Context Podcast Digital Collection

Margaret Johnson: Good evening. My name is Margaret Johnson. I'm the board chair of the Idaho Humanities Council and a professor of English at Idaho State University. It is my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's discussion on the changing face of media in Idaho with our speakers, Don Day, Christina Lords, and Clint Schroeder. Tonight's discussion will be moderated by my fellow IHC board member Bill Manny This presentation is part of the democracy and the Informed Citizen Initiative, funded by the Federation of State Humanities Councils, through a grant from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

We are incredibly appreciative of their support. Before I introduce tonight's guests, I'd like to mention that you can submit questions for our panelists via the Q&A feature located at the bottom of your screen.

It is now my pleasure to introduce our speakers.

Don Day is the founder and editor of Boise Dev. Founded in 2016, Boise Dev covers the stories of the changing Idaho from growth to businesses to housing to development. The site helps Idahoans understand the factors that make up the changes they see in their neighborhoods. With a team of reporters. Boise Dev provides coverage of Boise, Meridian, Nampa, McCall, Sun Valley, and the surrounding areas.

Christina Lords is the editor in chief of the Capital Sun and has been a professional journalist covering local and state government since graduating from the University of Idaho in 2009. A native of Pocatello, Lords is a fifth generation Idahoan who served as a reporter at the Moscow Pullman Daily News and the Post Register in Idaho Falls, and she serves as an assistant editor for The Idaho Press in Nampa. She also led the Idaho Statesman in Boise for two years before turning to nonprofit journalism. She has 14 writing awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Idaho Press Club, and UISAPA, including first place writing awards for general reporting, column writing and editorial writing.

Clint Schroeder is the Inland Northwest regional publisher for Hagadone Media Group at Hagadone Corporation. Prior to joining the habit, Hagadone Corporation in May 2010, Clint was vice president of advertising for Hawaii's largest newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser, for four and a half years. His newspaper background also includes eight years managing newspaper advertising departments in Colorado and Illinois, and moderating tonight's discussion is Bill Manny.

Bill is a producer at Idaho Public Television and has been a reporter and editor at newspapers in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, D.C., including 18 years at the Idaho Statesman. Bill, I will now turn it over to you to get our discussion going.

Bill Manny: Thank you, Margaret, and thank you to everybody who's joining us, live or on this recording. And also thank you to Don, Christina and Clint. I just before we start, I want to point out that if you are interested in asking one of our panelists or all of our panelists a question, there's a Q&A button at the bottom of your screen.

So click on that and and send your questions our way. So, all three of you, when we were talking earlier, the with the three of you, we talked about one of the, one of the things that has changed most in Idaho journalism. And the conversation tonight is the changing face of of the media in Idaho. One of the things that's changed the most in recent years is the conditions under which you work, safety, hostility, attitudes toward the press.

And, let's start with Clint. But this weekend we saw some of that playing out in your town where, you had this you had this clash between, conservatives, like, right wing groups who came to town, to protest, the pride parade. And you've seen some of this hostility now in your coverage has been a backlash against law enforcement in your community.

So maybe you could walk our viewers through kind of what you've seen happen this weekend, what's happening in your community and and how your staff has dealt with some of these very issues. Were discussing.

Clint Schroeder: Well, I appreciate that. And thank you for having us this evening. Yeah, this this last weekend was, an interesting time in North Idaho. And, you know, I think looking at it from our point of view and, and our newsroom and, all of the employees are first and foremost priority, of course, is safety. And making sure that our team is, is taken care of in the field and, here in the office all the time, it seems to be more an issue.

as tensions rise around a lot of these social issues that the some that you just named and others. And it kind of clashes internally, too, with our role as a leader in breaking news, our leader in being, you know, as accurate as possible, as as balanced and unbiased as possible. And I, a weekend like this last one, it really put us in a position of it's better to be last to post and be accurate than it is to be first and incorrect.

And I think that is something really important for all of us to, to look at really closely as we take, you know, more and more, guff for being fake news and, you know, you know, inaccurate, statements and, and whatever we may, we may be putting out there. So this, this weekend, we, you know, we had some indication that things were, getting a little warm around these events.

And we went into it consciously thinking, you know, we we need to be very careful about what we publish. We need to be very careful about, the photos that we, allow on our social media, making sure that we are as as balanced as we can be, you know, frankly, from the this bystander's point of view, maybe, it was a day like many others, here in town, the event that everybody I'm, I'm sure familiar with, occurred and was pretty contained in a, in a fairly small area.

I think it's important to note, that, you know, the people involved, most of them all but two, in fact, of the 31, were not even from Idaho. And, and that's, I think, something now we're dealing with even more where the tensions are rising and it's a global universal tension, maybe around an issue. You know, we're all on a global stage.

And I think that no matter what's happening, we need to anticipate that there'll be participation in, whatever, whatever that event may be, whether it's virtual or in person, by, by readers and, and those with opinions all over the country and even internationally. You know, this event made international news. And I'm really proud of our journalists and our newsroom, the steps they took to be as careful as they could be, navigating this to make sure that it was, not only safe, for, for our staff, but the, the general public, in addition to, not overplaying any of these things so that we, you know, looked like it

was a sensational, event, you know, for, for this to now come back on law enforcement and some of the individuals, especially, the chief of police and the county sheriff, you know, this it's just disheartening. They did such a phenomenal job, making sure that everything was by the book and you know, done. They acted quickly, swiftly, and it it couldn't have gone better.

I think, from, from my point of view, however, you know, it's just it's hard now, this doxxing thing is, as I'm sure you're all familiar with, where your personal information, your address, phone number, those kinds of things may end up, in a place you don't want them to fear is, you know, a human emotion and and every, you know, bullies like fear, you know, that's that's that's where we're at.

And, you know, this this pulls us to the the whole noble job that we have protecting the First Amendment and making sure that, you know, I protect your right to say whatever it is you want to say, even when I don't agree with it, as long as it doesn't incite violence. And and that's a that area of gray maybe getting wider and wider.

And that's, that's sort of how I feel about what's what what happened this weekend.

