October 7, 2025 • 17 mins
Local News Jobs
What happens when local journalism collides with the digital revolution? Zach Shaw takes us behind the curtain of his 30-year career at Hudson Valley One, revealing triumphs and struggles of community reporting in an age of dwindling print subscribers and shrinking advertising revenues.
But the real jaw-dropper? His take on the future of journalism: AI helping one reporter do the job of ten, and everyday people stepping up as citizen journalists. It’s a wild, fascinating look at where news might be headed next and is there still a career path for new journalist.
Want us to cover a specific job? Shoot us an email!
Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
The army came in and said we're looking for a site to
do a dirty bomb drill of anuclear terrorist attack.
Our Army Corps of Engineerscame in, demolished parts of the
building.
They got all the theater kidsfrom Kingston High fake blood
and tattered clothes to play,casualties and dead bodies that
lied amongst the wreckage.
And then the army came in anddid the whole bagging and
tagging people, putting themthrough decontamination
(00:26):
procedures.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm your host, Mirav Ozeri.
Today, I'm joined by Zach Shaw,a 30-year veteran in journalism
, who works as a writer, editorand web manager for Hudson
Valley One, which is a weeklypaper with wide reach across the
Hudson Valley.
In this episode, we'll find outhow the rapidly changing
(00:51):
landscape of journalism hasshaped his work and what it
really means to make a living inlocal newspaper today.
So let's dive right in.
Okay, so let's start with.
How did you get into journalismand what was your 30 years
career at the Hudson ValleyPublishing like?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh boy, it's been an adventure.
I got into journalism because Ienjoyed writing and I went to
school for journalism.
But in my first semester ofschool I saw Ulster Publishing.
They had an ad for writers so Iapplied to be a writer and I
wasn't a good enough writer atthe time.
But I lied and said I know howto do desktop publishing because
(01:29):
I was good with computers,somehow got that job and I laid
out newspapers andadvertisements for quite a while
and then eventually they let mestart writing, and I've been
writing ever since.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Did you study journalism or writing?
I?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
took one journalism class, but mostly I was
self-taught and I wrote my ownzine when I was in high school
about the local music scene.
So definitely by the time I waswriting for the paper I had
written a lot and then, yeah,just kept writing stuff on local
culture and some news items.
Writing kind of has been ineverything I've done since then,
(02:05):
even outside of journalism.
It's just something I love todo.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
People still subscribe to the print paper.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
People still subscribe and, not to be macabre
, they're dying out.
Most of the younger people aredefinitely going online, so
increasingly we're doing more.
You know normally a weekly, butnow we're doing daily news
because there's kind of no suchthing as a weekly online.
I think slowly it will probablytransition to a more daily
operation but, yeah, when Istarted in in 97 and around the
(02:34):
90s, early 2000s, local newsfelt like it was in its heyday.
They were publishing fivenewspapers, big fat newspapers
full of ads, uh.
And then the web came aroundand I helped them transition to
the web.
That was a lot of fun, to youknow, but that was back when the
web was just these basic HTMLpages and so you were kind of
inventing it as you went along.
And, yeah, back then it was thetotal opposite.
(02:56):
Very few people used the onlineand everyone was paper.
And now Hudson Valley Onepublishes just one paper and,
yeah, by far the greatestreadership is online.
There's it's an order ofmagnitude bigger than the print
readership.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So actually the publishing grew because of
online correct.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
The audience grew, for sure, but the advertising
revenue had shrunk because,especially now and when we have
social media and various otherways of getting out there for
very cheap, I think a lot ofbusinesses these days don't
really feel like they need toadvertise in print or online.
And those that do, like a lotof the publications that are
making money right now, are paidfor editorial.
(03:36):
All those glossy magazines, yousee, you know the tourist
pickup.
A lot of those are almost 100%ads because even the editorial
was paid for by the people whothey're covering.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You edit the almanac, which is a lot about the
culture.
How do you decide what story toput in and what not to put in?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's really hard because it's a very small budget
.
We typically only run one ortwo stories.
I really try and cover eventsthat have the biggest appeal to
the widest audience or areinteresting and unique, and that
way we can really.
You know, I see part of my jobas to drive heads into venues
locally and constantly gettingfeedback.
