-So let's start the panel with a gut check.
When you look at Seattle right now,
what is one story about the city that is widely believed,
but you think it's fundamentally wrong?
And I'll just let folks jump in. -Oh, it is on.
Okay, well, I have the pleasure of actually having just --
we just did some polling at The Stranger.
So we got to disprove something
that is widely believed to be true.
There's this like, definitely big business narrative
that Seattleites are like one new tax hike away from like,
fleeing the city;
that everyone kind of hates to be here, it's crime-ridden.
Who wants to live in a city like this?
Turns out about three-quarters of Seattleites
really like it here, so --
-The tax fatigue, and it's dangerous here.
Yeah, I'll second that one.
-Okay, I'll jump in.
You know, I think it's the Seattle freeze thing.
I have never experienced it, and when I meet newcomers,
they seem so happy, along Hannah's point, to be here.
And especially I live in the best part of Seattle,
in the south part of Seattle,
and I feel like everybody there is really welcoming
and curious and interested.
So I would say the Seattle freeze.
-Yeah, I guess I would say I think it's kind of the idea
of what Seattle culture is.
I really always kind of cringe when people say, you know,
Seattleites wear, you know, plaid,
and they dress in Carhartts,
and they do all these different things,
and it's very subjective, right,
based on where you live and who you are.
And I think it kind of leaves out where Florangela and I live,
which is a very different Seattle
than I think is that stereotype.
And I think when we talk about what Seattle is,
I think we need to broaden our lens a little bit.
I know a lot of people who are very fashionable
that are maybe don't fit that mold,
and I think that we need to be a little bit more inclusive
when we talk about that.
-We also still don't live in the '90s.
-So we're here to talk about the media ecosystem,
which we're all part of.
And I think there is, you know, a correct,
more or less narrative that the media is shrinking,
local media in particular. So if you disagree with that,
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
But my question is,
if the media ecosystem stays on its current trajectory,
who do you think will become invisible or more invisible?
You know, what communities, neighborhoods,
topics get covered less or only when something goes wrong there?
And let's start with Florangela.
-Well, the first thing that comes to mind
is arts and culture.
Arts and culture.
I've worked in a lot of different newsrooms,
and a lot of different media,
and arts and culture is consistently the department
that is the most vulnerable in news orgs.
And I feel like it is undoubtedly one
of the most powerful because of the creativity.
It's a business.
The independence, the messaging, all of it,
all of the things that we like to say
that we're proud of Seattle,
you can find in the arts and culture,
and it spills into -- except for sports,
but you can see what's been done to high school sports coverage
if you've been around long enough.
High school sports coverage is not present anymore.
And I would say also, you know,
geography, and I'm sure we will have a lot to say about that,
is the challenges of getting out to different corners
of just Seattle proper.
The smaller the newsrooms are,
that means the fewer people who have a means,
who are living in these neighborhoods or communities,
or who are able to get out there
and then have the trust and the familiarity
and the context to be able to accurately
and completely cover issues.
So that's what I would say.
-Yeah, I think that one of the things
that we are seeing kind of across the board in like places
as they lose their local media landscape
is kind of the PR-ization of journalism
that you'll mostly see like a regurgitation
of a press release, and that that starts to feel like,
well, this is information.
And you start to kind of lose your footing as to what info --
like what a press releases versus what the press is.
And I think we see that in politics as much
as we see that in the arts,
that like journalists are meant to be your guide
through information that shouldn't be that one-sided,
and we lose that the thinner we --
that our like local media landscape gets.
-Yeah, and I would agree with all of that.
And I would also just add that I think communities of color,
marginalized communities, people who are trans,
immigrants, non-English speakers,
I think those are the folks
that are most at risk of having their voices hidden
in a landscape where the media shrinks.
And I think we all can do better all the time.
I know I can do better all the time at making sure
that I'm amplifying those voices
and making those stories come to the forefront.
But I think that, you know, as media declines or shifts,
that's something we need to be vigilant about all the time.
-Yeah, and I think just as like,
just to kind of second all of that as, you know,
an accountability reporter, I am one person.
I run a basically one-person operation, and there's,
you know, I think about like the county.
King County has never gotten covered as much as it should.
And now I just, I feel like,
you know, I hear about stories that just, you know,
that I either can occasionally cover,
but generally can't, and they just never get told.
And I think there's a lot of accountability reporting
that is just impossible to do
when you have fewer people and less of a kind of,
you know,
farm team coming up from colleges
with kids wanting to study journalism and seeing it as,
you know, not a lucrative career,
but at least a career.
And you know, kind of to your point,
Hannah, there's a lot of -- there's the PR-ization
that you talked about,
but there's also the social media-ization
and the Nextdoor-ization,
and like people have, you know, the police blotter.
And there's a lot of -- you know,
not to pick on The Seattle Times,
but Seattle Times will often, you know,
if they cover certain stories, it's like,
police say that, you know,
"Man running away was holding gun," or whatever.
And I think that affects marginalized communities.
So I guess my next question is, you know,
when neighborhoods and communities lose beat reporters,
but they gain all that stuff,
how does that reshape the public narrative about local issues?
And it could also be local arts as well,
but the coverage of local arts is just so paltry now.
I don't know if that question is apt for that.
-Sorry.
I think that part of what I find really interesting
about the examples that you used there,
the Nextdoor or the police blotter,
it's not just like how it --
it does impact the public perception of a neighborhood,
right, mostly because people don't --
no longer have access to that information at all.
And for Nextdoor, for the police blotter or whatever,
it means that the self-conception
of that neighborhood can also radically change.
And I think that's perhaps like the even most
egregious part of that is that your own perception
of like the community that you live in can get narrower
and narrower and narrower.
-Naomi or Florangela?
-Sorry, can you restate the question?
-Yeah, basically,
how does it change, you know, the way that --
the public narrative about communities
when the news about those communities, you know,
A is not coming from those communities,
but B is, like, is stuff like Nextdoor
or, you know, are police blotter posts that show one perspective?
-Yeah, I mean, I've seen that increase so much
over the past few years,
especially as the lines get more
and more blurred between seeing something on Nextdoor,
you see something on Citizen,
or you see something on,
you know, any number of these Ring apps or anything like that.
And people don't have the media literacy skills,
and hopefully we can talk about this a little bit more,
to be able to discern what's the difference between something
that's actually evidence-based and rooted in something
that's been vetted
and filtered through some kind of checks and balances
versus something that is just someone saying, "I saw this.
I think this is what's happening,"
but you don't actually know what's happening.
I mean, I think a really good example of that
happened this week with the container ship or the containers
at the port at Tacoma that spelled out, "Renee."
And that went all over my social media, and everyone was like,
"Oh, my gosh, look at this protest for Renee Good."
And it's -- they felt it was pretty clear what it meant.
