Meet the Press film festival back 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.080 in the day and one of the films we featured 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.200 had a starring role for John Adams, and it's how 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.400 I first got to know him. So, John Adams, welcome 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:52.040 to the podcast. 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.520 Hey, Thanks so much, Chuck, and thanks for being a 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.360 part of this effort, and thanks for having me on 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:57.760 the show. 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.400 Well let me start with Look, I've put it in 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.520 my words. How'd I do fill in the gaps? Tell me? 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.479 Tell me what? Tell me what your elevator pitch is 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.839 when you tell people about Local News Day on April ninth, 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:13.040 mark your kelliler. 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.240 Yeah, yeah, Well my hope, Chuck is in one of 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:17.880 these days I can get you to, you know, say, 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.240 if it's April ninth, it's local news Day. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.000 There it is. I love it. If it's April ninth, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.720 it's local Newsday, absolutely, But in all seriousness, I mean 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:28.000 it is. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:29.880 It is. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.479 I know what you expressed. It was sort of when 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.200 I think we last saw each other at the Texas 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.000 Tribute Festival, and you know, it's all about how how 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.200 can we take what is? There are a ton of 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.160 incredible entrepreneurs around the country. There's a lot of incredible 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.960 people attempting to try to fill the void in places 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.520 like Montana or frankly now where I live here in Washington, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.560 d C. Where we've become a local news desert, and 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.120 I wish I were being facetious, not a it's a 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:06.520 serious issue. And and and this was one way you thought, well, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.000 how do you begin to build a network of local 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.240 news entrepreneurs. Let's start with a shared day of awareness. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.960 Yeah, and you know, I think it's you talked about 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.320 the fact that there's been this crisis in local news 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.240 and obviously, anybody who's paid attention in the last ten 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.159 or fifteen years, that's that's that's an old narrative, right, 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:25.960 we know that that's been the case for a really 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.919 long time. That's not news. But I think, you know, 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.719 the idea for Local News Day is that there's actually 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.120 so much going on on sort of the revival of 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.720 this you know, critically important civic institution, which is your 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.320 local news organizations. And you know, this Local News Day 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.440 is really about helping Americans know where they can find 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.000 that those sources of information where they live. You know, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:57.640 we are as we've lost sources of local news, our 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.360 attention goes elsewhere. People are curious, people want to stay informed, 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.839 people want to be you know, in the know on things. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.200 And we all carry around these incredibly powerful supercomputers in 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.600 our pockets that are that are radically connected to the 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.080 entire world, and so we can find out what's happening 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.440 in in you know, Israel or Iran within minutes of 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.240 it happening. But in terms of you know, what happened 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.520 to you know, why is that street closed three blocks 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.680 from my house? You may wait days to find the 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.680 answer to that, and you might have to find it 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.800 out on social media. You might have to find it 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.520 out by asking your neighbors. And you know, in a 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:39.119 lot of communities, they kind of left their attention which 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:43.920 was you know, often started their day on their doorstep, 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.040 right a paper delivered to their door. You wake up, 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.240 you drink the coffee, you unroll the paper, you read 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.600 the headlines, you you swear at the opinion page. Then 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.280 you check the local sports box scores for the basketball 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.920 game that happened the night before, what have you. And 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.080 then you end your day watching the newscast and knowing 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:03.960 what's going on. Sure that you might tune in for 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:05.800 the national news, but then you stick around to find 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:07.760 out about what's going on with the weather, what's going 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.960 on in your community. And you know, a lot of 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:17.000 those traditional sources of information didn't adapt very efficiently to 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.840 the information environment that we're currently in. But there's a 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.480 lot of us who understood, you know, saw that that 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.320 reality kind of taking shape and kind of hit the 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.440 ground trying to figure out what the next phase of 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.720 this was. The need for local news has never gone away. 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.559 The appetite for local news has never dissipated. It's just that, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.480 you know, the business model that had supported it for 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:46.640 so long had kind of failed in our current information environment. 