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With all of the information that we have out there today, with all of the voices, all of the ever-dividing channels and ways to acquire information, or to use sort of the term of the day, content, there is actually a decreasing volume of valid factual information about what's happening at the local level.
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You know, the information people need to participate and to engage.
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We need to find a better way forward.
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And that's that's really an essential component of why Wildfile does what it does.
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It's not just the providing this essential public service of informing the public, but doing it in a way uh that that builds a movement, doing it in a way that demonstrates a new path forward so that we can know we will have sustainable, reliable, ready, universal access to the facts going forward.
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Okay, Matthew, thank you for joining me today.
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Of course.
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Thanks for having me, Eric.
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So I'm really excited to dive into a lot of topics with you here.
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Um, we've had a couple discussions on our show about the information ecosystem, miss and disinformation.
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In my opinion, one of the most critical and often not really talked about enough, in my opinion, elements of social impact work, civic engagement, and one of the biggest issues, in my opinion, in the world right now.
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And a lot of orgs are working on it in different ways, but I fear that we are being outpaced by technology and culture and some of the worst impulses of human psychology and humanity.
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So we're gonna have a fun show talking about all that today.
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How's that sound?
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I I share your concerns.
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Well, I'd love to start to just learn a little bit about um, and for our listeners and viewers to learn a little bit more about the work that you're doing around local journalism and kind of what drives that work and and how you're seeing this problem and how you guys are working on it, even just at the local level and the the trends that you're seeing more nationally and internationally as well.
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Yeah.
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I mean, in terms of what drives the work, we we are genuinely a mission-driven organization here at Wildfile.
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If that's a phrase that is bandied about all the time, it almost feels like requisite speech.
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As often as not, uh, it's more lip service than it is fact.
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Uh, but but we actually do turn to mission on a daily basis as a as a compass for us, you know, and helping us make you know coverage decisions, editorial decisions, business decisions about, you know, do we zig or do we zag?
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Uh and WaVal's mission is to inform and engage Wyoming with in-depth reporting in the public interest.
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To be fair, there's a fair bit of elbow room in that.
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You could interpret that in a number of different ways.
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So we've been very deliberate in defining what we see as three distinct mandates in that uh in that mission or three distinct calls to action.
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One first and foremost, and really sort of top line in terms of what gets the lion's share of our attention and resources, is that it's our job to make sure the people of Wyoming have the information they need to participate effectively in civic life.
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Whatever they want that participation to look like, towards whatever ends are important to them, whatever the cause, whatever the issue, you know, whatever the project, making sure they're able to do that fully informed by the facts.
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Um, second, in no way secondary.
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And in fact, you know, if you ask most people at Wildfile while they came to work here, this is a big part of it.
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And that's to that's to be the watchdogs.
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You know, it's it's our job to make sure the people's business is being conducted out in the open and in the you know, in the sunlight where everyone can see it, and when it's not, to drag it kicking and screaming, if necessary, out out into the open where everyone has the benefit of of that information.
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And then third, and this is unfortunately increasingly taking up a good deal more of our of our emphasis um out of necessity.
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And this touches on what you mentioned there on the intro about your concerns about being outpaced, is it's our job to make it's our job to set the record straight initially as opposed to try and correct it after the fact.
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But put another way, it's to crowd out misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and lies with the facts, you know, to provide that alternative to what we are increasingly seeing driving our political and civic discourse in this country.
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Uh Timothy Snyder, formerly at Yale history professor, I believe he's in McGill now in in um Canada, widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on tyranny.
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I I think he he said it very succinctly in that the truth does a particularly poor job of standing up for itself when there's not very much of it around.
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You know, when when we think about that third call to action, uh you can think of it in terms of making sure there's there's plenty of it around because unfortunately the the trend
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is pointing the other direction.
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You know, with with all of the information that we have out there today, with all of the voices, all of the you know, ever dividing channels and and ways to uh to acquire information or to use sort of the the term of the day content, um there is actually a a decreasing um a decreasing volume of valid factual information about what's happening at the local level, you know, the information people need to to participate and to engage.
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Yeah, and I think let's let's go there a little bit specifically about the local level, because my sense is that even in my early childhood, but certainly before that, there was a little bit more of a shared sense of truth and reality, broadly speaking.
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Of course, there's always edge cases, there's always going to be tinfoil hat type individuals who have their own idea about what's what's real.
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And that there were basically, you know, a few public broadcast stations on TV.
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You read your local newspaper, there were maybe one or two of them.
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They were actually well staffed, and you know, actual real journalists worked there, and there was a viable business model there.
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And my sense is that the entire paradigm has completely collapsed for the most part.
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And I think it is completely shifted, and I think uh it's fair in in many sectors to describe it as a collapse.
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Uh, and to be clear, it's it's a collapse driven by really a classic market failure.
