Regional collaboration: Lessons from public media (CJS2022 Day 2)

6:49PM May 25, 2022

Speakers:

Stefanie Murray

Kathy Goldgeier

Kenya Young

Priska Neely

Corrie MacLaggan

Adriene Hill

Keywords:

stations

npr

reporters

newsroom

collaboration

story

texas

big

audience

statewide

hubs

challenges

people

journalists

state

journalism

california

managing editor

editor

sharing

So next up, I like to bring some folks from NPR to the stage. NPR has one of the most sophisticated network of collaboratives in the United States, and employs more collaboration managers than any other news organization that I've identified. Or we've identified for research in the United States specifically. And today, we're going to talk about the NPR collaborative hubs that the organization has built. And we will hear from some managers of those hubs. So I'd like to hand it over to Kathy Goldgeier, who's going to lead today's discussion, Kathy, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much. It's great to be here. We're really excited to join all of you, it's been such a fascinating day to hear about all these different things going on. It's just, it's always energizing to be in the collaboration space in here, all these exciting other projects. We're really happy to be here to talk with you a little bit today. You heard earlier today, some of our colleagues in public media talk about collaborating in the service of coverage of state government. And we're going to talk about something a little bit different. And I just want to sort of give you a little bit of context to start out. First of all, I'm Kathy Goldgeier, I'm at NPR. And I work with what we fondly call our hubs, but formally, we call them our regional newsrooms. And we have four of them right now. And to put that in context for you a little bit, NPR is the network where the center, we have about 400, reporters, editors, producers of our own. And then there are 251 member stations, and they collectively have about 1800 journalists, each of the stations is independently owned and operated. And that's where our part of collaboration comes in. The thing that we all are involved with is trying to knit some of those stations closer to each other and closer to NPR. And so all of us on this panel today are part of the Collaborate to collaborative journalism initiative at NPR. And we are excited to talk to you about what we do, each of our Regional newsrooms has a managing editor, and most of the other panelists are a managing editor of one of those newsrooms, except for my colleague, Kenya Young, who is the managing editor for collaborative journalism at NPR. And we're going to start off with Kenya and then each of the other managing editors is going to talk a little bit about their particular collaboration. So can you maybe you could start us off with a little bit of an explanation about why NPR decided to go into the regional newsroom business and and how did these all get started?

Absolutely. Thank you very much, Kathy, for setting this up and bringing us all together to talk about this. It has been a fruitful day so far for everyone. I think we're the last panel for you guys. Hopefully, you'll be able to sign off after us. But we'll leave you with some good tidbits. Yeah, you know, about four years ago, and I admit that I was not a part of this. At that time when these were launching and, and getting off the ground. I was actually at that time running Morning Edition. But these regional hubs, regional newsrooms that we call them, regional collaborations, a lot of different names for them, have been in play for about four years from postit to execution. And we're now in a space where we have all four up and running. And so the idea behind them, and I'll explain kind of each of them and their development as we go on. But the idea behind them is that

