¶ Warwick Sabin joins the Chuck ToddCast
This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Incognate. You know, one of the things we talk a lot about on this podcast is trust, who deserves it and who doesn't. And lately I've been thinking about how much of our personal information is just floating around online. I'm talking about phone numbers, home addresses, emails, even information about your family, all sitting on websites you've probably never
heard of. In the scary part, that information can be used by scammers and identity thieves to piece together enough details to impersonate you, target you, or worse. That's where incognate comes in. Incognate works behind the scenes to track down and remove your personal data from hundreds of websites, things like online directories, people search sites, and even commercial databases that collect and sell your data without your consent.
The process is automated, and because data can pop back up again, incognit keeps monitoring and removing it for you. And one feature I really like is custom removals. If you find something about yourself online that you want eliminated, it's a listing, an old record, or something you just don't want publicly available, you can send incognate the link and a dedicated privacy expert handles the removal for you. It's a great way to reduce your digital footprint and
protect yourself from scams and identity theft. Right now, you can get sixty percent off an annual incognyplan. Just go to incognit dot com slash Chuck podcast and use the code Chuck podcast. Use the code you get a discal again, that's in cogni dot com slash chucktodcast and use the
¶ Creating the first nonprofit newsroom in Mississippi
code Chuck podcast to get sixty percent off and start taking control of your personal data today. Trust me, I'm constantly working on this for years myself, and here's an opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands as well. Well. As I told you when we had John Adams on from the Montana Free Press that I was going to spend the month promoting Local News Day and as our way to promote Local News Day a ninth, basically, it's an awareness day so the people get to know
the local news entrepreneurs that are everywhere. Unfortunately, not everybody knows of their existence, and so creating a day like this, which that was a John's idea there at the Montana Free Press. He thought could be helpful around the country. Various partners are there well. One of the pioneers, frankly in this new independent space and one of the more
bigger success stories. There is somebody I've gotten to know over the last three years as I've dove into this space as work save it, and he is the publisher, owner, proprietor however you want to describe it for New South Today is the parent company, I believe, and he'll correct me with all the mistakes I make here in a second. I'm aware of Warwick through a variety of ways, but primarily through my old boss, Andy Lack, who, by the way, we will give a shout out here. He just committed
seven million dollars to a local news initiative recently. I'm very proud of my former boss there. But he's been very active with Mississippi Today, which is part of De South Today. But Deep South Today is also in New Orleans Jackson. I know that they're I think in Arkansas and just you know, by its very nature Deep South Today about bringing better local news to the Old South. It's particularly more of the Old South states than the
New South States. So work, how'd I do? And describing your company and describing your efforts, right.
I think it's a great summary. You know, Andy really did get things going over ten years ago when Mississippi Today got started, actually twenty sixteen, first nonprofit newsroom in Mississippi really coming in there to fill the gaps that existed as sort of legacy media was declining and small local papers and radio stations were going out of business. And just in the last ten years, Mississippi Today has
become the largest newsroom in Mississippi. Won the Pluitzer Prize and twenty twenty three was a finalist for the Pulitzer. In twenty four just wins numerous awards for the quality of its reporting. And this is really essential reporting, you know, the accountability reporting that nobody would be doing if not for Mississippi Today, just again providing essential local news and
information there. And it's scaled. You know, Deep South Today, which is the organization I run now, actually includes three newsrooms. So we have Mississippi Today, we have Veritae News here in New Orleans where I am, and The Current in Lafayette, Louisiana.
¶ What went wrong with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger?
And we're the only multi state nonprofit news network. We've got a centralized business infrastructure supporting all three newsrooms, and we're getting ready to scale across the rest of the South, right.
I know you're I think you're pretty close in Arkansas maybe, but I know you've been deep there and there's really a frankly, I think a couple of communities that would really want it, and it's both Little Rock and Fayeteville, particularly northwest Arkansas. I know there's a huge foundation there and I imagine and you know, there's actually a lot of pretty good local news in Alabama. The folks over at in Mobile, I feel like it's an old advanced media site.
Correct, That's right. And I want to emphasize, you know, we're not looking to go in the places that don't need us, you know, where there's good stuff happening.
You're not trying to be a predator here, You're not. No, I mean we're not right, This is not predatory behavior. We're going to go eat their lunch in Alabama. No, If they've got a good thing going, how do we help?
Yeah? And I think the look journalism for a long time was so competitive, and it was competitive for a good reason because it was a really profitable business, Like you could make a lot of money in journalism for a long time in the twentieth century, and that's just not the case now. And what we've seen is, you know, when the Internet came and all of these local news organizations suffered as a result, and a lot of them
went out of business. There's a rebuilding that needs to happen because people have discovered that this was essential civic infrastructure that you know, no one's going to come and report the local news for you, especially in small, rural, poor places like the Deep South, like we get plenty of national and international news from the internet, but nobody's reporting on the PTA meeting, the city council meeting, telling you who's running for office, holding elected officials accountable unless
we rebuild this infrastructure. So we're doing it as a nonprofit. We're doing it as a public service. We're giving it away for free, and we'll work with anybody who wants to work with us. But there's a lot of gaps
¶ There's been a wholesale implosion of the old newspaper model
to fill, and that's where we're focusing.
Let's talk about the vacuum you're filling and why it exists. What have you learned about the Jackson Clarion Ledger. This is the basically arguably was the biggest paper in Mississippi. Maybe the Biloxi Herald has certainly had a as a fairly large circulation. I think there's a Greenville paper that's fairly significant. Does that sound right, Greenville, Mississippi. My saying that, I think it's I'm thinking of a community that was
in Benny time since district. I think it's Greenville, but smaller that used to have pretty decent local political journalism. But let's take the Jackson Claaren Ledger, because this was the essentially the largest city, the state capital. Now, what have you learned from the failure there and the economics? It's just just bad manager. I believe it's it was a Gannette paper might still be Yeah, is it bad
management or was there? They're really sort of a local business abandonment of the paper that made it very difficult.
I think that's a tough business. I mean, I'm not looking to sort of, you know, take shots at anybody.
