 Thank you, so happy to be here, and I appreciate you all being here as well, and I want this to be interactive I have some slides, but please jump in at any time if you have a question So we this is our mission statement, but it's it's not anything Super deep and surprising, but what we're engaging and empowering the public through investigative journalism groundbreaking storytelling and Action what we judge ourselves on is impact and I'll talk to you later today about how we measure that and how we quantify that Okay, so one of the things we do how many of y'all have heard of CIR reveal Okay, very well-informed audience. I can tell I'm already dealing with very smart But we're not exactly a household name like the New York Times or the Washington Post But what we do is we partner with media organizations, so we have a staff of about 75 Investigative journalists editors data specialists video specialists Audio specialists one of our big platforms now is radio And and so we spread our storytelling through those platforms, but also We work with all these partners many more. This is just a selection of them to get our stories out one of the Really exciting projects we got to participate in recently was the Paradise Papers, which is I'm sure y'all have heard of Panama Papers Paradise Papers was sort of part two of that and it looked at how Corporate America was offshoring its wealth companies like Apple Nike which keeps its swish off offshore to So that all the money generated from the swish goes off-store off-shore and so We were part of that we told that story on radio So we have a lot of different ways that we could partner with our various media partners So we tell our stories on all platforms This is a story that I brought to The Center for investigative reporting with me from Oklahoma. This is an 18-month project About why Oklahoma is number one in locking up women and it has been for 26 years And so we I analyzed in the CIR helping analyze 18 months worth of data on incarceration in Oklahoma, and we looked at why women were Being locked up at a rate that is you know really far and above any state and any nation in the world And what we found was that Low-level drug sentences were being handed out by judges in Oklahoma Much longer sentences than other states even red states like Georgia and Texas that were reforming their their justice systems Oklahoma was continuing to hand out 20-30 year sentences for things like drug possession and possession with intent which means you just had over the limit the amount of drugs Doesn't mean you were actually caught dealing So one of the things we do with all of our big projects is have a community conversation and later, I'll talk about Trust in the media and how it has fallen off and ways to fix that and we're trying to fix that and so are many other news organizations one of the ways we try to fix that is by talking to the community and so we had a We had a forum we drew 350 people in Oklahoma City to talk about criminal justice reform The governor was there people on all sides were there in this picture. You see The prosecutor of Oklahoma's second largest county who sent plenty of women to prison himself But wants to find a better way To give people treatment instead of prison We had a community conversation about that in after our project ran and one of the other things that I Suggested the CIR is that let's figure out how to get this data We fought 18 months for this database of everyone who'd ever been convicted in Oklahoma and sent to prison And it took 18 months to get it from the state and analyze it And so I wanted to get that out to local media organizations. They don't have the resources that we do We have a very high-powered team of half a dozen data analysts who know You know all these all these skills that we need to analyze this data But the local organizations really don't and so one of the things I thought is wouldn't be cool if we could partner with coders the coding community code for Tulsa code for Oklahoma City code for America and Get this data into the hands of local journalists who don't have database specialists. And so we had a Summit like a hackathon we call it a hackathon, but it it's You know, you're just looking at the data and basically figuring out how to make dashboards so that local journalists can analyze this data And use it for future stories. And so that's one of the things that we're exploring at CIR Okay, we have one of our really exciting projects that we just launched Is called kept out and it looks at modern-day redlining So lots of you all have heard of redlining, which is Basically the old school way that banks would say don't lend in this area. Well, thanks to the Community Reinvestment Act, which was passed 40 years ago by Congress It requires banks to lend to qualified buyers and blighted neighborhood, but it's full of loopholes It doesn't take into account internet lending. It doesn't take into account mortgage brokers. It doesn't affect them And it didn't take into account gentrification. So these banks are able to loan to what we found mostly white people in areas where they were historically neighborhoods that people of color lived in and so we were able to Take 31 million records that banks are required to disclose to the federal government Over two years. We looked at two years worth of data 2015 and 2016 And we found that there were We used a very conservative measure, but we found there were 61 metropolitan areas that had a statistically significant Margin of basically discrimination. They were discriminating against people who were applying for home loans And those are the areas that we highlighted doesn't mean that there wasn't discrimination happening in many many other areas What it means is in these areas people of color, latinos blacks Asians people of color were being discriminated against when they applied for loans and we were able to Hold everything else steady in terms of income the size of loan people were applying for And also the area the exact neighborhood and area that they were applying for the loan in So the important thing about this project is that we were able to Tell it on a platform. So we had our website We had the interactive data piece you see there with the map and then we had the radio program Which goes to 450 public radio stations around the Around the country. So it's like essentially millions of people just with that piece of it Another exciting development that we've been able to Harness with our journalism is our partnership with