Chris Keyes: Why Public Lands Need RE:PUBLIC

Unknown Speaker 0:00 The following is a production of wild idea media. Bill Hodge 0:06 Welcome to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. Excited that today we are chatting with fellow traveler on the public land train. Chris Keyes is the founder of Republic. Talk about that name in a minute. I think it's a great name, and we are ready to dig into the world of journalism on public lands, but first, we're still coming down a bit from yesterday in our conversation with Senator Tina Smith, so you'll be here in this episode a week later, but in real time, just yesterday, Anderson, I had a chance to sit down with the senator from Minnesota. Had a great conversation. It has been a whirlwind. Few days certainly been a whirlwind. 24 hours. Anders, have you brought your stress level down any yet? Anders Reynolds 0:50 Oh, hi, Bill. Have I brought my stress level down? You know what? Was never up. Can't come down. I think I was cool as a cucumber. You seemed like it. Chris was at the recording. I'm sure he'll attest to it later. You're a bundle of nerves. Okay, Chris, this is over. Let's just call it. That's fair. Okay, you guys are pushing me and it's fair. I felt like I was gonna puke before the thing started, but that was because we had to overcome quite a bit. There was weather. There were unreliable power outlets in the venue. We had a non functioning speaker system, but we persevered, especially you Bill, you persevered, and we came through. It worked out great. I think the room was able to hear it. We were able to have, we had a great crowd. It was a wonderful day. Senator Smith was fantastic. It was really nice for her to come by and share her perspective on all things, the Boundary Waters, her time on this the Senate Ag Committee, which is important for forest policy. And yeah, I thought it was a great conversation. So I agree. And you know, we had the opportunity to do this on last week's podcast. But I just want again, to thank Senator Tina Smith for coming on the show. I want to thank the National Wilderness Coalition for inviting us to do the show and offering so much support. And of course, I want to thank the 80 or so brave folks, including Chris who showed up to support us that day. I guess those people were unemployed. What were they doing there? I'm sure they had other things they could have been doing with her, and they still prioritized us. I love them even more so Exactly. Thanks guys. Bill Hodge 2:19 Yeah, it was, it was a wonderful day and just a great room full of great people. I honestly, Anders, I have loved being back here in your home, our nation's capital. I'm kind of curious. You know, your hometown here has been in the news a lot lately, and I am. I've just had a great time. I've been back. I used to come to the city a lot more often than I do now, but like, I'm curious what you think is the biggest things people get wrong in their assumptions about DC. Anders Reynolds 2:48 It's a good question, and it's a timely one, because I got this I heard this assumption just yesterday when I was on the Hill with some advocate in town for wilderness week, and one of them mentioned how little green space they thought DC had. And I was like, whoa, what are you? What are you talking about? We have a ton of green space. We have a ton of green space. We're here on the end of the mall. First of all, yeah. And you know that green space starts with the crown jewel, in my opinion, of DC, which is Rock Creek Park, which is a place I love. I go there every weekend. I have spent hours and hours and days and weeks in Rock Creek Park. And it is, it a wonderful place. But even in addition to that, like DC is a very treed city, we have the benefit of not really having very tall buildings, because there's sort of a official, unofficial rule about building taller than the Capitol. So it's, it's a wonderfully green place. And if you weren't aware of that, I hope you'll come visit and do maybe a a tour that's not just of like the marble halls of Congress and the White House, but come out and let's recreate in Rock Creek Park. Bill Hodge 4:00 I always love getting on the mall. I mean, speaking of green space, the mall is just like this beautiful place to get out and walk. It's obviously fraught with the actions of the current administration is sort of maybe making the city feel a little different, but it is just an amazing place that one of our folks that came yesterday has moved to Alexandria, and he talked about all the amazing places there are to run. He's a trail runner, and he goes like, there's just so many opportunities for trail running, and it's a great place. So I just, yeah, I was curious about the assumptions, because DC has been in the news so much, and you know, for my home, I'll just say that if you want to know what Montana is like, do not watch the TV show Yellowstone. So we're not a bunch of ranchers shooting each other over, I don't know, cattle rights or whatever. So let's get to the conversation we're here to have today, again, welcoming Chris Kies to the show today, Chris, it's so great to have you. You know Chris, Chris has for the long time served as executive editor for outside is that was a Editor in Chief. Editor in Chief. You. Yes, but now have decided to sort of take a step in a, I guess I'd say a significantly different direction in some ways, but not so different, still, sort of covering issues that I'm sure you were covering in, you know, a lot of ways for outside, but setting up Republic. And for those who visually want to picture this, it makes