 My name is Conor Goodwin and I am ProPublica's Interim Director of Communications. Welcome to The View From Here, Local News in Atlanta. For those new to us, ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism. This conversation is the first in a series of virtual events called The View From Here that will address the changing local news ecosystems and key cities and counties across the country. In each event, leaders from longstanding news organizations and founders of startups will gather to discuss the challenges and opportunities local newsrooms face today and address why local journalism is well positioned to shine a light on some of the nation's most entrenched problems. The next event will focus on community journalism in Phoenix, Arizona and is scheduled for September 14th. I hope to see you there. For a conversation today, we have gathered leaders from various newsroom space in the Atlanta area. Sean McIntosh is a managing editor for the Atlanta Journal of Constitution, working with a team of newsroom leaders to set and execute an ambitious vision for print and digital editions of Georgia's largest newspaper. Stephen Fowler is an award-winning reporter and photographer covering state and local politics for GPP News, the statewide network of PBS member TV stations and NPR member radio stations. His work focuses on voting and elections, state government, legal issues and the 2020 election. Camille Whitaker is managing editor of Atlanta Magazine, which has been around for 60 years and co-founder of Canopy Atlanta, which launched in 2020. As Canopy's head of education, she directs the fellowship program alongside Canopy staff and in collaboration with Atlanta's journalism community. Robin Kemp is the founder, CEO and executive editor of the Clayton Crescent. The nonprofit was born out of a critical need to serve a long-time news desert after COVID-19 forced the county paper to lay off nearly all of its already tiny reporting staff. Kemp is an award-winning journalist who has worked in print, cable television and digital media since the 1980s. Nicole Carr focuses on criminal justice and racial inequity for ProPublica's newly launched South Minute. She previously served as an investigative reporter for WSB TV in Atlanta. Thank you to our panel for joining today. Also, this session is being recorded and a link to the video will be emailed tomorrow to everyone who registered. If you'd like to ask a question, click the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type it there. Our moderator today is ProPublica's South Editor, Mara Shalup. Mara joined ProPublica in early 2021 in overseas coverage of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas. She previously served as deputy editor of Atlanta Magazine and as editor-in-chief of LA Weekly, the Chicago Reader and Creative Loafing. Thanks again for joining us and thanks to McKinsey & Company for supporting this event. I'll let Mara take it from here. Hi, so I first just wanted to say what an honor it is to be here with you five journalists whose work I really admire and with you 100 plus participants who care about local news. I really appreciate that. I just also want to quickly acknowledge that local news is essential in the best of times. We're not living in the best of times. And the work that these journalists and others have done in the past 18 months during the pandemic, during the George Floyd protests, during this historic presidential and senate elections in this state, it goes above and beyond. And so thank you, all of you. I'm going to ask questions directed towards individuals, but I also want others on the panel to jump in wherever they want to. But I'm going to tee off by asking Sean and Stephen. How has the local news ecosystem changed in Atlanta in recent years? It's a three-part question. I'll repeat any of it if you need to later. What has driven those changes? And how did the changes reflect the city and have the changes? I'm sorry, reflected the city and its residents. Why are why not? So whoever wants to jump in first. I can jump in. I think that the, you know, the biggest way in the past, I guess, few decades is that what we would call legacy news organizations have gotten smaller as the economic pressures on local news have increased. Blessedly, we've had a lot of startups and nonprofits and other organizations step in. The world, I think, has increasingly realized that local news is essential and, you know, vital to this community. And so people are supporting more and different kinds of news organizations more. I think in general we're seeing diversity in news audiences be increasingly considered important to news organizations. I'm pretty optimistic about the climate for local news. It's been a challenging few decades, but I feel like we're starting to come back into the audience's recognition that local news is essential. Yeah, and I mean, I would say, you know, I work for the statewide NPR station and we have the purview of the entire state and not just Atlanta. And it's a reminder of just how few options there are out there for people to get local news, let alone, you know, hard hitting investigative news or really covering the things that matter. I mean, you know, many, many counties in Georgia don't have a daily newspaper. And if they do, it's just wire copy or it's the obligatory legal notices that have to be put in place. So, you know, a lot of times what goes out over our air is the only real local news source that many people in Georgia can get. And I think in Atlanta, you have seen an explosion of different groups, you know, like pro-publica investing here and like canopy Atlanta. And there's a new startup capital B that's a lack focused news outlet that's picking Atlanta as a place to be because it's a great place for media because there are a lot of resources and talented people, but also because it's still a very large community that isn't really covered the way it needs to be. You know, I grew up south of Atlanta and I had the local newspapers, one of the ones that Robin mentioned that was laid off and shut down. And so there's the AJC is basically the only coverage for a very large fast growing county in metro Atlanta. And so I think there have been some challenges with the local media ecosystem, but I do think the nonstop onslaught of news has brought out the best in all of those media outlets. It's brought out more audience support, it's brought out more institutional support. Our newsroom has expanded because of a grant to cover public policy. So we have people across the state that are doing public policy stories that previously were under reported or unreported. So I'm also very optimistic about local news and passionate about local news because, you know, when big stories happen all the time, you know, national outlets may come things may get