January 23, 2025 • 50 mins
Renowned journalist Neil Brown joins us to share the journey that shaped his career, from his Chicago roots to becoming the president of the Poynter Institute. Neil's childhood, surrounded by the buzz of political activism and the Watergate hearings, ignited a lifelong passion for journalism. His path took him from Skokie, Illinois, to the Miami Herald's Key West Bureau, offering a front-row seat to unique challenges, from drug dealing to cultural shifts, all the while being closer to Cuba than his own editor. Neil's story is a testament to the formative experiences that honed his journalistic instincts and set him on a path to success.
Our conversation also takes us to Washington, where Neil navigated the complexities of political journalism, and back to local newsrooms, where his leadership at the St. Pete Times garnered six Pulitzer Prizes. Neil shares invaluable insights on the critical disconnect between Washington's political bubble and the real-world issues that matter most. The discussion highlights the importance of maintaining journalistic integrity and the role of fostering ethical reporting and innovation in achieving monumental success.
Neil also opens up about his transformative role at the Poynter Institute, guiding its mission to train journalists and connect with news consumers in a rapidly shifting media landscape. From initiatives like PolitiFact to media literacy programs with organizations like Google, Neil emphasizes the vital need for partnerships and innovative solutions to sustain local journalism. We also explore the evolving dynamics between journalists and PR professionals, the challenges posed by AI integration, and the crucial role of storytelling in upholding democratic values. This episode offers a rich tapestry of Neil's experiences and insights, promising a wealth of knowledge for anyone passionate about the future of journalism.
Poynter website: https://www.poynter.org
Poitifact: https://www.politifact.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-brown-0711b9151/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Poynter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poynter_institute/
Thank you for listening! Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the Media in Minutes podcast here or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/media-in-minutes/id1555710662
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angela Tuell (00:05):
Welcome to Media in Minutes.
This is your host, Angela Tuell.
This podcast features in-depthinterviews with those who report
on the world around us.
They share everything fromtheir favorite stories to what
happened behind the lens andgive us a glimpse into their
world From our studio here atCommunications Redefined.
This is Media in Minutes.
In today's episode, we aretalking with Neil Brown, the
(00:32):
president of the PoynterInstitute, a leading
organization in journalismeducation, where he has served
since September 2017.
With four decades of experiencein journalism and media
leadership, including nine yearson the Pulitzer Prize board,
Brown has a distinguished careerthat began at the Miami Herald.
He rose through the ranks atthe Tampa Bay Times, winning six
(00:54):
Pulitzer Prizes during histenure as editor.
Under his leadership, Poynterhas become home to initiatives
like PolitiFact and theInternational Fact-Checking
Network, training journalistsand promoting ethical standards
worldwide.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate ofthe University of Iowa, Brown is
a Chicago native dedicated toadvancing the craft of
(01:15):
journalism.
Hello, Neil, how are you?
Neil Brown (01:18):
I'm good, Angela, good to talk to you.
How are you?
Angela Tuell (01:21):
Yes, doing well.
You're in a much warmer placethan I am.
I believe you.
How are you?
Neil Brown (01:26):
Yeah, we just had a cold snap last week where it got
into the 60s.
Angela Tuell (01:37):
Oh, okay, I won't say what our temperature is then
I am very much looking forwardto talking with you today.
You've had such an incrediblecareer thus far in journalism
and it's hard to even know whereto start.
So how about we talk a littlebit about how and when did you
know you wanted to be ajournalist?
Neil Brown (01:52):
Well, I was one of those kind of nerd kids who got
into thinking about journalismat a very early age.
I was in, I grew up in Chicago,okay, in our house we got four
newspapers a day, back in theday, you know, and serving the
city of Chicago.
My dad was a lawyer who waspolitically interested and we,
(02:13):
you know.
So journalism was something wereally valued, I will tell you,
putting you know some age behindit, I guess my dad was so
fascinated by the Watergate thecase of Richard Nixon and
Watergate that PBS back thenwould replay the Watergate
hearings that were being held inCongress where they were trying
(02:34):
to get to the bottom of theschool, and PBS would replay
them in the evening.