perfect sense. It's as in regarding public lands, how about this transition? I want to hear how that came about for you, and like, how you got to the point where you wanted to do this, sure. Chris Keyes 5:32 Well, I left outside after 16 years, I think, in February of this year, and kind of took a month off to decompress and think about what I wanted to do next. And really was fascinated by the nonprofit model of journalism, which is really exploding in the last couple decades. And there's one particular model within that subset, which is, you know, a national in scope, but single topic, issue coverage, and for me, public lands just kind of came to me on the drive one day of something that I wanted to focus on in my time at outside some of our public lands coverage was the most popular among readers, especially during the first Trump administration with Bears Ears fights and A lot of the fights over downsizing many national monuments, and so I know there's an audience for it, and I got really excited about really kind of flooding the zone with coverage of this area, because I think it's underserved by the larger media community. And yeah, that's how it came about. Anders Reynolds 6:39 I want to ask you about that. Well, first of all, let me just say I'm thrilled you're here as a long time Outside Magazine subscriber. It's so you're sitting at my living room table. I'm used to seeing your face on the first page of the magazine, or, I guess the second the first page was usually like a Cotopaxi ad, yeah, the second page, there you are. And so it's thrilling to have you here, and you spent years at the helm there, at outside, shaping how readers understand the outdoors. With this new nonprofit venture, you're doubling down, as you said, on public lands as a journalistic beep. Can you talk about the unique role investigative journalism can play in protecting public lands, especially at a time when decisions about access and conservation and resource extraction are happening sort of outside of the public eye. What kind of stories are do you think are being missed right now? And how can you know strong reporting actually influence outcomes on the ground? Maybe, yeah, Chris Keyes 7:37 well, there's kind of two things there. One, I think, is the good news on the media side is there are quite a few environmental journalists, but most of them are sitting in a climate desk at an outlet, which is, I'm all for that. That's the biggest issue of our time in my in my view, but it leaves this gap for coverage around a lot of public lands issues that don't necessarily perfectly align with climate issues, and there's six 30 million acres to cover, so there's a lot there. The other thing I would say is you have the majority of these public lands and the West and the Mountain West, and you have the majority of media situated on the East Coast, and I think that there's a disconnect sometimes between folks in the mainstream media over how important these lands are to people who especially live in the West, how we intersect with these lands like, literally, on a daily basis, I go out for a run on public lands. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I have reporter friends who are out west who are constantly pitching stories about public lands to their East Coast editors, and their East Coast editors are saying, Can you, is anything else happening out there? And so I see this, this gap in the coverage in terms of why investigative journalism, I mean, I think revealing the truth to people, finding out information that they can't easily access themselves, is the key to democracy, so that people know what's happening to these lands. And I think we need an educated public, an agitated public, that's aware of all these ideas and can that's the first step to wanting to protect them, is to be aware of what's happening. Bill Hodge 9:27 Can you talk about the decision to specifically make Republic a non profit entity? I mean, I think a lot of people like make assumptions about what that term means. I mean, it just, quite simply, in the end, means it's an entity that later can't be sold. It's not that it can't have more net revenue, though, we're Chris Keyes 9:45 going to make lots of money. Yeah, you're, I'm sure you're doing this to get quite well. My daughter's going to college next year. The whole it's a grand scheme to get her, get her through those four years. Anders Reynolds 9:56 Listeners, he is sweating, Bill Hodge 9:59 but I. Curious just about the because I went through this and started wild idea media is like, do I set it up as a nonprofit or as a for profit? And how? You know, the revenue models can be different, obviously, based on nonprofit and for profit, so that there is a lot of things that are a little bit different. I don't want to oversimplify that. It's as simple as nonprofit just means it can't be sold. But what, what went into the thinking on setting Republic up as a nonprofit venture? Chris Keyes 10:27 For me, the first thing I think of is independence. You know, I think in a media organization, you want to maintain as much independence as possible to be able to write about whatever you want to write about, whatever you think of the important issues. And having come from the commercial media side for 25 years, I think as media became more and more dependent on advertising, less so than they depending on their readers for income or for revenue, some of that independence started to erode, because advertisers have certain expectations about what you will cover or you won't cover. And it wasn't like one day that all shifted, but