 Welcome to Think Tech Talks. I am your host today, Carol Monly, with my guest award-winning journalist, Michelle Brodervan Dyke. Michelle, born and raised in Hawaii, was most recently a night editor and Hawaii correspondent for the online news outlet BuzzFeed News. Her experience includes writing for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and freelancing for many other publications. Our title of our show today is called Reporting from Hawaii to the World. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you for having me. Great to see you. Well, the 21st century experience for people reading the news interested in finding out what's going on in the world is so different than the 20th century. So tell us a little bit about BuzzFeed and the whole new world of online media and other publications like Huffington Post and versus the traditional media. Oh, well, BuzzFeed is unique because it's just all on the Internet, whereas legacy media, you know, we think of the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle. The print media. Yeah, things that were originally print, although a lot of them are, you know, very present in the digital space and some of them are moving to becoming digital-only publications. Something like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Vox, Vice Media, these things all emerged and just started on, you know, for the most part on the Internet. So how old are they? They've only been around for the last, what, 10 or 15 years? Yeah, I think that would be close to correct. And so BuzzFeed, for instance, and HuffPost, there's no such thing as a hard copy. Right. You cannot find it anywhere. Yeah. And how long had you been with BuzzFeed? I worked there for six years. Uh-huh. And what was your role? I was a night editor and the Hawaii correspondent for BuzzFeed. So as a night editor, I worked a unique shift where, in Hawaii, it was the daytime, but on the mainland in New York, it would have been nighttime. So in New York, my shift would have been something like 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. But in Hawaii, it was usually around 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at night. And I was on a team where we did 24-7 breaking news coverage. And so people on the mainland in New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco would do sort of the day coverage and then they would hand over to me in Hawaii. And then when I was done, we would hand over to people in London. And so in that way, it would keep the 24-7 news cycle going. Wow. So that is really basically kind of a new concept so that the viewer could see, would have immediate coverage of news all around the world. But you could do it from your home here in Hawaii because you work out of your home office, is that right? And yet the public sees, they go online and that's the only way to access BuzzFeed and the other online publications, but be able to access news, breaking news from everywhere. Right. And so, yeah, I think a lot of publications have always tried to do, a lot of media news organizations have always tried to do 24-7 news coverage. But that often required people staying up all night. So I think this was kind of a new model where the internet really could connect people and help us share their stories as well as collect their stories. So sometimes at night, the coverage is unique. So it's kind of, we were doing a lot of national news, but coverage at night tended to be unscripted things. So maybe Congress is in session during the day and that's something that the daytime shift needs to cover. But at night, you know, interesting enough last two years for politics, that became a lot of Trump's tweets. At nighttime. Because that was a lot of the news, the news, nightly news coverage. Yeah. And other unexpected things too, unfortunately mass shootings, you know, and also natural disasters, so stuff like that, that we can now see unfolding either on social media. And, you know, through also calling people and finding out what's happening on the ground, we can do that actually from far away in a lot of ways. Of course, there's also an importance for having place-based journalism where people are located. And so I was also doing that for BuzzFeed News from Hawaii. And so in Hawaii, you know, there are certain stories that have national interest. So last year, you know, the, or two years ago, the Hawaii vs. Trump case happened where our local government challenged the Trump travel band. Our state attorney general. Thank you. Doug Chin. And so through that, there was, you know, a court hearing in Hawaii that needed coverage and other things that unfolded around that. And then just last year, the false miss alert happened, which you really needed to be in Hawaii to experience and to understand how that unfolded. And so there's just stories like that that I was able to do because I'm based here. Right. And that also gives you the opportunity to update or correct items, news items that would in, I guess, traditional media you wait until the morning edition or the afternoon edition. And of course, many traditional media now only can afford one or two editions a day. Right. And so, yes, I do think the pace of news has changed and that a lot of people are used to receiving information as soon as it, as it happens, which is challenging because sometimes you need to, you know, look at the information and verify and make sure it's correct. And so sometimes as things are playing out in real time, it is hard to know what's true. But a lot of things, it does become apparent very quickly what's happening. And people, you know, by publishing that stuff online, people can find out the information immediately instead of waiting for it to be printed overnight and delivered to them. So let's show a couple of slides because I know that they reflect what we were just talking about in Hawaii. So this is a slide of a picture of three different awards. And so these are awards that you've received. So tell us about the awards because they cover some of the issues that you were just mentioning. Yeah, well, the Breaking News Reporting Award in the middle was for the coverage of the Hawaii vs. Trump travel ban, which I mentioned. So you received what? First place for breaking news in 