 Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of Inform and Engage. Following the Atlanta shooting, the mainstream media needed deep guidance from experts like the Asian American Journalist Association on how to cover the Asian and Asian community, Asian-American community, in precise and fair manners. And but many people feel that this is not unique to the Asian community, but this is a general reflection of mainstream media's lack of capacity of dealing with communities of color, especially during breaking news. And I'm your host today, Por Chun. I'm the director of journalism and technology innovation. And to help us unpack this topic of journalism and cultural literacy addressing blindspot in the news, we have Julia B. Chan. She's the managing editor of Digital at KQED News. And her night job is the Asian-American Journalist Association's vice president of civic engagement. I will let Julia explain what that is. And we also have Kristin Hare. She's the editor of Locally at Pointer. And also Mira Lo, the assistant dean and director of Innovation News Center at the University of Florida. Welcome. So let's get into it. And I want this conversation to be as real as we can be. It is on the record, and it is recorded. So Julia, I want to start with you. AHA has been on overdrive the past year working with mainstream media on how to cover the pandemic responsibly for the Asian-American communities. What were some of the major issues that AHA have to contend with on coverage? So I think one of the main goals for us really was to help hold media accountable. So with that goal in mind, we knew pretty much immediately. It was apparent that as soon as the initial news came in about the coronavirus coming from China that there were going to be some issues here with how COVID is talked about in the media and the origins that we would want to have on our radar and keep on top of. So with that, we really wanted to make sure we gave guidance on not once we did see folks calling it anti-Asian terms that have an anti-Asian sentiment to them that we came out really strongly with recommendations not to repeat those phrases or refer to coronavirus or COVID-19 with those terms. So what we see on screen right now is guidance for the Atlanta shootings. We took that same specificity with the guidance there. But what we saw was really urging media to be as specific as possible and denouncing instances in which we saw folks and the president at the time really using phrases that were not accurate and were not the medical terms for coronavirus, essentially. So that was a major cornerstone for us. And the theme that you'll probably hear me talk a lot about today as we go through different news events is really how specific and how accurate we can urge newsrooms to be in the reporting. Is it, Julia, is it just text or do you see that also in visuals? Because I believe that you guys also gave guidelines on those generic pictures of Asians very on their lives. Yes, yes, thank you. That was a major one. And again, that was yet another. There were missteps with Atlanta as far as visuals and the usage of promoting the shooter's image across different platforms. But to focus on COVID, yeah, I think early on we saw all of these very concerning image usages that involve just to quote you, Paul, random pictures of Asians. There are a lot of photos of Asians in not in America wearing masks. It's been culturally a part of public life since SARS, essentially. And unfortunately, those photos were used, we believe, as AJA, out of context with COVID. And I think it added to the conversations around how we can be most accurate as possible. Does this reflect our reporting in America? No. Let's think more thoughtfully about the art that not only lives with our story, that is a representation of our reporting, but also travels across social spaces. Within digital journalism, the layers in which your content travels is something that needs to be intentionally thought through from beginning to publish to how it's being promoted and how it shows up in spaces. So yeah, that was yet another piece that we really had to come out strong about. And Mar, are you seeing similar patterns of what Julia and AJA is observing? But similar pattern with mainstream media and not covering the African communities, especially around breaking news. Do you feel that you saw similar patterns during BLM and the George Floyd coverage? I would say yes. Paul, before I say that, I just want to publicly commend AJA on the work, the tremendous work you guys are doing around. It's been incredible, and it's just been very helpful to the rest of us. So thank you for making us all smarter on the issues. Thank you for that hard work. So yes, to your question, Paul, I think we are seeing, or I think we're all kind of seeing this, right? That the instances and the coverage that we're seeing similar to what happened in Atlanta is what we've been seeing probably all of last year right after the killing of George Floyd. And I would say that the instances are similar, because we're hearing similar language. Julia talked a little bit about the importance of language. And so when you hear language like go back to your country or go back to where you came from, or these are things that we commonly hear in the Black community and across all communities of color, we've been seeing the rise of harassment of just for being you, right? So Black folks are getting harassed by their neighbors. We see Latinos being targeted for speaking Spanish and public. We're seeing Muslims being terrorized or labeled as terrorists. And then obviously we've seen what are happening with our Asian and Asian American brothers and sisters. So it is a constant thing that we're seeing. But this is not known. These are not isolated instances. This has been happening. The brutality and the violence and the attacks against communities of color have been happening for decades now. And it just now feels like it's coming to the fore because of everything that we've gone through over the past year or so. I think