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I did not come to play with your host I came too late. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Welcome to blank is the future of journalism. It has returned by popular demand for a season five. This is the fifth time offered here at OMA Thank you. Thank you for coming. I am Robert Hernandez. I am your MC your moderator. I'm a digital journalism professor at USC Annenberg and I will be channeling my inner Pray tell I'll talk about who that is for the newbies here. But actually, I'm curious who has been to this session before? We got some alarms. We got some repeat folks, thank you for coming. Please make sure when we're done to tell everyone that they missed the best session at the conference. This is not being live streamed and if my wishes are respected, it will not be archived because we're here in the moment live. Having a moment together right you can skeet throw up a little bit. You can use the blue sky platform or that other one by that guy. But don't get anybody fired. That's what I asked. All right. So let me give you some context and some history I don't even know how many years ago was it was at another conference. A few of us were drinking at the bar and we were like Jesus Christ. Everything is the future of journal. Hey, by the way, have you heard this ai ai thing? Have you heard about it? It's the future of journalism. So a few of us came buoy that cone, Matt Thompson and I finally got Mikey to join us. They have all done this. This session before we were together at a bar and we thought what if we just gave each other random words and for 90 seconds with a straight face? Sell the concept as the future of journalism. That improv game I use some code I found and I started the randomizer like suspenders are the future of journalism. It holds it all together. It prompts the community keeps you secure. I see see about baking. Baking is a future of journey. That's the revenue model. Y'all problem solve. Or drunk tweeting or skating is the future of journalism. Right? So it was just you can go play this game. At a very horrible URL that I enjoy renewing every year. called Play blank is the future of dot journalism with.me. So you can see the randomness that's there. But in it, that game has been modified. Again, like I said, this is the fifth time round of applause this time. Oma has us back. And every time we have incredibly smart and talented, journos that are my friends, and somehow trust me to put them in these situations even though they don't know what they got themselves into. So let's meet them one at a time you have a microphone, introduce yourself for about 30 seconds. We'll go with the medical order by last name Tony.
I'm Tony Elkins. I'm faculty for pointer brand new I hope to be there for a long time. Like I'm a citizen of the Comanche Nation. I've mostly been focused in the innovation space, but now I get to teach and as the best part of my career and 30 years.
Welcome, Tony. That's his blue sky. He does have one of those on the other platform but blue sky I have no money involved with blue sky. Blue Sky does feel like early day Twitter. So I was hoping this conference would embrace it that way and it totally did that. Next up, Mr. Allen Henry.
Hi. Hi, my name is Alan. Emery. I am the Special Projects Editor at Wired. That means I do three things. I do I have that means I have three jobs. I I do bizdev stuff. I do service. I'm the service editor as well as what I was hired for. So service journalism is my bag and also I run wired games, so that's a big please don't follow me on blue sky. I'm entirely to blue there. Twitter. It's already Twitter. Like I will embarrass myself.
I'm waiting. What else? Oh, what? Oh, the
book. The book. Okay. Yeah, I wrote a book called seen heard and paid the new work roles for the marginalized Career Guide for people like everyone in this room who may feel like it's hard to get by, because they maybe don't have the same privileges as other people in their newsrooms or in their jobs or their or in their fields. So there's tips to get ahead, because I had to navigate it so hopefully you don't have to.
Really great book I was gonna tell you to bring some the sell and autograph books are heavy, man. That's what I thought. Next up, Mike.
Hi, I'm Mike De Fernandez. I work at the Washington Post. I'm an audience strategy editor. With the business and tech sections. I've been doing audience work for my entire career. So 10 years. I was gonna say I'm super excited and I came to slay but I'm actually terrified to have a job by the end of this and thanks for coming.
And last but not least, sushi Wang.
Hi, everybody. I'm CeCe way and opened it. No, we can you can all hear me. Right? I can tell. Okay, so I'm Cece. Way. I'm currently editor in chief of the markup. And this week on Tuesday, I hit one year. So that's been very exciting. Thank you. Thank you. I am terrified about what's about to happen but also very excited at the same time. And then I'll just say one last thing. Alan, when you said that your job is three things I thought you were gonna say your job is to be seen heard and hey.
Just so you know, we've been trying to be Allen street hype Dean for years, right, Emma? All that stuff. There you go. Add that to the collection. That's the press release there. You go. Awesome. All right. So they alluded to it before panelists. What have you heard about this session? I you know what you got yourself into? Improv was involved in improv. world to me. Thank you for trusting me. And being my friends to do this stuff. You'll have a good time I swear. Let me explain the rules, right. So it's based on the game blank is the future of journalism. What we'll do is we'll identify two players. player two will sit in this chair, not of shame and put on these noise cancelling headphones and listen to music. So when we talk about the category for player one, they won't get that advantage. What's the music
It's gotta be loud. And so big three is always up for the task. So, player two will be listening to those headphones and then player one will hear the category and they'll have 90 seconds in a to pitch why this category is the future of journalism. And I mentioned Pray tell hopefully some of you know Pray tell is if not, this is where he comes from. One of the greatest shows ever streaming on Hulu.