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Um, you know, the the models that sustained the institutions that we have relied on for generations um are not working the way that they have uh for generations.
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It kind of to quantify that for you a little bit, give some some numbers to that.
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Between 2002 and 2025, American newspapers shed about 75% of their newsroom jobs.
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Wow.
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We're just talking about newsroom jobs.
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This these aren't people running the presses, these aren't people delivering papers or selling ad space.
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These are journalists, reporters, editors, photographers, et cetera.
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We're talking about 80,000 folks, upwards of 80,000 folks that are no longer out there digging, no longer out there revealing, no longer out there reflecting the community to itself, no longer out there facilitating the essential conversations that we need to be having as neighbors and as towns and as counties about how we're going to pave Main Street and what we want the sheriff to be focused on and who we should send to Washington, DC, and who we should send to prison.
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If you look
at it at an institutional level, today somewhere between two and three American newspapers shutter every week on average, primarily you know, local, local institutions.
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Uh 37% uh of those American papers have already folded, you know, in the last in the last 20 years.
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And and they're they're not coming back.
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And and as you described so clearly, far more of them, you know, the the vast majority in many cases of those that remain have become shells of their former selves, you know, in some cases literally empty mastheads or ghost papers that are no longer able to effectively cover their communities.
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And and I want to be careful here and be clear that I'm not trying to be disparaging of these institutions in any way.
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You know, these are these are hardworking folks who certainly aren't in it for the money, that they're not in it for the glory.
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You know, in many cases, they're they're going around every day doing their job with a target on their back and getting beat up for it.
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Uh, and they're doing the essential work, but the model has collapsed to the degree that they do not have the resources they need to be able to continue doing that in an effective way.
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Um, we we need to find a better way forward.
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And that's that's really an essential component of why Wildfile does what it does.
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It it's not just the providing this essential public service of informing the public, but doing it in a way uh that that builds a movement, doing it in a way that demonstrates a new path forward so that we can know we will have sustainable, reliable, ready, universal access to the facts going forward.
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Can you give us a little bit more detail around like how you've built something that works in the current environment, in the current market in a way that the traditional local paper doesn't?
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Yeah.
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So um I think it starts with putting uh access to the facts, uh public interest journalism uh at the center of the mission, as opposed to profit margin at the center of the mission.
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Okay.
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And that enables you to do a lot of different things differently.
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We approach journalism first and foremost as an essential public good.
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And we ask people to fund it as such, in the same category of, you know, it's essential as a community to fund the local food bank to make sure that the the need among us aren't going hungry, and the volunteer fire department to put out the flames, and the Red Cross to help our communities recover from disasters, you know, when God forbid they strike.
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So too, do we need to think about access to the facts as um uh as an essential component of a functioning society and fund it as such.
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So at the risk of oversimplifying, um our business model is is at the end of the day pretty simple.
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People give us money and we spend it on producing top-notch journalism.
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You know, there's obviously a little bit more complexity to that um and how we pursue it.
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But at the end of the day, that's that's what it boils down to.
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And the good news is it's working, you know, in the face of this environment where we're seeing such rapid and accelerating declines in capacity in other sectors, we and and colleague organizations like ours around the country have been able to to add new capacities and and bring new uh new resources to bear.
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To put that in scale or in context, I I had been involved with Wildfall for a number of years, but I I assumed this role as the leader of the organization in 2017.
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And at that point, we were, in the words of um one of our long-standing reporters and a sort of a Wyoming journalism legend, a guy named Angus Thurmer.
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We we were three guys and a dog.
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He was uh diplomatic enough to not name the dog.
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I think we all understood it to be me, but but we were, you know, we we were a four-person shop.
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And like so many news organizations, it was nip and tuck.
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We had a couple of months of payroll in the bank.
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We were existentially dependent on a couple of big institutional grants.
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Uh, and frankly, we weren't quite sure how we were gonna keep the lights on.
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You know, we were forever sort of flirting with with insolvency.
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And today, by contrast, we've quadrupled in size, we're we're 16 staff are strong.
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We we have without a close second, the the most experienced, most accomplished, most professional newsroom in the state.
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Our audience is multiplied by more than a factor of 10.
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Um and I think this is an important point.
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Not not only has our our direct audience exploded, the folks that are finding their their information on WioFile.com or via our social channels or you know, VR podcasts, etc.
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But but we're also filling the state's newspapers uh and other news outlets with high quality coverage for free.
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You know, that's that's kind of baked into the mission cake.
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You know, there's there's nothing in
that mission to inform and engage Wyoming with in-depth reporting and the public interest that says anything about on Wyofile.com.
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You know, it's our job to make sure that people have the information wherever they they choose to find it.
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So your stories are distributed in other papers in the state.
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Yeah.
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So to give you an idea, I believe there's 39 extant members of the Wyoming Press Association, which is the newspaper association here in the state.