Bill Manny: Or did your staff face any, direct threats themselves, or is it been at this point directed toward law enforcement?

Clint Schroeder: There have been a few members of our team that have had, some doxing things happen. We've had we've had a number of things in the past, kind of coming from, you know, the the same type of tension and the same edge of this bell curve. The personal threats this time were more general. You know, so I, I feel like we, you know, we navigated this well enough.

Bill Manny: Okay. Christina, I know that, one of the things you and your staff have been wrestling with in the past few years is safety and threats. You know, in your reporting. And, you have to go into decision making on assignments and staffing, keeping the safety of your staff, in the forefront. Right. Talk about how you work through that decision making.

Christina Lords: Yeah. I think, when I first started as a journalist, people would always, kind of look at me and say, oh my gosh, that's unusual, and ask, you know, what stories I was covering or what my beat was, those sort of things. And now when people ask what I do and I say I'm a journalist, it's inevitably negative response.

And we we and we recognized that they were doxing public officials. The judge in that case, law enforcement in that case, the social workers in that case, and we were we were genuinely worried that, these reporters would also have their personal information and their addresses, posted online. And we had, at least for our reporter.

You know, we talked about, do we need to get a hotel for you to stay in at night so that you feel safe with you and your family? She has a young daughter. You know, these are all things that, play into our decision making when we're when we're doing stories. I would say it has a chilling effect on a lot of people because they're just more uncomfortable with taking on really hard issues without knowing who's going to read this and where they're going to post your information about it.

I think that's especially true for women, that are in this field. I think and I'm not here to say that men don't get threats and vile, vile things in their inbox as well, but, it's just, you know, about a month ago, one of our reporters got an email with, the C-word just laden through it, you know, and she kind of laughed it off because, this is not unusual for her at this point, but it is unconscionable.

You have that you have a niche publication. You are doing less kind of broad national and political coverage and more local political coverage, Don. So what what have you noticed, along these lines?

Don Day: Yeah, I would say that our, our focus is a little bit different. We're at, or in large part, staying out of the kind of hot button social issues. But these things really intersect with everything. And, you know, two years ago, during the kind of the first Covid summer when when fear was high, case counts turned out were low, and people were trying to figure out what to do.

So a little bit of context there. But their plan was for her to watch the meeting from home and, we also work with with Channel Six here in town, and their news director at the time, Jay Bates, was going to be, in person. And I felt it was really important that day to be, in the room at the meeting.

This is the budget. This is where the city lays out its priorities for the coming year. And, you know, it was during Covid, so masking was happening and a lot of distancing. And, being at the City Council chambers that day was was wild because there were, gosh, probably 30 or 40 cops just in the lobby of, City Hall, not to mention all the the folks that were outside and people in the chambers.

And I remember was the first time I ever thought to myself, I need to think about where I'm going to sit today. And, and, you know, it used to be I would sit, you know, in the second row, first row's too much. So I'd sit in the second row at city council meetings, with my back to the door.

And that day I was like, yeah, I'm going to sit where I can see the door. And that's not something I had thought of really before then. And I think it's changed for a lot of people. You know, I have a staff of five, and, we're, plus an intern, so we're always thinking about what are we going to cover, how are we going to cover, what's our approach?

What are the plans for people to be safe? Because it's it's a dynamic situation. And I think it's important to say it's not just journalism. It's as you as as we talked about, it's law enforcement, it's politicians. It's been a lot of focus on the instance, the Supreme Court, in DC this summer and, and the homes of those officials.

Officials on both sides of the political aisle and in Idaho have been had protests at their home from people on both sides of the spectrum. Right. We had left wing protesters protesting city council people at their home, right wing protesters protesting, Idaho, members of the legislature. And so it's a very dynamic and volatile time. And I think there's a lot of professions.

Saint Luke's Hospital, for crying out loud. They shut down a hospital. They're now thinking about this. That never really did before.

Bill Manny: I think a lot of us who went into journalism viewed it as a public service. Like, like politicians, like law enforcement, like hospital workers. And I think finding ourselves being called enemies of the people is kind of a surprise and a and kind of a discouraging place to be. Christina, when, you know, and when when Clint was talking about how they covered, you know, events in Coeur d'Alene and talked about, you know, picking stories and photos and, you know, bending over backwards to be balanced and so talk a little bit, how do you how do you how do you cover a controversial issue?

How do you be tough? How do you hold the public officials accountable. And yet not inflame, a situation and, you know, make it worse? How do you approach that?

What are our photos going to be? Who are we going to talk to? How can we represent each of the sides? Well, what do we do? And this is happening more and more recently as well. When some of these public officials refuse to talk to us. There are legislators and, county and city government folks that refuse to talk to any single reporter at this point.

And it's very, very difficult to tell both or all sides of a story when folks refuse to speak with you. So that's a challenge. How do we we, as a, as a staff, don't have a photographer, so how can we get something that is going to illustrate this story fairly? It's hard with things like abortion debates and police shootings and things like that, to have one photo as your main thing, when there's a lot of different conversations going on and different viewpoints that are represented.

So. So if I have a protest sign of, you know, pro-life, stance, I try to within the next, you know, a few paragraphs in the, in the body of the story, try to represent the other side. There are things that we do that I don't know, that the public really sees that we're trying to get to.

They're trying to represent the sides. But then I think when we talk about things like white supremacy, are there two sides to that story? How do we how do we tell people what's going on in these communities without giving a megaphone to literal Nazis? You know, it is something that we have to talk about as a staff. Who do we quote?

How do we quote them? How do we I think they're I see people on Twitter all the time that wish we could use more forceful language when we're talking about some of these issues. But there's like a lot to deal with. If you call someone a Nazi and they're not a Nazi, they can sue you for those things.

You know, it's just we have to be careful with those kind of things. And I think sometimes the public gets frustrated with what they feel like is us not being aggressive enough. And some of those points, I always just feel like if we've made everyone on all sides equally mad, we're probably done, done it right, because you can't make anybody happy in this industry.

And so I feel like if we're getting feedback from, conservatives and liberal folks, then, then it usually indicates that we're, we've hit somewhere the sweet spot in the middle.

