 If you're just joining, my name is Rocio Ortega and I am ProPublica's Events Associate. Welcome to today's session, The View from Here, Community Journalism in Phoenix. Today's event is brought to you by the generous support of McKinsey and Company. For those new to us, ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism with moral force. Local news coverage has been a decline for years, but there is a recent groundstall of media outlets trying to buck that trend. From innovative formats, including news you can use services on a WhatsApp to devoting coverage to communities historically neglected by legacy news. New organizations are rethinking what local news can and should be to dissect what these new trends mean and how they manifested in the Southwest. ProPublica is gathered an accomplished set of Arizona based reporters and editors for a live virtual conversation. Maria Palletta is an investigative reporter focused on covering inequities and education for the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. She previously covered state government and politics for the Arizona Republic and USA Today Network, with an emphasis on accountability and an eye toward issues directly affecting Arizona's quality of life. Kay Kim-Bui is the Director of Product and Audience Innovation at the Arizona Republic. She writes a newsletter for emerging leaders and managers entitled The Middles and collaborates on a column about creating a better workplace for journalists of color entitled Sincerely Leaders of Color. Marisa Felix is a freelance journalist, producer and writer in Arizona. She is the founder of Gonecta Arizona, a news you can use service in Spanish that connects people in Arizona and Sonora, primarily through WhatsApp and social media. Amy Silverman has been a journalist in her hometown, Phoenix, for more than 30 years. In 2020, she worked with the Arizona Daily Star and ProPublica's local reporting network on State of Denial. An award-winning investigation into services for Arizonans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with a particular focus on making the work more accessible to the people being covered. Our moderator today is ProPublica's Southwest Editor, Michael Squires, a two-time Goldsmith Prize Award winner. Michael joined ProPublica from the Arizona Republic where he was the investigative editor. As an additional note, the session is being recorded and a link to the video will be emailed tomorrow to everyone who registered. Thank you all so much for being here today and I really hope you enjoy this conversation. I'll let Michael take it from you. Thank you, Rocio. I've been looking forward to this conversation a lot. I've admired the work of each member of the panel and I've worked directly with some of you. So I've seen firsthand the care you put into doing journalism that supports and builds communities. I believe the pandemic and the political turmoil of the past 18 months has shown why this kind of work, the kind of work you do is so necessary. But at the same time, it's become much more challenging. And that's one reason why ProPublica wanted to host this event, to look at how people like you are finding new ways to do this important work. So thanks to each of you for being here and taking the time to be with us today. Before we start this conversation, I wanted to share just a bit about ProPublica's new Southwest office. ProPublica's leadership team has for some time recognized that the Southwest with rapid population growth, demographic transformation, and how it's been challenged by climate change and political shifts reflects in certain important ways the future of the country. The Southwest office launched in January with just me. The team now consists of six reporters focused on five states, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. And our mission, like all of ProPublica's is to use investigative journalism to spur reform and hold accountable powerful people institutions. And we do this with the support of charitable donations. The Southwest team is not here to duplicate what's already being done, and we're not here to compete with local news organizations, but we want to do work that wouldn't otherwise happen. And sometimes that will involve collaborating with local news outlets in the past year, as Rocío said, we did an investigation with the Tucson Star and Amy Silverman, the award winning project on the state's treatment of people with developmental disabilities. And also with the Arizona Republic on its probe of schools run by the Bureau of Indian Education. In those cases, we supported projects that local journalists have identified as important to local communities. In other cases, we'll do our own investigations and that work will be published in local news outlets where it can reach the communities that we believe will most benefit from it and where it can hopefully have the biggest impact. Our offices are in Phoenix and all but two members of the team live here. So, like you in the audience, we turn to journalists like those on our panel today to better understand our community. And on that note, I want to start the conversation by asking the panel, what does community journalism mean to you. Marie, you want to start us on that. Sure, I can jump in. I think historically, particularly with mainstream. I know that word gets overused but mainstream media outlets. There has been a tendency to sort of talk at the audience for a long time. And with the rise of the internet and all these additional platforms and ways to get news and interact. Of course, you know, opening comment sections and so forth brings up its own set of challenges but I think there has been a real opportunity to listen instead of just talking to your audience and your community and I think that's the key for me when I think about community journalism. And listening to what people in your community want to know what you should be paying attention to what you're missing. It's not fun to hear criticism but that's what we need to do, especially with communities that historically have been under covered, or have been covered on fairly or piecemeal, you know, we've had I've heard in the past from sources, I don't want to be called in a situation where it's like press button in case of racial emergency, for example. We need to be making sure that we're highlighting and talking to and listening to members of the community throughout the process, instead of when there's just a controversy. I totally agree and I think it's also about giving voice, literally to the people in our community who don't normally get a voice and both listening to them and investigating and reporting on on their concerns, but also allowing them to speak their voice directly to the public. I think, for me, community is actually us is to stop referring to our audience as them, and to be part of them, because it's our family is our schools is our