 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's session the view from here Minnesota media after the national spotlight My name is Rocío Ortega. I am the events associate at ProPublica and I'll be your host today We'll get started in just a few moments. We're just waiting for a few more people to sign on Thank you so much for your patience closed captioning of the program is available today and can be enabled by clicking on the closed caption option on the bar towards the bottom of your screen. Today ProPublica journalist Jessica Luzonhop will moderate a Moderate a conversation with the group of dynamic media leaders in Minnesota about representation, resources and what it means to create trusted and meaningful media. And it looks like we have enough folks on now. So let's go ahead and get started. If you're just joining. My name is Rocío Ortega and I'm ProPublica's events associate. Welcome to today's session the view from here, Minnesota media after the national spotlight. Thank you to McKinsey and Company for their support of today's event. The event is being held in partnership with Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication Close captioning of the program is available and can be enabled by clicking on the closed caption option on the bar towards the bottom of your screen. For those new to us ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism. Today we'll be speaking with dynamic media leaders in Minnesota about how local outlets continue to innovate with an eye on providing news that empowers a local community and champions underrepresented voices. I'd now like to invite our panelists to go ahead and join us on screen. You can go ahead and turn on your cameras. Thank you so much for being here today. Just for some quick introductions. Harry Colbert Jr. is an award winning journalist and columnist. He is a managing editor of MenPost. Suki Dardarian is the incoming editor and senior vice president of Star Tribune, having served as senior managing editor and vice president for the last eight years. Their publication was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news last year for the coverage of the killing of George Floyd and the aftermath. Sarah Glover is a managing editor of Minnesota Public Radio and leads a team of more than 40 reporters, photojournalists and editors. She is responsible for editorial decisions and planning across NPR news platforms. Mukhtar Ibrahim is the founder of Saham Journal, a nonprofit news organization that covers Minnesota's immigrants and communities of color. He previously worked as a reporter for the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio News. Tracy Williams-Dillard is the CEO and publisher of the Minnesota Spokesman Reporter, the oldest Black-owned newspaper in the state of Minnesota and one of the longest standing family-owned newspapers in the country. Our moderator today is pro-publica journalist Jessica Listenhoff. Jessica is a part of our Midwest newsroom and is covering issues in Minnesota. As an additional note, the session is being recorded and a link to the video will be emailed to everyone who registered. Thank you all so much again for being here today and I hope you enjoy the session in this conversation. I'll go ahead and let Jessica take it from here. Jessica Listenhoff-Hey everyone, my name is Jessica Listenhoff. Like Rosya said, I am a reporter for pro-publica. My new beach is covering the state of Minnesota and I'm super thrilled to have all of our panelists here and everyone watching live and on the recording. So thank you guys all for being here. I am going to just jump right in if that's all right. Kind of want to throw out something to the whole panel seat, you know, if a couple different people want to wait in here. I had a chance to chat with some of the panelists ahead of time and I thought one of the interesting things that multiple people brought up, sort of one of the more interesting things happening in our media ecosystem here is partnerships. The idea of doing more partnerships, whether that's partnerships with one another here locally, partnerships that came out of, you know, having so much national and even international outlets in town over the last several years. When it makes sense to do those partnerships, when it works, when it doesn't, and I kind of want to throw that out to the group. I might ask Harry if you don't mind if you want to kind of take it first and see where it goes from there. Thank you and thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this dynamic panel it really is an honor. Well, when everything happened with the killing of George Floyd and then later the killing of Dante right I wasn't that been post I was at a smaller outlet North News which is demographically focused in North Minneapolis killing of George Floyd didn't even happen in North Minneapolis it happened in South Minneapolis, but we recognize immediately the vibration that it was going to have across our city and region. I don't necessarily know that we recognize what it was going to have nationally and internationally but we knew at that time we had to be a part of this. And when it came to the coverage. And it's funny because I was talking to someone just a couple of days ago and we were talking about what was happening in aftermath of the killing with buildings being burned looted and things of that nature in North Minneapolis. This person who wasn't from Minneapolis was saying, Well, we never heard that we didn't get that on the national we thought it was going to hide to just a couple of blocks and I'm like no the for really the entire city was on fire. When we look back at things, but what I remember about that is as local journalists, a lot of times we felt like somehow we were outsiders in our old city. The national media came in, and it's not to discredit what they do because they have a very specific tasks but the national media came in. And we called it drive by journalism where they came in they reported on the story they descended on the town for a minute and then they were gone and we were we as local media will have to kind of completely story but and also deal with the fact that this is our home. So, outside of being our business, we had to deal with this as