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.920 And so what this is all about is saying, like, look, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.480 people are reinventing the business model. There are successful local 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:58.160 news organizations all over the country, for profit, nonprofit independence creators, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.600 you know, people who are committed to finding out the 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.319 facts about what's going on in their community and sharing 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.000 it with with as broad of an audience of local 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.640 folks as they can. And there this campaign Local News 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:16.400 Day is really about highlighting, uplifting, celebrating, and connecting the 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.800 public with those sources of local news that they may 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:19.680 not even know exist. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:25.439 You know, It's and I think we've I feel like 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.600 we kind of sort of joked about this in one 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:33.120 of the steering committees, but you know it, you know, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.240 local news now kind of feels like the craft the 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:41.080 craft beer, you know, boom, and I hope that and 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.000 I think what we all figured out is, huh, we 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:49.720 don't want three national beers Cores, Miller, and Budweiser. Right 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.800 as soon as it became that, people suddenly said, wait 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.280 a minute, you know, and you know, I know it 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.160 seems like a weird but but now there's truth to this. Right, 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.000 every town you go to now has their own beer. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.360 And we see this as, oh, isn't that great. You know, 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.400 there's a local flavor or there's a local diss and 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.160 there's a local that. But in some ways it was 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.760 because we didn't like the whole commoditized aspect of this. Right, 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.959 yet the big companies scale was everything, right, There's less 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.240 money to be made if you somehow made two hundred 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.880 and fifty different kinds of recipes of beer. And I 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.079 think that's what hurt local news is it tried to 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.680 sort of participate in the scale economy when actually it 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.959 was just antithetical to scale and then ended up being 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.000 a mistake. But I sort of now I look at 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.600 it and it's like, yeah, local news looks different. Craft 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.920 beer is different. Sometimes you put a lot of fruit 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.000 in yours, or oh, your local news is based on 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:55.720 just this one neighborhood association, you know, and yet different. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.840 You know, if you're serving a community, then you're doing 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.439 a good version of local news, right, And maybe I'm 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:02.480 butchering it a little bit. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:03.840 But I love the metaphor. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:08.160 The craft beer boomlet tells me that, you know, actually 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.720 people do care about their local identities. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.600 You know, I think I think you're really onto something there. 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.480 And I could take that a lot further actually, because 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:20.440 you know, I don't know if you know this, Chuck, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:22.280 but I was also for a period of time the 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.920 correspondent for the Rocky Mountain Brewing News, So you know, I. 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.040 Did not know that one that was not a that 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:29.439 was not a feeder question. 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:31.920 You know, it's not on my resume. I should put 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.400 it on there, But you know, it's really that's a 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.480 great metaphor because you know what local breweries are. You know, 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.760 I'll take Montana for example, which I know well, you know, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.439 they're public houses. It's not just that people go there 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.600 for the unique flavor, right, they also go there for community. 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.320 They go there for connection. And I think that's one 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.720 of those things that local news really has the power 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.840 to do, which is connect people. Like you can have 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.480 disagreements and whatnot, but you're disagreeing at least around the 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.280 same set of facts about what you read in your 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.880 your local paper, heard on your local newscasts, or saw 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.360 on your local you know, your local evening newscasts, and 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.679 so you know, and like those those local beers, you know. 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.439 I think what we have found has been so successful 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.800 in you know, particularly what I've experienced mostly in the 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.439 last ten years in the nonprofit news space, is there 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.600 isn't a one size fits all business model or editorial 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:32.599 strategy or solution to the local news challenge. The organizations 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.800 that we're seeing that are having so much success are 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.040 you know, entities that really know their community. They know 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.360 what their community, you know, is looking for what's the gap, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.880 you know, what what is the information that people most 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:50.480 need or most want, And so you know, they're they're 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.920 so tied in with what is happening. They're part of 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.800 the community that they build trust, They're reflecting the flavor 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.559 of the community in many ways, like you you can 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:06.240 sense the familiarity because you recognize the people, you recognize 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.480 the voices, you recognize, you know the issues that are 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.440 happening around you, and you know, like you know, you know, 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.360 a lot of craft breweries will you know, the water 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.720 that they have access to is part of what makes 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.800 their beer special. You know, the makeup of the water 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.559 is a big deal. You know, people use local barley, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:30.719 local malt, local hops. You know, maybe if you're in 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.480 certain parts of the country, like Montana, you might add 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.880 a huckleberry beer to your mix during huckleberry season. And 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:39.040 you know, these are all things that people see kind 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.520 of reflected. They see their lived experience, their world reflected 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.160 in this thing. And that's something that they feel an 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.839 attachment to. And and I think that is what we're 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.720 trying to do with Local News Day is sort of 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.520 recreate that same kind of connection, that same kind of 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.719 attachment with the information about what's happening around them and 0:13:58.200 --> 0:13:59.160 empowering people. 