No, and I'm not setting you up that way, but you're trying to learn from their mistakes, and that's what I'm curious about.
Yeah. Look, I mean it's it's it's tough when when you're trying to run a business the same way that you've run it for a long time, and you're trying to dismantle maybe some of the structures that have been in place for a long time that served you well. I just think that's difficult. I think our advantage again was that we kind of got to build from scratch in this new environment. You know, I think being part
¶ Potential for rebuilding a national network of newspapers?
of a big national news network is tough. Probably for gannet. Being beholden to shareholders who are expecting a certain profit margin is tough. We don't have to do that, I'll emphasize. Also, the Associated Press doesn't even really have anybody in Mississippi anymore.
Wow, they completely abandoned basically the loss, so that you know, they're very newspaper based. I mean, it's just how their network worked. And I kind of think it's this is something we need to rebuild, and I'm not sure epeas that in the position to rebuild it.
That's it like there's a wholesale implosion of the old model. We're fortunate that we're getting to kind of build something new, and we're iterating and evolving, and we're trying to stay in a nimble as we do it. But you know, again, we're not. We don't have to please shareholders, we don't have to extract a profit. Every piece of revenue we get, we can invest right back into the news product. And that's why we're growing.
Look, we've talked offline about the opportunities here with these rising independent news organizations, and you know you now have larger and larger ones that are showing up. I mean, we've got a gentleman here in Washington, d C. Named Robert Albritton. This is the one time owner of Politico. His father was in the local news business for years here before, both before I lived here in Washington, but
¶ In small markets, newspapers have to be hyper efficient
the you know, there was a news it was a two newspaper town and a realistic one back in the sixties and seventies with the Washington Star. And then he also owned the local TV affiliate. Now, when Robert took over the media business, he got he didn't he stayed out of the local He sold all of his local news holdings at first and made some money with Politico. And and he's definitely you can you can see he's
just sort of seeing opportunity. But if you get a couple of big tent poles in the independent space, you know, Texas Tribune's a tent pole. One could argue, maybe the Salt Lake Tribune, since they decided to go full independent, is a tent pole. Maybe Robert Albritton's revitalized Washington Sun or Star, whichever name he ends up the's and all depends on what how expensive the buying the brand might be.
If you do something like that, I could see rebuilding this national network that a Mississippi today could could benefit from.
No, yeah, no, look I agree. I mean, just just to go back to your point, I mean, you know, YESDC was had multiple newspapers, a two newspaper town, if you want to put it that way. But you know, so many small towns here in the South had two newspapers. I mean, if you can.
Buy the town was because guess what the dirty little secret was. Everybody assumed the media was on one side or the other. Right, that's right, So there had to be there had to be a balance. Yeah, that's what the that's what the problem. That's what the the community supported. They wanted the balance.
They wanted the balance. But it was just a really good business. Like people had to pay for the news. They had to have a subscription or buy it at the newsstand. If you wanted to advertise a product, you had to advertise it in a local paper and nobody would know what sale was going on at your store. So it was a really really good business until it wasn't right until the Internet came and made all of
that sort of inoperable. And I think you know, when when you talk about what we're trying to do again in the South, in these rural areas where there isn't an All Britain, you know, there isn't a Jeff Bezos
¶ Service journalism is what creates the opportunity for "sexy" journalism
like we are really like having to kind of figure out how do you make this hyper efficient, how do you stretch every dollar, and how do you do it in service of a product that's actually a quality product and not just slop. And we're doing that here, and so I want to emphasize that your point is correct.
I think the networked model where you have a centralized business infrastructure that's supporting multiple newsrooms so that they can focus on the news product and the news gathering, and we're focused on again, you know, revenue, audience, technology, all of those things that make that possible.
Let's talk about I think the challenge in local journalism as far as the product itself. Is I sometimes use the frame journalism for journalists, and there's this balance meaning, look, there's some great stories, but if nobody reads them, you know, doesn't matter. And you know, I do think there can be a disconnect at times between those of us who
¶ Local journalists exonerated a man on death row in Mississippi
want to be the next Bob Woodward and those of us and those in the community who simply want what I call service journalists. And the right balance is you got to be both, right, You've got to be there to help people find ways to save money, how to learn how to navigate local government. You know, sometimes you are literally the place that teaches people how the DMV works,
and there's no that that's by the way. If that didn't exist, then you'd have to go to the DMV's website itself, and God only knows how clunky their explanation would be. In some way. In some cases, the beauty of a local news organization is I always say, is they speak American, there's there's there's government English, and then there's a ma right, like, you know, you want to tell people the reality. And I think sometimes that balance is difficult because a young journalist doesn't want to be
the ones that help you navigate the DMV. They want to be the ones that win. The pullets are how do you strike that balance and how do you learn
¶ Using local and youth sports as a community bond
from the community. I mean, because the important accountability stories aren't going to be the most trafficked. Any traffic matters in this situation. So it's a it's an interesting balance that all local news, I think, have to have to find.
I think it's about leading with values. I mean, you know, the service journalism is sort of what leads to the sexy journalism that you're talking about. You know, when you talk about being the next Woodward, you know, we feel like we have the next Woodward in Anna Wolf, who won the police in Mississippi today. And she did that by exposing you know, the misuse of welfare dollars in Mississippi.
And by the way, that took years and she was going you know through literally just just you know, documents and searching for things.
It's almost an old fashioned foya story, right, Like it was.
Pure shoe leather and foya and spending a lot of time with papers. It was the opposite of sexy. It was started as service journalism. It became the story that involved you know, Brett farre you know, all of these people that everybody's heard the story. And you know, I think about our New Orleans newsroom that last year exposed the junk science behind the conviction of a guy who'd been sitting on death row forever. That guy is now out of jail and on parole. He was on death
row in Angola Prison here in Louisiana. And so, you know, again didn't start with sexy stuff, but ends up in a place where it has real impact. And I could spend the rest of this podcast go through all the journalism and all of our newsrooms that that really has
had this kind of impact. But to your point, you know, we know that we need to cover sports, and we need to cover you know, the great touch points of Southern culture like food and music, and we're moving into video and audio journalism so we can reach people where they are and not just exsume that they want to
¶ Local sports is the one area where communities can avoid politics
read a two thousand words story about you know, torture and abuse in Mississippi prisons. So you know, we're trying to do all of those things, but it starts with the values that we're inculcating into our journalists.
