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Speaker 1: taking control of your personal data today. Trust me, I'm
Speaker 1: constantly working on this for years myself, and here's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands
Speaker 1: as well. Well. As I told you when we had
Speaker 1: John Adams on from the Montana Free Press that I
Speaker 1: was going to spend the month promoting Local News Day
Speaker 1: and as our way to promote Local News Day a ninth, basically,
Speaker 1: it's an awareness day so the people get to know
Speaker 1: the local news entrepreneurs that are everywhere. Unfortunately, not everybody
Speaker 1: knows of their existence, and so creating a day like this,
Speaker 1: which that was a John's idea there at the Montana
Speaker 1: Free Press. He thought could be helpful around the country.
Speaker 1: Various partners are there well. One of the pioneers, frankly
Speaker 1: in this new independent space and one of the more
Speaker 1: bigger success stories. There is somebody I've gotten to know
Speaker 1: over the last three years as I've dove into this
Speaker 1: space as work save it, and he is the publisher, owner,
Speaker 1: proprietor however you want to describe it for New South
Speaker 1: Today is the parent company, I believe, and he'll correct
Speaker 1: me with all the mistakes I make here in a second.
Speaker 1: I'm aware of Warwick through a variety of ways, but
Speaker 1: primarily through my old boss, Andy Lack, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: we will give a shout out here. He just committed
Speaker 1: seven million dollars to a local news initiative recently. I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of my former boss there. But he's been
Speaker 1: very active with Mississippi Today, which is part of De
Speaker 1: South Today. But Deep South Today is also in New
Speaker 1: Orleans Jackson. I know that they're I think in Arkansas
Speaker 1: and just you know, by its very nature Deep South
Speaker 1: Today about bringing better local news to the Old South.
Speaker 1: It's particularly more of the Old South states than the
Speaker 1: New South States. So work, how'd I do? And describing
Speaker 1: your company and describing your efforts, right.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great summary. You know, Andy really
Speaker 2: did get things going over ten years ago when Mississippi
Speaker 2: Today got started, actually twenty sixteen, first nonprofit newsroom in
Speaker 2: Mississippi really coming in there to fill the gaps that
Speaker 2: existed as sort of legacy media was declining and small
Speaker 2: local papers and radio stations were going out of business.
Speaker 2: And just in the last ten years, Mississippi Today has
Speaker 2: become the largest newsroom in Mississippi. Won the Pluitzer Prize
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty three was a finalist for the Pulitzer.
Speaker 2: In twenty four just wins numerous awards for the quality
Speaker 2: of its reporting. And this is really essential reporting, you know,
Speaker 2: the accountability reporting that nobody would be doing if not
Speaker 2: for Mississippi Today, just again providing essential local news and
Speaker 2: information there. And it's scaled. You know, Deep South Today,
Speaker 2: which is the organization I run now, actually includes three newsrooms.
Speaker 2: So we have Mississippi Today, we have Veritae News here
Speaker 2: in New Orleans where I am, and The Current in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Speaker 2: And we're the only multi state nonprofit news network. We've
Speaker 2: got a centralized business infrastructure supporting all three newsrooms, and
Speaker 2: we're getting ready to scale across the rest of the South, right.
Speaker 1: I know you're I think you're pretty close in Arkansas maybe,
Speaker 1: but I know you've been deep there and there's really
Speaker 1: a frankly, I think a couple of communities that would
Speaker 1: really want it, and it's both Little Rock and Fayeteville,
Speaker 1: particularly northwest Arkansas. I know there's a huge foundation there
Speaker 1: and I imagine and you know, there's actually a lot
Speaker 1: of pretty good local news in Alabama. The folks over
Speaker 1: at in Mobile, I feel like it's an old advanced
Speaker 1: media site.
Speaker 2: Correct, That's right. And I want to emphasize, you know,
Speaker 2: we're not looking to go in the places that don't
Speaker 2: need us, you know, where there's good stuff happening.
Speaker 1: You're not trying to be a predator here, You're not. No,
Speaker 1: I mean we're not right, This is not predatory behavior.
Speaker 1: We're going to go eat their lunch in Alabama. No,
Speaker 1: If they've got a good thing going, how do we help?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I think the look journalism for a long
Speaker 2: time was so competitive, and it was competitive for a
Speaker 2: good reason because it was a really profitable business, Like
Speaker 2: you could make a lot of money in journalism for
Speaker 2: a long time in the twentieth century, and that's just
Speaker 2: not the case now. And what we've seen is, you know,
Speaker 2: when the Internet came and all of these local news
Speaker 2: organizations suffered as a result, and a lot of them
Speaker 2: went out of business. There's a rebuilding that needs to
Speaker 2: happen because people have discovered that this was essential civic
Speaker 2: infrastructure that you know, no one's going to come and
Speaker 2: report the local news for you, especially in small, rural,
Speaker 2: poor places like the Deep South, like we get plenty
Speaker 2: of national and international news from the internet, but nobody's
Speaker 2: reporting on the PTA meeting, the city council meeting, telling
Speaker 2: you who's running for office, holding elected officials accountable unless
Speaker 2: we rebuild this infrastructure. So we're doing it as a nonprofit.
Speaker 2: We're doing it as a public service. We're giving it
Speaker 2: away for free, and we'll work with anybody who wants
Speaker 2: to work with us. But there's a lot of gaps
Speaker 2: to fill, and that's where we're focusing.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the vacuum you're filling and why it exists.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about the Jackson Clarion Ledger. This
Speaker 1: is the basically arguably was the biggest paper in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Maybe the Biloxi Herald has certainly had a as a
Speaker 1: fairly large circulation. I think there's a Greenville paper that's
Speaker 1: fairly significant. Does that sound right, Greenville, Mississippi. My saying that,
Speaker 1: I think it's I'm thinking of a community that was
Speaker 1: in Benny time since district. I think it's Greenville, but
Speaker 1: smaller that used to have pretty decent local political journalism.
Speaker 1: But let's take the Jackson Claaren Ledger, because this was
Speaker 1: the essentially the largest city, the state capital. Now, what
Speaker 1: have you learned from the failure there and the economics?
Speaker 1: It's just just bad manager. I believe it's it was
Speaker 1: a Gannette paper might still be Yeah, is it bad
Speaker 1: management or was there? They're really sort of a local
Speaker 1: business abandonment of the paper that made it very difficult.
Speaker 2: I think that's a tough business. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: looking to sort of, you know, take shots at anybody.
Speaker 1: No, and I'm not setting you up that way, but
Speaker 1: you're trying to learn from their mistakes, and that's what
Speaker 1: I'm curious about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I mean it's it's it's tough when when
Speaker 2: you're trying to run a business the same way that
Speaker 2: you've run it for a long time, and you're trying
Speaker 2: to dismantle maybe some of the structures that have been
Speaker 2: in place for a long time that served you well.
Speaker 2: I just think that's difficult. I think our advantage again
Speaker 2: was that we kind of got to build from scratch
Speaker 2: in this new environment. You know, I think being part
Speaker 2: of a big national news network is tough. Probably for gannet.
Speaker 2: Being beholden to shareholders who are expecting a certain profit
Speaker 2: margin is tough. We don't have to do that, I'll emphasize. Also,
Speaker 2: the Associated Press doesn't even really have anybody in Mississippi anymore.
Speaker 1: Wow, they completely abandoned basically the loss, so that you know,
Speaker 1: they're very newspaper based. I mean, it's just how their
Speaker 1: network worked. And I kind of think it's this is
Speaker 1: something we need to rebuild, and I'm not sure epeas
Speaker 1: that in the position to rebuild it.
Speaker 2: That's it like there's a wholesale implosion of the old model.