But oftentimes, as we learned in journalism is very humbling,
the thing that you think it might mean
is often not the thing that it means, right?
And I think the difference between social media
and journalism is the journalist has to ask,
and our Reporter Kai Uyehara did this.
He asked them,
"Where did this come from and why?"
And when he did that,
he found out that it was actually
a birthday commemoration for someone's girlfriend's birthday,
who happened to be named Renee, right?
It was an incredible coincidence, the timing,
everything like that.
But that's what journalism is, right?
It's taking something you think to be true,
but testing it and finding out is it actually true?
And I think that's the important role
that we play in what we need to be doing.
And I think people need to understand that that's something
that they can also be doing
when they're consuming things on social media
and asking those questions as they see it.
-I had a conversation not that long ago,
about -- it was during the mayoral race,
and I was talking to a former judge.
And she was telling me a story about being in a room
with people and talking about both candidates,
wondering how they are, who they are, what they're like.
And I thought, well, I'm going to all the debates.
I'm going into the rooms
because I want to see what Harrell and Wilson are like,
and I'm reading everything I can.
And she said, "Well, that's different.
You're atypical.
You have that wired to ask questions
and to try to get as close as possible to 'reality,'
so you could vet yourself."
Most people don't,
most people will just turn to their neighbor
or their family member and go, "I heard this."
Or Naomi will say something,
and you take that as truth, and that's it.
I mean, Naomi is a bad example,
but you know what I mean, the instinct that journalists --
-I will say, I told my family
that there was this protest about Renee,
because I saw someone send it to me.
So I will admit I spread misinformation this week.
I feel terrible about it.
I also shared the story we did about it to make up for it.
But yeah, I spread misinformation this week.
I'm very embarrassed by it.
-But I think it's, you know,
that is why journalists are so important because we are wired,
we're trained, we are skeptical, we're used to asking questions.
We will dig and dig and dig,
and we want to make sure that what we say
or pass on in our storytelling is accurate,
or at least has the context, and giving you the information.
And I think that's what's missing is
if your source is Nextdoor,
if your source is a simple Facebook post or a retweet,
or whatever it's called, you have to take a beat.
You should take a beat and see who else
is out there showing you, saying things.
I have so much skepticism about what I see on social media
that I do really caution. I do really stop.
And it's until if I know the reporter
or I trust the source or both, and I see it repeated,
repeated on my social media feed,
then I will lean in and tend to believe that what I'm seeing
or what I'm reading is true.
And so, I think that's the danger is the fear
that gets instilled if you're just getting it really quickly
and from a source that is not a journalism site.
-Yeah, I mean this like echoes a debate
or an argument that I have in my household.
Basically, starting one minute after I get up every morning,
because we are a social media-heavy household.
And it is like it is a lot of work to your point.
I mean, most people are not going to go
and look at 17 different sources.
So how do we, you know, sort of as journalists,
you know, educate people about the difference
between journalists and,
you know, somebody with a ring light or somebody,
you know, going barging into a press conference
to make a scene for, you know, TikTok or whatever.
And I mean, those are real examples.
I mean, there are people who do that in the City of Seattle.
You know, in this time
when people just are kind of looking at social media
for information so much,
how do we help people understand what journalism is
and how it's different than that?
And how is it different?
I mean, maybe, you know,
maybe that would be a helpful place to start.
-Well, I think the question of how it's different
is part of the challenge there,
because one of the problems with social media
is that anybody can go on there
and say that they're an independent journalist too.
We see that a lot on the far right.
And we see those narratives getting pushed by people
who self-describe as journalists.
Like, they have -- there are people who have --
like a lot of people have been able to co-opt
that like explicit job description that we all carry.
And I think that part of what like is so --
it kind of comes back to the importance of local news,
is that, you know, I don't know all of you all's reading habits,
but I do know that if you talk to people about national media,
they've got opinions.
If you talk to people about local media,
they talk about whatever pub they read,
like it's their friend.
And like the trust that people can cultivate with local media
is completely different.
And I think that it's because,
like that paper is writing about what's happening
in front of them,
and you're able to build a degree of trust
that you can't necessarily build in a national publication.
And I think it puts us in a really,
like everybody on this stage right now,
in a really, really important and powerful position
to kind of build, maintain,
and teach that trust and treat it with a lot of care.
-Yeah, I mean, I think that's such a important question.
And such an important question right now.
I think evidence-based journalism,
which is what, you know, we're all trying to do here,
is so foundational to our civic life, our democracy,
everything that we need to be vigilant in protecting.
But I think the lines are getting so blurred
and social media and AI
and I think people aren't given any of the tools
they need to have the kind of media literacy
to understand what they're seeing as critical questions,
have critical thinking,
and be able to sort of vet any media source,
whether it's a mainstream media source,
alternative media source, whatever it might be,
through this idea of what are you seeing?
Whose agenda could be behind it?
What are some other ways of looking at the topic,
whose voices are present,
whose voices are missing?
I mean, I think there's some basic things
that have been kind of left out of our public conversation
around how to consume media.
And it's really past time that I think we start doing that more.
-One thing we were experimenting and continue to,
is we have a media literacy columnist at the Emerald,
for that very reason,
is because it is a constant question that gets asked.
And I think it's a very Seattle thing,
which is asking about media literacy.
How do we instill it? How do we pass it on?
How do we learn from our children,
or have the children learn that from us?
To what Naomi was saying, the vetting, the context,
people don't understand just the rigor
that's involved in reporting.
And I think that is the thing that's cautionary,
too, is if you're getting information,
because that's what we're doing;
we're in the business of passing on information.
You are assuming that you are -- well, you can trust us,
we should be able to tell you,
or you should be able to glean
where the information is coming from.
That's transparency.
That's the context that you deserve.
You deserve to read a social media post or a story
and walk away knowing where the sources,
what are the sources of the information in that story
and where the information --
and perhaps giving you an opportunity to go and dig
and find out more. Because in this day and age,
back to -- you know, I always take a beat.
You can have with AI -- you could have somebody who --
how do you know that Naomi's Bluesky is actually Naomi's?
How do you know that the social media --
but like the power of eyewitness;
you want to see that video yourself?
Well, how do you know that video hasn't been altered?
How do you know the one news source hasn't been hacked
or hasn't, in the quest to be first,
been so aggressive and push out information,
and then have to backtrack? And where --
at what point are you going to get into that discussion
and realize that they made a mistake earlier?
Where I thought you were going with the Renee,
because I thought the same thing.
I didn't push it out, but I did think the same thing, like,
"Oh, look, Renee," I'm like, "Wow, in Tacoma, really?"
-Yeah. -I --
-To be fair,
the longshore workers also said that it was what it was,
but it wasn't, so. -But was the -- you know,
it was unconfirmed reports of ICE and Seattle
public schools had the shelter-in-place.