You know, and I when I talk about my as you know, and I just I think I view local sports, whether it's youth sports, high school sports, however, you want to view as a community bomb bond, right, And when you think about we're so desperate for fine community bonds, and what's a bond that is bigger than politics, Well, youth sports in some ways is. Oh, by the way, it happens to be a younger demographic. We all want to have younger readers, right, So there's there's a lot
of stickiness here. But it's also expensive to cover local sports because the audience is small, cumulative, collectively, it's a gigantic audience. Right, It's a fascinating I mean, trust me, I have I think there's opportunity to scale, but it is more if you come at it from the youth sports space, from necessarily the local news space. It is hard to see the scalability when you're just looking at it as a building block to your community information headquarters.
So it's a it's a it's it's there. It's a challenge. I remember Andy Lack saying to me, the first hire we made was it was was the leading sports columnists. You know, we knew we need to at least, you know, invite readers over, But what works and what are some things that you want to try that you haven't yet
¶ Mississippi produces terrific writers
in this in this community sports space.
Oh it's specifically in sports. Well, I still think you know that again to your point, like sports is really really important in our culture. You know, whether it's Friday night high school football, whether it's you know, college sports, and I know you've been up my alma mater, University of Arkansas.
But it's also in high school. I mean, it's what keeps communities from beating each other up the It's sort of what's the last thing that communities ignore pol it's about let's just talk about the high school game. I mean, I see it, and I've spent a lot of time in Pensacola. I've got place down there. I consider myself a member of Deep South today. And you're larger, you know, I definitely, And I know this culture and I love it,
and it is not inherently political. And yet these these people are getting stereotyped by how frankly the East Coasts sometimes covers the region. And yet I can feel the
¶ Having a video/audio component for reporting is critical
desire for community down here. I do well.
And again it's also you know culture. I mean, I like to say that, you know, so much of what people consider American culture if they're not in America, they're really talking about sore because if you ask them, you know, what's American food, you know, they'll say barbecue, They'll say fried.
I know, they always think of so America. Nobody's ever talking about the jello molds from Minnesota.
I hope not, although I love my friends in Minnesota, but but I do do.
But like, yeah, our South in the yeah yeah.
And then you know, what's what's American music if you're if you're not American, Well, it's jazz, it's blues. It's these genres that came you know, from right here in New Orleans and Mississippi and uh, this this region and even you know, when people talk about American writers, they're quick to talk about Faulkner and wealthy and you know, and this is this is a place deep, deep, deeply rooted in its culture and it is a point of unity.
Please, I think one of the best modern writers today is also a Mississippi native, right Thompson. Well, I mean, you know, like it is, there's something about Mississippi that just produces terrific, uh terrific writers.
It's true, and I think we need to lean into that. And and you know, you would also mention Rick Cleveland, who's you know, the sports columnists in Mississippi's kind of the the the sports columnsts Mississippi happens.
To write fine bomb of sorts, right, you know.
There, yes, And you know he has a podcast. And this is kind of where I wanted to go with us too, when you talk about like the younger generation and what need to do. We started experimenting with sort
¶ Human connection to journalists will be important in age of AI
of video and audio, you know, a few years ago, and what we find is, you know, we still have to invest in the reporting. You know, we have to do the hard work to come up with the stories.
But when we're able to translate those into you know, thirty to sixty second TikTok videos where you get to see the journalist and you make a connection with that person and that person's telling you in their own words what they reported about that, it really lands and we're getting way more engagement, you know, way more views, and it's a way of sort of amplifying the impact of
the journalism. And so we're going to be doing a lot more of that, and we recently announced this thing called Deep South Today studios where we're going to be doing video across all of our newsrooms as well as audio. Again not new to a guy like you who's done video and of course as a podcast right now, but it's important for us to be getting all of our reporting out and all the ways that we can on every platform and the way that people want to receive it.
This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Soul. So if you love that end of the day unwined but hate the hangover, Soul's out of Office is for you. These sparkling THCHC drinks and gummies give you the same relaxed social feeling without the alcohol, without the calories, and without the crash. Soul is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious hemp derived THCHC and CBD products
designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe. So also has a variety of products specifically designed to help you get a better night's rest, including their top selling Sleepy Gummies, a fan
favorite for deep, restorous sleep. Look, I have made no secret, I am a believer in this stuff, in cannabis and hemp derived. I do not partake in alcohol. For the
¶ People won't trust journalists that aren't part of their local community
most part. I think this stuff is a lot safer than alcohol, a lot less addictive than alcohol. And yes, I have to say I love these drinks. It is the glass of wine and you know, after work, that's what this is. So no hangover and no excess calories like this. I'm a big fan. So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to sold today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty percent off your entire order.
Go to getsoul dot com and use the word toodcast that's getsol dot com promo code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too, am a customer. So you know it's interesting if I think about I'm sure and I'm gonna pivot AI here because I actually think what you're talking about is is the perfect response to this AI moment. You know, when I think about the unintended consequence of AI, one of the upsides that I see that I'm and maybe i'm this is the eternal I always say I'm
short term, pessimistical, term optimistic. You know, I know we're going to get it right. I just don't know how long it's going to take us to get it right. Whatever right is. You know, I'll let people describe their version of it, but well, we know we're not there, and I think we can all come to that agreement. I think that this moment of AI that we're in
is going to have people crave human connection. I think it's going to crave and so in the world of journalism, I think this is going to be we're actually going to stick to this independent model for a while. You know that consolidation. First of all, it's not going to make business sense the way it did perhaps in the early nineties and then again in the early odds. So I don't think you're going to see predators out there right.
There isn't going to be a Gannette that decides, hey, why don't we you know, gobble all these people up there.