Speaker 2: We're fortunate that we're getting to kind of build something new,
Speaker 2: and we're iterating and evolving, and we're trying to stay
Speaker 2: in a nimble as we do it. But you know, again,
Speaker 2: we're not. We don't have to please shareholders, we don't
Speaker 2: have to extract a profit. Every piece of revenue we get,
Speaker 2: we can invest right back into the news product. And
Speaker 2: that's why we're growing.
Speaker 1: Look, we've talked offline about the opportunities here with these
Speaker 1: rising independent news organizations, and you know you now have
Speaker 1: larger and larger ones that are showing up. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got a gentleman here in Washington, d C. Named
Speaker 1: Robert Albritton. This is the one time owner of Politico.
Speaker 1: His father was in the local news business for years
Speaker 1: here before, both before I lived here in Washington, but
Speaker 1: the you know, there was a news it was a
Speaker 1: two newspaper town and a realistic one back in the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies with the Washington Star. And then he
Speaker 1: also owned the local TV affiliate. Now, when Robert took
Speaker 1: over the media business, he got he didn't he stayed
Speaker 1: out of the local He sold all of his local
Speaker 1: news holdings at first and made some money with Politico.
Speaker 1: And and he's definitely you can you can see he's
Speaker 1: just sort of seeing opportunity. But if you get a
Speaker 1: couple of big tent poles in the independent space, you know,
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune's a tent pole. One could argue, maybe the
Speaker 1: Salt Lake Tribune, since they decided to go full independent,
Speaker 1: is a tent pole. Maybe Robert Albritton's revitalized Washington Sun
Speaker 1: or Star, whichever name he ends up the's and all
Speaker 1: depends on what how expensive the buying the brand might be.
Speaker 1: If you do something like that, I could see rebuilding
Speaker 1: this national network that a Mississippi today could could benefit from.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, no, look I agree. I mean, just just
Speaker 2: to go back to your point, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: YESDC was had multiple newspapers, a two newspaper town, if
Speaker 2: you want to put it that way. But you know,
Speaker 2: so many small towns here in the South had two newspapers.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you can.
Speaker 1: Buy the town was because guess what the dirty little
Speaker 1: secret was. Everybody assumed the media was on one side
Speaker 1: or the other. Right, that's right, So there had to
Speaker 1: be there had to be a balance. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: the that's what the problem. That's what the the community supported.
Speaker 1: They wanted the balance.
Speaker 2: They wanted the balance. But it was just a really
Speaker 2: good business. Like people had to pay for the news.
Speaker 2: They had to have a subscription or buy it at
Speaker 2: the newsstand. If you wanted to advertise a product, you
Speaker 2: had to advertise it in a local paper and nobody
Speaker 2: would know what sale was going on at your store.
Speaker 2: So it was a really really good business until it
Speaker 2: wasn't right until the Internet came and made all of
Speaker 2: that sort of inoperable. And I think you know, when
Speaker 2: when you talk about what we're trying to do again
Speaker 2: in the South, in these rural areas where there isn't
Speaker 2: an All Britain, you know, there isn't a Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: like we are really like having to kind of figure
Speaker 2: out how do you make this hyper efficient, how do
Speaker 2: you stretch every dollar, and how do you do it
Speaker 2: in service of a product that's actually a quality product
Speaker 2: and not just slop. And we're doing that here, and
Speaker 2: so I want to emphasize that your point is correct.
Speaker 2: I think the networked model where you have a centralized
Speaker 2: business infrastructure that's supporting multiple newsrooms so that they can
Speaker 2: focus on the news product and the news gathering, and
Speaker 2: we're focused on again, you know, revenue, audience, technology, all
Speaker 2: of those things that make that possible.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about I think the challenge in local journalism
Speaker 1: as far as the product itself. Is I sometimes use
Speaker 1: the frame journalism for journalists, and there's this balance meaning, look,
Speaker 1: there's some great stories, but if nobody reads them, you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And you know, I do think there can
Speaker 1: be a disconnect at times between those of us who
Speaker 1: want to be the next Bob Woodward and those of
Speaker 1: us and those in the community who simply want what
Speaker 1: I call service journalists. And the right balance is you
Speaker 1: got to be both, right, You've got to be there
Speaker 1: to help people find ways to save money, how to
Speaker 1: learn how to navigate local government. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: are literally the place that teaches people how the DMV works,
Speaker 1: and there's no that that's by the way. If that
Speaker 1: didn't exist, then you'd have to go to the DMV's
Speaker 1: website itself, and God only knows how clunky their explanation
Speaker 1: would be. In some way. In some cases, the beauty
Speaker 1: of a local news organization is I always say, is
Speaker 1: they speak American, there's there's there's government English, and then
Speaker 1: there's a ma right, like, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: tell people the reality. And I think sometimes that balance
Speaker 1: is difficult because a young journalist doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: the ones that help you navigate the DMV. They want
Speaker 1: to be the ones that win. The pullets are how
Speaker 1: do you strike that balance and how do you learn
Speaker 1: from the community. I mean, because the important accountability stories
Speaker 1: aren't going to be the most trafficked. Any traffic matters
Speaker 1: in this situation. So it's a it's an interesting balance
Speaker 1: that all local news, I think, have to have to find.
Speaker 2: I think it's about leading with values. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the service journalism is sort of what leads to the
Speaker 2: sexy journalism that you're talking about. You know, when you
Speaker 2: talk about being the next Woodward, you know, we feel
Speaker 2: like we have the next Woodward in Anna Wolf, who
Speaker 2: won the police in Mississippi today. And she did that
Speaker 2: by exposing you know, the misuse of welfare dollars in Mississippi.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that took years and she was
Speaker 2: going you know through literally just just you know, documents
Speaker 2: and searching for things.
Speaker 1: It's almost an old fashioned foya story, right, Like it was.
Speaker 2: Pure shoe leather and foya and spending a lot of
Speaker 2: time with papers. It was the opposite of sexy. It
Speaker 2: was started as service journalism. It became the story that
Speaker 2: involved you know, Brett farre you know, all of these
Speaker 2: people that everybody's heard the story. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think about our New Orleans newsroom that last year exposed
Speaker 2: the junk science behind the conviction of a guy who'd
Speaker 2: been sitting on death row forever. That guy is now
Speaker 2: out of jail and on parole. He was on death
Speaker 2: row in Angola Prison here in Louisiana. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: again didn't start with sexy stuff, but ends up in
Speaker 2: a place where it has real impact. And I could
Speaker 2: spend the rest of this podcast go through all the
Speaker 2: journalism and all of our newsrooms that that really has
Speaker 2: had this kind of impact. But to your point, you know,
Speaker 2: we know that we need to cover sports, and we
Speaker 2: need to cover you know, the great touch points of
Speaker 2: Southern culture like food and music, and we're moving into
Speaker 2: video and audio journalism so we can reach people where
Speaker 2: they are and not just exsume that they want to
Speaker 2: read a two thousand words story about you know, torture
Speaker 2: and abuse in Mississippi prisons. So you know, we're trying
Speaker 2: to do all of those things, but it starts with
Speaker 2: the values that we're inculcating into our journalists.
Speaker 1: You know, and I when I talk about my as
Speaker 1: you know, and I just I think I view local sports,
Speaker 1: whether it's youth sports, high school sports, however, you want
Speaker 1: to view as a community bomb bond, right, And when
Speaker 1: you think about we're so desperate for fine community bonds,
Speaker 1: and what's a bond that is bigger than politics, Well,
Speaker 1: youth sports in some ways is. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: it happens to be a younger demographic. We all want
Speaker 1: to have younger readers, right, So there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stickiness here. But it's also expensive to cover local
Speaker 1: sports because the audience is small, cumulative, collectively, it's a
Speaker 1: gigantic audience. Right, It's a fascinating I mean, trust me,
Speaker 1: I have I think there's opportunity to scale, but it
Speaker 1: is more if you come at it from the youth
Speaker 1: sports space, from necessarily the local news space. It is
Speaker 1: hard to see the scalability when you're just looking at
Speaker 1: it as a building block to your community information headquarters.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's it's there. It's a challenge.