real life human beings. And so, one of the things that I would have liked a lot more would have been national organizations reaching out coming in partnering with some of the local media that had understanding of why George Floyd was George Floyd, and that's saying, we had pre incidents we had Philando Castile, we had to mark Clark we had so many other things that led up to the aftermath of the killing the murder of George Floyd that national media I don't necessarily was able to digest and they would have been able to digest it better had they been talking their partner local media. Yeah, and can I actually I might kick it to soupy from there because she mentioned sort of. I think I think yeah that is a struggle for local journalists when we feel like we're, you know, there's just parachuting journalists. And, and we don't really feel like our expertise is respected or perspective is respected, but soupy told me a pretty interesting story about how national but also local outlets were able to come together particularly around the trial of Derek Chauvin soupy do you mind telling that story about how there was sort of a productive brigade created I think you call that yeah I do I do think Harry's point is well taken and, and I think I think there was a kind of a moment for us where, you know, we were living the story and covering the story, and yet there was all this national coverage, and we were all trying to get our heads around what our audience needed, and also to help the people in our newsrooms in our community and so I think we saw journalists on the street helping each other giving each other rides, covering protests together. It, it did feel like it was a moment of change for a lot of reasons. But as as things progressed, and there you know it was a criminal process against Derek Chauvin. And that became a huge concern for everybody how are we going to cover that. How can we own that for our audience when there's so much national focus and we had a trial in a previous police shooting. And just since cove it broke out where the judge was extremely restrictive around evidence around access to the courtroom around juror information made very negative statements about the media and our free and interest in the case, and it was, it was a frightening, huge trial to cover, and we battled hard to get access. So when, when we saw this case coming into the same court. We were lucky to have a new chief judge who was very committed to transparency in the, in the case, and who partnered who reached out and we reached out to the court and started a series of conversations with local media. And then we added in national media to talk about how we could cover this how how the public could have access to this trial. You know, and we did have to file a few motions to support to kill gag orders and get evidence and and that sort of thing but in the end. We all partnered in covering that we had a pool process. Everybody on this call was was part of that. And we all joined in the legal efforts. And file, you know, it was a joint motion. And it was a it was, it was a, I think a defining moment for us to come together and lead the way. And, you know, as we all know, was kind of the trial of the century and, you know, for Minnesota, which has super restrictive access to photos in the courtroom to have a live stream trial globally live streamed was was incredible and you know I credit the media here coming together and showing United force for open government. Yeah, I'm pretty fascinated by the idea of it's a that being a partnership not just in terms of coverage for the you know partnership. Legally, sort of the media legally sort of presenting kind of the United Front for access I just think that's really interesting. You know, obviously this past couple of years have been, you know, have changed a lot of things here locally in all of our newsrooms I was wondering if I could ask Tracy a little bit about how the last few years have been for your newsroom for your reporters, I mean, we're not only talking about the murder of George Floyd and aftermath of all the trials and everything like that by COVID which I know the spokesperson reporter lost malreads recently, and he was such a big part of that newsroom but at the same time I also know that, you know, this kind of this time period also probably I would guess introduced a whole new generation to the spokesman reporter and to the work of your journalists how, at this point looking forward, what is the future of the Minnesota spokesman reporter look for you. Oh, Tracy I think you're muted. Unmute myself okay there we go. I just want to first you know, say hello and thank you for inviting me on this show this evening and to thank you for all my esteemed panelists and joining that makes exciting to be on the panel with everyone. Unfortunately, we're six blocks away from the whole George Floyd incident so we were right here in the midst of it, you know not just Minnesota be in the epicenter but the paper in itself being right here. So it was definitely a different time still is it still very much is in terms of the George Floyd corner and some of the activities that are still taking place in the neighborhood itself. Certainly, you know when when male first came on we're excited to have him back because he had been with us for a period of time and then he left for quite a period of time. Just happened to come back right at the time when so much is going on with police brutality. You know, even long before George Floyd it George Floyd took the national stage the world stage, but certainly a lot of cases that male wrote about long before that. And then losing male to pandemic and it was just strange how that even happened because one day, I'm sending him his favorite soup and the next day I get the call so it was it was different. I lost my husband to the same cause unfortunately almost a year from losing male so it's another repeat to to the paper in itself and then trying to continue the coverage of the pandemic as we've been writing several stories about that trying to continue to inform and engage our community on safety protocols they need to take in order to to save themselves and to save their loved ones by doing the things that it takes to be safe. So, what