Oh,
about ballroom culture in New York. And so they say in the category so I'll try to do my best for that. And then after player one goes player two emerges from big Freda, by the way. I'm gonna move with this chair here. Because what happens every time is player two is in their own world dancing away, so we should also celebrate them. So Player Two joins, takes their seat and has 90 seconds to do the same thing. And then we as an audience decide who had a better impromptu pitch, right, who would we fund to? Blank is the future of journalism. And then we have a quick discussion right and then we move on to the next thing but of course, there's some twists and turns along the way. Oh, my God. There's no dancing except when you're with big Frida that's allowed and highly encouraged. All right, so one thing for everyone here, you know, they're joking about hope I still have a job they should still have a job. Give them the grace. This is not easy, right. When you think like public speaking I had to take speech class three times in college before I passed it. I'm an introvert. It's nerve racking. Yeah, guy my wife doesn't believe me either. My wife doesn't really matter, but it is when it's true. So I want you to give them grace. You can they're gonna drop knowledge. They don't even know they're going to be dropping their smart and talented folks. So they're going to be sharing that stuff. Please feel free to share that on all the platforms if you want. We have the hashtag a win a 23 blank. But again, right. So if there's something spicy, think about it. Is that worth sharing or not? Right? The pseudo Chatham House rules, which is maybe keep it anonymous if it's so onpoint it has to be embraced. So that's kind of the format here right? And I will tell you that everyone who's done it, I believe they're not lying to my face has loved it. So and so has the group right. So all right, everybody, let's get going. Let's begin. The first two players are Alan and Tony. Tony, please let me introduce you to big freedom.
So there you go. You hear it too going. All right. Tony is in with big Freda. And the category is sustainability, not profitability. You have 90 seconds on the clock. How is sustainability not profitability, the future of journalism? Take it away.
Fewer layoffs. Right
you got 85 more seconds.
Okay. I know it's like no, really, I think a lot about like the defector model partially because like I love those guys. And I used to work with them when I was at life hacker and they were all dead spin before everything went to shit. And they have a model that I think is not just working for them, but like you talk to them and they say things like oh yeah, we just want to do good journalism and pay our people. And that's it. They don't have a board to please. They don't have a company that needs to make profits. They don't have investors that are gonna get upset. As soon as you know x app or headlines or traffic dips a little bit. They want to do good, impactful meaningful journalism. And that's the entire goal. And that's the only want money for that. And I think that that's probably the model that's not just going to save the internet in general, but especially going to be critical for local journalism, because we've already established the market will not support local journalism. So stop relying on the market to support journalism. That's kind of my solution. There are lots of ways to go about it, none of which I have time to get into. But at the same time, like otherwise, other ways of saying, Let's make enough money to do the thing that we want to do and do it well and pay our people a living wage. And let's call it there, that's just it. And yeah, anything else can go reinvest it back into the things that we do, including equipment and people and training and resources. So there we go. Yeah. There you go. Hang out big free. I think you can listen to what you get.
You'll get everyone gets there. Everyone gets started with big freedom. All right, Joanie. Look, category is sustainability and not profitability. Sustainability, is the future of journalism. 90 seconds, take it away.
So sustainability versus profitability. Now a lot of stuff to say about this. I need to be careful.
So if we exclude profitability from the model, and we think about sustainability, we think about what we're delivering to our communities. A common thing I've seen pop up I've been here since last Sunday to conferences is joy. How do we bring joy to communities? How do we make communities understand each other? How do we understand the community how they understand us? Where's the intersection of what we deliver to them? If we can find that area, then we can begin to have talked the same language. Another point of that is like the status quo equals inertia, and not if nothing changes, then we all fell so I'm gonna say something that someone else said I can't remember who said it. But in journalism, it's time to start dismantling capital, capitalism. Because if we focus on that, then we will not be sustainable. If we put profits before people before communities before anything, then our mission is to serve money. And money is not what our communities are made of. Humans are and if we don't address the humanity, we don't bring joy if we don't share our stories with each other. We have no hope of being sustainable. So profits will destroy journalism, and sustainability will be the future of journalism.
Well done, sir. Well done. Somehow, we must judge against the two. So I'll put my hand over the panelists round of applause if you think they're the winner there. So we'll start with Alan. All right now Tony. Cody has edged it out, I think very close to 20. Let's discuss it. Let's discuss it thoughts and yes, and panelists. You guys want to add anything? I will add that Nicole in her talk yesterday said something that really stuck with me. When you look at our front pages. What do you see? Do you see our communities being reflected back? Or do you see power? Is it about the power? Those of power with power are those in our community? Right? And so you guys really hit that for me? You guys want to Yes. And or anyone will say that's bullshit. Its profits, profits, profits.