Speaker 1: I remember Andy Lack saying to me, the first hire
Speaker 1: we made was it was was the leading sports columnists.
Speaker 1: You know, we knew we need to at least, you know,
Speaker 1: invite readers over, But what works and what are some
Speaker 1: things that you want to try that you haven't yet
Speaker 1: in this in this community sports space.
Speaker 2: Oh it's specifically in sports. Well, I still think you
Speaker 2: know that again to your point, like sports is really
Speaker 2: really important in our culture. You know, whether it's Friday
Speaker 2: night high school football, whether it's you know, college sports,
Speaker 2: and I know you've been up my alma mater, University
Speaker 2: of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: But it's also in high school. I mean, it's what
Speaker 1: keeps communities from beating each other up the It's sort
Speaker 1: of what's the last thing that communities ignore pol it's
Speaker 1: about let's just talk about the high school game. I mean,
Speaker 1: I see it, and I've spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in Pensacola. I've got place down there. I consider myself
Speaker 1: a member of Deep South today. And you're larger, you know,
Speaker 1: I definitely, And I know this culture and I love it,
Speaker 1: and it is not inherently political. And yet these these
Speaker 1: people are getting stereotyped by how frankly the East Coasts
Speaker 1: sometimes covers the region. And yet I can feel the
Speaker 1: desire for community down here. I do well.
Speaker 2: And again it's also you know culture. I mean, I
Speaker 2: like to say that, you know, so much of what
Speaker 2: people consider American culture if they're not in America, they're
Speaker 2: really talking about sore because if you ask them, you know,
Speaker 2: what's American food, you know, they'll say barbecue, They'll say fried.
Speaker 1: I know, they always think of so America. Nobody's ever
Speaker 1: talking about the jello molds from Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I hope not, although I love my friends in Minnesota,
Speaker 2: but but I do do.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, our South in the yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And then you know, what's what's American music if you're
Speaker 2: if you're not American, Well, it's jazz, it's blues. It's
Speaker 2: these genres that came you know, from right here in
Speaker 2: New Orleans and Mississippi and uh, this this region and
Speaker 2: even you know, when people talk about American writers, they're
Speaker 2: quick to talk about Faulkner and wealthy and you know,
Speaker 2: and this is this is a place deep, deep, deeply
Speaker 2: rooted in its culture and it is a point of unity.
Speaker 1: Please, I think one of the best modern writers today
Speaker 1: is also a Mississippi native, right Thompson. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like it is, there's something about Mississippi that
Speaker 1: just produces terrific, uh terrific writers.
Speaker 2: It's true, and I think we need to lean into that.
Speaker 2: And and you know, you would also mention Rick Cleveland,
Speaker 2: who's you know, the sports columnists in Mississippi's kind of
Speaker 2: the the the sports columnsts Mississippi happens.
Speaker 1: To write fine bomb of sorts, right, you know.
Speaker 2: There, yes, And you know he has a podcast. And
Speaker 2: this is kind of where I wanted to go with
Speaker 2: us too, when you talk about like the younger generation
Speaker 2: and what need to do. We started experimenting with sort
Speaker 2: of video and audio, you know, a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and what we find is, you know, we still have
Speaker 2: to invest in the reporting. You know, we have to
Speaker 2: do the hard work to come up with the stories.
Speaker 2: But when we're able to translate those into you know,
Speaker 2: thirty to sixty second TikTok videos where you get to
Speaker 2: see the journalist and you make a connection with that
Speaker 2: person and that person's telling you in their own words
Speaker 2: what they reported about that, it really lands and we're
Speaker 2: getting way more engagement, you know, way more views, and
Speaker 2: it's a way of sort of amplifying the impact of
Speaker 2: the journalism. And so we're going to be doing a
Speaker 2: lot more of that, and we recently announced this thing
Speaker 2: called Deep South Today studios where we're going to be
Speaker 2: doing video across all of our newsrooms as well as audio.
Speaker 2: Again not new to a guy like you who's done
Speaker 2: video and of course as a podcast right now, but
Speaker 2: it's important for us to be getting all of our
Speaker 2: reporting out and all the ways that we can on
Speaker 2: every platform and the way that people want to receive it.
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Speaker 1: it's interesting if I think about I'm sure and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pivot AI here because I actually think what you're
Speaker 1: talking about is is the perfect response to this AI moment.
Speaker 1: You know, when I think about the unintended consequence of AI,
Speaker 1: one of the upsides that I see that I'm and
Speaker 1: maybe i'm this is the eternal I always say I'm
Speaker 1: short term, pessimistical, term optimistic. You know, I know we're
Speaker 1: going to get it right. I just don't know how
Speaker 1: long it's going to take us to get it right.
Speaker 1: Whatever right is. You know, I'll let people describe their
Speaker 1: version of it, but well, we know we're not there,
Speaker 1: and I think we can all come to that agreement.
Speaker 1: I think that this moment of AI that we're in
Speaker 1: is going to have people crave human connection. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to crave and so in the world of journalism,
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be we're actually going
Speaker 1: to stick to this independent model for a while. You
Speaker 1: know that consolidation. First of all, it's not going to
Speaker 1: make business sense the way it did perhaps in the
Speaker 1: early nineties and then again in the early odds. So
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to see predators out there right.
Speaker 1: There isn't going to be a Gannette that decides, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we you know, gobble all these people up there.
Speaker 1: There's some scale here. I think Google took everybody's scale. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Google has everybody's scale, So nobody's going to be
Speaker 1: thinking in those terms. But the demand for human connection,
Speaker 1: the demand to trust human curators and to be live
Speaker 1: and in person. So for instance, they got to see it,
Speaker 1: touch it, the byline alone, and all sorts of ways.
Speaker 1: I you know, people are now making personal, connective decisions
Speaker 1: and how they get their information. And when you go
Speaker 1: audio in particular or even YouTube, you're listening in a headphone,
Speaker 1: and even that physical distinction between turning on a TV
Speaker 1: where everybody hears it versus what am I only going here?
Speaker 1: Well then it's intimate and even more personal. And the
Speaker 1: last thing you want is a bot talking to you
Speaker 1: that way. So you know, I sense that opportunity. But look,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean AI isn't an incredible tool to
Speaker 1: help you aggregate information, deal with deep databases. And you
Speaker 1: know there's certainly a toolbox aspect of this. It's going
Speaker 1: to be phenomenal and can be phenomenal. So how are
Speaker 1: you guys looking at AI? And you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's a mistake to try to have hard and fast
Speaker 1: rules the moment because AI is in the middle of
Speaker 1: evolving all the time. We will never use AI, okay,
Speaker 1: I bet you said, we will never use Wikipedia like
Speaker 1: I remember saying that about Wikipedia and going you know,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, it turned out Wikipedia is a B minus product,
Speaker 1: and that's incredible for the Internet, right, B minus is
Speaker 1: actually at a curve, probably a work right. So Wikipedia
Speaker 1: today is actually a pretty decent source versus twenty years
Speaker 1: ago when all of us snobby journalists that do no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't you quote your Wikipedia to me. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of that of that sort
Speaker 1: of lack of hubris. I guess about AI. But where
Speaker 1: are you on it?