(04:14):
Oh, thanks for that article.
You know we had a really greatturnout.
That's what I'm always aimingfor, so I won't cover sold out
events or things that I know arealready going to be popular.
We try and help the communityin that way.
And then also for people who doevents and go through the
trouble of sending me a pressrelease or reaching out to me.
That will often get youcoverage because you're making
it very easy for me to learnmore about the event and I got a
(04:35):
great photo.
So I'm surprised that morepeople don't send out press
releases and information toeditors.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
But if you're out there and you do events, I'd
love to get more of them.
So you make the decision alone,or do you have a committee that
you have to bring all yourstories to the committee?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
for the most part and make the decisions alone.
We have a weekly editorialmeeting where you know if we're
going to change the way we dothings.
We talk about that, but we alsocollect events from over 200
venues.
So we have someone.
We actually created a list ofall the webpages that list all
the events in the area.
Instead of relying on people tosubmit their events to us which
they also do we go out andcollect them, so we have the
(05:11):
most comprehensive eventcalendar.
So it's really like Every weekI know everything that's going
on and it's pretty easy to seewhat cream rises to the top and
what's you know the mostinteresting stuff to cover, and
we do everything one week beforethe event.
So it's kind of like gearedtoward people who don't know
what they're going to do thisweekend and they need some ideas
.
That's what we hope to doconnect them with great local
events.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So you also maintain the website.
What does your job exactlyentail?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Mostly hoping that it doesn't break.
It's pretty solid technologythese days, you know I don't run
into many problems, but yeah,every once in a while there'll
be some misconfiguration orsomething happening that needs.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So it's a lot more like.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I'm the web maintenance guy.
We upgrade and we doimprovements here and there.
The whole thing is on such ashoestring budget that there's
rarely the time or resources todo a whole lot, but so I kind of
focus on just keepingeverything running and making
incremental improvements as wego.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
You also write cover articles about crime, accident,
businesses, the kind of hardnews for the area.
What's the biggest challengethere?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Those stories are by far the most popular, have the
most eyeballs on them, andyou're dealing with people who
have died or people whoallegedly commit crimes.
So it's very important that youword everything very carefully,
that you fact check everythingtwo or three times and just be
sensitive.
You know those are the storiesthat will be way more
straightforward and just kind oflike here are the facts,
there's no color to it, there'sno.
(06:34):
You know, writing it up fancy,it's serious business.
But you know you try andbalance sensitivity to the
subject matter victims.
We've written about people whohave been found innocent after
being accused of crimes and sortof like.
Not a lot of newspapers willcover the person becoming
innocent, so we try and followup on that as well, so that if
you don't Google that person'sname, all you see is someone so
(06:55):
accused of a crime.
So far I haven't really runinto any major problems or
pushback with that kind of stuff, which makes me feel like I'm
doing my job well.
But you just constantly liveunder the fear that you're going
to get one fact wrong andthat's going to cause a major
problem.
Because there's just so muchinformation we're putting out on
a daily basis, Our accuracy isreally like 99%.
(07:16):
You don't want to make amistake on an article like that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, definitely so.
You wear a lot of hats betweenthe editor, the writer, the web
which is your favorite, by theway.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I love covering breaking news.
I love, I mean, even when it'sscary like there was a shooting
three blocks away from me.
No one got hurt.
I felt just I don't know.
I love that feeling of breakingthe news and being the first
person to let everyone knowhere's some important
information about something thatactually affects you on the
local level.
Perversely, love thecomplicated business stories and
(07:51):
making them digestible topeople, because the most boring
stuff to read and it's verycomplicated, and even the civics
like the way the town board.
once you learn how they work andhow wacky they are, it feels
great to be the person thatrepresents all the people who
can't go to the board meetingbecause they have to work on a
Tuesday night or whatever.
I'm the person that allows themto maybe see a little bit
inside of how this stuff worksand maybe make a better form
(08:12):
choice in the voting booth orjust in their general lives.
Typically, I'll write a coupleof stories a day.
We try and get it up as fast aspossible.
That's just the way.
The news is.
Most people don't even read thearticles anymore.
They just read the headlines.