the Associated Press So we have a we've supplied our big investigations to AP and then they have shared this data and on this project With all of their partners. So we've had dozens and dozens of papers around the country Some throughout the world share this story. We've had the Washington Post We've had the New York Times, but also the Chicago Tribune and as you see here in st. Louis Papers took our data and we're able to share it There so since we just posted it like thursday or friday Then we had the radio story pbs has done two a two-part series. Um, which has been seen by like two million people and In Philadelphia, they've called for review of how how their housing laws being carried out I mean, it's a little early say one of the things we do at CIR is we have an impact tracker and so we literally track laws that are passed Even small results like people have a rally things like that. Um, so what our hope is is that You know, we can't dictate what the result is from our reporting. That's one thing that's important. We're not We're not no, we're not a community activist organization. We provide people with the information that they need to Take action or not and that that's really up to the people that we serve Um, so we have as I said, we do tell stories on all platforms We have a short documentary really one of the first big video pieces that we've presented Called heroin. I don't know how many of you all have seen this on Netflix Okay, I would highly admire my husband's like, yeah Um, I highly advise you go go go watch on Netflix. It's uh less than an hour It's about three women who are battling the opioid epidemic in west virginia Focuses on first responders a judge women who are trying to make a difference in their community against this epidemic and We co-produced this and worked with a filmmaker named Elaine Sheldon to To make this film and we're really proud that it is a finalist for an oscar in this short documentary category So I want to talk a little bit about gregory asked me to talk about trust in the media and fake news and How do we know what's real and that's where I'm going to get it get to that uh tonight um Some key facts for you guys since 2000 like nearly half of the newsroom jobs in america more than 20 000 um have disappeared and revenues have plummeted to By almost 20 billion a lot of that is um because sources of traditional sources of revenue for newspapers Run of the car rop run of run of press display ads have gone away Classified ads gone away class. You know you have you have craigslist you have Facebook you have all kinds of other outlets to find things to buy and and one ads so newspapers especially have um Try to find new new sources of revenue that is not a ship that turns very quickly I I spent almost all my career in traditional um Print media in the tulsa world, which I'm very proud to have worked there. They gave me the time to do um A project on the death penalty in oklahoma that was a finalist for a Pulitzer and you know supported me through that And today they laid off 10 staffers They're now owned by warren buffett's berkshire hathaway who Warren buffett said I think it was today or yesterday in an interview that he only thought two newspapers would survive in america though It was the wall street journal in the new york times I'm a little more optimistic than that actually Um, but that was on the same day that his company laid off dozens of journalists nationwide um There's there's room for hope and there's also room for Concern and action Um, so one of the things that's encouraging to me as a journalist is what's going on with the larger newspapers I mean the new york times has reported One billion dollars in subscription revenue last year Um, the subscription revenue now accounts for more than 60 of the company's total revenue Typically when you look at a newspaper back on the day when I was at the Tulsa world subscription revenue was like 10 of our revenue So advertising print advertising was 90 95 of our revenue Um, the washington post it's hired more than 100 new journalists And they doubled the number of uh subscribers since january 1 2017 There's a million people who subscribe only digitally to the washington post I subscribe to both the times in the post. Um, I put my money where my mouth is But there are exceptions. I mean, I thought this is a really interesting staff that I found today. They're, uh, 7 000 newspapers, uh, regularly published in the u.s. And 6 6800 basically have circulation smaller than 50 000 So when you talk about the health of newspapers and you feel great about the post and the times and how everyone's excited about this big newspaper War and they're, you know gaining subscribers and it does not affect the majority of media, um Especially print newspapers and that's where Roughly half of all news that you read Is actually generated from a newspaper um You know the san jose american news used to have a newsroom of about 400 Today there are about 150 journalists covering the bay Uh in general so that includes the murky news the spay Uh newspaper which you know when the pullets are for their coverage of the ghost ship fire, um And then what two weeks later after they won the poll they they had they had major staff cuts Which is a sad state of affairs, frankly But there's room for hope The growth of the nonprofit news is really important in our country. Uh, there are more than 120 nonprofit newsrooms that are members of The i and n it's the sort of there's a umbrella organization of nonprofit newsrooms They're across north america. These organizations don't have to depend on print, uh On ad revenue and that is going to go away. So you have to have a different plan as a media organization for how you're going to bring in your money CIR has um this this picture down here is a community engagement piece that we engaged in around The elections and we sort of had A large effort where c ir organized groups of people in new jersey to talk about the elections To sort of get engaged civically and that's a big trend in journalism is we can't Sit on a a pedestal anymore and and just talk to people and deliver information to people people expect a two-way conversation Uh, and so as journalists, we're trying to figure out how to have that conversation um Organizations such as popubica and c ir we've expanded coverage to new areas and offered training and resources to boost investigative reporting locally so popubica has um Opened a whole newsroom in chicago. They have 12 people covering chicago and