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.360 I like, look, let's talk about your origin story a 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.599 little bit with the Montana Free Press. I mean it 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.200 when you were telling me pieces of it because we 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.040 have a mutual friend, Phil Kent, who was a longtime 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.480 executive at the in the early days with Ted Turner 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:16.760 at CNN, and I serve with Phil Kent on a 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.600 board at GW for the School of Media and Public Affairs. 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.640 And you tell this great story where he saw the 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.440 documentary that you were in. Let's talk about the documentary 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.480 is a documentary about dark money and Montana's you know, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.240 sort of the and this was a story about how 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.960 there was a bipartisan effort to try to you know, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.400 Montana is different, right, the whole fight against the copper 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.480 against the longtime copper barons. I guess you might call 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.440 them really sort of create you know, there really is 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:53.000 a legacy of you know, skepticism of outside money, skepticism 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.920 of outsider whether you're left or right. You know, it 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.000 sort of explains why Montana politicians in general are not 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.960 cookie cutter, right, no matter which side of the isle 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.680 they send. You're like, now, a Montana Republican is not 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.200 like a regular Republican, and a Montana Democrat is not 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.680 like a national Democrat. They're just there. And because there 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.600 is a Montana identity that that is distinctive, that goes 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.800 all the way back, frankly to it to its sort 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:23.080 of early days as a state. And you were sort 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.800 of the featured reporter in this documentary. But but but 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.520 tell me about the doc and then what happened to 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:30.080 your career in the middle of the dock. 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.200 Yeah, well, I mean it's one of those situations that 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.840 you know, I didn't really have any idea what I 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.120 was getting into. When Kimberly read the documentary, filmmaker reached 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.480 out to me. Kimberly is a Helen, a native born 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:51.120 and raised here in Montana. And you know, interestingly, Dark 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.280 Money is you know, it was a national documentary. It 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.480 public you know, it was. It was It aired on 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.120 PBS stations all over the country at a big natural 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.960 national theater release, and certainly the audience for it is 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.760 a national audience, but it really is local reporting in 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.120 a large part. It's it's it's one of those stories. 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:12.440 It's sort of kind of drives home how you know, 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.760 the powers and the influence of uh, you know, at 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.080 the national level can really impact you know, local communities 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.560 and local uh public policy. And that's what Dark Money 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:25.480 was about. And I was a reporter for the Great 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.520 False Tribune. I was the capital bureau chief for the 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.760 Great False Tribune, which was you know, at the time, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.920 if not the most, definitely one of the most prominent. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.680 And and uh why the newspapers that was Gannett. It 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.720 was the only Gannett owned property in Montana still is 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:49.880 Lee Newspapers. Uh, Lee sort of famously liberated UH five 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.960 of the largest state dailies from the copper collar, which 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.600 was ownership by the Anacona Company, which you know alludes 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.520 back to that history you talked about with the copper barons, 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.600 and you know, that one hundred year old history of 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.920 corruption and big money interest trying to buy our politics 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.119 at the local, you know, the legislative level and on 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.480 up is a fight that we've been just steeped in 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.359 here in Montana forever. And in nineteen seventy two, Montana's 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.640 got together and called a constitutional convention. We just celebrated 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.840 the fiftieth anniversary a couple of years ago the passage 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:31.040 of the of the new Constitution. But that new constitution 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:38.040 was really aimed at limiting the role of outside corporate 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.880 influence in our politics. At had strict limits on campaign finance. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.520 And what we saw in twenty thirteen, twenty fifteen and 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.479 beyond was, you know, we had my reporting had started 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.440 to reveal like how this dark money was really infiltrating 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.240 these these local legislative elections, primarily super local. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.960 It was a stunning discoveries. You're just like, wait a minute, 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.480 this company's doing what in what little state praise. 