some sort of national attention. But those people leave and at the end of the day, we are the ones living in the communities that we cover seeing the direct impacts of our reporting and also these big earth shattering developments that happen. And so I think I am very optimistic about the state of local news and how things have changed, especially in Atlanta, you know, I think there's been a lot more attention to what's going on with issues like crime and policing, good, bad and otherwise. And with the mayoral race that's upcoming and so, you know, I think nobody wants to wish 2020 could happen again, but I do think a positive side effect of things has been a greater appreciation for the work that local journalism has done. And I just like to jump in and also echo one thing Steven said, which is the local news climate is so much stronger in Atlanta than it is in the rest of the state and that is a gigantic issue. We, you know, we cover the state some and certainly other organizations did but there is no one who as they as they used to say in Atlanta cover sticks you like to do. With these new outlets I'm just going to jump in with sort of related question that we're seeing arrive. Do you think that that is better reflecting the changes in the city and the metro area does that help journalism itself in some ways. I do I think the total impact remains to be seen but yes I think that the truth is that them as we have new news organizations and many of them. The diversity of our community is much better covered the smaller regions like Clayton County get more local coverage than they were getting. You know, I hope it holds up but it certainly looks positive. Yeah, and I would say, you know, some of these new outlets and organizations that have started have been out of the needs of the new cycle and things but I think also to it's been out of the failures of some of these legacy media institutions to truly accurately recover cover the city and the surrounding areas like they've needed, you know, I know, you know, canopy Atlanta for example, you know, I've learned more about neighborhoods that are within a two mile radius for me from reading that and living in Atlanta in the past eight years, and it's things that you know have been chronically under covered and underfunded and under appreciated and so I think what you've also seen, especially with a lot of out that's like butter atl and things that are really truly for different audiences than what you might think of as a typical AJC reader or a typical Georgia public broadcasting listener, and that's a good thing, because we're finally seeing media and reporting and investigations that really reach the people that call Atlanta to anybody else want to jump in on this question Camille if you just wanted to speak a little bit, I think to canopy and what it is it's a very innovative novel and so far highly effective approach to journalism. Yes, definitely. And I appreciate those sentiments Steven, and I am very enthusiastic and I'm about the current journalism ecosystem and the local journalism ecosystem because I feel like with all of these different voices and different entities, different support as well. It's just a symptom of a healthy, thriving and growing ecosystem and I think that's just a win for, for everyone. So canopy, we got together representatives from multiple news organizations so you had representatives from, you know, Atlanta you had freelancers, you had CNN representatives things of entities of that nature, wanting to kind of solve this issue these issues and these these gaps that that Steven was mentioning mainly the fact that there's extractive journalism happening. I mean that can happen on a local level, not just on a national level with you know national reporters parachuting in a can deaf phenomenon can kind of replicate here on the local level, and you know, a lot of the reporting was was focused on deficits and a lot of the reporters weren't able, you know to take the time to fully embed themselves in communities. And so we were trying to figure out ways that we could could address that and what would result from that and, and that's when we came up with the model to approach these neighborhoods and by one to empower residents to tell the stories and I think that's like the biggest difference is that we are sourcing our story ideas from the residents themselves versus going in and deciding what the story is, and that kind of results in, in, in a, you know, it plays out in a lot of ways. And one, one example I could give is our one of our co founders Max Blau, the pilot program for canopy was a Pittsburgh reporting project. And when he initially went in he was thinking that the residents were going to be interested in, you know, gentrification housing affordability those issues. But when he actually did community listening, and community engagement, he found out that that's not necessarily that wasn't the top of their list, they wanted to talk about the aftermath of the Elena cheating scandal, and public schools cheating scandal. And so that's what the fellows in that particular cohort worked on. And so that was a signal to us that this is the way that we have to go about journalism. Community first listening community engagement training and empowering residents to tell the stories and then going from there. You already started to answer some of my next question Camille, which was going to be directed toward you and toward Robin. So I'll let Robin jump in first which is what are the gaps in journalism in Atlanta, and what stories are not being widely told that would serve the public if these stories were elevated. Well, really, in Metro Atlanta and for folks who are listening who are not from here it's it's a huge area that encompasses multiple multiple counties, you know, even beyond the four or five whore counties if you count Clayton. There are very serious news gaps south of I 20. A lot of the in town newsrooms come down to Clayton County in particular for crime coverage or maybe they do some school story or something like that. Leon Stafford at the AJC does cover up some of the local political stuff but you know it's it's he has other duties as well. And the Clayton news, we've already mentioned them that they've, they've funnel a lot of national content and syndicated columnist and stuff but they're not really covering local news and that's where the Clayton Crescent comes in. And we have all these unincorporated areas in the Metro, you know places that have county services but no municipal government or maybe they cross two or even three counties. Those, those communities do not have their concerns addressed by the local media. In particular, there's there's a community called Conley, and, and there's East Conley in particular, and they have a lot of issues with trucking tearing up the