to a couple of things, two things, particularly when we saw the way local journalism was going right, we saw the newspapers dying out, we saw that there was a need for, for bolstering local journalism, particularly for serving our local communities and our audiences. And we also know very much particularly in public media and a lot of media organizations across the country right now is that we are heavily under resourced across the level, it doesn't matter whether you're a small station or large station, or quite honestly, MPR. We just don't have the resources as some of the big media organizations that we were competitors that were considered our competitors. And that also started kind of showing up in the region where we already had station. And so we knew we had this system. As Kathy explains, we've got headquarters in Washington, DC, but we've got all these 250 member stations where we have 800 member stations, but as far as having newsroom 250 Other newsrooms that we wanted to tap into in a different way. And so we work together to form partnerships. The first one was the Texas newsroom. And there's four stations Cory will be talking to you in a little bit for stations by stations. that have come together that are prominent in the Texas area. But they've come together to work in a different way than they ever had before. And suddenly we're sharing resources. We're sharing reporters during breaking news. During a shooting during the ice power storm right? Before this, every single station with sending a reporter to the same story, we have found a way now to send one reporter a cover story and have our other reporters in other locations, work on stuff like digital and and do stories within their community. We spread it out. And we distribute in different ways. And now suddenly, we've been able to bolster the journalism in that area. After the Texas newsroom. We have Christina on our panel as well. We built the full state newsroom, and the California newsroom. But both state newsroom is a great example of really attacking, tackling a news desert. at NPR, we I ran a couple of shows. And I can tell you over and over again, the hardest place to get stories out of were Jackson, Mississippi, Birmingham, Alabama, and Louisiana. And so we went to the stations in those areas to say what can we do to resource each of these outfits better, to help you guys have better content in your space and distribute content across your stations together, but also elevate it to NPR. And what we've seen is not only are we getting some extremely well done impact accountability story in that stories in that area. And those four stations are sharing them with each other, thereby having more content regionally in the era area. But we've also seen a significant increase on MPRs air from that area within the past two years, to where quite honestly, like I said, as an EP running shows I almost never got stories out of because the stations just didn't have the reporting capacity. Again, I mentioned the California newsroom, which Adrian will talk to you about as well, where there's a lot of coordination as you can imagine a lot of stations in that area. And it's a real example of the benefit of what I call the trifecta, benefiting the local communities and audiences, benefiting the stations and benefiting NPR. Again, it's how they work together. They do investigations, they pull resources from other stations. And our last one that stuff had been up and running for the last year is the Midwest newsroom, covering several states in the Midwest. And it also has an investigative model. And it follows kinds of impacts and accountability. And just to talk about, you know, there's an example of a meeting in there, that really makes me think about why collaboration, why builds these what is the difference, and I remember sitting in one of the meeting, and they were talking about an impact and accountability story, they were working on it. And suddenly, you know, the one of the the GM I believe from from Iowa Public Radio was saying, Well, you know, we've got a visuals person that we can add to that story, if you need to use them. Let's go ahead and put this on this story as well. And then you've got the Kansas City Station thing, we've also got a data journalist that we can give to you. And then we've suddenly, a team that was just an editor at a reporter at one station became a huge reporting team with digital with social photographer, data reporting, and elevated into a space, it just makes a story bigger. And we were able to get the resources and apply it across all station and MPR as well. So that's the big picture when I'm seeing when we're planning these. And we do plan to do more of these, these four are really kind of off to the races and doing their thing in there areas. And we see the need for them, we see the benefit that they bring in their area, and to the audiences. We're telling stories that we've never told before because they can get in there. And we're coordinating in ways that we haven't before. And I will let the stellar managing editors on my screen dive into that more to tell you exactly how we're doing that.

Thanks, Kenya, I think we're gonna go first to Priska Neely, who is the managing editor of the Gulf states newsroom and Priska, tell us about your collaboration there.

Hi, well, yes, as Kenya and Kathy said, you know, the Gulf states newsroom was the first one that was working across states. So coming into this and it was also pandemic times. It was challenging to figure out, you know, how do we work together? What are the things that we do have in common? What are the issues that we do have in common, so it was set up in advance to really focus on beats and issues that were shared across the state. So criminal justice, health care, wealth impact Property, race and equity. Those are those are reporters that I've hired and brought on to be based in each of the stations and cover those issues across the region. And their stories air on each of the stations in our partnership. So that's WB hm. And Birmingham, Mississippi, public broadcasting in Jackson and WWE know, in New Orleans, and w RKf, in Baton Rouge. And these are all what I always call small, but mighty stations, you know, they're essential resources in the region, but the newsrooms are, you know, like six people. And so when it comes to substantial beat reporting, that's a real challenge. It's a real challenge to be able to balance local needs with national needs. And so now with, you know, our I, our broad mission, I always say is just doing more together, how can we take one story that a reporter is doing out of Alabama, Mississippi and Alabama are usually doing the same thing, sometimes Louisiana is doing something a little bit different. So we can frame stories, either comparing and contrasting or looking at solutions. And we've really just been able to up the content that you see on each of these, these sites and what you hear on the radio a lot, a lot of the content is coming from Gulf states, newsroom team. So now I have six folks under me. Two editors and four reporters, and we're going to be adding to that team as well. And, yeah, it's it's been, it's been challenging. But it's been really great to be able to really see how how the news directors and the stations are really thinking differently about how we're framing stories and sharing content.

Thanks. I'm going to take you next to Texas, and Corrie MacLaggan, who is our Managing Editor.

Thank you, Kathy. I'm happy to be here. So the goal of the Texas newsroom is to really leverage our resources across the state so that we're operating more like a single newsroom of say 100 journalists, rather than a bunch of silos across the state. And so you know, if if we work together, that means we're not going to be duplicating efforts. And we can do more, and we can do bigger journalistic projects together. So as Kenny said, there are four main partners in Texas. In addition to NPR, we have the the big stations in Texas are those in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But we also have the smaller stations as part of the Texas newsroom as well, and we invite them to everything that we do. We're lucky that our audiences are automatically interested in everything that's going on in Texas. So I live in Austin. And but just because I live here, you know, doesn't mean I don't want to know everything that's going on in Dallas. So people have a natural interest in things going on anywhere in the state. And that helps us we don't have to explain to the audience why they should care. We have several dedicated Texas newsroom staffers. So we have a statewide newscast team, they do six newscast every day, Monday through Friday. And then we also have a statewide senior editor who oversees a state capitol reporter in Austin, and a digital breaking news reporter in El Paso. But we really consider the journalists at all the public radio stations in Texas to be part of the Texas newsroom and we say we are all the Texas newsroom. So every day every morning, I hold a meeting for editors from across the state and the editors and the digital editors from the big stations are always there. But the smaller stations are invited as well. Sometimes they don't have the time to come. But it's it's open to everyone. And we work together on the news of the day. You know, how can we divide resources

and figure

out who's going to cover what and not duplicate efforts. And then we also collaborate on on big projects and major news events. So right now there's an election going on in Texas, today's the last day of early voting. And in Tuesday's election days. We're we're collaborating right now on that.

Thank you. Excuse me, and then we are going to head farther west to California and Adriene Hill, managing editor of The California newsroom.

Hi, everyone. It's great to see you virtually I'm sorry, I cannot be there in Chicago. California is really set up differently from many of the other newsrooms, we have more than a dozen active stations, I think 17 members of the collaboration but really a very active dozen plus members. Um, but we're a very small team serving them. It's me, the managing editor. We have a data journalist and we have an investigations editor. And together we have really focused on supporting the stations and journalists in the newsrooms that we work for and with so we are not producing daily content that is good He shared out across the state. Instead, we're working with the local stations in our collaboration on helping that content. And those journalists sort of do the best possible work for their local audiences. So it is a shift in how we approach this from the beginning to where we are now in this very much support shared services model. That's really exciting here in California. And, you know, one thing that's very interesting about the stations I work with is that we have some of the very biggest stations in the whole NPR system. And we have a whole lot of very small stations serving underserved communities. So they have a ton of different needs. And what we've sort of found is that by looking at, you know, how do we support your newsroom, wherever it is, do you have a reporter who just needs an edit? Do you have a reporter who needs help doing advanced like public records work? We're sort of serving in that clearing house to help those stations do their best work for their best audience. Like, can you mention, we also do do some big picture investigations projects. And when we do that, we pull in reporters from member stations across our collaboration. And then that team works together over the course of the project. And then those reporters go back to those stations with those new skills.

Thank you. One of the things that, of course, comes up when you talk about collaboration is that on the one hand, it is fantastic. And there are huge payoffs. And we have to be honest, it's challenging, sometimes it's not always, completely easy work. And so I wonder if each of you would just tell us a little bit about a couple of the challenges of doing this work in a collaborative way, and a couple of the successes that you're most proud of? Priska, do you want to start off again?

Sure, um, challenges limit limit to a couple. I mean, this is it's hard, it's a hard configuration across states. You know, figuring out, how can you make, you know, get getting buy in to understand, you know, why should people in Mississippi care about the story in Alabama, you know, figuring out how we internally can agree on how stories are framed, but also, to convey that to the audience and to also, you know, to hire people in this part of the country has been a challenge, and to make sure that, you know, we have a team that can kind of go with the flow, because unlike some of the other collaboratives, I, like, you know, started and was immediately hiring people. So forming a team cross states, different stations, different protocols, and also just, you know, that kind of unusual org chart, I think, for all of us, you know, Adrian inquiry, like, we have like a boss and like five bosses, and no bosses. So it's a challenge to get to get that agreement, get that buy in when you're working toward a shared goal. But everyone does things differently. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges, you know, I'm working with a university licensee, a state agency, another university licensee, and a community licensee, so just, you know, the kind of org chart basics of it are is challenging. But, and that kind of ties into to the successes, you know, I'm proud of the way that we've been able to, you know, get some systems that work in in the midst of having very, very different operations to figure out what we have in common. And to kind of see ways that we can try new things. You know, we've been doing something over the past couple of weeks where reporters kind of any interview each other about their stories, like we've just been finding different ways to get content on the radio and to make our reporters real, be experts across the region. And another thing is just the kind of organic conversations that I see on Slack where, you know, a reporter at WB hm is asking someone at WW know for a contact or if they have an idea or if they've ever used this recording equipment, or whatever it is really kind of breaking down the silos and and seeing each other as colleagues and we sometimes have zoom meetings where people come and they come voluntarily, and we have fun on Zoom. So that is something that I've been proud of. It's challenging, but there's a lot of progress.

That's great. Thank you. Yes, fun is allowed. Corrie, why don't you tell us a little bit about challenges in Texas, but also successes?

Yeah, sure. Well, I really hear you Prisca on the on the buy in. So you know, one of the challenges I saw when I when I got here last June with with really alignment, right? Because you have all these different stations that have different goals and different priorities. So how can we get them all on the same page and once you do start talking to people at the different stations, you realize there there are things that they have in common that they want to do so you kind of find those areas. but they have in common. Another challenge has been cultural. So and by that, I mean, people at the Texas stations have feelings about how collaborating with other stations and with NPR has gone in the past. And so I feel like a big part of my job is diplomacy and relationships. But we've we've had some successes. So this might sound boring, but one of the successes from last fall was getting everyone on the same news planning system. So previously, there was no good way for one station to see what another station was working on. They would send each other emails and slack messages and have meetings, but it just wasn't easy to see what someone else is working on. And so, you know, we basically needed to convince certain stations to change which platform they were using. But long story short, all four big stations are on the same planning system now and that that enables us to collaborate better. So that's a success. I think the legislative session coverage was a success last year, there's so national news has a habit of happening in Texas approximately every day. So the result is big bills coming out of the legislature. And you know, we really coordinated the coverage. Rachel Ozer Linley, our Senior statewide editor, you know, how to plan for which reporter at which station was going to follow which beat so that we weren't duplicating efforts. And we were able to really cover the the session and all the special sessions that followed last summer. And then another thing we're doing kind of like what Prisca was saying with the with the slack communication, we are trying to forge collaboration among beat reporters. So one of the things we started is just a series of, of calls of chats among people who have the same beat. So education or health care politics, and just get them talking to each other, you know, in Austin and Dallas, if they're both covering the same beat, why not? Why not talk and in see what they might be able to discover together?

Thank you. And Adriene, I know, there have been some challenges, but also some big successes in California, too.

It's been perfect. No, it's been. I mean, California was tricky, because I think I was involved in the calls with Kathy four years ago, where the California stations were really struggling to wrap their head around what did a hub in California mean? Because we already do have a couple of different models of statewide content sharing. So that wasn't the obvious victory here in California. And so I think that one of the challenges was trying to understand that I think my predecessor, Joanne did a really tremendous job laying the groundwork for this hub and helping set us up for the step that we're taking now. We're really trying to understand where the stations were, what they needed, and what the problem this group could address. Also what the problem this group could address when we didn't have reporters. And in some ways, those challenges early on, I think, did point the way to some of our successes. So I would say a couple of things, we've leaned very much into the things we can go big on together. So we're going big together on election coverage, we now have like a voter guide for every station in the collaboration. And this was a resource the bigger stations could afford before, but the smaller stations it was out of reach for them. But working together, we were able to negotiate a deal and come up with a way that all of the stations in our collaboration now have access to a voter guide for their audience. Again, like I mentioned before, these really big investigations that might not have been possible unless we were all working together across the system on them. And then I think the other really big success is sort of that invisible success of a lot of this collaboration work but which is no less important. And that is all of us every day are sort of working to help make the journalists that we get to work with stronger and better and better prepared for that next job for that big story. You know, for the first time they get a story on the network, that's a big deal. And that's this work that we're doing behind the scenes that is so important that I feel so thankful they trust us to do so really supporting the journalism in the system and the journalists and the system to take that next step wherever it is, I think has been a huge success for us.

And yeah, maybe we can shift back to you for to kick us off for sort of the next round, which is to look ahead a little bit and talk a little bit about where we go from here. I'm several of us, many of us are on your screen now have been involved for quite a while and getting these things going. When I came on my role was envisioned totally differently. But the fact was that there wasn't I was going to sort of manage editorial content, but the fact was, there wasn't really editorial content to manage until we got the hubs built and launched and and happily, we are in full swing now. But what's what's the next phase? What are the next what's the next set of goals and then we'll have everybody, everybody else weigh in on that too.

The thing, and you know, one thing I want to mention, and this leads to the next set of goals, because it because it it emphasizes why we're going to continue to do it right, why we're so committed to it. And Corey touched on something that I think is very important is that this is a mind shift. Right? This is a cultural change of how we do journalism. Part of the reason that, you know, Adrian was saying it was difficult in California is because those big stations, there were kind of competitors were all public media, right. But they're also really big stations, kind of going through the same donors in some areas. And and reporting wise journalist, as most of us have come up in, you know, we were hold our reporters had close, right, we get our notes, and don't look here and don't look there. And we hold it right here for nobody to see. And what we're asking people to do in collaborative journalism, is handed that reporting pad over. And that's a very different way to do journalism. But we realize the benefit of that, and the benefit is being able to say, you have this story you're working on, I'm working on virtually the same story just in a different location, how about we share our notes elevated, and suddenly we have a bigger story? Or how about I mean, every editor here, I think, can can attest to this, there are times where, you know, a big news story comes out there six stories that you love to do, but the reality is, you're probably only going to get to the top three, when you start collaborating, and sharing, reporting and sharing resources. You get to say, okay, you know what, you're gonna go share your reporting with this reporter over here. And that's fine, because they're gonna run with it. And you get to go to Story number four now, right, which is one we were probably going to talk about prop up the list, because we weren't going to get to it. And so it really is the biggest challenge has been overall in in launching these, that NPR and continue to do them and getting the investment from donors, and internally from our own newsroom and from station was just changing how we do journalism, I think the overall mutual agreement was that we found, the more we do it, the stronger we are together, when we work together, the stories get bigger, they get better, it's higher quality, there's more aspects to it, we are in a very competitive landscape media landscape right now, going on air isn't enough anymore, that's just not going to do it go into print isn't enough anymore. Putting it on the web isn't enough anymore, we have got to do all these things. And when you're in a collaboration, you can start to do them together. And so it really is about a shared space, shared ideas, not holding on to anything not being mad that I said that in a meeting, and now they're doing that story. Yeah, you know what, let them go do that story. So you could go do this when that you wanted to do two weeks ago when we still haven't gotten to. That's what it's really about. And so I say all that to say we you know, NPR completely committed, working with these four so far, and seeing how committed they are to it. And there's obviously a development and a donor and a sustainability factor in all of this, how do they sustain? What are the stations willing to put forward to keep it going? What is NPR willing to put forward to keep it going? And also, how does NPR help sustain these and grow four to eight new ones within the next three to four years as well, our ideas that there will be a broad web of these, one of the things that's been great, I think, with these costs, and a little bit of an unforeseen benefit is they are all now working with each other. So I kind of call it the United Airlines map, right? We've got these four hubs, and they have a dotted line six dotted line to NPR. So already that was, you know, that's a little charter plane go into each of these four places. But then within their region, they've got their dotted lines to those stations. So we've created a bigger web in their region or in their state. And now they're working with each other. So Adrienne has a really big story. And suddenly she calls Corian says I think there might be an element in Texas where that we have a story as well. Can we work together. So now we've got the dotted line going from the California hub to the Texas you see how exciting that gets like suddenly we're just in this web of this map of how we're connecting together and working together. So we recognize that doing even more of that doubling the amount that we have tripling the amount that we have suddenly creates this company as I said the United is my best visual the United Airlines map of these just working in all these different ways and sometimes without NPR even included. They are to Korean Adrian's are going to call and

Corrie and Adriene are going to call each other without even including NPR right because they figured it out and now they're are suddenly sharing great stories with each other. So, you know, there's a ton of commitment, we feel, quite honestly that this is the way to go. And the truth of the matter is other media organizations, other donors, other those that are not even media are coming into our space and doing the same thing they are seeing that local journalism is the way to go that donors are excited about it. And we've got to make sure that, you know, we've got the system set up for it, we've got to make sure that we're a player in the space. And so we're, you know, growing the hubs 10, tenfold, I don't know about 10 fold. That would be every state, maybe three fold we'll go with. And there's a couple of other collaboration models as well, that we've been working on in today, we've been focusing on the regional hubs and regional newsroom, but similar to what Corey was talking about, we have these teams called station topic teams. And again, I think it was Chris was talking about that. It really is about a shared space. So a great example is we have an NPR criminal justice editor. That criminal justice editor has a couple of reporters at NPR Yes, but also has started to wrangle the criminal justice reporters within the whole system. And once you start to get those together, it really creates a shared space, they're on a weekly call, they talk about their stories, ideas, they don't feel so alone, because they might be the only criminal justice reporter in their region in their state in certainly in their, in their in their station. And they might have an editor who has an expertise in it has the expertise in it right. So suddenly, they're in a totally different space, it's elevated the amount of knowledge they've had it elevate their sharing work with each other, again, sharing work with each other, sharing ideas with each other can say, Oh, you're working on that story. I did something similar to that last year, you've got to talk to this professor at Emory, he's great, we've got to do that you've got to talk to this doctor over at in Seattle, she's amazing when it comes to COVID statistics, right, you start sharing these ideas, and they don't feel so alone in their beat. So that's another another example of how we're collaborating across all the stations, and really just sitting in this shared idea space and working together. And both of those are models that NPR is is committed to growing even further. Thank you.

I'm Adriene, I'm gonna go to you tell us a little bit about the next frontier in California, where Where are you headed? What are the next possibilities for your collaboration?

So we're really leaning into this idea of how do we support all of these stations who are part of our group? And how do we support them in the way that helps them get the very best work the very best stories out to their audience. So I think more and more what we'll be doing is our data journalist will be working with stations who don't have a data journalist to help answer their data questions to help come up with quick ways or longer term ways to look for excellent stories in those communities. I think our investigations editor, I will also edit as much as we can, as much as people ask us to edit. We have newsrooms in this collaboration without regular editors. And so I want to see more of our time going to support those newsrooms. So it's really leaning in to this idea that we are a shared services hub that is helping all of the audiences in California get the best work, and then raising that up to a statewide audience through some of the distribution platforms that already exist, or to a national audience to through NPR. But I'm really excited for this model. Here in California. We've talked about working together on sort of big crisis situations, we've talked about working together. And we continue to work together and breaking news. I think this election, we're doing a lot of experimentation, about new ways for us to work together and share content that will sort of help show the way forward here in California, but again, getting really doing everything we can to support the stations in our system, so that they get the best work out for their audience.

Thank you. And Corrie, in Texas, what what are the opportunities that you're looking towards, with your collaboration?

Yeah, well, we're really investing in Digital Journalism at the Texas newsroom. So we've already started that. Basically, last fall, our statewide newscast team started writing digital stories. So previously, their their stories would would go out on the air. And if you didn't happen to be listening at that exact moment, you would miss that story. And there was no online version of it. And so we've kind of shifted their workload, taken some things off their plate and added the responsibility of doing digital stories so now their work can can reach different audiences and more audiences. I created a digital breaking news reporter position to do quick stories for though for online about about what's happening with the biggest stories in Texas, and then all the stations will pull in those stories. And right now I'm hiring a statewide audience editor to help us engage with new and diverse audiences that that we're not reaching and to kind of advise the stations on how to reach people on all different platforms, whether that's social media, or websites, or we might create a statewide newsletter. So the focus is really digital for us, going forward along with the great audio work that that has been done for a long time at these stations. And then we're working on something exciting right now, which is a big statewide podcast project. So it's Season Two of the disconnect. Season One was produced by, by que te, in Austin, and was about last year's devastating winter storm where millions of people, including me, and lots of people lost power and hundreds of people died. And the the podcast last year was about how the heck of this happened in the energy capital of the US. And season two, it's about what have we learned? And how is it still affecting people? And what is the state doing to prevent such a thing in the future, but the exciting thing is that we have reporters from all over the state, collaborating and working on this podcast together. And it's not the sort of thing like, oh, Houston does one episode. And Dallas does one episode. It's very integrated. And, and that's exciting. And it'll be coming out this summer.

We will look forward to it. Thanks. Priska, where are you all heading in the Gulf?

Um, I'm really

excited about doing more things in person. We were together as a team for the very first time, you know, and basically kind of a year with a lot of these people on board last month, and it was great to be together in person and plan and do a kind of mini retreat. But we also had a community engagement, I'll say is another thing that I'm looking forward to in that in person category. So we did a, a storytelling, show a live show in Birmingham, where we had, you know, great attendance from people around the community. And each of the reporters, you know, talked about the story behind one of the stories that they had reported, and we were able to connect with the audience in a different way. So I'm looking forward to trying, you know, experimenting with things. It's, it's it's interesting how often I say like, I don't know, yes, I mean, someone asked me, Can we do this? And I'm like, I don't know. Sure. I mean, why not? I mean, like, there are no rules like you can, a lot of this stuff has never been tried before. And we can just try it and see what works and see what doesn't. So I'm looking forward to trying different methods of story distribution to reach audiences and in different ways, especially, you know, in this region where the relationship with public radio is, is is different than a lot of the other areas. And also, just the ever, ever hiring. So we will be adding to the team and getting some more reporters on board. And now I have like a deputy editor who is, you know, working with the reporters kind of more so on the day to day side so that I can do some more of the forward planning. So that is that is very exciting position to be in. And I feel like we've got a lot of really exciting stuff ahead.

That's terrific. Well, I think we are going to see no questions unless anybody wants to happen with a question. I think we're going to give everybody a few minutes back. And thank you all very much for inviting us to be part of this amazing Summit. We're really pleased to be here and pleased to be in the collaborative journalism space with all of you