No, I think I mean, I agree with both of you. I think if anything, you know this changes with I went to a bunch of talks about you know how Facebook has moved away from news and all the changes in search. And so the business model that we have now is under threat, right? So it is it's been a constant question, how do we find profitability and I do think that focusing on sustainability could be another way to go about it.
Yeah, yeah. Someone said this earlier in the week. Onboarding for sorry, someone said this earlier in the week onboarding for all your employees should include onboarding them to your revenue model.
That's great. Yeah. Hey, so we checked out the AI powered live transcript. Let's see if it says anything. I'm curious. I've been watching him like, Did it say right? It's really what I'm saying right now. Hey, are you listening to me? You're listening to me, aren't you? Okay, so yeah, there's also this mindset right in because of the web, we became more digital software development and that not fully realistic idea of 100x. Can we make journalism 100x We are not Facebook. We are not Instagram. We are allegedly we say are the voice of the voiceless, you know, informing our communities and taking 100x I'm using the word taking, taking 100x from our community doesn't seem to align with what we say we want to do. So I really liked that. That bakery store in your town in your neighborhood that is not looking the franchise is so happy, and you have a relationship with them. And I think that's something that really has an impact. So cool. Thank you. Thank you for first round back. Next to cc MIT. No CC you stay. Let's have you meet big freedom
just embrace it. Just embrace it. All right. You going there you go. And the category is change makers, change makers. You messed up my a change maker. No change makers are the future of journalism. I had to tweak the grammar. change makers are the future of journalism. You have 90 seconds on the clock. Take it away.
Okay, so change makers are the future of journalism, because what is journalism's purpose, except you actually make a difference in the world, right? Like let's take it beyond informing communities, but actually informing them in a way such that they can make change for themselves to make their circumstances better. And so if that's the case, then journalism is actually just about change. And when we talk about even sustainability, right, why Why won't people pay for journalism? Is it helping them accomplish the goals they need to accomplish? Is it serving them the information they need to make decisions, if we actually enable and equip everyone to become changemakers so that they feel like they have agency in places in which they feel powerless? That is where journalism become something that is actually useful and critical to people's lives. And so change makers also another way of thinking about it as the future of journalism is that anyone can make change despite their situation. So you can think about it as individuals, but you can also thinking about it as say a union. You can think about it as just employees of a company wanting to change something. You can also think about it top down as regulators wanting to change something right? Our whole society is about change. And if journalism isn't there to explicitly serve change, making for a better world, then what are we doing? That's the future of journalism. There you go. Nicely done. Nicely done.
I like you were humming along. Enjoy. You'll enjoy this part too. All right. The category is changemakers. change makers are the future of journalism. Ready? 90 seconds on the clock. How is changemakers the future of journalism?
So changemakers are the future of journalism because we need people to come up with new ideas and to talk to the communities that we're serving, and to have that knowledge from the ground up, to instill the change that we need. To see in the newsrooms and in the products that we serve. We cannot rely on sometimes, you know, leadership that is, you know, they are of course we're you know, concern about the business and looking at every different all the different parts of the news operation, but I do think that you know, there's always that person in the newsroom that is very curious and likes to you know, talk to people and try new things like has all these ideas. I believe those individuals with a you know, when they find themselves with other people like them, and they can introduce change in newsrooms and organizations. I feel like that's how we are going to build the, you know, the next phase of the future of journalism. I you know, I mentioned it before, it does feel like this is a moment of extreme change in our industry, where we are trying, you know, we're, we have news avoidance, we have a dropping traffic everywhere across all news organizations. So, people are going to be this change maker, innovators are going to be the future.
They go. Well done. Well done. You did it. You done it. There you go. There we go. So we'll do the judging part. More CC's answer
you want that one there. So let's discuss it. What's your reaction? Yes. And
one thing that you said Cece, that reminded me of some of my own experiences, is being it is as much as change makers are going to be the future of journalism. I also think it's worth reminding legacy or established leaders in newsrooms to give those changemakers the safety to suggest changes to act on changes to plan and help introduce those changes. Because so often, a lot of places you have somebody come in with really great ideas, and they're just stonewalled by someone because it's, well, this is how we've always done it. And the industry isn't the way it always used to be. So it's tough in that regard. But I mean, if you don't change in that regard, I mean, come on. What what are you going to do in the next 510 years right so you're gonna go to
I will just plus one that because that's exactly what I wanted to say. And you did it so well. Thank you.
Well, I'll sudo plus one it but also say it's not about age that makes a difference. So you mentioned legacy, and I always, you know, I have my bosses have been great, but my bosses have also been in the way and I have had mentors and bosses at other organizations that have been changemakers but also hit that ceiling and it had nothing to do with age. It's just that drive and who is who's comfortable to take make those changes and make those leaps and who is not. And how long will it take for them to retire?