covering illinois um government and um obviously a really important area of the country in the middle of the country so typically um All of the major media outlets have been based on the coast And sort of forget about the whole area middle of the country I can tell you the reason i stayed in oklahoma for 25 years is because There is a lot to investigate there. There's a lot to uncover. There's a lot of people that need our help um, and That's why it was hard for me to leave So it's super exciting to me to see organizations like popubica and c ir going to the middle of the country and um Helping local journalists learn how to do this craft. It's not Bring science like you can do this. It just takes mentorship time And you know organizations that are larger willing to mentor and help smaller organizations To survive and thrive though. I think news organizations including ours need to think about new ways to innovate and you know diversity is a piece of this That means we have to work harder to attract new audiences And to do that you have to have a staff that is more diverse that reflects america So one of the things we've done is an investigative fellowship program. It's the second year. We've done it. I'm working with two fellows so They come they they work with c ir over a whole year period on a big project And they stay in their home news organization So the hope is they they come for training They come for uh, we take them to a conference investigative reporting conference And then we work with them over a whole year period to to produce a big project The hope is that they learn skills that are More time intensive at a higher level. They don't date the skills. They learn investigative skills. They learn How to be a good watchdog? How to pull all this together? It's it's a very sort of scientific reporting process and it takes some hands-on work as an editor to teach people this These skills, but we're really proud of this and we think it's going to make a difference We're also part of a new nationwide effort To develop mentorship skills in newsrooms nationwide So one of the things we need to do is mentor our own staff and make sure that they stay and that they grow as journalists So yes media is changing There is a cool commission called the night commission on trust media and democracy They're going all over the country They came to I think stand stand for campus a couple months ago and I was there to Listen to what um people were saying to them And they are soliciting input from business leaders from journalists academics the public all all sectors of America about what do we need to do to restore trust in the media and Also by extension trust in democracy And some of the feedback they got and I just picked out some things um, you know Tell people where you're coming from and let them judge the new The sort of old thinking that you have you have to be this completely Dispassionate neutral observer with absolutely no opinions I don't know. I don't know if that works. I think that what we need to do is just be transparent And we need to tell people these are our principles these this is where we're coming from and then you can judge um That doesn't mean that you are biased It means that you're clear about what your priorities are as a news organization. You can't be everything to everyone So what is it that you're trying to be? Uh develop very high standards of verification. I'll talk a little bit more about this later It's really really important that we show our work that we link primary sources Um that people can drill down and see the documents that they know who are what our sources biases are if in fact there are some um, so I think that we have to We have to think more about that and what what gives people trust in what we do Um, tell the public what our priorities are. So we uh, we've chosen three sort of filters for our stories Accountability inequality and sustainability. And so I put a couple of examples there about different stories that we've done that sort of follow along those lines We don't try to cover everything. There's some areas that other people are covering very well Uh, you know, so we don't try to Repeat what others are doing. We think about areas that others are not covering Maybe as well and areas where we can have impact and make change um continuous improvement regime for listening to the public we Have constantly have listening sessions. We have round tables small groups large groups where we listen to the public I saw a really cool story about I can't remember where it was, uh Alabama. They had a round table of, um, Muslim men and women that came and talked to their editors and gave them feedback about the muslim community Alabama If you can imagine that's probably a small community and a community that doesn't feel very listened to Um, so the alabama newspaper had a round table with them They had a round table with gun owners and and r.a. Members and did the same thing And that was one of a series of round tables that they had and the that feedback informs their coverage So it's really important that we listen to people Um, especially people that Don't get listened to typically in the media Um, and show your work is something I tell my reporters often you need to provide the raw materials used for stories So the headline how we identified lending disparities and federal mortgage data just we We gave a big explainer box, um in terms of where this data came from how we did it We often provide the raw data We want people to understand how we arrived at these conclusions. We also have experts that review a lot of our work um, so Gregory had asked me to talk a little bit about how can you know, you know, what's right and what to trust and I would bet that you're all very savvy news consumers that already know this um, but sometimes it helps to sort of talk about the finer points of it. So, um, you know, obviously the russia milling in our election They they use social media platforms very effectively to exploit vulnerability amongst some americans who For whatever reason there's a growing inability to distinguish between fact and fiction And to distinguish between trusted news sources and like say trolls or even Sites that look like real media and it's not that easy, right? So after the shooting in florida There was a white supremacist group that claimed we trained this kid, you know and the ap Lots of other mainstream media sources reported this Um, and then had this sort of backtrack uh, and so We're all learning as we go along