So I think I'm pretty good atwriting headlines and that's
what sets us apart, because,again, that's just the true.
People are reading headlinesand then not clicking on the
(08:33):
article.
So we can see it from thestatistics.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oh wow, really, Because all of our attention
span went to 10 seconds.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
That's why it's very disheartening every time you see
it.
What can you do?
You try and pack as muchinformation in the headline and
you try and be first to try andbe accurate.
And if the story is major, likeit's a murder or you know
there's a pattern of thingshappening, I'll usually talk to
one of our writers to have themfollow up on that for the weekly
paper and write something morein depth.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Does the paper hire writers?
Does it work on a freelancebasis?
How does it work it?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
used to be more staff oriented but after COVID they
went from four or five papersthat they were doing to just one
.
You know, for cost reasons westill have some writers that are
freelance writers probablyabout a dozen or so so everyone
has their kind of lane ofreporting.
There isn't a lot of assigningstories, so much as our writers
surface stories what'sinteresting in their town and
(09:29):
then write about that.
We kind of trust them to pickwhatever is the hot button issue
of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Let's say, somebody like you 30 years ago is a
writer, want to be a writer.
What would you say would be acareer path for somebody today
getting into journalism?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Everything that I'm doing right now is with AI and
automation, and I would startthere, because there are going
to be very few writers, editorsleft in the next few years that
aren't using AI as a centraltool, especially in news and
journalism.
It's not that AI is going towrite the news.
It's that it's such anincredibly helpful tool that
allows you to essentially domore.
(10:07):
In a few years, one journalistusing AI tools could probably do
the work of like 10 journalists.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
For example, like every article needs to be edited
for style, we use AP style,which is the way things are
punctuated and you know just thetechnical details that are.
It's time consuming and tediousas an editor to have to, you
know, check every punctuationmark.
So just by pasting that intothe chat GPT, you can edit your
copy without touching a singleword just adding a little
(10:32):
technical details.
That just saved me.
You know 20 minutes, right, andI'm not going to use that 20
minutes to like, eat popcorn orwatch a movie.
I'm going to write anotherarticle.
And then automation is theother aspect, where, if you know
how to use these web-basedtools to do things automatically
, then, for example, you couldjust have a police reporter
that's an AI bot pulling all thepolice blotters, searching for
specific crimes, doingbackground checks on those
(10:56):
people, writing up a draft ofyour article, and then you go in
and add your human element toit.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So can somebody starting out today can actually
make a living as a writer for apublication.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I hate to be a downer , but it's extraordinarily
difficult unless you're chainingtogether a lot of different
publications, because most ofthe local papers will be okay
with you doing multiple storiesas long as you don't do the same
story you know in every paperand you could work for a big,
you know, like New York Times.
I'm sure those writers get paidwell, but for local news most
of the people are just barelyscraping by if it's the only
(11:28):
thing they do.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Like I'd say, all of us have at least one side hustle
, so that's really like almost adying profession you'd say
right, yeah, you know, I don'twant to sound like ai is going
to replace all writers.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It won't.
They'll still be humans writing.
It just will be far smallernumber and you'll need to be
able to do more.
Like it's already the case thatif you really want to make a
living being a writer, like youhave to have domain expertise in
a field such that you can, youknow, write a book, you can
create online content.
You gotta have a lot more goingon.
I'm a musician too and, likeyou can't just play music
(12:01):
anymore.
You have to have a TikTokchannel and an Instagram and you
have to be creating content,and I've always been the person
that's like.
Well, you can either complainabout it and do it the old way,
or you can learn the new way.
So I think, as long as you'relearning the new way, you'll
always have a shot at making aliving and making a splash with
your writing.
But if you're pretending likeit's 30 years ago, it's just
we're in such a differentlandscape.
(12:23):
I'm just astounded that HudsonValley One still exists, I tell.
Geddy every few years I'm likeyou're going to be out of
business in five years.
And he keeps proving me wrong,so got to respect that.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What is your day to day like?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So one of the things I love about working for a
weekly is it's a weekly deadlinecycle.
I mean, I do breaking newsevery day.