I'll add I'll add to that too, which is just who is allowed to fail meaning they're allowed to trial, meaning they're allowed to try right? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I also liked that, mashing those to the previous category and this one is about like, changing from profitability. Dismantling capitalism. Those are like big concepts. But also having that comfort to make those changes to empower our communities. There's a theme that emerged there so thank you for that. Thank you, but around the boss again. Oh, everyone knows this one, right. This is the game that happens every year called is that your chick? I'm gonna put a image on the screen and you give me a thumbs up or thumbs down. If that's your chick, hold the thumb up. You have a question, Alan.
Yes. It's anybody hiring for a senior senior level editor.
Oh, wait. We'll take questions and suggestions at the end. All right, looking at the screen, hands up. Is that your chick? Yeah. I'm sorry, you're all wrong. That is not a chick that isn't is is AI. How do you pronounce it? Pious is so that's a baby hawk. Not a chick but but I'm glad you welcome all little birds into your life. Alright, let's go back to the game. Oh, wait. Thank you for playing All right, next up is Tony and CC. CC. Let's have you have some time with Krita. Every year I do that one. It's so stupid. I love it. I thought and not talking it's a cute bird though. All right. And the category is Tony. Learned empathy, learned empathy, 90 seconds on the clock. Take it away.
So one on ones and work development meetings. Yearly reviews are not how you learn about your employees. So we learned it from the product process. Process. It's empathize define ideate, prototype, test and assess. But what happens when we really look at empathy and what is it? What does it mean to empathize? So the product rule does this really, really well? So they go out and they conduct interviews. They seek out stories and they uncover emotions. We don't do that in the newsroom. If you look at your standard customer profile, it's like what are their jobs to be done? What are their pains and what are their gains? So if we take that and we break that apart, there's this awesome former journalist named Dave Gray, who went on to IDEO and now he owns his own consulting firm. he redid the empathy map. So now we go and we ask, Who are they? What are they need to do? So like, that's their job. What are they see? What do they say? What do they actually do? And there's a huge difference between what people need to do and what they actually do. What are they hearing? And then most importantly, how do they think and feel? So how do we engage and talk to people? How do we observe what they're doing? How do we understand the jobs they're doing? So I'm suggesting you take this framework, you bring in everyone your team, and you actually learn who they are as humans and not what their jobs are trying to accomplish? And that's why empathy is the future of journalism. Stuck.
All right, so you see, have a seat. And the category is learned empathy, learned. Empathy, is the future of journalism. You'll have 90 seconds on the clock. Ready? Take it away.
So did you know that there's been a psychological study done, that the longer people are in management and top leadership, the less empathetic they become? And the way that they did this study was they asked people to do something very simple to sit in front of another human being and draw a capital E on their forehead so that the other person could read it? And it was correlated that people who have been in management and top leadership for a long time drew the E so that they could read it, not the person sitting across from them so when we want to talk about learned empathy, I consider myself a very empathetic person. I attribute that to how much I play Dungeons and Dragons because you have to embody another character really, and really get to know them right and in their shoes. Now, I have started to feel that this hobby of mine is what is keeping me anchored as management is doing its psychological thing to my brain, right? Like how do you make sure you're always learning and practicing empathy as an art and a craft in order to keep that trait about yourself? I guess to get philosophical, I do believe that all human beings are born empathetic to other other living creatures. But as we age and society works, it's like weird entanglements on us. We got to keep practicing it and that is why it's the future of journalism. Otherwise we lose ourselves. Well done.
Robbie, knowledge bombs. I would like to link to that report. That's bananas. All right. Let's do the judging. So Tony was first
right there so let's yes and and discuss. What do you think?
That was awesome. I'm being super serious. Everyone should play some kind of game where do you have to pretend to be a totally different person genuinely, it helps with empathy a lot.
Mom used to say, put yourself in other people's shoes. And really, that's really wonderful observation that I hadn't thought about in terms of design, thinking reframing. That's something we teach that I have a product class we teach that but we kind of know like, yeah, you got to know what they are in journalism. We don't have time to, to what have observed and listen without judgment. That's what the design thinking framework is. So I like that new persona stuff and then having a manager to it like, Yes, please. And that study shows that so brilliantly. You want to add something else.
When I talk about empathy in my leadership classes, I always ask Who here thinks they're empathetic and a lot of people raise their hands. And then I asked, How many of you have been trained to be empathetic and no one raises their hands. So this is just something like in leadership we don't talk about
and how do you trying to
Yeah, that's my follow up. You got to go to pointer, you got to go to pointer and take one of his classes. So right there,
I spent the last six months designing empathy curriculum. I'm still designing it just talking to Damon, he's out this week. He's helping me do some stuff. So we're trying to build something
more to come. That's really great. Really great. Are you guys liking this session? There you go. There you go. Thank you all right.
Well, these are for the tick doctors who saw this trend for a little bit for you didn't see it. Don't worry, we'll onboard you. But someone started how, if Hogwarts was an HBCU I would every house arrive to the party. And that spawned all this stuff. Really great chick talks. So this is opened up to everybody to answer. Someone created the website for Hogwarts eight nmu. So h m mu and they had a faculty page that headmaster or biology he's gonna be, her biology is going to be taught by SNU. Right. So my question, I'll give you two questions. You can answer you can pass who is the journalism professor at Hogwarts? AMU. And what is the student newspaper name? Any ideas? We can open it up to Potterheads in the audience if anyone wants to do that. Any ideas and ideas nominations? Nicole Hannah Jones is the name that comes to mind. For journalism. And I can tell you, their board won't do anything stupid with our candidate that we hired.