over time, those kind of walls between editorial and advertising started to erode. So that was one thing, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do next was sort of my one non negotiable, as I want, I said, I want to try a different model that allows me to be completely independent. Now, I'm not so naive to think I'm going to be relying on individual donors and foundations. Those foundations have pet causes that they're going to want me to cover, but I'm setting this up in a way where I will have an editorial counterpart who will oversee the editorial operations, and I'll be building the business and raising the money. And so when those conversations come up, I can say, well, that's a that is a great story idea, but I will talk to my edit team about that, and so that I can kind of maintain that firewall between editorial and the building of the business. So it's really about independence for me, and it's not to say at all that in the commercial model, you can't be independent. I just was really eager to try something new after after all these years, it makes Anders Reynolds 12:15 perfect sense. You're describing a media landscape that's in a tough place right now, as you describe like collapsing ad models, you've also got shrinking newsrooms, readers overwhelmed with information, or maybe misinformation. You know, given all that, I'm really curious. What you hope the nonprofit achieves in its first years? Are you? Maybe I shouldn't give you any ideas. Maybe I should just let you run wild with that. But with that. But are you aiming to feel like a fill and investigative gap, or build a new audience for public lands, or is it maybe just to influence policy debates directly? There's a million different choices. Chris Keyes 12:55 Yeah. I mean, I think more than anything, the backbone of our model of what we want to achieve in the first year is 10 to 12 investigative stories. And, you know, assigning stories is a little bit like playing the lottery. You never really know on the front end, because some of these stories take, you know, three to six months in lead time and reporting to flesh them out. So not every one of these big investigative stories is going to make waves here in Washington, but my hope is that two or three of them do, and that these stories have real impact and help either drive conversations that make positive change or get the ear of a congressman who can make a difference on the vote. You know, all of these things, it really comes down to impact. So I want our organization to have impact, and beyond that, like I said, my daughter's going to college next year. She's applying this year. She's interested, not fully, but she's interested in journalism. And I want to be able to say with a straight face, like, that's, that's a great idea, sweetie, yes, really nice, because it's, it's a really, it's a tough career path. There has been so much disruption in this space, and so I really want, I mean, this is a small organization. We're not going to change journalism, but I want there to be a place for it. I'm in love with journalism, and want, want there to always be a place for that. Anders Reynolds 14:30 Let me ask you about the flip side of that, which I guess would be like the biggest challenges you think you may be facing in the first few years, whether it's funding or just building trust or cutting through the noise, yeah, what's your plan to navigate all that? Chris Keyes 14:46 Oh, wow, we face a lot of challenges. I mean, I think you named the first one, which is funding. This is a whole new skill set for me. It's probably one of the things that's attractive to me about, again, about the nonprofit model is that. So I've been assigning and editing stories for 25 years, and so this is exercising a whole new set of muscles for me, of trying to figure out how to raise money and how to how to pitch the organization and what's going to be compelling to a funder out there. And that's the challenge. And I think it's a particularly a challenge, because in the foundation world, I'm learning the foundations are the big ones are fairly conservative. Nobody wants to be the first mover. They all want to know who else is funding, right? And so I think, as a startup, it's really getting that first, you know, big foundation to come on board, and then I think others will follow. But so that's what I spend, you know, the hours of 2am to 4am every morning, thinking about the fundraising element of this. But I'm also, I've told people, it's a little bit like reporting a story, you know, you find a source that knows a little bit, and then they lead you to here. You should talk to these two people. They might know a little more, and it just snowballs from there until you've finally gotten to the person that you need to be talking to. So that's what that's what I'm liking about it. Bill Hodge 16:09 There was earlier you talked about two things that sort of grabbed me. One, one is using the term investigative journalism, which makes me think. And you talked about that sudden, long arc, three, six months. This isn't like making a couple of phone calls, putting out a 500 word piece. This is like going deep and going into that, and then also you're wanting to sort of provide an inspiration for your daughter, because I think about it's gonna be, I gotta be careful. I'm not over generalizing, but a younger generation like the work we have to do to make sure that public lands aren't just a photo op that it's a complex story. But I'm also like, as as a country, it feels like we all have popcorn Bren. It's like, hard for us to