2017? Yeah. The Society of Professional Journalists in Hawaii. And then it's a little hard to read the smaller ones, but one of them is about Mark Zuckerberg's property on Kauai. And that became controversial. He bought as many as 700 acres on part of Kauai. But within his massive property, there are smaller parcels that because of unique land laws in Hawaii that date back to the Hawaiian kingdom. These parcels had been passed on through families for generations. And they're called Kuliana lands. So there are often, there's sometimes hundreds of heirs that might claim just an acre or maybe a couple of acres. And so individuals own small parts of them, but they are still kept within the families. And so some of those smaller parcels are in Mark Zuckerberg's property. And it became controversial because he was able, he was forced, I think this is still a story that's unfolding, but he is trying to claim some of those parcels and force them to go to auction. So did you break this story? Was this something that you, that mostly mainland reporters, journalists were not that interested in? It was, I think a lot of people that cover Mark Zuckerberg are technology reporters. And so they do, they're incredibly smart people and understand what they're talking about when they write about Facebook. But it did seem like a lot of them took Mark Zuckerberg's explanation of how the lawsuits that he was pursuing worked at face value. And they didn't understand the nuances of how many families own these properties and that they date back to hundreds of years ago. And so it did seem like me and other local journalists, I have to give the Garden Island credit because they've done incredible reporting on this on Kauai. But we're able to understand more of the nuances and to push the understanding on this reporting. And the backlash to this did make Mark Zuckerberg change his plans. So you really affected a little some change based on your journalism and investigation. Yeah. And like I said, they'll have to see how this plays out because he did stop what he was doing at the time. But it seems like there might be other ways to still obtain that land. And I do think he, what happens needs to be, to continue to be followed. Right. Okay, let's see. Let's go to the next slide. The next one is a picture of you. It looks like you on a video, your screen at home. Yes. And so explain to our, and says nuclear warning test. So this was actually before the false missile alert happened. Which was last. That was on January 13th last year. Yes. And before that happened, I was doing coverage for BuzzFeed News about the fact that the state of Hawaii was bringing back these nuclear warring sirens that actually date back to the Cold War era when the government was particularly concerned about this. But because of what's been happening in North Korea, there was a very, there's heightened tension at the time in the state of Hawaii decided to start bringing back the siren test. So I was doing some preliminary reporting about, you know, how they were operating and what the sirens sounded like and how people in Hawaii felt about them. And all of this was actually playing out in the fall before the false missile alert happened. But that reporting was very helpful to do in advance of the bigger story that ended up playing out that perhaps we couldn't have seen. But when it happened, you know, having that knowledge in that very scary moment about what was happening was very helpful. And right after, you know, we found out that we are all going to die in Hawaii. I did do a live video for BuzzFeed News and I went on air to talk to people all across the country and all across the world. We were able to just, you know, experience exactly what we were all experiencing here in Hawaii. And through the live video format, they were able to ask me questions and I was able to answer directly to the people that were watching and interested what was happening. And then it was a very emotional experience and I think people felt that when they watched me on the video. And so right after I was done with the video, I quickly wrote up a story about my personal experience that we were also able to share with people. And then that weekend I went around Waikiki and interviewed people about their experiences so we could collect more stories. And you know, it was just, it was a unique moment. Collecting those stories was a little like, I think a little like therapy with people. For everybody. Yeah, for me and for the people I was, you know, talking to because we had all gone through really emotional and life changing experience. Exactly. Yeah. And then the last picture we have is another event that happened last year that was important to Hawaii. And what we are showing here is lava flow. Yeah, so here we are on the Big Island. So I flew from Oahu to the Big Island to do the reporting on the eruption last year that went, ended up, you know, the volcano ended up flowing steadily for about three to four months. And it was a really unique eruption because it actually went into, you know, a suburban community in Hawaii and took a lot of people's homes. And I don't know if everyone understands this on the mainland, but usually the volcano erupts in this national park. And it's, you know, set up to be a safe experience that most people, that usually people can actually view. And know houses are built on it. Yes. And people are safe. Yeah, so this was a little different. The National Guard actually took us into that area where the road was getting covered up that you saw in that photo because it was a residential community. And all around people were collecting the last things from their homes. There's a lava slowly encroached on this community. And that picture is very moving because someone's left an offering for Pele. And that's the, I think Pele is a very unique to Hawaii. She's the volcano god and the way people spoke to me about the volcano and about Pele's presence. It's just very unique. And I think watching land change is also an incredibly unique thing that people had a lot of respect for just despite the fact that it was also traumatizing and sad because they were losing their well-beings. And then to have you be there on the ground from Hawaii who understands Hawaii, born and raised in Hawaii and telling the world exactly what was going on. So are you the only reporter from Hawaii for BuzzFeed? I was the only reporter that was based in Hawaii that worked for BuzzFeed. So typically what would be a day in your life for BuzzFeed? Because you say you work from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. So your day, you work out of your home. Do you do a lot of investigative reporting outside of your online phone and on your computer all the time? Yeah, it was a mix. So I was in discussion in a Slack room which is like a group chat room and discussing with my colleagues on the mainland as well as Australia and London. What was the pace of the day and what kind of national stories needed to be covered. And like I said, we could see some of that unfolding either on Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites. So you have both your own page up and then also monitoring all sorts of other social media groups. And so we would discuss what's just imperative, what's very important news that needed to be covered. And that would be balanced with pitches about Hawaii and discussions about other things that we needed to cover. Well, we're going to take a short break, Michelle. And we'll be right back to talk more to Michelle Brodevan, a journalist and a former night editor at BuzzFeed News. We'll be right back. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from ThinkTech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just going to scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons. And then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up. And please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keepin' you safe. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Carol Monly on ThinkTech Tech Talks with my special guest journalist, Michelle Brodevan. Michelle Brodevan is back, and we've been talking about some of her work when she was the night editor at BuzzFeed News and how the landscape has changed in the 21st century with media. But Michelle is no longer with BuzzFeed because you were part of the mass layoffs that BuzzFeed did recently. Was it about a thousand media folks in the last month? Well, I was across, actually, several companies had layoffs. So I believe Verizon, which owns Huffington Post laid off people. I believe that's correct, and Vice also had some layoffs. And so at BuzzFeed, about 250 of us were laid off, about 15 to 20 percent of the company, unfortunately. And what was the reason given? That we were not making the revenue marks that we had projected as our targets. For BuzzFeed News? Yes. Although we, my understanding is that BuzzFeed was making more money than it had the year before. I see. So it's all a new, you know, we talk about the 21st century because of growing up, we only had print media. We never had this online. So did the business model change? Did it prove to be ineffective? How has that affected where we are today versus 10 or 15 years ago when BuzzFeed was new on the scene? And there was BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News and social media. You know, this was a big learning lesson for me. And as a journalist, I was very focused on my own reporting for the company and the work that I was doing on my team. And we weren't given revenue or targets that we were supposed to meet that we did not meet. Is that typically done for reporters, journalists, that they give revenue targets? I'm not sure. But I'm getting to that it's challenging for me to speak to the business model because I was focused on my own reporting. But this is a learning lesson and I do think that it's important to know about the business models of the companies that you work for and the news media in general. Is it possible that maybe, I guess when I think of the business model that the vision was that there would be growth, continuing growth of this online media? So my understanding is that we were growing. We were growing. Ah, you were growing. We did make more money than the year before. Do you see the public's use of online media different than consuming media that way versus the traditional way? Maybe, you know, I personally, okay, so I grew up traditional media. Now I am very aware of and use online media and, you know, I'm the first person in the morning. I look at my phone and open up my news apps, but I still like print media. So I'm adjusting between both. Is that, you know, something where you see print media may have been given its death sentence years ago, but I don't think that's the case. Yeah, sure. A good friend of mine brought up, said recently, there needs to be a reason to kill a tree though. So I think the best print media is, you know, is a publication you save. It's something that you go back to and you want to read over and over again. Do you do that? Yeah, with books and magazines and things I love, yes. But newspapers? I don't think with the news it necessarily needs to be printed because of the continued change that's happening so quickly. We kind of already talked about this in the first half, but, you know, if you go on the internet you can know what's happening. In the last hour. Yeah, so it was something like the government shutdown. You know, if you read the newspaper in the morning by the afternoon, the dynamics of that have changed, especially in Hawaii where we are actually often getting these, we might be getting these things on a delay, you know, because of the extra added hours of the time zone difference. Right. The political climate, though, affected to the consumption of the news and how you observe it and what you write. I know you're writing a lot of political coverage too. I think the Trump selection changed a lot of stuff for the media. Yeah, I do think that's true. I think there was a reflection on whether before his election that some issues had been properly focused on. Because perhaps there were attitudes that he was so, you know, he didn't fit the mold so people, some people didn't, you know, really take it seriously what was happening. And I think there's a new view that we need to take, you know, this seriously. I think something that Trump is very good at, though, is distracting the media by making the media spend a lot of time fact checking him. Because