electoral fictions is us we are part of the community. And for so long we as reporter as media we we put a line between us and them. And I think with copied with realized that we need to redefine what community journalist actually is. I agree with what Amy is saying is echo echoing that stories with accents with colors with culture with grace. It's serving our people for them by them created and tailored by them and not for what we think they need is asking more, assuming less listening more and stop extracting stories from our community from us is actually changing the narrative by us for us through us. I would 100% agree with all all of those things I often believe that for a long time journalism, you know, preach from on a high we put ourselves on a pillar like we were better than we knew what the news was. And that is not true at all like we said we live here we we breathe here we're looking to rent here we're looking to buy here we have kids going to school here, and we set ourselves set ourselves apart. Community journalism is making sure that we are in service of everyday people. So not in service of ourselves and what we're curious about not in service of politicians and what they're talking about but in service of, you know, the mom who stays at home down the street and the guy who runs the tire shop, and the small business owner and all of those people and what is actually happening in their lives and then providing context to that, because what we do have that maybe the everyday person is a fuller understanding of what is happening and why. But I think that's the only thing that sets us apart we ask a lot of questions we're very nosy, and that's that's about it. So it's just helping out your neighbors. Muddy so let me come back to you for for just kind of a follow up on that. Can you give an example of how the needs of your audience shape the way you reported or what you were reporting on. So I used to work for a newspaper and then I worked for a TV station and when we were assuming a lot of what the people needed, besides the ratings and sometimes they did surveys to know what people were actually looking for in news in Spanish. We weren't really paying attention. So what I did when I created that WhatsApp group is I like erase everything that I knew from before and as I asked and it's like, what do you need is like, do you care about this and it's like, no, I don't care about that I really actually need to get my driver's license knew I need an immigration attorney but I also want to know more about essential oils and probably the we talk about grief and COVID and vaccines and politics and kids and, and the vaccines and periods and everything. So what I did actually was listening and asking and sometimes there's like things that I wanted it to provide for them but they don't care about those things. And I needed to reprogram myself to listen and actually tailor the content from there. When I founded connect Arizona at the beginning, it is was just to to combat misinformation through the same channels that it was getting spread. What's up, I'm the WhatsApp queen is like, I have groups for family friends bachelorette parties, high school meetings, everything. And I was getting the same misinformation through those channels. And I was like, those are the things that we use those are the platforms that we're using and those are the platforms with misinformation is getting spread in my community because there was a lack of information in Spanish in Arizona, we're believing that everything that everybody was sharing was true. So I use the same channels at the beginning it was just my friends and my mom and they were obligated to be in the group to start. And then we start growing organically and now we have the WhatsApp group we have distribution lists we have a radio show we have a newsletter, we had a podcast coming up. We're like innovating telegram as well, because we really think that we need to meet people where they are. And they are so tired of being taken for granted from traditional media that they're looking for new ways to consume the news. And what I'm doing right now is asking, asking and just being silent and listening and listening. And that's really hard when you're a reporter because you're so used to be talking and asking questions. And sometimes you don't need to sit back and being available and listen. Maria, do you have any examples that you can share. Sure, so a recent example that's a little smaller scale than everything but it's a just talked about building at Arizona Center for investigative reporting. Obviously as the school year was starting. There was a lot of concern among parents, or just controversy in general about what was this new school you're going to look like in terms of COVID precautions, or lack thereof. And immediately, you know, upon kids returning to the classroom, there were outbreaks throughout the state. And it seemed that at least what we were seeing our reporters were seeing online and on Facebook and Twitter, where parents did not know what was going on in terms of outbreaks, they were maybe getting exposure notices at home but there was nobody tracking overall, you know, what was happening where and what the risk was to their kids so we essentially said, Okay, well, you know, in lieu of the state putting this out or counties putting this out since only, I believe Pima County is the only one that does buy school outbreak and exposure. So we can collect this. It won't be a perfect system, but it'll be a lot better than what parents have right now, which is nothing. And so we said, you know, please help us help you send us your outbreak advisories your exposure notices. Tell us, you know, is there a mask mandate in place at your school or not is remote learning an option. Tell us what's going on and we'll compile that so we have a running database with outbreak information. There are some gaps here and there. Not every person who submits can answer every single question, but we've had, you know, a couple hundred entries at this point and parents can go through there and see, okay, you know, on the first second third or sixth, you know, we had new cases reported in fifth grade, maybe I should keep my kid home or just be able to have some semblance of a starting point of information to help them make their decisions about school based outbreaks so that's what we're continuing. We're of course reaching out to agencies and pressing them for the quote, quote, official information but in the interim parents needed that now. And so we work to provide what we could. I think we've done a lot of things and I realize I have innovation in my title but a lot of the things I think that are way more useful and helpful to people are much more low tech so we have a text line that we do with subtext where people can get coronavirus news. And they text us regularly and we text them regularly and it's me that runs