Unconfirmed reports instituted a whole, you know,
action that instilled a lot of fear in a lot of people.
And there was reporting in the media about that.
And that goes back to you
should be able to go to the beginning of a story
of information
and find out where that information originated from.
That is the literacy that I think we all
need to start practicing and push back on,
and also understanding the vetting that comes in.
Because it's --
so many people think that it's the one byline
or the publication,
but there is so much context, so much vetting,
the editor, the stuff that was left out, the caption,
who wrote the caption?
Who wrote -- who's writing the social media post?
Is that the reporter?
So I think all of that, the sausage-making of journalism,
I think, is a really important thing for people to understand.
-Yeah, and I think the point about rigor is really important.
I think people get frustrated when they say,
"Well, you haven't reported this thing out,
but I've already seen it all over social media."
Right?
And that's because the rigor part is happening
behind the scenes that you're not seeing,
and it's no virtue to be first and wrong.
It's a virtue to be maybe slower and accurate, right?
And I think that's what people are seeing things
in social media a lot faster
than the media is putting it together,
journalists are putting it together,
and there's a reason for that.
And sometimes the stuff that you're seeing on social media
that's comes out, lightning fast, turns out to be true,
but too often it's not, right?
And so many problems happen,
and so many lives can be seriously harmed in that rush
to being out there first. And there's, unfortunately,
a lot of media outlets that will just run with that.
And I think the ones that are responsible will take a beat
and do the rigor that Florangela is talking about.
-I think the question
that I'm still struggling with around this,
though, is then like we --
I would hazard to guess that everyone in this room
does have a handle of what the rigor of journalism is,
like why it's distinct from a social media post.
But I do think we also have a like a, you know,
very digital first generation coming up
that doesn't have this -- you know,
to speaking to your point about media literacy,
how do we --
I don't think we have a clear plan for
how to teach media literacy to an entire generation.
-I think you're right.
-And I think that,
like that's the thing that I've been struggling with when,
you know, like we have a --
like I think all of our publications
have a strong social media presence,
and we'll also see, you know, those rumors get popped up,
you know,
why aren't you reporting on this the same issues
that you guys are all talking about?
And I've --
like our social media editor has gone in occasionally to be like,
"This is how reporting works.
In case you were wondering; we're working on it."
But we can't, you know,
that only reaches so much of an audience,
you know, I don't know.
Have you guys seen any successful models
for talking to 20-year-olds about how to take media in?
-What's been the feedback to your column, Florangela?
-We're trying to get it into a stronger cadence,
and I think people are liking it,
and we're really happy that we're experimenting with that.
It's the byline is -- I'm sorry,
the reporter is a Renton librarian
whose specialty is that.
But I -- you know, we have such a force in terms
of literacy and disinformation misinformation at the U-Dub.
And I think, to your point, Hannah, I think it goes,
you know, I don't spend a lot of time on TikTok.
But I do think the curiosity of this younger generation
of getting information out and witnessing things,
I do think the engagement that's there, the pushback,
I think that is an opportunity
because people are going to ask the question or wonder,
well, why does Naomi have that information?
Like, what was the access?
What is she seeing that somebody else isn't seeing?
What is her perspective?
Is there somebody else who was in that same room,
or is there a different interview that happened,
and did somebody else have a different lens?
And I think there is opportunity there.
I get encouraged by, you know,
I know you started with this notion of -- and it's true,
the shrinking newsrooms.
We know what's happened here locally,
but I do think that creates opportunity.
You're a perfect example of what you've been
able to do in your success.
I would say the credibility, the rigor that you practice,
with things that have shut down or the dwindling,
I think there's opportunity for new things.
And that's the part that keeps me encouraged
is there probably is and are.
I mean, we've seen some of that in just in the last year.
-Yeah, and I want to say, I mean,
I think social media can be journalism.
I don't want to be a gatekeeper
because I am the one sitting up here
who has a one-person operation, so the rigor is like internal.
I hold myself accountable, and like also,
I don't want to get sued, right?
So and I have like, you know, training in legacy,
you know, alt-weekly media at least.
That's what I did before starting PubliCola.
But, you know,
I don't want to be too much of a gatekeeper on what is media,
but I just --
I think you have to apply the same lens to everything,
you know, even if it's a 30-second TikTok,
like, you know, there needs to be citation of sources.
I mean,
I would like love to see more actual journalism happening on
-- I mean, I'm not on TikTok either.
It drives me -- I mean, just the algorithm drives me insane.
But like on Instagram,
whatever your social media preference is,
like I would like to see the sort of work of journalism
happening, you know, like interviews, things like that,
you know, quick hits.
It doesn't, you know, we don't have to expect people --
like, I love the written word,
I want people to read a 10,000-word story
that I've written,
but that's not realistic for the vast majority of people,
even though, like, I might have spent months on that story.
But I think that there does have to be some literacy,
you know, around understanding
who people are as you're scrolling past them,
understanding what the requirements of journalism are.
And, you know, and that's just, you know,
pursuing the truth, reporting facts,
not reporting things that aren't facts yet,
you know, reconfirming things with other people.
There's just stuff that we, you know,
that everybody does at a baseline level
if you're a journalist,
no matter what medium you're doing it on.
And even if it is like, you know, a 30-second video.
So I don't know if anybody has any other thoughts on that,
but I just wanted to -- you know,
I'm feeling a little crusty up here, you know,
talking about print media. -What?
-No, what I was going to say in terms of the --
and that is a good point about your training
and your background is.
That's probably the thing that I wrestle with
when I see a lot of the newer streams of information,
is the rigor that I see missing is, is there an editor?
Like, is it just somebody who's standing and saying,
I'm here,
and then they're telling you they're just spouting off.
One, I don't know how interesting you are,
and I don't know if I like what you're saying.
What is your lens exactly?
But two, you --
the half the muscle
that an editor has to push back on content or video
or a crop of a photo, the --
to check a reporter for their own blind spots,
to look at nuance and context,
and is that the right word that you want to use,
to think about the audience and
how the audience is going to consume that,
where they are to think of, you know,
what else is happening in the world at that moment?
And it's a taste thing as well.
All of those things that an editor
and a copy editor can help make that story stronger.
And so, that's the part
that I think is missing in social media.
It's sometimes it feels a little too thin.
-It's missing from a lot of regular media now, too.
-It's so true.
-I mean, I feel like that's what gets cut at newsrooms now,
because there's a sense that like,
we don't need editors anymore,
and we certainly don't need copy editors.
I mean, you know,
typos might just be like little annoying things,
but, you know, it depreciates the quality of a product.
But yeah, I mean, the --
like I have a volunteer editor, my co-founder of PubliCola,
but I struggle with that.
And yeah,
I mean, I just think the decimation of editors
at publications has been a huge kind of
almost invisible problem.