I'll look at dozens of sourcesto try and figure out what's
going on and then I'll writeabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So is there one story that you worked on that stuck
with you?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
The one that comes to mind is just every once in a
while you get to do some crazyoff-the-wall stuff in this job,
and the King's Inn in Kingstonwas being.
They were planning ondemolishing it.
It was an old hotel called theKing's Inn on Broadway and so it
was falling apart.
The army came in and said we'relooking for a site to do a
dirty bomb drill of a nuclearterrorist attack.
This is perfect.
Army Corps of Engineers came in, demolished parts of the
(13:13):
building.
They got all the theater kidsfrom Kingston High fake blood
and tattered clothes to playcasualties and dead bodies that
lied amongst the wreckage.
And then the Army came in anddid the whole bagging and
tagging people, putting themthrough decontamination
procedures.
And we're talking to generals,we're talking to the police
chief, the fire chief.
So you know, you just findyourself in the middle of a
(13:34):
situation that you'd never beable to participate in.
But really quickly, like thebest stuff is when article makes
a difference, like our writer,roco schmost, wrote an article
on One of the where they werehousing kind of the needy up
here in kingston, horribleconditions, and he exposed this
and county executive, everyonewent up there, cleaned it all up
and like it's rare, but whenyou can make a difference like
(13:55):
that even if all I do is editthat it just feels really good.
It feels like the job's moreimportant than just going to
read headlines on crimes andaccidents.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
How do you see local journalism changes in the next
five, 10 years?
Can you?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
predict.
I love predicting the future.
I try and live with one foot inthe future.
I think that the trend is goingto continue to be citizen
journalism, individualjournalism, like.
I heard a comedian the other daydoing a bit where he says you
know, we don't.
We don't hear about the newsnow from cable news, we don't
even hear about it from newsoutlets or local things.
(14:28):
We hear about it from theperson that it's happening to.
Like if I saw a ship was bombedwith a drone with a bunch of
people on it last night and thenews came from them filming the
drone bombing the ship as it washappening, that was how the
world found out the video fromthe actual incident itself.
That's the way it's going to be.
I think the role of journalismis going to be entirely to
(14:49):
provide contact to the newsthat's already being delivered
by the public and that's the wayit should be.
I think that's a way bettermethod of getting information to
people than some supercorporatized, centralized,
top-down approach that really isjust about shaping a narrative
to align with corporateinterests and government
interests.
People holding up a camera toan actual news event that's
(15:11):
happening in front of theirfaces that's just the end-all
be-all of news.
On the other hand, ai generatedcontent will make it
increasingly more difficult totell what's real and what's not.
It's already going in thatdirection.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Do you get new solicitation from citizen, from
next door neighbor, from peoplethat just saw something and send
it to you that?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
hardly ever happens.
I mean, occasionally you'll gethey, there's a bear in my
backyard and people love bear inmy backyard stories, but it's
mostly just being postedstraight to social media and if
anything, I would be reachingout to someone on social media
saying you know, can I use this?
Then there's also kind of animplicit understanding that if
you're sharing things publiclyon social media, that's the idea
you want to continue to amplifyand share far and wide.
(15:51):
So 20% of the news I breakcomes from a social media post,
whether it's by a policedepartment or local rumor.
Besides crimes and murders,people love businesses.
Opening and closing by far likethe second most popular type of
content compared to crimeBusiness opening and closing.
Just people go nuts if there's anew sushi restaurant or their
(16:11):
beloved, you know.
Deli is closing Huge traffic.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Wow, all right.
If you weren't a journalist,what do you think you would have
done?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But that's what's so great about being a journalist.
I don't have to regret doinganything else because this has
always ever been at most like a20, 30 hour a week thing.
Like I do it probably 20 hoursa week now.
So Like I do it probably 20hours a week now.
So I got to do all the otherstuff.
I got to be a musician.
I get to do all my side hustles.
I got lucky in getting hookedup with Ulster Publishing early
when I was 17.
Incredibly lucky, because theyare really like a family to me
(16:41):
in all the good and bad ways,right A slightly dysfunctional
family I love them and I lovewhat I do and I'm lucky for that
.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Awesome.
All right, thank you very much.
I just want to tell everybodyto tune in.