he does say things that are not true and then that's the job of the media to explore that. And that means that there isn't time for other stuff that also needs to be covered. And defending yourselves in terms of his fake news charges and everything else. Yeah, so he did attack BuzzFeed in particular about some of our coverage as well as the layoffs, which was, well, it's a little inappropriate. So what are you doing now? I'm still continuing to write about Hawaii for a national audience and I'm working on freelancing. Well, you've had a great experience because I know you were a stringer for the New York Times. You've written for the Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, local news, right, Hawaii Civil Beat. And do you like, how about online television reporting? Is that something that you're interested in doing? I think of myself as a writer first, but I just think that getting these stories across is the most important thing. And you were just bringing up, you know, everyone likes to consume their news in a different way. And I think meeting our audiences where they're at is part of the challenge of media right now. And so whether it's, you know, in your newspaper or on Instagram or on Facebook, wherever people are going to consume the news is a place that I think news media has gone to meet them. You know, there are these unique challenges about making money and advertisement revenue on the internet, which, you know, it loops back to kind of what you're asking me about the business model before, which is a unique challenge of digital media and Facebook and Google have played into this, probably in some negative ways that I think are going to need to be explored because they take so much of that revenue from the people that are actually making the content and the news. Right. Do you have a particular area of reporting that you enjoy more than others? You know, I know you've reported on pop culture and politics and breaking news and in-depth investigation. Well, I'm very passionate about elevating stories from the Pacific and from Hawaii that I just think this is a region that gets underreported on perhaps because of our geographical isolation, but that it's such a rich and diverse place full of, you know, stories that connect to the world at large that really need to be told. So something I'm focusing on right now. Oh, that's great. Any particular story that we would be privy to hearing about now? Well, like I said, I do think the Mark Zuckerberg's property, there is a continued story there that probably needs to be told. But in general, I think just the landscape of Hawaii makes it different. We experience climate change firsthand. I think that's one story I wrote was about the sunscreen ban. We've banned certain chemicals that are in sunscreen because they affect the coral reefs in Hawaii. Changing the colors and killing coral reefs. And, you know, why was Hawaii the first state to do that? I think because we see our oceans and we see our nature here. And also, we're an island, though, so because we're a smaller space, we can be the first to try something out. You know, the geographical isolation actually lends some positives because this is a great place to try electric cars, because you don't have to drive as far, and this is a great place to try to ban on sunscreen because it is easier to keep things out of our state, you know? Yeah. Well, you grew up, born and grew up here, and we know you went to Punahou, then Oberlin, and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. But bringing you back to Hawaii, was there anything particularly in your education in Punahou that prepared you to be this world-class journalist that can represent Hawaii to the world in terms of whatever your curriculum or your teachers or what you chose to focus on? Well, I was really lucky to have some time to explore journalism and English and literature courses while I was at Punahou. I did, in middle school, I did do a journalism course with Mr. Wagonseller, and we got to do some hard-hitting reporting on what was happening in the Bishop Middle School at Punahou. You had a newspaper, a school newspaper. Yeah, it was through a class, that one. But, you know, he was very encouraging to have us look for stories that were in our community, and I think conversation around that's really important when you're young to see that, you know, right in front of you are things that are happening on that. So you knew from way back then that you wanted to be a journalist? I was always really interested in writing, so I was figuring out a way to, yeah, tell stories, and there was many little things that led me to journalism, and that was definitely part of it. But is there also a big novel in your head ready to come out, or a story, or a bio? Yeah, I think there are bigger stories that I would like to tell with some of the time I have right now. And hopefully, yeah, maybe that could be something that would become a book. Well, we only have a minute left during this time with us, and is there any specific advice you have for budding journalists? Because journalism is such an important field, and for us here at Think Tech, and of course in Hawaii, we realize the importance of knowing what's going on in the world and having people know what's going on with Hawaii, because as you say, we could get very much lost, isolated. So do you have any advice for our viewers out there if they want to get into journalism and into this very important work and role that you do for us? Well, I do think that journalism is more important than ever before with the state of the world and with what needs to be discussed and to be covered. And I just think you have to go forward and keep telling people stories, keep practicing, and to try and get the facts right and to elevate what's going on in the world. Okay, well, thank you so much, Michelle. We've been talking with Michelle Broder van Dyke, a journalist born and raised in Hawaii, but bringing the news to the world through, previously through BuzzFeed News, and we'll be watching anxiously and awaiting what her next stories are going to be about us in Hawaii. So thank you so much for joining us. This is Think Tech Talks, and I'm your host today, Carol Monly. Aloha, until next time.