know, a meetings where I like literally met with tans I'm like you're gonna give us 70% off. That's what I'm here for 10
teams I told me I couldn't wait to
that was mentioned in April, I had run into omit two people from the Pew institute that want to leave which will in reference to this case study and thing that they're doing involving like black print and the press and I was just like she was talking about it in reference to that if you didn't get somewhere you can talk to the entire six months. That's what I'm saying. So I told her I was gonna get her with you in April and I was like, they'll guide you in DC. They're right across the street. From the two of them one block Yeah. Well, you know, we're there every day to get on the train. Yeah, so So and I told them we're gonna go to the right there on Ninth and eat ninth and E ninth and
he's like, you know, right by a guy you did. chump. Chinatown? Yeah. And then you know what a Smith restaurant is right. I was
in there. The other day is a great meeting. That one right there. Yeah, right by a duck. You know, duck, duck. Yeah. You know, sure. Nice. Yeah. He used to be why don't you tell my every gray every time I go in there I see different people so I don't know who was building.
You. You mentioned April, we have your video on him. Come on on here. I don't have time. To Oh, there it is. Easy to get them. I got it. there make sure there's no spelling mistakes
did you get into these nine o'clock. Oh, he's got here. We saw Paris downstairs. She's caught the train which was got this exciting project. I don't know. If you've seen it. Have you seen what they're doing with the times is doing with the
bike thing? Yeah, she was talking about it because she's sound like it was really
there to fight race, right. It's a bike race. But they're also created an
AR VR experience. Right? It's like, whoa, whoa, that's crazy.
And it's an honor or recognition of the first
like are in the world? 1990 Yeah, 50 years before? Awful. Willie Mays
virtual innovative you talked about?
Yeah, I'm like how did you get to this? Remote wise? All around some contractors. I got off
the caucus I have something
that's permanent. We were getting ready for that was coming down. You come in Yeah. So I know the board and I'm going I'll be I'm going to Jacksonville the conference but
yeah, which ones out there
they should be pretty big this year. That's my hospital was CBC. Yeah.
Question about this,
we were either gonna go to that or we're gonna go to South by Southwest because they have a bunch of conference stuff out there. But we said is at the same time, same time exactly. We'd
be all over the place. I won't be there but the we got you know, we get contracted by them to produce a publication that they put in all of the registration bags, all the bags. Yeah. So I was talking to Nancy about you know, the possibility of us I don't know how to do it could be political, but you know, to put an ad in that issue on board and black golf. So I think we're gonna I'm gonna make it happen. It gets paid for it.
I want you to be close to too close to Denise.
That really promotes word and black and you know, that we need to know like, what am I trying to say so publicity piece that's done, did something I think so too, but I don't know.
I could have just said to to update
with Eleanor. So a slide. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, we yeah, we work together on that. Yeah. We worked the language up and that was Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because we put that in everybody's papers. So this we can just go in knowing that issue that's gonna go into
this reason, and here it is. So
I met her yesterday. And her session she has
the answer for a while here,
who's the fourth person
three of us. There's more than
four is four of us there. I don't need to go. Before. Yeah. So, Your Honor, but she started working for us, officially. So John's gonna she's gonna do some audience Oh, let me turn that off. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So much so much every turn.
I brought on a guy was actually one of my son's friends
that's the one project I thought about it was named as
last year in LA.
So much. Just a fresh need to bring him
into the habit. That's what from so even half of
them using copy after using content, getting the paper out doing the website you know, yeah, you just taking market yesterday yesterday, yours. I think we told you yesterday and he was having a really hard time trying to figure out He said, Every time I talk to you, there's just so much more. He said I'm trying to figure out where she needs to focus on energy.
You know, taking a vacation direction.
Yeah, yeah, we should do
the easiest one to take off
right right actually federal so really talking going back to lose their focus and audience when you said thanks. Exactly. Exactly. That covers Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, and plus, you know,
about taking one I just found out what to do drivers for this
on social media, really. Anyone almost want to turn the phone on? You guys by the national boards, it gets crazy people like yeah, like they want to say hi all that so
they want 10 minutes in? Sure. So we're not requesting you to do that to the postal network. To make sure we do that, especially extra questions and some others and a couple of extra thinking like oh, I'm gonna go to this person session. Come and talk to him afterwards. Because there's like 50 other people it's not happening. Yeah. Oh, Tracy did it. Yeah.
I went to the one the other one, not the fundraising one I was when she was talking about I guess management and different stuff like that.
She's gonna progress and I was going to lose so it was good. It was true score operasi
character 90 Tracy and she's coachable as the moderator. So yeah, it was
because I know that she was bringing and for us pretty good. Yeah. To get to one person. Hello. Yes, it's freezing. I thought about it. I said, I mean, they got to be cold on the train. I'm definitely going to be cold in the hotel. I actually didn't think I'm gonna put my socks on now. That it was in the hallway, right? You're gonna get very warm bodies. Like my tip my temperature steadily dropping
Hello
Oh, it's your turn. Yeah, don't get comfortable. Yeah.
Yeah. And I didn't realize a long time ago but
yeah, so we will create a shadow
side
will do so
right
I was an only child. This is these are the things I used to have fun
but you know what a happy child talking to themselves. Just so you want to see the coolest thing? Okay, I'm gonna show you. I can't pull out my computer. Oh, okay. So I'm gonna do this one. Let's go to Baltimore time site. It's just amazing. So watch this 10 years ago. So we're doing it interactive. So this is the issue for this week. Right. Look at that. Do you have three Oh, so the artists that we have did this major tailor is going to do a narration. I'll show you after the session. Yeah, that's our website. When you go to a website and it's in our printed publication.
What do you have to download? You have to download
the app. So the other problem so this is we're doing an exhibition and this is the artist so we ran a story and what is the bike thing? But no, this this is an example of the artwork to see this chicken
like picture. So, like
inside of inside of it is the data. And so the cycling event will tell the story of major Taylor so that's the art in the data's in the RNA because
nobody can do that.