Bill Manny: I, you know, I think most people don't appreciate the nuance that goes into even what seems like really easy decision making, covering a story, headline, photo placement, those are all nuances you weigh with every story. And I and I know that the public doesn't understand that even when we screw up, we in the media screw up. We don't set out to screw up.

Right? We have systems in place where we are trying to get these things right. And Clint, you know, we talked a little bit before about how these kind of stories can give Idaho, North Idaho, other parts of Idaho a black eye. So how do you and you've dealt with, issues of white supremacy and racism and, those kind of stories in North Idaho?

How do you balance, how do you balance the nuance in covering them completely and thoroughly and aggressively and, and and also wondering about the way you're going to portray your community and your state.

Clint Schroeder: You know, that's a it's a great question. I think it's one that we struggle with, more often than we'd like, you know, North Idaho, Idaho in general. Isn't, as we may be portrayed in, in the media, you know, and I should say in, in the larger scope media, as, as we look at as I just said, you know, as I look at, especially this last weekend, you know, this this was of international interest and, you know, it's just kind of been one of those, recurring themes.

You know, 98% of the time, because we need to build the confidence and we need to build the knowledge that that other 2%, you know, people, people know better. I will say, as far as trying to be as balanced as possible, reporting this, reporting the facts, and getting off the topic when it's just not necessary to continue to report on it, is probably our best policy.

And the reason for that, I believe, is anyone who has a distinct interest in whatever that topic may be, is going to find it in another on another, you know, venue, another avenue of, of of media. And as we discussed last week when we talked, more and more of those are popping up every day. And, you know, they're, they're getting to, the niche that is very interested in the extreme.

And I feel like there's so much of that now, that for us to do our job as a community watchdog, you know, bringing micro local news and information to, readers, the community, making sure we keep the business community healthy, making sure that we provide, a voice, that that truly is, as balanced as possible, you know, has got to be job number one.

Don Day: Bill, can I add something to what Clint saying there?

Bill Manny: Sure. Yeah.

And they strung it all together, and it was like, like an Idaho. Well, somebody who's never been here and lives in New York and is used to things being very close together on that side of the map. They aren't all the same. And one of the things that has been interesting in the last few years is this kind of nationalization of of media.

And we, leading up to the election, I know Christina paid. That's probably the closest attention decided to this, which was there was this cottage industry of national news publications writing about Idaho's politics. And there was one story that ran that said, you know, I know it's going to be a purple state in a few years. It's kind of laughed at that one, I don't know.

Well, that's going to be the case. And then another story that that basically the premise that came out the day, you know, Idaho is going to be a white ethnic ethno state. I was like, I don't know if that's going to be the case either. Right. But it's it's it's easy for national outlets to kind of parachute in, maybe not even send somebody here, talk about things, roll it all up and be like, look at Idaho, look at the freak show.

And that is why I believe really strongly in in what, what we're doing in these local communities. Because that local information you're not going to get from MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc. you're not gonna get that. And in fact, the panel discussion that I was watching up or listening to on the cable channel today, I would bet in large part was predicated on the fact that Clint's journalists were digging up in his town.

And, and that's how this works. We're here to do the work in the local communities to find the facts, to help people have that context. We have an ad for one of our reporters, Margaret, and it says, what they said, what they did, why it matters. And and that's what we do here so that people can understand what's happening in their community.

They have to have a common set of facts. And there are some what I call pink slime sites out there, primarily on the right side of the spectrum, but also on the left that look like news, kind of talk like news a little bit. But our our opinion in disguise. And we're seeing more of that and it, it makes it harder and harder for all of us to have a common set of facts.

You know, it's not just that, we have people come to town and misrepresent Idaho. Idaho journalists end up dealing with attitudes toward national media. So so you may or may not ever report about abortion, but people who are angry about a polarized national, media and, and reporting are angry at journalists in general. So, we here in the state have to deal with an attitude toward journalists and media that maybe not of our making.

Is that what you found Don?

Don Day: Yeah, I know we in our kind of set up conversation, one of the things I said that I think a lot about is. The industry, the media industry deserves some of the scorn. And I and I think it's really important to not say like, we're innocent. We're just doing our best, and we are just doing our best.

Right? But the media landscape has changed really dramatically in the last couple of decades. And, there are national pulling pieces of data that shows the general public doesn't even really know or understand. And, you know, a couple weeks ago, I, I'm not sure which cable channel it was, but there was a clip that was like, you know, these, these rich journalists.

And it was funny because I follow a lot of journalists on social media, and they were all like, do you want to see my bank account? Like, that's right. Like we're not elites. We're all they're all just.

Christina Lords: Go look at a parking lot and a news at a news station or a newspaper and look at the cars.

Don Day: It's true, it's true if the newspaper has a parking lot. Right, right. So a I think it's important to not not say that the media is perfect. The journalists are perfect because there's and they're not. And lots of mistakes have been made in the last few decades. You know, I worked at a traditional, news outlet for, for 17 years here in town, and I left because I was tired of big corporate media in large part.

They're owned by companies in DC and in California. And and that changes that dynamic. And that's why you see, if you watch your evening newscast, you see things that don't really anything to do with Idaho, or you pick up your newspaper and you see things that are like, well, what's this, you know. Right. What's this wire service telling me?

And so I think it's all kind of tied together that the media landscape is shifted. It means a change in how the news is produced. It means that there have been some, I think, black eyes for the media. And at the at the end of the day, I think a lot of us are trying to course correct and recenter on on the audience.

Bill Manny: I'm going to go to Christina, but I just want to remind our, audience that if they have a question for one of our panelists, they can drop it in the Q&A. Q hit the button at the bottom of your zoom screen, and you can shoot that question to me here. So, Christina, you have experienced both, independent nonprofit now and having worked for, for, a big national company, how do you kind of view the that relationship and what we in Idaho a deal with.

Well, that's a big that's a big sigh. That's a big sigh. Christina. Yeah.