concentrate on something that's not a 32nd Reel or, you know, an Instagram story. Like, have you thought about like, how maybe I'm gonna these longer journalistic pieces you guys are going to be doing? Like, what's going to be the thing that funnels people down from that 32nd sound bite to really wanting to I think about how every newspaper in the world now on their websites, it has to say four minute read. It's just like they're trying to say, don't worry. You don't have to give us too much time or too much thought. But I'm curious if you've put much thought into that too, because you're obviously gonna be doing robust deep dives and like, how do we pull people into taking the time to digest that stuff? Chris Keyes 17:27 Yeah, it's something I think a lot about. But to step back, I will say I'm an unapologetic believer in long form journalism, and that there's an audience for it, but you have to have a great narrative at the center of those stories. If it's a if it's just a policy story, people won't read it, you have to find the compelling character or the tension in in the story to be able to draw people in. I also think in a lot of cases, especially as we've we've shifted our consumption to the digital space a lot of websites. If you go on to read a long story, you are interrupted by a pop up ad every three paragraphs or another. You know, if only it were one pop up ad, right? A video that's auto playing. And so I think we're trying. If you go to our website, you'll see it's a without, because we're a nonprofit and without advertising there, it's a really beautiful reading experience. So I'll say that like I do believe that there's an audience for the long form, but it's also incumbent upon us to figure out a way to for every one of these. You know, 5000 word stories create a lot of shoulder content that can live it's an interview with the writer that lives in in Tiktok, or an Instagram reel, or, you know, all of these other places we need to show up that are going to draw people into the actual story itself. So that's, that's a challenge that we're we're looking into and trying to face, and right now, our only presence in social media is LinkedIn, and that's kind of by design, like, we're just trying to reach the business community right now, and eventually we will be on all these platforms, but we want to show up there with a lot of intentionality, of like, how are we going to be consistent across our brand and all these spaces? Because it's so hard when you have to show up in 12 different places with one story and make sure that that's consistent and quality. And so we want to be really intentional about that. Bill Hodge 19:36 I'm gonna, if you have more about Republic, you should ask,well, first I've had a chance to go and read some of the pieces that you've already put out there. Love the look, the feel of both the content, the quality of the content, but also sort of the experience of diving into the content. I wanted to ask you one first of all, would you share folks exactly where they find you on the web? Chris Keyes Republic dot land Bill Hodge20:02 yeah, I wanted to ask you. One of the early pieces you've already done is talking about this administration's flood the zone strategy, which is, they're just throwing particularly, I mean, in general, about everything. But let's just talk about, in our space, sort of this public land space, there's a lot of stuff going on. You know, resending the roadless rule. We're sending the public lands rule. What's going on with staffing at the public land agencies? The things that I'm worried about, and it sounds like you're worried about it, even thinking about your daughter heading off to college, is I'm worried about young people even seeing public service as something they would pursue. Because it feels like it's like such fraught, fraught with such peril. I wonder if you also think about that in the journalistic sense, like is, what, where is journalism going, and how to how do you approach, like, using Republic as a place to show that what the future can be, what it will be, and that you can still do fair, detailed journalism to cover these sort of things. I'm sure you've thought about that. Chris Keyes 21:04 So journalism is a mindset. It's sort of, after all this time in my career, sometimes when I meet a writer, I can tell that they're a really good investigative reporter, like they're this, like, the kind of person who has, like a dog with a bone, and they've just gotta, gotta get to the bottom of it, and and so I think there are, there's just certain people in our world that are like that, that are wired like that. And so that makes me feel like there will always be, no matter which generation people who are seeking the truth. And they will, they will be. They will gravitate towards journalism. So I'm not too worried about this generation not being as interested. But I think what you were talking about earlier is the challenges in what form does the end product materialize? Is it? Is it a short form video? Is it a long form video? Is it a documentary? Is it written word? Is it some combination of all those things? Is it a data story? So I think there are so many more options for how you tell a story now in the digital space, and it's more a matter of making decisions about how that is packaged. Bill Hodge 22:12 Well, I've been thinking about the term flood the zone too. Yeah, I've had so the administration's flooding the zone. But I do feel like in our space, we're sort of flooding the zone with a lot of different ways that people can now get content about public lands. Obviously