it and I just, you know, sort of encapsulate the reporting some of it is subscriber only reporting some of it is not and just give people what they're asking for and answer, answer questions. This spun out of at the very beginning of the pandemic. We set up just, you know, a lot of places do this like a form of just like what do you want to know, and all the questions were so incredibly basic in a way of just like, where do I get a test. What do I do. Can I go play pickleball. Is it okay to play golf. Can I see my grandma, like all of these things that are just, there's a influx of information there's too much stuff. All that they're looking for is a lot of people are looking for is one person to talk to or to feel like they're talking to another human being and get help. I really like to think of that there is this woman who said her water was getting turned off. And we were horrified by it and she was like I had kids I don't know what I'm going to do and she's kept texting and kept texting. I asked Ryan Randazo our utilities reporter. And he was like that's not right. And he called the water board and then they figured out that it was actually her neighbors had were doing landscaping and they had accidentally turned off her water. And that's one human being like that's not going to get us a thousand subscriptions by any means, nor does it matter that she could go to sleep that night. And I think that that sort of interaction is the sort of interaction that we should be hoping for on a regular basis. I think those are all good observations. I think in my experience, seeing how surprised people are when you call them back, if they call with a comment or email sort of indicates how they perceive, you know, who you are and what you do and that, you know, maybe they perceive that you don't consider yourself to be a part of the community. So anyway, thanks for those. Amy, I'm wondering if you can give a bit of kind of a sense of the local news ecosystem how it's changed as Phoenix has grown. And whether you think those changes have have kept up with the shifting demographics of the area. Well, it's definitely shrunk as the city's grown but I don't know that that's anything that is in any way unique to Phoenix. I think that it's, you know, we've watched it play out over the over the last many maybe 15 years. A lot of news organizations have closed, I believe in 1980 there were 20 daily papers across the state and I wrote about this topic in 2019 and at that point there were only 12, and I'm kind of afraid to go back and count after the pandemic. I think that one of the challenges that we have uniquely in Phoenix is that we have been a little bit slow to support alternative forms of journalism, like nonprofit news organizations that's something that all the time I run into people who don't. They don't know anything about it when I say I'm calling from the Arizona Center for investigative reporting. They, they don't know what that is. Last year when I was working with ProPublica a lot of I was really surprised that a lot of people didn't understand the structure and how ProPublica works and, and why the media has made that shift in terms of demographics. I'm really not sure I have to say that while I think we're catching up a little bit. And I've certainly spent a lot of years in very homogenous newsrooms. We clearly still have a long way to go. Maritza, you have any insight into that as far as like Spanish speaking media. Of course, there are more Hispanic there are more Spanish speaking there is more people crossing the border and there are less and less and less media outlet, you can count them by your with your hand. There's the Sprint Sarisona in Phoenix is the only, well, in La Vos, they're the only two publications in Spanish and there's La Estrella, Tucson, and then you have El Sol de Yuma and I think that's pretty much it. And then everything else is about the TV networks are huge. And they're not doing these hyper local journalists that actually reflects their communities that they're living in. So, and then we don't have the, we need to adjust to the new reality is people is glued to their phones. So they're not sitting in the couch anymore trying to watch the software and then take the newscast and then watch the following newscast and then the national news. No, so we are mobile, and this is the reality that we're living the kids are born with an iPad in their hands is like they're like moving everything they're watching everything. So I think, because there is a lack of resources for Spanish speaking, like experiments like mine, or news outlets like the, like Prince Sarisona or La, or La Estrella, Tucson, but they don't have the time of the resources to invest in like doing research of where this is going. Where should I put my limited resources to work in? Where should I be spending my time, my money and my people and the thing is like for example, one of the things that I want to do with Conecta later on is to have these news hub of Spanish speaking freelance journalists to give them the opportunity to work in long term investigations in depth in this investigations, something that they cannot do right now because they need to work three packages for the day, five stories for the newspaper, then do the tick tock upload the web page and do do it everything because you're the only one who speaks Spanish in the newsroom. And that happens the same if you're working for an English speaking radio station or TV station because you are the only Mexican or you are the only Latino or you are the only one who speaks Spanish. Can you go and do that interview for us and then translate it to English and please be cultural sensitive. We are not a public load of work in those people and we are not a society as community as organization as like the United States, putting enough resources in those shoulders, we're putting like a big load, but we're not helping anybody to leave them. And I think Spanish speaking media outlets experiments projects organizations are suffering. And if we lose them, we're going to lose something huge. Because remember, one of every team persons that live in Arizona is Hispanic, and most of them speak Spanish. Thank you. Let me address this question to Maria and Kim. How do journalists approach build sources, get the trust of, of some of these communities, whether it's a Spanish speaking community or others that have maybe not been covered as much maybe not been covered fairly, or been shown in maybe an unflattering life in the past. What is, you know, what is the path forward in working in that area. I think I can make a few suggestions there. I would start and I realized as I'm saying this just like my dates appointed out, everybody is working with fewer resources strapped for time. But if sources from those communities ask you to attend something, if they reach out to you with an idea, don't ignore it. Say yes when you can I realize it can sometimes be hard to justify spending time on something that won't directly lead to a story right then. But I think spending time with somebody without expecting something in return can really help that person trust you. And also, if you have to say no, that's okay that happens but answer them directly and explain why, if there's somebody else you can refer them to take the time to do that, maybe provide tips or, you know, direction if there's an alternate forum that they could contribute something to I had many times where, you know, people reached out to me with tips and it was more, you know, they what they wanted really was like more to, you know, submit a column or something like that so providing that direction. They will remember, you know, Michael to your point about people are surprised to hear an answer back. I think that really helps just to show that basic respect and guidance when it's relevant. Once you're out in the community and you started building relationships, I think it's really important to ask members of those communities, who else should I be talking to. Who do you look to, you know, for sort of the pulse of what's going on or who is somebody you trust, who's really involved and sort of let them guide you instead of again just sort of parachuting down and thinking that you know best. I also think it's really important to and I don't want to, you know, beat this point to death because we talked about listening quite a bit early on, but letting the community and the comments that you're getting shaped the story instead of pigeon holding them and sort of making those sources fit a narrative that you've got up with or a story idea that you've already had may turn out that that's a story but if it's not you need to go with that I think that's another part of trust building. And finally, I know we might be talking a little later about solutions journalism but something we hear from all communities is, you know, why do you just report that bad news it's only crises and everything else. That's part of our job. But I do think that there is a role for positive stories in the sense of when something is working also writing about that, and showing you know when there's example of something that that is, you know, producing a positive impact. And also, sorry, I know I said that's my last point one more is making sure that you're representing members of these communities just in your quote quote regular stories, you shouldn't only be seeking out, you know, let the enough professor or something when you're doing the story on Hispanic voters, you know, these members of our communities are teachers they're real estate agents their doctors make sure that you're tapping those sources, just for any other type of story that you would do. Maria said all the things but I have thoughts on this topic. It's okay. It's okay there's there's a few that you missed. The elephant in the room would be like, is room should should match the community. I just like that's, that's the hardest yet the easiest thing. It's the easiest thing to say it's very difficult to do, especially in a local new setting, especially in a small classroom. It's, it's hard. And I don't discount anybody from for trying, as long as they're trying to match you know we have a commitment to connect to match our community by 2025 have we made a lot of progress in the past year. Some, but not enough. And I think everybody in the, you know, all of our leadership would admit that like we're doing our best to hire in difficult circumstances. And pending that is like, you know, you can only hire for as many positions as you have or for whomever leaves the organization for whatever reason, but outside of that, I've written pretty extensively about using empathy to report and I think it's really as like sort of an addendum to listening to not only listen but to try to understand another person's point of view. And many journalists when I started talking to them about empathy, confused it with sympathy like oh no no no I don't want to feel bad for them or I'm not I'm not on their side of empathy is just understanding their motivations and why they did a thing. So it's not saying like oh that murder was definitely justified but it would say like what drove that person to what factors, what power structures drove that person to commit that murder and like what happened there not to have sympathy for them to understand the world around you a little bit more and I think anybody can do that like that's not something that is exclusive to communities of color. You know I know some really great cis white men who are very good at that. And but it takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of admitting that you don't know things, which is hard for journalists to do since we're a bunch of individuals. And it also takes like, admitting your own seeing your own privilege for what it is and then admitting that to the source you're talking to it. I grew up in a, you know middle class Midwestern household but I had no idea what it would be like to be a young immigrant crossing the border today and trying to make it in job I don't know and I'm not going to pretend to know just because I don't want to be a grownish. So, but I am going to want to understand I understand what it's like to feel other. And so finding those areas of connection and then expanding on them is helps with empathy because then people see you for a human, which is what we really are contrary to some people's belief but we are really human and we have, we have feelings and then lastly I think transparency is incredibly important. So we did our crime standards and it was a small big deal in that I was like, you know, we'll do this this should have been done a long time ago and the response we've got was huge. And they were honestly pretty small steps, but but felt very large to the community. And when I was explaining this to folks who disagreed with, you know, us not running mug shots or not following up on, not following up on other crimes. I was trying to explain that we can't continue to portray communities of color and other communities that have been marginalized, only when they're trying, or have committed a crime, especially photos matter like what's like I'm a text person and you'll see the front page, or the homepage or whatever it is, as a symbol of the community so if you're only displaying happy white faces, and sad brown faces, brown and black faces, then you're, you're perpetuating stereotypes. And understanding that understanding that giving transparency giving transparency into why you're covering something and why you're not covering something why you've changed. Most people don't understand the mechanisms of journalism if they don't know what we do, besides like ask questions and whatever else they saw on the newsroom or on TV. And understanding that process a little bit more helps people