our newsroom looks like moving forward is, we've actually male one of the things that we have a lot of the remnants from male, because while he was out doing the work he was doing. He ran into a lot of young journalists, not all African Americans that definitely understand the struggle, and are definitely interested in being a part of the stories that we have to tell. The stories aren't stories that we want to tell. I would like to not tell a lot of them that we have to tell. But if we don't tell them, they won't get told, or they won't get told correctly, or they won't get told in the voices that need to be the way they need to be told, because you can tell one story one way. That same story another and I give you an example of one of one of my colleagues that was what a radio station years ago. And we had lunch one day and he's like you know Tracy I get your paper and then I get a daily, and he goes and the stories are same story talking about the same incident. It's completely different when I read them, I get that I get the inside view of it from an African American perspective, which is completely a different view than I get from the mainstream perspective. So with our news room, we have to continue to write the news that's impacting our communities in a way that they understand how it affects them every day. And not necessarily what they're going to read or see other places. And, and so for us to a number one I always say that we got all of our social media channels we got all these different outlets now people can get their news. So one thing that is true to what it started years ago with the internet and how it is yet maintaining today. When people are looking for news from an African American perspective, not water down by the powers that be, because when I have writers and editors, they are mostly African American themselves and they get that perspective. And the voice stays the same so our motto is, as it was spoken, let us record. So if you submit a story as a writer once you've been assigned we don't change the voices unless they don't sound like the voice of our community. That's really powerful. Thanks for that. And, and I guess I would actually then turn to look at who runs one of the younger newsrooms here in our, again, our little Minnesota ecosystem here but even you were, we were talking a little bit about how your vision for Sahan Journal has, you know, continue to evolve particularly in the last couple of years and I'm curious. Yeah, can you just talk a little bit about sort of where you see the mission expanding and evolving from where you started. Thank you for having me. We launched Sahan Journal in the summer of 2019, just a few months before the world changed and the pandemic arrived, and a couple of months before George Floyd was killed. You know, it was just me when I launched Sahan Journal with no reporters or editors or anything. And the idea was to cover immigrants and refugee communities. That's something that was close to my heart when I was beginning this project. And that's something I knew very well. So I did that in the first couple of months being reporting on my own freelancing and also using support providers. And the idea was just to prove the concept of the mission by trying to really bring the stories that have complexity, have depth and very unique and pitch that no one else was doing. And I started fundraising, talking to local foundations and supporters. And when we got enough funding, the, you know, the world changed and that really made our mission more relevant and critical. We started translating stories into multiple languages, Somali, Hmong, and Spanish, so that people who cannot get their information in English, directives from local agencies or the federal government can get more information in their native languages so that we can at least tell people how things have been rapidly changing around coronavirus and the measurements that were coming down. And then we found that was really time-consuming, translating stories and articles in multiple languages. As information was changing very fast, we were working with nine contractors and editing, you know, all those translated material and it was really time-consuming, very expensive, and we realized that was not sustainable. So we kind of made a pivot and in like 2021, for example, we made a material in a very accessible way, multimedia format. So we are talking about coronavirus, you know, the vaccine, how that has been changing, the rumors that we have been getting from the community. And, you know, we partnered with very trusted community figures in the Latino community, in the Somali community, and in the Hmong community, so that we can at least, you know, inform them about the vaccine and how they can benefit from the information that we are providing. And then, you know, back a couple of months before that, when George Floyd was killed, we were out in the streets and that was when we were just building the project, right? We have now reporters, we have some capacity to do more stories, and George Floyd was killed, and then we were out in the streets and we found this confluence of events of people, different communities, coming together, joining hands, you know, trying to seek justice, and some people even identifying themselves, not necessarily as immigrants, but, you know, as a person of color. I'm talking about, you know, people who have been here for generations. For example, the Hmong community has been here for almost 40 years, and the younger generations do not necessarily identify themselves as, you know, immigrants and refugees. And also, we tried to provide and connect with, you know, the African American community, since that is something that, you know, was very important to them. And we found that we should at least, you know, expand our mission to include more of communities of color and not just pox ourselves in like discovering immigrants and refugees, which kind of flew in and changed, right? So that really made, you know, we made a transition of trying to expand our mission to include more coverage for all PIPA communities. And we found that, you know, was very meaningful and really elevated our mission and our coverage when, you know, the trial had been, for