-I always like to talk about journalism as a team sport that,
like, you know, there is always a byline,
but we do this work because we like to play a team sport.
But I think that, like, when it comes to changing the format,
that's where, like, you know,
if you think about put --
like, moving journalism into social media,
we just -- we've done this many times over,
you know, we've figured out how to do this same thing in radio
and the same thing on television.
And I think it's about,
you know, we all have this agreed-upon set of rules
that we play by,
and that's why we know how we can trust each other
and trust the work that each of these publications does.
And I think that because the barrier to entry
is so low with social media,
it's --the question we have is how do you prove
that you're playing by those rules
and show people that you're playing by those rules?
And right now, the only thing that we have is saying
that you're attached to a publication
that does journalism.
But I would love -- I think we need to explore ways
to communicate that better. Because I don't think people --
I think it will help people understand what it is
about journalism that makes it important.
-And I think there's been some forays into that.
I mean, I think there's been efforts
to kind of have some kind of pledge or commitment to society,
professional journalist principles
or something like that, right?
-Yeah.
-But it's always kind of been in fits and starts.
And just to follow up on something that Flora said,
I think the other thing that I think about social media
is it's not necessarily the platform.
It's whether or not the sort of checks and balances
that I think we all value really highly are in play,
right, and like, they can be in play on any platform,
but I think what they're often missing on social media.
And so for -- you know, to your point,
I think in addition to having some trail of
where did you get the information,
I think there's also this facet
of accountability and transparency
when you make a mistake, right?
So I always look to, you know, and I'm trying to see
if whether or not a publication is reliable or not,
it's what's their corrections policy?
Because every one of us knows
that there's no media outlet in the world
that doesn't make a mistake at some point.
Do they own the mistake?
Are they transparent about the mistake?
Are they honest about it?
Is there a way to even see that even happened?
And if there's none of that,
then that tells you something, right?
And I think that's something
we also need to be paying attention to.
-I think, you know, one element of, you know,
I guess filtering out, you know, social media or people --
not to pick on social media,
but, you know, just people who are sort of,
you know, non-traditional journalists versus like,
let's say provocateurs is, you know,
are you able to make a living at it?
I mean, like, let's say it is journalism,
right, like let's stipulate you're doing journalism,
whatever platform. I mean,
people are not going to keep doing social media posts forever
or, you know, a million vertical videos
unless they're able to make a living out of it.
And like, sometimes you do that by being a provocateur.
But in our area,
you know, I think that the pivots you were talking about,
Hannah, like, you know,
the pivot to video that happened with Facebook
and now everybody is doing vertical videos and like,
you know, and I personally hate that, but like next, you know,
in five years it's going to be something else, right?
So you know --
-Five years? Give it five months.
-Yeah. I mean, sure. Like, right, it could be --
and, you know, and it's AI.
And so, I mean, is there a way for us
as journalists and publications to sort of,
you know, demonstrate our value to people in a way
that doesn't just -- you know,
that we're not just rewarding the algorithm that feeds the AI
that everybody is reading.
Like, how can we demonstrate that, like we human,
you know, flesh sacks sitting up here, have value?
-I just want to shout out print media for this.
I really, I do -- thank you, whoever you are.
Thank you, guys, too.
-I'm keeping the magazine industry alive,
like single-handedly in my house, so.
-Excellent.
No, I think that, you know,
print media, there's something so special about something
that just doesn't have to navigate the algorithm.
And like I do -- there's something about 2026
that seems to be like analog is calling to people,
and it makes me really happy. But there is,
like one thing that I hadn't thought about like
as we at The Stranger
returned to like a consistent print cadence,
is that there is this one thing that we do
where we don't have to think about SEO
or the algorithm at all.
It is like, just -- it is the --
we just have to produce something of quality.
And I think there's something to physical media
that, you know, we all like to hold something in our hands.
And it's not a solution to like the algorithm-based competition.
But it does hold, I think,
a really special place in the media sphere.
And I think it's becoming especially apparent
as the AI algorithms are getting more and more nightmarish.
-Anybody else?
-I mean, I think we need to do a better job
of telling that story for the public.
And I mean, I guess that's kind of what we're doing here now,
but I think that it's become so -- social media in particular,
and the algorithms that you're talking about
are so all-consuming, and they're --
everything is happening so lightning fast.
And with AI and the way
in which these tech companies have really created
an incentive structure
that really rewards this extreme polarization,
rewards this, you know, like and dislike culture,
I think that it makes it even more imperative
that we talk about what differentiates the work
that we do versus the work that,
you know, we're seeing happening in meta and other platforms.
And I think,
you know, we can't have that conversation enough
because there's so much that rides on it.
There's so much that depends on it.
It's not just me being, you know,
nostalgic for the golden era of journalism
or anything like that.
There's like real things at play, people's lives,
what they know about their communities,
how they know it.
It really, really matters.
You know, the work that we do really, really matters.
And I think we need to take it really seriously.
We need to talk to people about why, you know,
the consumption of evidence-based journalism
and the public interest is a value that is something
that we should be sharing and spreading.
-So -- okay.
-Yeah, I mean, I think the anxiety
that we're all feeling is a special moment for journalism,
because you can find examples of how to counter that.
You can see what your neighbors are doing.
You can hold your local electeds accountable.
You can find out about how --
who's doing what in your community.
You can find -- right?
You can reward yourself with whatever it is
that you're interested in and are curious about.
But I think that, to Naomi's point,
we don't tell you enough about who we are
and why we do what we do.
We don't pull back the curtain enough to tell you our ethics.
And I think that is a differentiation too,
between print or traditional media or trained media,
or however you want to label.
Because there's a lot of -- it's a big community,
but at its core, there is a reason for what we do.
And I think for me, the power is always the ethics.
And we don't do a good job of letting you all in
so that you can then assess, "I like that information," or,
"Oh, I see where she's coming from,
but I don't know if I trust that, right?"
Because all of us, frankly, we all have lenses.
We all grew up in a certain way.
We all live a certain way.
We all like things and don't like things.
And Naomi and I could be -- we could go to a story,
the same event,
and come out of it and have seen two different things, right?
The audience is a third one.
Who are you going to believe?
And I think what the takeaway is get to know Naomi,
get to know what she does, what she acknowledges,
where she goes,
where her comfort zone is, what she's going to ignore.
And then trust -- continue to trust Naomi to,
and then you make you build that relationship.
But we don't do a good job
as news organizations or journalists
to kind of create that.
The thing that I struggle with,
frankly, is it's a really simple thing,
but a really powerful thing.
I want to have emails for all my contributors,
right, and myself on the website.
It should be a no-brainer; you should be able to email.
The hell that happens if you put your email,
not just because of, you know, the legitimate comments,
but imagine -- I see that all the time,
and I'm always curious about what story is in The Times
when there's comments or not comments,
but then the spam and the bots and the phishing, the hacking,
the security, right?