¶ AI tools can make reporting easier and more efficient
There's some scale here. I think Google took everybody's scale. Okay, so Google has everybody's scale, So nobody's going to be thinking in those terms. But the demand for human connection, the demand to trust human curators and to be live and in person. So for instance, they got to see it, touch it, the byline alone, and all sorts of ways. I you know, people are now making personal, connective decisions
and how they get their information. And when you go audio in particular or even YouTube, you're listening in a headphone, and even that physical distinction between turning on a TV where everybody hears it versus what am I only going here? Well then it's intimate and even more personal. And the last thing you want is a bot talking to you that way. So you know, I sense that opportunity. But look, but that doesn't mean AI isn't an incredible tool to
help you aggregate information, deal with deep databases. And you know there's certainly a toolbox aspect of this. It's going to be phenomenal and can be phenomenal. So how are you guys looking at AI? And you know, I think it's a mistake to try to have hard and fast rules the moment because AI is in the middle of
evolving all the time. We will never use AI, okay, I bet you said, we will never use Wikipedia like I remember saying that about Wikipedia and going you know, in hindsight, it turned out Wikipedia is a B minus product, and that's incredible for the Internet, right, B minus is
¶ What does a community need to have to become part of your network?
actually at a curve, probably a work right. So Wikipedia today is actually a pretty decent source versus twenty years ago when all of us snobby journalists that do no, no, no, don't you quote your Wikipedia to me. So I'm trying to have a little bit of that of that sort of lack of hubris. I guess about AI. But where are you on it?
And how do you Yeah, I mean, and I've got a lot to say on this. I want to reiterate something you mentioned, which is, you know, the factor of trust. You know, we are very rooted in place here in the Deep South. The big part of our sort of model, of course is having the newsrooms, you know, locally based, having our journalists in the community. It's really very important to us.
Yeah, how many people in and the committee asked, and how many generations I Beer's family lived here. That's the first question out of their mouth, right.
Well, it's a big question. But more importantly, just people want to know that, like you actually live there, that you're experiencing the same thing they're experiencing. And it's one thing for us to kind of have like this network model where we're doing these business functions at you know, the Deep South today level. But it's even more important that the newsrooms themselves are again rooted locally. The journalists are in the community, they're seeing, they're touching. You know,
we do a lot of in person events. To your point, again,
¶ Arkansas Democrat Gazette weathered the storm better than most
the video and the audio is important so people see the journalists and can make those personal connections. But you know, when it comes to AI, then I think, you know, it's it's important to start with like the fact that I think people can really sniff out the fraudulent aspects of AI. Like just recently, you know, this book was canceled because people figured out I guess as soon as they started reading it that have been generated with AI.
I think people see that with articles, they see that with videos and voices, you know, when we're on social media, and so you know, the more that we can kind of again convey the authenticity in our reporting, it's really really important now we know that like all of us use AI even if we don't mean to, because when we're doing like a you know, a Google search.
Or we can't do search anymore without AI getting in the way anyway. And frankly, search is so terrible with all of its advertisements, you know, which takes you eight, you know, eight scrolls before you find the first link that wasn't ad supported, you know.
Right, And and there are AI tools that can make reporting more easy, like when you're trying to analyze really big data sets. Obviously can do it more efficiently, more accurately if you know how to use it. And so we're training our journalists in you know, data analysis and the use of data and data visualization and all of those things. But the point is we're doing this in partnership with our journalists. We're not obviously trying to replace
human beings. We're not trying to use AP to do sorry AI to do the actual reporting.
But you know, it's funny you say that AI shouldn't used like AP was used by a lot of local news organizations for too long and it ended up I mean, talk about your Freudian slips. I actually think it was a wonderful mispake because that was how you knew a local paper had given up when you saw nothing but wire copy on its front page. I mean that used to be the that was oh it's a wire copy paper, never mind. I mean literally that's the way I would feel.
Yeah, you're right, I mean definitely was somebody.
An AI could end up. And that's the point. AP was our version of commodity news. AI is going to
¶ Arkansas is in need of a local news network
be this generation's version of it.
And we think our value proposition again is really you know, our people, Our people are important. Our people are doing this work. They're making it, you know, better than the work that's happening in other places and again having more impact. So we're going to continue investing in that and upholding that, and any use of AI that we have, you know, in the journalism process will be done decided, you know, in partnership and collaboration with our journalists.
Let's talk about the newsrooms you've chose and the ones that you're potentially going to launch. What do you need? What does a community need to have for you to consider going you know, what you should be part of the Deep South Today network.
Well, it's what it doesn't have to be honest with you. I mean, we're looking at the places of most need and we're prioritizing those because we want to be additive. We want to go to places where we can do the most good because now that we've created this infrastructure and it's so much easier to scale, you know, and and with so much more efficient Like let's take Arkansas, for example, a place where you know, unfortunately it's sort of headed in the direction that Mississippi was ten years ago,
where you know, the legacy media has declined. A lot of local news has you know, disappeared.
And I want to I want to give a shout out though, to the owner of the Arkansas Democratic. Is
¶ Bill Clinton's election kept Walmart's headquarters in Arkansas
that absolutely because I feel like they stave this off longer than most.
I agree, I completely.
Made a pivot to digital quicker than most. Now, look was it was I was I crazy about all the decisions they made. I wasn't. I think that they did some stuff that I understood why they got sold that software. I think they got sold a bill of goods. You know, when they were trying to make it where you'd see the paper itself in a PDF. There were a lot of local proprietors got caught up in hey, that our newspapers should look exactly like a newspaper does. In the end,
it was like, actually, no, that isn't a necessity. But the point being is early on they mitigated this. And I'm curious, do you know them very well? And what have you wanted? And yeah, what can you tell me about them?
Look, I'm a University of Arkansas a graduate. I lived in Little Rock for most of my adult life. I was an elected official there. I was also in journalism and other endeavors there. And I would always say, you know that that we were so so lucky to have the Democrat as at because it did sort of uphold again, you know, this quality journalism. It wasn't wire copy to your earlier point. I mean it was, you know, the only statewide daily newspaper really and so so it.