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Yeah.
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Most of those are are weeklies, so call it 52 editions a year, give or take.
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Um collectively, that community republished wildfile stories uh about 3,000 times in the last 12 months.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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We are working closely with those partners to make sure that at the local level, those communities have a you know, a nutritious information diet available to them.
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My sense is that this is a a pretty special scenario in the sense that many communities at the local level have either a shell paper that's private equity backed and stripped of its true mission and value, or nothing, right?
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Or something kind of more at the state level.
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And so there is a there's a a lack of proper journalism happening at the local level.
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And then yet I also want to talk about the international and national level of journalism that's happening too, because my sense is that in in observing that even some of the biggest and most acclaimed papers feel and television stations, right?
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Um, the media is is clearly very bifurcated at this point between all different forms of media and short form and social, etc.
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My sense is that there's been a pretty distinct move towards opinion-based journalism and what I would describe as sensationalized journalism, even at some of the biggest papers.
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Yep.
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And if you look at the same story, even just to make it a little bit more blunt, in the AP News versus the New York Times, reporting on the same issue, the flavor of that reporting, the the emotion of that reporting is gonna have a very different register.
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Is that something you agree with?
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Do you do you observe that too?
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Am I getting that right or wrong?
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What's what's your take on that?
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Absolutely.
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You know, in insofar as paying the bills is dependent upon driving audience numbers.
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Yeah.
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And I I don't want to diminish the importance of audience, right?
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I mean, the best journalism in the world is not going to do anybody any good if nobody reads it, nobody engages with it, nobody trusts it, nobody uses it in their daily life.
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Um, but insofar as you've got a model that is built around you know keeping the lights on by uh acquiring and um holding on to people's attention at all costs, uh, the incentives gets get pretty skewed pretty quickly.
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Yeah.
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Really, the most reliable, the fastest, the easiest, probably the cheapest way to acquire regular engagement is to pick sides.
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It is to preach to the choir, to find your choir and and hold on to them.
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Um and and to be sensational, right?
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You know, uh to grab attention.
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Um a lot of what what needs to happen to make our society work is not sensational.
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It's pretty boring.
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When we talk about paving Main Street, you know, we talk about upgrading the the water infrastructure in our community.
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Um it's also not simple stuff, you know, it is stuff that is complex, it has nuance.
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Uh, to really understand it, you need to understand the context, you need to understand the history, you need to understand the stakeholders and their perspectives.
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Uh and it's it's it's a different approach.
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I've been enormously gratified over the last, call it a decade, in seeing the degree to which people do find value in that and do choose to give their attention to that when it's something that's made available to them, when it's something that they understand, when it's something that they understand where it's coming from, which is to say they have a relationship with the institution that is producing this information.
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They have an information, they they have relationships with the people, you know, and understand that it's a human enterprise uh and know these people as their neighbors.
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Well, let's let's get into that because what I'm concerned by, and I'm not the only one concerned by this, is that there's been a growing trend to basically have distrust in institutions, distrust in media, specifically quote unquote mainstream media.
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And I'm not even saying that we should not have a healthy amount of skepticism from any publisher, right?
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I think having a generally skeptical viewpoint around any piece of information is a basic life skill at this point, just given how much misinformation there is.
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And even the biggest and best journalists get it
wrong sometimes.
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Like they just do.
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Um, and it's not even for nefarious reasons.
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It usually isn't, right?
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It's usually just a mistake.
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And the difference is that actual journalists then publish a retraction instead of just moving on to the next viral post.
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Yeah, nonetheless, there seems to be in our culture more um grace given to individual personalities and influencers getting things wrong, even when they have horrible incentives, a clear political agenda.
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Like when they make mistakes, it's whatever.
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But anytime mainstream media makes even the smallest mistake, it's just more proof that you can't trust the mainstream media.
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What's going on there?
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I think one of the things that's going on there is the fact that we are talking about national and international things by and large.
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Okay.
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They're far from home and that people don't really have an opportunity to have as much of a meaningful impact on.
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They do not see the direct correlation between what's happening and their daily lives.
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And I think that that is part of why those plummeting trust numbers, the one place we see a lot more strength in faith in the quote unquote media is at the local level.
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The local level.
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Yeah.
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The the problem is that there's so much less of it at the local level.
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And I think that's that's problematic for our discourse in a lot of ways.
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You know, the the founders built our nation with a great deal of local control for a reason.
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You know, there's there's a lot of philosophy and thinking behind this in that communities work together to accomplish the things that they can together to address challenges, to capitalize on opportunities, to chart their own course, to define what prosperity looks like and means for them collectively.
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But obviously, smaller groups have limitations.
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And so, you know, the local system feeds into uh a state system that can fill in the gaps between what communities can do independently.