Uh in this in this in this environment as i'm sure you all are Here's some sort of thoughts the clummy journalism review um had some good advice about How to how to suss out reliable news sources So they show a willingness to to retract to correct to apologize for misstatements in a timely manner So if you have a news source that is just clinging to this story despite Numerous people who seem to know what they're talking about saying no, this is wrong and here's the evidence why it's wrong Uh, and there's no obvious way to alert the organization to an error That's a red flag Reliable news outlets also rely on professional codes of ethics Including, you know how to ensure accuracy interest in contrary evidence Following the story regardless of its political political implication. You should have the courage as a news organization Uh to write about something that goes against your editorial board or against what your publisher endorsed or you know Against the grain in your community um, and I just you know showing examples here of Center for Investigative Reporting our ethics guide it goes from everything from aggregating news all the way to Unnamed sources and there's 30 different topics subtopics within our ethics policy So it's very detailed about how we can represent ourselves on social media about how we identify as ourselves as journalists Um about how we label photos how we edit photos All kinds of things Weather sources can pay for things. There's a lot of Gray area, but we always err on the side of what feels right. What is right? What will give readers confidence in our independence? That's sort of The first that's the first, you know, most important thing to me We need to keep sources that are arms length. We need to disclose any perceived conflicts of interest So whenever you see a story and um cr that has any mention of a news Of a funding organization. We disclose that So we did a story about I can't remember what it's had somebody with google and google news labs gives us some money And so we just we always disclose that right up top as an editor's note And people can look at the story and say well it was slanted or wasn't or whatever Um, I think disclosure is is step one Uh, you know, obviously reputable news organizations always label opinion as such and separate it from news You'll see sometimes news organizations will label things as a you know op-ed or analysis, which is sort of a hybrid Um, but you should quickly be able to tell if something is is analysis or its opinion Um, these are just some of our uh standards Not all of them by any means, but some of them that you know The um, is two for a non-profit news has a very good list of standards that um It advises non-profit news organizations to adopt and so we have adopted those Um that we retain full authority over editorial content that we have a firewall Um that donors don't basically get to tell us what to write. That's what it boils down to Um and so lastly, you know One of the things I do as a journalist myself is not only Do I um find news organizations that I trust but I find journalists that I can trust Either within those organizations or within other organizations There's some organizations that like I'm not quite sure about everybody there, but I know that this guy gets it right and um I think most people do more research about a restaurant that they go out to on a special night Then they do about their news organizations that they share with with their uh networks and so I think An important thing to do is vet the news organizations that you regularly follow and that you share Um, and so, you know, here's just a couple of things that I found on cgr and various other articles You know reliable journalists are calm. They're not You know screaming the news. They're not hyperventiling. It's it's it's They're not connected to the outcome of the news story Uh multiple positions of viewpoints, but there's this thing is known as false balance, which you'll sometimes see in some organizations Um, especially around scientific topics Most climate scientists the vast majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is occurring Agree that it's man-made that's science and I think we can state facts as facts um And so I don't feel the need in a news story to go out and and find a climate scientist who disagrees that global warming is occurring I think that that's an example of false balance Um I do find the need, you know to have multiple viewpoints on that issue So you would might talk to the oil and gas industry about why they don't want to be regulated Um, that's different. So also acknowledge gaps and inconsistencies, you know, you A reputable journalist will have portions of the story that say here's what we don't know or You know, this this person only told half the stories or last time he said this but now he says this So you should be you should find things like that in the stories of reputable journalists Uh, and and pursuing leads that run counter to your hunches and your preferences and and when that evidence pans out you should you know Give it appropriate attention the story and this is harder to do than you would think Because we all are informed by our life experiences Um, and we choose stories because we're passionate about them And the reason we're passionate about them is because we have an opinion And so you have to be able to check that opinion at the door Um Tell people why am I wrong? Why is this wrong? I want to see the other side of this and Frankly as a journalist, it's the shades of gray that are more interesting to me Uh, than the black and white in life Um, I just linked up here Reveal has online on our site our guide to spotting fake news and just has some general guidelines about You know how to tell when things Don't seem right. Um, generally these things are framed for shareability They're framed for uh, to be get demagogic Um, and that doesn't mean that that means it's fake news, but there's certain hallmarks of of And when you say fake news that means something that is completely made up and they're completely wrong and not based in fact It doesn't mean a story that I don't agree with a story that that um Makes a politician look bad that I that I like That's not fake news. What fake news is is complete untruths that are made up Uh, basically often there's a profit motive involved, but whatever the motive um We should be informed consumers and be able to be able to spot it Uh, so that's the formal presentation. Um, I am happy to answer any questions Yeah