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Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the daily, This is.

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Speaker 2: The daily oss Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning,

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Speaker 2: and welcome to a very special episode of the TDA podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's Wednesday, the twelfth of March. I'm Sam, I'm Zara,

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Speaker 2: and today's a huge milestone for us. TDA is turning

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Speaker 2: eight years old.

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Speaker 1: Yay, Happy birthday to us.

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Speaker 2: Happy birthday to us.

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Speaker 1: I'm exciting.

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Speaker 2: So by school metrics, I think we're in about year two,

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Speaker 2: year three.

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Speaker 1: Clearly it's been a long time since either of us

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Speaker 1: were in school.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're starting to grow up, we're getting out, we're

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Speaker 2: finding our feet a bit more, we're discovering who we are.

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Speaker 2: Haven't hit puberty yet, so we're still we're still okay,

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Speaker 2: but stay with us for that. It's been a long time.

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Speaker 1: It has been a long time. And you know, eight

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Speaker 1: years today since we sat in a cafe said hey,

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Speaker 1: why don't we give you this thing a shot? Little

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Speaker 1: did we know where we would go.

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Speaker 2: And that was twenty nine and twenty two days ago.

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Speaker 2: But we did actually quit our jobs until February of

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, and that was when we started the

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Speaker 2: podcast and newsletters. So that was one four hundred and

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Speaker 2: ninety nine days ago. But that's a lot of time,

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Speaker 2: and so today we thought we'd do something a little

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Speaker 2: bit different.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we wanted to take this opportunity. You know, we've

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Speaker 1: both been told we potentially don't take enough time to

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Speaker 1: reflect on the journey that we've beat on, and so

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Speaker 1: we wanted to take this opportunity to do just that

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Speaker 1: and to reflect on the eight lessons that we've learned

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Speaker 1: over the last eight years.

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Speaker 2: I was thinking when writing this script with you about

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Speaker 2: those early days of recording the podcast. The first couple

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Speaker 2: of episodes, listenership of about four of which our mums

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Speaker 2: were two of the four. We were under a washing

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Speaker 2: line in my little sharehouse, covered in a doner to

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Speaker 2: make it sound proof. Today we're in an awesome studio.

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Speaker 2: We've got a team around us building a really epic

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Speaker 2: media company telling the stories of young Australians for millions

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Speaker 2: of people every month. So what's the first lesson?

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Speaker 1: Okay, so lesson number one, and I don't think we

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Speaker 1: could have started this anywhere else, is that trust needs

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Speaker 1: to be earned, not expected.

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Speaker 2: Amen.

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Speaker 1: This is such a big one. I mean it's important

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Speaker 1: at any point, but especially in today's media landscape already.

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Speaker 1: When we started TDA back in twenty seventeen, we suspected

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Speaker 1: there was a big trust deficit, and since that time

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Speaker 1: it's just gotten worse. People are becoming increasingly skeptical, especially

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Speaker 1: as we see the rise in social media and influencers

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Speaker 1: and everything that comes with that about new sources and

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Speaker 1: about where they're getting their information from. And so we

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Speaker 1: realized pretty early on that we couldn't just expect people

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Speaker 1: to trust us just because we said they should, or

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Speaker 1: just because we positioned ourselves as a media company, didn't

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Speaker 1: mean that they immediately had to trust us. We had

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Speaker 1: to earn their trust day by day, podcast by podcast,

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Speaker 1: newsletter by newsletter, Instagram by instagram post.

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Speaker 2: And I think one thing we can really make sure

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Speaker 2: that we do to earn that trust in the place,

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Speaker 2: but also keep it is own up to our mistakes

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Speaker 2: and be transparent when we make them. I mean, the

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Speaker 2: two big ones that come to mind would be Taylor Swift,

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Speaker 2: just Taylor Swift or giving away tickets to a Tailor

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Speaker 2: Swift concert without being allowed to give away tickets to

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Speaker 2: a Tailor Swift concert.

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Speaker 1: Good lesson in always reading the fine.

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Speaker 2: Print, awesome lesson font gate yeap ya say more. We

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Speaker 2: are very famous for choosing a fonch. I found a

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Speaker 2: graphic design blog a couple of months ago that says

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Speaker 2: what the Daily Ods can teach you about how to

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Speaker 2: stuff up a rebrand.