And that's the story. Website. Pretty cool. I get three I gotta understand. So one is just my son was when I first started many times because it took so long to get my phone that I use this for folks, that you don't talk in they don't call him you're on this
magazine
and AR VR one. Yeah.
Like people are gonna that are gonna use it, right? Yeah.
I remember we weren't gonna do it. But this was back when folks were first doing half. The cost was so high. But now it's not normal to download the apps. Like you said, I keep buying stuff.
Here. That's what you did. Did you? Well, I get a cut. No, you did look shorter. Because you did something different. I'm looking at you. Short as you did a short at this time. See, I thought it was because I was trying to figure it out that and I'm looking at you you're here shorter. Yeah. But I like it. Yeah. It is the glasses combination. short haircut.
Yeah, I haven't been able to actually use it the first the first time I wear them all day.
I never wear glasses. That's what it is to. Yeah, it's
like, I have my computer glasses which I can now like progressive. Oh, I
remember you had those in you had to miss Chicago cuz you said the same thing you couldn't see
I couldn't like I was dealing all the time but now I actually can were
closer you got used to now looking? Yeah, I didn't know. Like, because you took them off you said I gotta take these off. I can't see. To you don't have this thing. You want to know what you're supposed to. You got to fix that. You can fix that technology. I don't need my phone. So we're just doing a discussion. I read through the questions when we were talking about three days ago she was just you never know that is true. Is doing so you got to see the narration so for one is the exsolution his major way Wait to see there's a big surprise at the end
like I literally live transcribe right from here all the data is within the system. It's all secure. They're not using your data to like they're not putting your data into large language modeling your copyrighted secure where your copyrights not secure on augur.
Really Yeah. Just free though right or free but yeah, but you get what you get for free right exactly.
We just use it for no comparison. Yes, you can
use for 20 times and take all of it and summarize. You know what I need my own handle here.
video captions for it. So we have to change
that to x and keep telling them that change into X price sounds like you guys work in a newsroom. Someone say when did it change the X? I'm like, Are you serious? I want to make sure any but I mean even on your app a dope factor. So if you read the Twitter handle, you just turn black and it says yeah, we gotta
it's gonna take thick Yeah, after
we do have a personal can't
remember what it is. I have to send them all I guess for training Yes.
Sir what Instagram
was they're not gonna do anything until and
that's why that's why they booked it for next week.
Yeah, LinkedIn. You can you'll find me on LinkedIn and see what Twitter party.
The best part was. Like I was introducing people didn't know that.
Here it is right here. Because I want Microsoft. It's so strange. They assigned it to me it wasn't one of those. I was new to Twitter. To the side just assigned to me
an article coming up here about Microsoft coming back. Now, it's come back. It makes
sense. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Don't do this. No. matter what we're funding yeah
that she has she cut her hair shorter doesn't give her hair is shorter. So we're trying to figure out I liked it. Yeah. We
try and like it's like it was more in here. And I said,
it looks so good. I thought it was did you color your hair? I'll tell her all the time. Does the highlights she
add on by down the work. One day I came down. I used to work for the Congress. Absolutely. Okay, let me let's let's fix this up here. Hold on one sec. Get Rid.
Oh, that'd be better. Yes. And that way we won't look so whatever. Sure. We what never just ask you as many like okay, let me just go ahead and push it and just unlike that, you did that.
incrementally
to get more assistance
we'll get started about one or two minutes, everybody.
But he described me as a gregarious visionary looking at how he described it very animated. Please answer
me this my partner business partner
sketch
collaboration, only forgetting what we're talking about.
This Do you see I had those two because I did. I did everything. Why oh, this was uncomplicated registration
for me was and then they didn't have a ledger. That's what really got me.
It gave me an error message so they wouldn't have asked I did everything. And I went back to the original page. It didn't show me register but we had a confirmation. Yeah, it was interesting.
Get a membership. I mean, I'm a member now, but they still the membership is like one
I should become a member. Number four value yours.
Would you remember for three years?
Maybe I hope I did it right. 150 for three years. Now check. That's a good exaggerated like, you know, three o'clock in the morning. Oh, wait, I
see what you see. That's what happened. Right.
Three reservations. Hello, hello, everybody can everybody hear me loud and clear? Yeah. Okay, good. Good. So good morning. Everybody. Cannot Can I still say good morning. Is it morning. still morning.
It's still morning.
Morning for another 30 minutes. So I hope everyone is enjoying the conference so far. I want to first thank you all for being here to talk with us a little bit about the power of collaboration and the transformative work. We are doing here with the knight LMA balloon lab. My name is John cell Stan. I am the program director for the night lm a balloon lab. I wanted to start with a quick video to give you a little insight into the work we are doing with an amazing group of black owned local media outlets 26 black owned media outlets that we work with. So this is my most nervous time ever because I'm always I want to make sure that video works alright. Let's try it. Let's try it now. All right. Look at Jinx Messiah. jinx myself. Let me try it one more time. Let me try it one more time because I think it's the internet speed. Okay. Come on. Don't do that. Don't do that. Let it see if it'll play. Ah there we go.