roads and bridges and illegal businesses that have been operating for years, and other a lot of zoning problems. It's kind of become the industrial dumping ground and there are a lot of subdivisions that have been there forever and these, these people are very up in arms and very well organized and the problem is they're an unincorporated Clayton tab. And a lot of their zoning matters happen in DeKalb County, which means Decatur which means about a 25 minute drive away from where they live. It's not like they can go down the street to the county offices. So zoning is a big thing. And a lot of times people think about zoning is primarily being a middle class upper middle class problem, you know, only only affects homeowners but it really affects everybody who lives in the area. And the Clayton has put more money into the logistics and warehousing pot. Some of those folks are, you know, who live nearby are beginning to stand up on their hind legs and say look, you know, we moved in here, we paid all this money to live in these new subdivisions. And in Ellenwood, for example, and we really don't want, you know, a million square foot marijuana manufacturing plant here we really just don't want that how about some mixed use we'd like some retail and some restaurants. But the biggest stories that are not being told in Clayton County in particular are the meat and potatoes basic routine government coverage right the housing markets affect on renters and low income residents, stuff like that that is just like every day and stuff that needs to be covered all the time. And because I'm a one person shop I do the best I can but there's seven municipalities there's like 25 county boards there's a bunch of county level jurisdictions there's multiple police jurisdictions. And so our goal is basically to do we can to get ahead of the story. We're about looking ahead so that residents can have time to plan a little notice of what's coming. But they can hold their elected officials accountable for what it is that they do and do not want happening in their neighborhoods. With the paper the problem is, you know, they come out once a week now, and telling somebody what happened last week is not going to help them do anything to interact with their elected officials. Yeah, and if I if I could even add to that so our second issues in Forest Park so we are down there with Robin, so inspired by her election coverage and our goal there is to. Well first I want to say that everything that she mentioned is what we heard on our listening and engagement. The care about the resident and you wouldn't know that if you didn't, you know, take the time to to study and engage and listen. And, and so it's good to hear that that's coming on on both ends but also, you know, at the end of our fellowship would actually ended last week. We have four writers who have the tools to be able to continue to research and report and support exist existing information systems like Robbins Clayson Clayton Crescent. So that collaborative aspect of it is is where I see canopy being able to to be of benefit in those areas as well. Yeah, and I think some of our missions do overlap, you know, and I would have liked to have, you know, you guys did invite me to do some things with you and just I just don't have the bandwidth right now but hopefully in the future we can do something together. Absolutely. Absolutely. I, again, some of you got into this next question but I'll ask it anyway which would have gone to Robin and she can jump back in because it does. I think she could build on it on the last answer she gave but also Nicole. How do you guys choose stories and topics that break new ground and that other outlets might not tell and of course others feel free to jump in. Nicole go first please. Everyone. You know, I think we have our core must cover stories happening all around us the things that we're all going after at the same time and Mara you and I have this conversation. Certainly, it's, it's how are we going to go left when everyone is going right how are we going to look at something that's missing within that core coverage so we're all going to be seeped in the pandemic we're all going to be covering some aspect of elections and impact and but there are always nuances and things that are are missing from the coverage because these newsrooms simply do not have the bandwidth to do that so when you talk about bringing a regional investigative unit in. I tried to imagine the stories or the things that I wanted to do when I was in my traditional newsroom that just were not a possibility because you were being pulled back into daily coverage, or the time to work on an investigation just was not. It wasn't there. And so, where we have the holes in the gaps and the things in our newsrooms as everyone is trying their best to get to the must covers and we know living in Georgia. Everything seems like the must cover at the, at the time, you know, it's just going after things that you know that you don't see if you ever have a question about something you're sitting there. Reading the day's news and you're thinking about, well I wonder if, you know, now in a space like ProPublica, you have the time to sit there and wonder and start chipping away, you know, digging at that I'm not going to try and do what Stephen does because I'm not Stephen. And he knows what he's doing so well he knows the data but I may try to answer a question where I see I see the data I see, I see this but I don't hear anyone talking about that and that's where some of these, these outlets can come in and get this unique coverage. And you add to that so I think it's just our curiosity and the things that we, we hear folks around us in our neighborhoods in our, in our circles outside of our circles talking about that just doesn't get into the bigger picture story that we're constantly going after on a daily basis. Yeah, and that's, that's one thing that I found really fascinating about working in Metro Atlanta is that it's not like everybody's collaborating on everything all the time we are we are in a very competitive business but I'm one who will share stuff. I know not everyone is but I found that other people, you know, people tend to share back if you share with them and I've got a little something for you that might help your investigation that you know I'll pass it along. It's interesting that that you mentioned the example of like, you know, answering a question that Steven's data might raise right. It feels that in Atlanta in the media universe there is more of a conversation happening between outlets and I think that the more we can leverage that given, you know, the huge disparities in coverage areas and resources and everything I think the more we do that. It really helps everybody else out and I've had similar conversations with the