Next week we're going to haveanother segment with Zach about
his side hustle, an eBay storeTotally worth listening to if
you're dreaming of side hustles.
Sounds good, thank you, okay.
(17:11):
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from youand, on your way out, don't
forget to subscribe and sharethis episode with anyone who is
curious about their next job.
See you next time.
The army came in and said we're looking for a site to
do a dirty bomb drill of anuclear terrorist attack.
Our Army Corps of Engineerscame in, demolished parts of the
building.
They got all the theater kidsfrom Kingston High fake blood
and tattered clothes to play,casualties and dead bodies that
lied amongst the wreckage.
And then the army came in anddid the whole bagging and
tagging people, putting themthrough decontamination
(00:26):
procedures.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm your host, Mirav Ozeri.
Today, I'm joined by Zach Shaw,a 30-year veteran in journalism
, who works as a writer, editorand web manager for Hudson
Valley One, which is a weeklypaper with wide reach across the
Hudson Valley.
In this episode, we'll find outhow the rapidly changing
(00:51):
landscape of journalism hasshaped his work and what it
really means to make a living inlocal newspaper today.
So let's dive right in.
Okay, so let's start with.
How did you get into journalismand what was your 30 years
career at the Hudson ValleyPublishing like?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Oh boy, it's been an adventure.
I got into journalism because Ienjoyed writing and I went to
school for journalism.
But in my first semester ofschool I saw Ulster Publishing.
They had an ad for writers so Iapplied to be a writer and I
wasn't a good enough writer atthe time.
But I lied and said I know howto do desktop publishing because
(01:29):
I was good with computers,somehow got that job and I laid
out newspapers andadvertisements for quite a while
and then eventually they let mestart writing, and I've been
writing ever since.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Did you study journalism or writing?
I?
Speaker 1 (01:44):
took one journalism class, but mostly I was
self-taught and I wrote my ownzine when I was in high school
about the local music scene.
So definitely by the time I waswriting for the paper I had
written a lot and then, yeah,just kept writing stuff on local
culture and some news items.
Writing kind of has been ineverything I've done since then,
(02:05):
even outside of journalism.
It's just something I love todo.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
People still subscribe to the print paper.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
People still subscribe and, not to be macabre
, they're dying out.
Most of the younger people aredefinitely going online, so
increasingly we're doing more.
You know normally a weekly, butnow we're doing daily news
because there's kind of no suchthing as a weekly online.
I think slowly it will probablytransition to a more daily
operation but, yeah, when Istarted in in 97 and around the
(02:34):
90s, early 2000s, local newsfelt like it was in its heyday.
They were publishing fivenewspapers, big fat newspapers
full of ads, uh.
And then the web came aroundand I helped them transition to
the web.
That was a lot of fun, to youknow, but that was back when the
web was just these basic HTMLpages and so you were kind of
inventing it as you went along.
And, yeah, back then it was thetotal opposite.
(02:56):
Very few people used the onlineand everyone was paper.
And now Hudson Valley Onepublishes just one paper and,
yeah, by far the greatestreadership is online.
There's it's an order ofmagnitude bigger than the print
readership.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So actually the publishing grew because of
online correct.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
The audience grew, for sure, but the advertising
revenue had shrunk because,especially now and when we have
social media and various otherways of getting out there for
very cheap, I think a lot ofbusinesses these days don't
really feel like they need toadvertise in print or online.
And those that do, like a lotof the publications that are
making money right now, are paidfor editorial.
(03:36):
All those glossy magazines, yousee, you know the tourist
pickup.
A lot of those are almost 100%ads because even the editorial
was paid for by the people whothey're covering.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You edit the almanac, which is a lot about the
culture.
How do you decide what story toput in and what not to put in?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's really hard because it's a very small budget
.
We typically only run one ortwo stories.
I really try and cover eventsthat have the biggest appeal to
the widest audience or areinteresting and unique, and that
way we can really.
You know, I see part of my jobas to drive heads into venues
locally and constantly gettingfeedback.
(04:14):
Oh, thanks for that article.
You know we had a really greatturnout.
That's what I'm always aimingfor, so I won't cover sold out
events or things that I know arealready going to be popular.
We try and help the communityin that way.