That is a big thing
that is happening now in journalism circles;
is how do you protect the safety of journalists
when you want to build that trust and be transparent
and be available to readers and your audience?
And at the same time, we're enemies, we're targets,
we are victims of harassment.
And so, how do we protect ourselves,
and how do we protect our teams of people?
That's the thing I still have --
if you go to the Emerald,
you'll see that it's a struggle to figure
out the contact information, and that's part of it.
-That's so interesting.
I mean, I also -- you know,
I mean, I've had my share of harassment and threats
and things like that.
But I put my cell phone number out there, you know,
I tell people, if you want to hit me up on signal,
here's my literal cell phone number that goes to this phone.
And I put my email out there, too.
I don't know.
I mean, I feel like I'm going to get harassed no matter what.
-The safety trainers will tell you not to do that.
-Of course, they will. Of course, they will.
But, you know, it's just a different,
you know, it just depends on sort of your level of, I guess,
tolerance for kind of that kind of BS.
And it's usually mostly BS.
You know, it's verbal harassment,
it's people sending you harassing emails.
But, you know, I also like in -- I just have this kind of like,
weird woo woo trust in the universe approach
because I've tried everything else and nothing else
has worked, unfortunately, to prevent it, so --
-But I would say you're also seasoned and you're tough.
And I think -- -That's true.
I'm not saying anybody should ever have to put up with any --
-No, no. But I'm -- the fear that I have,
and this is because I've managed newsrooms
and I work with a lot of younger journalists or journalists
newer to the profession,
and that my stress is through the roof,
thinking about the vulnerability they have
and trying to send them, and let alone,
when you think of what is happening elsewhere
and if that happens here,
and the harm that could happen, the physical harm.
How do you do that? -No, you're correct.
I'm the wrong one here.
-But I think it's -- I think to...
-This is my approach.
-...to Flora's point, I think this is something
that I think about a lot, and I do a lot of work in this arena,
both as someone who's a recipient of that kind of hate,
but also as someone who is a leader in a newsroom
who this is a huge source of concern for us
and something we prioritize really strongly.
And one of the things that,
you know, is true about it is that for women and people
of color, and particularly women of color,
they're much more likely to be targeted in this way.
And the impact on journalism is devastating.
You know, as to Flora's point, like when young people of color,
young women of color decide
that it's not worth getting up in the morning
to be treated like you're the enemy
when you're only trying to do your job
and then be subjected to hate, racist, sexist,
and homophobic vitriol.
It's just, you know, there's lots of other things
you could be doing with your life, right?
So that's a real threat to journalism
when that kind of thing is left unchecked.
And we haven't,
you know, figured out how to maintain that level
of transparency
that you're talking about, as well as protecting the people.
But we try to find a balance, but it's really hard.
And the extreme level -- the temperature of it
is so extreme right now that I, you know,
I can understand why a young person might be like, "Yeah, no.
This isn't worth it to me."
You know, and we got to do whatever we can
to make sure that they don't make that calculation.
-I just think it's, I mean,
if you're on social media,
like you're unfortunately exposed, you know,
whether you're a young person or an older person,
you know, you just -- you're opening yourself up.
I mean, yes, I'm saying this as like a somewhat grizzled
veteran, you know,
of social media harassment campaigns and stuff like that.
I don't think anybody should have to go through that at all.
But I just, I don't know what the solution is
or if there's a solution other than like changing society,
you know, changing people's hearts, better information,
you know, more media, maybe as part of the solution.
I wonder --
-You can really lean into what is
most comfortable for the person.
-Yeah.
-So I think if that's taking their email off
because they're being subjected to a whole bunch of hate
or whatever it might be;
but whatever is most comfortable for the person.
-I think that's great.
I mean, I remember being at The Stranger and like,
it was impossible, and this is way before you, Hannah,
like decades before,
but I remember it being impossible to take
down harassing comments.
And that was just like part of like --
and I was a young woman at the time,
and I was just told, that's just part of your job.
And, you know, and so I think there's, you know,
extreme examples, particularly early in the Internet,
where we just like didn't know how harmful it was.
-Banning abusive comments is one of my favorite games
I play on my lunch break.
-Well, you know, I moderate my own comments, so like, I'm like,
"Why would you think that I would approve this comment,
like about what a terrible person I am?
I mean, I've read it, congratulations,
but nobody else is going to, so."
I want to -- so just a reminder to folks,
if you want to use the QR code to submit comments,
please do so.
We're going to go to audience questions in just a few minutes.
I want to touch on one thing that comes up again
and again, and it's priority of our new mayor
actually is finding a way to fund media.
Everyone is experimenting with different business models.
You know, there's nonprofits,
there's a Seattle Times, a family-owned newspaper.
There's The Stranger, which is...
-Funded by every possible route that we could figure out.
-...which is a vastly expanding media empire.
And then there's like, you know, me, I'm a little for-profit.
Are we struggling
because we haven't found the right business model yet?
Or is it because we're trying to fund a public good
like it's a product?
-I think the audience just answered that.
I assume you're nodding to kind of the journalism version
of the democracy voucher program,
which may or may not come into existence
in the next couple years,
next couple decades, someone's lifetime.
It is like a -- the idea behind it,
though, is that journalism is a public good,
which is, I think, a really valuable way
to think about the work that we do.
It's also how we think about public media,
and we see where we're at with that right now.
I do think that it is part of,
at least previous versions of this country,
to imagine media as a public good.
For some reason,
it's always kind of skirted public or print media
and written media.
And I think that's where a program like this would kind of,
would address that big gap.
I do think we probably need to fund public broadcasting
again first before we could get through something like that.
-I mean, why not both? I -- -Oh, let's -- please.
-I mean, I think, yes, that is part of what's happening.
I think we haven't really made the value proposition
that needs to be made to the public
as to why this is a public good and why it's something
that they should be prioritizing and valuing.
I get a lot of folks in my own, you know,
community who balk at paywalls,
and I get it's frustrating to hit a paywall.
But they hit other paywalls all the time.
They just don't think of it that way.
Like they hit a paywall at Netflix,
and they pay the bill for Netflix, right?
But they hit a paywall
when they want to buy a ticket to an event,
but they buy a ticket to that event, right?
But when it comes to journalism,
which, you know, we have over 100 people
who are producing journalism every day,
that's something that is seen as an unfair burden.
And I get it, you know, it's affordability is a real issue.
But, you know, I think it's about what we value
and what we prioritize.
I want to see all local media survive.
I try to support as many local media outlets that possibly can,
because I think we're better off the more outlets there are,
the more voices we are.
I think we were better off
when we had two alternative news weeklies.
-Absolutely.
-I think we were better off when we had two newspapers.
I think, you know, I miss the magazine
I used to run ColorsNW.