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And ideally, a robust and engaged, you know, state system then rolls up to and informs a responsive federal system that is uh reacting to, responding to what the what the states need, right?
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Um I think we we we all remember high school sevens class.
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What what the problem though, and what we're seeing way too much of today, is when
the foundation of that type of local participation and engagement erodes, uh, and a huge part of that is access to information about what's going on.
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When that erodes, the information, excuse me, the the the power flow inverts.
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And instead of talking about how do we want to uh grow and nurture and diversify our local economy.
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We're talking about distant, opaque, considerably less responsive institutions.
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The conversations become simpler.
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You know, we've all seen this, right?
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The soundbite-centric public discourse, the zero-sum with us or against us politics.
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:28.079
Um, you know, the the oversimplification of the very real and very complex challenges that we need to address together.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:36.160
Hey friends, real quick before we continue today's episode.
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:39.680
I'm Eric Ressler, founder and creative director at Cosmic.
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:44.640
Cosmic is a creative agency purpose-built for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations.
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For the last 15 years, we've helped leaders like you nail your impact story and sharpen your strategy.
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But we're not here to just leave you with a fancy slide deck and a pat on the back.
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We roll up our sleeves and help you bring our ideas to life through campaigns, creative, and digital experiences.
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Our work together helps you earn trust, connect deeply with your supporters, and grow your fundraising and your impact.
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If you value the thinking we share here and want it applied to your biggest challenges, let's talk at design by cosmic.com.
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:12.319
All right, back to today's conversation.
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And I think my fear is that some of the ugliness and messiness at the national and international level seems to be trickling down to the local level.
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Some of the tactics, at least, especially when we get into politics.
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But the other thing I think that's harder and harder to separate, unfortunately, is fact from politics, right?
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Because politics in the best cases are built on facts.
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Doesn't seem to be happening quite as much these days.
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But even the concept of what's true and what's real is becoming politically motivated in a political battle where we can't even agree on basic principles of science in some situations, right?
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Yeah.
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:21.759
And so I'm watching like local issues being debated in the same way that international issues are being debated now, where instead of this kind of community constructive disagreement, let's figure out like solutions-oriented mindset, it's just this polarized tribal black and white lack of nuanced thinking.
00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:46.559
And I mean, my frank sense of it is that 90% of that blame goes to the medium of the internet, and that if those same conversations were happening more exclusively or exclusively in rooms, and the internet were not in the room or part of that forming of beliefs and ideas, that we would be talking to each other much more like we're having a conversation right now.
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:51.519
We might disagree on some things and we can talk about why and get curious and interested about that.
00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:06.000
And I just fear that like the the trajectory doesn't seem to be going the right way for us as a society with regards to those basic common agreeable truths.
00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:11.519
Do you do you see a counterstory there uh in your in your local work?
00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:14.400
Like, how do you think about the the distinction there?
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:16.319
I I do see a counterstory there.
00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:19.839
In fact, the the counterstory is a large part of why I do this work.
00:25:20.559 --> 00:25:25.200
For me, it it uh it comes down to the the competition of ideas.
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:25.759
Okay.
00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:27.759
We don't agree.
00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:34.559
There's there's an infinite number of things that we don't agree on and never will agree on, and that's perfectly fine.
00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:38.960
You know, frankly, I think that's part of the American secret sauce.
00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:47.279
I think that's uh a huge driver of what has made us such such an incredible nation for 250 years now.
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.160
Um, let the best idea win.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:57.200
It is the it is the purest and I think most important and most impactful application of the free market principle.
00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:07.039
The problem is that competition of ideas is only functional, is only productive if it's conducted in an arena of fact.
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:09.599
Uh, and that's increasingly not the case.
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:16.480
You know, what what we often tell folks is look, it's it's not our job as Wowfowl to tell people what to think.
00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:19.039
It's not our job to tell people how to think.
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:25.039
It is our job to make sure that that thinking at least has the opportunity to be informed by the facts.
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:35.599
I mean, to choose a very silly example, you know, uh I'm talking to you from land or Wyoming, where 30 below is something that uh that that we experience most winners.
00:26:35.759 --> 00:26:36.000
Yeah.
00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:49.599
Uh there, I think, is a valid debate to be had about what the best way is for us to uh efficiently and effectively heat our homes and structures in Wyoming.
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:49.920
Yeah.
00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:50.240
Right.
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:54.319
Um, you know, we we kind of we we we constantly need to be improving on that front.
00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:57.920
Uh and and I think we can have a productive debate about that.
00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:07.279
We can't have a productive conversation about that, though, if you one part of that conversation is coming from a perspective of, well, it just doesn't get cold here.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:09.680
You know, that's that's just factually untrue.
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:09.920
Right.
00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:10.400
Right.