Speaker 2: And how do you Yeah, I mean, and I've got
Speaker 2: a lot to say on this. I want to reiterate
Speaker 2: something you mentioned, which is, you know, the factor of trust.
Speaker 2: You know, we are very rooted in place here in
Speaker 2: the Deep South. The big part of our sort of model,
Speaker 2: of course is having the newsrooms, you know, locally based,
Speaker 2: having our journalists in the community. It's really very important
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how many people in and the committee asked, and
Speaker 1: how many generations I Beer's family lived here. That's the
Speaker 1: first question out of their mouth, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a big question. But more importantly, just people
Speaker 2: want to know that, like you actually live there, that
Speaker 2: you're experiencing the same thing they're experiencing. And it's one
Speaker 2: thing for us to kind of have like this network
Speaker 2: model where we're doing these business functions at you know,
Speaker 2: the Deep South today level. But it's even more important
Speaker 2: that the newsrooms themselves are again rooted locally. The journalists
Speaker 2: are in the community, they're seeing, they're touching. You know,
Speaker 2: we do a lot of in person events. To your point, again,
Speaker 2: the video and the audio is important so people see
Speaker 2: the journalists and can make those personal connections. But you know,
Speaker 2: when it comes to AI, then I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's important to start with like the fact that
Speaker 2: I think people can really sniff out the fraudulent aspects
Speaker 2: of AI. Like just recently, you know, this book was
Speaker 2: canceled because people figured out I guess as soon as
Speaker 2: they started reading it that have been generated with AI.
Speaker 2: I think people see that with articles, they see that
Speaker 2: with videos and voices, you know, when we're on social media,
Speaker 2: and so you know, the more that we can kind
Speaker 2: of again convey the authenticity in our reporting, it's really
Speaker 2: really important now we know that like all of us
Speaker 2: use AI even if we don't mean to, because when
Speaker 2: we're doing like a you know, a Google search.
Speaker 1: Or we can't do search anymore without AI getting in
Speaker 1: the way anyway. And frankly, search is so terrible with
Speaker 1: all of its advertisements, you know, which takes you eight,
Speaker 1: you know, eight scrolls before you find the first link
Speaker 1: that wasn't ad supported, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, And and there are AI tools that can make
Speaker 2: reporting more easy, like when you're trying to analyze really
Speaker 2: big data sets. Obviously can do it more efficiently, more
Speaker 2: accurately if you know how to use it. And so
Speaker 2: we're training our journalists in you know, data analysis and
Speaker 2: the use of data and data visualization and all of
Speaker 2: those things. But the point is we're doing this in
Speaker 2: partnership with our journalists. We're not obviously trying to replace
Speaker 2: human beings. We're not trying to use AP to do
Speaker 2: sorry AI to do the actual reporting.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's funny you say that AI shouldn't
Speaker 1: used like AP was used by a lot of local
Speaker 1: news organizations for too long and it ended up I mean,
Speaker 1: talk about your Freudian slips. I actually think it was
Speaker 1: a wonderful mispake because that was how you knew a
Speaker 1: local paper had given up when you saw nothing but
Speaker 1: wire copy on its front page. I mean that used
Speaker 1: to be the that was oh it's a wire copy paper,
Speaker 1: never mind. I mean literally that's the way I would feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I mean definitely was somebody.
Speaker 1: An AI could end up. And that's the point. AP
Speaker 1: was our version of commodity news. AI is going to
Speaker 1: be this generation's version of it.
Speaker 2: And we think our value proposition again is really you know,
Speaker 2: our people, Our people are important. Our people are doing
Speaker 2: this work. They're making it, you know, better than the
Speaker 2: work that's happening in other places and again having more impact.
Speaker 2: So we're going to continue investing in that and upholding that,
Speaker 2: and any use of AI that we have, you know,
Speaker 2: in the journalism process will be done decided, you know,
Speaker 2: in partnership and collaboration with our journalists.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the newsrooms you've chose and the ones
Speaker 1: that you're potentially going to launch. What do you need?
Speaker 1: What does a community need to have for you to
Speaker 1: consider going you know, what you should be part of
Speaker 1: the Deep South Today network.
Speaker 2: Well, it's what it doesn't have to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're looking at the places of most need
Speaker 2: and we're prioritizing those because we want to be additive.
Speaker 2: We want to go to places where we can do
Speaker 2: the most good because now that we've created this infrastructure
Speaker 2: and it's so much easier to scale, you know, and
Speaker 2: and with so much more efficient Like let's take Arkansas,
Speaker 2: for example, a place where you know, unfortunately it's sort
Speaker 2: of headed in the direction that Mississippi was ten years ago,
Speaker 2: where you know, the legacy media has declined. A lot
Speaker 2: of local news has you know, disappeared.
Speaker 1: And I want to I want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out though, to the owner of the Arkansas Democratic. Is
Speaker 1: that absolutely because I feel like they stave this off
Speaker 1: longer than most.
Speaker 2: I agree, I completely.
Speaker 1: Made a pivot to digital quicker than most. Now, look
Speaker 1: was it was I was I crazy about all the
Speaker 1: decisions they made. I wasn't. I think that they did
Speaker 1: some stuff that I understood why they got sold that software.
Speaker 1: I think they got sold a bill of goods. You know,
Speaker 1: when they were trying to make it where you'd see
Speaker 1: the paper itself in a PDF. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of local proprietors got caught up in hey, that our
Speaker 1: newspapers should look exactly like a newspaper does. In the end,
Speaker 1: it was like, actually, no, that isn't a necessity. But
Speaker 1: the point being is early on they mitigated this. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you know them very well? And what
Speaker 1: have you wanted? And yeah, what can you tell me
Speaker 1: about them?
Speaker 2: Look, I'm a University of Arkansas a graduate. I lived
Speaker 2: in Little Rock for most of my adult life. I
Speaker 2: was an elected official there. I was also in journalism
Speaker 2: and other endeavors there. And I would always say, you
Speaker 2: know that that we were so so lucky to have
Speaker 2: the Democrat as at because it did sort of uphold again,
Speaker 2: you know, this quality journalism. It wasn't wire copy to
Speaker 2: your earlier point. I mean it was, you know, the
Speaker 2: only statewide daily newspaper really and so so it.
Speaker 1: Was and it was a robust statewide daily, like it
Speaker 1: felt like it truly covered the state. It sure had
Speaker 1: a little Rock focus, but they did they accepted the
Speaker 1: premise they were a state wide paper.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and and so you know, I will always say,
Speaker 2: you know that, like I just really respect and admire
Speaker 2: that commitment and what was what they did to to
Speaker 2: keep that going. I will say, going back to like
Speaker 2: the very first things we were talking about at the
Speaker 2: beginning of the podcast, is this is just a tough business, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think like if you're trying to do
Speaker 2: this on a for profit basis and you're trying to
Speaker 2: do it the right way, where you're not trying to
Speaker 2: cater to a particular ideological or audience or exclude people,
Speaker 2: but just report the you know, the vegetables and the
Speaker 2: protein of daily news, you're probably going to have a
Speaker 2: hard time. And I think they've had a hard time,
Speaker 2: and so there's been some you know, more kind of
Speaker 2: unfortunate decline there. And but also there's a lot of
Speaker 2: need in Arkansas because you have a lot of growth
Speaker 2: in northwest Arkansas. You have obviously the capital city, Little Rock.