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.359 Yeah, I mean, candidates were coming out of nowhere and 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:13.880 just getting enormous support through you know, mostly through post guards. Right, 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.960 so people's inboxes just filling up with these campaign mailers 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.000 with some really heinous messaging and allegations, sometimes just a 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.160 week before the election, right, just a few days before 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:24.960 the election. So the person on the other side of 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.359 that attack didn't even have a chance to respond. You 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.159 didn't know who the attacks were coming from, and you 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.800 didn't have an opportunity to respond. And it turned out, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.640 and the documentary kind of really spells all this out, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.240 but it turned out that there was a kind of 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.560 a group that was orchestrating all of this on behalf 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.400 of candidates and in some cases illegally coordinating with those 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:54.040 candidates campaign. So they weren't disclosing they were providing very 0:18:54.119 --> 0:19:00.280 valuable political resources to a campaign, very valuable you know, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.840 attacks and other services, but there was weren't being disclosed. 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:07.800 And so we you know, those of us who liked 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.080 to spend time digging around in files in the basement 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.360 of the Commission of Political Practices office, we couldn't see 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.000 who like this was a totally undisclosed money. We didn't 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.960 know how much they were spending. We didn't know who 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.440 was spending it. We didn't know, you know, whether or 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.399 not these candidates were you know, directly involved with it. 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.720 Fast forward a few years, there was a series of 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:35.480 trials that aimed to bring some of these elected officials 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.800 to account for this illegal coordination. And during that period 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:41.760 of time, I had also been laid off at the 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.720 Great False Tribune, and so I followed this story as 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.040 a political reporter for the state, one of the state's 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.000 largest dailies. And then I found myself without a job 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.520 in the middle of the twenty fifteen legislative session. And 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.360 that was what sort of gave birth to the idea 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.159 of Montana Free Press, because I looked around the state 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.520 at you know, where could I continue to do this 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.200 kind of brand of journalism, And I didn't really see 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:11.840 any viable options. You know, I saw a continued decline 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.399 of the print newspapers that were still you know active 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:15.800 in the state. 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.919 How many how many quote reporters were you competing against 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:21.160 in the Capitol press corps. 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.920 Well at the time, you know what, by the time 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.080 I left, it was, I know, there was you know, 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.720 a handful of TV reporters that would kind of cycle through. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.040 Usually they weren't there for more than just a session 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:37.119 or two. Yeah, and then Montana's a very small media market, 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.840 so any of the good TV reporters im mediate as 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.000 soon as their contractor was up, went to a bigger market. 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:44.439 So you didn't have a lot of except for our 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:45.520 friend Mariza. 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.520 Except for our friend Mariza exactly. She's She's one of 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:53.680 the exceptions for sure. So you know, there was two 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.440 sort of legendary longtime state state House reporters, Chuck Johnson 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.760 and Mike Dennison, who were anchored the lead newspapers. And 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:02.720 those are the guys who I really kind of looked 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.280 at as my competition. Chuck had been doing it for 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.560 that point, you know, probably close to forty years. I'd 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.960 followed a Mike and Chuck's footsteps in both the Great 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:13.840 Falls Tribune and and then they went on to the 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:19.359 lead bureau, And so we were friendly competitors, you know, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.639 much as I'm sure you kind of experience, you know 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:23.840 in DC, you know, you want to beat them on 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.320 a scoop, but you also, you know, have fun conversations 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:27.879 in the basement of. 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.199 The team press score against those those partisan you know, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.760 guys left and right trying to keep the press out. 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.479 You know, we all band together on that stuff. 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.680 Yeah, and then a few months after I, uh, after 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.680 I was let go from the Tribune, Mike and Chuck 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:48.359 were basically forcing a retirement from Lee. And so within 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.879 just a matter of months, the you know, three of 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:57.040 the most experienced Statehouse reporters in the capitol were out 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.879 on the street, so to speak. And and there was 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.800 a lot of concern about who was going to cover 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:04.760 what's going on. And we were still in the midst 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.000 of all this dark money stuff, and you know, the 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.520 need for legislative coverage certainly hadn't gone away, and that, 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:14.639 you know, and that's what I really understood. You know, 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.720 Montana Free Press was founded on the belief that this 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:24.040 journalism has value, whether or not it is uh, you know, clickbait, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.840 whether or not it is the kind you know, ass 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.639 as news models had really kind of focused on on 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:34.879 views over news. It's sort of like the main value 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.840 proposition to advertisers. I still believe that there were people. 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.640