that another thing that we should be really paying attention to are, as journalists, is recognizing the patterns of hate and recognizing the patterns of harassment and bias so that we can call them out when we see them. Like I said, when we hear go back to where you came from, we should be paying attention. That should be a light bulb like, okay, this is something that's beyond just some words. We need to really kind of knit all of this together so we can really tell a more full and honest narrative about what's happening in our country and the stories that we're trying to cover. A great point. So for Kristen, like both Myra and Julia this is nothing new. And it is no secret that in our sector, we have staff challenges and resources. How much of this do you think is really about resource constraint versus ignorance of the news industry? Or is it because during breaking news, we sort of default into these like, templatized way of covering it? Like, which is it? I think it's all of them, but I think they fall in different orders. And so when you're in breaking these situations, you're going to rely on your instincts and the patterns that you've built up. And those instincts and patterns that you've built up in most mainstream news organizations are based on newsrooms that are led by white people, particularly white men with staffs that are still largely white. And so when a newsroom is doing a project and has the time and space to be thoughtful and make sure they're including voices, perspectives and getting a story right, that's a totally different muscle than what happens in breaking news where I see some of the most egregious examples of harm caused by news coverage when something really horrible happens. And then you add on to that, decades of work in trying to better diversify newsrooms. Last year was a horrible year for newsrooms across the board and there were layoffs and closures and furloughs. And we lost a lot of journalists. We don't know how many of them were journalists of color. It's actually something I'm working on figuring out right now, but you know, have anecdotes of journalists of color who took the opportunity to leave when they had the chance because they were tired of being the only. And so I don't know if it's a very satisfying answer. It's all of those things and each one kind of builds on the one that comes after it. And the result is, you know, we're not doing the job of accurate coverage. We're causing harm, which really goes against, I think, what we're all trying to do. And so when they're causing harm, Julia, you know, the work that AHA has been working, is it working? Has media company sort of corrected the course? That is a hard-working cause. I think to agree, yes, I think they're varying degrees of success. I think, you know, we have seen the impact of our guidelines, especially the ones around Atlanta shooting. That was something that we, again, recognized right away as something we needed to be absolutely proactive about. We needed to be more of a newsroom than ever and really turn something around quickly. And to be able to, you know, and this is a little more anecdotal, but worth fact-checking, according to a lot of folks, our Atlanta shooting guidelines might have been like the fastest AHAs been able to put something out, which I think both speaks to the priority that we all were on the same page about and just what we were seeing already based on the news breaking the night before and the ways in which we wanted to really urge newsrooms to do this well and to do better, quite frankly. I think what we saw with Atlanta, it was really the first major mass shooting in the pandemic. I don't know, I don't believe that's an excuse for anyone, but there were definitely some, again, some missteps that we noticed that needed to be highlighted and we did see a very specific impact from that. For example, when the night of we saw the shooter's image proliferate across social spaces because news outlets were using his photo, that was a wire photo, as the lead image, which unless you manipulate the metadata for digital stories, that's the story that's gonna show up in your Twitter card, show up in your news feed on Facebook, and that is the photo that family members, community members that are impacted by this incident may not want to see over and over and over again, and it can actually be not just traumatizing, but re-traumatizing. So speaking out loudly about that, we saw news outlets swap their image, again, from very small impact to larger impact. We saw folks reach out and thank us for helping them get their morning together or their afternoon coverage together to know the recommended ways, I should say, that we wanted folks to talk about the incidents, especially around the businesses. I think most outlets and journalists, even Asian American journalists, really were challenged by how to describe these businesses when so little was known, especially early on in a breaking news scenario. And so with that, we saw, and then of course the shooter saying that he targeted the spas because of his sex addiction, that just added to this narrative that hadn't been confirmed yet. So we really wanted to make sure we got in front of that and really wanted to come out strong about the fact that as, you know, although we realized folks were seeing a lot of unverified information, we wanted to make sure we guided newsrooms to be able to talk about the perils related to sex work, but also avoid publishing unverified information, or worse, like wrong information about these victims that were already under the microscope. And so that was something that we did unfortunately see with a lot of outlets that we've reached out to. And to a lot of media leaders' credit, folks have been very open to conversations, so there have been a lot of conversations had. And ultimately, you know, again, back to holding, helping to hold media accountable, this is the kind of work we're trying to do. That is, with that being the goal, we really need to continue to like pound the pavement and carve