Was and it was a robust statewide daily, like it felt like it truly covered the state. It sure had a little Rock focus, but they did they accepted the premise they were a state wide paper.
Definitely, and and so you know, I will always say, you know that, like I just really respect and admire that commitment and what was what they did to to keep that going. I will say, going back to like the very first things we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, is this is just a tough business, right.
I mean, I think like if you're trying to do this on a for profit basis and you're trying to do it the right way, where you're not trying to cater to a particular ideological or audience or exclude people, but just report the you know, the vegetables and the protein of daily news, you're probably going to have a hard time. And I think they've had a hard time, and so there's been some you know, more kind of unfortunate decline there. And but also there's a lot of
¶ Northwest Arkansas produced some of America's biggest companies
need in Arkansas because you have a lot of growth in northwest Arkansas. You have obviously the capital city, Little Rock. You've got rural areas in the Mississippi Delta part of the state that are just lacking in news coverage. And if you want to really prioritize where the need is, Arkansas, like I said, is sort of where Mississippi was ten
years ago. It's in need of a nonprofit, you know, news operation that can fill those gaps, that can work in collaboration with the existing news media in the state, which is what we're going to be doing, and provide that essential information that people need to make decisions about their lives and to participate in their civic life. And the thing is, we can do that much more easily because now instead of somebody who'd have to like build
everything from scratch, we've already got all the infrastructure. All we need to do is hire the editors and the reporters and put them to work. And that's what we're going to do.
You know what's interesting about Arkansas, as I was, is, you know I talk about like, why is it important for a small state to elect a president? I said, because because Bill Clinton approved a new airport for Northwest Arkansas. And I say this because what was the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal was to prevent Walmart and Tyson's Chicken
from headquartering in Chicago or somewhere else. But it was Chicago was the most likely place because you know, it's central, and you know, it makes you you can't argue against the logic of being in a centralized location like Chicago. And you know, and what essentially, I don't know that it went down this way, but you just sort of like a Bill Clinton going, no, we'll get you an airport. We're going to we could make Northwest Arkansas. And what's
phenomenal to me and work. I'd love for you to take a minute, since you're an Arkansas guy and a native and you know this state better than I do. In the eighties and nineties, Little Rock was the center of everything, center of power, center of culture, center of government. And now I feel like Little Rock is just the center of government, and Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas has become
the sort of the cultural center. You know. Obviously it's really sort of with the University of Arkansas being and faithful. You've got Walmart, You've got the Tysons and both. You have a lot of family members who chose to stay and invest in the community. So I look at it. It's been a remarkable transformation, and I and that's why I go back and go. It doesn't happen unless without Bill Clinton becoming president. Because Bill Clinton made got them
an airport like it is. You cannot under you know. I'm just curious if you've seen this, if you it looks dramatic from where I sit. I spent a lot of time in Little Rock for obvious reasons in the nineties, and so we all got to know. Little Rock got the lovel I've had family in Little Rock a long time, So I knew it a little bit before, but it is remarkable to me the incredibly shrinking importance of Little Rock to the state of Arkansas.
Yeah, and I represented Little Rock in the legislature and ran for mayor of Little Rock in twenty eighteen. So you've just you know, pulled the string and now you've gotten me started. And you know, I'll just say this goes back to the nineteenth century. You know, Arkansas's kind
¶ How much do you factor in local resources when launching a new paper?
of bisected geologically. Half the state is you know, plantation, sort of Mississippi River farmland. The other half is you know, kind of Ozar Boston Mountains. And what that meant for the economy and the politics is that like all the wealth was in the agricultural side, you know, for you know, the first like one hundred hundred and fifty years, the plantation owners controlled you know, the politics in Little Rock.
That's why Arkansas affiliated with the Confederacy, even though everyone who lived in northwest Arkansas in the mountains they all sort of affiliated and sympathized with the Union, and it created a lot of problems in the politics.
No, it's always been behaved weirdly like a border state, even though it is never technically a border state, right.
Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And then you fast forward to the twentieth century, and you know, obviously as agriculture gets mechanized, you have the great outmigration. People leave. The Delta becomes the poor part of the state. Meanwhile, because you couldn't grow anything in northwest Arkansas, that's where Sam walton O been a general store. That's where the Tyson started raising chicken kens and JB. Hunt started, you know,
his trucking company. And then over the next fifty years is the agg side of the stay goos and to decline, these companies I just mentioned become like Fortune one hundred companies, like Fortune fifty companies. They're Walmart's the biggest retailer in the world, Tyson's the biggest protein producer. JB. Hunt's the biggest transportational logistics company like in the world. And they're
all in Northwest Arkansas. And so to your point, you know, it became richer and it's starting to become more powerful politically. But I will say one more thing, because I used to pound my fist on the table about this in Little Rock. The thing is the folks with the money and the power in Northwest Arkansas about twenty five years ago, they pulled everyone together and said, we have got to cooperate.
Like at the time, all the cities and counties up in that part of the state were fighting over things, and they said, we're gonna have one strategy. We're going to be together. We're going to have you know, not just you know, infrastructure, but culture. And it was really you know, the Waltons who drove a lot of this.
But you know when you see it, Betton Villa and Fadeviller behave like sister cities, not competitors, correct.
¶ What other places have you looked at to expand the network?
And they've got bike trails and museums and you know, hotels and and they've done all this together, whereas Central Arkansas unfortunately still fights with itself. And they used to drive me crazy, and I say, that's all about leadership. It's all about who's in charge and who decides to exert their authority to do something good. And they've done something really good in Northwest Arkansas.
No, they have. And it just feels like the it just you know, you feel the pull and power, right and when business, culture, and education all sort of are there, the only thing that they don't have is politics, right, is the government.
And they don't have the state capital, but.