understand and have a little bit more of a relationship with us. I just really quickly wanted to piggyback off something there. Your first point about having a representative newsroom, I'll be honest I didn't touch on that because I thought that would be a tool for a question that we can have a conversation about or I think that's a really important point, and it is something that we we being the media as a whole really struggled with for years and years. And I think it's not enough to just say that you should have, you know, a newsroom that reflects the community in numbers because, you know, maybe you're 10% Latino in your staff, but that's all entry level, and there's nobody with that perspective at the top or that's all producers, or, you know, it may be concentrated in one part of the newsroom I see a lot of. This is not bad in terms of diversifying working really hard to diversify who they're hiring in terms of entry level and sort of early career, but then those people look around and don't see a place for themselves in 10 or 15 years in terms of you know the more senior reporters or the editors or management or whatever the case may be so I think that's that's a huge part of it. And I also think, you know, it's a double edged sword though because I think journalists need to remember not to, you know, make, make members of diverse communities like the spokesperson for that entire community right they shouldn't have to do that work so but is still their perspective is important but I think it's still very important to provide a forum for the community to come in and tell you, you know, what you're doing well what you're doing wrong, what you're missing. Yeah, the numbers can be tokenism, sometimes you know I will fully admit in some some newsroom survey once there was like 7% of the newsroom is Asian management and I was like that's me. That's literally that 7% is me because there's 10 managers and there's just me unless somebody is like a secret agent that I didn't know about. That is it. So if you know, I think I think we all in this group know like numbers can be configured to say whatever you want so I think it's really about actions. And it's really important in a newsroom because as a society, let alone as a journalism community where we're really still I think in the baby step phase of truly understanding integration and celebration of diversity. You can't forget the the white, I'll just use them as an example, no offense Michael, but you can forget the white men, they need to be part of a diverse newsroom where where everyone can learn from each other. That's, that's the beauty of it so that we don't just give up on a certain percentage of the newsroom and say well you're never going to get it so we're not even going to bother with you. Everybody should be. Everybody should have buy in on this and everybody should be trying, which is not to say that we shouldn't push for more diverse hires but but everybody needs to be part of that. Before we leave this topic, Amy, I'd like you to, I mean, when we talk about marginalized communities, not being covered. I mean when you did that work about people with developmental disabilities and that's as marginalized the communities you can imagine, you know, and I'm just wondering your approach there how you thought about it, and how you insured that it wasn't condescending to a community that maybe in some respects, because of their disabilities can't advocate for themselves like, you know, other communities could, you can just touch on that briefly. It's definitely made me think about diversity in a different way because you can't really have nothing about us without us. Sometimes in the community of people with an election and developmental disabilities, I mean there's such a broad range that sometimes I think we forget that a lot of people with IDD can actually speak for themselves and they are consumers of the news or people that we try to be. So we translated the project into plain language, so that it was more available to the community we were covering. Now we also learned after the fact that we got lots of high fives from the journalism community, but we're not sure anyone with an intellectual disability actually read the project, at least not in the numbers we wanted. So we continued work with the National Center on Disability and Journalism which is based at ASU at the Cronkite School to do a full on research project where we do focus groups and figure out what the community of people with IDD are interested in reading about how they, how they access the news and what kind of language works. So it was an interesting way of thinking about thinking about diversity. So, just following up on what we were just talking about, I think both Maria and Kim mentioned the need to, you know, not only just hire journalists from diverse backgrounds, but then also to retain them to have them see, you know, there's a path forward as the industry has shrunk. I mean I think for many people in the industry it's been hard to see that any of us really have a path forward. So, but when you come to like community journalism outlets, how is that going to happen and, you know, with the turnover with, you know, we live in a place where people come and go often so I'm just curious some insights or thoughts that you've had on that. I can go. I wish I could have that problem but I cannot afford it yet because I don't have a big team still to connect Arizona. So that's one of the first things we need to fund these projects that they're like having an actual impact in the communities that they're set, but there are no tools to measure the impact that we're having actually in the community, because WhatsApp doesn't have the same metrics as a web page, but we do have the stories we do have the testimonials we do have the people who's following participating and trusting us. Another thing I think the newsrooms don't get is the community journalism takes time. For example, for me, my biggest job every day is being available. That's the thing I have a list of things that I have to get done by the end of the day. And sometimes because I'm answering the phone as you said it's like Maritza it is actually you yes of course I'm the one holding the phone I'm the one replying to your messages. I am the one who's in charge of, of like keeping this trust because if you send me a text message and I never reply you're not going to text me ever again. Because if you call me and I don't answer you're never going to call me and probably you're going to look for that information somewhere else. So it takes time, and it takes the volunteer to have difficult conversations with community, even though sometimes we don't want to get into those conversations because we're tired because we're human because we don't know what to say, because we know that everything that we said is on the record. And because we need to become moderators sometimes of the community that we're serving. So I think that is really important for newsrooms to understand. I get from phone calls or meanings with like traditional media outlets asking me, Maritza, we're thinking on starting a WhatsApp group, what should I do is like, well buy a phone and hire some invest in people, because one person needs to be working in WhatsApp, all day long this is a full time job is like, does the first thing that you need to do invest in people this is not technology. Is somebody who's going to answer the questions who's going to provide information who's going to debug misinformation that is online. So, I think invest in people in your newsrooms who represent the community that you are part of where you live, what you serve, that is the most important thing that newsrooms need to say, and stop thinking about impact. Just don't click or how many journalists read your story. It's about how many people are actually affected by this. What are you are you making a change. Are you giving echo to those stories that are really important and nobody knew, and I stopped talking to Hispanic that's a plus. Like, if they are the pobrecitos like the preach who's always praying the choir and regaining a los que van amiza por los que no and that's, I don't know how to translate that isn't in my mind, like, stop assuming what the community needs and ask, ask. So, one final question before we go to some of the audiences question is, I'm just wondering if there's a story that that you've worked on that you'd like to share that you feel was, you know, kind of had the most impact locally. You know, where you kind of had this that sort of breakthrough and understanding community and feeling like it was getting covered in the right way. Here. I was going to ask that I don't want to go rogue but I mean something that I wanted to mention something that's not actually a story. Obviously, you know, there are many examples with this group that has had, you know, have had a direct impact but when I was at the diversity committee there started the diversity dialogue panel series the speaker series that brought in and we were doing it quarterly I think you know we would pick a specific group, whether that was you know Rachel ethnic whether that was developmental diversity is whether that was the transgender community and have, you know, of course you can't have every every perspective represented but as diverse as possible within that community come in and sort of critique what we've been doing, talk about terminology about what we have been paying or what we should be paying attention to going forward. And that's something where I saw a really direct and tangible impact in terms of what people said, and how the newsroom responded in terms of changing how you know like can mentioned, handling some visuals, or terminology, that sort of thing. I think that that was huge in terms of tangible impact. Thank you so let's take a look at a few questions that were sent in by the audience and I'm paraphrasing this one a bit here but with the decline in community news governmental agencies. You know they're producing news like programming I think we're probably familiar with. I've seen some of that. I'm just wondering how you ensure that your audience maybe Kim you're probably the best one, maybe to leave this off. How do you ensure the audience appreciates that you're, you know, in that your reporting is checking facts, you're pressing for accountability. You know, and if that's part of the work that you do. I'll say you did. It's a very simple answer. But I think, I think a lot of times we, I've been long fascinated by the fact that like I don't know a single reporter who doesn't have like a notebook full for every single story, but you include, you know, a few hundred words of that information, but you have a brain full of information about all sorts of stuff, you know, like medical marijuana like the child care system and you we don't necessarily recite that in every single story. So one I think is it is actually this is also like a management thing that I say would be repetitive. So, it's a little weird but usually a lot of times we're talking about a story like oh we copy that. We cover that like oh like four years ago I'm like, I didn't live here four years ago most people didn't probably didn't see it four years ago it's a completely different state four years ago like let's write that story. Again, and it doesn't we don't have to like rewrite the whole thing you just pull from it again and just like reflect back like what you have already what you know. So, at the Republic we do these things that we call context lines. So, every breaking news story we decided to focus on, you know, certain things, and every breaking news story that is part of a larger trend. We have, you know, one or two sentences to paragraphs, explaining why we're reporting on that and we don't put it in a box we don't label it. You know, if we're reporting on a pedestrian fatality, we will say like, you know, but Phoenix has one of the highest rates of pedestrian fatalities in the United States. A 2019 report from there is a republic said this this and here's how many pedestrian fatalities we as an organization organization have cataloged in the past year. It's a super simple thing but it's trying to show that we have receipts for why we're doing this reporting and I think that is really part of it. If you can't do that in your story, you know, Twitter is a giant trash fire but it can be useful for explaining the background of a story. So can newsletter so can a lot of other places but I love reading stories and threads from reporters about like how they got a story or what questions they asked, or what question should they ask and I think that's really, that's a really powerful part of Twitter the the rest can go. Michael, I was just going to say that you know going back to the to the point about organizations having their own. I would call them newsrooms. I mean Arizona State University for me is the best example. And, and I'll be honest and this might not be a popular opinion but I think that we as a journalism community totally opened the door for that and let them walk on in because we don't cover Arizona State University the way that we should. And a lot of times we don't cover ASU at all. And it's absolutely one of the biggest entities in the state and one and one of the most one of the most important. And so I think that we, we need to make sure that we're that we're covering the waterfront a little bit better even with the very limited resources that we have as journalists now. We actually have a question here from the audience that we'd like to direct towards Michael. And then just a reminder to if you'd like to ask us a question, we feel free to just click that Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen and submit that to us. So Michael, one of the questions you received was how has involvement by a pro public of the grassroots level of journalism change the culture and expectations for community newspapers. Well, I think at the top I mentioned a couple of projects that pro public had partnered with local news outlets on here in Arizona. And I think in the case where we've done that, I think it has changed. You can take a, you know, in the case of the Republic or the Tucson star, you know, those are bigger newsrooms but if you take a smaller newsroom I worked on a project earlier this year with New Mexico in depth. It's a very small newsroom. And we were able to bring the resources pro public to bear on an investigation of neonatal care and hospitals in Albuquerque. So you had, you know, data experts you had, you know, all kinds of expertise come to bear on that story that that newsroom didn't have at its disposal wouldn't be able to afford or have access to so I think in that way for local organizations that have ambitions to do, you know, accountability work and investigative work beyond their grasp. ProPublica has helped those types of places. And the good thing is, I mean, like, like I said earlier, those are investigations that are born by the community that the community members say hey this is something that needs looked at. You know, maybe we need a little help doing it but you know it's not like us, you know, looking down from high pinnacle and saying hey we should go look at that it's it's coming up from from the community level. It's such a smart way to do journalism that's focused on the community. For many, many years as a journalist I would have national reporters call and say hey, send me your notes on john McCain, or, you know, what's going on in your criminal justice system and, and there was, I mean maybe they would quote a reporter in a story but that that's, of course, not really what any of us are looking for. We're looking to do even better work so I think. ProPublica coming in and offering resources to journalists who understand the communities that they're in is really smart and I can tell you from experience that it's not just a tiny newsroom that benefits from it. Yeah, I'll say, you know, often to reporters that like I think humility is a superpower when it comes to journalists that, you know, acknowledging the things you don't know the things you don't know about the community you're going to cover. That that is going to make you a better reporter, a better, you know, have a better investigation, and so forth. So, yeah, I think the local reporting network which is what that's called is, you know, acknowledges that which I think is really great. Yeah, and I heard I saw Maria is just like shaking her head about that humility. Yes, absolutely. I think we need to remember that it is really a privilege to get to tell people stories and to do this kind of work. It's not about us. It's about them. I learn every day what I don't know. Yeah, exactly and the opportunity to get to do better journalism with help from outside what is is great, I think. Another question we have here. I know our speakers touched on this concept of solutions journalism earlier and just for some context. So for those who might have heard this term for the first time solutions journalism is an approach to news reporting that focuses on the responses to social issues as well as the problems themselves so solution stories are ink or angered incredible evidence, explain the how and why responses are working or not working. So I wanted to ask you all what is the value of solutions journalism and what steps to use rooms take to track accountability or change and a bit of this was mentioned earlier in, you know, the follow up right reporting on issues but then also reporting on the progress and I believe, you know, Maria and I think we'll have something to say about that buttons are hard solutions journalism I think is a wonderful framework for also for getting people away from the other news is too depressing feeling, which I hear a lot from friends and family who are not journalists they're like I don't really read this paper it's all death and mayhem and coven well, we try to do some happy things. And I think a lot of people will think solutions journalism is like oh we got to go find a solution that exists somewhere else and like report it out and see it say how we can do it here that sort of that's part of solutions journalism, but in solutions journalism is really focused on like, not just here is the problem which is what journalism did a lot. Here is the problem and good luck, helping solve it but here is the problem and here are people who are proposing solutions. And here are some ideas that have been floated in this room. And then also convening folks to talk about that in some in some way and engaging with those ideas in some way is kind of the benefit of solutions journalism. It's very, it feels a lot like community organizing to me. And I know a lot of journalists might wrestle at that but I think it's really what those people do is really important and is what we should be doing we should be gathering people to talk about to talk about things that they care about and what they think might fix it. Because they might have really good ideas and it doesn't always solutions don't always have to come from experts or universities, or some think tank in DC, they can really come from like every day, every day people you know the woman who lives down the street might have a really innovative solution or interesting solution to a community problem. Yeah, I think Kim have the nail on the head and it's really about, you know, in addition to making people feel like it's not all doom and gloom that there is some hope, and making them feel sort of connected to their community seeing what other people are doing and having access that. I think it's, it's, I mean, when we as journalists are doing accountability reporting doing investigative reporting. What do we want the outcome of that to be we want the problem to be fixed, we're, you know, we're not going to step in and become activists. But if we are hoping that somebody steps in with the solution. Why are we not reporting on that part of the puzzle when it does exist I think it's really valuable to show that. And it doesn't have to be I think I think there's some misconceptions that solution journalism is like, you know, a puff piece or like PR on look how great this is, you can still do accountability reporting in your solutions What are some of the you know pitfalls. How are they going to measure, you know, success going forward, checking back in on something a couple years later and reporting on it, even if it's not that you know successful. You can can have all the things that you typically do as part of it. But I do think it's important to show what is working when things are working. Yeah, maybe as another way to manage some of this doom and gloom right they all keep mentioning. What do you think is the best way to reach local residents who really want to stay informed and be on top of the news or feel like they live in this age of just complete information overload. We are overload. We are tired to be glued to the computer. We are all tired to be on soon, but we're never tired of this calling our phone. So that's the answer. That's something that we usually do if you go to the restroom you take your, your, your phone we shouldn't if you're sitting and waiting in the doctor's office you're with your phone if, if somebody else is arriving or if you're like taking the train on your phone. So I think that is really important for us to actually invest in research in asking people to meet them what they are. And I know, for example, the Latinos are glued to their phones because that does that's a study that the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce does. And even though people sometimes they don't have money to buy any other things they do have a very good self or in a very good provider. And most of them said that they like to get news that are easy to digest through their phones. So, and I think simplicity that's something that we need to learn as well as journalists. We like to say everything that it like it was a big deal and sometimes using the first words that comes to your mind, the words that your mom taught you. Those actually can create the empathy that you need with the consumer with your community for them to understand the message that you want to say is like talking to your kids sometimes for example in Spanish that we have so many people from so many places in the world. It's not the same Spanish in Cuba than in Mexico or Colombia. So we need to use very basic language when we're delivering the news, and we should do the same in every single language in every single level. Yeah, and I think you know Kim you also have some thoughts about what healthy news consumption might even look like for these folks. Maybe we should stop writing 10,000 word investigations that take five hours to read. You know, I'm pretty well known in the newsroom and my team for like cutting everybody's stories and have no one's going to get through this. I'm paid to get through this and I'm barely getting through this. And so I think we have to find, you know, if you do have a bang up giant investigative story, you have to find ways to like disperse it in ways that are like manageable. So if you don't go home, sit in their easy chair and then read the newspaper front to back and more rates of right like they look at this thing, and this thing is full of Tik Tok, and Twitter, and WhatsApp and things that are not long. They're not long we have to learn how to be shorter and quicker and catch people's attention without being kitschy, or a little too click baby and I think there are really interesting ways that people are doing that. And a really fascinating way. I think there's a lot of people doing stuff with text. That's really fascinating. I'm 100% into the folks who are doing like old school like zines and print products that are dispersed to rural places where they might not have good cell phone reception like we forget often that there are 22 tribes in Arizona and most of those tribes, if you live on the reservation you don't get great cell phone coverage, you don't get great internet, like I'm sorry you probably cannot load azcentral.com on your computer. So how do we how do we get to them you have to find better, better ways and then we also have to find ways to be where people are and then provide ways that are digestible so newsletters are a good option. And I think that's putting in God knows how much money into journalism and, you know, things that are like kind of digestible so I think that's one way of looking at it but we have to really start trying to not rely on traditional traditional modes of communication. I think we still need those long pieces, because there are investigations that are really important for us to know what's going on. But we need to find a more creative way to present it. For example, we can work in a series of articles we can do a multimedia project we can use social media we can even use tiktok for those things. For being creative, we need to have our space to think about things, and we are so overload and we don't give the reporter or the editor the time to actually not just think about the piece that he's working on. Or how he's going to deliver it to the community. So I think that that is really important. We shouldn't be just like saying we're not going to be doing no more long form journalism because it is important and it is needed. The thing is like we need to adapt to the new need of the society who is consuming news quick, but we can find a creative way to do it, but to do so we need to give the reporter, the producer, the editor the time to be creative we are so tired that we stop being creative. Really, really fast. I know we're running out of time but I don't think it has to be an either or in terms of, you know, some of these quicker ways to get an information. There are plenty of times that I have done, you know, especially during the pandemic, like the longer story about what was going on and then another version that was set up as a Q&A. And people will, you know, a lot of people pick one or the other but some people will do both. I know me as a news consumer I may look at the FAQ in the middle of the day and then, you know, later on when I have the time actually read the full story or whatever the case may be. So I do think there's a place for both, but that we need to be responsive in terms of figuring out what some of those methods are. And we do have the ability to present information in a lot of different ways given how people like to consume it. So somebody mentioned podcasts earlier. I see a lot of people doing great things with graphics on places like Instagram. There are a lot of good ways to meet people where they are without sacrificing, you know, the quality of what we're doing which I know is what everybody here supports. Well, in the spirit of keeping journalism digestible, I'm going to cut us here. It only take an hour of everyone's time. I want to thank our panelists, Maria Pallada, Pekin Buoy, Maritza Felix and Amy Silverman for this excellent conversation. And of course our moderator, Michael Spires, I'd like to give a special thank you also to McKinsey and Company for its support and thank you to our audience for joining us today and for all of your thoughtful questions. We've received so many incredible questions. Again, this event has been recorded so you'll receive an email tomorrow with a full video of today's event and everyone who registered. We will also post this recording on our YouTube channel. And from all of us at Republica, thank you so much for joining us. Have a great rest of your afternoon. We will see you all next time.