example, we invited community members to just, you know, talk to each other and talk about what justice might look like for the community. We want to, you know, covering the daily updates about the trial. We have, at that time, we had a partnership with NPR, so we were cross posting the updates about the trial and what was going on in the court. And in addition, we tried to provide more meaningful coverage by giving the voice to the community and saying, you know, tell us your story, how do you see what's going on, how do you see, what do you see just may look like, how racism is making people sick. And trying to engage the community with the process of the editorial production of our work and not necessarily us coming and telling the stories. We asked them to tell the story from their perspective. Since this was a big issue that everyone was, you know, paying attention. And, you know, we also, you know, transcribed the conversations and we had, you know, 5,000 word story of Q&As. And people were reading those stories and spending, you know, 10, 15 minutes on those stories. And that was really incredible to see the level of interest from readers. And that's how we shifted our mission from just being covering immigrants and refugees to making the mission more relevant to all communities of color who are now making, you know, a sizable number of states population. I have to say I find it minorly mind blowing to hear that Sahan Journal's been around since 2019. I feel like it looms very large in my mind. It punches well above its weight and I'm 2019. I feel like you guys have been around forever. Sarah, if I can turn to you, I'm curious, you know, in your role at NPR, sort of, I wanted to hear a little bit about how you sort of try to be intentional and steer NPR towards covering some of those underserved communities and what your sort of community is in such a large statewide bureau. You know, do you do that in the, you know, the people you hire the coverage that you encourage like what can you talk a little bit about sort of those, those higher level decisions that you're a part of that that helps serve those communities better. Thanks Jessica for the question and also excited to be on this panel nice to see everyone virtually and thanks for people who are tuning in I'm appreciate being a part of the discussion. And I really wanted to bumper my comments with that I'm still very much a newbie I've been at NPR news since last April and would just like to shout out and give all the praise to the staff at NPR news. They've done all the heavy lifting and continue to do it it's a mighty team that's very steeped in the dedication of the mission of the organization and being a public media company. As well I think kind of has a very strong overtone in terms of how the teams approach coverage and there's the sense of responsibility and intention that goes into the news gathering every day. So, I am just honored to be a part of the team and certainly here to help shepherd but I want to just say that that we are so many talented people that are doing and have been doing the work. Across the board and we have a terrific race class and communities team. We have folks that are just, you know, rising to the occasion day after day, and really trying to find opportunities to add nuance and go deeper into particular storylines and I think right now to answer your question with specificity. One of the highlights of one of the strategies in the newsroom is a current project that we're undertaking called the North Star journey. And so I will at some point here put it in the chat and folks are welcome to Google it. But in short it's mprnews.org and then slash North Star journey. And what this is is it is a, I'm happy to talk about today, because it's something that you'll probably hear more about externally, but it's a focal point for mpr news to be as intentional as possible. And it's coverage of diverse communities around the state of Minnesota. So, interestingly, a star has five points. And this first iteration of this project will be a five month journey so it's it launched March 14 and the news leaders here. I think might appreciate what I called it to be a soft launch. And that means that you don't put all your, your kind of your focal point or your eggs in the basket of the day that it starts but that you recognize that that it is in fact a narrative process or a project that would have an arc like a story arc. So we're ramping up to this really good project and opportunity to tell a barrage of stories across the state, and we're able to parlay than our teams on different desks, you know, on different teams. And one of our teams is obviously the regional team, which we have, you know, a deputy managing editor and Lorda Benson we have our newly appointed editor of that team, which is you incur. And we have a barrage of reporters across the state, and our newest reporter is Matthew holding evil the third who's based in Bemidji. And I'm sure you know some of the stalwart names of Dan Gunderson Dan Crocker, Hannah Yang, and Catherine Richard and Kirsty Maroney, but that collective work of that that group is bringing such nuance to this effort of really telling stories that that will be ingrained kind of hopefully in the minds of folks because we were looking for those untold stories. I also wanted to say that one of the elements of just coming to this conversation as a newsletter is that we have to do more to putting action steps into this in terms of moving beyond talking about what the problems are in the industry. And I'm, I think coming into this role with that kind of purview of having worked in another part of the country and so I've perspective that I really appreciated that Harry spoke to in the beginning, the shortcomings of the national media and I certainly agree with that and now that I'm here and working here I really work really hard to make sure that I'm being respectful of not just perspective but the fact that we have to do more to amplify the really terrific journalism across the state of Minnesota and so this panel. I feel like I'm just not worthy to be on it because you guys are, you're the stars you're the persons who've been doing this work and there should be more beating of the drum and