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:36.720
Uh and and we, you know, it's it's a really silly example, but I'm afraid that frankly, it's not that far-fetched when you look at some of the conversations we're having um at the national level and unfortunately at the local level too, because so many of those essential local conversations are being supplanted by what I think could fairly be described as, you know, a brand loyalty debate.
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:39.119
You know, are you red or are you blue?
00:27:39.279 --> 00:27:41.039
Um the ideas don't matter.
00:27:41.119 --> 00:27:43.519
It's whose team are you on that that I care about.
00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:59.839
Yeah, and I think that's the part that I'm uh uh uh uh I guess somewhat just skeptical of like what I'm hearing you say is that the free marketplace of ideas is the solution there, and and that facts is like a big part of that.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:04.480
And if more people just had access to the facts, this would solve itself.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:07.920
I I'm very much oversimplifying your argument, I think.
00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:10.720
But let's just go with that as a thread here.
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:17.119
And my concern is that facts are I think you even had a quote early in this episode, right?
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:21.839
That the truth is something that uh there's not enough of and doesn't stand on its own, right?
00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:50.240
And I think what we what I'm seeing and what I'm concerned by is that team-based, tribal, sensationalized, emotionally driven dis and misinformation, if not propaganda, seems to work better on our psychology and be more effective, especially for just like the average citizen who's maybe doesn't really care about civic engagement or politics as much and is just trying to get by, which no shade there whatsoever.
00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:59.359
They're gonna fall into that trap a lot easier than the like, well, let me get three perspectives and you know, look at the primary sources.
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:03.920
And so journalism traditionally kind of did a lot of that legwork for society.
00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:06.640
And I think that's maybe what you're saying a little bit more of.
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:10.480
Because I don't think just putting the facts out there, I mean, the facts are out there, right?
00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:29.519
Like it's there's more access to to facts than ever before, maybe not quite at the local level, but because of the just sheer amount of access to information most of us have now, there really isn't necessarily a shortage of facts, so much as there is a facts are losing the battle of attention.
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:30.880
Agree or disagree?
00:29:31.200 --> 00:29:35.759
Yeah, no, I I agree that facts are losing the battle of attention for sure.
00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:48.880
Um in part, uh that is is driven by a dearth, both of the facts at the local level, but also people's relationship to them and and with them.
00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:55.839
Uh, you know, I I I described earlier about building and demonstrating a new model, building up building a movement.
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:56.160
Yeah.
00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:57.839
That's a big part of this movement.
00:29:58.079 --> 00:30:14.960
It's it's again, not just the providing of the facts, but giving people an opportunity to put skin in that game, giving people an opportunity to recognize uh how essential that access is and what what we lose when it goes away.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:28.960
And to not only invest in it with, you know, with with their pocketbooks, but to do it with their time and their attention and in their conversations, um, and and with their neighbors and in and in their community.
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:35.680
There there is never been more competition for our attention than there is right now.
00:30:35.920 --> 00:30:36.240
Yeah.
00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:41.359
That is not that is not that that's accelerating.
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:43.359
That that's very much accelerating.
00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:52.240
Um and frankly, the technology and its practitioners are are very good at that, right?
00:30:52.400 --> 00:31:07.119
I mean, we we've got uh you know more than a century of advanced uh advanced psychology that you know lays out pretty well for us how humans respond to various various stimuli.
00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:16.960
Uh and we have built tools that we carry around in our pockets that are very, very good at pushing those buttons for us.
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:20.720
Uh and and that is a problem.
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:29.839
I am not so Pollyanish as to believe that providing the facts solves all our problems.
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:30.480
Sure.
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:39.759
We've got a lot of challenges, we've got a lot of puzzles that we need to figure out, we've got a lot of opportunities that we need to figure out how to how to capitalize on.
00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:51.839
And and simply flooding the zone, as it were, with valid, valuable factual information is not going to get the job done on that.
00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:56.799
I do know that we can't do the job without it, though.
00:31:57.039 --> 00:31:57.920
Right, right, right.
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:01.440
It is it is a it is a necessary precursor.
00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:16.720
We you know, whatever it is we're trying to solve, whatever
it is we're trying to address, whatever it is we're trying to accomplish, we can't do it unless we have folks engaged with the information uh that that they need to do so.
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:27.359
And I think that's especially where the local, if there is a a new growing shortage of facts, it's at the local level compared to the national and international level, right?
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:34.000
Because of this segregation and collapse of the local media environment that's happened over the last couple decades.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:45.039
And so, yeah, and I I definitely don't mean to diminish the importance of journalism and facts and truth and like putting that into the limelight.
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:51.039
And I think you're you're aligned here that that's not going to do it on its own.
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:54.720
Yet we we also can't do it without that part, right?
00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:56.480
That's a prerequisite to the rest of it.
00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:09.200
But yeah, even just thinking about and frankly, watching colleagues, friends, and family, maybe not so much colleagues, but definitely friends and family kind of fall, and myself even, frankly, I think all of us are not immune to this.