Alright, we'll move on. I just liked that. And I know that Tiktok trend actually is old but I still I'm still in my head. It's great. It's great. All right, next to Mike. You're gonna stay there. Alan, come have a seat and with big freedom you got your chance excellent
Oh, yeah. Hold on. No, there you go. That's the one I'm gonna give. Booty walk. Booty Whap is a bit free to classic All right, Mike they and the category is highly personalized, and conversational. highly personalized is the future of journalism. 90 seconds on the clock. Take it away.
So I've been thinking a lot about AI and how is going to be used in journalism, because as we all heard, AI is the future of journalism. I think we are going to see a lot of news organizations starting to experiment with it. There's also going to be some probably bad experiments because as an industry, we we love shiny new things. And sometimes we just don't think about the user case. But I do see some you know, ways that AI can help us re engage our audiences. I think you know, we could come up with some sort of chatbot that people would actually interact with and say, you know, they will come in fine. You know, they say, Oh, I have three tomatoes in my fridge. Why can I make for dinner, and we can show them my recipe. They you know and I feel like he can go from advice to voting information. So I think the way we're going to see this play out is going to be very personalized, right it's not going to be from like a few to all one size fits all but it's going to be more on a one on one. And I think that can also help with news avoidance because AI is also going to get better at understanding what people are are going to ask for. Thank you girl thank you
all right, Alan. Booty wapas a future
How would you know? The category is highly personalized and conversational, highly personalized is the future of journalism. 90 seconds. Take it away.
All right. Wow. highly personalized and conversational journalism is the future journalism is because one of the things I learned when I was running life hacker was that a lot of people don't really like journalism that speaks to them in an academic way. They don't like it when they you are the professors but no offense professors. I would love to join you.
I don't talk down to them because I hate when professors and other people have power
systems. People one of the reasons life hacker was so successful for being a blog that was literally run by five people was because the entire methodology was we're the friend at the bar that talks to you about things that we like and use, and we wouldn't recommend something to you that we wouldn't tell our aunt or uncle to use. And I feel like that's when I was at the New York Times. That was the gospel I was trying to spread around the newsroom was this notion that even when it came to national affairs and political journalism, people want to hear from their trusted authority figures, not because they're authorities, but because they're more knowledgeable. So you know something I don't sit down with me and talk to me about it. Teach me what I need to know that I don't know that's happening elsewhere in the world from person to person, kind of conversational perspective. And then that's how you fight things like disinformation. That's how you fight things like media literacy, because you don't have to be super literate in the way journalism is done. In order to in order to sit down and just talk to somebody. That's how you get subscribers. That's how you say
hey, there you go. There you go. Well, done. Time for the judging bar.
Have no idea on that one. It's a tie. It's a tie. Yeah. Let us discuss. Yes and ideas.
Well, maybe this is because you planted the idea with the potter versus tiktoks. But it did while both of you are speaking it made me think about highly personalized as how much the Tick Tock algorithm is serving people really unique things based on what they actually want, not who they follow, right and if we could come up, like if we could actually serve journalism to people in that way, where we know it's like quality journalism on things they actually care about. You're like, given delivered to them, right? Like that would be incredible. Yeah,
one thing I learned Applegate at the times when back in the day, when I was smarter living editor at The Times, we had a little bar on the homepage that was just for smarter living and it was just kind of an experiment to put service journalism on the homepage of the New York Times gangbusters traffic of course it is but like that's also why they took it away from us. But but we ran an experiment for probably two years. That was okay. 10% of the audience gets an algorithmically programmed, like a smarter living bar, right based on things that they are interested in. They've communicated us understood it. Everybody else gets the version that we programmed as editors write. The algorithm beat the crap out of us. Like every time we were like, we think that these four stories are the best examples. And they did okay. The algorithm just blew us out of the water every single time. And it's just because these were our subscribers telling us what they wanted and every now when again, we throw in something that was off the cuff like a little political news, little little real estate news or something like that, and they eat it up. So what we learned was when you give people what they want, they're more inclined to consume the things that you think they need. Like they will eat their vegetables, if you give them the ice cream. So like, you know, nobody wants to read the 50th climate change story about how we're all gonna die. But you have to and if you get if you put that in between something actionable and useful, and in other where it's uplifting, then they'll consume it and be like, Oh, I feel better about knowing about this thing.
Yeah, it helps anyone else want anything?
I think it's just bringing those old legacy print systems into the new world without like understanding, not having the tools at first and understanding how much content was out there and how you could do this and just becoming comfortable with that situation and that idea of gatekeeping and we decide what you read. And now that that doesn't have to exist that's hard for a lot of deciders to like reckoned with.