out these types of guidelines and just really urge and stay on top of outlets regarding, you know, accurate coverage, essentially. And Marit, to Julie's point, for in terms of Asian American coverage, is lastly the image, even the imagery itself is like invisible and erased, right? But for the African American community, you know, the image that they constantly evoke is one of, you know, it's also very binary, right? You're either the perpetrator or you're some kind of victim. Like how, you know, like, so we have one community that's largely invisible to, and another community that's largely sort of stereotypical. Do you agree with that? And how are you seeing, again, you know, with the George Floyd hearings, like how are you seeing media playing out that story? So I didn't coin this phrase, but what I'm going to call it is what I call punitive journalism, right? And looking and framing and shaming and blaming. So you got frame, shame and blaming, those who are affected, right, for their situation. And I think we're seeing this across all of our communities, quite frankly, of color, but there's one example that I want to share with you because I think it really speaks to the lack of nuance that we're talking when we're talking about coverage here. So great, and I refer to this piece all the time, so that's why I'm sharing. So forgive me if you've heard me talk about this piece, but it's a great piece by Deborah Douglas. She wrote it for the Nieman reports on the new black press, right? And she leads the story with an anecdote about the tribe, which is a black digital news outlet in Chicago. And they decided to look deeper into a mainstream story that was going around that said like a thousand people were having a house party during the pandemic on the West side of Chicago. And so the tribe was like, well, one, we know the West side and we know that there isn't a home that's gonna fit a thousand people. So let's take a look at what's really happening here. And what they discovered is that in talking to the people who went to this quote house party, okay, so mainstream didn't do that. They discovered that this gathering, which wasn't a thousand people, was in order to memorialize those who had been lost to gun violence. So even that piece of information helps reframe what this gathering is. What also they learned is that the lack of information of knowledge in these communities about the coronavirus. So now we're talking about smaller examples of news deserts or information not flowing out to critical communities that are being affected about these issues that we're seeing and talking about. So I think we have to really, as mainstream organizations really think about, how are we, these are two questions and I wrote them down because I didn't wanna forget them. Every day, newsrooms need to be thinking that how are communities of color being seen and heard in our publications, on our stations, on our air and how are we building trust and relationship with these communities? If we can do those every day, I think we'll start to see changes in coverage and how these communities are depicted across our mediums and platforms and communities. I love the coin punitive journalism. So what is the three things? So this is a treatable moment, it's blame, shame and... Blame, shame, frame, blame and shame. Okay, so you heard it from here, journalism. Read it out, stop doing that. Kristen, in your purview, who is doing this better? Like, is it national, is it local, is it more newspaper TV or everyone is sort of very uneven right now? There's so much nuance to this. When people ask me about local news, my follow-up question is always, which local news are you talking about? Because there are so many layers. But I think that the places that are doing this well, regardless of their medium or their audience are the places that are based in and best connected to specific communities. And so a couple of examples I have, the Sahan Journal in St. Paul, Minneapolis has done a really great job of covering what's happened since George Floyd was killed and explaining that from the perspective of a publication that serves immigrant communities. And so one of the stories that they did early on was a piece about the Minnesota Somalis who were leading the protests happening in Minneapolis. They talked about to the immigrant businesses who were hit by vandalism and looting and who supported the protests. They held community discussions on what justice for George Floyd would look like and on who belongs on the jury. And then just yesterday they ran kind of a word for word transcript of the testimony of the four kids who witnessed his killing. And so there's just journalism that's really based in that community for that community and therefore reflecting it really well. I think Oakland side is doing this really well. They have paid community advisors who are helping hold them accountable, which is brilliant. The Sacramento Bee has an equity lab which they launched last summer with four reporters covering equity issues. And just yesterday they announced that they had hired a reporter to cover black communities which they've never done before in their hundred and something year history. And then the Boston Globe has this beautiful ongoing series called the beautiful resistance celebrating blackness and people in the community and telling their stories. So there are I think lots of examples of ways that people are doing this really intentionally and ways that are really rooted in their communities and serve their communities. And also we have to say, grow their audiences which supports the bottom line of being able to continue turning the lights on and paying journalists and producing journalism and covering your community. So there is a business reason to do this work. Money does talk at the end. I love to sort of go back on sort of Boston Globe about the celebration and the beauty of these community in a bit. So if we dive in a little bit more to the nuance, right? And you know, Julie, in your role at AJA where, you know, what were