the sell off stirred up a lot of interest from the public, which has then stirred up a lot of people who are wanting to go out and tell the story. I had several people when we were talking about having you on. They're like, well, isn't he the competition. And I'm like, Well, no, I think we, we do need to flood the zone. Look in his face. He's not offended by what I said. He can imagine why people Anders Reynolds 22:50 that's the competition. He sucks. Chris Keyes 22:52 You can't see at home, but I'm pushing my chair back right now, Bill Hodge 23:04 I will say, it seems like there's a lot of and there's a lot of great stuff, and a lot of different it's taking a lot of different forms. There's obviously our podcasts that we're quite proud of. But there's, you know, there's rock fight, there's podcasts that sometimes touch on public lands, like, you know, Ed Robertson's mountain and Prairie or, you know, there's a lot of things going on, and I think it's exciting. You know, it's a challenging time if you love public lands, but it's an exciting time that we're finding a myriad of ways to tell the story, which is what I think you were just getting at. Chris Keyes 23:37 I'm really glad you brought that up, because you guys are my competition, and I will take you out. Anders Reynolds 23:41 Cut the mic. (laughter) Chris Keyes 23:47 I know. I'm glad you brought that up, because that's another reason nonprofit media is really attractive to me. It's not to say that there isn't competition within this space, but by and large, the nonprofit media ecosystem thrives on partnership and working together, and more so than commercial media, where it is very cutthroat and very competitive. And so I'm like you. I am so encouraged by the fact that for folks like you doing what you do. Some of the other folks you mentioned, like mountain and Prairie and Ed Robertson and public domain is an excellent sub stack, three journalists that I know that are doing great work. High Country news is in this space. They do really great work. Grist does great work in public land space. So there are a lot of outlets now. But I think also back to my time in the outdoor industry and the outdoor recreation industry through outside and I think one of our challenges was you have this massive industry that, you know, it's often cited as 1.2 trillion or $1.3 trillion economic powerhouse, but it's. Comprised of 1000s of different user groups and who recreate differently. And it's only really recently that these groups have started to coalesce and speak with one voice instead of 1000 different voices, so that it can be a powerful one. And I think that's what you're starting to see in media space as well around public lands, is more and more of these entities coming together and speaking with one voice. Anders Reynolds 25:25 It does feel that way, and especially in response to the attempt to sell off public lands, it was really a moment where everyone felt like they were pulling in the same direction. Chris Keyes 25:37 It was nice to see, but the worry is like, how do we sustain that? Because without a threat, because we don't want constant threat. We don't want constant threat, but, but there are all all these other issues that we want to get to once we get past the threats. But, um, but with what happened this summer, I would argue that you know what could happen with the roadless rule could be just as dramatic for public lands, if not even more so than the land saw off proposal. But that's getting very little coverage these days. Anders Reynolds 26:07 I wanna ask you not about journalism, but about journalists. The word journalist has almost become like a Shibboleth on the right for you know, someone who doesn't challenge the elite, but is in fact, in on the scam. I'm putting all that in quotes. I love that you brought up wanting your daughter to be proud of journalism. I was proud of my dad. He was a journalist. He started as a sports writer at a very small paper, and he ended up as the publisher of another small paper. Is part of your plan with Republic, even if it's a subconscious plan also working on, you know, defending the profession? Chris Keyes 26:49 Yeah, I think that's probably at the subconscious level. That's certainly what wasn't my intention going into this. But I think I do not to sound too highfalutin, but I think journalism is absolutely critical to our democracy. I mean, that's what's always so special about America. Is the First Amendment right we have to say anything we want. And the power of journalists to speak truth to power and to hold our elected officials accountable by telling their readers, what's actually happening on the ground is critical to a thriving democracy. So it's not what I get out of bed in the morning thinking about, but that is certainly a part of what I my motivation here. Bill Hodge 27:34 Yeah, yeah, staying in that vein about what is a journalist? What is journalism in an era when this being, you know, sort of vilified, I want to talk about the word balance like so when you're telling the public land story, there is certainly people who have a perspective very different than mine, maybe different than all three of us sitting in this table about the value of roadless acres or that sort of thing. That they may see things from an economic development perspective, and they see something like and they see something like the roadless rules and impediment like, how how do you think about the word balance? I mean, it's so loaded. We We all know that there's a certain news again, using the quotes here news organization that uses