Keith: [00:00:00] All right, excited about our next guest today, we have Tara McGowan, the CEO and founder of Good Information Inc. Tara, welcome to the show. [00:00:06][6.8]
Tara: [00:00:07] Thanks for having me, Keith. I'm excited to be here. [00:00:09][1.8]
Keith: [00:00:09] Yeah, I'm super excited to dive into this. You know, full disclosure before we start, I am an adviser of your company but that doesn't mean I'm going to be easy on you because I want to dig into a lot of different things here. But for our audience, can you explain a little bit about what Good Information is? [00:00:24][14.6]
Tara: [00:00:25] Yeah, sure. So Good Information Inc is a public benefit corporation that I started earlier this year, whose mission is to identify and scale immediate solutions to the disinformation crisis. And so we can definitely get into that and talk about that. But one of the things that we're doing it Good Information Inc is investing in and incubating new media companies that all share a common set of values and attributes. And really, what differentiates the media companies that we invest in or help start is that they all exist to produce and disseminate factual information to Americans where they get their information online. So it really is, if you will, an offensive approach to solving the disinformation crisis online. [00:01:13][48.1]
Keith: [00:01:14] Thank you for that. That's a great start there. And how do you define disinformation or misinformation that's happening right now? I think that's a good place for us to kind of set a foundation for this because many people try to describe it in many different ways to create many types of misinformation and disinformation about what it could be. [00:01:29][15.5]
Tara: [00:01:30] Yes. So the easiest way to describe disinformation is lies. Disinformation is inaccurate information that is spread intentionally by bad actors, so they know that it is inaccurate and false and they are spreading it to be able to persuade or manipulate a population. And so factually inaccurate information about the COVID 19 vaccines, for instance, that are spread by people that are trying to promote alternate remedies or solutions or things of that nature. That would be disinformation. Misinformation is bad or inaccurate, information that is likely spread unintentionally. It doesn't necessarily have a nefarious sort of agenda behind it, and oftentimes people will spread misinformation without knowing that it's misinformation because they hear about it, or it seems to be popular information that they're seeing online. And so there's kind of different terms for these things. But really, what it comes down to is, it's information that's not factually accurate, but that people believe to be accurate because of how they consume it. You know, they're getting it from trusted messengers, whether it's people they follow and respect on social media or watch on cable news, etc. And it's always been around. Disinformation is not a new thing. Obviously, propaganda has been something that has existed forever and ever. But the key difference here is that it is factually inaccurate, and that's obviously very dangerous when people believe it. [00:02:56][86.3]
Keith: [00:02:57] Thank you for that. That's a great context for that. So I think many detractors would say, Well, this is what the New York Times or The Washington Post is doing. Why is something like good information? Need it right now? [00:03:08][10.9]
Tara: [00:03:08] Yeah, that's a great question. So there is no shortage of good, trusted factual information in the world and even in the media in America today, the challenge is really a distribution challenge. So as the internet and social media have fundamentally transformed communications and how people get information, where people get information, where they spend their time and attention. Legacy news organizations who have historically been the institutions that share and spread factual good information to people have been really slow to adapt to this changing media environment for a number of reasons. One out of necessity. They have had to evolve their business models because social media has dramatically changed the advertising ecosystem, right? So traditional news organizations used to bring in revenue and be sustainable by selling advertising right, selling traditional advertising, whether that was in their printed newspapers or on their websites and platforms like Facebook and Google and even Amazon have really transformed that space. And so it's left a lot of news organizations and alerts to try and figure out how they can bring in money to survive. And that has hit local news organizations the hardest for anyone paying attention to the media industry. Local news organizations have been shuttered or bought and sold for ever. But over the past two decades, I think over 100 local news organizations have shut down because they haven't been able to find a way to stay in business without that traditional advertising. This is also true for the New York Times and the Washington Posts of the World. So in order to survive, which they have and some of them are thriving, right? And not every news organization can have Jeff Bezos save them like Washington Post did. But for New York Times, which is doing quite well right now, they also. You have had to evolve their business models to do well, and what that has meant is that they prioritize paying subscribers. Right, right. So they really focus on how can we get people to pay for a digital or print subscription to stay around and what's happened? And I apologize. This is a long-winded answer to your question that has increased the information divide in America. So there are people who are willing to pay for news that are proactively interested in subscribing to national or state newspapers, but increasingly a huge swath of the population is not there what we call passive news consumers, right? They primarily get their news and information, scrolling social media or reading newsletters in their email boxes. And so while there is so much trusted factual information in the world, it's not reaching a large swath of the population in America anymore. And disinformation is its most dangerous in a vacuum. So a lot of bad actors have realized that they can own the attention and information ecosystem, reaching so many Americans with disinformation. And there's no alternate factual information in those spaces, oftentimes. And so that is one kind of contributing factor to this problem of white disinformation. Spreading so quickly is that trusted news organizations are not actually reaching a percentage of the population that are not paying consumers. And so that good information ink, we're really focused on those Americans that we believe have been left behind by these evolving business models of legacy news organizations and the shuttering of local news and these populations that are at most risk of being reached with disinformation online. So we want to reach those people with factual information, and you can do that both by starting media companies or working with legacy news organizations to help them understand that they can be part of the solution. Because right now they're contributing to the problem of a large population that is believing, frankly, lies that are being spread to them online. [00:07:06][237.1]
Keith: [00:07:06] Yeah, there's a very important distinction there, right? You know, Washington Post in The New York Times deserves to make money, right? Like they should sell these subscriptions and make it happen. But I think it was last week. This is before the CDC said everybody is eligible for a booster. But there was a Washington Post article that said, Click here to find out if you are eligible for the booster. And so I clicked it from Twitter and it hit me with a, you know, subscription sign up that made me realize this is very real, right? Like, you know, I could easily pay $4 a month and I should to do that. But how many times does that happen to a passive reader where now they aren't getting that information? Or now they're going to a different source for that information? Is there a point where a publication like Washington Post New York Times has a civic duty or civic service to put that information out there for free? Or is it, you know, this is capitalism and that's how it works. [00:07:53][47.1]
Tara: [00:07:54] I hope and believe that it should be the former, unfortunately, and I don't think this makes, you know, the New York Times, The Washington Post bad people or institutions, right? But they do have to survive, and so they are doing what they need to survive financially. And that has been sort of the best tactic that they've identified is paying subscriptions and paywalls. And yet that's part of the reason I started good information was to kind of raise more awareness about the role of these organizations are playing in widening the information gap in America and providing more oxygen essentially to disinformation by not meeting those other audiences. I don't think that there's a perfect solution to this. We have a lot of ideas on the team, which we we want to share with other organizations. And so, you know, it's a matter of a business figuring out if their mission is to inform the public with factual information. And it isn't just to inform the paying public for information, then they need to figure out ways to get that information in front of the people who aren't willing to pay for it. And I just think that takes some creativity, frankly. But at this stage in these businesses sort of evolution, they have for good reasons to them, focused on people who are willing to pay and not felt responsible about leaving others behind. [00:09:16][81.8]
Keith: [00:09:17] Amazing. So putting on my cynic hat and apologies, I'll probably wear this a lot right now to dig in here. But you know, looking at this on the surface, what's different here than, you know, the altruistic digital native companies like Mike and Ozzie and attention that have come before? [00:09:34][16.4]
Tara: [00:09:35] Sure. So the other thing that is unique about our approach to media, like what it would take for us and good information to invest in a media company or a news organization is a priority focus on positive news consumers and people who are less politically or civically engaged. Right. So this is a company that I started with a civic mission, and I'm sure we're going to get into this. But my. Former life and career was in politics, in progressive politics, and I really made this transition and focused on this work because I believe that democracy is directly at stake right now. We are in a really, really perilous time in this country. And so our belief is that if more citizens are informed about how policies and politics in Washington and in their State House impact them, they are more likely to participate and vote. And it isn't about telling them who to vote for, but it is about civic engagement. And we know from a lot of research and studies that if you don't have access to trusted local news, civic engagement goes down in your community. And so there's a direct correlation between good factual information and civic participation. And so for those publishers that you mentioned, like Mike and Bass, these are all great ones that I have engaged with a lot of the content that's part of the problem. I am not the target user for Good Information Inc's portfolio, right? I am what I would describe a high information consumer where I am looking for information. I am interested in sort of political or cultural social commentary, and so I would engage with those brands. But a lot of the people that we seek to reach with trusted information through our work, they are not self-selecting or subscribing to those kind of news sources. They're really just taking in the information. They're scrolling on their Facebook feed or watching on YouTube or Instagram. And so that's the other thing we care about is actually investing in media companies that produce reporting for social media platforms and email consumption because that's how these audiences consume information to. They're not going to go look for a website or read long articles, and that is a really key difference. [00:11:52][137.3]
Keith: [00:11:53] So you hit on the social media aspect of it, and I think that's one of the crucial ones. Again, people are saying this stuff and I don't agree with it, but it's one of the things that they throw out is, well, this is just progressive. Ben Shapiro and Bongino or whatever his name is. What do you say to that? Right? What's the answer there? [00:12:11][18.5]
Tara: [00:12:12] Yeah. No, you have. You are asking a question that I get. I get asked all the time, people, and it's funny. At least you're asking the question. A lot of people just come out and say, why you're just fighting fire with fire. Aren't you making the problem worse? [00:12:24][12.5]
Keith: [00:12:25] You had that Metallica song ready to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:27][2.4]
Tara: [00:12:28] And what you're really referring to is the first and largest investment that Information Inc is made is in Courier NEWSROOM, which is a news organization that has very explicit, progressive values that guide its reporting. Everything is fact checked and fact based. And yet, at the same time, there is an explicit, unapologetic editorial point of view and value system that is declared on Courier's website. And so that's often where I get that question of like, well, isn't more Partizan media just bad? And I would argue that disinformation and misinformation and factually incorrect information is what is the problem we're trying to solve and that if news organizations or even personalities like Ben Shapiro, etc., if they are transparent about what they stand for their belief system and not they only promote factual information. I do not see that as a bad thing. There is a long standing history of media and news organizations abroad and in the U.S. that have a specific editorial point of view, right? Because that's just important that the users, the readers know your point of view, right? And that you're not tricking them. I think that progressive media is not a bad thing as long as it's transparent and explicit about those values, and that it abides by strong ethical guidelines and standards of journalism, which Ben Shapiro The Daily Caller. Tucker Carlson, Fox News. Breitbart, you name it. They do not. They actively spread disinformation through their media, and that is the most dangerous thing that a news organization can do. [00:14:02][93.9]
Keith: [00:14:03] I love that. Thank you. And I am unapologetically progressive, right? And so it's something that I've seen actually in the last year, year and a half. Be more of a negative, interestingly enough, where people are saying we have to be more moderate center and centrism is really what won the election. What are your thoughts there? Why do you think progressivism and I hate saying the wokeness because everyone is using that incorrectly? Why is this starting to have this negative connotation to it? And people are looking at people that are on the far left in kind of a negative way? [00:14:32][29.5]
Tara: [00:14:33] Yeah. Well, I would start by saying that I think the word progressive means something different to everybody. Whether you are a conservative or you're a far right wing MAGA voter or Trump supporter, or you are someone who has described themselves as progressive their entire life, which I have, I don't even know if my definition meets what some of my colleagues or friends in the progressive movement would say about it. And I've often. Said this publicly that I am not a policy person. It's why I worked in politics and now in media, I don't really focus so much on the details of like the, you know, the different plans and solutions, I think. I believe science is real. I believe in facts and truth. I believe in social, economic and racial justice, which we do not yet have in this country. I believe that everybody should have equal access to basic needs like health care and good education and infrastructure and things of these nature. And I think also, you know what you're really kind of touching on is that there is a debate even within the progressive movement, over how progressive the Democratic Party should be or is. And I think part of also what some of the backlash you're referencing is about, like people that are critics of quote unquote woke ism or woke, which again, I think people would have different definitions of that. This is frankly because we're at a really scary moment in American end and global politics right now, though, where polarization is at its worst, it's ever been. And I think a lot of people who criticize quote-unquote woke and far right people to our hearkening back to like the way things used to be and like wanting to have know real bipartisanship in Congress and a government where there is a healthy, honest, fact driven debate over ideas and solutions. And we have not had that in this country in a very long time. Yeah. And I think that, you know, Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020, but not by a landslide. 74 million people voted for Trump. And then, as we just recently saw in the state elections in Virginia and New Jersey, a massive swing to states that went overwhelmingly from Joe Biden had over ten point swings towards Republicans among their voting base. So that would, you know, there's a lot of different theories out there, and no one really knows the true story. Yet there's a lot of factors that contributed. But one theory that is quite plausible is that a lot of people who voted for Joe Biden didn't love Joe Biden or Democrats, maybe even. But they didn't want Donald Trump as president. And they might also be looking for some balance of power because in large part, they're being sold. A disinformation driven narrative by the right and the media is also a little bit complicit in that. This is getting really into the political nerding out. But I think part of it, just to sum it up, I really do think that the really deep polarization in America right now is problematic, and it has a lot of people pitting themselves against people that they tend to agree with more than they don't. And that really only benefits the worst forces in this country. Like we have a political party right now that truly is operating to dismantle democracy. That is a very scary place to be. I would love to have a functional bipartisan government that is working on ideas, but that's unfortunately not where we are today. [00:18:05][211.9]
Keith: [00:18:06] Yeah, it really is clear that they're just trying to stop everything from happening. That's right. You know, again, where these dual hats of like I've been in media for so long, but I'm actually not in media, so I'm the consumer now. And it really it's disheartening when any vote that goes in front of the Senate or the House, we just know the Republicans are not going to vote for it. The media just doesn't even talk about that part of it anymore, because that's a given. And so we're talking about the infighting with the Democrats and one or two people not voting when we should be talking about the 50 to two hundred and fifteen people that are not voting and never will. No matter the merits of the bill, [00:18:42][36.8]
Tara: [00:18:43] that is exactly right. So whether you're a passive news consumer or a high information news consumer, the media narrative that you're getting from that approach by the political media or the political press is that Democrats are a mess. And because they're only talking about the infighting or the sausage making process of the bill, which most Americans do not care about. Right. And instead of the benefits of the bill and how that's going to help real people and who is against those solutions and provisions versus who's for them, that's totally nailed it on the head. It's really problematic. [00:19:16][32.6]
Keith: [00:19:16] And you know, I'm not going to remember all of the ones that you just said. But you know, when you look at the American public and where they want to vote, you know, infrastructure, women's right to choose health care, legalization of marijuana. These are all topics that are 70 percent plus that people vote for gun control 70 70 percent. Plus, why are people voting against their own issues? Is that just as information is? Are there more to it than that? [00:19:42][25.7]
Tara: [00:19:43] There are so many layers to this one. I think that you can't talk about disinformation without talking about the right wing media. They are the biggest dissemination of disinformation in America today, and they have become very powerful. And that is everything from talk radio to Fox News to bench. Euro and paper, and they have very successfully, I think, kept Democrats and the Democratic Party in a defensive posture for decades, really by defining them as big government, big spending, you know, high tax socialist radicals where they can sort of fit any Democrat, you name them into sort of this profile in by disparaging government and really branding government as a bad thing that's taking away your freedom or your liberties. They have created a lot of mistrust in government and in both political parties among a lot of Americans, right? Which is to their benefit because frankly, when you look at the demographics of America and where they're headed. The only time Republicans can really win is over the next many, many years is with the least amount of eligible people voting, right, you know, outside of cheating, frankly, which, you know, I don't put that past them. But I think that that's part of the challenge is that even if there are voters that would never vote for Republicans in this country, they have been influenced by the right wing media's definition and branding of Democrats in a way that Democrats, I think, often focus on trying to explain their solutions and policies. And a lot of people don't care. They want to be told what to do, who's helping them and who to blame for the things that they're not typically about. And Republicans get that, and they're very smart about it. They're like, Oh, your gas prices are high right now, which is factually accurate. Gas prices are very high right now. You want to know who to blame. Blame Joe Biden and Democrats like inflation, rising costs of things. You're pissed about it. Here's who to blame Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with Democrats, Democrats are going to be bringing costs down and creating jobs and have already done so much for the economy since taking over the White House in Congress earlier this year. But that's not the story that is reaching most Americans, [00:22:00][137.8]
Keith: [00:22:01] and it does seem like the Republicans are making up the definitions for the words that they and their phrases that they want in the Democrats mouth. Is that correct? It feels like there's one side that creates the issue, and then it's the Democrats defending their stance on that issue, right? [00:22:16][14.9]
Tara: [00:22:17] That's exactly right. We've seen that time and time again with immigration, an issue that isn't at the top of a lot of folks in this country's mind, but the right wing media can make it a really big issue. We saw this in Virginia with critical race theory, which is truly something that does not exist in Virginia schools or rivals in this country. And they created a controversy out of thin air, essentially to create a cultural wedge and really tap into real anxieties and fears of very exhausted parents today who have been dealing with child rearing and raising through a pandemic. And, you know, taking that and preying on those emotions by trying to suggest that instead of trying to keep your kids safe or educated, Democrats are focused on, you know, brainwashing your children, and it's entirely inaccurate. That really fired up a lot of parents across Virginia related to this. So they took what was not a real controversy or issue and turned it into one based on kind of parents emotions in the state that then became a political campaign issue that I don't think it was the only factor in Glenn Jenkins win, but I think it played a role. [00:23:32][74.9]
Keith: [00:23:32] Yeah, definitely. It's funny as you're talking. It just reminded me of way back in the day when I was at BuzzFeed. A lot of the stuff that we talked about in terms of social media sharing and news was about three things. It was identity, emotion and information. And I feel like the Republican side is really good at the identity and the emotion, whereas the Democrats just focus on the information, right? It sounds like what you're trying to do is introduce an area where people can really feel good and proud about the things that they believe in and create a little bit of emotion. Is that correct? Is that what good information is trying to do? [00:24:03][31.3]
Tara: [00:24:04] I wouldn't say that we're trying to create emotion. I think what we're really focused on is, like I said, this part of the population that is not going to subscribe to trustworthy information on their own because their consumption habits have changed and they're busy and they're not people who vote in every election if they vote at all. They have lives and politics are not at the center of them and really meeting them with information and reporting that makes all of this sausage making and all of this political horse race coverage gets rid of all of that and actually focuses on the problems government and elected officials are trying to solve or are creating, frankly and and making it really relevant and doing it in a way that they'll actually engage with because they don't want to read an article about how mansion or cinema or blocking build back better. They want to know if there's going to be jobs in their community created out of this. They want to know if their bridge is going to get fixed or their roads, they want to know if they're going to qualify for a child tax credit like this is the type of information that I think a lot of our national media just does a disservice by not breaking down because they get caught up in the same sort of echo chamber. We all live in echo chambers and I think I think national journalists do as well. [00:25:23][78.7]
Keith: [00:25:23] Yes, the political horse race, when the majority of America doesn't really care about that, they don't want [00:25:28][4.6]
Tara: [00:25:28] relevant information, right? And you know, when you talk to people about how their relief checks that they got from the American Rescue Plan helped them keep their small business alive or enabled them to be able to afford to pay for supplies to homeschool their kids when the schools closed. That's the stuff that really matters to people, and that's what careers newsrooms really try to do is connect the dots for people with the things that they're feeling and experiencing in their daily lives, with the people, the decision makers and the decisions that are ultimately going to affect those lives. [00:26:02][33.8]
Keith: [00:26:03] Love that. Now this might get us back into your prior career before this, the career change that you had here. But why now? You know, you were running a political strategy firm, quite successful, working with the Obama team, working with many Democrats through the 2016 and 2020 elections. Why did you decide to pivot into this? [00:26:19][16.4]
Tara: [00:26:20] Yeah. So I actually started my career as a journalist. I always wanted to be a journalist. I went to journalism school at NYU. I thought I would be a war correspondent in the Middle East initially. It obviously did not go that way, but I covered the 2008 election at 60 Minutes where I was working at the time and I got very swept up in Obama's candidacy and then ultimately his victory in 2008, and I wanted to be a part of the change that he wanted to bring to politics and government. That's when I made the transition in 2009 out of journalism into politics, and so it was not an easy decision to decide to leave again. But what really inspired it was all of the work that I did, and I worked on the 2016 presidential election in a very senior level capacity at a superPAC called Priorities USA. And then I started Acronym, the nonprofit that I started in 2017 that ultimately ran the largest digital advertising program against Donald Trump in 2020. And through that work, I became far more educated and aware of this information crisis and how it was growing and how it was growing and how it was having such a dangerous impact on what voters believe and the decisions they ultimately make at the polls. And that problem was not going to be solved within politics. We are too polarized right now as a country, and there are too many individuals that are left behind, frankly, by both political parties who I believe there's a lot of opportunity to inform and engage civically. And it really came down to believing that that needed to be done outside of politics and it needed to be done with a truly civic mission because I think that if we're ever going to build a more functional and healthy government in society, it's not going to be done with one political party at the helm. It's going to be done by increasing civic engagement and participation writ large. And so that was ultimately why I made the decision to leave. [00:28:19][118.9]
Keith: [00:28:20] That's fantastic. And what did you find with all that digital advertising budget that you had? What messages were resonating to switch people from being a Trump voter to maybe I don't need to vote for Trump or I didn't know these things? What did you find was the thing that resonated the most with your intended audience there? [00:28:37][16.9]
Tara: [00:28:37] Yeah, we didn't focus on reaching people who were already Trump voters or Trump supporters in the political work. We really focused on reaching people who we knew could be persuaded by right wing media and disinformation. But maybe the result of that would be that they wouldn't vote. And so we wanted to get factual information from them and inspire them to vote. And so it really was the same population that we're now focused on it. Good Information Inc. It was just in a much more overtly political way in that program work, but we experimented a lot and found a lot of things in one of those learnings that directly inspired Good Information Inc was that if you actually boosted news articles from publishers like Washington Post or New York Times that had a headline that was very clear and factual about, for instance, Trump calling it a hoax or his failure to respond quickly to the pandemic. It did actually inform those voters when you know they might never answer on a survey that they would trust the New York Times. But when it was showing up in their Facebook feeds, they were absorbing that information and it was influencing their understanding of Trump and the election in a new way. So that was really profound for us because in some of our testing, it showed that just boosting news articles was more effective than advertisements that we were making, that we were designing the messages of an. So that again, bolstered sort of my hypothesis that we really just needed to reach more people with factual information and news that they could trust in this moment of really, really dangerous levels of mistrust in institutions and media. [00:30:12][94.6]
Keith: [00:30:12] It's so fascinating because, you know, friends of mine that work at New York Times, BuzzFeed, Washington Post on the editorial side, don't want that artificial boost, right? And so it's an institutional editorial. I think blindspot that they don't put money behind their great editorials to get it out to a larger audience. They see it as marketing or salesmanship when you have this information that says that it's actually doing good for the world, right? [00:30:36][23.3]
Tara: [00:30:36] And that's exactly what we want to bring to more of these organizations because I don't think they think about it from that point of view. I understand the reflex to think that it's marketing, and that's the other side of the wall. But distribution is so critically important right now because the information ecosystem is so decentralized now you need to be very intentional. You can't assume that people will just find your information any more when they're being served so much proactively. You need to be one of the service providers getting that good information in front of these people. [00:31:05][29.1]
Keith: [00:31:06] Absolutely. So what happens now? You know, Facebook better. I guess now we should call it. I don't. I don't think that's going to stick with people. They've done a good job sliding over this. But you know, there's still this real problem that a lot of people are doing. Six Now where their feeds, they create a new feed and it sends them quickly to one side or the other, right? In terms of the news that they're getting. How do you combat that? You're putting more into the feed right now, right? And that's great because it's good information. But what happens there? Is it going to create a better feed? Is it going to create something better for them or is it just going to create more and more chaos? [00:31:41][34.7]
Tara: [00:31:41] That's a really good question. I think the jury's still out on that. From our perspective. All the media that we invest in, especially careers in newsrooms of which there are eight are really filling a void of local trusted factual information again through progressive values. And you know, no matter where you live, if you don't live in a major city, there really isn't a lot of optionality for local information and news, and the demand for local trusted information was higher than it's ever been in the pandemic. For reasons you can imagine, right decisions were being made at the state and local level about school closing and business closings. And so there is, I believe, just immense opportunity for us to build a better media ecosystem through local journalism that is trusted and digital and social first. And that's the first kind of gap that we're really trying to fill with the investments that Good Information Inc and that will ultimately increase the flow of trustworthy information that people on social media get because there isn't much that exists and that, you know, our hope is that the more good information at the local level that we can reach people with on social media, the less powerful or effective disinformation that reaches them on those same platforms will be [00:32:59][77.8]
Keith: [00:33:00] can you be a little bit more specific on the local level right now? Where is good information right now? [00:33:05][4.7]
Tara: [00:33:05] Yeah. So again, Good Information Inc invested in Courier NEWSROOM and Courier, is the umbrella company of eight state newsrooms that we've started across the country. And they are in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. [00:33:22][16.9]
Keith: [00:33:23] I wonder why you picked others? [00:33:24][0.8]
Tara: [00:33:26] Well, those are states that of course, have an outsized impact on our democracy, for sure, the Electoral College, but also for that same reason they are where we have seen the most disinformation spread online. And so we felt that I hope that there are career newsrooms all over this country. Over time, we had to start somewhere, but we really did choose where disinformation was spreading the fastest so we could counter it and try to stem off the bleeding. [00:33:51][25.5]
Keith: [00:33:52] And are those all dedicated URLs? Are there newsletters, social media handles? How does it work? [00:33:57][4.8]
Tara: [00:33:57] Every single newsroom has its own brand, so you can go to Courier NEWSROOM XCOM and you can see all eight of the newsroom's brands and go to their sites. We are not focused on websites as the primary vehicle for the reporting because these audiences don't go to websites and read articles. So our reporters are exceptional at actually packaging their reporting and storytelling for videos, Instagram Stories, carousels of graphics on Instagram and Facebook doing Echo to make sure that what people are Googling or putting into their search engine, our content is coming up. So they're getting that factual information in response to the questions that they have about things like the child tax credit or what have you at the top of their search feeds. [00:34:42][44.9]
Keith: [00:34:43] Fantastic. And you know, there's been a lot of news about this. So it's out there. The actual funding for this, or it's the right wing talks about everything being George Soros funded. I think one rally that I went to was allegedly George Soros funded. You're actually George Soros funded with other big names. How does that feel to? Eventually, be able to say, yes, I am George Soros Fund, you got to correct. [00:35:01][18.6]
Tara: [00:35:02] Well, you know, the right-wing media has done a really effective job at villainizing some of the most effective Democrats and Democratic progressive funders in this country because they are a direct threat to them. And so I think anybody paying attention knows that George Soros is one of the most generous donors and philanthropists that has invested in infrastructure for democracy here and abroad. And so I have nothing but pride and gratitude and a lot of a lot of humility for getting him to invest in this enterprise. And we also it was really critically important. We disclosed all of our investors in the interest of transparency and building credibility because we have nothing to hide. This is really important civic, mission-driven work and the need for it right now is incredibly urgent. And so we're grateful to have the investors that can help us scale these solutions much more quickly. [00:35:54][52.5]
Keith: [00:35:55] How is the pitch to that? Because again, you had these other successful companies that were way more in the political strategy sphere, and now this is the first time that you've moved into media. What did you have to change about your investment pitch to land this revenue? [00:36:08][12.3]
Tara: [00:36:08] Yeah, I mean, it was really the evolution of a lot of the work that I had done previously and just being much more forthright about it and forthright about the learnings that it doesn't actually benefit us to reach and inform more Americans. If you're doing it in a political context, in fact, it can have the opposite effect. It wasn't an obvious thing for a lot of investors to see me as building a news organization, but when I laid out the data and the evidence that supports that, this can really inform and engage a really critical part of the population that's being left behind by legacy media. I think that was what was most compelling and how quickly we can reach this population with trusted information. [00:36:48][39.9]
Keith: [00:36:49] That's great. And you said you're actively looking for more news organizations to invest in and potentially acquire. Is that the strategy to build a portfolio under courier? [00:36:58][8.8]
Tara: [00:36:59] Yeah, absolutely. We want to expand the Courier network. The Courier team has been really heads down just at building trust with their target audiences, right? That's not easy to do these days. You have to put a lot of money behind building new audiences online, and building trust is really critical to the long term success of these news organizations, so we haven't been expanding the network beyond the eight newsrooms this year. But over time, yes, that is the goal that we can invest in more trustworthy media organizations that again focus on delivering factual information to these populations that are not going to go look for it on their own. [00:37:33][34.4]
Keith: [00:37:35] So many people have heard of political strategists and seen many on TV, but might not know what that is day to day. Can you walk us through what a day to day world is like for the political strategist? [00:37:45][9.7]
Tara: [00:37:46] Sure. So a political strategist can be describing a whole bunch of different actual professions that all sort of work in politics or adjacent to politics and politics used to be much simpler, used to just be campaigns right to get candidates elected into government and elected office. But the space has expanded dramatically, especially with the Citizens United decision, which I don't believe it's a good one for democracy or America or our politics. But putting that aside, it is the law of the land still, and that really opened up an entire kind of new industry of nonprofit organizations that many referred to as dark money organization See 4S, as well as super PACs that also do political work in addition to the political parties and campaigns and party committees. So if you work for any of those kinds of organizations, you are a political strategist. [00:38:40][53.4]
Keith: [00:38:41] Congratulations. You're a political strategist [00:38:42][1.3]
Tara: [00:38:42] Right, exactly. So you don't have to work directly for a candidate or a elected official. And so in my former life, my former career running Acronym, I was often described as a political strategist or operative because I ran an organization that forty nine percent of the work we did as a C4 was political, meaning that it could influence elections. That's the designation. And so really, if you are a political strategist and again, not to get too inside baseball, but I'll describe it, there is hard side and soft side are terms in politics. So the hard side is people that work for the campaigns and the party. And for instance, you know, like the DNC, the Democratic National Party, et cetera, or the DLC, you see all the acronyms, which is why I named that organization acronym. I got it. OK, cool. And of course, they have those on the right to the RNC, the RNC, et cetera. So the hard side is people that work on that side. In the soft side is people that work on the C four or super PAC or independent side, they call it. Those organizations can influence elections, but the people that work for them legally cannot coordinate with people on the hard side of the campaigns that those organizations support. Gotcha. All those people can be called political strategists. So many of my friends and my husband work pretty much primarily on the hard side, so they work directly for campaigns. And I worked for really only one campaign ever in my career, and that was President Obama's reelection campaign in 2012. And after that, I was a political strategist on the soft side. So on the independent side, running a super PAC and a C for so, you know, given that what does it look like day to day depends on what side you're on. If you're on that hard side, then you are, you know, advising the candidate or the politician directly on everything from their communications strategy, their outreach strategy, their fundraising strategy, their political strategy, which usually refers to how they operate with other organizations, groups and stakeholders in their party or in their movement. Whether it's, you know, the progressive movement or the conservative movement and on the soft side, on the independent side. It can mean everything from running an organization focused on one issue or constituency group. So, you know, an issue area. Right? Planned Parenthood has a C 4 organization in addition to their charitable C three organization. And so if you worked on the C for Planned Parenthood, you are driving political strategy and campaign strategy for that organization. That's really what it is, is you are a strategist that's coming up with campaigns and programs and interventions, mostly to communicate with and mobilize people to vote around specific issues and for specific candidates. [00:41:34][171.8]
Keith: [00:41:35] And we're recording this December 2nd and we're going to put it live next week and voting matters because we're right now seeing some really gutting news from the Supreme Court. I wanted your POV on that because I think there's a lot of people that are looking at this and saying this was stuff that had already been decided and now it's coming back to being relitigated. [00:41:55][19.5]
Tara: [00:41:56] Yeah, this is this is another really tough week for this country, given the Supreme Court oral arguments that are taking place on December 1st took place related to the challenge to the Mississippi abortion ban. And this is I mean, this is why elections matter. Presidents get among a lot of their power is one of the most incredible powers they have is to appoint Supreme Court justices to lifetime terms. Once a Supreme Court justice has been appointed in, their confirmation is confirmed and it is finalized if they don't leave by their own volition. There aren't a lot of levers to remove them. So a president is only given a four year term and then run again for reelection in that most in our country can only be president for eight years right now. And yet if you have the ability, as Donald Trump did to fill Supreme Court seats, then you have a much longer-lasting impact than your term as president. And so that is what happened. I will say that I feel personally very gutted this week, but also not surprised because the real kind of gutting moment was the day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, because that was the day that we knew that Trump was going to be able to fill her seat and would fill it with not only somebody that doesn't represent the values or positions. Frankly, of the majority of Americans, the majority of Americans support rights and access to abortion for Americans. But also, our RBG was the biggest and strongest, longest-serving advocate for women's rights and reproductive rights on the court. And so to replace her with somebody who would likely vote to repeal Roe v. Wade or weaken it for the first time, certainly in my lifetime was the fear, and that was the reality. And that is what is happening today. The majority of justices are likely to vote to uphold Mississippi's ban, which would essentially really weaken and dilute Roe v. Wade and make it very, very difficult, if not impossible, for women in this country to seek an abortion, which is going not only incredibly backwards, but it is very out of touch where most Americans are. And so this is the power of presidency and why voting is so important. And I think, you know, something that frustrates me quite a bit in moments like this is that oftentimes activists and political strategists and people like myself who talk about the threat and what's at stake in elections like this, like Roe v. Wade being repealed are often called out for being hysterical or that it wouldn't ever happen, and it's not hysterical. This is exactly what the right has wanted to do for a very, very long time. They've done it at the state level, as they did in Texas earlier this year. They have not tried to hide what their intentions are related to removing women's ability to make choices about their own body, and this is what is coming to pass. And this could happen because Trump was elected and was able to fill those Supreme Court seats. Sorry, that was very long winded way of explaining it, but no thank you so much for that. Elections matter and voting matters, and it has real long term consequences. [00:45:02][186.2]
Keith: [00:45:03] Absolutely does. And you know, part of me wants to be petty and reach back out to the people who told me I was hysterical in 2015 and 2016. But that doesn't matter now, right like that. I was right about something that unfortunately is coming to fruition. So how has that experience on the hard side and the soft side, as well as seeing how voting matters shaped what your newsroom is going to be? [00:45:25][21.7]
Tara: [00:45:26] Yeah, no, that's a it's a great question. I mean, and they're very connected because our country is so deeply polarized right now. And yet there are still so many millions of Americans that do not participate, who do not vote still and do not engage with their constitutional right, which is, I think, the most beautiful part about our democracy and why it's so sacred and we need to hold on to it. And similar to, you know, what's happening with Roe v. Wade and certainly what we're seeing happen with climate change action as well is that if people don't take these threats very, very seriously, it does become too late to do anything about them. And so the work that we do at Courier is really it is not Partisan. It is civically driven. It is about trying to inform more people about these threats and these risks and what's at stake, but in ways that are very relevant to them and their life and their family and their community. Because so much of the mainstream journalism and political punditry in this country and the cable news noise, it really turns a lot of people off from politics and a rightful way. And then they don't participate. And that benefits the right right now because the less people that vote, the more likely Republicans are to win. And especially with gerrymandering, which they are doing across this whole country right now, they are they are really rigging a system to be able to win, even though their views are not representative of the majority of Americans. And so our mission at Courier is to really engage these Americans who do not feel like this government or these parties represent them, and to help educate and inform them and make really personal to them. These issues that will impact their lives to try to get them to become more civically engaged. And it is a very, very, very tough task. And I don't I don't know how successful we will be at it, but I think that we absolutely have to try. And too often political campaigns and their advertising and organizing programs focus on the people that already vote and are most likely to vote because that's cost efficiency, right? That's what we're going to spend money to make sure that the people who are going to vote vote for our person and that. Still leave so many people out of the process, and I don't think we can afford for so many people to not be engaged in the process any longer. [00:47:40][134.7]
Keith: [00:47:41] Totally great. Amazing. And so near the end of every conversation, I don't like to make people have predictions, but I do want to hear what an ideal year looks like. So if we caught up and we're going to catch up more than just next year, but if we caught up this time next year, what would an ideal 2022 look like for you? [00:47:59][17.8]
Tara: [00:48:00] Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think what's important to me and the team at good information ink is the success of the Courier NEWSROOM's and model, because regardless of whether you agree with their progressive point of view or values, I think that their distribution of their approach to distribution and news content that really reaches users on social media and the ways that they engage with content is highly scalable. So the success of these news organizations continuing to grow their audiences in those eight states, as well as hopefully being able to encourage some larger legacy news organizations to apply some of what we've learned about this audience and distribution of information to this audience, to their own models, I think that would be a huge win. And I've had conversations and we'll have many more with editors and publishers of news organizations that per year will probably never be as large or as influential as about how they can take some of what we've learned and apply it to their own news. [00:48:59][59.3]
Keith: [00:49:00] Amazing. And what can the average citizen do to combat disinformation? [00:49:04][3.9]
Tara: [00:49:05] Yeah. So a number of things number one, support local trusted journalism. Our model is based on grassroots and underwriting support to at Courier NEWSROOM. But in addition, supporting your local news organization is really important because they are all struggling if they have not been bought out by hedge funds today. But the second thing that everyone should remember is that the reason that the right wing media and just disinformation generally is so powerful is because of the volume of it that reaches people. So it starts to normalize lies and people, then it's easier for them to see them or understand them as truth when they're not. So what every person can do is be really intentional about sharing on their social media feeds, on their Instagram Stories, on their Facebook accounts. Trustworthy information So following good, trustworthy news organizations at the local national level and making a point to not assume that other people in your community are seeing that information, but to understand that they are probably seeing that information, so you are doing your part just by sharing more trustworthy information at every chance you get. [00:50:11][65.6]
Keith: [00:50:11] The great great point. Where can people find out more information and could they get in contact with you? [00:50:15][4.3]
Tara: [00:50:16] Yeah, absolutely. Good Information Inc's website is good info Dot U.S. can definitely check out our site there. And then, as I mentioned, Courier NEWSROOM dot com is where you can go. Find all of the newsrooms we've already incubated and invested in and and get your friends and family members in those states to follow those news sources. [00:50:34][17.8]
Keith: [00:50:35] Awesome. Tim McGowan, thank you so much. It's great to see you. [00:50:37][2.2]
Tara: [00:50:37] Thank you, Keith. Always a pleasure. [00:50:37][0.0]
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