some of the nuance were even challenging for the community to deal with when I say community, the sort of like the Asian journalist to tackle in as far as the Atlanta shooting. Yeah. Well, just sort of like dealing with the rise of like, hey. Oh, I had so many answers to that question. Let's see, even, you know, I think what has been really eye-opening and helpful with a lot of the work that AJA doing is that it is truly a group effort. There are so many people that are able to be engaged and really lend us their brain and their eyes and their ears that those conversations have been absolutely valuable to all of the work that you all see publicly now. And to that end, conversations about, I mean, just to dive into the weeds a little bit, even as Asian American journalists, when we were putting together the pronunciation guide, what dialect do we do that in? You know, ultimately we decided that, you know, if reporting, if we can verify through reporting the how the victim identified, we would ideally like to create a pronunciation guide using that language, but those conversations, I don't think that thoughtfulness would have been the outcome if it weren't for those conversations. And those conversations are what reveal the challenges and the questions that we have, not just as Asian Americans, but as journalists, and then as Asian American journalists, how do we do the best journalism possible and do right also by our community? And I think to push on your question a little bit, Paul, I think as community members reporting on our community, that is where we get into an interesting dynamic of possibly being an expert and either being tapped to or assigned a story that we may or may not wanna do because we happen to identify a certain way or not because we identify that way, right? We heard from a lot of members that they actually were not given Atlanta shooting assignments, although they wanted to do them and because they were too close to the issue or too emotional, you know, these are the things we want to come out really loudly about that this should not be the case, that if you are able to tap an expert in your newsroom on a topic, you absolutely should if they want to because we don't wanna like veer into tokenism either, right? So those are some of the more, the dynamics that really like stand up to me as you ask your very dense question, Paul. And do you see that happening, right? Like are black reporters too emotional to cover BLM? Like, you know, all, you know, they can. They can't, so Paul, don't get me started here. So I'm drawing on my experience from working at Ebony and Jet magazines, right? Cause we used to get this all the time, can black journalists be objective when covering black issues or issues that are affecting the black community? And the answer to that I think is obvious. Obviously we can cover any story with we're professional journalists and so we can cover any story that's put in front of us. I think what mainstream media really needs to think about it are what are the lessons quite currently can they learn from black and brown media? I mean, the reason why black and brown media is still relevant and communities still seek these publications or organizations because of the credibility that they feel these organizations provide them when it comes to news coverage, when it comes to making sure that the stories that they are telling are culturally reflected. When they're cultural references and they're references that make sense to that community, there's an authenticity there that people really connect with. And so the importance of I think the lessons that I think media, particularly mainstream media should pay attention to is how can we show communities of color that we're covering them, that we see them, that we hear them, that we know them. And that requires investing time and resources in doing that. And Kristin, you talked about some of the resources that are needed, but this is again, something that we have to be intentional and commit to if we seriously think we wanna make a difference in gaining audience, gaining building trust. We talk about building trust all the time, particularly with communities of color. How do we do that? We just have to be very intentional about this is what we say we wanna do and then put our foot to the pedal on that. The issue about, there is a conversation about labor, emotional labor and putting too much on the backs of journalists of color in a newsroom. And so thinking about how do you balance that? I think, Julie, I think you said, if they want to, please engage them, but do not assume that that is their role in your newsroom. There are a lot of journalists of color that says, yes, I wanna do the story, I know it, I've lived it. And that lived experience makes that an even richer story and coverage. But then there are others like, I don't want to do that. And that is their right to not want to do that. And everybody else in the newsroom needs to step up and do that coverage. So I think that's where I fall down on that question. For anyone who have any questions, feel free to please let us know and we will try to answer as many as we can. Kristin, one question for you is the whole notion of objectivity in terms of, are you objective enough to cover, what do you think? Is there some historic bent to this or like where did this conversation even come from? I mean, I hear it not just with communities of color, but also during the Me Too movement is like, all women journalists able to cover this, right? Like where did this come from? It came from the disconnect between growing newsrooms that are growing in gender and diversity and the traditional white maleness of journalism. And that when we talk about objectivity, what we're talking about is the way that white men view and experience the world. And that's not objective, that's very subjective. But because that is the norm, that's our style book, right? And so then anytime people ask for us to be thoughtful and more inclusive, it's challenging the status. But I will say I've