terms like balance, but as a journalist like, when you're going into those stories, how do you like frame it up in your head, what all leads you're gonna follow, about how you're gonna cover this, whether it's the roadless rule rescission or what is it? Chris Keyes 28:31 Yeah, well, I think there have been books and books written about this in the state of journalism and what balance really means. And I think it's an overused term. I think if you're doing journalism right, and you're really getting to the bottom of an issue, you're gonna piss somebody off and they're gonna say, Well, you know, this isn't balanced. And so I think striving for balance is maybe an impossible target to hit, and one that's not worth aiming for. It's more about finding the truth. And when I think about our role as journalists, I think it is very different in one key aspect to, you know, advocacy groups that are in the space who are have a very charged mission to say, we are going to protect these acres, or we're going to protect this, this rule, and that is where we're going to be laser focused on our job, is to say, Well, let's look at this rule. How is it working? Is it working for everybody? Is it? Is it? Is the role this rule? Have a future? Should it have a future? Is it a barrier to industry? And you know, preventing us from creating more jobs? We need to look at that as journalists in a comprehensive way, and not a knee jerk way of saying, like, we got to save the road this rule no matter what, that's not our job as journalists. And so I think you saw a lot of that. I. Over the summer with Mike Lee's proposal saying, you know, selling off public lands could be a save for or a solution to our housing crisis. I think it's not our job to say, like, not one acre, which is sort of the rallying cry, but to say, All right, well, let's look at, could this be a save for our housing crisis? Because that's a big deal, and that could be, that could be huge. It's an enormous challenge that we face. And so really investigating that. And I'll close by saying that the stories that I've seen that have investigated status have shown that there's not a lot there there to say that this could be a solve for that, at least under the way it was, it was it was proposed, Anders Reynolds 30:40 yeah, for sure. So I want to ask you about why you're in DC. And just so folks know we were kind of talking about this before we turned the mics on. Bill and I are here for wilderness week with a bunch of other advocates from across the United States. You're here for the outdoor recreation roundtable. Tech Week. Chris Keyes 31:01 Innovation Summit. Tech and innovation summit, it's just a one day event, Anders Reynolds 31:02 okay, that brought together lots of different folks in DC. We've heard from friends of ours at other nonprofits that are here for that. And Bill ran into some fellows at his hotel that were here for a week focused on defending Land and Water Conservation Fund. Now I'll point out that I don't think any of these groups are really talking to each other in advance. And, you know, we were talking earlier about everybody pulling together. There's everyone here is has the same goal in mind, right? They're all here because they really value public lands as a place you know that that can offer respite and recreation. And I just wonder, have you how could we do better at this? Like, I guess I don't expect you to have the answer. It must occur to you too. Chris Keyes 31:49 It does definitely occur. I told these guys before we started recording, and I went to their recording yesterday with Senator Smith, and they mentioned that it was wilderness week. I had no idea I'm here for a completely different reason, and I didn't know about the land and water conservation group as well. So I do think in the back of my mind, once we get on solid footing with our reporting and our journalistic enterprise, I would love to see and I would love to see Republic be a part of this, creating some kind of an annual conference that is sort of a thought leader conference in this space, because I think we really need it. And that's that's sort of in my four to five year vision, not necessarily owning it outright as Republic, but being kind of one of the organizers, or something like that. Anders Reynolds 32:40 Ding, ding, ding, yeah. Bill Hodge 32:42 Like, we now know how the wild idea and Republic are going to be working together in the future. I've had the same, the same thought that, like, you know, yesterday's crowd, it was great, but I'd love to see it bigger, and not just for wilderness, but for, like, the land management agencies and all the employees and so, yeah, I think, I think that's something we all have to think about, is we were forced into getting organized very quickly under Mike Lee's proposed sell off. But now we need to think about, how do we organize and stay connected going forward, and not just from a we all may have different things we want to advocate for, but just that we're having the dialog, which is what journalism inspires, right? Is people having the dialog about these places. And, you know, there's a lot of things that that people face today, housing, you know, we just talked about housing a little bit like housing crisis is a problem in the west. It is a huge problem where there's, there is housing, but it's unaffordable for for folks who work and serve those communities. Right? There's a lot of important stories. But as you pointed out, right off the top, public lands is pretty significant. It's over 600 million acres of our landscape just in our space of