I miss City Arts.
I miss all the things that made our civic dialogue richer.
But for The Seattle Times,
I think one of the things that we've been able to do
is really kind of grow our coverage
through community-funded labs,
which is kind of a hybrid of what we've
just been talking about.
And so, we've been able to add an education lab,
traffic lab, climate lab, homelessness lab,
mental health lab.
And those are community funded with the,
you know, huge firewall between the folks
that fund it and the coverage that we do.
But that's been able to increase --
now, we have about 25% of our staff
funded through those community labs,
and they've been able to do coverage
that has really been groundbreaking
and a huge public service to the community.
So I think, you know, there's no one answer.
I think to Hannah's point,
it's going to take every possible avenue.
But I do think the communication to the public
is something that I hope we can be doing more of.
Just to say, why is this work important?
How do you rely on it?
How do you know what you know?
I think about that all the time. How do you know what you know?
Like people who say,
we don't need, you know, we don't need print media,
we don't need all these things.
We can just use, you know, whoever I trust on TikTok
to tell me what's going on in the world.
But how do you know what you know?
And how do you know that they know what they know, you know?
What's the evidence behind it?
And I think when you start to drill down
to Florangela's point,
you know, there's a rigor behind what I think we all do.
And I think that rigor is really important.
-I used to do some event planning,
and we would talk about
whether or not we would have to charge just a minimum $5.
Because if you didn't charge an admission fee,
the likelihood was that people weren't going to show up.
You didn't want to have a free event.
I run a news organization
where we're really proud that we don't have paywalls.
We want to make it accessible to anybody.
We think information is yours to have.
But I want to have a free news source,
with the expectation is what you just read cost money to produce.
I want to pay freelancers a living wage.
I want to have original photography for every story.
And I want to have a reel to share on social media
because our audiences are different.
And I'm aware that some people spend time
and want newsletters emailed to them,
and another demographic likes to live on social media,
and another demographic might like
to just come to the website.
So I want people to pay us.
You come in, it's free, but then you leave, and you're like,
"That was so good.
I'm going to give you $5.
That's -- you know,
I'm just going to give you a little tip jar."
And so, that's what I want,
which is why I will be leaving this postcard.
Because we're fundraising
for our very first full-time reporter.
The Emerald has never had a full-time reporter,
believe it or not.
People always think that we're staffed
and we have this huge staff.
And if you go to our about page, you see a lot of people.
But everybody on there,
except for two of us, is a contractor, a freelancer.
And so, after 12 years serving the South End,
we are on a mission
to have a full-time reporter paying them a living wage
to live in Seattle.
That is our goal.
And I think we're never going to have a paywall -- thank you.
But we think media deserves to be paid for because it is work.
And who does work for free?
That is not the case if you want to live in Seattle.
And so you should be subscribing to The Seattle Times,
subscribe to The Stranger, subscribe to PubliCola,
subscribe to all the other media outlets that exist in Seattle,
because again, to Naomi's point,
the city is better with more and more --
as many news outlets as possible.
That is the strength of Seattle,
and it's important for all of us.
-I have one last question
before we go to audience questions.
And you know, since we're all of us up here,
I think are not in a position
where we have to claim to be objective reporters.
We won't -- we'll sort of toss aside the concept of objectivity
and stipulate that it doesn't exist.
And you know,
we're all subjective human beings writing about,
you know, writing through our own lenses
and what our own experiences coming to the table.
What I want to know -- you know, I mean,
one thing with PubliCola
that I think of myself as having as a mission.
And you know, I mean, I won't go into -- I'm the moderator here.
I won't go into a spiel about my mission,
but you can tell what it is when you read the site.
And but I want to ask you guys if you think
that you have a mission, you know,
either as a publication or a columnist,
you know, in the work that you do every day.
-Yeah, when you first brought up the idea of objectivity,
I think that, you know,
anyone here who's read The Stranger knows
that we throw that out --
that concept out the window pretty fast.
But I think what we take a lot of pride
in is that by doing that, we're able to get at a bigger truth.
And our -- I think that what drives us is the idea that,
like in choosing to tell a story in a what is
in an intentionally unobjective --
intentionally maybe bucking some conventions
of traditional journalism,
while still doing the reporting rigor
that we've all agreed that we do,
that we can get at this greater truth.
And that is always the goal of the work that we do.
And I think that that's, I mean, I think that's our north star.
And it makes it a lot easier to show up to work every day.
-Yeah, I mean, as a social justice columnist,
I think my mission is pretty much in my title.
But I try to, as much as possible,
center the margins in our communities
and make sure that folks that have often felt
like their voices haven't been heard are centered in a way
that is sometimes hopefully instructive for the rest
of the community to learn from.
So that's kind of my personal mission.
But I think to your point,
like I really believe no matter what kind of journalism you do,
whether you're a columnist or a reporter,
whatever you might be,
those same principles of being evidence-based
and rigorous and transparent and accountable
and fair as much as you possibly can apply, right?
Just because I'm a columnist
doesn't mean I can say whatever I want
and just use whatever facts I want
and not have to have any consequences for that,
right, I'm subject to the same exact rules
that everyone else is on that front and I should be,
and you should hold everyone to that standard as well,
no matter what kind of journalism they're doing.
So I think that's really important for anyone
who is consuming media
to be holding whoever they're consuming it from
to those standards.
-We are very much rooted in social justice.
We were founded as an alternative to legacy media.
We were founded from the perspective that there is
a lot happening in South Seattle in the South End
that is overlooked or ignored, dismissed.
And the reality
that we experience as residents and people
who work there is not the reality
that we see portrayed elsewhere.
We are very much aligned with what Naomi was saying
in terms of centering the historically marginalized.
We're unabashedly proud of being South Seattle,
like that objectivity is out the window.
We are really proud of who we are, what we're about,
and we're driven to just find the truth of our communities
and include as many voices as possible
and elevate what people are experiencing,
what is on people's minds.
And at the same time, looking to greater Seattle
and looking to powerful institutions or individuals
and making sure that they are being mindful of who we are
and all the complexity,
because we are not a monolith,
and that's a whole other discussion that we could have.
-And I'll just the one thing I will say is, you know,
I also am not remotely objective.
I come out of the alt-weekly world.
I worked at The Stranger for a long time,
worked at the other alt-weekly
that used to be here before that,
and then in Texas before that.
But my goal is always to be fair,
and part of being fair, I mean,
even if the subjects of my stories don't like the story,
which they often don't, it's always talking to both sides.
You know, and if that means, you know,
calling the Police Officers Guild,
which I know, you know, some people might not, you know,
who are politically left leaning like me,
might not want to do that.
I don't always want to,
I mean, I actually like calling people who I disagree with.
But, you know, I mean, it means being fair
and giving both opportunities of both sides of an issue
or all sides of an issue to whatever extent,
you know, is possible,
an opportunity to tell their version of the truth.