experienced this myself in questioning my own ability to be objective. I was covering immigration while my husband was going through the process of becoming a citizen. And I had a conversations with my editors about it. And ultimately we agreed that the fact that I was sitting in the immigration building and interviews with my husband, sifting through miles of paperwork, it made me a better journalist. It helped me better experience what the issues were at stake. It also made me a better reporter because I had a way to connect with my sources when in those stories. And so this is no different. This is a lived experience, whether that is in the body that you live in or experiences that you've had, those things are valuable. And I think we have so much work to do to recenter journalists and where they're coming from to make sure that they, that they're as valued as we can, they're resources that we need to use and protect. Yeah, I think there's questions raised about live experience, right? And where a lot of the folks working in journalism doesn't have the same. Now, do you believe that people don't have that same live experience could cover a community accurately and fairly? I do, if you're a good journalist and you know how to ask good questions, we can at the core of all of this, and this is sort of the part of this that always blows my mind is all we're asking for people to do is be good journalists and get the right sources and ask the right questions and do your fact texts and make sure, look for your blind spots. And if you don't know where they are, find people who were right in them and help you find them. And that's doing good journalism. So I do think anybody can do this. And it just takes work. Julia and then mine. Sure, I would love to jump in and say that, yes, all of those things like reporters can do this work, they can do the good journalism but it's also not just them. What is the infrastructure in place for supporting this journalist? Who is their editor? Who is copy editing? Who's helping fact check? Doesn't need a third, fourth, fifth pair of eyes depending on the topic. All of that needs to be considered when we're thinking about whether or not we're setting someone up for success or for failure. And I think that is doubly true for journalists of color. When we're thinking about, how can we do best by our folks? What infrastructure? What is the support system that we have in place for them? So I would say yes and let's make sure folks are supported. And I just want to piggyback on what Kristen said. I think every journalist, particularly white journalists who are trying to cover communities of color, need to ask themselves am I, what am I, amplifying bias in my reporting, right? Because when you take that step to self-reflect, you will be able to identify whether or not biases are creeping in into how you're framing the story, I'm going back to the framing of the story and covering the story. The other thing is journalists, we don't know everything. I mean, this is part of why we're in journalism, right? Because we're learning. And so every single day, and I think if we just take a little bit of empathy and humility when we're covering these stories, that will go a long way in helping us be able to see other shared, other lived experiences and also then be able to contextualize based on our reporting what that really means. Yeah, it's funny, like the word objectivity versus empathy, sometimes I feel like they could be inherent conflict in one of, okay, so this is going to be a very thorny question to ask. And this is where we want to get real talk now on interracial dynamics, right? So from LM to Asian hate, we have two different communities of colors. And now they are often intertwined with one another, right? So for example, with George Floyd, right? It involved, you know, African American victim and one of the cops is Asian American, right? Recently, we have a controversy with the Teen Vogue editor hiring and resignation, right? You have a rising African American journalist ascending, right? She wrote some horrible tweets when she was younger about the Asian American communities, right? And then even as close as yesterday, you see a Filipino woman brutally attack in New York City by African American, you know, man. Now, if most media can even do like one communities of color properly, now you have like stories involved, like really sensitive story involving two communities of color, right? Like how do you do this? I'll talk about this in a way that's responsible and not be, you know, and not in fear, and not flame sort of like the racial tension. I know there's a big question. So whoever want to go first? Well, and the other thing you don't want to do is, you know, reassure white supremacists that they're right, right? You don't want to do work that further pushes people into their corners. I don't know that I have great answers for this other than you need to know who is in your community who can be resources for you. And you need, we, you know, our job is always to provide the context. It's not just what happened, but why and how. And so I think it's, you know, white people may, some white people may not understand interracial dynamics, you know, the way that people who live in those communities do, those experiences are worth, you know, understanding and putting some context to and just, I think Julius was saying this earlier, but just precision, precision, precision, you know, get it right and move carefully to make sure that you're telling the truth of what happened as best as we can gather it. I don't know what everybody else thinks. Yeah, I'll piggyback off of something that you brought up, Kristen, as far as framing, critical framing around why tensions between communities exist. I think it, you know, needs to be a part of the conversation if that is in a direction that the reporting is going. I mean, institutional racism, broken systems, communities of color have been subjected to, you know, increasing scarcity and social economic uncertainty for decades. And the