00:33:10.559 --> 00:33:16.880
Having beliefs reinforced and having algorithmic tuning kind of get you into rabbit holes, right?
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:25.039
Where you, you know, you see one YouTube short about a thing, and then all of a sudden, you know, three weeks later you're down into some weird fringe category.
00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:26.400
Like, how did I end up here?
00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:26.880
Right.
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:38.960
And and especially when the incentives of those platforms is attention at basically all costs, and we know that humans have to a degree uh a bias towards things that trigger their emotions, especially negative emotions.
00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:41.599
You talked about these like psychological tunings.
00:33:41.680 --> 00:33:54.480
I mean, the platforms are well aware, we're seeing this play out in real time in the courts right now, that they are willing to trade public harm for profit and for attention because attention is their currency of profit.
00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:55.440
Yep.
00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:04.000
And so, like part of me is like, do we need almost like an anti, like either some kind of movement-based revolution?
00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:07.440
Is it is it regulation on these platforms that needs to happen?
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:17.519
How do you compete in this marketplace of ideas in the current state of play with technology without falling prey to some of those same traps that the big tech companies have fallen prey to?
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:18.320
Yeah.
00:34:18.559 --> 00:34:20.480
Uh you you make it human.
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:28.320
Um, you literally, but I think more to the point figuratively, take it off the platform.
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:41.360
Uh, form direct, trusting, give and take, 360-degree relationships with your audience, with the communities that you are seeking to serve.
00:34:41.519 --> 00:34:50.400
And be clear and be transparent about what it is that you're trying to accomplish and how people can help do that.
00:34:50.480 --> 00:34:50.800
Yeah.
00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:53.760
Uh, give people an opportunity to engage.
00:34:54.159 --> 00:35:05.039
Uh, I um I I've got a neighbor that uh we we come from different perspectives politically.
00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:11.440
Um, I think my wife put it perfectly as like, man, I love that guy so long as you don't look at his bumper stickers.
00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:21.599
Uh if you know, if we were talking about national politics in a chat room, is that even a thing anymore?
00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:27.760
Yeah on a on a social media platform somewhere, uh, I bet you it would get pretty heated pretty quickly.
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:28.239
Right.
00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:41.039
Uh but when we when we stand on opposite sides of the fence or both out, you know, grilling burgers of a of a Wednesday evening and and are chatting about what's going on locally, that's something that we have in common.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:46.400
It's something that uh we can talk about with with nuance and with perspective.
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:51.679
And again, we're not we're not necessarily going to to agree on that, but it can be a productive disagreement.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:52.079
Yeah.
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:57.360
We need to be doing that at scale within the communities that we seek to serve.
00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:12.239
Uh and and that's an essential part of our approach, um, you know, is getting out into the community face to face, responding to every correspondence.
00:36:12.400 --> 00:36:32.320
You know, many of our biggest, many of Wava's biggest champions, the relationship started with uh uh a comment on a story or a nasty gram sent via email saying, Oh, you biased so and so's, why didn't you include this and that in the story?
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:34.480
And you know, I'm never gonna read you again.
00:36:34.719 --> 00:36:43.920
And one of our editors picking up the picking up the phone, like we do in every single one of those interactions and saying, Hey, thanks for reading, thanks Mark for reaching out.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.760
I I I want to have a better understanding of what your concerns are.
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:51.519
Do you have five minutes to walk this, walk me through this?
00:36:51.679 --> 00:37:01.199
And and if you know, if this warrants an addition or an update or a correction or what have you, you know, that that that card is very much in the deck, you know, that's that's on the table.
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:05.199
But I I want to understand where where you are coming from.
00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:11.280
We have a little bit of a luxury in Wyoming, in that we are the least populous state in the union.
00:37:11.519 --> 00:37:21.760
Um, you know,
as I believe it was former governor Mike Sullivan coined the now famous phrase, Wyoming is really just one big small town with really long streets.
00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:39.679
You know, this is a community where someone running for statewide office, governor, senator, or secretary of state, what have you, there is still an expectation that as a voter, you're gonna get a chance to shake that person's hand and look them in the eye maybe a couple of times before election day.
00:37:39.840 --> 00:37:40.079
Yeah.
00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:43.199
And that you can access them after they're in office as well.
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:50.800
You know, it it does still have that small town community community vibe to it.
00:37:51.119 --> 00:38:12.639
It also, we have in our history much more recently than I think so much of the country, uh a proud tradition that was maintained and executed until quite recently of explicit civility in our discourse, including with those that we disagree with.
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:17.519
Very much a live and let live brand of conservatism.
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:30.880
You know, people often talk about you know, you you can't afford to alienate people in Wyoming because next time you end up in the ditch in February, which you know happens to all of us, you don't know who the next truck's gonna be along.