Increasingly like and you can and it's and that is I think it's going to be an interesting source of political tension. Right, you just know that this will this will go back and forth. I mean frankly to a much different degree. But it was sort of like, how this can go. It can go sideways. Miami is the cultural and always has been the sort of the center of Florida, but it's never been the political capital and political capitals. So you can it can it can sometimes
create tension there. So I bring all that up about Arkansas because if you're starting a nonprofit journalistic organization, it's obvious you got to start where the money is because you got to have patrons. And yet at the same time, you just describe where the need is, it's not necessarily where the money people are. And this is the balance of this witch business model. Do you pick right? Is it a nonprofit? Is it a cooperative? Is it a full non for profit? Is it a non for profit
which is slightly different than just a nonprofit? Right, So I say this, am I it is how much do you factor in? Hey, the community we're in has to also have enough frankly wealthy patrons.
Yeah, well interestingly, just so you know, I mean, Northwest Arkansas is actually where the need for journalism is more acute than Central Arkansas. Like you know, when I'll tell you when I was starting to work on this project
¶ Model is doing civic minded journalism that is free to access
and I was visiting Northwest Arkansas, I just so happened to be there like the day before a primary. This was like a couple of years ago, and I ran into somebody I knew on the street and they didn't even know what I was doing, like at the time, and they just like they were just relating to me. Warwick. You know, there's this election tomorrow and I have no idea who's running for office. I have no idea who
to vote for because there's no news up here. And literally they didn't even know what I was up there to do in the first place. And I just I know this is anecdotal, but it's true. And so you have this very again, the fastest growing, richest part of the state doesn't have journalism. But then also you know, the rural parts and the poorest parts don't have it either. And I say that to say, we're going to be in both places.
We're going to see everyone.
Who needs it, because when I define need, I define it in terms of need and journalism. The other thing I'll just say too, is like we're in an underresourced region, Like we don't have anything close to the wealth of a New York City in La San Francisco, Chicago, DC,
¶ Starting from scratch, avoiding legacy costs is a huge boon
So I take it for granted that, like we're doing more with less here no matter what. Like we don't have big philanthropy, we don't have a lot of wealthy people. We have a handful of small, successful business owners in our region, but nothing to the scale of other places. So we're just going to do as much as we can. And that's why we've built such an efficient business models take advantage of these economies of scale.
This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteasonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on your belly little gut health. There right and richer in
nutrients any oxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box, and a new protein box. I will tell you I have done the gluten free box. I have done it a second time. I have also used the code, the todcast code. If you use the promo code podcast at check out, you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as a gift to somebody else who loves
this bread. It is hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic. They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this. There is nothing like having an artesian bakery in your freezer to chase away the winter chill. Now is the best time to stay in and enjoy some comforting homemade meals with Wildgrain. I obviously highly recommend it. It is worth giving Wildgreen a try. Right now, Wildgrain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off your first box
plus free croissants for life. Come on when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast to start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wild grain dot com, slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. What other states you've got? Arkansas?
We're going to be in Arkansas, and I want to emphasize too, we still have room to grow in Mississippi and Louisiana. I mean, we have two newsrooms in Louisiana, but you.
Could be you could be in southern Mississippi. You're not
¶ All the revenue they generate gets invested back into the news product
in southern missis and we're working on that.
We definitely want to be on the coast in Mississippi in a bigger way. But you know, there are parts of Alabama that need us, there are parts of Tennessee that need us. You know, I can see Georgia is a place we go in. And again, this is not a manifest destiny situation where we want to be everywhere and lick every lollipop. It's just about, you know, trying to find the places where our particular model can do the most good because of the region that we're in.
So are you are you convinced that nonprofit is what it's going to be or do you envision it eventually trying to create a sustainable revenue streams.
Well, I think it's sustainable. I mean the way I would just describe it to you is that, you know, we are a civic institution, sort of the way a college, university, or a museum or a performing arts institution, where people understand the value that it has in the community. They also understand that, like in most cases, a college, a museum, or a performing arts institution isn't going to work as a for profit. You're not going to make a lot of money from that, but you're going to support it
with philanthropy. You're still going to charge tuition, you're still going to sell tickets, you're still going to charge admission, and those are earned revenue sources. And so we're also going to have earned revenue sources. We have earned revenue sources through advertising, through you know, events, sponsorship, through you know sponsorship of things like podcasts and videos and things like that. So revenue is a pillar, but it's alongside
¶ Newspapers & local journalism are a civic institution
membership and alongside philanthropy to keep it sustainable. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, And in fact, I think it's necessary because when you look at journalism, the way you can make a profit in it is by either really appealing to like an ideological niche, or
appealing to like a particular industry sector. So if you want to get like all the people who really need, you know, very specific news about Capitol Hill or very specific news about Wall Street or about you know, Silicon Valley, you can get those people, and you can charge them like premium subscriptions because you're giving them and you know this better than anybody. But for us, again, we're trying
to give them meat and potatoes of daily news. It's the kind of stuff people don't think they need to pay for, but they do need it, and we need it to have a healthy government and a healthy civic life. So we're doing it as a as a civic good, and we're giving it away for free.
What's a What's something that you because you're right about this, it's interesting you want to pick up on something you said earlier, which is and I think this has happened. It's what happened to the Arkansas Democrat has that it arguably is sort of what Bezos has decided. How Bezos has decided to deal with his problems at the Post,
which is, you do have legacy costs. You've been around long enough, you're going to have you know, healthcare costs, pension costs, labor, union contracts, all sorts of you know. There's somebody was telling me that, like, you know, the Washington Post has to print ninety thousand copies minimum every day and for a couple of like contracts or whatever. It is, right, and there's sort of like it's a loss leader now, right, and how on how that works?
And it's like, yeah, you do develop those legacy costs, and that happens. And there is something about Robert Albritton has the luxury of being able to start from scratch. You have the luxury starting from scratch. That doesn't mean you you're anti union or pro union. It could mean that you're going to probably have employees. At some point
¶ Local journalism should be a public/private partnership
you say, hey, we'dized, and that's the thing. It's it's employee decisions and you go from there. And I think, you know, there's always a there's there's a fine line here on collective bargaining versus individ you know all of that stuff. And I think every every news organization should make their decisions that way.
But.
What are the I mean in some of this is where you have an advantage, and where the Birmingham News and the Arkansas Democratic Is that are still sort of you know, they have obligations that they'd love to give up on to focus on what you're doing, and they like, hey, we're just stuck. We can't.