I wonder if people hear oh, let the algorithm give them ice cream and they think oh my gosh, but then how will they know how to vote or what corruption is or what have you? And there is a balance of someone lecturing you to eat vegetables and then someone cooking a vegetarian meal that is so delicious. You're like, meat what? I think that's a thing. A lot of people just think something scary, but you can present it in a way that it's all of those answers. For those who kind of have that reaction to it. You have to remember they're coming from the base of our core journalistic values to inform ethically and accurately that doesn't change whether you put some cheese on the broccoli are not our goal is still to give them that broccoli. Right. So that that's the thinking that I think is really important. And I think you know, since AI is the future of journalism, you mentioned that that that it could in a in a personalized type of way really start to know how you speak and your what your values are and it helps you consume news that way to get the news avoiders to come in and invoking Tik Tok I think does a wonderful job because tick tock is fantastic. It gives me obscure Salvadorian I'm Salvadorian stevedoring comedic skits and tells me how you know clean talk. The Tick Tock for cleaning that I was like, Okay, let's do that. Amazon you just bought I just bought the shoe cleaners or whatever. There was a mashup of there's a balance of there and yeah, tick tock is pretty powerful in that regard. And the other things anyone else want to add anything there I forgot to go to the awnings to add you should include you on the Yes hands but All right. Next one is also a group exercise and I like the ball. But I still want to party things I like I'm ready to Barbie is the future of journalism. Assuming although some of you told me you didn't, but assuming you were like with the rest of the planet and watched Barbie before Oppenheimer. But think of everything in the Barbie movie or in the Barbie verse. And feel free to pick something that makes black something related to Barbie the future of journalism now if you didn't see it, and if you don't feel like you don't want to answer that one. That's fine. I will be sad. Look, I had a like Photoshop a bunch of things. And like my search history is all over the place with Barbie journalism dolls. That's Ida B. Wells, by the way, made an Ida B. Wells one. So does anyone want to answer Barbie is the future of journalism in which way? Yes, go for it.
So um, I think the way that I would answer this, so I watched the Bing movie which I loved. And but I had to process it for a while like, like, did I like everything about it, or did I just like that it was fun. And then I don't remember who wrote this but in a review, someone wrote that the Barbie movie can be interpreted as a primal scream right? It's it doesn't have to be everything. And it's also kind of raw in a way of just getting those emotions out there. Without me spoiling I guess what the Barbie movie is really about. But I think in that way, like primal screams are the future of journalism because if you think about it, it's about finally naming the truths of people's experience, and also people finally being able to express them. And I feel like when journalism gets that, right, that is actually when our work resonates with people and communities and also but like honing that and finding that rawness and being able to synthesize it make sense of it is a very difficult task. And journalism is very equipped to do that first draft task.
Yeah. Great. Great. Anyone else want to do one?
I didn't watch the movie. I think the way I would think about it is to me when I think about Barbie, it's seems like a Legacy product right from from another time that had different values. At the time. I didn't grow up playing Barbies myself, but there was also the you know, a representative from where I'm from it represented like this ideal for like women, right and like consumerism. And I feel like what the director has done, you know, based on like the people who have watched it and loved it was to refresh this brand to the moment that we're leaving right now, right? Other people say it's like an intro to feminism, right? So how can like Barbie become, you know, like a feminist, right, like, carry those values. So I think there's a lesson for us there to learn a su you know, how we are, you know, Legacy news organizations, how do we adapt to these times how, you know, we talk about objectivity a lot. What does that mean in this, you know, this moment, and what values do we carry from before that maybe don't apply anymore so, that's why I think Barbie is the future of journalism. There
you go. There you go. You guys want to give it a go?
I didn't see it. But my wife saw she had a big group of women that went with her to see it. But I want to say like there's this idea of like, monoculture can still be the future because of how much connection was around that. Just like how many people I heard connecting with it and it even said, like, kind of a spark off on native Twitter, because there was a joke in it. That wasn't great. But it wasn't you saw this thing because you read so many good things about the movie and how women were connecting with it. Even native Twitter was like, didn't cancel there was no like canceling it. I think people just saw the connection in the moment and how happy people were or how people were communicating around it and like celebrating that. So like, you gave me this hope that like with mom, even though monoculture almost doesn't exist. We still connect as humans.
Yeah, I was gonna mention that in that movie where everything is so creatively thoughtful and written and has this balance of bright pink worlds with fun and laughter and really serious topics woven in there, that they made a throwaway comment that just stood just what was that? But I'm gonna I'm gonna say that mistake is part of the future of journalism because we will make mistakes and hopefully, I haven't heard if the director acknowledged that or something. Like that, but hopefully, you know, we will make errors and we do corrections and we learn from it. The other thing I would mention is that I saw a lot a headline that said or opinion piece that said that Hollywood or the industry is taking the wrong lesson from this movie. They're saying toy movies, guys make money with toys? No, it's about telling stories, authentic stories, powerful stories of a community. In this case, it's women, but it was It wasn't just what's your name? But like Issa Rae as president and all this stuff, really phenomenal. kind of piece. So yes, sir. You want to add some
other concepts on that one thought is to kind of inverse it and recognize that the future journalism is not can and as again as as old white man in his 50s You know, that's something that that I have to recognize and really embrace and help accelerate. The ability to share stories and share voices from other backgrounds like Ken represents Mad Men, right, is that it's a completely different generation of voices. So we have to recognize that and embrace it and go with it.