00:38:31.119 --> 00:38:32.480
And there won't be that many of them.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:33.440
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:37.519
And it may be a while, you're not gonna have a selection to choose from.
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:37.920
Right.
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:39.599
We can still tap into that.
00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:43.920
You know, there there has been a shift, like there has been everywhere nationally, of it.
00:38:44.079 --> 00:38:51.920
It has grown more, it has grown more polarized, it has grown more nasty, it is, you know, the the level of vitriol is definitely ramped up.
00:38:52.239 --> 00:39:06.480
But it that is that is still fresh in people's memory, and it's still something that people value, and it and it's incumbent on us to find ways to to tap into that and to leverage that for everyone's benefit.
00:39:06.719 --> 00:39:10.000
Um, you know, and it's there's an irony to that.
00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:12.400
You know, we we are a digital first publication, right?
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:14.960
We we publish online at wildfile.com.
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:22.559
Most of our reach is on digital, a lot of our engagement, a lot of our important engagement is on the social media platforms.
00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:55.760
But using that as a pathway to genuine relationships, relationships that aren't dependent upon, moderated by uh intermediaries, like the social platforms, like the search algorithms, et cetera, where folks have direct access to us and vice versa, is something that really every news organization needs to be focused on right now, particularly as the way information moves around the internet is
is changing so rapidly.
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:08.960
I mean, what AI has done to search almost overnight, you know, organizations that were dependent on SEO for their audience are in a world of hurt right now.
00:40:09.039 --> 00:40:11.519
Uh and I don't see that getting better.
00:40:11.679 --> 00:40:16.880
Uh, it really has to come down to people to people and and communities together.
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:18.000
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:18.159 --> 00:40:19.840
I think that's that's dead on.
00:40:19.920 --> 00:40:34.079
And we're looking at this for a second through the lens of some of our listeners who are also very mission-driven, social impact focused, but maybe not running a newsroom or probably not running a newsroom.
00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:38.800
There's a version of this that they need to be paying attention to attention to as well, right?
00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:56.639
And I think everyone is to a degree realizing the importance of digital engagement and dialogue and how that's happening, and you know, tuned into the social media platforms, tuned into the pros and cons of those things, because there are pros to them also in terms of building movements and missions.
00:40:57.199 --> 00:41:12.239
And also, I think very not even just worried about, but curious about how AI is coming in and shaking all of this up, and you know, even around like discoverability of your mission for support that you need, whether that's money or people power or whatever it is.
00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:29.519
And now there's a new intermediary that is kind of just a new complex player in this already complex web of information cycles and ecosystems, where like you might search for AI for something to get truth about who I should vote for or how I should feel about this issue.
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:42.400
AI is now pulling from social media on your behalf or other publications on your behalf, yeah, trying to figure out how to, you know, how and what to prioritize and to surface, which is also shaped by past conversations you've had with AI.
00:41:42.559 --> 00:41:45.440
So it's just getting more and more and more complex.
00:41:45.599 --> 00:41:58.880
So there's this weird moment I think that we're in where in-person human-to-human conversation is going to become a premium almost at some level for our time and attention.
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:10.960
And yet, so much of what influences our beliefs and our understanding of the world around us is happening and building human context before those conversations happen, which just creates this weird, you know.
00:42:11.039 --> 00:42:14.880
Sometimes I have conversations with friends where I'm like, where did you even hear that?
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:17.119
Like, what does your algorithm look like, man?
00:42:17.280 --> 00:42:21.199
Like, like I this is the first time I've heard what am I missing, even right?
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:23.760
So it's a it's a really interesting challenge.
00:42:23.920 --> 00:42:39.199
So I guess like as we as we work to wrap up here, I want to just ask like, what should other social impact leaders in the space be taking away from this, be thinking about, other than support local journalism and you know uh the importance of that?
00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:44.800
Like, how should leaders be navigating this moment in the information ecosystem?
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:45.679
Yeah.
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:59.280
I I think putting you know a social impact leader's particular cause in the context of an information ecosystem in the first place is a big step forward.
00:42:59.519 --> 00:43:23.199
Um, the the late great John Thornton, uh, founder of the Texas Tribute, one of the founders of the Texas Tribune, one of the founders of the American Journalism Project, um, and uh uh very generous philanthropist, uh he said it really well when he said that, you know, no matter what your number one cause is, your number two ought to be access to information.
00:43:23.519 --> 00:43:50.480
Uh recognizing the degree to which whatever it is you're trying to accomplish is going to be affected by the availability of information, how that information travels, how people interact with that information, and recognizing that that is such a rapidly changing set of variables right now, and that that has enormous impact on whatever, whatever your cause is, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish is essential.
00:43:50.719 --> 00:43:57.199
I I like the phrase you used just a moment ago about human to human relationships being at a premium.