more praise of the people who've been doing who've been here and been doing this work. I wanted to finish my comment Jessica with kind of answering your first question around partnership, and that is that I kind of extend and reach out to all of the fellow panelists I hope to have a personal call with you individually about how we can partner on this North Star journey and maybe do some collective journalism, because to me I think that's really the next level of our field is really rooting our shared kind of editorial expertise and finding some, you know, glimmers of opportunities even if it's once a year twice a year that we can come together and collaborate and celebrate each other I think it's good for the audiences. And it's good for each other if there's things that we can help you with and in sahan, you know, out of all of you they have a very special place on our heart at mpr news because we help launch the horn and mctar was on staff here. And also, you know we continue to support you all today, and look forward to continued work together but I'm here today to really sing your praises and I appreciate you all whether, although I have not met you all personally. And I also want to again amplify the mpr new staff and just the tremendous work that they do and I consider it against all odds right, because I'm sure the folks on the call agree, we all need more resources we all need more people on our teams to do this very important and engaged work that we put forth to do every day. And so our staffs are really the, the, the persons that are making it happen, day over day so I just wanted to thank them for their effort and their hard work each day. I'd like to say to that. I, I'll just one, one brief observation that that the, the readers and audience media audience in Minnesota is extremely lucky. The ecosystem, the news ecosystem here is rich and diverse as you, as you can well see. It is, it is a generous community in terms of its time and it's, and it's money for the media. We are one of the, of, we are one of the highest subscription news papers in the country. This is the state that has the highest voter turnout. I think we all experienced a lot more engagement with our, with our work. In the past few years, and that's a, that's a reflection of the great commitment that this that so many people in this community have to civic life and some of us partnered on polling before the last election, and that content was just devoured. And I think, I think the people of Minnesota are very lucky. They're also very smart and every demanding and discerning and they, they, I think appreciate all of what's going on in this ecosystem so commercial over. Yeah, I think that it's, but yeah, it's really exciting to think about how we can all partner together I think probably of course wants to be part of partnerships as well. Because there was a time when of course we would just all be strictly competitors. And that doesn't, that doesn't seem to be the word the way to, you know, then we'd all just be working harder and not smarter so yeah it's exciting to hear that everybody is down for that same journey. And then I guess since Sarah, you know you mentioned that you're, you feel still new in your job I mean there's I guess a few of us here that are new in our jobs and I'm curious if you'd be willing to talk a little bit about sort of where your, you know, men post has has new leadership, and I'm curious where you're hoping we're where you're hoping to steer coverage where if there are specific areas that you want to divert and post resources to or, you know, if, you know, the way to better serve your audiences in the, you know, education arena, health care, you know, environments public safety sort of where you're sort of what sort of are the the stars that are guiding you at this point. Well, first, and I also want to echo what Suki said, because we look at this panel that we have and I moved to Minnesota in 2008. And before I moved here, there was a perception of Minnesota and that perception was a very bite more than state. So we look at this panel and we see the extreme diversity that is not only here but that is value. And so that's been something that's been really eye opening to see, and I hope the national audience will recognize the diversity that lives within our state. So we have a star, Sarah, who comes to Minnesota, not only as a great journalist but she was our past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and led that organization masterfully so we appreciate that. I'm like three months in, I'm three months into men post, and I recognize that I'm here because of my talent. Absolutely. I recognize that I'm here because I'm a diverse voice and I'm not going to sugarcoat that for a long time. There has been a perception and men post that it didn't have a diverse leadership nor readership. What we're going to do is, and it's a, and it's a balancing act, because we have a very loyal and very well read and educated readership and men post. We don't want to alienate that audience but we absolutely have to grow it. And that's just the reality of the, the matter. The demographics of Minnesota are changed. Therefore, we have to make sure that we change with those demographics. I remember years ago when I was still in college and we did a program at. We did a program in Kansas City, and we were with the Kansas City Star. And this was back in the 1990s, and what they found at the Kansas City Star was the newspaper itself had alienated the black voice so much so that people didn't get treated. And this Kansas City Star was basically saying, with the changing demographics of that city, they wouldn't survive if they are not being consumed by the changing demographic. We have to to recognize that we have a change in demographic and we want to make sure that we are offering news and views that are reflecting that demographic. So, so that's kind of the direction that we'll be looking at men post. And once again, it's, as I said earlier, it is a balancing act because we can't alienate what, as they say dance who brought you to the party so we can't alienate the audience that we have but we certainly have to grow it. Yeah, I think that the actually I'll ask, I'll ask Tracy something that about an interview I saw and kind of off of back of what Harry was just saying. I read an interview that Tracy did it a while ago talking about how sometimes when, and you talked about a little bit in your response previously like sort of when you read the coverage from, from spokesman recorder and compare it to some of the outlets that sort of reporting on what was happening in the in the African American community felt like it was reported that sort of a remove, whereas sort of your staff your editors your reporters are, I think you said you're, you're actually living it it's your life and and I guess I was curious if, you know, over the years or if even maybe just recently have you noticed that, you know, more, more writers of color or more voices of color sort of breaking through and there's less of that that gap or, I don't know, do you think things are changing. Tracy I think you're on mute again I'm sorry. Okay, so I think Harry had mentioned it just briefly a little bit ago and it you know it's also kind of what we talk about a lot here at MSR when it does come to other media's covering communities of color more specifically African communities. And it's more like a drive by journalism so it's, it's, it's, they may touch on it because it's like okay we got to make sure that we're inclusive to everyone now we're inclusive to all communities. But the problem that existed it doesn't, it doesn't, they don't drill down it's surface it's just like when they came in for the George Floyd it was news. So let's, let's all jump in and let's all get the news of the day. But what we do what I don't see a lot of is, okay now the smoke is clear what is the community talking about now. You know, how can, and that there's some a lot of just lack of trust. So a lot of times other media's can't come in and really talk to the guy on the corner that just happens to walk by my building, because they don't trust the other media's to tell their story correctly. So, so it's a part of that but it's also just not seeing that there's that much concern that I see in other media's where I don't fail to see anything negative that there's a shooting over I certainly can pretty much see that get covered. But what about some of the positive things that are going on in our community that I don't see any of that in a lot of the other media's you know, and even when I see a George Floyd or all the other people come to front. I see this to surface that I probably see on in on the national news, but from the local perspective, I don't see a big change in answer to your question in terms of what that looks like and I think until we see people that are brought in light here where they're really serious about and committed to, and not just according to the Colonel Commission where they talked about bringing no back in, in, in 1967 where they talked about bringing the need to bring more communities of color or into the newsroom, the bring more reporters but what the problem exists then and still today. A lot of the reporters only can do with the editors, send them out to do. So there's still so much of a gag there from our perspective here. So we're looking at, you know, we got the black community that we're writing about and we're writing about it from the black perspective so we're not not sugarcoating stuff we're not not writing it because we got to be careful about how we said or what we say so we just don't say it. There's a lot to the place into the coverage that may or may not happen. So, answer to your question, I don't see a lot of deep diving stories where it pertains to the African American community and the black community where it could with deeper writing less. Surface reporting less of, let's be like the national news or skip the news and this move on to something different, but how can we really keep that story alive and really tell it where it's going to make a difference. And another thing I'm really curious about is, and I'm sure any of you guys can answer this but how there's a lot of emphasis on trying to diversify the newsroom and I'm interested in, you know, what thoughts do people have about not just making those hires but retaining those reporters, what making them want to stay on to sort of help and, you know, bring on the next generation after that. You know what doesn't it can anyone speak to any strategies for retaining reporters of color making them feel welcome in the newsroom not like they're just there to sort of, you know, just be the voice of a certain community but actually integral part of the fabric of the newsroom and again want to stay one of the teams and then really continue that continue that progress. Sarah, I can jump in. You know, a lot of newsrooms like mine had their own reckoning after George Floyd was killed and we spent a lot of time in our newsroom talking and pulling people of color together. And they identified some of the challenges that they saw working here. And we've been working on solutions to that we have, like, I think, six to eight working groups in our newsroom right now and and one of the most. The most important ones are looking at recruiting and retention, and they are ringing sorry. And they are devising ways that the staff themselves can get involved in hiring and retention, and we're recruiting folks from around the newsroom to be part of some culture change in the room, reviewing our crime coverage, looking at community engagement. They're all stepping up to take responsibility for this and to partner with us on that and we've got hiring teams and career development conversations going on. And really a staff led effort. We have a new AME for diversity and community who's helping to spearhead this but it's a really staff led effort. And I've been, I've just been mulled over by what the staff has done to commit to diversifying this newsroom. And improving the industry at large, and working in communities of color in the industry. I can jump in as well I wanted to, you know, echo the staff led work, because you know when I came to MPR news a year ago, it was really inspiring to see members of the staff really kind of taking leadership role and instituting and change can just be, you know, how in the culture that exists and how we identify that things should change within culture and it can be something as simple as how someone is received into the organization right. So we have an internal diversity committee that was staff formed, and they're working on solutions and I'm sure any effort that seeks to disrupt or make change never moves fast enough. And so I'm really glad to see that group of people, but also I see it across the whole staff like everyone has an invested interest in making the newsroom a great place to be in work. In terms of like from a managerial perspective, I think one of the main things that I'm passionate about is just practicing equity every day. So yes, it's important to put a focus on the journals of color that come here or that are being recruited or applying for positions but I really want the feedback from the news team. And you know, holding me accountable holding other managers accountable and really practicing equity because if you actually practice equity in its purest form, everyone benefits, right. Because, you know, everyone has the capacity to succeed and be seen. And, you know, as it relates to particular tactics. So having whether it's a one on one virtual we've been virtual this this week we're voluntarily back to the office but a lot of the individual tactics are reaching out to people for one on one meetings small group meetings, soliciting feedback, being open to change and I think over archingly the pace at which positions are filled is kind of the pain point in our organization because nothing ever moves quickly enough. But there can and should be more efforts around the holistic experience of employees and I would venture to say, not just with folks on this panel, but across the room other news leaders that I talked to I think that is an area where news leadership really has to kind of close the gap so that we're serving our staff just as much as we're serving the public and so I tried to come, not just to individual meetings but to my conversations with staff to really ask for their feedback and be earnest about it and, and, and I want people to hold me accountable if we say we're going to do something we're going to do it. And if we're going to be intentional we're going to do that too. But the silver lining for me and the most important thing for me is that we're going to hire talented journalists. And so I don't want to create quotas, I do not want to say we need to hire a person of this background or this life experience or this generation, I want us to focus on producing and creating the best journalism every day and creating an environment where people have the space. And I think that's one of the most impactful recruitment tools that you can employ as a manager is really living that and walking that walk and creating space for people to be who they are that they can show up as their own authentic self every day and celebrate that, and to do the work that's been done by Black communities. The Tracy provided a lot of oversight and detail into where the gaps exist. And that is probably also true for the other groups, but certainly for the Black community as I see that here, plainly that we all I think as news organizations can and should do better. I think one of the things with that being said is definitely Sarah it's like, you know, being a manager being an upper management is going to make the employees because I think, and I applied everyone that's taken a step forward to trying to do better with the death of George Floyd I'm thinking that, and to get to where we're at today that's that's that's to say apart from me. However, moving forward. We just got to make sure if we're going to make people comfortable that they see people that look like them in management positions, because bringing on a new writer as I cited earlier with the current commissions report when they were trying to push people to bring in it didn't change the landscape, because the decision makers are the managers of the editors of the people that decide what hits the cutting the cutting board and what makes it. And if you don't have the right people in the right places to make the right decisions, you're going to have more of the same outcome. And so that I think if you want to make your people in comfortable in your newsrooms, they have to look at the management table across the way and see somebody that looks like them. And not everybody that's white and one black person that's their token black. Sorry, I'm just putting it out there that will be sorry. It feels a bill for them. But does it feel the bill for the community. And that's the important part and that's what I want the questions in these bigger newsrooms to ask that question do we look at do we look amongst our peers and see enough black representatives, enough black representation at that level to where it makes sense, or communities of color if it's not black what other communities that we have that for the communities that we're representing. Do we have them communities at the table. Do they make any decisions. Absolutely. And I was so before I was at North News I was at insight news which is also a historically black publication, and I was at insight during the killings of both to Mark Clark and flando can still. It was the killing this past February of a mere lot that gave me a sense of perspective of what my brothers and sisters at predominantly white media organizations, how they had a different experience experience than I did. When I was into late, I was going to work among black people every day, able to verbalize the frustration and angst and of what was happening. Because once again, yeah I'm a journalist that's my profession but I'm a black man, 24 hours a day. And so I can't take that off and so I was benefited by being able to be at two different institutions where I could be that person. I was able to be in my work relationship in coming over to a predominantly what's considered predominantly white organization. It took me a minute to realize that everyone processes information differently, and that's not bad but there's a different thing. And so, being there, I was able to understand that we have to make sure that we're offering open safe spaces for all of our time, all of our team. And it's not employees. If we're going to have a successful move, we got