And then, you know, in so doing,
get at your version of the real truth.
So I don't believe in one-sided stories.
So I'm going to ask some audience questions
that have come up through the app,
and I believe there's also a microphone somewhere.
There it is.
If people want to come to the microphone to ask a question,
my only request is please actually ask a question
and keep it concise
so that our panelists can get to more questions.
So I'm going to start with one from the from the app.
A viewer asks,
"I'm leading a workshop at Nathan Hale High School
in a couple weeks,
covering media literacy and current events.
Any recommendations for a local news topic
I should bring to have students analyze for bias from either
or both sides of the political spectrum?"
-First of all, yay for doing that.
-Any of the issues that have --
were like centered on our most recent election,
I feel, would be like fascinating to explore.
I think housing and home -- like that our --
like just taking a moment to look at
four different articles describing
the same policy change in our housing,
like public housing models, would be fascinating.
If you're into that kind of stuff,
which maybe high schoolers aren't.
-Trying to think of things that would be interesting
to high schoolers. -Here's one.
What about the -- I mean, this is a little while ago,
but the event on Mayday where a group of anti-trans --
a Christian Church
that was promoting an explicitly anti-trans agenda
did a rally in an event at Cal Anderson Park
in the middle of Capitol Hill.
And that got a lot of coverage,
and I bet it got a lot of coverage
from a lot of different angles with various...
-That's a good one.
-...perspectives and biases. -Yeah.
-Just an analysis of those headlines would be fascinating.
-Yes.
-Hi, my name is Grace. I'll keep my question brief.
I'm a U-Dub student, and I was just wondering
a little bit about the realities of journalism.
You have mentioned that there's been a shift in technique.
And I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on,
like, what the difference is in the boots
on the ground journalistic technique
that you're applying in the culture of social media,
or if you've noticed a difference in, like,
peer or similarly aligned journalistic entities,
if that makes sense.
-I wouldn't say I've noticed a difference in technique
from our publications.
I think what we were more talking about,
if I'm understanding correctly,
is that there's a kind of a whole new cadre of folks
that are producing content without really producing
journalism, but it's being produced
under the sort of moniker or guise of journalism.
Does that make sense? -Yeah, that was making sense.
I was just more asking what you guys are doing
to combat that shift,
like if there was any action
you guys were taking on your end on that front.
-Yeah, I think that there is a really interesting --
you know, social media is a feedback loop
that we have now as journalists,
and that's something that we do need to --
it does create an interesting source of like,
how many times have you guys --
I mean, I think the Renee thing was a really good example
of that, that triggered an exploration into a story.
I think that we have -- it is, I think,
a really unique source of really,
really fallible information.
But it tells us a lot about what our audience
or what our readers might be encountering.
And so,
I think it helps drive what misinformation we're fighting.
And so, I think it does really help guide a lot
of what our like service reporting is, at least for us.
Because we know what we're up against,
I think, in terms of bad information.
-So kind of like what not to do sort of thing or --
-No, like what narrative we're trying to correct
if we're seeing, you know, like I think that, you know,
a good example, I think is a lot of the reports
that we've seen throughout the city that have --
like on social media, they've blown up that like,
"ICE is here in this particular location."
That like, we actually do have the tools
to verify whether or not that's true sometimes,
and being able to --
like that is a public service that we can do to engage
and ask and figure out
whether or not there's ICE agents at a particular hotel
or whatever it is.
And I think it does guide a lot of what we understand
to be kind of that service journalism that we can do.
-Thank you. -Thanks.
-Next audience question.
-Hi, it's -- thank you for coming here.
I was wondering what relevance, if any,
literary skills have in modern print journalism?
-Do you mean like being able to write well?
-More than just the craft of prose.
I'm thinking about some Stranger articles in particular
from maybe the early 2010s,
like "The Bravest Woman in Seattle", I think it was called.
Really ambitious writing projects as well as
solid journalism.
And I'm wondering probably the role of that?
-Yeah.
For context, the one Pulitzer, The Stranger.
One, it's a --
I think that there are papers that are writers' papers.
There are papers that like celebrate voice
and celebrate narrative.
And I like --
those papers and those magazines absolutely still exist.
And I think that there exists, I would guess for you guys,
like places within,
even if typically, you write hard news, places
where that writing is still really celebrated.
I think it's really context-based.
I think that there are places
where that kind of narrative writing has a -- like plays,
such an important tool -- role in conveying information.
And we, I think, in newsrooms, we opt in and out of that.
It's harder, it's really hard work to do that kind of work.
And but it pays off sometimes.
-Yeah, and I think to that point,
I mean that kind of narrative writing
can appear in any kind of story in any kind of publication.
We have a couple of writers, David Gutman and Brendan Kiley,
who come to mind at The Seattle Times,
who I think do a beautiful job of that.
I mean, they can do that for an obit,
they could do that for a story about, I guess, what was it?
Wind -- what was it? Wind. Wind. Oh, just about wind.
Yes.
Yeah, so I mean, it's just having that sort of mindset
and also having the space and the editors who can say,
"Okay, no, you don't have to fit into this one little box.
You can actually spread your wings and fly a little bit,
and try something new
and do something a little bit different.
And it's okay.
And it's actually great, and we love it,
and that's part of your special gift."
-There's also long-form audio and podcasting.
A lot of people forget how much writing is involved in radio,
in documentary. And I think there is room.
If prose is what you love,
if you're comfortable with words that may not exist in print,
you can find avenues for that.
People crave good stories. People crave good information.
People crave reality and character and hope,
and they want all the emotion that prose offers.
So I would think that journalism can be the recipient of that,
but there are different opportunities within that.
-Thank you.
-I want to ask a quick lightning round question
to steal a term from debates from an audience member.
Just real quick,
can you describe your daily media consumption habits?
-Well, before, a few months ago, I would've said --
not TikTok, but now I would say TikTok.
No, I would say I read like pretty much everyone here
from PubliCola to The Stranger,
plus The New York Times, Washington Post,
all the other local media, whatever I can.
I'm trying to get better about paying attention to broadcasts,
local broadcasts. But I often forget to do that.
But I'm trying to get better at that
because tons and tons of people
are seeing their media through those platforms, and it matters.
I listen to KUOW all the time, probably too much.
Yeah, see what else?
And then, of course,
all the other online-type digital publications.
The 19th, I love The 19th, Capital B,
national ones like that.
-Ditto for the most part.
I think that you're going to -- I mean,
hopefully I'm assuming we all
read an unreasonable amount of news.
I have recently, in the new year,
I'm not a New Year's resolutions person,
but I've like really gotten my scrolling in check,
and I'm very proud of myself for that.
But and I have found that like it has changed
how I encounter information.
And so that, I think that's been really interesting.
Like, I don't see what people are like picking up
in the zeitgeist in the same way.
And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing,
but my brain feels healthier, so that's good.
But I think that,
you know, I think we all run through the local media.
We run through like the big legacy media.
My special little corners
that I still read a lot of New York-based media,
because I lived there for 15 years.
And it's fun to get a little taste.
I find that it's a really nice way
to still stay connected to old homes, so.
-Honestly, my media diet has shifted.
Well, I'm still -- about to complete a year at the Emerald.
And so,
my world has gotten much smaller in the sense
of what I really care about is what's happening
in my neighborhood.
I want to spend time in third places
and engaging in conversation
and understanding what's happening with neighbors.
It's made me healthier.
I listen to a lot less network news
than I did a couple years ago when I had a different job.
But to Hannah's point, I also consume a lot of LA media.
That's where I'm from in my roots.
And I'm a former immigration reporter,
and I am obsessed with a lot of the independent outlets in LA
and how they've been covering the issue.
And to me,
that is really exciting and energizing to see
how small hyper-local newsrooms can thrive
because that's very much what the Emerald is about,
and so it's encouraging to me.
Thanks. And I read PubliCola. I do, I do, I do.
-And I just want to shout out RSS readers.
I'm like the last remaining holdout.
But they're just a great way to read
because I consume like way more media than any human being
should, but the only way
to do it for me is like having it all in one place.
And yeah, it's just it's a great technology for that.
I sound like I'm, you know,
supporting the Betamax or something,
but I swear it's incredible if you just set it up and do it.
So yes. -Hi. Thank you.
That's been a great conversation.
I worked in local radio and television
for about half a century,
and so it's a really changed landscape today.
So I just thought of a --
I used to have lunch sometimes with the president
of King Broadcasting, Ancil Payne, and he always provoked,
he always asked about the same question,
made the same commentary, and I think it's appropriate,
I'd love to hear your answers to it.
He said,
"The essential foundation of a democracy
is an informed citizenry."
And in 2026,
I'm interested in what you folks think is the best path
to get an informed citizenry,
the citizenry that chooses our leaders,
chooses, really, in a sense,
with those votes where we're going.
-Anybody want to take a bite of that?
-I don't know if this is an answer to this question,
but I did want to just sort of name a few things
that I meant to name, in this conversation,
which is that, you know,
communities that lose local media,
they have lower voter participation,
they have fewer people running for office,
they have more incumbents winning elections,
they have fewer people engaged in civic discourse.
And the direct impact is really struck
when communities lose local media.
And so, I think we need to be really vigilant
about exactly that point,
because we're seeing the impacts of this democracy under threat.
And that's -- you know,
this informed public is a critical bulwark against that.
-Yeah, I think that, kind of to your point,
one of the things that I think gets lost
in the conversation of the like escalation of social media
as a source of information,
as if it's this unstoppable force,
forgetting that it happened simultaneously
with the wildly like defunding of local media across the board.
That it wasn't that social media quashed local media,
and that like people are choosing it.
And in a lot of cases, it's what they have.
And so, to your point, like investing in local media
and keeping it present is one of the most valuable ways
that we can maintain a informed citizenry
that chooses our leaders.
-And a media that really is connecting to so many
of the different sectors of our communities.
You know, I am hyper-local and focused,
and yet I see so many gaps of what we can't get to
when it comes to language, for example.
And you think about Seattle and how robust it is
and how beautiful it is in terms
of the many different cultures and languages.
And you think about what is their news sources
and who are the people from the communities
who are able to deliver news in that realm?
What about people who aren't literate?
Where's the broadcasting that is provided for that?
And again, to think about what keeps me encouraged is,
you know, Jaime Mendez, for example.
That, I think, is a really good example of you
lose Spanish language local news on the one hand,
and then you have Jaime stepping up and generating
and providing really important information
to Spanish-speaking audience via social media.
That is also one of the things that I consume.
I think that to me is just the constant,
what we need to keep supporting and insisting on.
That there is media and trusted information for our neighbors,
not just ourselves. -Thank you.
-All right. And I think final question.
Jaime Mendez in the house.
-Thanks, Florangela. -Oh, you're here.
Everybody should go talk to Jaime
and follow him on social media.
-Thank you all so much for making time today
and connecting with us.
I'm Marian.
I work at Real Change News and -- thank you.
Thank you.
And my question is kind of in the context of someone
who's an editor, who's also young,
and I'm curious about what are your methods of ensuring
that young journalists of color are gaining
reporting experiences in Seattle, of course?
-Well, this is one of my methods
is this postcard with the QR code on the back.
No, seriously, it's so nice.
The Nathan Hale student
and then the U-Dub student and you, Marian.
That along --
when we were talking about media literacy
and if there needs to be a program,
how much high school journalism is no longer present, right?
You don't have high school newspapers,
you don't have high school journalism classes and outlets.
And if we don't have that in schools,
then that is one less door that is available to people
to get that spark
and be encouraged to follow this as a profession.
I think every one of us is hopeful.
We just want to grow our news organizations.
We just need the resources
so that we can bring more people in.
And we are well aware that our newsrooms are much stronger
and more powerful
if we're reflecting the communities at large.
And so, I would say what we're doing is at the Emerald,
that is our mission to make sure that we continue to be --
reflect South Seattle.
And so, we're doing the work every day.
-And I would just say one of my other hats
is then the president
of the Asian American Journalist Association, Seattle Chapter.
And as part of that,
we have the Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship
program that is designed exactly to do what you're talking about,
which is not just provide a scholarship,
but also provide mentorship
and sort of community building for journalists of color
who are just getting started
and need to have that kind of networking.
They might not know any journalists,
they might not know anybody who's ever been in journalism.
That's how I was when I was that age.
So it's a really good program,
and we are about to award our this year's cohort of awardees
and are really excited to see their future success.
I received that scholarship
when I was in high school and college,
and it made a huge difference in my life.
And I think the more we provide those opportunities
for young people, the better this whole ecosystem will be.
-I also think, and I'm sure that both of you
can also relate to this,
that the like the role of mentorship
has kind of shifted a little bit because newsrooms are smaller.
We don't have as much room for cub reporters to come in
and learn on the job.
So you kind of have to translate some of your --
that mentorship energy into freelancers and people
who like really want to be in this universe.
Because if you only have three staff writers,
that only gives you so many opportunities
to share the knowledge that we need to keep passing down
if we want to keep having -- this industry to keep existing.
And I think that finding other ways
to mentor young journalists and like, you know,
to make space for journalists who are you're working with,
to maybe not know everything and have that be okay,
and teach is a really, really important part of the work
that we're doing right now, so. -Thank you so much.
Thank you. -All right.
I think that does it for the panel.
I want to thank our three panelists.
This has been such a great conversation.
Thank you all.
[ Applause ]