pandemic is only really like exacerbated that. So how are we introducing that context and that nuance into our reporting? If that is a story, that is a slice of the story that makes sense to tell within some of the more, you know, viral incidences that we are seeing going on. If this is an attempt to like zoom out and look at a more, give a more holistic view of a dynamic, how are they doing that? You know, how are our reporters doing that? How are they doing it well? How are they introducing historical context and nuance in order to best have that conversation with audiences? I agree. And I think we have to be careful not to pit groups against each other, right? And so that's why the historical context, those references are important. And also, again, as we've been talking about this whole afternoon is about really checking our biases and not making assumptions about why we think certain things play out. I mean, there could be other reasons than the, what we think are the obvious reasons, right? And so really kind of digging a little bit deeper to ask the why, how did this happen? And to your point, Julie, is it really relevant to the story that we're really trying to tell or is this just a one-off? And then we could talk about, if we're seeing this as a pattern or a trend, then let's definitely go after that. But if it's not really something that's a major issue, then why are we making it more than it really is? And so we have questions coming in from the audience. I think, so one of the questions I think for Julia is, what are some of the internal responses that mainstream outlets have when they're confronted by organization like AHAA about issues of coverage of Asian American communities? Sure. Well, it definitely shows up in the journalism. So like I mentioned, something as small as, swapping out the lead photo, using our pronunciation guide, we've seen that happen across more visual mediums and the ways in which they describe the businesses has have been really great to witness and great conversations to have with outlets. Ultimately, folks are open to the conversation. They seem to welcome it. They've been very responsive while we've reached out over email. What could be considered a cold email sometimes? Cause we haven't met some of these folks. And so all of that response so far has been really encouraging. Now, what we need to see is how the resulting reporting shakes up. And so we're really committed to keeping our eyes out and our ears up for following up around Atlanta shooting, sure, but general coverage of Asian and Asian American communities and Pacific Islander communities. And Kristen, this question might be for you is, I think one of the question is, there's tenancy in the youth media to create sympathy with the perpetrator of their wife. But we see this in forms of story about the background, mental health, right? Like if you, and we see this actually quite constant if you're white, like there's like you, something must happen in your life. You have a bad day or like you are like video games that turn you to become this murderer, right? But when it comes to sort of a, you know, BIPOC, you know, victims of perpetrator, like that narrative is completely different. Like, you know, what do you make sense of that? I mean, it's really, it's simple to me if you're white, you get treated like a full person. And if you're not, you don't. And often what we're seeing is people get, you know, thumbnail sketched by journalists that aren't used to covering people that don't look like them. And, you know, all of the other, you know, I think issues we've talked about, I think that the question for journalists and editors has to constantly be like, how can I get the most information about this person regardless of who they look like so that I can, you know, help make people understand, help people understand what happened here and is writing the narrative, you know, of the a mass shooter, is that the best way to spend our time? Do we need any more of those stories? Should we be focusing on something else? And that would be sort of like the newsroom template, right? Like, let's find out. And, you know, I think in our, you know, like sort of pre-call, we talk about where the black press or the Asian-American press come in, right? How much of it is because they just, you know, like to cover the Korean, you know, victims, like, well, most of the reporters don't see Koreans, so they don't really have access to communities. So therefore they say, well, it seems like crick a story I could do is about the shooter. How much of that is true? And so where does the working collaboration with, you know, sort of the non-English where the black press comes in? I would love to see, you know, journal and mainstream news organizations, both national and local, you know, work with the organizations that cover different communities where they live and pay them for that work, amplify that work, increase their audience, which, you know, has the benefit of helping your audience be better informed and increasing your own audience. Those organizations are still there. They may be very small, but I think CJR had a great piece about the Korean publications in Atlanta that were there on the ground covering these stories. So, you know, again, I think, you know, making sure you know the landscape and finding your partners, but that can't happen the day after a shooting. That has to happen long before those, just like covering different beats in communities, that work has to all happen up front so that when something happens, you're ready and that sort of connective tissue is already in place. I was just gonna say, Paul, I wholeheartedly agree with Christian there. We talked a little bit about how some black and brown media and organizations, our affinity groups, are kind of taking the lead on some of these conversations. And so for mainstream media to be paying attention closely to what the organizations are saying and doing the guidance that they're providing and then looking at the media, of the black and brown media