to have a team and so that we're all a part of this team that we're offering offering open to safe space to, and that's what that realization came to be this past February. And this one I've been in a building mode for the last three years and we made very intentional to bring in not just diverse candidates and diverse reporters but also young reporters who can grow with us, who we can mentor and cultivate and give the chance to really produce stories that are meaningful. And, you know, when I look at the media landscape in the Twin Cities, I see leaders who are really trying to make some changes. And since you know the killing of George Floyd, I think both MPR and the start to be enough been intentional in working on how they frame stories, how they hire and how they produce stories and you know I look at the websites every day and I see, you know, real changes in very insightful coverage about, you know, issues that I care about and I, I would love to cross post on our website. And I think, you know, that that requires you know that need some acknowledgement and cognition and I applaud Suki and Sarah for really working on that. Hi, so generally we would allow time for our attendees to submit some questions and we would transition over to a Q&A but it seems that our panelists are actually so in tune with the attendees that they've got into a lot of these questions without even having to read them off. I am going to allow just a moment or two for anyone who may not have had a chance to submit a question please feel free to submit it down in the Q&A box below. We may be able to get to one or two before we officially close out this session. So I'll just give a moment for that. One other note that I would like to add is I'm going to be dropping a link to our event survey in the chat box that's very helpful for us being able to better curate these programs in the future to make your needs and having discussions that are of interest to our audience so I'm going to drop that there. But otherwise I will give you a moment to submit something to the Q&A. I believe we did have one question we wanted to address Jessica if you wanted to introduce that. Yeah, absolutely. So someone has asked, do you think some of this disconnect between outlets is a disconnect in their view of the responsibility of news. For example, a responsibility to inform versus be a pillar of or service to a community. So do you think the mission of news should be or does that differ based on news organization so I think maybe the question is, is there tension between who you want to be as a publication as an institution and and is there tension between that and just doing the news reporting news as it comes out. Anybody want to jump on that. I think Tracy might actually be the best qualified because and if we talked about mail a little bit before this but when we're talking about being news and being part of community. Mail was not only a journalist but he was unapologetically an activist so and spokesman and my former employer insight that was kind of that was really part of our mission was to advocate so I think Tracy might be well well to speak on that. Certainly will and so for us and yes Harry by all means mail his he had two loves he had the love of being an editor, a community editor and he had a love and passion of being an activist. What our mission is is to really be more of an informer. So we're not necessarily here to create a side for someone to stand on so that was a different just a little bit of a different model, then what males. Other life was as an activist so although he was definitely he had his boots on the ground and his ear to the ground, and he knew the community very well. When he did his writing he really had to make sure the best to his ability that he stayed down the middle and really gave the news and information that allowed our readers to make their own informed decisions. That impacted them and not necessarily from an activist perspective, and I hope that answered that question that that the participant had. Lovely, I don't want to end prematurely so if anyone else just has, you know, a couple of final thoughts that they would like to add before we close the session, we're more than welcome to. I have a comment in the chat and I hit the answer live button and it went away so I don't know if that was an error on my part, but it was dealing with. And I apologize because it was about 40 minutes ago but it was dealing with being a journalist and interaction with police and or the backlash that we've seen in the Trump era against journalism. And, and I will answer that I mean, and unfortunately I have this experience. April 14 will be the anniversary of my arrest as a journalist covering the protests, Dante right. And again, as I said earlier I come to any job. Yes, as a journalist by profession but it's a black man by nature, and those two, sometimes those two worlds do sometimes collide. And it was very scary in the 2016 to 2020 post era of being both black and being a journalist and being a target either way. So it and then, on the other hand, we as journalists rely on police for a lot of our information. Many of us have very good resources. Hell, a lot of us are related to officers are people in prosecution such as myself. So there is this duality that we face but it can cause for a lot of reflection. That's that's how I put it. It looks like we are actually now approaching time you want to be mindful of everyone's day and schedule. So I want to thank our panelists for this actual excellent and thoughtful conversation and course our moderator Jessica, I'd like to give a special thank you to Dean Company for its support of today's event and our incredible partners on the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Thank you to our audience for joining us and for your thoughtful questions as well I know that we had some pretty deep conversation today. And again this event has been recorded so you'll receive an email with the full video of today's event. In the next few days we will also post this recording on the ProPublica YouTube channel. So from all of us at ProPublica thank you so much for joining us have a great rest of your evening and we do hope to see you next time everybody take care.