And then also for people who doevents and go through the
trouble of sending me a pressrelease or reaching out to me.
That will often get youcoverage because you're making
it very easy for me to learnmore about the event and I got a
(04:35):
great photo.
So I'm surprised that morepeople don't send out press
releases and information toeditors.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
But if you're out there and you do events, I'd
love to get more of them.
So you make the decision alone,or do you have a committee that
you have to bring all yourstories to the committee?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
for the most part and make the decisions alone.
We have a weekly editorialmeeting where you know if we're
going to change the way we dothings.
We talk about that, but we alsocollect events from over 200
venues.
So we have someone.
We actually created a list ofall the webpages that list all
the events in the area.
Instead of relying on people tosubmit their events to us which
they also do we go out andcollect them, so we have the
(05:11):
most comprehensive eventcalendar.
So it's really like Every weekI know everything that's going
on and it's pretty easy to seewhat cream rises to the top and
what's you know the mostinteresting stuff to cover, and
we do everything one week beforethe event.
So it's kind of like gearedtoward people who don't know
what they're going to do thisweekend and they need some ideas
.
That's what we hope to doconnect them with great local
events.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So you also maintain the website.
What does your job exactlyentail?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Mostly hoping that it doesn't break.
It's pretty solid technologythese days, you know I don't run
into many problems, but yeah,every once in a while there'll
be some misconfiguration orsomething happening that needs.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So it's a lot more like.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I'm the web maintenance guy.
We upgrade and we doimprovements here and there.
The whole thing is on such ashoestring budget that there's
rarely the time or resources todo a whole lot, but so I kind of
focus on just keepingeverything running and making
incremental improvements as wego.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
You also write cover articles about crime, accident,
businesses, the kind of hardnews for the area.
What's the biggest challengethere?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Those stories are by far the most popular, have the
most eyeballs on them, andyou're dealing with people who
have died or people whoallegedly commit crimes.
So it's very important that youword everything very carefully,
that you fact check everythingtwo or three times and just be
sensitive.
You know those are the storiesthat will be way more
straightforward and just kind oflike here are the facts,
there's no color to it, there'sno.
(06:34):
You know, writing it up fancy,it's serious business.
But you know you try andbalance sensitivity to the
subject matter victims.
We've written about people whohave been found innocent after
being accused of crimes and sortof like.
Not a lot of newspapers willcover the person becoming
innocent, so we try and followup on that as well, so that if
you don't Google that person'sname, all you see is someone so
(06:55):
accused of a crime.
So far I haven't really runinto any major problems or
pushback with that kind of stuff, which makes me feel like I'm
doing my job well.
But you just constantly liveunder the fear that you're going
to get one fact wrong andthat's going to cause a major
problem.
Because there's just so muchinformation we're putting out on
a daily basis, Our accuracy isreally like 99%.
(07:16):
You don't want to make amistake on an article like that.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, definitely so.
You wear a lot of hats betweenthe editor, the writer, the web
which is your favorite, by theway.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
I love covering breaking news.
I love, I mean, even when it'sscary like there was a shooting
three blocks away from me.
No one got hurt.
I felt just I don't know.
I love that feeling of breakingthe news and being the first
person to let everyone knowhere's some important
information about something thatactually affects you on the
local level.
Perversely, love thecomplicated business stories and
(07:51):
making them digestible topeople, because the most boring
stuff to read and it's verycomplicated, and even the civics
like the way the town board.
once you learn how they work andhow wacky they are, it feels
great to be the person thatrepresents all the people who
can't go to the board meetingbecause they have to work on a
Tuesday night or whatever.
I'm the person that allows themto maybe see a little bit
inside of how this stuff worksand maybe make a better form
(08:12):
choice in the voting booth orjust in their general lives.
Typically, I'll write a coupleof stories a day.
We try and get it up as fast aspossible.
That's just the way.
The news is.
Most people don't even read thearticles anymore.
They just read the headlines.
So I think I'm pretty good atwriting headlines and that's
what sets us apart, because,again, that's just the true.
People are reading headlinesand then not clicking on the
(08:33):
article.
So we can see it from thestatistics.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oh wow, really, Because all of our attention
span went to 10 seconds.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
That's why it's very disheartening every time you see
it.