and what they are reporting, these outlets really have their ears to the ground on issues that are affecting them. And these are the organizations that are really giving voice to people in those communities. And so figuring out and paying attention, how can you collaborate with these entities to help enrich coverage for all? And the sharing of resources, obviously is critical to this as well, but we can figure out how to bring these groups together. I think our business, talking about business models, our industry would be stronger for those collaborative endeavors. So one other question from the audience is how much of this do you think it could be fixed by so-called like diversity hiring? And at the same time, we're seeing that journals of color are being bought from covering these community because of fear of bias. So it's almost like you want them in a newsroom but you don't really give them full agency. Like... Well, I'll jump in and say, I hate the idea of calling somebody a diversity hire. But I do think it's important because we're seeing the rise, we're seeing more and more newsrooms create beats and positions focused on racial issues. We're seeing the increase in promotion of journalists of color in newsrooms. And I think collectively, all of this makes a difference in the type of coverage that newsrooms are doing, right? And it's not just because I'm hiring a Black person or an Asian person or a Hispanic person, right? It's a collectiveness that makes a difference in the type of coverage that we're doing. And so, yes, they think we bring just unique perspectives to the newsroom, to these stories. Christian said she had a better understanding of the immigration process because she had someone who was going through it. So all of these experiences, all of this knowledge, all of the history that we know and bring should be valued and welcomed in the newsrooms and not seen as a detriment or a hindrance. And so I think the more diversity we bring across the board in all its forms, the stronger a newsroom is going to be. Yeah, so what I'm hearing is sort of like key terms, right? Like there's a lot of nuance. The basics of, the basic tandem journalism will never fail you. And, you know, they understand how you frame, how you bling and how you shame is important. So before we close out, you know, well, sort of like if you were to give your final, sort of like one piece of advice for anyone who's actually covering, you know, this issue and there's a lot going on, right? With George Floyd, you know, the case plus, you know, the continue attack on Asian-American, you know, what would be your word of advice for them? Julia, you go first. All right. Well, I'll share something I'm thinking about for my own newsroom, which is I don't think we necessarily should be comparing, you know, Freedom Summer, what happened, you know, last year with George Floyd and Atlanta, essentially, and the rise of anti-Asian racism now, because I'd like to make the distinction while there's been a long history of racism against AAPIs. These like viral incidences of violence against elders, specifically in Asians and Asian-Americans more broadly is more recent. And arguably sparked from Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric around COVID. And as we're seeing when the Atlanta shootings happened, a lot of people were and still are waking up to the level of racism, leveled against AAPIs. And this moment feels like it's a different part of the journey than the conversation that mirrors one about anti-Black racism. So I think, you know, I think for some folks, it may be natural to try to compare them. I don't think it's a one-on-one comparison. And I think the type of coverage that we're seeing on both fronts is shaping up and showing up differently because of those unique contours. So that's something I'm thinking about as a newsroom leader and, you know, just kind of want to share that thinking. And I would love to have this conversation if more folks want to, what, chat at a later time, probably another panel. But that's something that's currently on my mind. And I would love to hear, you know, from you and Kristen about this too. Kristen, what about you? What's your final word? I have two, do better. Yeah, do better. You know, all journalism is based on the work that you've done before. And we all continue, whether it's with, you know, different sources or different stories, we're all building. And so, you know, finding ways to connect with communities and to reflect what's accurately happening there and to build trust in those communities, that all takes time and work, but it's worth it. And so, you know, I think we just, all of us have to continually push ourselves to do better, get deeper and be more accurately reflective of what's happening in our communities and in the world. Okay, Mara? I'm just gonna say context, context, context. I mean, putting these things into context really matters and really understanding how from history to now, these stories are playing out. Like I said, these aren't isolated things that we're seeing. If we can provide, the more context we can provide around the coverage that we're offering, the deeper understanding that I think audiences will have. And so let's not, I know we're trying to be fast and we're trying to get it out and we're trying to be concise. We're trying to get it in the lower thirds. I'm trying to tweet it out. But at the end of the day, we really have to remember that the whole story is important. And the full portrayals of people and communities are important. And so keeping that context in perspective is what my last word would be. Well, I wish we have another hour of this to continue on. So I just wanna thank Julia, Kristen and Maya for your insights. Thank you so much for joining us today. And for next week, we will have a show exploring how arts and artists build, inform and engage communities. So be sure to turn in to Nightlife every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern or watch it on demand. And have a good afternoon, everybody.