And the other way before we go on the other thing, that was fucking awesome. That was a great insight and vulnerability and recognition of changing and all that stuff. So thank you for saying that. Your second one
is just blowing my mind about this and it kind of gets to the vegetables and the ice cream concept. Is that it's insane to me that all of a sudden I've got co workers who are 2223 years old. No Oppenheimer is. meant a lot to me growing up, but it doesn't mean anything to my children who were that age. And somehow or another Barbie trick people into going to see me first learned from that, right?
Yes. Yeah, they both won. They both won. Thank you for that. Thank you for that.
As a recovering physicist, myself, as a recovering physicist myself, I was very pleased I am actually a physicist in case anybody's wondering, awesome. Like, I guess I was like, Crap people care about. People care about nuclear physics. Oh, my God. But one thing I want to I do want to piggyback off that real quick because like, you know, I also haven't seen the movie because but it's just not a movie person. But like, the concept of like, She's everything and he's just can Yeah, it's okay. That's just can. It's okay, we can he can be who he is. And we have this industry where all of us are expected to be everything. Every time something new happens. We're expected to be right on it, right. We're all expected to be video producers, audio producers, we're all expected to be social people, audience development, SEO. And meanwhile, we have a lot of people in this industry who are like, can I just be a reporter? Please? Can I just be an editor like I wake up and I'm like, That's brilliant. I have to fight through meetings where I'm like, trying to fight off Saudi money. And like, my job sits on the firewall for ads. So like I have to deal with business stuff as well as like newsroom stuff. But like, I have to fight off Saudi buddy and I'm like, I just want to edit a story please for the love of God and like my freelancers are like, hey, so I sent you a draft two weeks ago, and I'm like, Please, can I just begin today? But I think that there's value in that and saying like, hey, just because you know you are. You've been in the newsroom forever, and you're an old white man who's been there forever. I still have to learn I want to learn from you and your experience in this industry. Just because I'm coming in like, I know how to tick tock doesn't mean that like, it doesn't mean that I'm a Pulitzer Prize winner. Yeah, no, everybody has something to gain from everybody else.
That was amazing. Look, I put this on there. I've had some in the past where Mike let's just see what happens and then these pearls come out. That's why I love this session. There's a hand over there Yes.
Yeah, to put the actor back in the box. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. Thank you for that. Speaking of can for me, that's been around your cannith But you're not paid. You're not getting paid enough. So there you go.
I just want to validate what you say.
So friends, I took your mug shots. It's my new profile pic. And I put it in there but see your profiles for CC cut off your head. For some of you, you didn't have enough body. So I took it into AI to extend the picture. Mighty there's one that's really weird where you have folded arms, but it's just one flesh. I'm not gonna show it. But I don't know if you're gonna hate me for making these cards. But it says this. Barbie is the future of journalism. Feel free to use it to tweet it I will send it to you guys.
Bobby Vicki still in doubt,
it's Barbie bench if you're still in doubt, all right. Wait a minute, you guys. Barbie and all is great. But always now in forever. Beyonce is the future of journalism. All right, so that is from a song called this for everybody. song called America has a problem. And last year, we changed it to journalism has a problem. That's a negative. So it may have a problem. I want you to share a solution. Big or small? You know a problem. What's the solution people can do? All right.
Do we have to say the problem? Are you telling us?
No no, no. You can say the problem. Go for it. Yeah. Just focus on the solution. The solution is more important.
Or we're gonna stare awkwardly at each other. And AI is like I don't know what to
do what to say something. validate your point and then turn it into a solution. Let's stop punishing people for what they really want to do by promoting them into management positions. If you want to be a reporter be a reporter like don't let capitalism and like organizational systems define your success.
So the solution is anti capitalist.
A reporter's more money Yes,
absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, living wages for all living
wage and Brene you want to say something?
Internships fellowship for that that give them a job. That's a great solution.
backing from that, just because somebody's a great reporter and they promote them to editor doesn't mean they're going to be a great
manager. Yeah, 100% 100% training, they
need the right skills and you know, personal like soft skills too. So this just stopped doing that.
Send them the pointer and have them learn empathy, see what I did. I better hit 10%. Anyone else want to jump in a solution? You've been? You've been in the space. This conference for this week. Something popped out. We are starting to run out of time. No serious not about you. We offer the ability for someone to throw out a challenge the challenge a panelist Does anyone do that anyone have a topic that they would want to tap into the wisdom? Maybe a follow up question or a yes and or any of the topics that we talked about? Don't be shy or we will stare awkwardly at each other? Yes, sir.
People in college now. It's a challenge to attract people in college into our field.
I have a question. Why do you think that is
why do you think well, what's the cause?
I also you know, I'm a professor and I would echo that but we've all joined this industry with high stress, low pay. The difference is they don't feel like they can make a change. They don't feel like there'll be heard they don't feel like there'll be valued regardless of what that paycheck is. So why grind and be chewed out by an industry that doesn't act like they want them, let alone learn from them? I think that that to me is that challenge? Yeah, yeah, it was assumed I don't know what the difference is. But yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for that. Yes. Panel happening right now the title of which is freelances the future? Oh is there I got a trademark. Trademark this thing. I'd like to know the response to great. Is freelancing, the future of journalism? The answer's yes.
Do they have health care? Do they have benefits? Do they? Yeah, so no, it's not.
Oh, interesting. Okay, but there are ways to get be a freelancer and get health care. You know, we're seeing the protest in LA the sag and Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, I think that has a lot of things to learn from where yes, you need health care. You need the basics. That's a human right in this country with political oh my god if you the doctor how political is that? But freelancing is a really wonderful way for you to live on your terms, but comes with challenges. Did you want to add something? Yeah, I
was gonna say like, one of the things that we're seeing in this industry as a whole is we just keep shedding reporter and editor jobs, and then using that money to pick up freelance contributors. And like I see it at Wired, like, I've had to close hires that I had open, and then they turn around, they're like, Well, you can have some more freelance money if you want. And I'm kind of like, okay, what you're doing is asking me to do another person's job. Yeah, I get that. But like, you can't keep doing that. Right. And I get that like nowadays if you can't make freelancing appealing to younger people, they're not going to try they're not going to get into it. And this you've got another part of this industry that's so set up on kind of personal branding and I say that as somebody who like, you know, I am myself very much everywhere I am but like, if you don't have a personal brand, you can't get the freelance kids. You can't get the columns. And that's not how this I mean, ideally, that's not how journalism and industry that's set up to inform and speak truth to power should be set up, right. The barrier to entry shouldn't be so high that you need to be a self sustaining person in order to participate. Yeah, and that sucks. Yeah. So But that said, in this industry the way it is right now, yeah, freelancing is how you get yourself in. I mean, what I was getting into was blogging. Right? They remember blogs, anybody remember blogs, but like, yeah, nowadays, I let I work with a lot of first time writers at Wired specifically because I firmly believe and I believe this at the time two times two, that people come to me and say, Oh, I don't my words aren't good enough. I'm not of that caliber of writer and I'm like you haven't seen the things I've edited yet. I said that a lot of the New York Times, too. I mean, the New York Times story publication. I worked there for four years. I loved it, I hated it. But also like, just because you work the New York Times doesn't mean you're a good journalist.
I'm going to repeat that again. Just because you work at the New York Times, doesn't mean you're a good journalist. I lost the conversation at the time. There are there's good journalists everywhere. I mean, correct. Correct. And I was in conversation with someone from that organization. And they said we deal with truth. And I thought like, your version of truth or the people of that type of caliber power perspective, version of truth that doesn't acknowledge the existence of other people's version of truth. And that framework has actual harm. Anyway, that's another thing. We're gonna we're gonna
talk about freelancers. Okay, go for it. Okay, I'll make it quick. So I agree with everything that's been said. Something else that I've been thinking about a lot recently and hearing from from specifically, I guess it just happens to be this way, but specifically from a couple of women, women of color who have chosen to be freelancers instead of full time staff and talking about how they do that because it was their way of hacking the system. Yes. Meaning when they were fully employed, they were not given the chances to pursue the ambitious projects they wanted to. And only as a freelancer were they allowed to do that. And so then now they're actually quite resistant to being hired by place because they don't think there'll be treated well. And I think like, you know, like all things, right. There's the pros and cons, and it gets really complicated, because not everyone can do that. But at the same time, being able to opt out of the system also has its benefits. So like, yeah,
yeah, makes me think of your can and you are enough. You don't have to be full time to be enough. You don't have to be freelance to be enough. It's whatever path that makes you feel complete. Where over time, I was gonna say if we had time for one more game, which Beyonce character you would have picked in a Dungeons and Dragons match. But we don't have time for that. So we have to pick a winner. So which one of these folks is the winner? Just kidding. Everyone's a winner here. Jeffrey Bezos thanks you. I got his permission. Don't worry. He thinks I'm a Prime member and he thanked me for sending him to space. Can you pay me closer codes for blue sky take a picture of them. Leave the Nazi platform and join any other platform Nazi platform aI mean Twitter at you knew it AI and use any one of these 16 codes that was donated by the journalist of color slack. Pop in there, join. And all honestly thank you to our panel a round of applause you did it. You did it. And thank you all for coming and sticking around. You can rate reviews subscribe. Tell a friend. Get it back next year.