What can you do?
You try and pack as muchinformation in the headline and
you try and be first to try andbe accurate.
And if the story is major, likeit's a murder or you know
there's a pattern of thingshappening, I'll usually talk to
one of our writers to have themfollow up on that for the weekly
paper and write something morein depth.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Does the paper hire writers?
Does it work on a freelancebasis?
How does it work it?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
used to be more staff oriented but after COVID they
went from four or five papersthat they were doing to just one
.
You know, for cost reasons westill have some writers that are
freelance writers probablyabout a dozen or so so everyone
has their kind of lane ofreporting.
There isn't a lot of assigningstories, so much as our writers
surface stories what'sinteresting in their town and
(09:29):
then write about that.
We kind of trust them to pickwhatever is the hot button issue
of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Let's say, somebody like you 30 years ago is a
writer, want to be a writer.
What would you say would be acareer path for somebody today
getting into journalism?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Everything that I'm doing right now is with AI and
automation, and I would startthere, because there are going
to be very few writers, editorsleft in the next few years that
aren't using AI as a centraltool, especially in news and
journalism.
It's not that AI is going towrite the news.
It's that it's such anincredibly helpful tool that
allows you to essentially domore.
(10:07):
In a few years, one journalistusing AI tools could probably do
the work of like 10 journalists.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
For example, like every article needs to be edited
for style, we use AP style,which is the way things are
punctuated and you know just thetechnical details that are.
It's time consuming and tediousas an editor to have to, you
know, check every punctuationmark.
So just by pasting that intothe chat GPT, you can edit your
copy without touching a singleword just adding a little
(10:32):
technical details.
That just saved me.
You know 20 minutes, right, andI'm not going to use that 20
minutes to like, eat popcorn orwatch a movie.
I'm going to write anotherarticle.
And then automation is theother aspect, where, if you know
how to use these web-basedtools to do things automatically
, then, for example, you couldjust have a police reporter
that's an AI bot pulling all thepolice blotters, searching for
specific crimes, doingbackground checks on those
(10:56):
people, writing up a draft ofyour article, and then you go in
and add your human element toit.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So can somebody starting out today can actually
make a living as a writer for apublication.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I hate to be a downer , but it's extraordinarily
difficult unless you're chainingtogether a lot of different
publications, because most ofthe local papers will be okay
with you doing multiple storiesas long as you don't do the same
story you know in every paperand you could work for a big,
you know, like New York Times.
I'm sure those writers get paidwell, but for local news most
of the people are just barelyscraping by if it's the only
(11:28):
thing they do.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Like I'd say, all of us have at least one side hustle
, so that's really like almost adying profession you'd say
right, yeah, you know, I don'twant to sound like ai is going
to replace all writers.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It won't.
They'll still be humans writing.
It just will be far smallernumber and you'll need to be
able to do more.
Like it's already the case thatif you really want to make a
living being a writer, like youhave to have domain expertise in
a field such that you can, youknow, write a book, you can
create online content.
You gotta have a lot more goingon.
I'm a musician too and, likeyou can't just play music
(12:01):
anymore.
You have to have a TikTokchannel and an Instagram and you
have to be creating content,and I've always been the person
that's like.
Well, you can either complainabout it and do it the old way,
or you can learn the new way.
So I think, as long as you'relearning the new way, you'll
always have a shot at making aliving and making a splash with
your writing.
But if you're pretending likeit's 30 years ago, it's just
we're in such a differentlandscape.
(12:23):
I'm just astounded that HudsonValley One still exists, I tell.
Geddy every few years I'm likeyou're going to be out of
business in five years.
And he keeps proving me wrong,so got to respect that.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What is your day to day like?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So one of the things I love about working for a
weekly is it's a weekly deadlinecycle.
I mean, I do breaking newsevery day.
I'll look at dozens of sourcesto try and figure out what's
going on and then I'll writeabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
So is there one story that you worked on that stuck
with you?
Speaker 1 (12:51):
The one that comes to mind is just every once in a
while you get to do some crazyoff-the-wall stuff in this job,
and the King's Inn in Kingstonwas being.
They were planning ondemolishing it.
It was an old hotel called theKing's Inn on Broadway and so it
was falling apart.
The army came in and said we'relooking for a site to do a
dirty bomb drill of a nuclearterrorist attack.
This is perfect.
Army Corps of Engineers came in, demolished parts of the
(13:13):
building.
They got all the theater kidsfrom Kingston High fake blood
and tattered clothes to playcasualties and dead bodies that
lied amongst the wreckage.
And then the Army came in anddid the whole bagging and
tagging people, putting themthrough decontamination
procedures.
And we're talking to generals,we're talking to the police
chief, the fire chief.
So you know, you just findyourself in the middle of a
(13:34):
situation that you'd never beable to participate in.
But really quickly, like thebest stuff is when article makes
a difference, like our writer,roco schmost, wrote an article
on One of the where they werehousing kind of the needy up
here in kingston, horribleconditions, and he exposed this
and county executive, everyonewent up there, cleaned it all up
and like it's rare, but whenyou can make a difference like
(13:55):
that even if all I do is editthat it just feels really good.
It feels like the job's moreimportant than just going to
read headlines on crimes andaccidents.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
How do you see local journalism changes in the next
five, 10 years?
Can you?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
predict.
I love predicting the future.
I try and live with one foot inthe future.
I think that the trend is goingto continue to be citizen
journalism, individualjournalism, like.
I heard a comedian the other daydoing a bit where he says you
know, we don't.
We don't hear about the newsnow from cable news, we don't
even hear about it from newsoutlets or local things.
(14:28):
We hear about it from theperson that it's happening to.
Like if I saw a ship was bombedwith a drone with a bunch of
people on it last night and thenews came from them filming the
drone bombing the ship as it washappening, that was how the
world found out the video fromthe actual incident itself.
That's the way it's going to be.
I think the role of journalismis going to be entirely to
(14:49):
provide contact to the newsthat's already being delivered
by the public and that's the wayit should be.
I think that's a way bettermethod of getting information to
people than some supercorporatized, centralized,
top-down approach that really isjust about shaping a narrative
to align with corporateinterests and government
interests.
People holding up a camera toan actual news event that's
(15:11):
happening in front of theirfaces that's just the end-all
be-all of news.
On the other hand, ai generatedcontent will make it
increasingly more difficult totell what's real and what's not.
It's already going in thatdirection.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Do you get new solicitation from citizen, from
next door neighbor, from peoplethat just saw something and send
it to you that?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
hardly ever happens.
I mean, occasionally you'll gethey, there's a bear in my
backyard and people love bear inmy backyard stories, but it's
mostly just being postedstraight to social media and if
anything, I would be reachingout to someone on social media
saying you know, can I use this?
Then there's also kind of animplicit understanding that if
you're sharing things publiclyon social media, that's the idea
you want to continue to amplifyand share far and wide.
(15:51):
So 20% of the news I breakcomes from a social media post,
whether it's by a policedepartment or local rumor.
Besides crimes and murders,people love businesses.
Opening and closing by far likethe second most popular type of
content compared to crimeBusiness opening and closing.
Just people go nuts if there's anew sushi restaurant or their
(16:11):
beloved, you know.
Deli is closing Huge traffic.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Wow, all right.
If you weren't a journalist,what do you think you would have
done?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
But that's what's so great about being a journalist.
I don't have to regret doinganything else because this has
always ever been at most like a20, 30 hour a week thing.
Like I do it probably 20 hoursa week now.
So Like I do it probably 20hours a week now.
So I got to do all the otherstuff.
I got to be a musician.
I get to do all my side hustles.
I got lucky in getting hookedup with Ulster Publishing early
when I was 17.
Incredibly lucky, because theyare really like a family to me
(16:41):
in all the good and bad ways,right A slightly dysfunctional
family I love them and I lovewhat I do and I'm lucky for that
.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Awesome.
All right, thank you very much.
I just want to tell everybodyto tune in.
Next week we're going to haveanother segment with Zach about
his side hustle, an eBay storeTotally worth listening to if
you're dreaming of side hustles.
Sounds good, thank you, okay.
(17:11):
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from youand, on your way out, don't
forget to subscribe and sharethis episode with anyone who is
curious about their next job.
See you next time.
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