Christina Lords: I, I have worked at newspapers, small and large. I have worked for companies small and large. And I will say that my most positive experiences have been at family owned newspapers or, in this new nonprofit world that I'm living in, I feel incredibly less beholden to, goals set by folks that are not that have set foot, maybe in our newsrooms, maybe once, once or twice, you know, those sort of things.

It's it's extremely hard to make story decisions when you have smaller and smaller staffs, which is something that I hope we talk a little bit about that just the the newsrooms themselves have changed over the last 20 years. There's far fewer of us doing this work. That were 20 years ago and things like that. And so at some point you do have to make very interesting, very hard decisions about what you dedicate your resources to.

And if they get a press release, they can just rewrite it and that's it. We don't have, experienced 20 or 30 year, 40 year veterans in our newsrooms anymore. And it hampers, the content that comes out of them. So, I felt like I was kind of rambling on that one. But,

Bill Manny: When you raise some really good points that, I hope, we can, do a deep dive into and just in just a minute. And Clint, any any thoughts about kind of how how we and Idaho deal with attitudes that are often generated by cable TV and national news media that may or may not have anything to do with the work you and your staff are doing.

Clint Schroeder: But I think a lot of this comes back to sometimes opinion, and we may be touching on this down the road. Should I? I'll just save it because I like, you know, I think that's that's something that we, we definitely should, should spend some time on. But I would have to agree with Christina that the expertise, on the, our journalists, journalism teams, I think is sometimes to our benefit because they look at things with a fresh eye.

So I would agree, I think that that doesn't help us, when it comes to dealing with that attitude. And that's where I feel like when we jump into the opinion piece, I think this is very related.

Bill Manny: So, lots to talk about. I wanted to just touch on something that Christina mentioned before, and then we'll move on. But Clint and Don, do you have are you running into people who will no longer talk to reporters? I mean, that's got to be that's got to be a pretty a pretty dark day when you're trying to tell all the sides of a story and some of those sides aren't talking anymore.

Clint. And then Don, have you run into that?

Clint Schroeder: You know, I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head. I, we, have definitely run into people who want to balance record. So they're they're recording the same conversation so that they can refute it. Especially

That our journalists, you know, sometimes don't have those relationships and they're not really sure who they're talking to and how that's that's going to play out. You know, I guess in my opinion, we're we're seeing a lot more of the double check. We're seeing a lot more of the skepticism on will you report this, you know, through a balanced lens, or are you gonna put a spin on it as soon as it goes in?

And people don't understand the difference between, you know, the sensational reporter and a journalist who, you know, main objective is to remain unbiased as, you know, as often as possible.

Bill Manny: Well, and as Don pointed out, not all journalists, you know, deserve credibility and trust. And so you have to spend the time on the beat to earn it and get to for people to get to know you. And we often aren't in that situation anymore with our staffs. Don, are you are people are people not talking?

Don Day: You know, I would say not not for the reasons we're discussing here. I'm almost never, somebody who won't talk because they want to talk about what we're asking about. And so there's that.

Bill Manny: But but when you're asking for sometimes for proprietary information about development, about markets, about about business plans.

And so, I was alerted to this by someone else, and I hopped in there and, and went in the comments and said, hey, I take that really seriously. Engage with them, took them at their face value and the individual. I also, message to the individual and they, they, couldn't say at the at that exact moment what was wrong, which is the first red flag.

And I said, well, you know, my reporter on this, recorded the conversation and I was going to say, I said, you know, it's funny because one of your peers has told me in the past, this reporter, could they not quote me quite so precisely? Could they take out the SOS and ums? And I was like, fair point.

And the person who'd complained on Facebook when I was being recorded and I went, yep. And in fact, you can hear you acknowledging that at the very beginning of the recording. And they said, I didn't know that. And I was like, well, you did, because I can hear it on the tape and all of a sudden the complaints about the problems of the story went away.

There was one like minor kind of really minor thing that I think was a misinterpretation. And they said, well, I'm going to follow up with you with all my other complaints. And it's been six weeks and I've heard and so, you know, yeah, I think you will have people sometimes, and they said they wouldn't talk to us in the future and out like, well, I don't really want to quote you again in the future anyway, because this is what you're going to do to us.

And so, yeah, I think it's possible, but for the most part, we haven't had a lot of trouble with that, just yet. But it could be coming.

Bill Manny: Well, I think we're seeing we're seeing some of that. People have decided it's they cannot talk to the press and then claim that their side's not being reflected. And as we saw statewide, we had fewer and fewer Idaho politicians want to participate in debates. So that's another place where they're choosing to not to communicate in a setting where that was really traditional before.

So what the changing face of media. Christina, let's go to you. You know, you talked about, younger staffs, less experienced staffs, less, less, you know, fewer reporters with graying, their beard. And how is that affecting the stories you do and the kind of work you do? And, and the kind of nuance and sophistication you want to see in, in your reporting.

But that's kind of the basics. Well.

Bill Manny: And then there's also now there's nonprofit, or foundation reporting going to some for profit media. So you might have you might have a newspaper company that's getting, additional reporting staff from some of these nonprofit, institutions that want to see reporting beefed up.

Christina Lords: Right, exactly. Okay. Could you rephrase your first question again, I forgot.

I didn't have the experience that I thought I needed to be able to help other people in their writing. But I did it simply because I needed the money. And so when that's happening in newsroom after newsroom, nationwide, statewide, we just have a less experienced media corps out there covering things we don't understand. I tell young reporters all the time, that the city council and what they're discussing didn't just pop up the day that you walked into City Hall.

We see a lot of people leave the industry for things like PR jobs and stuff like that because it pays better. Benefits are abysmal in the newspaper industry. McClatchy, which owns the Idaho Statesman, just barely, started offering parental leave. These are sort of the things that, in normal industries, you kind of assume are there. And we write about parental leave for other industries all the time, but do we have it ourselves?

So, it affects the coverage in big, big ways that I don't think a lot of people are aware of.

So talk about the challenges you face. You have multiple newspapers in, north Idaho and Washington state.

And they're thinking, gosh, I cannot make less than X, per year. And there's a big Delta, between where, where we're at in some of those cases. So we're really trying to catch that up aggressively, you know, kind of in additionally looking at, you know, other alternatives, like does any do any of our employees have rental properties, that we can potentially work with as part of the package?

You know, those are the kinds of things that a, you know, we we really need to aim now for what's important flexible scheduling, making sure that we give our employees the ability to work where it's convenient as long as the work's getting done. That's very, anti industry, if you will. You know, we're, we're the kind of business that, you know, especially on the business side of things, we're 8 to 5.

You take, you know, our lunch to check in here and there. Our reporters are on the beat. Then they're back in the office, and, you know, they file their stories from here. We don't have to be that way anymore. We we need to make this accessible to the people that have a passion to grow with the industry in the job.

Because we aren't going to be growing any more senior level reporters. If if we don't, because we have to give people a reason to love it first.

There are no every dollar that has come through here has been earned from memberships or at and, I it's just really important to pay people well and pay people better than they're getting paid. Elsewhere. One, it's a competitive advantage, right? I have two people on my staff that I hired one, and they're like, how did you hire that person?

But we have a lot of digital startups that, either have little or no print presence and are carving out niches and finding successes. So talk about how you kind of conceptualize that and how you've, well, made it a success that you're using our platform to brag about.

How can we do things that are different? And, and, and how can we do it without paywall? We don't have a paywall because I don't want one and I don't I don't want to put barriers up. But I have to fund this whole deal. Right. And so I came back in, in 2018 and kind of started it full time.

Don Day: Yeah. And honestly, so much like just before it really took off. And the things that we're talking about, I didn't foresee there was this moment and, and there was a kind of a snarky journalist on Twitter, and they didn't even mention me. And I happened to see it, and they said something like, I always don going to write about the Wendy's opening.

I saw that, and I remember being like, well, that's not cool. And I've never been bothered by it. Like, oh, I'm not doing I'm not doing this important work. But what it turns out is that, you know, I did a story yesterday about a new McDonald's and star. And you know what the most read read story on our website is today.

We're going to tell you what's important. And I've tried to flip that around. We we ran we did some billboards a couple of years ago and they said local news, locally owned. We put readers first. And it's my belief that that is where we have to go as an industry. We have to put our readers at the center.

We have to answer their questions. We have to give them what they are wanting to know about. And we do a lot of stories around here that don't do a lot of traffic that aren't the McDonald's and Star, but my reporters, we talk about generally what's popular, but there's no quota. I greenlight stories all the time that in my head I go, that's not going to get a lot of reads.

But there's an interesting it's almost an inverse relationship between stories that convert to members for us or people who are willing to to pay for our premium service and popularity. It's this fascinating thing where stories that don't get a ton of reads convert and turn people into paying customers and so we try and balance those things and do journalism that is important.

That may not always be super popular, but also do journalism that's popular and isn't always important.

Bill Manny: So I want to ask Christina kind of the same story. And then we'll go to Clint as well. But Don, you you started with, you know, plant pads and growth and development, but you've focused in on general city government and even city politics. Why did you add, you know, add expand into that.

Don Day: All these things, one market opportunity, I saw that there was a gap in coverage in this market of development. First, there wasn't any or there was a little bit, but it was, and really not and even what was there was very blithe. And so I saw that gap. The gap is we've got a lot of competition now.

So that kind of glommed on because that was development. And then it was like, well, we need to probably do some business coverage because that's related and startups. And so we started to kind of do all these things. And and so now for us it's development, growth, civic business. Last year, about a year ago we launched a product called Idaho First.

It's a morning newsletter that comes out every day. And it is designed to give people kind of everything they need to know for the day. And we hired Gretchen Parsons, and she writes what we call it. We internally call ABC, and it's kind of the three most interesting, important stories of the day that she writes gives you the best of us, but it also gives links out to good stuff from the capital side or the statesman or Channel two or channel seven, and events.

And then we put a pet of the day in there. That's the most popular thing we've, I've done in my entire career. And so we've now tiptoed into like, we're really trying to give you a holistic look at the market, which isn't where we started, but it's all focused on what the reader wants. And I've talked too much, so I'm going to let Christina go.

Bill Manny: So Christina, you see a different but similar story. You started, you you stood the capital sign up from scratch. So talked about talk about how you did that.

Christina Lords: I don't think it would have happened if I didn't have a very kind of abrupt speed bump in my career. I was fired. And so, googling the.

Bill Manny: Administration.

Christina Lords: From the Idaho Statesman, I was fired from the Idaho Statesman. And I really, genuinely thought, like, okay, here's my sign. You know, you see.

Why you should say why? Because I think people should know why, that it wasn't, like, bad.

I didn't do anything illegal or harm anyone in any kind of way, so that's good. I did tweet about how, our newsroom was, struggling to get access to basic, office equipment like, the Microsoft suite, including Excel, which the reporter needed, to, download and interpret, census data. And so I generally thought, like, I've been really stressed out, with journalism for a long time.

Maybe this is my, my sign to go do something else with my life. Go be the librarian that my mom told me to be. And and that's what I thought I was doing. I was looking at master's programs to go get my master. I thought, okay, here we go. And Twitter was also the thing that got me my new job.

So I, I went to this journalism conference in college and met this girl, and she connected me with state's newsroom. And the thing that was most interesting about that was she just, my boss just let me talk. She just let me say what Idaho needed. What I was frustrated with in the Idaho journalism landscape. What do Idahoans need to know about that they're not getting?

And I just had a lot of ideas about that. I've covered state and local politics almost exclusively, exclusively my whole career. And really, genuinely do believe that lawmakers and voters make better decisions when they have factual information at their fingertips. And so we can't know what we're voting on if we don't have reporters putting stories together on how these things come to be, who's paying who to make these decisions, all of that sort of stuff.

I don't want to go work for the New York Times or for the, you know, Houston Chronicle or little tiny papers elsewhere. I want to be a journalist in Idaho. I care about this place. I care about telling these stories, not somebody else's. And so, so I started kind of asking around to the folks that I thought, if I could build a dream team, I can do this, you know?

And I really, genuinely did get to do that. I got to build a team that is very experienced, that I knew that I worked well with, and that we could really do some, some interesting journalism. And then it's basically telling our story and saying we do have a different funding model than other folks. We don't have a paywall.

I have worked at the Idaho Press. I have worked at the Idaho Falls newspaper, where we have our budget meetings, and we talk about the stories for the day, and inevitably, something is left behind. There is never enough of us or enough reporters to get to the stories of the day and it breaks my heart. It kept me up at night at the statesman.

And you do and like John says, you do have to be there every day. You have to sit through the city council meetings. You have to sit through all the hearings at the legislature to know what the heck is going on. And to put that in context. And it helps when you've got like the Clark Corbin's of the world, who's on our staff, who has literally done that every session for more than a decade.

And he can remember he can Clark can predict whatever is going to happen inevitably, like he just knows because he has been watching it for long enough, and he knows the sources well enough to know how the votes are going to go and things like that. So, that's the quick and dirty on the Idaho Capital Senate. I'm really proud of what we do, and I'm really grateful to the newspapers that see the value in our work and pick up our stuff.

Bill Manny: So, Christina, quickly, how big is your staff now and is is your funding, is it year to year? Is it five years? Is it ten years? How long do you have to prove to prove it a success? How does that how will that work?

Christina Lords: None of my bosses have ever put a cap on it. So they told me to get a two year lease for our office. I felt like that was a good sign. You know, I actively have conversations more on one on one levels. You know, sometimes we'll do call outs for donations and things like just reminders of it does take human beings to do this.

And it isn't just slapping a press release on Facebook, so everybody can see it. There's work that goes into what we do. And so I'm genuinely hopeful that we'll be around for a long time. State's newsroom is expanding. It has a plan to be in all 50 states in some capacity by 2025. Idaho was the 21st, state newsroom, and we're I think we're up to 27.

And we're onboarding, reporters and editors for places like Arkansas, Indiana, and we just launched in Alaska, those sort of sort of things, and decided about where we are.

Bill Manny: Size of your staff is.

Christina Lords: Yes. So there's one editor, me and three, full time reporters. And then we also added our first intern, the summer. So I'm really genuinely excited about that. And Idaho Capital Sun was also selected for the new Boces, Internship of Idaho, which places Latino students in, in newsrooms to make sure that we're addressing Latino issues in our reporting.

Bill Manny: Good. Thank you. So, Clint, you know how you're a more traditional media, how do you view these the startups that, are they competition or are they augmenting, Idaho journalism? Are they a threat to you? How do you view, startups like Christina's and Dan's?

Clint Schroeder: Well, you know, I.

Think it depends on what startup it is. And as we look at, as we look at, you know, our partnerships here on, on the panel today, I think there are ways that, you know, done. Christine and I can work together very, very productively. You know, I, I think gone are the days where our journalism, particularly well done journalism is absolutely, proprietary, our own.

I feel like if we can partner and build stronger and stronger products independently, especially those of us whose maybe markets don't touch. You know, as far as the advertising dollars goes, you know, those. That's usually where it gets a little iffy. But, you know, I, I really feel like quality journalism, quality content. We should be partnering because I may have something you're interested in.

You're doing something that maybe we don't do or don't do as well. Just like capital coverage, you know, having a partnership with the statesman, you know, it's it's been great for us. I don't have to have a capital, assignment. And, you know, there's the we we don't really use a whole lot of content, outside of, when we're in legislatures in session, you know, it's still valuable content.

So I, I don't feel there's, the journalism competition, with, with quality well done, content. Now, I think where it does, get a little dicey is, the edge of the spectrum. Right? And people are, you know, these, these these products or online mostly, now online products, they seem to pull eyeballs and readership because people only want to read what they 100% agree with.

And and unfortunately, in a traditional media, that's not necessarily our content every day. You know, depending on, you know, what the issue may be, but, you know, quarterly press, for example, you know, it's a 130 year history at this point. My, my time with this paper, even if I'm here for 30 years, you know, it's just a drop in the bucket.

I'm just a steward of this organization for a while, and it's my job to lead it better than I found it. And I think navigating, a time like we're in right now, it's it's really it's it's imperative that we meet the reader where the reader wants to be, and we bring the reader, a different level of content that they can't find anywhere else.

That micro local news and information that isn't necessarily opinion pieces or is it necessarily skewed one way or the other? We're telling the reader what to think. I think it's more about, gosh, look at what a great place we live in, or this is what's happening politically, or growth infrastructure. You know, those are the things that we do such a great job.

Putting together. And I think that if we stay on mission, then our core tangible products, I think our digital edition, our website, our apps, you know, all the niche products that we put out and even the newsletters that go daily, you know, I think they become as valuable, to the reader as they've ever been.

You know, I think we talked, when we prepped for this call last week. Our our readership right now is the the eyeballs are the numbers are higher than they've ever been. You know, we're engaging people at a much different level now. Sometimes the core tangible product, might not show that in, in a physical number. But if we measure our audience more in a more sophisticated way, and we reach to our audience in a more sophisticated way, they engage with us differently.

And our reader, you know, as, as we discussed before, isn't just in our backyard anymore. You know, people that have moved away, they care about the community. They can they can follow every day without having to wait three days for the mail to deliver it. You know, things like that.

Bill Manny: So I want to, I want to I want to talk about opinion and the way it's influenced both, both the business and news reporting. But we have a couple questions from viewers that I'd like to, try to get through quickly. So the first one is, in a digital reality that is littered with misinformation and social media trolls.

How do media institutions deal with online com, comments and moderation? And what is the line between free speech, public opinion and harassment? So, we just we just, why don't we go with you, Clint, and then Don and then Christina. Why? And you don't all have to answer if the person ahead of you says it, you can just give them a thumbs up or a nod and say, great answer.

Clint Schroeder: All right. I think this is a great question. I feel like, gosh, it is our job. At some point if we're going to have digital assets, because that's usually where that's going to show up, right? If we have digital assets, we have to moderate what's there. And I don't mean censor what's there. And I don't mean delete comments unnecessarily because we don't agree with them.

We have to make sure that people hiding behind the screen and keyboard aren't bullying everyone else for their comment, or their their take on the situation. Personally, I feel like our website, isn't a place for comments. We we do, you know, funnel our comments to our posted stories on social media. Well, there it is. You know, the social media animal, right there is, you know, you're bound to run into some problems.

It's a big concern. Because you can't keep up, especially with, you know, a big story of, like, this last weekend, for example, by the time I read the post on social media, which, had 793 comments and about, I don't know, 2 or 300 shares by the time I got to it. It's we can't catch up.

So having somebody you know, if you're going to post it, it's your story. And we want to put the breaking news up or the really important stuff up in social because it does reach a bigger audience. We need to make sure that we're taking care of our readers. And that's that's I don't want people to come to our site and feel like they're, you know, going to be called a really awful name or, or bullied to the point where they're afraid, that happens.

But in addition too, I don't like to in fact, we we won't publish anything that, you know, is just clearly inciting a violent action or calling names or is is just misinformation. Because I think that makes us responsible. You know, one of the things kind of about that is, you know, letters to the editor are tough. You know, we have that we have a right, you know, we're we're walking a fine line right there.

And that framework has worked pretty well for us. We're not afraid to delete comments when they break those rules, remove members when they break those rules. And the most powerful tool on Facebook is to just shut the comments off. In fact, when we were covering mask mandates last year, we just instituted a blanket policy that if we had a story about masks, we posted to Facebook and shut the comments off and and I would say the reason was what new is there to say at this point.

And people went along with that.

Bill Manny: Don, if you start applying new, what's new to say about that? On, on, every story on social media, it might shut social media down.

Don Day: Yeah.

Christina Lords: I kind of take a different approach. I don't look at the comments once. I don't look at them at all. I don't care, like I genuinely no good can come from that space. It's not good for my mental health, I don't. We have rules that are baked into the back of the Facebook about profanity and certain terms, that if you use them automatically, your comment is hidden.

We don't have comments on our website. If you really have a genuine question about our reporting or something like that, my email is publicly available and you can find it there, and I'll, I'll answer it in a workspace, but I don't I don't read the comments because I think it's the most vile place on the internet, and I, I can't stomach what I see there.

I don't think it's a positive place to, to reflect myself or our reporting.

Bill Manny: From, from our Humanities Council board member, Kenton Bird, who is, a journalism professor. He shared this question for all three panelists. Thanks for your commitment to local news of your reporting in the past year, what story or series are you most proud of? And on the flip side, what's the big one that got away or didn't get the coverage it deserved?

So why don't we start with you, Christina? Big story most proud of. And the one that got away.

Christina Lords: There's a lot of a lot of work that I'm really proud of. But I think toward the end of last year and the beginning of the legislative session, we ran a series about how our foster care system is completely overrun and underequipped, to be able to handle, the folks that are seeking, care through the foster system.

Our reporting led to, JFAC, the budget Committee in the legislature, appointing about 20, I think it was 21 or 24 new employees for that system. And we had legislators thank us and say we didn't know about this until you wrote about it. And I, that is what we are here for. That is the difference that we are trying to make.

I will read every one of those types of comments. Because I do think that, you know, if we can actually impact policy and help and give, get people, the help they need when they're interacting with government, I think I'm all for that. I think that, we're seeing it now that extremism in Idaho is something that we all need to do a better job of covering.

And I think the Coeur d'Alene incident this weekend really opened my eyes to some of that. I think we want to walk around and pretend that this isn't us, this isn't our state, this isn't who we are, but people out there perceive this as a safe haven for these folks, and we have to do a better job of saying and showing that this is not who we are, that this is not what we want here, that these are not the type of policies that we will accept as Idahoans.

Bill Manny: Clint, same question to you.

Clint Schroeder: Well, I, I completely agree with what Christina has to say. I think that, you know, it's it's incredibly important that, you know, what what we do, you know, every single day is make our place better and our products better and our communities better, period. But, you know, as I look at what I'm most proud of, personally, I think the way we covered Covid, for two years, basically 18 months, really, was all about localizing it.

And we made that decision right away in the beginning. You can get the international national coverage of Covid anywhere else. And, you know, that's not our that's not our, hedgehog, if you want to quote Dan Collins. I think there's, but, you know, what we did is we really tried to look at how it was affecting our community locally.

This was a very unique part of the country for that as well. Suddenly, you know, when the, sheltering was over and we were all, let out of, you know, quarantine, it, this place exploded. You know, there were tourists driving in from everywhere. Our hospitality, sector and entertainment here just went crazy. Now, of course, it reflected in the numbers later, but, you know, those things aside, you know, we wanted to really make sure that we were trying to localize it

And it was huge. It literally almost two times every, any other local content story that we wrote. And it was, you know, it was just really a human piece, from his point of view. And how he worked with his kids and what, what he felt like that did. So I think it's those things we do a great job on.

Bill Manny: Well, connecting, connecting human beings to humanity is, is always been something that that was successful in journalism. Don, you know, the, the best story and the and the one that got away.

Don Day: So I'm, I'm going to say this, I think overall our work, I was just going to see what my most read story was last year because I don't actually know. Oh, there's a Christmas tree getting cut down. That's not my favorite one.

Bill Manny: Of the day.

Don Day: Yeah, pretty much. No so I think that our work on the housing affordability situation in the Treasure Valley has been really important. There's more we can do. I'm going to say something, and Christina has heard me say this abundant, Christina knows what I'm talking about. She's one of the few people out there that does. We are working on a really significant story that I've had reporters on since January.

That is one of the biggest stories of my career. And I can't tell you what it is yet because it's not done. And I'm hoping really soon. But you're talking about partnerships. It's a story that that we've agreed, if they so choose to let the Capital Sun, run. And I'm really hoping to have that here really quickly.

So the story I'm most proud of isn't done yet, and it's driving me crazy. Okay.

Don Day: It is it is, it right, Christina and I did an event in April, and I kind of did the same dog and pony show.

Christina Lords: And I think we should make it clear that it's not Ikea coming or something, so people don't get too excited.

And I was really, really mad. Really mad. And that was me that was on me because that's my part of the beat. And so, so not. And we we followed the Idaho Statesman, which, which broke it to their credit. And we followed them and we credited them with getting the scoop. But that was my one that got away.

Christina Lords: Getting scooped is the worst.

Bill Manny: So it's good to know that Don has been humbled at least once.

Don Day: Oh, lots. Trust me.

Bill Manny: So we have about eight minutes left and I know we wanted to come back, loop back around to the notion of opinion reporting and I think there's two there's two aspects to this. And I'm going to start with Don. But you know, how opinion, how opinions have influenced the public view of journalism and how opinions have maybe stuck, snuck their way into news reporting and maybe just that understanding the difference between opinion reporting and news reporting and what that's meant to the work we do.

And I just went, this isn't a lane we need to be in. People can get a smorgasbord of opinions on Facebook or Twitter or wherever they want. And so we don't do it. And, it's been really, really good for our brand, really good for our brand. People recognize it, they see it, they say it, they say it back to me.

And so we don't we just don't do it. And I don't see.

Bill Manny: And you say you don't do it, you don't run opinion articles, or you don't let reporters report their opinions, or you keep new stories free of opinion. What do you mean when you say that?

Don Day: The first two now a news story may have opinion because public officials may express an opinion. They're right. Like so. That's within the news coverage. But as far as what comes from us, you don't hear my opinion. We don't take submitted opinion pieces. We don't run letters to the editor. On rare occasion, I will will will break that.

It's been two years. And it was basically to say, hey, let's let's not put nasty notes on people's cars with California plates. But even that, I honestly, I don't know what it would be again. We just don't we don't do it. And it's benefited us because the user, when they see opinion pieces from a news outlet, don't necessarily understand the difference.

And even if it says, and, Bill, I know you used to be the opinion editor at the Statesman, and I think this dynamic has changed over the last ten years. I don't know that they know the difference between that and news coverage. And so staying out of it has been good for our, our position and brand.

Bill Manny: I think especially online where things you don't have a special page to turn. Yeah, right.

Don Day: Yeah, yeah.

Bill Manny: It's hard to tell for your average person. What's opinion and what's not opinion. And of course so much reporting everywhere has included more opinion in it as well. So Christina, how have you guys approached this question?

Christina Lords: We do run commentary on our website. We do run columns and opinion. They're, I'll write the occasional opinion column myself. I, I think there's a wide, wide range of the quality of opinion writing that's out there. And I think it's a dying art. Opinion writers in newsrooms used to be the best reporters in the room, because they had to be, because they had to base their opinions on fact.

They had to know issues inside and out. They had to know how to anticipate people that disagreed with them. And they were on the phone just as much as reporters talking to officials, getting that information firsthand, those sort of things. And I think we still have those good opinion writers, in the US. And, and in Idaho, I think there's, there's a handful of opinion and opinion writers that do it really well.

However, I do think that Don is right, that in 2022, everyone has a platform. So if everyone is an expert, no one is an expert. And when we run opinions, it goes back to what Clint was saying, that people want to be reaffirmed in their beliefs. So if we're just putting things out to either make people elated that they're the smartest person in the room, and I have the opinion and here's the proof.

You know, I agree with this person or it's the opposite. Here's a way for me to attack you, your news organization, and what you're writing about. We try very hard. I always put one where. I got a call once as an editor, for someone who couldn't understand than an opinion went on the physical newspaper opinion page, was a column, was an opinion.

It was labeled even in the, even in print people don't understand this. So throw them onto 17 social media sites and good luck. They don't get it. And so we we try really hard to put commentary in all caps, as the first lead into any, social media post that we do when it comes to our opinion content.

Bill Manny: I know, Clint, you were talking about, I think it was Gannett has made some, decisions on how it's going to treat opinion reporting in its newspapers. So how how is it playing out there in Coeur d'Alene?

Clint Schroeder: Well, I, you know, you made reference to the Poynter Institute, put this out on the eighth. I just just looked up again. But it says that Gannett's scuttling their editorial pages, in 250, title chain regional papers. And, you know, when I read that, you know, given the date that it came out, you know, three days, before this last weekend, with all this stuff going on, you know, it just really resonated that, you know, hey, we really kind of need to look at this and then discuss this with you guys.

I mean, there there are a million different places that I can go to read exactly what I agree with. And, you know, if it's black and white news, like, you know, there was a fire downtown, you know, here the details, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's one thing. But for a newspaper to try to set the record straight and try to, it's almost it almost becomes a lecture.

Right? Because it doesn't reflect necessarily the tone of the community sometimes. And, and I, I'm really struggling with that because I do think that it doesn't help our readership. I especially when we take a hard stand, you know, that that maybe counter counter community or counter current culture. I feel like there's, there's room for damage at that point.

So you know where I am. We do take, we do have an opinion. Right now, it's, 3 or 4 days a week. In most of our, our main papers, we also have letters to the editor on the same day. Letters to the editor, I think are one thing that's, you know, that's letting the readers really weigh in, you know, and share with other people, you know, and maybe even guest opinion.

I, I would agree with, too. I just think right now, in the world we live in, we're not saying anything new. We're not necessarily educating, an audience that that can't otherwise, or hasn't otherwise come across that information. And if it hurts us, or hurts our advertising or hurts our readers, why, I just don't know that we need to take those hard stance.

Bill Manny: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation, and I think we can go for another 90 minutes with the three of you. So I've really enjoyed getting this chance to talk to you. I want to thank Clint Schroeder. I want to thank Christina Lordes and Don Day for participating in this conversation. I want to thank Margaret Johnson, the, Humanities Council chairwoman, for, hosting us.

And the staff at the Humanities Council did a great job putting together the series and, the art, the the ASL and Spanish language interpreters who have made this, more accessible to other viewers. I want to thank them as well. So, you can tell your friends if they missed this, they can, see the replays of both of our conversations at, the Humanities Council website.

And I want to thank you all. Good night. Thank you all. And say good night. And see you next time. Thanks again. Thanks, you guys, for having us.