Yeah, look, I mean, you know, I again I'll emphasize, I mean, we are able to be a little bit more nimble than these legacy news organizations. And you know, again I I think you know, when I look at like what that they've had to do this day in business,
¶ It is incredibly difficult to deliver straight news in smaller communities
they've had to raise their subscription rates, which in poor places like Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, you know, it leads to fewer people having access to that news and information they're putting out, you know, and most of them have stopped printing. In fact, you know, the Democrat Is added famously sort of given out iPads to people, which was a really I think innovative thing that they did.
Again, they tried things that like you see what they're trying to do. In hindsight, it I understand why it didn't work.
Yeah, well, but I know, I really do admire them for trying. It was innovative at the time. And but again, like to your point, like when you've got a situation where you have to please shareholders or private owners, you have to generate a profit, and you have all of
¶ What do you hope to get out of Local News Day?
these sort of you know things like you know, having owning a printing press and having to to service all of this you know, different kind of debt or obligation. It's it's it's a difficult thing. And that's why I really do believe in our model, like as a nonprofit doing it as of public service, knowing that you know, the revenue we do generate gets invested right back into
the product. There's there's no sort of you know doubt about you know, where where we're putting the money, why we're doing what we're doing, and then understanding that like going forward, we're going to be supported by our members who are kind of you know, our small dollar donors, who you could call them the equivalent of like subscribers, because these are people who are voluntarily giving a certain amount of money per month just because they value the news that we're providing.
I'm a recurring annual donor exactly exactly gets you know, whatever you want to give, pay, pay what you can, and we appreciate our members so much and they're kind of our our core foundation.
And then you have, you know, again, the the revenue we generate through advertising and sponsorship and all of that,
which I think is an important pillar. And then and then the philanthropy is what makes you know, the books balance out and give us you know, also that catalyzing opportunities to do innovation things like we just started an investigative reporting center in partnership with the New York Times, and that was something that we conceived with the New York Times, but then I went out and raised the
money for it. Or Andy Lack, who you mentioned at the beginning, who just made a very important gift to us so we could further invest in our Deep South Today studios and do more video and audio. So again, but it's like when you read about a college or university getting a philanthropic gift to do something awesome around
medical research or whatever it is. Right, people are going to understand more and more how journalism truly is a civic institution, because without it, our democracy just doesn't work.
That's an interesting look. I will confess to being I believe. You know, I want to try to make most of these work without being a nonprofit, right I am, because I think you can get donor fatigue. I'm sure you hit you you know how that feels, right, you know, and you want to you want to try to be able to how can you handle the lean times?
Right?
You know. I've got a friend of mine who's obsessed with getting local news organizations to buy buildings, you know, go get real estate again so that way and the tough times you have something to borrow again so you
can make payroll. And I thought it was an interesting you know that that you know, that's why ann Alden came in and bought all these newspapers because they wanted the real estate you know there was that was the value they saw in some of like the Denver Posts and it's downtown real estate or the Miami Herald, that
¶ Local journalism can help citizens survive and thrive in their communities
incredible real estate at one time in Miami. And uh,
it is it is interesting. I I've not heard somebody make the case the way you're making it, in a really smart way that it's like, look, and you don't want to say newspapers are a museum, and I kind of like, you know, but when I think about, like take a let's let's talk about how the how Fayetteville gets and gets all these people to stop at their tours, and why do they do that, Because you do have patrons that come in and will spend the extra money
to make sure feet filled, makes it onto the major stops for musicals or plays or maybe artists tours, you know, if they want to show their work, and this sort of public private partnership anyway, it's you've articulated it better than I've heard others in making the nonprofit case that look, it's more of a public private partnership like a private
¶ Is print dead, or is there a viable path for it?
frankly like a private university more. It's more of a private university partnership necessarily than the public because I assume you're not looking for government money. Some do some news organizations are hoping. You know, I'm more open to the idea of tax breaks for local advertising than subsidy subsidizing directly workers. But you know, I know some people are looking to state governments for some financial subsidies for local needs.
You know, as a former elected official, I don't want us to be anywhere near government money. I don't think it's appropriate. But I also don't think it's a it's a it's a dangerous game to play, I think sometimes.
Because all the many you take it, then you're just compromised yourself, even you don't even percent.
Yeah, and our job is to stay neutral and objective, and and I hold people in power to account and so we can't kind of be vulnerable to that kind of stuff. So so no, and and again, I mean I want to emphasize too, like I am all for people who can make a profit doing journalism in the right way, and I want you and everybody else to
be successful in that. But I do think that like in this day and age, it is really difficult again just to deliver the straight you know, essential news and information, and especially regions like ours that don't have a lot of wealth to begin with, without it being in some degree like a public trust. It's it's uh, that's why I compare it to these other institutions, because nobody begrudges.
Now the museum and the in the in the local playhouse. That feels that that that makes a lot of sense to me, Like putting it in those categories for the private university, What do you hope to get out of local news day? I mean, I know you you're more than just a just a cheerleader for John Adams. You
¶ What has the gutting of local & public radio meant for Mississippi?
guys are a partner organization, you know. I mean, look, it is literally what I've described it as. It is an awareness day. Guess what. And if you don't have local news, you should be asking for more of it right in your community. But what do you hope to get out of it? How do you guys want to want to use the day and what do you Obviously John and hopes it's something that that is an annual event allah Earth Day.
I'm sure it will be. I mean, let me cheerlead for John for a second, even though you said I don't have to. I mean, he this was his idea and the fact that he was able to manifest that into what now it's become, which is I mean, you know, so many partners, so many.
Ques and so much fifty or seven hundred partners or something only the.
First year too, which means I think there's no doubt it's going to be sustainable in perpetuity and it's only going to get bigger. But to have achieved this just in the first year is incredible. So kudos to John for conceiving this and inviting us all to participate. But to your point, I mean, I think there's a lot of work to do to raise awareness about local news.