Speaker 2: You've got rural areas in the Mississippi Delta part of
Speaker 2: the state that are just lacking in news coverage. And
Speaker 2: if you want to really prioritize where the need is, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: like I said, is sort of where Mississippi was ten
Speaker 2: years ago. It's in need of a nonprofit, you know,
Speaker 2: news operation that can fill those gaps, that can work
Speaker 2: in collaboration with the existing news media in the state,
Speaker 2: which is what we're going to be doing, and provide
Speaker 2: that essential information that people need to make decisions about
Speaker 2: their lives and to participate in their civic life. And
Speaker 2: the thing is, we can do that much more easily
Speaker 2: because now instead of somebody who'd have to like build
Speaker 2: everything from scratch, we've already got all the infrastructure. All
Speaker 2: we need to do is hire the editors and the
Speaker 2: reporters and put them to work. And that's what we're
Speaker 2: going to do.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about Arkansas, as I was, is,
Speaker 1: you know I talk about like, why is it important
Speaker 1: for a small state to elect a president? I said,
Speaker 1: because because Bill Clinton approved a new airport for Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And I say this because what was the ultimate goal.
Speaker 1: The ultimate goal was to prevent Walmart and Tyson's Chicken
Speaker 1: from headquartering in Chicago or somewhere else. But it was
Speaker 1: Chicago was the most likely place because you know, it's central,
Speaker 1: and you know, it makes you you can't argue against
Speaker 1: the logic of being in a centralized location like Chicago.
Speaker 1: And you know, and what essentially, I don't know that
Speaker 1: it went down this way, but you just sort of
Speaker 1: like a Bill Clinton going, no, we'll get you an airport.
Speaker 1: We're going to we could make Northwest Arkansas. And what's
Speaker 1: phenomenal to me and work. I'd love for you to
Speaker 1: take a minute, since you're an Arkansas guy and a
Speaker 1: native and you know this state better than I do.
Speaker 1: In the eighties and nineties, Little Rock was the center
Speaker 1: of everything, center of power, center of culture, center of government.
Speaker 1: And now I feel like Little Rock is just the
Speaker 1: center of government, and Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas has become
Speaker 1: the sort of the cultural center. You know. Obviously it's
Speaker 1: really sort of with the University of Arkansas being and faithful.
Speaker 1: You've got Walmart, You've got the Tysons and both. You
Speaker 1: have a lot of family members who chose to stay
Speaker 1: and invest in the community. So I look at it.
Speaker 1: It's been a remarkable transformation, and I and that's why
Speaker 1: I go back and go. It doesn't happen unless without
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton becoming president. Because Bill Clinton made got them
Speaker 1: an airport like it is. You cannot under you know.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious if you've seen this, if you it
Speaker 1: looks dramatic from where I sit. I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in Little Rock for obvious reasons in the nineties,
Speaker 1: and so we all got to know. Little Rock got
Speaker 1: the lovel I've had family in Little Rock a long time,
Speaker 1: So I knew it a little bit before, but it
Speaker 1: is remarkable to me the incredibly shrinking importance of Little
Speaker 1: Rock to the state of Arkansas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I represented Little Rock in the legislature and
Speaker 2: ran for mayor of Little Rock in twenty eighteen. So
Speaker 2: you've just you know, pulled the string and now you've
Speaker 2: gotten me started. And you know, I'll just say this
Speaker 2: goes back to the nineteenth century. You know, Arkansas's kind
Speaker 2: of bisected geologically. Half the state is you know, plantation,
Speaker 2: sort of Mississippi River farmland. The other half is you know,
Speaker 2: kind of Ozar Boston Mountains. And what that meant for
Speaker 2: the economy and the politics is that like all the
Speaker 2: wealth was in the agricultural side, you know, for you know,
Speaker 2: the first like one hundred hundred and fifty years, the
Speaker 2: plantation owners controlled you know, the politics in Little Rock.
Speaker 2: That's why Arkansas affiliated with the Confederacy, even though everyone
Speaker 2: who lived in northwest Arkansas in the mountains they all
Speaker 2: sort of affiliated and sympathized with the Union, and it
Speaker 2: created a lot of problems in the politics.
Speaker 1: No, it's always been behaved weirdly like a border state,
Speaker 1: even though it is never technically a border state, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And then you fast forward
Speaker 2: to the twentieth century, and you know, obviously as agriculture
Speaker 2: gets mechanized, you have the great outmigration. People leave. The
Speaker 2: Delta becomes the poor part of the state. Meanwhile, because
Speaker 2: you couldn't grow anything in northwest Arkansas, that's where Sam
Speaker 2: walton O been a general store. That's where the Tyson
Speaker 2: started raising chicken kens and JB. Hunt started, you know,
Speaker 2: his trucking company. And then over the next fifty years
Speaker 2: is the agg side of the stay goos and to decline,
Speaker 2: these companies I just mentioned become like Fortune one hundred companies,
Speaker 2: like Fortune fifty companies. They're Walmart's the biggest retailer in
Speaker 2: the world, Tyson's the biggest protein producer. JB. Hunt's the
Speaker 2: biggest transportational logistics company like in the world. And they're
Speaker 2: all in Northwest Arkansas. And so to your point, you know,
Speaker 2: it became richer and it's starting to become more powerful politically.
Speaker 2: But I will say one more thing, because I used
Speaker 2: to pound my fist on the table about this in
Speaker 2: Little Rock. The thing is the folks with the money
Speaker 2: and the power in Northwest Arkansas about twenty five years ago,
Speaker 2: they pulled everyone together and said, we have got to cooperate.
Speaker 2: Like at the time, all the cities and counties up
Speaker 2: in that part of the state were fighting over things,
Speaker 2: and they said, we're gonna have one strategy. We're going
Speaker 2: to be together. We're going to have you know, not
Speaker 2: just you know, infrastructure, but culture. And it was really
Speaker 2: you know, the Waltons who drove a lot of this.
Speaker 1: But you know when you see it, Betton Villa and
Speaker 1: Fadeviller behave like sister cities, not competitors, correct.
Speaker 2: And they've got bike trails and museums and you know,
Speaker 2: hotels and and they've done all this together, whereas Central
Speaker 2: Arkansas unfortunately still fights with itself. And they used to
Speaker 2: drive me crazy, and I say, that's all about leadership.
Speaker 2: It's all about who's in charge and who decides to
Speaker 2: exert their authority to do something good. And they've done
Speaker 2: something really good in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 1: No, they have. And it just feels like the it
Speaker 1: just you know, you feel the pull and power, right
Speaker 1: and when business, culture, and education all sort of are there,
Speaker 1: the only thing that they don't have is politics, right,
Speaker 1: is the government.
Speaker 2: And they don't have the state capital, but.
Speaker 1: Increasingly like and you can and it's and that is
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be an interesting source of
Speaker 1: political tension. Right, you just know that this will this
Speaker 1: will go back and forth. I mean frankly to a
Speaker 1: much different degree. But it was sort of like, how
Speaker 1: this can go. It can go sideways. Miami is the
Speaker 1: cultural and always has been the sort of the center
Speaker 1: of Florida, but it's never been the political capital and
Speaker 1: political capitals. So you can it can it can sometimes
Speaker 1: create tension there. So I bring all that up about
Speaker 1: Arkansas because if you're starting a nonprofit journalistic organization, it's
Speaker 1: obvious you got to start where the money is because
Speaker 1: you got to have patrons. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: you just describe where the need is, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: where the money people are. And this is the balance
Speaker 1: of this witch business model. Do you pick right? Is
Speaker 1: it a nonprofit? Is it a cooperative? Is it a
Speaker 1: full non for profit? Is it a non for profit
Speaker 1: which is slightly different than just a nonprofit? Right, So
Speaker 1: I say this, am I it is how much do
Speaker 1: you factor in? Hey, the community we're in has to
Speaker 1: also have enough frankly wealthy patrons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well interestingly, just so you know, I mean, Northwest
Speaker 2: Arkansas is actually where the need for journalism is more
Speaker 2: acute than Central Arkansas. Like you know, when I'll tell
Speaker 2: you when I was starting to work on this project
Speaker 2: and I was visiting Northwest Arkansas, I just so happened
Speaker 2: to be there like the day before a primary. This
Speaker 2: was like a couple of years ago, and I ran
Speaker 2: into somebody I knew on the street and they didn't
Speaker 2: even know what I was doing, like at the time,
Speaker 2: and they just like they were just relating to me. Warwick.
Speaker 2: You know, there's this election tomorrow and I have no
Speaker 2: idea who's running for office. I have no idea who
Speaker 2: to vote for because there's no news up here. And
Speaker 2: literally they didn't even know what I was up there
Speaker 2: to do in the first place. And I just I
Speaker 2: know this is anecdotal, but it's true. And so you
Speaker 2: have this very again, the fastest growing, richest part of
Speaker 2: the state doesn't have journalism. But then also you know,
Speaker 2: the rural parts and the poorest parts don't have it either.
Speaker 2: And I say that to say, we're going to be
Speaker 2: in both places.
Speaker 1: We're going to see everyone.
Speaker 2: Who needs it, because when I define need, I define
Speaker 2: it in terms of need and journalism. The other thing
Speaker 2: I'll just say too, is like we're in an underresourced region,
Speaker 2: Like we don't have anything close to the wealth of
Speaker 2: a New York City in La San Francisco, Chicago, DC,
Speaker 2: So I take it for granted that, like we're doing
Speaker 2: more with less here no matter what. Like we don't
Speaker 2: have big philanthropy, we don't have a lot of wealthy people.
Speaker 2: We have a handful of small, successful business owners in
Speaker 2: our region, but nothing to the scale of other places.
Speaker 2: So we're just going to do as much as we can.
Speaker 2: And that's why we've built such an efficient business models
Speaker 2: take advantage of these economies of scale.
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Speaker 1: What other states you've got? Arkansas?
Speaker 2: We're going to be in Arkansas, and I want to
Speaker 2: emphasize too, we still have room to grow in Mississippi
Speaker 2: and Louisiana. I mean, we have two newsrooms in Louisiana,
Speaker 2: but you.
Speaker 1: Could be you could be in southern Mississippi. You're not
Speaker 1: in southern missis and we're working on that.
Speaker 2: We definitely want to be on the coast in Mississippi
Speaker 2: in a bigger way. But you know, there are parts
Speaker 2: of Alabama that need us, there are parts of Tennessee
Speaker 2: that need us. You know, I can see Georgia is
Speaker 2: a place we go in. And again, this is not
Speaker 2: a manifest destiny situation where we want to be everywhere
Speaker 2: and lick every lollipop. It's just about, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to find the places where our particular model can do
Speaker 2: the most good because of the region that we're in.
Speaker 1: So are you are you convinced that nonprofit is what
Speaker 1: it's going to be or do you envision it eventually
Speaker 1: trying to create a sustainable revenue streams.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's sustainable. I mean the way I
Speaker 2: would just describe it to you is that, you know,
Speaker 2: we are a civic institution, sort of the way a college, university,
Speaker 2: or a museum or a performing arts institution, where people
Speaker 2: understand the value that it has in the community. They
Speaker 2: also understand that, like in most cases, a college, a museum,
Speaker 2: or a performing arts institution isn't going to work as
Speaker 2: a for profit. You're not going to make a lot
Speaker 2: of money from that, but you're going to support it
Speaker 2: with philanthropy. You're still going to charge tuition, you're still
Speaker 2: going to sell tickets, you're still going to charge admission,
Speaker 2: and those are earned revenue sources. And so we're also
Speaker 2: going to have earned revenue sources. We have earned revenue
Speaker 2: sources through advertising, through you know, events, sponsorship, through you
Speaker 2: know sponsorship of things like podcasts and videos and things
Speaker 2: like that. So revenue is a pillar, but it's alongside
Speaker 2: membership and alongside philanthropy to keep it sustainable. And I
Speaker 2: don't think there's anything wrong with that, And in fact,
Speaker 2: I think it's necessary because when you look at journalism,
Speaker 2: the way you can make a profit in it is
Speaker 2: by either really appealing to like an ideological niche, or
Speaker 2: appealing to like a particular industry sector. So if you
Speaker 2: want to get like all the people who really need,
Speaker 2: you know, very specific news about Capitol Hill or very
Speaker 2: specific news about Wall Street or about you know, Silicon Valley,
Speaker 2: you can get those people, and you can charge them
Speaker 2: like premium subscriptions because you're giving them and you know
Speaker 2: this better than anybody. But for us, again, we're trying
Speaker 2: to give them meat and potatoes of daily news. It's
Speaker 2: the kind of stuff people don't think they need to
Speaker 2: pay for, but they do need it, and we need
Speaker 2: it to have a healthy government and a healthy civic life.
Speaker 2: So we're doing it as a as a civic good,
Speaker 2: and we're giving it away for free.
Speaker 1: What's a What's something that you because you're right about this,
Speaker 1: it's interesting you want to pick up on something you
Speaker 1: said earlier, which is and I think this has happened.
Speaker 1: It's what happened to the Arkansas Democrat has that it
Speaker 1: arguably is sort of what Bezos has decided. How Bezos
Speaker 1: has decided to deal with his problems at the Post,
Speaker 1: which is, you do have legacy costs. You've been around
Speaker 1: long enough, you're going to have you know, healthcare costs,
Speaker 1: pension costs, labor, union contracts, all sorts of you know.
Speaker 1: There's somebody was telling me that, like, you know, the
Speaker 1: Washington Post has to print ninety thousand copies minimum every
Speaker 1: day and for a couple of like contracts or whatever.
Speaker 1: It is, right, and there's sort of like it's a
Speaker 1: loss leader now, right, and how on how that works?
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, you do develop those legacy costs,
Speaker 1: and that happens. And there is something about Robert Albritton
Speaker 1: has the luxury of being able to start from scratch.
Speaker 1: You have the luxury starting from scratch. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you you're anti union or pro union. It could mean
Speaker 1: that you're going to probably have employees. At some point
Speaker 1: you say, hey, we'dized, and that's the thing. It's it's
Speaker 1: employee decisions and you go from there. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's always a there's there's a fine line
Speaker 1: here on collective bargaining versus individ you know all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I think every every news organization should
Speaker 1: make their decisions that way.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: What are the I mean in some of this is
Speaker 1: where you have an advantage, and where the Birmingham News
Speaker 1: and the Arkansas Democratic Is that are still sort of
Speaker 1: you know, they have obligations that they'd love to give
Speaker 1: up on to focus on what you're doing, and they like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're just stuck. We can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean, you know, I again I'll emphasize,
Speaker 2: I mean, we are able to be a little bit
Speaker 2: more nimble than these legacy news organizations. And you know,
Speaker 2: again I I think you know, when I look at
Speaker 2: like what that they've had to do this day in business,
Speaker 2: they've had to raise their subscription rates, which in poor
Speaker 2: places like Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, you know, it leads to
Speaker 2: fewer people having access to that news and information they're
Speaker 2: putting out, you know, and most of them have stopped printing.
Speaker 2: In fact, you know, the Democrat Is added famously sort
Speaker 2: of given out iPads to people, which was a really
Speaker 2: I think innovative thing that they did.
Speaker 1: Again, they tried things that like you see what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do. In hindsight, it I understand why it
Speaker 1: didn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but I know, I really do admire them
Speaker 2: for trying. It was innovative at the time. And but again,
Speaker 2: like to your point, like when you've got a situation
Speaker 2: where you have to please shareholders or private owners, you
Speaker 2: have to generate a profit, and you have all of
Speaker 2: these sort of you know things like you know, having
Speaker 2: owning a printing press and having to to service all
Speaker 2: of this you know, different kind of debt or obligation.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a difficult thing. And that's why I
Speaker 2: really do believe in our model, like as a nonprofit
Speaker 2: doing it as of public service, knowing that you know,
Speaker 2: the revenue we do generate gets invested right back into
Speaker 2: the product. There's there's no sort of you know doubt
Speaker 2: about you know, where where we're putting the money, why
Speaker 2: we're doing what we're doing, and then understanding that like
Speaker 2: going forward, we're going to be supported by our members
Speaker 2: who are kind of you know, our small dollar donors,
Speaker 2: who you could call them the equivalent of like subscribers,
Speaker 2: because these are people who are voluntarily giving a certain
Speaker 2: amount of money per month just because they value the
Speaker 2: news that we're providing.
Speaker 1: I'm a recurring annual donor exactly exactly gets you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to give, pay, pay what you can,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate our members so much and they're kind
Speaker 1: of our our core foundation.
Speaker 2: And then you have, you know, again, the the revenue
Speaker 2: we generate through advertising and sponsorship and all of that,
Speaker 2: which I think is an important pillar. And then and
Speaker 2: then the philanthropy is what makes you know, the books
Speaker 2: balance out and give us you know, also that catalyzing
Speaker 2: opportunities to do innovation things like we just started an
Speaker 2: investigative reporting center in partnership with the New York Times,
Speaker 2: and that was something that we conceived with the New
Speaker 2: York Times, but then I went out and raised the
Speaker 2: money for it. Or Andy Lack, who you mentioned at
Speaker 2: the beginning, who just made a very important gift to
Speaker 2: us so we could further invest in our Deep South
Speaker 2: Today studios and do more video and audio. So again,
Speaker 2: but it's like when you read about a college or
Speaker 2: university getting a philanthropic gift to do something awesome around
Speaker 2: medical research or whatever it is. Right, people are going
Speaker 2: to understand more and more how journalism truly is a
Speaker 2: civic institution, because without it, our democracy just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting look. I will confess to being I believe.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to try to make most of
Speaker 1: these work without being a nonprofit, right I am, because
Speaker 1: I think you can get donor fatigue. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: hit you you know how that feels, right, you know,
Speaker 1: and you want to you want to try to be
Speaker 1: able to how can you handle the lean times?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know. I've got a friend of mine who's obsessed
Speaker 1: with getting local news organizations to buy buildings, you know,
Speaker 1: go get real estate again so that way and the
Speaker 1: tough times you have something to borrow again so you
Speaker 1: can make payroll. And I thought it was an interesting
Speaker 1: you know that that you know, that's why ann Alden
Speaker 1: came in and bought all these newspapers because they wanted
Speaker 1: the real estate you know there was that was the
Speaker 1: value they saw in some of like the Denver Posts
Speaker 1: and it's downtown real estate or the Miami Herald, that
Speaker 1: incredible real estate at one time in Miami. And uh,
Speaker 1: it is it is interesting. I I've not heard somebody
Speaker 1: make the case the way you're making it, in a
Speaker 1: really smart way that it's like, look, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to say newspapers are a museum, and I kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, but when I think about, like
Speaker 1: take a let's let's talk about how the how Fayetteville
Speaker 1: gets and gets all these people to stop at their tours,
Speaker 1: and why do they do that, Because you do have
Speaker 1: patrons that come in and will spend the extra money
Speaker 1: to make sure feet filled, makes it onto the major
Speaker 1: stops for musicals or plays or maybe artists tours, you know,
Speaker 1: if they want to show their work, and this sort
Speaker 1: of public private partnership anyway, it's you've articulated it better
Speaker 1: than I've heard others in making the nonprofit case that look,
Speaker 1: it's more of a public private partnership like a private
Speaker 1: frankly like a private university more. It's more of a
Speaker 1: private university partnership necessarily than the public because I assume
Speaker 1: you're not looking for government money. Some do some news
Speaker 1: organizations are hoping. You know, I'm more open to the
Speaker 1: idea of tax breaks for local advertising than subsidy subsidizing
Speaker 1: directly workers. But you know, I know some people are
Speaker 1: looking to state governments for some financial subsidies for local needs.
Speaker 2: You know, as a former elected official, I don't want
Speaker 2: us to be anywhere near government money. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's appropriate. But I also don't think it's a it's
Speaker 2: a it's a dangerous game to play, I think sometimes.
Speaker 1: Because all the many you take it, then you're just
Speaker 1: compromised yourself, even you don't even percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and our job is to stay neutral and objective,
Speaker 2: and and I hold people in power to account and
Speaker 2: so we can't kind of be vulnerable to that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. So so no, and and again, I mean
Speaker 2: I want to emphasize too, like I am all for
Speaker 2: people who can make a profit doing journalism in the
Speaker 2: right way, and I want you and everybody else to
Speaker 2: be successful in that. But I do think that like
Speaker 2: in this day and age, it is really difficult again
Speaker 2: just to deliver the straight you know, essential news and information,
Speaker 2: and especially regions like ours that don't have a lot
Speaker 2: of wealth to begin with, without it being in some
Speaker 2: degree like a public trust. It's it's uh, that's why
Speaker 2: I compare it to these other institutions, because nobody begrudges.
Speaker 1: Now the museum and the in the in the local playhouse.
Speaker 1: That feels that that that makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to me, Like putting it in those categories for the
Speaker 1: private university, What do you hope to get out of
Speaker 1: local news day? I mean, I know you you're more
Speaker 1: than just a just a cheerleader for John Adams. You
Speaker 1: guys are a partner organization, you know. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it is literally what I've described it as. It is
Speaker 1: an awareness day. Guess what. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: local news, you should be asking for more of it
Speaker 1: right in your community. But what do you hope to
Speaker 1: get out of it? How do you guys want to
Speaker 1: want to use the day and what do you Obviously
Speaker 1: John and hopes it's something that that is an annual
Speaker 1: event allah Earth Day.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it will be. I mean, let me cheerlead
Speaker 2: for John for a second, even though you said I
Speaker 2: don't have to. I mean, he this was his idea
Speaker 2: and the fact that he was able to manifest that
Speaker 2: into what now it's become, which is I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: so many partners, so many.
Speaker 1: Ques and so much fifty or seven hundred partners or
Speaker 1: something only the.
Speaker 2: First year too, which means I think there's no doubt
Speaker 2: it's going to be sustainable in perpetuity and it's only
Speaker 2: going to get bigger. But to have achieved this just
Speaker 2: in the first year is incredible. So kudos to John
Speaker 2: for conceiving this and inviting us all to participate. But
Speaker 2: to your point, I mean, I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of work to do to raise awareness about local news.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we all have to. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like politicians who think, you know, people are paying
Speaker 2: attention to the bill that they've introduced, when really everybody's
Speaker 2: just trying to get their kids to school and get
Speaker 2: the groceries and go to work. It's the same thing
Speaker 2: with local news, Like we're obviously very fixated on what
Speaker 2: we're trying to accomplish, but most people just look at
Speaker 2: their phone and they don't usually even know where the
Speaker 2: information they're reading is coming from. Like there, it's already
Speaker 2: been through two or three like iterations, right, like somebody's
Speaker 2: reposting something that appeared somewhere else, or an influencer.
Speaker 1: It's the worst game of telephone, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know for a fact, like we generate where
Speaker 2: like we are the primary source for so much news
Speaker 2: and information yet are hardly ever credited for it. Which
Speaker 2: is okay because it's just getting out in all the
Speaker 2: different ways across you know the world, and so local
Speaker 2: news day is that maybe that moment for people to understand,
Speaker 2: maybe for a split second, that you know this information
Speaker 2: comes from somewhere. It's really important. It's even more important
Speaker 2: because it's local. It's not the hundredth version of what's
Speaker 2: going on in DC. It's actually what's happening in your community.
Speaker 2: And were it not for us, you wouldn't know about it.
Speaker 2: And it's affecting your life, you know, when you turn
Speaker 2: on the faucet or when you're you know, hope, hopefully
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: They don't have total We've had a drinking water issue
Speaker 1: in Jackson, Mississippi. I find it to be the most shameful, right,
Speaker 1: I find it to be the most shameful fact that
Speaker 1: a state capital in the United States of America didn't
Speaker 1: have drinking water that they could reliable drinking water, and
Speaker 1: our federal government just shrugs, like I found the whole
Speaker 1: thing to be like entire But it's like, this is
Speaker 1: why local news is there, this is why we're to
Speaker 1: pound it. It's like, you know, you got to have
Speaker 1: it there and look yes, and and and to make
Speaker 1: sure you're reading local news every day. Well we'll tell
Speaker 1: you where to find cheaper chicken or gas or these
Speaker 1: other things too. Right, Like you know, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: you want to be the the community guide for surviving
Speaker 1: in your community, surviving and thriving. Right, there's the survival
Speaker 1: part of journalism, and then there's the thriving part of life.
Speaker 1: We'll do that too. But you know, when you think
Speaker 1: about just the small things that that Mississippi needs, you know,
Speaker 1: just letting people know that somebody is paying attention to
Speaker 1: the to Jackson. I mean, even though it's a state capital,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get state loanmakers to worry about it.
Speaker 2: Right, and and and again. The reason why we are
Speaker 2: doing this in the first place because you know, the
Speaker 2: other news organizations have kind of you know, filtered out,
Speaker 2: and so we're sort of standing in the breach and I.
Speaker 1: Want to I want to land the plane quickly. In
Speaker 1: two ways. One is print dead or do you see
Speaker 1: a path for some print in a in the in
Speaker 1: the future of local news like a weekly or twice
Speaker 1: weekly or summation. And I say this, I'm sort of
Speaker 1: seeding the question here. Different local news entrepreneurs are starting
Speaker 1: to dabble again in some print and it's usually on
Speaker 1: a weekly or a twice weekly basis. But I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you guys have found.
Speaker 2: No, I think what you said is in zcacer. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like, you know, the resurgence of vinyl and music.
Speaker 2: It's like there's going to be opportunities for niche products
Speaker 2: in print, Like it's not going to be how people
Speaker 2: consume their daily news. But could you put out, you know,
Speaker 2: a monthly compendium of news. Could you focus I.
Speaker 1: Think give you simply did local obituaries for the week.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds people. You know that is a commune.
Speaker 1: I've always said, you know, the single one of the
Speaker 1: most important things you've got to do if you're going
Speaker 1: to be a local news entrepreneur is celebrate the lives
Speaker 1: in your community, and the obituary page is no better
Speaker 1: place to do it.
Speaker 2: That's right, or you know, in those areas of culture.
Speaker 2: I think you know, the coffee table presence, the physicality
Speaker 2: of it is still a value that I used to
Speaker 2: publish a magazine called The Oxford American, so I know
Speaker 2: the value. I remember that with a print product, but
Speaker 2: it's it's too disposable for daily news utilization. It doesn't
Speaker 2: economics that makes.
Speaker 1: Sense, but you start I can start to see the
Speaker 1: and what's interesting. I've also heard that classifieds in a
Speaker 1: limited capacity are an opportunity again because of the localized nature,
Speaker 1: meaning there is a sense of I just want people
Speaker 1: in the community. I'm not interested in advertising. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a dog walker, you're not going
Speaker 1: to put that on indeed, right or you're not going
Speaker 1: to put that on Craigslist. You actually, you know, might
Speaker 1: do that. You know, you'd want to have a local
Speaker 1: So I've heard that. Let me ask one other aspect.
Speaker 1: The local, local independent radio in public radio in particular,
Speaker 1: has been gutted. We know, we know the situation as
Speaker 1: to why what does that meant? In Mississippi, a lot
Speaker 1: of these rural, poor communities the only source of information
Speaker 1: was local public radio. There's a lot of there's a
Speaker 1: lot of innovation taking place with some local radio pioneers
Speaker 1: that I've been curious where you guys are at. How
Speaker 1: much do you work with? What's left? How is the
Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on Mississippi and Louisiana. What is the
Speaker 1: public radio situation like in those two places right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I know you've left this for the end,
Speaker 2: but this is actually something we've been working really hard
Speaker 2: on with our friends in public radio. So whether it's
Speaker 2: the local affiliates here in Louisiana, Mississippi, also Arkansas, I'll say,
Speaker 2: or whether you know, even at the regional level with
Speaker 2: the Gulf States newsroom here and the national level, I'll
Speaker 2: just say, stay tuned, as maybe you would say, because
Speaker 2: we've got some really.
Speaker 1: Some real opportunities in there. I think I think there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I've been hopeful for that. Look, public radio,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, it is such a localized lifeline that
Speaker 1: there should be a partnership with local media in general.
Speaker 1: And I think there's opportunities there.
Speaker 2: And so I think the distinction between public media and
Speaker 2: like nonprofit media is basically gone now that obviously disvernment,
Speaker 2: it's not really investing in that. So we need to
Speaker 2: find a way to bring it together and again find
Speaker 2: some some awesome collaborative opportunities to do what we do
Speaker 2: respectively even better together.
Speaker 1: Waurick, Look, you're one of the you know, first when
Speaker 1: I when I wanted to you know, when I left
Speaker 1: Meet the Press and left NBC and wanted to throw
Speaker 1: myself in local news, I think you were like the
Speaker 1: first person I talked to and really gave me a
Speaker 1: great education and doing that and and my my friendship
Speaker 1: with Andy. I'm obviously a huge cheerleader of what you're
Speaker 1: doing over there in general. But but you've you sort
Speaker 1: of both You have this ability, and it's very important
Speaker 1: in this in this world that we're all trying to rebuild. Here.
Speaker 1: You see the local need and you see the place,
Speaker 1: you see what national could be, and you seem to
Speaker 1: be like I'm trying to figure out how to be
Speaker 1: in both places, and it is just there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of and perhaps your previous experience in publishing helps
Speaker 1: with that, but I think you sort of see this
Speaker 1: in a way. There's a few yourself, There's my friend
Speaker 1: John Ralston out in Nevada. There's only a handful of
Speaker 1: people that sort of both see the micro and macro
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I think that's a that's
Speaker 1: you know, that's what makes a good publisher. You've got
Speaker 1: to be able to do both both left brain and
Speaker 1: right brain stuff. So kudos to you, and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what you guys do next.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. That's a high compliment. And I'll just say,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm so glad you're in it. It's great
Speaker 2: to be in it with you, and I really appreciate
Speaker 2: this opportunity to have this conversation, so thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, April ninth, Local news Day. What it really
Speaker 1: means is, if you're in Mississippi, sign up for a
Speaker 1: yearly subscription to Mississippi Today, or if you're in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: sign up for give me. Give me the names of
Speaker 1: the pubs Verite News and the Current Baritae News, and
Speaker 1: the Current is in Lafayette. That's correct, And I know
Speaker 1: say La fa Yette right, that's great that we gotta.
Speaker 2: Come down and visit and eat some of our good
Speaker 2: food too.
Speaker 1: There's always always work. This is terrific. Thanks for the time.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Chuck, this was a pleasure. I appreciate
Speaker 2: you got it. H