00:43:57.599 --> 00:44:02.639
Uh I the This is this is entirely anecdotal.
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:04.159
This is entirely out of my head.
00:44:04.239 --> 00:44:06.320
I have zero data to back this up.
00:44:06.719 --> 00:44:19.280
But but I think there is going to be a coming renaissance in which people start to recognize that premium and value it as such.
00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:42.559
And I think it's you know, in large part uh will be a direct response to people's frustration with the alternative, people's disgust with the alternative, uh, and people recognizing how how much b better you know the the the human-to-human interactions are all around.
00:44:42.880 --> 00:45:10.400
Um as cyberspace increasingly becomes the you know the the the purview of of the bots and the technology and less of a place that is responsive to our needs uh and um yeah our our desires, I think folks are gonna find opportunities to do meaningful work at scale uh offline.
00:45:10.639 --> 00:45:10.960
Yeah.
00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:12.400
Not entirely.
00:45:12.559 --> 00:45:15.840
You know, this this AI is not going away.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:18.800
Uh social media is not going away.
00:45:19.039 --> 00:45:33.440
But thinking about those as supplements as opposed to central, yeah, I I I think is going to be a a welcome shift in something that um I'm always looking for opportunities in.
00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:36.559
Yeah, I also anecdotally
agree.
00:45:36.639 --> 00:45:54.719
Um, and I don't have a ton of data to back that up either, but just observing the world, uh I have a sense that a lot of people are knowingly and with a true felt sense pretty unhappy with the current state of digital experience, right?
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:55.199
Yeah.
00:45:55.519 --> 00:45:57.840
And yet we can't seem to put the phones down, right?
00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:15.039
And there's even movements around putting the phones down and and you know, digital detox and all these things, but they are so well designed to hack our psychology and our attention and to basically uh prevent us from ever becoming bored, which is a huge issue, actually, for our brains.
00:46:15.119 --> 00:46:19.360
We need to be bored because that's where we process a lot, it's where our imaginative thinking happens.
00:46:19.519 --> 00:46:28.800
And so, you know, I think we're starting to see a lot of people at least having more discussions around this, and hopefully this one can be part of that.
00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:39.519
And I agree, like, I'm not suggesting we go into some sort of like digital um fast or detox permanently because I just don't think that's practical anymore.
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:56.239
But I do think we need to majorly rethink how these technologies fit into our lives and not just basically accept whatever the big tech companies tell us we should do there because their incentives are not aligned at all with ours, broadly speaking.
00:46:56.400 --> 00:47:11.199
But I do think that to me, that actually ends on a slightly optimistic note in the sense of like if we do start to recognize that culturally and we can kind of reclaim the best parts of traditional media and the best parts of what these technologies do offer us as benefits.
00:47:11.360 --> 00:47:18.800
Um, I think that is gonna be a better, a better world than than either of the alternatives that we've talked about.
00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:30.639
Matthew, before we do wrap, I want to just give you a chance to, you know, shout out or plug anything to our listeners who are interested in learning more about you or Wiophile or just getting engaged in local journalism.
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:34.639
Like what should people dig into if they if they're passionate about this and want to go deeper?
00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:42.159
Yeah, I I would encourage folks to to find their independent nonprofit public interest news agency.
00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:54.719
Uh this model is prolifer proliferating quite rapidly around the around the nation, takes a lot of different forms in a lot of different places, but there are innumerable organizations doing really essential work.
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Uh find it.
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Start reading, subscribe to the newsletter.
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:01.199
Um, if you find value there, donate to it.
00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:03.119
Uh some resources on that front.
00:48:03.199 --> 00:48:07.199
Uh inn.org, the institute for nonprofit news.
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:11.519
Uh, I believe they've got a you know a geographic search that you can use.
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They certainly have a listing of many hundreds of members.
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Uh, an outstanding organization that uh we've been involved with from the outset is uh the American Journalism Project.
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Their portfolio of uh of nonprofit news agencies are really sort of the top performers in this space.
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Uh, and you can find them all over the country.
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Um, yeah, I'd encourage folks to get involved, you know, uh, with whatever that means for you.
00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:51.840
You know, whether it's changing the hours of the rec center so that they better serve the community, or paying closer attention to the school board, or better yet, running, running for public office locally.
00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:53.679
Get in the game.
00:48:53.920 --> 00:49:09.840
Get get off the get off the comment section uh and and turn the energy that you know maybe would be spent lobbing grenades into uh into trying to make uh an impact with and for your your community.
00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:10.639
Awesome.
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:11.360
Thank you, Matthew.
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This has been great.
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I appreciate your time today.
00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:14.639
I really appreciate it, Eric.
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If you enjoyed today's video, please be sure to hit like and subscribe, or even leave us a comment.
00:49:22.559 --> 00:49:23.360
It really helps.
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Thank you.
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And thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.