I think, you know, we all have to. It's sort of like politicians who think, you know, people are paying attention to the bill that they've introduced, when really everybody's just trying to get their kids to school and get the groceries and go to work. It's the same thing with local news, Like we're obviously very fixated on what we're trying to accomplish, but most people just look at their phone and they don't usually even know where the
information they're reading is coming from. Like there, it's already been through two or three like iterations, right, like somebody's reposting something that appeared somewhere else, or an influencer.
It's the worst game of telephone, right.
Yeah, I know for a fact, like we generate where like we are the primary source for so much news and information yet are hardly ever credited for it. Which is okay because it's just getting out in all the different ways across you know the world, and so local news day is that maybe that moment for people to understand, maybe for a split second, that you know this information comes from somewhere. It's really important. It's even more important
because it's local. It's not the hundredth version of what's going on in DC. It's actually what's happening in your community. And were it not for us, you wouldn't know about it. And it's affecting your life, you know, when you turn on the faucet or when you're you know, hope, hopefully you know.
They don't have total We've had a drinking water issue in Jackson, Mississippi. I find it to be the most shameful, right, I find it to be the most shameful fact that a state capital in the United States of America didn't have drinking water that they could reliable drinking water, and our federal government just shrugs, like I found the whole thing to be like entire But it's like, this is why local news is there, this is why we're to
pound it. It's like, you know, you got to have it there and look yes, and and and to make sure you're reading local news every day. Well we'll tell you where to find cheaper chicken or gas or these other things too. Right, Like you know, there's no doubt you want to be the the community guide for surviving in your community, surviving and thriving. Right, there's the survival part of journalism, and then there's the thriving part of life.
We'll do that too. But you know, when you think about just the small things that that Mississippi needs, you know, just letting people know that somebody is paying attention to the to Jackson. I mean, even though it's a state capital, you couldn't get state loanmakers to worry about it.
Right, and and and again. The reason why we are doing this in the first place because you know, the other news organizations have kind of you know, filtered out, and so we're sort of standing in the breach and I.
Want to I want to land the plane quickly. In two ways. One is print dead or do you see a path for some print in a in the in the future of local news like a weekly or twice weekly or summation. And I say this, I'm sort of seeding the question here. Different local news entrepreneurs are starting to dabble again in some print and it's usually on a weekly or a twice weekly basis. But I'm curious what you guys have found.
No, I think what you said is in zcacer. It's kind of like, you know, the resurgence of vinyl and music. It's like there's going to be opportunities for niche products in print, Like it's not going to be how people consume their daily news. But could you put out, you know, a monthly compendium of news. Could you focus I.
Think give you simply did local obituaries for the week. I know that sounds people. You know that is a commune. I've always said, you know, the single one of the most important things you've got to do if you're going to be a local news entrepreneur is celebrate the lives in your community, and the obituary page is no better place to do it.
That's right, or you know, in those areas of culture. I think you know, the coffee table presence, the physicality of it is still a value that I used to publish a magazine called The Oxford American, so I know the value. I remember that with a print product, but it's it's too disposable for daily news utilization. It doesn't economics that makes.
Sense, but you start I can start to see the and what's interesting. I've also heard that classifieds in a limited capacity are an opportunity again because of the localized nature, meaning there is a sense of I just want people in the community. I'm not interested in advertising. You know, if you're looking for a dog walker, you're not going to put that on indeed, right or you're not going to put that on Craigslist. You actually, you know, might do that. You know, you'd want to have a local
So I've heard that. Let me ask one other aspect. The local, local independent radio in public radio in particular, has been gutted. We know, we know the situation as to why what does that meant? In Mississippi, a lot of these rural, poor communities the only source of information was local public radio. There's a lot of there's a lot of innovation taking place with some local radio pioneers that I've been curious where you guys are at. How much do you work with? What's left? How is the
I'm going to focus on Mississippi and Louisiana. What is the public radio situation like in those two places right now?
Yeah? No, I know you've left this for the end, but this is actually something we've been working really hard on with our friends in public radio. So whether it's the local affiliates here in Louisiana, Mississippi, also Arkansas, I'll say, or whether you know, even at the regional level with the Gulf States newsroom here and the national level, I'll just say, stay tuned, as maybe you would say, because we've got some really.
Some real opportunities in there. I think I think there, Yeah, that's what I've been hopeful for that. Look, public radio, I'm you know, it is such a localized lifeline that there should be a partnership with local media in general. And I think there's opportunities there.
And so I think the distinction between public media and like nonprofit media is basically gone now that obviously disvernment, it's not really investing in that. So we need to find a way to bring it together and again find some some awesome collaborative opportunities to do what we do respectively even better together.
Waurick, Look, you're one of the you know, first when I when I wanted to you know, when I left Meet the Press and left NBC and wanted to throw myself in local news, I think you were like the first person I talked to and really gave me a great education and doing that and and my my friendship with Andy. I'm obviously a huge cheerleader of what you're doing over there in general. But but you've you sort of both You have this ability, and it's very important
in this in this world that we're all trying to rebuild. Here. You see the local need and you see the place, you see what national could be, and you seem to be like I'm trying to figure out how to be in both places, and it is just there's not a lot of and perhaps your previous experience in publishing helps with that, but I think you sort of see this in a way. There's a few yourself, There's my friend
John Ralston out in Nevada. There's only a handful of people that sort of both see the micro and macro at the same time. And I think that's a that's you know, that's what makes a good publisher. You've got to be able to do both both left brain and right brain stuff. So kudos to you, and I can't wait to see what you guys do next.
Well, thank you. That's a high compliment. And I'll just say, I mean, I'm so glad you're in it. It's great to be in it with you, and I really appreciate this opportunity to have this conversation, so thank you.
All right, April ninth, Local news Day. What it really means is, if you're in Mississippi, sign up for a yearly subscription to Mississippi Today, or if you're in Louisiana, sign up for give me. Give me the names of the pubs Verite News and the Current Baritae News, and the Current is in Lafayette. That's correct, And I know say La fa Yette right, that's great that we gotta.
Come down and visit and eat some of our good food too.
There's always always work. This is terrific. Thanks for the time.
Thanks so much, Chuck, this was a pleasure. I appreciate you got it. H