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Speaker 1: It didn't go down too well, but we were transparent

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Speaker 1: with our audience. We came back, we explained our thinking,

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Speaker 1: we went on and obviously, you know there have been

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Speaker 1: serious things that have happened too. You know, we are

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Speaker 1: doing this for the very first time. We've learned a

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Speaker 1: lot from our audience about language, about context, about storytelling,

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Speaker 1: and we're learning every single day. And I think it's

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Speaker 1: about taking the audience on that journey and building that

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Speaker 1: trust along the way and not expecting it to happen overnight.

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Speaker 1: And just while we're on the topic of mistakes, I

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Speaker 1: would just add that one day a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: on a weekend, I uploaded a photo of my foot

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Speaker 1: by accident to our Instagram, left it up there for

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Speaker 1: approximately half an hour, and came back to my phone

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Speaker 1: to hundreds of comments about my foot. And that's on

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Speaker 1: making mistakes and owning them. I've told everyone about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would love to know how much you're

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Speaker 2: making from those at the moment, it's a really amazing

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Speaker 2: line of revenue. Okay, lesson number two. You have to

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Speaker 2: meet people where they're at. And I remember when we

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Speaker 2: were starting out, a lot of traditional media had this

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Speaker 2: attitude of if we build something, people will come to it,

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Speaker 2: and if they told people on Instagram to go the

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Speaker 2: link and bio click and read something else somewhere else,

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Speaker 2: that that would just happen automatically. But that's not how

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Speaker 2: we saw young people behave. It's not how we behaved

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Speaker 2: and our friends behaved. And we realized that if we

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Speaker 2: wanted to reach young Aussies with news, we had to

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Speaker 2: go to the platforms that they were already using and

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Speaker 2: use them authentically.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean that's why we started on Instagram.

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Speaker 1: We knew that's where everyone, or at least our cohort

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Speaker 1: was at the time. We were certainly one of the

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Speaker 1: first news pages in the country. I'd say probably.

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Speaker 2: The first, the first in the country and the first

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Speaker 2: in the world.

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Speaker 1: We'll go with the fact. Definitely the first in the

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Speaker 1: country to introduce the carousel format of providing news on

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Speaker 1: carousels in Instagram. Obviously, now that's everywhere, that's a given

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Speaker 1: that's no longer novel, but at the time, this idea

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Speaker 1: of using social media, which at that point was about

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Speaker 1: you know, avocado toast and a sunset and all of

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Speaker 1: those like really typical things, and saying, no, we're going

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Speaker 1: to put news here when news doesn't belong. That was

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Speaker 1: a really novel idea, and it was this attempt to

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Speaker 1: bring news to our audience and meet them where they're

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Speaker 1: at and not call them complacent if they didn't come

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Speaker 1: to us.

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Speaker 2: And then we quickly learned though that we couldn't just

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Speaker 2: build a whole business on that idea. I mean, these

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Speaker 2: are still companies that are privately owned. You know you

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Speaker 2: are at We had the meta scale last year, the

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Speaker 2: med scale last year. We've talked about that in the pod.

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Speaker 2: But also the algorithm changes one day to the next,

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Speaker 2: and that's where we started developing out some of the

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Speaker 2: other channels, like the one that you're listening to right now,

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Speaker 2: a podcast. We've got our newsletters now. Newsletters now a

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Speaker 2: really huge part of our business. And so then the

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Speaker 2: question becomes, how do we meet people where they're at,

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Speaker 2: but also build a solid business that isn't at the

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Speaker 2: mercy of the tech gods, and for us, that's really

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Speaker 2: about making everything kind of fit together, so you shouldn't

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Speaker 2: feel like you're being gay ecosystem exactly. You can kind

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Speaker 2: of listen to something in the morning, read something in

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Speaker 2: the afternoon, have a vote on an Instagram story, all

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Speaker 2: of that, and that feels really kind of cohesive.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's a really good

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Speaker 1: segue into lesson number three and one of my favorites

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Speaker 1: and something that you will hear me talking about at

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Speaker 1: every opportunity, which is young people really care about the news.

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Speaker 1: And I think the way that we realize this was

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Speaker 1: by talking across from them, not down to them.

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Speaker 2: Explain that for me.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So what I'm talking about there is what I

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Speaker 1: think TDA secret sources, which is that we are young

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Speaker 1: people talking to our peers. We know how to speak

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Speaker 1: their language, we know what they care about, we know

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Speaker 1: what they're talking about in their group WhatsApps, because our

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Speaker 1: whole office is made up of these people. And that's

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Speaker 1: not to say that you have to have a certain

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Speaker 1: lived experience to be a storyteller, but I do think

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Speaker 1: that if we look around, so often we have people

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Speaker 1: talking down to young people and telling them that they're complacent,

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Speaker 1: telling them that they don't care about the world, or

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Speaker 1: that they're apathetic, when in reality, they just haven't been

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Speaker 1: spoken to in their language or on their platforms, you know,

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Speaker 1: the platforms that we have been conditioned to be present on.

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Speaker 2: And I think one thing that's really interesting for me

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Speaker 2: on this lesson is I'm constantly surprised. But also our

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Speaker 2: approach to all of this is affirmed by what podcast

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Speaker 2: topics do well with our audience. I mean, a podcast

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Speaker 2: topic on housing prices or interest rates will actually do really,

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Speaker 2: really well.

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Speaker 1: And you go to of course because it matters to

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Speaker 1: young people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but you go to anybody in kind of older

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Speaker 2: generations of news businesses and they'll tell you young people don't

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Speaker 2: care about economics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean I think this is at the

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Speaker 1: heart of it, right, which is that when you look

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Speaker 1: across the landscape, traditionally we've seen pop culture dressed up

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Speaker 1: as news for young people that young people can only consume,

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Speaker 1: you know, lighter, fluffier topics. And I think we've said

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Speaker 1: this on the podcast before, and let the record reflect

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Speaker 1: I love reality television as much as the next person,

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Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that I don't love the news

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Speaker 1: and that I can't have both, and so I think

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Speaker 1: that for us, it's so important to continue to deliver

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Speaker 1: that really important hard news so that young people go

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Speaker 1: into things like elections being informed. And I mean this

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Speaker 1: election coming up, I mean we don't know when it is,

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Speaker 1: but when it does come, it's going to be the

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Speaker 1: very first time that Gen Z and Millennials outnumber Baby

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Speaker 1: boomers at the ballot box. And you know, an engage

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Speaker 1: youth here has significant outcomes for democracy. And I think

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Speaker 1: anyone that underestimates young people does so at their own peril.

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Speaker 2: The kids are all right, the kids are all right, Sara,

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Speaker 2: Let's go to what I think might be your favorite lesson. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: good news. News is compulsory. And this is actually something

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Speaker 2: that did start eight years ago. We made these bulletins

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Speaker 2: that went on Instagram stories.

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Speaker 1: That stories was this really new thing at the time,

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Speaker 1: and we were like, wow, I's so ahead of the curve.

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Speaker 2: I reckon, it's changed dimensions like three hundred times in

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Speaker 2: that years. But we had five Instagram stories that went

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Speaker 2: up at eight o'clock every morning, four stories in the

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Speaker 2: way to Know, and one good news at the end

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Speaker 2: of that bulletin, and we have done a good news

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Speaker 2: story every single day since, every single newsletter and every

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Speaker 2: single Headlines podcast of TDA. And it's a really hard

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Speaker 2: job to find good news every day, but it's absolutely

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Speaker 2: worth it.

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Speaker 1: It is. I mean, there's so much both empirical evidence

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Speaker 1: and then at least anecdotal evidence that people turn away

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Speaker 1: from the news because it's too negative, because it's too dark,

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Speaker 1: and so we need to keep people engaged with your news.

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Speaker 1: We're not asking people to turn away, but what can

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Speaker 1: we do to lighten that load a bit? And so

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Speaker 1: good news is the answer here, because if you're reading

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Speaker 1: about all the doom and gloom in the world, but

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Speaker 1: then you've put on a Saturday good news podcast or

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Speaker 1: you read our good newsletter, you are reminded that there

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Speaker 1: is more to the world than what meets the eye.

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Speaker 1: And then what makes headlines. You know, I always say,

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Speaker 1: if it bleeds, it leads. That's how traditional media has

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Speaker 1: always gone because they know those stories do well. But

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Speaker 1: that's not how we can continue because we just know

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Speaker 1: people are turning away on mass and that's not good

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Speaker 1: for anyone.

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Speaker 2: And I think that the balance part of why we

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Speaker 2: do good news is really important, and equally also highlighting

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Speaker 2: stories that might not make it into a news bulletin.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I hope that we've inspired people to pursue

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Speaker 2: degrees in science or engineering because we have highlighted developments

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Speaker 2: over the last eight years that wouldn't have made the

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Speaker 2: cut if we've just done the kind of if it bleeds,

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Speaker 2: it leads methodology. I remember somebody said to me, they

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Speaker 2: love our good news stuff. They love your newsletter on

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Speaker 2: a Sunday because it makes them feel hopeful without feeling naive.

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Speaker 2: And I love that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's all we can hope for. Really.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. Number five consistency is king.

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Speaker 1: This is your favorite.

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Speaker 2: I love it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that there's a day you haven't told

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Speaker 1: me this.

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Speaker 2: It's so important just to show up every single day,

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Speaker 2: and we make sure that we do the news regardless

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Speaker 2: if it's a weekend, if it's a public holiday, if

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Speaker 2: we're overseas. You know, in the early days, if you

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Speaker 2: and I were hungover, we'd get up and do the

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Speaker 2: I mean, there were some.

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Speaker 1: Tough times past ten, so we do that.

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Speaker 2: I'm just doing my lower backstretches now, but this has

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Speaker 2: gotten obviously so much easier. As the team has grown,

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Speaker 2: it's easier to do it every single day. But it's

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Speaker 2: a really important part because one of our favorite sayings

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Speaker 2: here is that things might not work in the first

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Speaker 2: twelve weeks.

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Speaker 1: I mean, i've it's going to work for the first

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Speaker 1: five years of this business exactly. Arguably, if you look back,

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Speaker 1: we did the same thing every single day we built habit,

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Speaker 1: but no one was watching. And those early days are

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Speaker 1: the only reason that we have the success we have

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Speaker 1: now that we have the trust, now that we know

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Speaker 1: how to do what we're doing because we did it consistently,

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Speaker 1: day in day out, regardless of being in other jobs,

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Speaker 1: regardless of having notions to turn it into a business.

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Speaker 1: We knew what we had to do and that would

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Speaker 1: show up.

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Speaker 2: I think the podcast has been probably the one that's

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Speaker 2: tested us the most.

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Speaker 1: In this regards shout out to you guys.

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Speaker 2: I think we've had I mean, let's be honest, we've

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Speaker 2: had discussions about not doing the pod because growth in

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Speaker 2: those first days, months, and even years was so slow,

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Speaker 2: and it's really been only the kind of last i'd

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Speaker 2: say eighteen months that the podcast has really grown. But

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Speaker 2: we've been doing it.

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Speaker 1: For four years and overnight success.

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Speaker 2: Overnight success favorite thing, but it's really important. And now

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Speaker 2: if people have new ideas in the office and they

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Speaker 2: bring it to us, we love experimenting. We love testing.

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Speaker 2: You have to commit to it for twelve weeks because

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Speaker 2: then you get data and you get to know whether

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Speaker 2: it actually does work or not. And it's good for

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Speaker 2: our character.

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Speaker 1: Touche character bility. Now let's move on to lessons six.

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Speaker 1: This is a biggie for us. And that's while opinion sells,

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Speaker 1: news is more important than ever Sam in the age

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Speaker 1: of hot takes and social media influencers sharing political opinions left,

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Speaker 1: right and center, it is more important than ever. I

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Speaker 1: believe that we provide balance and nuance in those same spaces.

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Speaker 1: And I want to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong

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Speaker 1: with opinion writing. I love consuming opinions, I love reading

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Speaker 1: smart takes, and it can be really helpful to signpost

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Speaker 1: ideas for people who are developing their own understanding and

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Speaker 1: to read other opinions and then form their own. The

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Speaker 1: problem that arises, though, is when people are reading opinion

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Speaker 1: or activism whatever it is on Instagram, for example, and

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Speaker 1: they aren't getting the objective facts that underpin those opinions.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of all of us working off the same

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Speaker 2: base in another way. And if we take the upcoming

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Speaker 2: election as an example, you're going to see a lot

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Speaker 2: of influencers telling you how to vote, to vote one

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Speaker 2: way or the other, how good or bad a policy is,

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Speaker 2: how good or bad a leader is. If you don't

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Speaker 2: have a balanced media diet sitting under that, it's pretty

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Speaker 2: hard to make sense of why that criticism is being

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Speaker 2: leveled at that person or party.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean even taking a step back to

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Speaker 1: understand and to have that civics education of how do

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Speaker 1: I vote, how does referential voting work? What is minority government?

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Speaker 1: All of these sorts of questions. You can't assess whether

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Speaker 1: or not minority government's going to be a good or

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Speaker 1: bad thing if you don't have that level of knowledge.

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Speaker 1: And so I think that is why it's so important

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Speaker 1: for us to show up every single day and to

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Speaker 1: give people that baseline so that they can go out

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Speaker 1: and read those opinions and fully understand the context in

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Speaker 1: which those opinions are formed.

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Speaker 2: And people have said to us over the years, Sam

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Speaker 2: and Zara, have you guys thought about doing opinion ye?

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Speaker 2: Have you thought about doing really strong views because that

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Speaker 2: will do a lot better. You'll go viral, quicker and

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Speaker 2: all of that. I'm so glad we've held out. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'm so glad that we have stuck to our guns

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Speaker 2: on providing that strong base because I think that's the

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Speaker 2: DNA of TDA.

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Speaker 1: One hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's nice, and I'll put that in the poster.

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Speaker 2: All right, let's get to number seven. It's a bit

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Speaker 2: more of a business lesson than a lesson about the news,

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Speaker 2: but it is one that we remind ourselves every day.

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Speaker 2: If this was easy, if it was easy to build

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Speaker 2: a news company, then everyone would be doing it. And

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Speaker 2: I think our youthful enthusiasm of you know, how hard

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Speaker 2: can it be?

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Speaker 1: Naivity would be what I call it.

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Speaker 2: Throw some news on a page, it'll grow, they'll make money.

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Speaker 1: I distinctly remember telling a room full of advertisers that no,

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Speaker 1: we will never do advertising.

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Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy this podcast.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's clearly not true today. But we've built a

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Speaker 2: sustainable business on the back of it. You have to

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Speaker 2: work around the clock, you have to make smart financial decisions,

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Speaker 2: you have to hire the right people, and if you

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Speaker 2: take all of those factors of making any business and

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Speaker 2: realize how hard that is, and then add the news

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Speaker 2: on top and all the complexities of news, you've got

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Speaker 2: a very challenging environment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, especially in Australia. I feel like

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Speaker 1: we've spoken about this time and time again. We've an

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Speaker 1: extremely concentrated media market here. It's an extremely hard market

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Speaker 1: to break into. We don't have new media often succeeding

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Speaker 1: here because it's so concentrated and the ownership is so concentrated,

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Speaker 1: and so building in this space is important, but it's

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Speaker 1: really hard and if it were easy, Sam, we'd all

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Speaker 1: be doing it exactly.

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Speaker 2: And finally, the eighth lesson brought to you by one

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Speaker 2: of my favorite moments from Ted Lasso, who stole it

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Speaker 2: from somebody else. Be curious, not judgmental.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean?

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Speaker 2: So this is about approaching stories, issues and people with

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Speaker 2: genuine curiosity rather than just these preconceptions about how they're

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Speaker 2: going to behave or what they're going to say. And

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Speaker 2: we try and do that in every part of the business.

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Speaker 2: It's about asking questions to understand ideas further rather than

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Speaker 2: just looking for a way to confirm what you already think.

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Speaker 2: And so whether it's asking the audience what they think

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Speaker 2: through you know, putting up a poll to actually understand

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Speaker 2: a point of view. We're working on something really exciting

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Speaker 2: that that goes a bit deeper into exactly what young

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Speaker 2: Australians are thinking.

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Speaker 1: But excellent, I believe the kids call that easter eggs.

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Speaker 2: Yes, nice, you can throw that one in there. But

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Speaker 2: the whole idea about being curious not judgmental is not

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Speaker 2: pretending we're experts. Yeah, I mean we are learning alongside

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Speaker 2: our audience. We're trying to figure this out. There is

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Speaker 2: no such thing as a silly question that would make

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Speaker 2: a good title for a book, and I think being

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Speaker 2: curious and not judgmental makes for more honest and more

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Speaker 2: helpful journalism.

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Speaker 1: Well, Sam, what a note to end on eight years

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Speaker 1: eight lessons. What a journey it's been. We absolutely could

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Speaker 1: not have done it without all of you, our listeners,

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Speaker 1: the people that read us, the people that watch us.

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Speaker 1: We couldn't have done this.

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Speaker 2: Without all of you, and especially on the back of

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Speaker 2: us talking about some of the challenges that we face

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Speaker 2: as a media company. It's a perfect day to give

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Speaker 2: us a little birthday present and become a contributor of TDA.

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Speaker 2: I really need to stress that this is not about

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Speaker 2: giving a contribution if you can't afford it. If you

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Speaker 2: can afford it and you're feeling like you're in a

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Speaker 2: position to do so, that's a way to back our work,

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Speaker 2: and we'll throw a link in the show notes for that.

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Speaker 2: We are so proud of how accessible TDA is for everybody,

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Speaker 2: and we want to keep it that way.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back again later today with the headlines as usual,

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Speaker 1: but until then, have a brilliant day.

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Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 2: Bunjelung Kalkutin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 2: Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 2: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 2: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.