All right. All right. I always, always get some chills when I watched the video. Um, so I guess let's start with the basics right. What is the night elevate bloom? Right. So the bloom Lab is a $3.2 million initiative. Funded by the Knight Foundation. It really helped advance and support local black owned and operated news organization, right. So it's really about sustainability, digital transformation, and helping these important black owned media entities who many are pillars in their communities, we want to help them to thrive right. Some of these organizations are legacy publishers. We have some that are over 135 years old, others that are 130 years old, some of our publisher publishers, excuse me, our second and third generation owners. Some are less than 10 years old, right? So we have diversity when it comes to to age but some great publishers that we all work with in our work in the Blum lab. We do this work with a small but mighty team. Robert Walker Smith, who's not here today is our digital revenue director who really focuses on driving and increasing each publishers capacity to increase their digital revenue, right? He runs sales training. He helps publishers set revenue goals and works one on one with the sales teams at each organization. April Pillai who's right here April, just give a little wave right. She's our technology director. And I call her i tech guru, right So April focuses on vetting and recommending the technology tools and resources that will help all the publishers advance their business. April provides technology training and all recommended tech tools and platforms in addition to help them publishers implement any new tech tools that they purchase, with the funding that we provide from their participation in the Blum lab and then you have my ugly mug right there, John. So Stan, program director, I oversee all the labs activities, the outward facing communication, and also work with the publishers on their organizational culture, operational efficiency, and a few things in that realm. So that's our team. Again, we work with a major group of publishers, all across the country. We are geographically diverse. We've worked with 26 publishers now in total, Cohort One and Cohort Two or who you see here on the screen. We've been working with Cohort One for about 15 months. And we are closing in on a year with cohort to some great publishers. Yeah, fro news out of Baltimore, right? The Atlanta voice, the New York Amsterdam News out of Harlem in New York, the Sacramento observer, we have the Michigan chronicle out in Detroit. The Philadelphia Tribune right here. In Philadelphia, our old this publisher, Seattle, medium just to name a few, all in Cohort One and Cohort Two. And then we have our brand new publishers and cohort three. These publishers were just elected about a month ago. And we also just finished spending some time with them in person at our annual local media fest out in Chicago. So some great publishers in this cohort as well Denver urban spectrum, the flint beat in Indianapolis recorded the LA focus. The spokesman record is out of Minneapolis. Our weekly is out in Los Angeles as well based a banner out of Boston and the times weekly, right outside of Chicago in Joliet, Illinois. So a great group of folks, they're going to learn from the work that we've done with Cohort One and Cohort Two, and we're going to collaborate all three cohorts working together to really share resources and share learnings. We focus on three key areas in the lab, right technology upgrades, which I talked about, they all get a $50 $50,000 stipend, right to support and fund any technology tools and resources that will help advance the work that they're doing in their business, business transformation consulting publishers. All receive monthly one on one coaching from each director in the lab myself, April. And Robert. So April focuses on technology, Robert focuses on sales and digital revenue. I focus on organizational culture and try to fill in the gaps as well as shared learning opportunities, which I think is what really the most impactful part right? We have BOD monthly group calls with each cohort where they can share resources, communicate challenges, talk about what's working, and hear from industry experts that we invite to the calls. Sometimes we also do weekly trainings around technology tools, and platforms digital analytics, SEO, search engine optimization, project management tools, you name it, April touches on all of those. We also provide sales training once a week, focusing on ways all publishers can increase their digital revenue. So we have a lot going on you're going to hear from the publisher from a few publishers from Cohort One and coach Cohort Two in a bit. But you can ask them we have tons of trainings, tons of meetings, sometimes almost overwhelming, and they are not mandatory, right. The trainings are not mandatory, and their staffs are allowed to come to the training as well. So it's not just the publishers, all your staff are invited to the training that we provide on a weekly basis. I do want to talk real quickly about our site visits. Probably our most impactful touch point. In the work that we do. We visit each publisher that is participating in the lab at least once during the lifespan of the initiative, which is three years. The zoom is great, right? But there is nothing like gathering and getting together in front of publishers and their entire teams, meeting them in person when we do a visit we offer in person training on technology, digital revenue, organizational culture, you name it, and it's great to be on site with the publishers to be able to work with them in person. I just wanted to give you some quick insight on work we've done right. In about 15 months we've been able to conduct over 850 consultations 60 Plus training around 40 webinars. We've conducted about 13 site visits. I think we have a few more coming up right APR over the next couple of months. I think we hit it to Cincinnati. The community voice out in Kansas City and black voice news out in San Bernardino County. San Bernardino, California. But this is just some of the things that we've been doing with the publishers and we're very proud of all the work we've been able to do over the last year and a half. Really quickly here are three KPI out three KPIs, I won't go into depth about these but these are the three areas we focus on in the lab. Our goal is to increase digital revenue by 50%. For each cohort as a collaborative, we blown the digital revenue number out of the box right? I think for Cohort One we increase their their overall their digital overall digital revenue by 133%. overall revenue growth was 21% for Cohort One, so we're very excited about that. We want to help grow their audience by 20% by the end of the lab so we have some work to do in in that area and help improve operational efficiency. So we hope that the technology tools and resources, the digital revenue training that we're offering, along with strategic planning, will help organizations improve from an operational standpoint and an efficiency standpoint. So we're excited to continue that work. I know you guys don't want to hear you want to keep hearing from me you really want to hear from the panel and the folks that we have working in the lab, but here's my contact information for anything for anybody who wants to reach out to me if you don't have questions answered. After today, please reach out my emails right there. I can give you the rundown and go in more depth about what we're doing in the Blum lab. But let me stop talking and introduce our panel. So the nice row lock Barnes is the publisher and second generation owner of the Washington and former succeeding her father the late Dr. Calvin W. roloc. Barnes, who founded the newspaper in 1964. The niece is past chair of the NNPA and also serves on the boards of several nonprofit community and municipal organizations. She's a native Washingtonian, and an inductee in a DC Hall of Fame. Denise roloc bonds of Paris Brown is the associate publisher at the Baltimore times and one of our most gregarious publishers in Cohort Two. Paris works closely with joy Bramble, the owner and publisher of the Baltimore times and is the heartbeat of the BT organization. Paris is a creative and a visionary at heart. I know this from my many conversations with her during our one on ones and she lives and breathes the Baltimore times. And last but not least, Mr. Clyde Giles is that strategic alliance manager with the Houston defender, now known as the defender network. He was born into the business down in Houston where the defender is housed and has been exposed to the dynamic effect that defender has had on the Houston black community since he was a little boy. He's the son of Sonny Messiah Giles, the defenders owner and CEO and has worked almost every role that the defender I mean, this was a lot of roles cloud from from paperboy to Secretary to distribution to virtual event producer, video producer, social media manager sales I left a few All right, the list goes on and on. So I want to welcome our panelists. And let's have some discussion. So how about we start with this? Could you all give a brief history of your organization? And let's start with you parents.
Okay. And we can start with the Oh yeah. So I'm the youngest on the panel with 38 years in the industry. We were started at Joy brambles kitchen table, and it was really inspired by all the negative narratives about black people in Baltimore. And so she wanted to establish a publication that told positive stories so our motto is positive stories about positive people. And we our local, free local community newspaper. We, you know, we tell stories that main media would never pick up. We have we tell stories about the heroes and heroes and children and doing great things ordinary people doing great things. And in Baltimore, and so your coveted space always is on the front cover of the Baltimore times right because it's anyone could end up on the cover. So I'm so excited. Thank you to be here. And yeah, 38 years and we are continuing to do the same thing and people look forward to our paper. We are a local trusted source in the community. Thank you.
How about you the nice.
Thank you, John. And it's a pleasure to be here and to see people in the room. That's great. Thank you for coming. As John said, I am the second generation publisher of The Washington and former newspaper which was started by my father in October will be 59 years old and a couple of weeks in October. Started in 1964. Anybody here from DC? All right. So what I'm getting ready to say you were probably touch home my dad came to DC from Texarkana, Texas. My stepmother came to DC from Virginia. My mom came to DC from Detroit. And one of the things that they discovered when they came to the District of Columbia was that the district residents had no voting rights. We couldn't vote for president. We didn't have any locally elected council. We had no representation in Congress. We were just what we call a, what we call ourselves a colony. We were a colony of the of the of the United States. So there was a movement during those days to one create a locally elected council, or mayor or school board. And all of that came out of sort of an outcry. of the civil rights movement. You know, Dr. King had the march in Washington in 1964. We're getting ready to celebrate the 60th anniversary tomorrow. And part of that movement, which Dr. King talked about, was statehood for the District of Columbia couldn't believe he talked about that 60 years ago. And prior so you know, there was a whole movement of of individuals in the city who said we've got to do something. We had existing publications in Washington. As a matter of fact, we had the Washington Post, the Washington Star, The Daily News, I mean, the the the I hate the word, but I'm going to use it because you all understand what it means but the mainstream newspapers, and then we had a host of black owned newspapers in Washington, a lot of the publications really focused on entertainment. My father stepmother, and mother were very engaged in the well, I don't want you all to think it's like a trio. There was the mother and then there was the stepmother, right? I don't know how that works, but they all had similar backgrounds. You know how that works, too. But they were all very engaged in in, you know, empowering the local community, not only from a racial standpoint, but definitely from a political standpoint. And so, my father had worked with another publication called the new observer, which really focused more on DC nightlife. Entertainment. And after having encounters with local officials, he and my stepmother got their resources together and started the Washington and former and we have consistently since 1964. been involved in the political landscape of the city. Of course, you know, one having our first appointed Mayor a while to Washington, who later became my first elected mayor for his black mayor, the District of Columbia and then you know, it's consistently gone on from there. And so, you know, we are what we call an involved weekly, little different than what most publications might be because we, from my father standpoint, who died in 94. People used to wonder why does your father always end up on the front page of the newspaper? And I said, because he's always he's always having demonstrations, calling for boycotts. And then his wife ended up being elected to the DC city council and served for 16 years. And so when we say involved, that's been the history. I was the one that came along and ended up with a journalism degree and started applying journalism rules to how we ran the newspaper. And as soon as I walked in the door, he walked out and said is yours and then like I said, he died in 94. And we've been continuing ever since. So, sadly enough, we're one of the last standing in DC The Washington Post is still there. None of the other papers are really publishing print editions. We've lost quite a few. And I think we're the only black newspaper still existing in the District of Columbia. So here we are.
Jobs. Yes. Hey, yo, I'm from Texas. So you know, tends to come out frequently. As I was saying, I'm with the Houston defender network, Houston's leading black information source, and we've been around for 93 years, proud. 93 years. We were our CEO and publisher currently bought the bought the paper when she was 27 years old, and this was in the 70s. So black woman going to get a business loan was not happening. So she went the unconventional route and the gentleman who owned the paper said, Okay, I will if you take on my house loan, you can have the paper. So she took it on, and she got the paper. And now it's not only the paper it is the defender network because we started as a paper and now we are social video, digital web, you name it, we do it. You evolve with the times and you evolve with the ways that you need to speak to your audience. Big thing for us is our major goals are to educate, empower and entertain our audience through solution based journalism and to tell our stories from our perspective. That's, that's what we stand for and what we represent. That's a little above.
Right. All right. Let me ask you guys a general question about black owned media. Why are black owned local media organizations, so important for local communities and I'm throwing this out to anyone who wants to answer that.
Well, I'll start because there's stories that we tell their experiences. I think we all have experiences that just never make it to publications or things that we because of if you're a woman, you know, there are stories about gender related issues that just don't make it unless to the consistently to publications. But if it's a woman's oriented publication, you'll see a more variety of stories that are reflective of what your lifestyle is. Same thing. If you're Latino, if you're, you know, Asian, if you're an immigrant, and if you're black, right? We consistently tell the stories that don't often get told. And one primary example I want to use that I've been using recently. We all know the story of George Floyd. Right? And we know that that woman, young lady took that video, and it went viral. But I don't know if you all know how many years prior to that, that we were telling the same story in our publications. What happened to George Floyd became national international global news. I went to a small village in Africa and saw his photograph on a wall but I could count numerous people whose stories we wrote about and how our community really worked hard the issue of trying to do have the, the local politicians, the police departments and what have you, to respond to this kind of police engagement that was going on in our communities. We've been writing about this since the 60s when we started and so it leaked. That's what happens. We hear and report on the concerns of our communities where others may ignore it. They may not think it's big news for us. It is page one news. And so there, we can talk about those stories. We are our community causes. They report to us the things that they are experiencing. We write about them and we push our local officials to do something about them but they never may become part of the national narrative. People don't connect those dots that connect the dots they want to connect. Right? But we do this consistently. And I think that's what makes us so important to our community. And then the other thing I'll just say quickly, is it when people want to write the story of of which we're having challenges now, but like the historical stories of African Americans in this country, they have to go to our publications to get that information because we're the only ones that are covering our community like that. So we're historians as well.
Yeah. And one one thing I always like to think about to put things into perspective for people is, you know, perception is reality. And mo in most cases, like in show of hands, how many people watch your local news and on a regular basis. We've got one person we've got two persons we've got a couple of different people out there. So when you watch the local news, and you see the only time you typically see black faces on the news is crime, killing, stealing, or there might be a little section of charity done for some kids or something to that fashion. That's not who we are. And that narrative is not what needs to be told. What needs to be told, are our stories from our perspective. And that's where we come in and that's why it's so important that people understand who we are from our lives because we are a people of triumph of excellence. And great things are being done in the community every single day that aren't being talked about. And that's where we come in. We give you the filter that's not being talked about.
And that actually that's a great segue into the Baltimore times because we do those positive stories. Why are we so important is because we are a trusted source with the Baltimore times. Anyone from Baltimore near Baltimore is too small, no problem. We people look to us for what's in the paper and they will literally say no, I saw it in Baltimore times it must be true. So we do not do investigative reported reporting. We are timely. We do consider other I'm gonna say opinions that land on our op ed page. But for the most part, we print the facts we print. We print positive news about our community. And since there's no one's here from Baltimore, our website or we publish on Friday in the local news literally picks up our stories. But we literally so our journalists write and investigate our stories. So they spend a lot of time writing the stories. And so yeah, we have a little audience extension because they go to our website and it ends up on the news and so we're happy about that right because then they share the positive narratives. We did had a similar issue with the Freddie Gray and a lot of people don't know that he was affected by lead poisoning, right. And so he had health related issues that impacted his behavior, and when you get it at a certain age, and we did a story on that, it, it does affect you for life unless you hit it at a young age, lead poisoning, it can be cured within a certain amount of time and, you know, through diet and other things. So yes, I I truly believe we do tell stories from from our perspective, in a way that is really positive. Yeah.
So with the title of the session being the power of collaboration, why our collaborations like the bloom lab that you all are participating in, important, and let's talk about the dive in any direct impact the lab has had on your organization.
I can start with that, certainly, for us in the Baltimore times we started when I came on board really started with the digital transformation, working with Google, which was pretty exciting. And we realized in order for us to move forward, we had to make some changes on the website, and that that was really the first step. And so after leaving that lab, I think one of the things that we do is print publications and I know you guys can speak certainly we get a majority of our revenue from print. So it took a while for us to get into this digital space and really understanding our value as a local publication. All local publications have a very niche market and that is a value because that audience is worth something. It is very valuable. It's a trusted audience. It tends to be a loyal audience and even on our digital platform, when you look at our open rates, and things like that, but what our participation in the bloom lab has been absolutely wonderful in the collaboration has helped us one two, understand our ability to extend what we do through technology has has been really really it's allowed us to compete in a space to increase our integrated solutions, especially online. That whole digital. So it is really given me the confidence in your right to really step out in a really really big way in terms of understanding branded content, but also digital brands that the Baltimore times owns. And so now we're in a space where we co own and collaborate with city wide and with communities and corporations where they own that digital cobranding whether it's an event or a digital campaign with us and then the so we just talked about the technology but there's a whole lot of other things but I'll wait for those questions who absolutely yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I'll just jump in. First of all, I don't know if you know this is a chicken chicken or egg response but I think word and black came first and have any Are any of you all familiar with that collaboration? Great. Great. Thank you so much. I'm so yeah, you had 10 and of that group parents, I think I'm the we're the baby. Because we're talking about black on newspapers across the country that are 60 7080 over 100 years old. And we are all members. Even in the blue lab. Mostly all of us are members of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which is the oldest trade association of black owned newspapers in the country. We meet a couple times a year, but we didn't really know what collaboration was until until word and black came along. Because a lot of times you know, even though you're in different markets, you don't want to you don't want to tell you trade secrets, you know, years ago, I'm probably gonna say something that might get us in trouble, but I hope not. But you know, when circulation print circulation was really important. And newspapers had a way of inflating those numbers. And so and you would never tell that secret to each other how much you were really printing. And so that's what happened I think when with an MPA we found ourselves not necessarily as collaborators, but really competitors. Word and black made us collaborators, because we realized and COVID had a lot to do with that as we were watching newspapers all across this country shut down. And we were still here and struggling though, and recognizing that we had to jump headfirst and I don't swim. So diving is not something that I would do but we had to dive into this digital transformation. And so word and black helped us to do that. And I think the team that pulled that together recognize some of the weaknesses that we had, as publications and recognized it encouraged us supported us as we were making this digital transformation. And so not only now do we talk to each other more, we share each share resources more. The Blum lab provides us with things that we can test. What might work for the defender might not work for the informer, or vice versa, we can we can have those conversations or the Baltimore times how does this work for you? And so it's not only that kind of collaboration, but also the team that's come in and working with us. And some of those folks out there, you know, in these hallways have become collaborators as well, because they're trying to reach out to us to say, you know, look, we've got tools that will make life a lot better for you, which now means we can collaborate with other organizations because they kind of respect where we are in the industry. So other publications, we did something once with the Center for Public Integrity we did a news project with with them. We're looking to do more collaborations where we can cover more the local PBS stations. I mean, one of our publishers actually collaborated with a PBS station and Larry out in Sacramento so it's opened up the door now for something that we all really need to get a handle on. We can't continue to do the work that we do without talking to each other. And that's what I think the collaboration is good for,
Claude I have I have a quick I have another question for you. When we talk about collaboration and the shared learning opportunity component of the of the Blum lab, how have you had the highest and Houston defendant been able to leverage opportunities to collaborate with other publishers share successes, learnings, challenges you in your time in the lab.
And several ways. But you know, when you talk about that type of collaboration, the first thing that comes to mind is this old African proverb that says I am because we are, you know, collectively, we're strong separate you know, we stand alone, there's there's weakness there. And in the Blum lab, what we specific when it came to the collaboration, speaking of what Miss Denise was talking about, we approach things less from a competitive nature and more from a collective nature, with somebody being in a different market. You can this, this makes sense in my market, it makes money in my market, just my work in your market. It's interesting that that particular question was asked because just yesterday, friend of Chris Bennett, who's in Seattle medium we went to the same college, but he text me he helped us a lot with branded content. And now he's getting into the realm of High School Sports. High school sports is our bread and butter. We do it and we do it at a really high level Texas football trumps everything. So we have a system. We're sharing our system with him. He's helped us on the branded content lane. The same thing with the afro with Dr. Draper. She had she just recently had an anniversary that she was able to raise a tremendous amount of money have events and has a really, really unique way that she approaches special editions. She allowed me to sit through the meetings with the advertisers to be able to see how everything was executed. These things wouldn't have happened. Have we not been put in the same room ie, the boom lab. So just being in that same space and getting the training, the techniques, the technology. It really opened up the door for something that was really already there. But it took for us to sit in the same room to be able to see it and for that. We appreciate
the forum, the ability to share the resources, the learnings has been really great for the Baltimore times. Absolutely. That's
great. How about the $50,000 technology stipend, let's get to the money. Right. How has that helped you all advance your business like what technology tools and resources have you all been able to acquire and have those what's working? What's what's not working? What? Let's talk about that a
little bit. Okay, all right. So I made a list. So we had first thing we jumped on was with news pack. It has been absolutely wonderful for us as far as to having fun with our audience and having different ways to get things done. Next we have blue Lena. I mean the list is long blue Lena social news desk. Topic pulse, Adobe cloud. In this lady over here, who is the most humble person in the room April has been heaven sent God sent to when it comes to explaining these things to us and getting us going but we use these every day to simplify the way that we do things and in many cases, it's raised revenue, our efficiency and our effectiveness across the board. So that's maybe I'd say half of the ones that we use. The list is too long to name all of them.
And I'll just add, you know, a couple of years, maybe it's about four or five years ago, I reached out to point our pointer had digital technology tour I think it is Has anybody been on that tour? It scared me to death. I mean, we visited the Washington Post, the New York Times Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, I mean all of these companies Google Facebook, between DC and New York and actually talk to folks who were involved in the transformation of their, their media organizations. The only thing I got out of that was it's okay to test in it's okay to fail. I mean, that's really the lesson I got out of that. So now, you know, the bloom lab. What do we test? What's out there for us? I mean, I wouldn't have known where to start. I really wouldn't have had it not been for the bloom lab and for April who was bringing technology to us. First of all, looking at how we were doing things we now my thing in the office is what is the what is your pain point? What is it that you haven't difficulty doing that we need to look for some support with and then when we do that we know where to go to get that support. So, you know, we're talking about how we can get more people visiting our website and SEO and all that and then we discovered something called parsley. How many of y'all use parsley? Right? And so it's not difficult but whenever we have our staff meetings I put on the screen because we're still doing a lot of zoom stuff I put on the screen parsley, and it's hard to keep the writers attention because they're watching their stories move, which means that okay, well 500 people were reading my story now. I mean, at the moment that we're on the meeting 500 People are watching. Wow, what up to 600 It's like watching a horse race. My dad is taking to the races all the time. So but yeah, so Parsley is one like you said, in some work. We're still trying to figure out social news desk. We don't know if it's really working for us or not. You know, we just discovered a new tool that we're hoping to engage is Noda. How many of you all using Noda? Okay, we'll talk afterwards and you can collaborate. Yeah, so you know, we look at things that are what is it that we because what we want is we want people reading our public our I say publications because they're digital publications, but we it's important for us to know what they want, right? We're producing content like all over the place and some of its moving and a lot of it's not. And so how do we, you know, get folks more engaged with our content, and actually spend money on it, as well. So, you know, that that's just a couple of things that we've used, are about to use
and for the Baltimore times, we just migrated to news PAC three weeks ago. I don't even think it's been three was the 11th. Right as you've been at all, and so we'll come back to you with that question, because we're also looking at audience IO. So we are doing a campaign that will share our learnings with Sony could do that. So and we're actually engaging audience IO for survey, right for city wide development. So for us again, we're testing it, we use social news desk. Now finally, that we're engaging I can say that I love the look of our newsletter working through news pack, and that's only been two weeks. And that's been a very, very easy process. So yeah, we stay in touch I'll share with you and we're also so we're in Cohort Two. We've just acquired some of our technology and we're beginning to use it, but I can say in April has a cape on the back end as s she is amazing. She's Superwoman, I was having problems and she said, you know, you really need this platform and she is really right. So we are also testing technology and platforms to help us with our left and also to help our team in efficiency in doing better, better work. Yeah, and providing better support.
So as you all participate in the lab, right. And technology has been introduced to your organization, via April into bloom lab. From a technology perspective. What What have you all learned about your organization's since you've been working in the boom lab?
I guess I'll jump on that one when it comes to technology if you don't leave her knowing anything, and that's one of the things I admire most about my mother, the publisher and CEO is you've got to recognize that you are always learning your student forever. And if you don't approach your work like that, especially in an industry, like we're in, you know, you're consciously making a choice to fall behind. And I learned that, you know, in the blue lab, but I learned that even more so being here, you know, in the last 60 days, maybe yeah, about 60 days. We started learning about GBT and AI and all those things. Then we went to LMA first, we learned about Claude and Bart. I went to a session here where a guy walked through almost 60 Different AI tools that will make your business more efficient and effective. That's in a matter of 60 days. So it's just like, the biggest thing is you're constantly learning now you're not all you're not going to use all the technology that's out there. If it's shiny, grab it know, figure out what works for you in this time. It makes things more efficient for you and rock with it. That's the biggest thing that we learned is just that we're always we have to focus and make it a priority that we're always learning.
The biggest thing for me I've worked with a group of writers and photographers I mean the average person has worked had worked with me for maybe about 1015 20 years. And after getting involved with Word and back black and blue lab, I had to figure out endpoint or actually who was in the boat and who's not. And I had to make a tough decision to exit my editor who was not in the boat, and leadership is real important. And while I don't know all the answers, I don't know a lot about the technology. I don't know where we're headed. I just noticed as Clyde said, We got to keep moving. And what I have learned about our team more so as it relates to the technology is that they're eager learners. They want to know how do we do this better? And as I told someone the other day in my on my team, I still have one. But he brings in all the money so I can't get rid of him. But he still has old strategies for doing it. Right. There's so many new ways now. I mean, he said to me the other day he's old and he's you know, we we get our revenue from advertising from print advertising and digital. I broke that down into 10 different categories. And I said every one of these categories has the potential to generate revenue all by itself. So what will we do if we began to find ways to bundle these things? I mean, branded content, which we haven't done a whole lot with. But it took a while for us to understand how that worked, and how we can do more and then how we can introduce that to people was gonna say readership, donations, who knew that for profit publications could still get readership to pay for our digital news? We're still working with it, but it can work. Right? So that's one of those categories. So now I think bigger and broader and trying to get folks to say these are the different ways that we can help to that we can generate revenue for our organization so that we can continue to do the work that we want and love to do and that is to keep our communities informed. So
that's been good. I think I'm going to take a couple of comments from both Clyde and Denise and that is just learning about the technology of resistance. within our organization, if I can just keep it real because we were primarily print publication, right. And so you again, we have those that are with it, and then those that are not with it, and that was really interesting to see where they are. But I think in terms of one of the things that's been that's helped me to understand is the revenue streams, right? So the podcast, the integrated solutions, really big on digital campaigns because we make money on that and I think I shared with you guys on on that and don't mind the sharing at all and then I think just helping that how technology is just helping us with that lift in honestly you're also giving us the confidence right? So now, here I am with a package, right? In almost. I'm going to say that we almost can offer similar services that agency is can offer right and so we actually found ourselves transitioning into that by my you know, offering video content, some integrated solutions and really doing some very interesting things because because we can and we had the technology in some of the same technology as mainstream publications in sight, city spark and our ability you know, we want it to do an entertainment section, right? We want it to do and it also not only does it allow us to promote locally what's happening, but then it brings us revenue. And so just learning about the different sources of revenue in our ability to integrate it into a package where we have several touch points and we're talking to I suppose I sell a minimum of three touch points. A minimum of three touch points. So yeah, that's how it's helped a lot.
Really quickly before I go because I do want to open it up to the audience for questions. Just one answer. What's a component that you wish to bloom lab could or would provide? When currently doesn't one for each? There's anything people, people, people, staff, staff.
That's it.
People staff, and they're saying the funding that we provide the 50,000 the $50,000 stipend can only be used for technology tools, and platforms cannot be used for personnel. So it's been a question that has come up a few times and working with the publishers when they first come on board.
A lot. For me, I'd say one on one on financial and management, training or you know things like understanding how to shift things like QuickBooks or accounting and stuff like that, because big thing for us is we want to be in a position to build things that are sustainable, long term, right? And that starts at the foundation. And I know we've done a lot of talking about collaboration and different pieces like that, but when it comes to if your financials are off, and your accounting is off, good luck. Staying in business, you know, so I think that space, there's, there's an opportunity.
And if I can just add to that when when I say people and staff, it's it's the same, but it's like as we bring in this technology, you gotta have an owner. Yeah, right. You bring it in, and then it's just their city spark made me think about that, which is one we use the we've been using city spark for years. It was just on our website, you know, for an events calendar. I didn't have anybody to own it. So we weren't making any money off of it. We were spending it but we weren't making it and so now we have someone who owns it. That's their job to do that. And there are other techno tech nology tools that we have, but if you don't have a person that actually owns it
makes sense. It's just a tool. Yeah. And I would agree with her on that. When I say you know, the people in the Blum lab also has helped us when we apply we had a full time helping writer, which is super exciting and a lot of things coming out of that. But I would agree owning owning that, right?
All right, so let's open it up to the audience. Any questions you have for our panel? And maybe I'm gonna run somebody's microphone
Good afternoon. My name is Herman Malone. I'm with the American journalism project. I have a two part question. The first is on collaboration. And the second part is on sustainability. As we're seeing in the last couple of years, some new entrants into the black LED black serving new space on the nonprofit side. I'm wondering if you all can talk to any thoughts your organization's have given to collaboration with some of the nonprofits sort of like not owned because they're nonprofit, but again, black LED black serving and news organizations. And then on the sustainability side, I understand the impact of the bloom lab cohort program and that investment that's made in technology sort of talks a little bit about sustainability like what other things would be helpful if you could think about the role of funders in supporting the sustainability of black press. It's a little tricky on the for profit side, but any thoughts you have to sort of like the scale of investment that you think would be transformational? In terms of the sustainability play for Black Media?
I'll start with a million dollars that
Yeah, I know. At least on the funding side, one thing that I know a couple of publishers take advantage of that we also do is
the form of the journal.
Yes, yes.
We have the two two reporters currently that are report for America reporters that so from a philanthropy standpoint, that's one of the places that we become helps us become more sustainable from a long term standpoint, because we can always afford additional staff and the quality of writers that we really want and need. So when it comes to opportunities like that, super, super helpful. Now the other question that you're asking with the nonprofit, like papers that are coming, there's a lot of them. I mean, and in Houston specifically, we have I think, two major ones that are coming in in our market and our goal is to work with them. You know what I'm saying? Because like I said, collaboration is is front of mind now that we've entered this space as opposed to oh, their competition. Let's snarl at them when we see him in the room and all of that type of stuff. No, doesn't have to be like that. We're working for the same community to benefit the same people. You know what I'm saying? If anything, we should be a reflection. Of that, you know, collective nature so awful.
And some of us have nonprofits, as well. I know we have one at the informer, and we just had to really rethink what we were doing. We focused on literacy, which we still will continue to do because of the low rate, low readership, which is getting lower and communities all across this country. It's really sad. But, but now we had to figure out or reef re phrase our mission to really look at how we could support local journalism and then we have resources that come to us through word and black and through, you know, our relationships to other organizations that actually can get the funding to help us to grow our staff, our businesses, but I think, you know, we would love to have a conversation with you, you know, to see what the opportunities are out there. We're all trying to figure out because there's a lot more money unfortunately, the philanthropic philanthropic community really wants to see what we can do what they can do to help to support local journalism. And we all come from small papers from all over this country and we, you know, there ways we can make it work. You just need to know how I know Community Foundation's now in Washington, they're not really thinking much about journalism, but in other cities, and I sit on a board with the President. But you know, she's not getting it yet, but we're gonna work on that but in other places, you know, the Community Foundation's are right in there, working with the local media, no matter who they are. So we just have to kind of open up that door a little bit and see how much more we can do especially on issues like you know, health, homeownership, like education, a lot of issues that we can work together on. So the question
Hi, thank you. Steven Jefferson from the American Press Institute. I'm their senior engineer. So technology question. My question is about digging more into the sustainability of the technology tools and integrations and resources that are being introduced with this program. We touched on this a little bit. This question, just some background, two quick examples. So I volunteer for the New Mexico local news accelerator, which is a cohort of 30 newsrooms. In the new New Mexico State. I'm their technology coach. They have a budget that's a 10th of this $5,000 for six months. We're now in the second year and one thing on my mind when I go up to them and do coaching on new products to integrate with these funds, is how do they not only integrate and learn from these tools, but also succeed with the tools after the program was done. Last year news pack I think was one of the options and that's a $500 a month roughly. product, right and there's a lot of others. I think you mentioned a few. And that's on my mind as far as giving advice to these. You know, I want them to experiment I want them to learn but I also want them to see that long term success and reaching their goals that are beyond that. So I'm challenged with how to approach that and I'm curious to hear from you on how what's on your mind as far as approaching, being careful with some of these. And I also want to mention, I've been in emergency situations with hyperlocal newsrooms where they, for example, they have been on news pack and they've seen the end that he can't afford it anymore and I've been brought in to say, alright, Steven, we need to cut this in half. We need to cut these funds in half and we need to do it by within the next month. And it's been successful, we've been able to do it. There's other alternatives out there. There definitely are there's not just one single bullet that no one single option but to spend time thinking about that and planning on those alternatives. I think that's very much needed within journalism. And I just want to hear how you guys are approaching that planning and working towards sustainable alternatives.
So it's it's it was on my mind before we started in so you know, looking at digital revenue, because I am I approached it looking at, you know, how are we going to continue this. And so hence developing campaigns in digital revenue to make sure that we sustain it and we're also looking at a font for journalism to help support our team. Just from a financial perspective. We have what what is the gentleman? Sacramento that? Yeah, Larry grew his team from six to 24. And he used he ki graduated or went through the fun for journalism cohort. So we are looking at sustainability and I'm looking at what that would look like after would also so yes, a plan, a digital plan to make to ensure that that which we acquire that we can continue and sustain. And this lab is really helping us and planning and looking at, at increasing the revenues so that we can continue
to speak. I'm gonna be completely honest with you. It's hard as hell. The reason is not impossible, but it's hard. What I mean by that is when you think about the technology and building it from assistant to be sustainable for your business. Number one, you have to look at it as okay, like you said it cost and because it cost I have to think about a revenue stream that's going to cover that. And then number two, having a small team you have to think about who's going to train my team to do it. Yeah, we get the person that the company typically provides, and they'll give you, you know, as much information as you need, but you have to train your staff. Somebody has to own that. You know what I'm saying? And in all in that space, you have to have mental like Paris was saying a plan as to how is this going to work for me long term, as opposed to it just being a shiny item that I saw that everybody else is using? So I ultimately think I have to use it like you said, Newsbank not gonna work for everybody. There's other options, but at the same time, understanding what that technology is used for the cost associated with it, and how you cover that cost and ultimately being comfortable with failing. And if it doesn't work, doing like you said, we can go another route. Don't make a commitment to the point where you can't get out of it. You know, that, to me is is the big was the big takeaway from us because being completely transparent, we took on more than we could chew at one point where we had a tech stack that was insane. And we didn't have the people to train the folks and being the second on on in line. I'm sitting there learning every single thing about every single new tech piece that we have, knowing that we can execute all so we learned from going through that, that you gotta you gotta it's hard work, but it's necessary work.
And I would just, I mean, I'll put April on the spot, but I'm getting ready to you know, and I would have a conversation with her before you leave because one of the things I think that's helped is that when when she goes in like probably like you did, you had all these publishers. So you negotiated a price for those publishers for a certain period of time now we're a little worried once the blue lab is over what happens to the price does it like go back to you know, like a rubber band has it go back to a normal price, but it would seem to me that these companies would not want to lose this business all at once. Right? So I think, you know, staying at the negotiating table representing those, those that group that you're representing and trying to keep the price at a point where you know, most of your publishers can afford it is really, really helpful. It's it puts a lot of burden on you but
at times yeah, I'll just say we don't pay rate card for anything we use. So I mean to give you like parsley, we love it, but we we have an insane rate you would never even believe. So it's really about making those partnerships with the r&d. That's why I'm here is to is to talk to the r&d partners and make sure they want to be in partnership with us. And we're negotiating those contracts out beyond where we are this year. It's beyond Blum lab and continuing that partnership and what they want to be as part of our community do they support this journalism work? And then it's always looking at like you mentioned, city Spark, some things like that those platforms, you can make the revenue back the first month if you do it effectively and get it going. So figuring out it doesn't have a sustainable model. With news packed. You have one brand new content deal that will sell will cover all the costs of news pack for the year if you do it right. So love to talk more.
Well, I want to say first and foremost, thank you to our panel for joining us today. And thank you all for joining us to talk a little bit about the power of power and collaborative collaboration. If there's anything you need to further learn about the bloom lab, please reach out to me directly. I can also connect you with our five panelists up here as well. So thank you all enjoy the rest of the conference. Absolutely.