where Anders and I have worked for years in the idea of federal wilderness areas. It's a wilderness is over a fifth of our nation's land mass. That's not an insignificant story in and of itself, but I happen to think it's vastly under told and undersold. And so I'm super excited that you sort of think that way too, that we need to continue to get people together thinking, you know, thinking about things. And again, I think journalism that that Republic will be doing, I think is part of what facilitates that conversation, Chris Keyes 34:22 yeah, and I think, you know, we have this broad, broad coalition on the right and the left of people who are, you know, can rally around the idea of keep public lands in public hands, and the dangers that we come out of this and still go back to our Right and Left orientation about we have our, you know, right wing environmental groups and our left wing and we all need to be talking together because we're there's really a lot more commonality. I know in the outdoor industry, there's, you know, there's tension between user groups of the human powered and the motorized groups, but there's way more consensus. Is an agreement among those groups when you look at the big challenges that we're facing, and so it is critical that those groups continue to talk and dialog together. And yeah, that's why I see a real space for an event or a conference where these things are being debated and talked about, but there is dialog at least. Bill Hodge 35:19 So I want to do a little bit of my own investigative journalism for a moment. You said you use public lands every day. I guess it's sort of two questions, How did that start for you? Like, before you probably ever got to Outside Magazine. Like, when did that love of public hands start? And, like, what's your ideal day? Not on public lands. Chris Keyes 35:39 So the first time I went camping, I was in first grade, and my dad was a high school teacher in outside of Boston, and he did an exchange with a teacher in Pebble Beach, California, wow, for a year. So that first summer, before that teaching gig, we I remember, we went to Eastern Mountain Sports in Boston. I still had this as like a seminal memory for me. And got our mummy bags, we called them, and we camped across the whole country, driving out to California. And by the way, I was thinking about this because my dad died this summer, and I was looking at this map that he created of our route. How did people do a trip like that before the internet? I have no idea how he did this. We had like reservations at campgrounds. I have no idea how he pulled it together, but that's sort of where I discovered camping. I think a story I tell for my own public lands. Understanding was I spent a summer working in the Frank Church wilderness area in Idaho, building trail. And our crew was from Oregon, where I went to high school, and we drove out to the work site across Oregon, and at one point, pulled over, like, six in the evening and onto a National Forest Road, and took another turn, and suddenly we stopped and we were going to camp. And I said to my crew leader. I was like, there's no campground here. We can just camp here. And he's like, oh, yeah, it's national forest land. Like, you can camp anywhere you want. And this was, like, an incredible aha moment for me that I just, you know, this under this idea that this is, this is our land, this is we all own this and we have the freedom to just go out here and camp on the spot. Was incredibly powerful for me. And I, you know, barely ever go to establish campgrounds ever since. But for me, the perfect day on public lands, is a long trail run in the Santa Fe National Forest, which is a butts Santa Fe, and there's an incredible trail system there. And I just love to get out there every day. So I actually I gotta exercise my dogs. So love it, Anders Reynolds 37:58 Chris, it's been a joy having you here. I hope while you're here, you can take a long run through Rock Creek Park. Yeah, it's got some excellent trails, but thanks for the time today. This has been really enlightening for me. It's been a joy having you here. Thank you for spending time with Chris Keyes 38:11 us. Yeah, you bet. And Andrews was one of the first person I called when I was just noodling on this idea, and we connected on LinkedIn, and I was like, well, he might know a little bit about something like this, whether, whether we need something like this. So I appreciate that you didn't tell me I was crazy in that call. Anders Reynolds 38:26 Oh my gosh, never I'm so excited about this project. And again, it's Republic dot land, Chris Keyes 38:31 yes, Republic dot land, Yep, Bill Hodge 38:33 yeah. So think about that. If you think about that listener, it's regarding public land. And so it makes perfect sense, Chris, I want to add my thanks for you, for you being here, for taking time out of your schedule here in DC to join us here around Anders dining room table, and really already impressed with what's out there. And I'm just so excited that once you really get rolling, what to see, what we'll see coming from Republic. And just really, really, really appreciate your time. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody for joining us today. You've been listening to the wild idea podcast and our conversation with Chris Keyes regarding the Republic, so look forward to catching everybody on down the trail. Speaker 3 39:13 The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bren Russell at pod lab digital support by Holly wilkoszewski at daypack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai