 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this week's Inform and Engage, and we're going to have a discussion about the impact of this pandemic and Black Lives Matter, how they are affecting Native American and Hispanic journalists in and out of the newsroom and also the communities they cover. And today, we're fortunate to have Lindsey, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the current vice president of the Native American Journalist Association. He's also a full-time freelance reporter based out of Tusa, Oklahoma. And also we have Hugo, who's the current president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He's also the news director, executive director for WTTW, the Chicago PBS station, and also the owner and head of content at the Latino news network. As you can see, they wear multiple hats. Welcome, Hugo and Lindsey. Before we started into the conversation, perhaps we could sort of level set with the audience. Would you mind just giving us like a high-level overview of the Native American Journalist Association? Sure. And again, what-oh for having me on. The Native American Journalist Association is a professional organization for Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada. And we have a few members in Mexico as well. We have approximately 625 members, both professional and at the student level. But some work in mainstream media. We also have quite a few who work for tribal publications. So it's a little bit of a mix, a broad mix, and also a bit of a balancing act in terms of addressing the needs of our members who are both on the mainstream side and those who are working at the very local level within their tribal communities. Thank you. And Hugo, what's the overall mission of NHJ? Again, thank you very much for inviting me to this very important conversation. NHJ, that is 35 plus years strong. The mission has always been the fair and accurate treatment of Hispanic Latinos in newsroom and in news coverage. We know both of you've been president of AHA. We work very closely with the National Association of Black Journalists, which we're collaborating in a national conference next week. But our missions are similar. The numbers tell the story. There's an overwhelmingly underrepresentation of people of color in newsrooms. And because of it, we can trace back all of the stereotypical type of coverage that we see across the board. And so what we're looking for is to help news organizations across the board fulfill their responsibility of being fair and accurate by building on a foundation of diversity, equity, and culture. Thank you. Now, I mean, we're almost half a year into this pandemic. And, you know, and already we're seeing more journalists being laid off furlough than we have seen ever before. What is the toll it has on your members? Hugo, do you want to start first? What has then this done to your memberships? What are you hearing? Look, the first thing is a lot of concern, right? A lot of our members, like journalists across the board, have either been laid off or furloughed. So there's a lot of uncertainty and, and friend about what happens next. You know, we're right in the middle of this pandemic. Things are opening up. But as we've seen in many states, things are starting to close down. We're about to finish summer going into into the fall in the winter. And if scientists are predicting that perhaps we're going to see a resurgence of COVID-19 even perhaps harder than what we saw in the first place. But for our members, it's really about, you know, what can I do right now to, to either if I'm working, continue to build my skills and with it be an asset to a newsroom that is unfortunately contracting and newsrooms have been contracting create COVID-19. Certainly COVID-19 has exasperated that, that, that situation. And then of course, what we've seen, which is very concerning is that too often media companies see diversity, equity and inclusion as a nice to have. So as they're trying as budgets are contracting, unfortunately, what we see COVID-19 and before COVID-19, the first things to go are those initiatives. And this is when you actually need to double down, right? From our, from our perspective at NHJ, this isn't the time that you retreat. You actually have to advance. And focusing on diversity and equity and inclusion is very important in order to fulfill, as I mentioned before, the job of journalism. But it's also a good business proposition. And studies have shown that if you invest in D, E and I, then you're, you're not only investing in the short-term, but the long-term well-being of your, of your business. And Lindsey, did you see similar parallel for sort of your membership, you know, the Native American journalists? Because, you know, one thing I feel like folks really know very little about is, you know, the large amount of your membership actually work in tribal media. All right. And so it'd be interesting for us to hear sort of like, are you seeing the same parallel with the furloughs and the layoff and, and sort of like, you're basically working twice as hard, but earning like, twice as, you know, half of what you used to get. Very much. I didn't, you, I'm, you sure it's only been half a year because it seems like it's been a full year crammed in since March. No, we're feeling the effects too. Yes, a lot of our members do work in tribal media, but, and, you know, you guys, you gentlemen and the viewers may have seen some of the coverage about all the different tribal casinos that are closing. Those closures have a domino effect, because the revenue doesn't just pay for casino employees. It helps fund tribal programs, tribal entities, including tribal media outlets, either directly through contributions to the general fund or through advertising buys, both in the tribes newspaper and in mainstream publications and outlets in those communities. So our members are feeling the pinch with furloughs as well, including at least one of our former board members. He's been on furlough since early April. So speaking, I mean, just in my own personal experience as a freelancer, I've had at least one client have to put a pin in all freelance contracts because, because the revenue just wasn't there. So no, our members are feeling the pinch too. And yes, a lot of us are having to do double the work for half the pay, either because we are, you know, either because of furloughs or having to step away to take care of family members or filling in the gaps or filling in the gaps for our coworkers who have had to go take care of family members either because they're sick or because they've got kids at home. So it's, we're not exempt. We're not immune, unfortunately, for better or worse. And with this sort of accelerated contraction, what does that mean for the communities that you guys are serving, right? So not just the journalists, but sort of like for the native communities. And, you know, Hugo for NAHJ, you guys also have a large constituent members who are Spanish speaking, who are serving the like, you know, the Spanish speaking community. What does that impact like in terms of coverage? No, I think to start with the Spanish dominant members of the Hispanic Latino community, which are 40 million plus strong. In the beginning, we were hearing from networks like Univision, Telemundo, La Prensa, etc., that they were, it was really hard for them to get access to information in Spanish, both at the local, state and federal level. The information that was being given to the public and to the media was all in English, really ignoring, you know, that this portion of the population. But unfortunately, that's the case even without COVID-19. You know, Spanish language media has a hard time getting information in order to serve the Spanish speaking community. And that's something that has to change. And that's something that COVID-19 brought to the surface, right? We know as journalists of color and the organizations that we represent, the systemic inequalities that COVID-19 have surfaced or shined a brighter light have always been there. But even more so in times of crisis like COVID-19. And so access to information is crucial, especially to a community, largely Spanish speaking, that we can say that they're immigrants to the United States. And so many of them are undocumented. So they're already living under a shadow of fear because of the Trump administration continuously attacking them. Now, because of the work that they do and many of them are essential workers, many of them really kept the economy still moving during those three months when a lot of people were working from home. And not being able to give them information when they're more susceptible than other people to COVID-19, it is critical. So that lack of judgment by local, state, and federal was the biggest hurdle that Spanish language media had to overcome. Have that improved in the past couple months? Or would you say, you know, information is still very uneven? I think it's still very uneven. I think they're the both at the local and state level. It has improved at the federal level. I think there's still room for improvement. But not enough. Not enough. There's still a lot of people that are fearful. And look, it's a perfect storm. We're in a census year. And it's a census year with an administration that was pushing to have citizenship as part of the question. An administration that continues to use the regulatory terms like illegals and illegal aliens. So you have a community that's very distrustful of government beginning with the federal government. And so it's still very difficult. And I think we're seeing numbers increase in places like California, Arizona, Texas, you know, states with high density of immigrants. And this umbrella of fear is having a domino effect and the ability for media to provide information that literally can save lives. And not just the lives of the Spanish speaking population, but of all of their neighbors, of all U.S. citizens and residents. And then what about the Native American communities? Well, and this kind of goes back to what Hugo said about some of the diversity initiatives falling by the wayside of larger publications, you know, more than two-thirds of American Indians in this country live in urban areas. And when you don't have that representation in those larger newsrooms, you don't think to see, you don't think to ask those questions, you don't think, and you don't see that coverage. You don't see folks asking, okay, well, you know, is the local urban Indian clinic able to get testing supplies? Or are they getting, are they receiving expired equipment, as was the case with the Seattle Urban Indian Hospital earlier this year? For the, for our communities that are more rural, you know, in some, in several instances, there, you know, the non-native publication in the community has had, at least here in Oklahoma, where I live, a lot of our more rural papers have had to reduce their circulation days instead of being a daily. They may be only out three days a week, which has left a news gap that those, that those tribal publications are having to fill because we're in those communities as well. There are, it's our home too. For example, I'm going to pick on Osage News in Pahuska, Oklahoma. Osage County is a very rural county, but it's the only, you know, Osage News is the only publication that had anybody covering the State Department of Education meeting this past week, where they discussed safety protocols for reopening schools. Not because it was just a native issue, but because our kids are in those schools too, versus the other smaller papers in that community, none of them had the, no one, they weren't able to have anybody cover it, just there that stretch that then. And will you say the sort of higher, the higher rate of infection in, in these communities has a direct sort of correlation with the lack of information that they have receiving? Indian country is really big, so it depends on where you are. I mean, for example, I mean, you know, a lot, a lot of folks have heard about the high, I'm just, you know, there's been a lot of attention paid to the high rate of infection at Navajo, but I mean, my colleagues at the Navajo Times have been killing it as far as getting the word out about that, you know, this is what's going on. These are when we're having lockdowns and so on and so forth. So I don't necessarily, in some cases, it's not necessarily a lack of information. Sometimes it's a lack of getting it out there timely, in a timely fashion, I will fully concede that. But it's more just, I'm trying to figure out how to put this, it's sometimes it's more like having to try to stop a runaway train. If it's all, you know, it takes a little while for those breaks to fully click, if that makes sense, gentlemen. And Hugo, what about sort of for the for the Hispanic community? Well, look, uh, you know, as we mentioned, COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement has shed a light to the longstanding reality of systemic inequality in news media. And so while, yes, I think that we need to do a better job of providing information, the issues of inequality are rampant. It's not just about the, the conversations around policing. It's also about government. It's also about the lack of access to healthcare education at WTGW News here in Chicago. Even before that information was made readily accessible, we knew we had to cover the story not from where we're headquartered in the northwest side of Chicago. We needed to dedicate our resources and ensuring that we would go to different neighborhoods across all of Chicago and the surrounding areas. Our co-anchor, uh, Paul Schultz, uh, parish Schultz, excuse me, went to communities like Lakeview in the north side, Hilson on the west side, a high dense Hispanic Latino community, Hyde Park on the south side, a large African-American and Black community, because we knew even though we're all experiencing COVID-19 in similar ways, how the Black community is experiencing COVID-19, the Latino community, people of color, marginalized community is very different. And so we needed to not have this overarching approach in telling the story, but provide our platforms to hear from business owners that were struggling to keep their businesses operating under social distancing conditions and then talking to those same business owners and community as well as leaders in government and other neighborhoods in order to build bridges between them. I think that is the power of media in building bridges by communities that are often separated, not just geographically, but also because of barriers to access to wealth, economy, and health care. And what are some of the nuances you think sort of coverage is missing between sort of the, between, you know, the Black community and the Hispanic communities all to the Native American communities, right? Because I think so much covers just sort of like here's a blanket of like here's what like different, you know, underrepresented community feeling, but there's so much nuance between each of the communities. What are you, where are some of the missing gaps that you're seeing or your membership have been seen? Well, I think it's like, you know, Lindsay mentioned, first of all, it starts with a lack of representation of people of color in newsrooms. And so often what we've seen COVID-19 covering the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, but we've seen it especially for Hispanic Latinos in the coverage of immigration reform and others. It's the journalists that are not members of the Hispanic Latino community producing stories about them. So it's framed as the others. You need to have, you need to be living in those person's shoes and have that experience in order to chip away at coverage and stories that really just scratch upon the surface. So the lack of journalists both in front of the figurative, in front of the figurative and literal camera, but also journalists that are editors, that are executive producers, journalists that are in positions of high influence and resources that really shape stories and shape newspapers and whatever the platform is, television, et cetera, there's a lack of that representation. At NHJ, look, none of us have a magic wand, right? We're not going to turn newsrooms from being overwhelmingly homogeneous, and it's more than just about gender and race, and we can talk about that in a little bit later, but it's also about working with what you have. And so I'm very proud and very excited that next week NHJ will be launching a cultural competency guide for all newsrooms to really help newsrooms understand so that when they're covering crisis like COVID-19, or as we saw, unfortunately, a year ago with the massacre of El Paso and the first week of coverage being that mass shooting being treated like any other shooting and not understanding the nuances of someone driving nine hours to specifically murder, and this is according to the reports and the supposed manifesto to murder Mexicans and Latinos, it's very important because it's very important to have the cultural nuances that when you're covering those stories and how it's impacting persons of colors, Hispanic Latinos, Native Americans, you need to have a sort of guide so that you can have those conversations in the newsrooms that are often perhaps uncomfortable, but it's better to have them in the newsrooms and then to have them later when you produce a story that is not authentic and is patronizing and stereotypical to the persons that you're covering. And Lindsay, you know, what's like one of the outcome of sort of not just the pandemic, but also the Black Lives Matter movement is inspire this solidarity with Native American and Indigenous, right? Because both communities have these, have confront sentry of state violence. Can you shine some light in terms of is that always in parallel or has, you know, has this moment particularly amplify sort of the work of the Native American communities as well? Because I don't think that's a typical narrative that we hear in the past. I mean, the relationship between the Indigenous community, I'm assuming you mean the relationship between Indian country and the Black community? Yeah. You're right. I mean, those two, our communities have been intertwined for centuries. You know, we're both, both communities are still dealing with the effects of colonialism. We're both still, you know, we both for centuries have fought to determine for self determination on our own terms, you know, being able to say this is who we are. This is how we, you know, like it or lump it. And it's hard to, you know, you can't fully tell the Indigenous experience without acknowledging that, you know, our Black brothers and sisters, whether they are Black and Indigenous or just our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues. That everything that has happened and has definitely helped put that more in the spotlight. And it's helped further emphasize the need for us to work together. You know, Naja has had a history of working with NABJ in the past and they have definitely, they had our back when we have put out the call to end the use of racist mascots in coverage, whether it's the DC NFL team, the Major League Baseball team in Cleveland, the Major League Baseball team in Atlanta or that professional football team in Kansas City. But in light of everything that's been going on, it's definitely made it much more noticeable and frankly, you know, it's much more appreciated to have each other's back. Yeah, because I know especially with the Washington football team, that's something that Naja had been working on for like almost a decade and I was so delighted to see that's finally have some resolve, right? And so do you see this is sort of like the moment for Native American journalists to sort of elevate their voices? Folks are finally starting to pay more attention and I have to give, you know, I do want to make sure I give credit where credit is due. There are Indigenous activists who've been fighting for that name change well before Naja started getting attention for encouraging our colleagues. Susan Shown Harjo, Amanda Blackhorse and other folks who have actively led that charge. I will say that when the official name change was announced, I may or may not have scared my 10-year-old with my reaction when I heard it on NPR. There was some very loud yelling and a little bit of crying just to see that, okay, maybe folks are finally, it's finally happening. I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it happening. The fact that it took economic pressure instead of just owning up and doing the right thing, but a step is a step is a step. And yes, I do think folks are finally starting to actually pay attention and listen to the voices of folks, of journalists and our communities that have finally, that have been, you know, what we've been saying for decades, you know, this is not okay, whether it's with respect to the mascots or not having enough representation in newsrooms. We're finally starting to get heard and it's a nice feeling and I frankly don't want it to go away. I'd like to add to that because I think it's about, and I'm very proud of the collaboration in the work that our groups have done throughout the years, both at the national and the local level. But one of the things that in speaking to, you know, my colleagues in the black community, my friends, that when we see the massive protests across the country and not just in high dense population, urban areas, but also in rural areas where there are there are fewer members of the black community or people of color, this is a movement that is about all of us. You know, you're seeing white people marching right next to black people, Hispanic Latinos and in some areas in rural America, there are more white people, there are some neighborhoods here in Chicago where there are more white people marching than black people, Hispanics, et cetera. So it's really about all of us and it's not when people hear diversity, equity, and inclusion, the first thing that they think about is race and they think about gender. But DE and I is much more than that. It's about experience, it's about education, it's about things that we don't readily see. But in the end, it is about equality. And so we cannot, you know, put the foot off the pedal. This is when you actually need to put more pressure. And this and people need to understand that when the members of the black community say black lives matter, they're not saying that other lives don't matter. But what they're saying is that in order for their fighting, and this is a decades long fight about equality in the black community, because you can't talk about all lives matter if over and over again, what we're seeing are examples of systemic racism that basically say all lives matter but black lives. So inclusion is very important to today's movement. This isn't about just the brown people, this isn't just about the marginalized people, it's about all of us. And that's what I love what I'm seeing and that's what we need to do more of. Our organizations need to continue to work together, but we need to bring in other organizations that include the white population in order to really now once and for all make long lasting change. So in terms of you, especially with NAHA, you guys have members that are European descent, you have members that are indigenous descent, and you also have members that you know, like Afro-Latinos, like what are some of the tension and conversation that you're hearing among your membership about this movement between the different subgroups? You know, had that been a source of conflict for, you know, Hispanic journalists or like how what is the conversation like now? Well, you know, multiple conversations. First of all, Hispanic Latinos, and I would say like all communities are non-monolithic, right? The government loves to put things into nice little pockets, especially around the census, especially around election time, the Latino vote, the Hispanic vote, and within the community, it's very, very diverse. You know, you have Hispanics, which is more about language. So all people from Spanish-speaking countries are Hispanic, that includes Spain, and Latino is about geography. Basically, Mexico all the way to Argentina, although I would include the United States. So Brazilians don't speak Spanish or it's not their official language, but they're Latino. So there's always the debate about Hispanic and Latino, but I'll tell you, if you were to ask me, how do I self-describe? I'm a second generation Peruvian-American, proud son of immigrants from Peru. I'm, my, how I self-describe first and foremost is how is where I trace my roots. I am equally proud of being part of of a larger group of Hispanic and Latinos, but I first self-describe based on my parents' country of origin. And then, then as far as the debate within the community, well, Hispanic or Latino is not race. There are white Hispanic Latinos, there are black Hispanic Latinos, there are Asian Hispanic Latinos, there are Indigenous people that fall also under those two categories. It is in, it is much more diverse than what we see in media, and that's part of the problem that, that when, what we see in media perpetuates the, the, or oversimplifies who, who, who, who the members of this community are. A Hispanic Latino in New York is very different than a Hispanic Latino in Los Angeles and everywhere in between. And in order for media to do its job, it has to do a better job of asking the right questions and not, you know, not taking this, what is commonly criticized as an elitist approach as a, as a looking, you know, outsider looking in approach to covering this community, whether it's the election, whether it's COVID-19 or other. And, you know, before we have questions from the audience, you know, just, let's focus on the journalists a bit, right? Because also, you know, with the pandemic and, and this movement, a lot of the conversation right now is being brought back within the newsroom, right? We are seeing examples of newsroom, you know, like journalists of color sort of holding a newsroom accountable on the DEI effort, you know, recently, especially LA Times, there's letters from the Latino caucus to LA Times management. Are we seeing, you know, these movement, are we going to see it in amplify, you know, sort of, you know, why, why, why do you see that, you know, these organization is happening, like within the newsroom? And, and what do you, you know, if you could sort of just, like, give us some, like, inside baseball, right, in terms of, especially also with the Native American voices, because I think with the Native American journalists, again, you guys are very diverse, right? You have journalists who are white appearing, you have journalists who are not. And I think, you know, when it comes to newsroom DEI, how are the journalists actually organizing themselves now? Because I feel like we have organized ourselves in ways that I haven't seen, you know, and I've been a practicing journalist for almost 20 years. Like, is this, is this our moment? Do you think it's working? I'm hopeful it's working. I'll put it that way. It's, and bear my, my perspective is a little skewed since I'm a freelancer, I'm not a traditional newsroom setting, but in just talking with colleagues, it's, I think part of it goes to folks, you know, folks in newsrooms realizing that, okay, if we want to keep, if we want to serve our communities, if we want to pull in those readers and bring in more and bring in talent to replace general, you know, folks as they retire, we've got to start looking at our community period in terms of, okay, who are we serving? How are we serving? What can we do to better serve them? And that sometimes means asking those awkward questions and going to our colleagues and saying, okay, so are we screwing this up or are we doing okay? It, is this our moment? I am, like I said, I am very hopeful that it is our moment, but given it's 2020, I still fully expect, you know, the proverbial Lucy Van Pelt to pull the football away at the last minute. I hope I'm wrong. I really do, but it shocked me. Look, for NHJ, this is a conversation that we've been having since the creation of our organization, and I think our colleagues in the other journalism organizations that representing people of color could say the same thing. But to your point, Paul, absolutely, we need to take advantage that conversations about systemic racism are being had across the board, including media. And so what happened at the LA Times, which NHJ supports our colleagues, our journalism colleagues in LA, is so important. It is tone deaf that the LA Times still, and to everything that we've said, is not understanding in a state of California, where the majority of the people are Hispanic, Latino percent are not, those newsrooms are not reflective of who they're covering. That is symptomatic of not only a problem at the LA Times, but across all mainstream media, big media of a homogeneous management that is disconnected to the public that they're serving. And it's created that along with contracting budgets, it's created gaps in news deserts, especially at the local level. NHJ last year launched Palabra, which is the first time a journalism organization of color creates a platform specifically to address this issue. And so we're drawing from the well of experience and talent that we have in our membership, focusing on freelance journalists to tell the stories that are not being told, to tell, to provide in-depth analysis on stories that mainstream media only scratches the surface because of that lack of representation in newsrooms, but because overwhelmingly of the homogeneous leadership. And so, and that is indicative of what we've seen across the country with independent journalists, Latino news network included that serves Hispanic Latinos in English and New England, where we're no longer, thanks to technology, waiting or continuing to knock on doors and making the case for us to have a seat at the table. We're done with that. We're creating our own tables and best serving our communities and by doing so serving all communities. So we have a couple of questions and comments. Love for you guys to chime in with your insight. So we have a comment, a question say, I'm impressed by the considerable endurance of the current protests nationwide. Is it ringing true on multiple levels? Do you think that is it at least a reckoning for America as relate to true equality? Hugo, do you want to go first? Sure, sure. Look, I think that we're in an election year. You know, I think this, this, that is sort of a bit of a north star, right? I think we're going to be continue to see these protests up until the election and probably depending on who wins after the election. So we're in the, we're riding the second wave that's leading us to a larger way in 2020, which is going to be studied for generations to come. But it is on us, the public and, and media to continue to cover this story. Too often there are examples because of the news cycle that, you know, a story gets picked up and then it's a new shiny object. And then it kind of gets put away because another story comes in view. For me, it's Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, which by the way is still suffering through that, that devastating catastrophic storm. But what happens with, with media and in particularly English language media after the storm is over, it just kind of falls on the wayside. When, when you look at Spanish language media, they've been covering the story all along. And so this is important to continue to cover however big or however small. But I think the reason why we're seeing these, these protests continue to have the energy that they have is because we're in an election year. I definitely think the election has, the fact that we're in an election year has fueled the fire. And the fact that we're in the middle of a pandemic has, you know, that also I think has an accelerant and just given the response in communities of color or in my, in my marginalized communities as well, regardless of what, you know, the background I do, and I don't think, I think Hugo was right. I think we're going to be seeing protests for a while until, until we start seeing some effective change. With, you know, folks are, you know, I mentioned earlier, folks are starting to listen to us as journalists as far as, you know, saying that, okay miss, you know, being underrepresented is not okay. Or the mascot issue pick, you know, different issues. That is, that's, it's not just limited to that folks are finding their own voice and saying, and putting it out there and making sure that, you know, we're not done. We're not going to be done until you until everybody else listens to me, the collective question from the audience is, how do you push these essential sort of stories on communities colors when breaking news and the lack of staffing tend to like beat, beat those out, right? Like, you know, sort of like, there's that like interest and peak and then suddenly something else come along. And you guys just talked about how do you, how do you guys maintain sort of like that level of, of conversation to, to be relevant? Tenacity, you know, I mean, if you're a journalist, you have to have thick skin. Every journalist knows that for every 20 stories that you pitch that one that penetrates, that goes through is all the well worth it. But we're also in a time where, I mean, every single day, we're covering COVID-19. And COVID-19 certainly branches out to many different facets of our lives. So it's of our lives. So it's very difficult to not be able to listen to stories about disparities, inequalities with healthcare, housing, employment that integrate different narratives, including people of color. So if you're being met with resistance, I mean, what other story are you covering in your newsroom other than COVID-19? And perhaps again, you know, Black Lives Matter and the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and of course the elections, they're all intersected. And in that intersection, prominently, are marginalized communities. So if you're getting resistance in your newsroom about that, I would say to you, keep pushing, keep pushing, add the pressure, because these are the stories that need to be told. And if they're telling you that they're nuanced or it's very much focused on one particular area, it is on you to, it's a learning moment. Look, we have to, as people of color, we need to be comfortable at being uncomfortable. I'm often the only Hispanic Latino in the newsroom. I've often been the only person of color in the newsroom. And that at times can be very uncomfortable because you're trying to, you're the ambassador of the community that you're from, and sometimes other communities. So it's important to understand, and I know it's very difficult. Look, at Ugo at 50 is much more comfortable than Ugo at 25. But we need to take this moment to educate our colleagues to say, you know what, can I have a five, 10 minutes with you and not call them out in public? We don't want to do that. But take the opportunity, that learning moment, to educate them as why it's so important in covering these stories that are intercepted, that we include narratives of different people, because in the end, it's not about those individual communities, it's about all of us. Thank you. I want to put you back off of Ugo, not just being, you know, us being uncomfortable in a newsroom for either being the only Hispanic reporter in a newsroom or the only, or pick your community, but also making your colleagues a little uncomfortable and asking them, okay, why are you pushing back? Don't you know, whether that's, yes, obviously you want to try to do that in private. Publicly shaming doesn't really get you anywhere unless you absolutely have to throw that card down. But at the same time, they need to, don't just hoard all the uncomfortable feelings to yourself. And I think, I have a thought and I hate when I lose it. It, I lost it. I lost my train of thought. Sorry, gentlemen. It's been a day and it's not even a few minutes left. And sort of two final question. I think a lot of people, especially journals of color, remember the days that we had unity. And so now there's a perception that because there's no unity, the different organization, Naja, NXJ, NABJ, AJ are not working together. Is that a perception or is that a reality? It's a perception. I think the years following the, the dismantling of unity, I can give you dozens of examples of both in the local and at the national level of collaboration between different organizations. We have a shared history. We have a shared mission. And we need to do a better job of supporting one another, even when it's not about our individual groups. So I think it's a perception, but that's that person's reality, which tells me we need to do better. We're doing, we're doing well, but we have to do better. If there are still members of our organization or our organizations collectively that see that, that, that feel that we're not working together. I mean, there's room for, for betterment. Lindsay? Definitely. I mean, and Naja has called on our car, our, our counterparts at the different organizations, including NAHJ, NABJ, AJA. And I know I'm going to forget an organization of my apology in advance if I do, but we, you know, we've called on our, on our, on our sister at organizations and they've called on us for support on issues, both big and small, because, you know, there is safety in numbers. There is strength in numbers. Even though we don't have that formal entity together, we still work together. We're still working for the same common goal to represent our communities to the best of our ability to elevate those voices and to support each other as journalists. So yes, there definitely is room for improvement. There's always room for improvement. There is no such thing as perfect, but we are still, we have each other's backs and that's not changing anytime soon. Yeah, I also just want to remind the audience that many of the leaders like Lindsay and Hugo, they are volunteers. They actually have day jobs. So I think people sometimes forget that you guys are volunteers. So I want to thank you today for sharing your insight. And before I let you guys go, what is that one thing that the journalism community or even philanthropy could do better for you, for your members? Resources. We need, we are blessed to have both members and sponsors and partners that invest in NHJs and mission, but we need more help. We need members to, we're in the middle of an election for the executive board. We need members to raise their hands and help lead our organization. We need resources from funders to continue to work with our local chapters, both professional and students to provide the same type of training, same type of networking that we see at national conferences. And of course, at the national level, we need that same type of investment to focus on the training that we see that are going to prepare our members to compete for coveted jobs, but also give them the tools to improve their craft. An investment in NHJ is not just an investment in Hispanic Latino journalists, it's an investment in journalism altogether. Okay, Lindsay. Well, Hugo stole my answers. We will always accept help with resources, whether it's time, talents or treasure. Just like, you know, as any other organization, any other journalism organization could definitely use and assist right about now as we try to help our members. So aside from that, we could also just really talk to us, please, whether you're a member or not. We work with newsrooms to address issues, you know, in terms of, okay, maybe you shouldn't use the R word in your headlines, things like that, but we would much rather folks reach out to us. And I promise we don't bite. We've had our shots versus having versus us having to come to you and saying, you know what, we got a problem. We'd rather much rather be proactive than reactive. So come talk to us, please. Thank you. So you heard it here. There's more than one way to help. And don't let, you know, this be the end of the dialogue and feel free to call Hugo and Lindsay anytime or like a director and just remember they're volunteers, volunteers. And again, Hugo and Lindsay, thank you so much for your sharing your insights and, you know, really giving us a glimpse of what your members are doing and what is some of their pain point. And please stay with us for next week's episode where we will be talking to other journals about similar issues. Thank you so much.