folks in Savannah like the current, the current is killing it in Savannah, and they've just hired an environmental reporter full time. You know, these, these other nonprofits the nonprofits are all talking to each other back channel and saying well you know let me see if I can help you out and can you help me out and you know it doesn't always work out but there is that there and that's happening. And I would just jump in and say, you know, I think, you know, what I try to do is, I try to do a lot more process oriented stories, you know, there's going to be plenty of force race coverage about who's up in what poll, or, you know, who says what or what ad comes out but like you know, there is a big market for those up buddy. We might have me I think we lost even for a minute. Let's let his internet come back to him and I'll ask another question for Sean, which is, what are the top priorities for your newsroom and how does that shape the agencies journalistic practices. No, you need to unmute. So we do. Local is a, you know, a big phrase, but we have the core counties in metro Atlanta, and we try to provide good every day consistent routine coverage on those core counties and their institutions and their organization. So, you know, CD halls, county commission school boards. That's what we would consider our local mission. We have a very strong accountability mission. We've always had a bigger than average investigative team for newsroom or size and try to do consistent regular accountability coverage on breaking news when it happens but also two or three big projects a year that will hopefully affect change that's the whole point of when we look at them we're like how can we make a difference and what are the things we can make a difference in. And then of course sports and politics because those are the among the highest interest of our readers and they're part of what makes Atlanta Atlanta. And a few passion topics, you know, our food and dining coverage is incredibly popular our food and dining editors important local figure. So, not as much unfortunately, recently and state out in the state as we used to do, but we still do feel it's essential to do that when the news is big enough and important enough to our Atlanta readers. And Steven do you want to continue the thought that got rudely cut off by your internet connections. Yeah, I have no idea where it comes off but I'll just say I was just saying about stories is a process oriented stories that I do. I feel there's the great value and showing work and showing the original source documents or the lawsuit or the records request you did or the massive spreadsheet of all the things and I think helping people understand why something is the way it is is the first step to being able to say, you know, is this something good is this something bad how does this affect me. And so I'm a big primary source person and so, you know, when the census data came out. I made a database of all of the census level information for cities and counties and congressional districts and things, and then posted it. So people can look at it themselves and so people can zig where I might have zagged and say hey, did you notice that Dalton is now majority Hispanic city or hey, did you notice that you know there's only two state senate districts south of the fall line that are overpopulated things and so I think it opens the door to collaboration with other media outlets but also with the audience to help figure out what's important what needs more explanation and we kind of figure it all out together. I also thought Stephen you might want to answer the question you missed, which was, what are your newsrooms top priorities and how does that affect your journalism and your journalistic practices. Got it. So yeah, like I said, you know we are a true statewide newsroom we have bureaus and make it in Savannah. We go all over the state to cover stories I was in Southwest Georgia last week in North Georgia, a couple weeks before that and we have, you know, a small but mighty staff that truly covers all 100 now that matter at the statewide level like the coronavirus pandemic. Back to school as a big story in our newsroom was we track different school districts and how they respond to the outbreaks and virtual school and not, and you know, we tend to focus because we're radio. There's a lot more focus on finding real people and hearing their voices on the air instead of, you know, canned spokes people quotes, or from the same five experts that get quoted for everything. And so, you know, it's really an all hands on deck situation for our newsroom to cover the pandemic and to cover the latest developments whether it's the putting a local angle on the FDA authorization of the Pfizer vaccine, or it's talking with parents at a school board or whether it's something that's not coven related, you know, like allegations of sexual harassment in the brewing industry in Atlanta. And so, you know, I think our newsroom being a radio newsroom and having to rely a lot on people's voices is a very good baked in way to ensure that we are talking about what matters and that we catch everything and then of course, you know, we have ongoing coverage of redistricting we've done a lot with the census and redistricting and how George has changed over the last decade, and how that will change with the new map and voting rights and legislative session and the 2022 midterms which every day seems to be a new surprise and so I think, you know, there's always urgency in a newsroom there's always urgency, it seems for the past 18 months, but, you know, we really try to focus on having people's voices, not just from Atlanta, not just from the same advocacy groups and organizations to really round out truly what's happening in the state. Did anybody else want to jump in on their newsrooms top priorities in the way that that affects the journalism, you do. If not, we can move on to a question that everybody might want to chime in on I'll direct it to Nicole and Steven, but please everyone because it's, I know it's something we struggle with. How best can local journalism, responsibly deal with increasing polarization of viewpoints among audiences it seems like there's always been a diverse range of thought and opinion, but it has seemed to become much more vicious and trying to get those two sides to pay attention to each other and learn from each other so go ahead Nicole. Well, I think it's okay and we hesitated as an industry so long to call a lie a lie. And I think if you're in the business of telling the truth. And there are facts to back up the truth, you can get the way people feel about the truth but we should not coddle both sides in a way that reports in easily provable lie to be the truth. Does that make sense. I mean, I think we struggled with calling a thing a thing for a while, and I'm talking industry wise. In an effort not to alienate people. Everyone can have an opinion about what is here in front of us, you can have a feeling it may not fit into your truth in your, your circle, but some things. Although we say a lot is not just black and white, there are gray areas. Some things are black and white. And when you coddle people and extreme views and lies to a point where you're, you're both siding a lie. You can't do that you get into a routine of doing that and it becomes you say a lie enough times right. It becomes like semi true. Is it real is it this is it that. And I think there are some things that are just black and white. I don't know what do you think Steven. I think a lot of it gets back to explaining the process of things, you know, one of my specialties is election administration, which is one of up until last year is probably one of the more boring and arcane levels of government reporting. But I think we take for granted how much our audience knows about any given subject whether it's voting, which is something that most people do. Once you know every two years or four years, or whether it's you know how to interact with the government or even just budgets, like state government budgets and so I think a way to reduce polarization and to put ourselves against a lot of misinformation and false claims being spread is to have the facts and the understanding and the process of how things work on our side but also explained from the perspective of somebody who doesn't necessarily have ill will they may not be intentionally saying, you know, look at all these untrue things that I'm saying and I'm pushing it as fact, but I think it's our job to kind of set the firm boundaries of the sandbox of discussion, and fact and reality and how things work. You know, there's a lot of, you know, election misinformation, for example, that comes from a place of people just really not understanding how things work. And at first glance, seeing something very believable, that seems like it's true, but it's really not. And, you know, there's only so much you can do of like, you know, putting on the scold finger and saying, Well, actually, you know, you're wrong. This is a lie. Like, this person saying lies over and over again, like that's not effective. But going through and explaining what something is supposed to be or why something is false or, you know, how things are supposed to work. I think can go a long way but I think we also have to realize that there are plenty of people that are going to be acting in bad faith. And you can't treat those people as the same as people who just happen to, you know, be confused or not understand something. And I think that's a problem that the industry hasn't been good at as a whole is being able to identify when something's in bad faith versus genuine questions, concerns and feedback. And so when you're explaining that process, you need to stick to, you need to commit to contextualizing your report. And I think in the news cycle, that's as much as we can do, right? When you walk people through the process, get that context. When you're moving on this hamster wheel day to day, you can't compromise that for that very reason. Yeah. And so, and that's, and once you do that, you don't say in the effort to balance how our audience is feeling, we're going to go in this direction. You stick to that method. Contextualize process, truth, how you feel. And it's also hard because, you know, I only know the things that I know about elections because three years ago I started learning the ins and outs of it, but not everybody has three years to go in depth and a topic to be able to say, I know definitively about this. I know definitively about the Atlanta mayorals race. I know definitively about ethylene oxide. And so it's hard when there are so many things pulling you in so many different directions to be able to confident and assertive and say this is what it is, you know, to take down the heat to take down the rhetoric and take down the polarization and put things so I think it's just something we have to be cognizant of. I think to add to that you have a whole segment of our population that has a deep distrust of media in general, and you have a large segment of our population that hasn't been represented in media. And when they are represented in media, it's on a deficit basis so it's hard to, to make the case to them that you should trust what we're saying even if you're contextualizing and, you know, telling the process, we have to. It comes on a smaller level or on a more basic level where news organizations are changing the ways they're even reporting stories like what voices are they foregrounding? You know, what perspectives are they privileging? Are they privileging the perspective of institutions that have been violent to certain populations over others when they're reporting news stories? And that's what we have to think about when we're thinking about audience. And one of the things that we want to do is, of course, explain a little bit more about the process. But also, in terms of newsroom priorities, empower residents with the tools to be able to get at this information themselves. Just recently, one of our fellows discovered a $90,000 discrepancy in the city budget, and was able to just email the representative directly and say, you know, what is this about? And that would have gone unnoticed. And so giving the residents and giving the emerging journalists the tools to be able to do that, and little by little getting at this media distrust question from a process standpoint. And part of the thing with that is also being very aware of how politicians who are masters of media manipulation will send their messengers, whether that's not just on social media. You know, let's get 500 people to pile on because you made, you know, something akin to a mistake, but not quite a mistake. There's also folks who will be sending their people to try and get inside your operation and report there. And that's something to be very, very aware of. You know, when there's one degree of separation between a politician and a reporter that can be a problem. Atlanta is especially Clayton County is full of people who love to cross that line and a lot of politicians who fancy themselves, you know, news anchors and editors, and they're trying to put out their own thing and it's really it's, it's just a PR thing for them but it really comes insidious in that readers and viewers don't truly understand the difference, and they believe that they're being presented news that is unbiased that has, you know, that's going to give them the whole story when it's only presenting what that politician or that public official, you know, like a police chief or somebody wants them to hear. Sean, did you want to chime in on the polarization question. No, I actually suggested that one because I wanted to hear everyone else. Also, we work on it all the time but it's one of our biggest challenges as a, as a legacy news organization that is trying to be, you know, I guess in the traditional way of objective. I'm not sure anyone can really be totally objective or that's the right word but the historic way we've looked at things is being challenged now and we have to, we have to address it in a way that allows us to listen to all of our audiences but also address some of the gaps that we've had in our history. I mean I also just had a question Nicole and I had been batting around which was how do you even define objectivity has the definition of it changed or is it immovable but the outside forces are buffeting it in different ways. I personally prefer to talk about being fair and accurate. I think that is a much better framing for what we should do than to try and use a word like objective which I think is it made many things to many people and I think even historically when the news was objective. You know, we reflected who we talked to we reflected the communities that we historically covered we reflected. You know, the privilege institutions who had access to mainstream media and not everybody so I think that a better concept is to talk about being fair and being accurate and reflecting the world accurately around us and even that. I think continues to be, you know, it sounds so nice but it's really very difficult to even do that much less meet everybody's standard of objective. Yeah, at the same time, you know, going back to when Nicole said we have to be really careful about how we define our terms and we've all been as a business interrogating the heck out of objectivity, but there is such a thing as objective reality and I know that there are some grad students that are going to say no there isn't that's fine I went to grad school too. But there are things that are immutable facts. Okay, and these are things that are, you know, both sides will agree on. And those that's the starting point and we cannot seed objective reality to, you know, side shows like such as we see in the so called recount in Arizona. And also when you're talking about the lens of objectivity we can't have this conversation without addressing the people who call the shots. And so when you're thinking about newsroom management and what the people and I'll take television because I just came out of a local TV. You make the decisions are the people whose bios you will never find online who cannot find on LinkedIn. They're they're not the people you see in front of you that the public thinks they know as representative of a particular outlet. And so when we're having these conversation diversity of thought and we're not just talking racial diversity we're talking across. You get to a certain point in TV when people are making a good amount of money. Right. And so myself and my white male colleague next to me and one across from me, you know, it's really easy to forget where people have come from their path to that area and compare that to the way that you're living now. We can approach different ideas and different topics from a lens of our privilege and where we're sitting in our homes now. When was the last time this was a thing for you. When was the last time you had to deal with this type of topic would you approach it this way if you were in this person shoes. And finally what gets the clearance to go on air at six o'clock or what gets the clearance to be published. That is a decision that is made from up here and so until we are diversifying, not only racial identity economics of the people who are on top, your experience where you have lived where you have not lived. You name it just a diverse experience until the people calling the shots are more reflective of the people that we are covering the middle men and we could arguably all be middle men may not matter as much and it depends on whether your voice is respected enough or elevated enough in the newsroom to fill that gap. And so we really have to talk about the people who the public does not know. Yeah, and I mean that it's and it's not just you know management newsroom management, but it's it's upstairs it's the C suite it's executives and it's consultants and it's stockholders and the board it's that you know and people don't understand that those are the kinds of pressures we have to deal with on a daily basis in a regular newsroom. You know this these are the kind of fights that we've all had I think. I'm seeing like all these great reader questions or not reader, watch or listener audience questions coming in I know Connor's nodding. He's had fielded a bunch to. We could keep talking for hours and I want to but for the sake of getting to some of these also excellent questions Connor do you want me to turn it over to you so you can. Yeah, I'll go ahead and direct some reader questions to the speakers. To start out, I'd love to hear from Robin and Steven about, you know, one one viewer asked like if they're, you know, key differences when reporting about voting rights in the Atlanta area versus rural Georgia. Well, I mean, I'm not really in rural Georgia, I'm in suburban Atlanta. I think Steven could probably speak better to that. Yeah, I mean, you know, Georgia has 159 counties with 159 elections directors 159 elections boards and 159 different voter population levels. I mean the problems that you'll find in rural Georgia are definitely different than the problems that you find in metro Atlanta. In fact, I did a story with ProPublica last year about some of those problems in metro Atlanta, where there were longer lines in areas that had higher numbers of non white voters, and that had higher areas of population growth that you're just not going to have in rural Georgia where the entire county may have as many people as my polling place in the east side of Atlanta. Also, when you have an older population that is less technologically literate, you had problems in the primary and other elections last year where you had people that didn't know how to work the iPads and people that didn't know how to work the machines and people that were no compromise or above the age of 80 so they couldn't work the polls so you had, you know, I talked to a rural elections director who had one other full time person, a part time person and three students, and had to let them all go home because there was one tested positive for COVID. So it was just her and 33,428 absentee ballot paper applications that she had to get through herself, because there was a COVID outbreak, and there was nobody else and nothing else to do which is a completely animal for voters in Appling County Georgia than it is in Fulton County where there are 800,000 people and 200 polling places and thousands of machines in different ways for things to go wrong so I mean I think definitely this is where, you know, I think legacy organizations tend to think about Atlanta as the metro areas as the northern suburban white metro areas and everything else is just rural Georgia and is just a completely different no man's land that you go to talk about, you know, your farm story and your rural hospital story and so I think, you know, voting rights is one of those things that definitely cuts the same whether you're a small rural white Republican County or whether you're a big diverse metro Atlanta County and so there are some differences, you know, but ultimately, it's the same voting equipment and it's the same vote that counts no matter where you are at the stage. Yeah, and I think what you said, as somebody who grew up in Henry County you know right. Henry Clayton those with the farming legacy. That was 100 years ago. You know, I mean that ended essentially after World War two. And since then, the, you know, the folks who have been displaced by gentrification or economics or whatever other reasons from Atlanta have moved down into Clayton and more so into Henry County as time progresses, and that's changing the racial makeup of the county that's changing the politics of the county I mean Clayton County is, is majority black majority Democrat like in the 80 something percentile. Okay. And I think that there's a perception among, you know, long time at Lantan said this is still down in the sticks but it's really a very urban area. And I think it needs to and I mean urban in the sense of it is not rural. Yeah, it's not a code word for black. I think that it's really important that we pay attention to these changes in growth and changes in the way that the demographics are moving around the metro, because that's going to impact our coverage by necessity. From Barbara in the chat, she asks, could the ProPublica folks talk a bit about, you know what our plans are for in the region, and how that connects to this discussion about local news that we're having now. So this is very much a regional operation. Which is, we want to be additive to what's happening in local news we have no interest in trying to compete we could never compete with the AJC's investigative team, for example they're too good at what they do. And you know that's not we would never set out with a mission to do that type of thing we want to go where stories are not being told, we want to partner with every single person on this call and beyond, and ways to help bring resources and maybe a little extra time to the work that you guys are doing. So it's it's an investigative unit that is purely, you know, not in conflict or in competition with any local news source. That's part of the mission of ProPublica. So we could write on any of these topics we have already before the south unit existed written on many of the topics discussed in this call. It's really the ways in which we go about it the ways in which we choose the stories and then, and going into places where there's not an investigative team that already exists. You know, most almost all of the time. I love a good investigative story but it would really be nice to have some backup, you know, it takes a lot of warm bodies sometimes to get it done. Yeah. I was just gonna add to that having worked with ProPublica on stories of the years. We don't have the national expertise and sometimes that's great to have so you know if you're looking at, you know, the chicken plants in North Georgia sometimes having the national perspective on the regulatory climate out of Washington is so helpful with that. So that's one of the things we really, you know, I don't know if the regional group will have as much of that as we have in the past but that's one of the things we really like working with ProPublica on is that they have different expertise than we did. And I think what's exciting about this team and what what we've talked about is the ways in which we're willing to tell the stories. You know, across platforms and being multimedia, but like Marc said, we've touched on any and all of these subjects. Our reporters do have beats and we've fallen in and out of those. But if you're talking, you know, criminal justice, racial inequity, COVID in schools, housing, you name it and just being able to, I think, really have that time and in that reach to do it. So, it's exciting. Thank you guys this this question was addressed to Robin but I feel like Camila would also have a lot to say about this. They asked, how did you get through the early days of your startup when when you just didn't have much resources. I don't know. Well, what happened was, I got the phone call I walked in the next, you know, the next room where my home offices. And I grabbed a template and I just kept shoveling news in it like I just kept working my beats like I've been doing, which was primarily crime and local politics but you know I've expanded to do other things. How did I do it. I had, I had a little about a little tiny amount of severance pay and unemployment check. And I think my mom gave me some money. A little bit. And I swear to God that's how I did it. You know, and I just kept showing up and the funny thing was like, I would go and see politicians I've been covering for two years and they come up and maybe like, let me on the show. Are you okay? Like, yeah, nothing's changed right. And they thought, how's your blog going. It's not a blog it's this now I try to explain and they don't understand and now that we've been accepted to INN, which is a wonderful thing. It helps us tell our story a little more clearly to the local folks who really just don't even understand what it is I'm doing in the first place. The urgency that we have now is to raise funds and you know continue growing the sustainable financing of this operation because without it. I'm doing to work 24 7365 for the indefinite future and I haven't had like a vacation in two years and some, you know, I need staff. So, you know, we're, we're trying to make it go with with some interns and things like that and you know maybe can we all talk to you later. But, you know, it's something that it's coming along it's coming along but it was strictly a back pocket operation for real. Yes. So, yeah. And we're still young and still early in the process. Part of it was trying to think of ways on how we are going to make the case for a nonprofit newsroom in the Atlanta market. Right. So even that concept is very is very new in the way that we're trying to do it. And we look to city bureau in Chicago, and we partnered with them on just ideas and strategy. But a big part of it was will right so you had journalists who were working or working part time or freelancing or who just got laid off. So you had all of this in the mix with the desire to make it a labor of love, essentially, and and, you know, we committed, we committed time and dedicated time to figure out what would be the nuts and bolts of the organization so there were people who were interested in fundraising and organizational development and so they kind of part went into their respective committees and there were others who were interested in pipeline building and mentorship and they formed the education committee and through a series of meetings that I believe lasted for about a year I think we started this in at the end of 2018 all of 2019 we were planning and organizing and approaching local funders also a major catalyst was the Center for Civic Innovation, who I mentioned the Pittsburgh project earlier. They helped to fund a fellowship for Max Blau who was our who is our co one of our co founders, and that that that made the case for it essentially that that journalism that not that potentially nonprofit journalism or journalism in this way could work and and could be funded. And so now that we're seeing other entities coming in like like a capital B is just really, we're really happy, we're really happy to see that because the more that we see it the more Clayton Crescent's the more capital B's the more canopies that we're seeing on that nonprofit and that can make the case, the better, but yeah is definitely slowly, but surely and then as we as we go to each neighborhood, we build out the the networks within and continue to make that case. Yeah, I mean there's definitely a synergy happening with feet with the nonprofits in Georgia and I assume elsewhere. And I just wanted to say, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I have a really excellent board and a back office, and I couldn't do it without them, because I'm the most disorganized person on the planet. So it helps to have a little backup. I'll add that we do as well. And so grateful for the guidance and wisdom and leadership on that. But one last question that we can maybe do around Robin for is what can audience do to support local journalism beyond subscribing and sharing and stuff like that. Are there other ways to get involved. I mean I hope that we're all easy enough to find so that if something is going on in your community or that you are aware of something that you feel like you have you can trust any of us on this call or any journalist you know or read to bring tips to them like I think to Camille's point early on, you know, we can think that we know communities well and we can try to, you know, live and play and do all the things that are kids to school and then but we can't have the full picture of a place and the only way we get that is through having hearing from from people so I just think communicating to us is when you can is would be so helpful. I would say promote news literacy, you know, in schools and in families and your friends and family yourself make sure people understand what news organizations do how they work, what their values are. You know, I think everybody on this call has a tremendous commitment to truth and to accuracy, and a lot of people don't understand that they think oh we're here to make money and so we'll put out fake news if it makes more money. And that's just so wrong. It's just so wrong headed and so I think educate your style I assume everyone who's on this panel is as a very literate news consumer or they wouldn't be coming in, but educate others about it and work to educate the community about news literacy because none of us wake up in the morning trying to figure out how to make money off of fake news, but a lot of people think we did. That's exactly what I was going to say the literacy parts of supporting us but and it doesn't have to be, you know, all of those ways are wonderful but I think it really starts in our own circles. I don't know about everyone else on the panel but sometimes I am surprised in conversations with people I know and love what they will trust and how they believe credibility is seeped into what they consume. And so I work on that in my day to day with my own people. And we do this for that. I would ask folks I know there are a lot of journalists on this call but I'm hoping there's some members of the general public just readers as well that when you say somebody use the phrase of the media remember it's plural and and treat it as such. I get very, very weary of seeing people saying oh the media want to do this and the media think that and the media is just looking for clicks. You know, it's not everybody stop painting the press the working journalists on this panel with the broad brush that it that shows no discernment. And please when you see people you know and love doing that, try to point out to them, you know, it's not a universe there's not like some conspiracy to go out there and disinform the public. When it seems like just nothing and shooting off your mouth on on social media but I will make this case till the day I die. This costs lives when you do it. It puts reporters that you know and rely on in the city of Atlanta in danger in physical danger we saw it during the riots last summer. Right. We see it every day around the world journalists being killed because whatever Americans have the privilege of amplifying with their big mouths on Facebook becomes a death sentence for people in other countries. So please stop that and please encourage your friends and family to stop doing that as well. So, one of the things that has really impressed us about the communities that we've been in so far is the level of community engagement and we have a wonderful community engagement director Mary Ann Martin, who has you know convened organizations and helped to form our community editorial boards and community advisory boards. And so my ask would be to, you know, to the residents to just continue to engage right continue to just to have faith in in and and continue to hold the journalists in your communities accountable one of the things that one of my, one of our West End fellows said was, you know, she has to get it right, because she's, you know, driving to the community grocery store and she's seeing people who are reading the stories that she's reporting on in her community. So continue to be there a check and a balance against along with the reporting I would just say just continue to be engaged. We're trying to go to as many neighborhoods in the Atlanta Metro region, and we're not just there for a short amount of time. So that that would be my ask, just, just to join in the process with us. Great. All right, well that's all our time for today. I just want to thank each of our panelists for joining us. This was a great conversation. Also, thank you to everyone who tuned in. And finally, thank you to McKinsey and company for supporting this event. Thank you all and have a great day.