The hearings would go duringthe day and they would replay
them in the evening, and my dadactually wielded the TV into the
kitchen so we could watch, andso at that point our family no
longer was hey, what are youdoing at dinner over dinner?
Well, how was school?
It was all about quiet.
(02:54):
Sam Irvin is on TV, these arethe hearings, this is important,
and I think that kind of gotthe bug in me.
And then I wound up going tohigh school in a little suburb
uh called skokie, illinois, andthere the um.
It had a large, huge, largepopulation of holocaust
survivors and the and the whatand the local chapter of the
(03:17):
american nazi party wanted tomarch in skokie and uh, just
sort of inflame the environmentand I wound up getting assigned
by the local newspaper, thelittle community weekly, to
cover the rally and some of thelegal hearings.
The rally wound up beingdelayed by the legal hearings.
Anyways, it was a, it was outof a like it kind of a.
(03:37):
It was a bug that bit me,related to journalism because it
was such a big deal in thecommunity.
So all of those kind of rolledup into this journalism thing is
just interesting andfascinating and a way to sort of
get an eyeballs view of things,sometimes before other people
did too, and that fascinated me.
Angela Tuell (03:59):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You went to college forjournalism, went to college for
journalism and political scienceOkay.
I wanted both.
And then you started yourcareer at the Miami Herald.
What was your first job like?
Neil Brown (04:13):
So my first job in journalism it's one of these
weird things like what turnedout to be the best job I ever
had.
Even now.
I'm saying that not to all of asudden, because what happened
is the Herald hired me and they,completely by luck, my first
job was in Key West.
Angela Tuell (04:31):
Oh, that's awful.
My first one was at the beachtoo in Salisbury, maryland, so I
know how that feels to be nearthe beach.
Neil Brown (04:38):
It's like near the beach.
You think this is awesome and Irespect I was closer to Fidel
Castro in Cuba by my like.
That was 90 miles away.
My nearest editor was 150 milesaway.
So I was the Key West Bureaufor the Miami Herald that I used
to write all kind of reallygreat stories about drug dealers
and corruption and the touristindustry and fishermen and the
(05:01):
collision between the old conkswho lived there and the new
tourists who were coming and thegrowing gay population.
I just got so many great pageone stories.
I really didn't want to leaveKey West.
I used to see Jimmy Buffett andTennessee Williams.
They were citizens down there,so all these cool people were
down there and it kind of skewedme to think, oh, this is
(05:23):
awesome, I don't ever want toleave.
Leave.
But of course I.
I wanted to rise up through theranks but my first job was Key
West and I had to write likecrazy.
We had keys sections six days aweek so I used to write.
It sounds like old, fogey stuff.
We used to take our ownpictures.
I take my story and then takethe film because this is
pre-digital journalism take thefilm and put it on a plane to
(05:46):
Miami every day at three o'clock.
Angela Tuell (05:49):
Wow.
Neil Brown (05:49):
They could put the pictures with my stories, which,
in my deadline, was like 9 pmthat night.
So it was a.
It was a great, a great time,and that was at the time when
Florida was really transforming.
There was a real migration fromof Cuban immigrants and others
and there was a lot of crime inthe state of Florida.
(06:11):
You know just from all kinds ofdynamics, and I was happened to
be in a newsroom at the MiamiHerald with just some superstar
folks, so I was able to learn alot as well, particularly as I
moved from Key West to Miami.
Angela Tuell (06:26):
Yeah, so walk us through your career a little bit
, how you went from there towhere you are today.
Neil Brown (06:31):
Okay.
So I kind of came up throughthe ranks after Key West,
covered politics in both Miamiand Tallahassee for a bit and
loved government reporting and Ithought someday I'm going to
get to Washington.
But it was kind of acompetitive field and I didn't
know if the Herald would haveany opportunities.
But I was willing to kind ofwait my turn.
(06:52):
When suddenly I was at thispoint an assistant city editor
and I get a call from a guy outof the blue with a magazine
called Congressional Quarterly.
His name was Bob, former WallStreet Journal guy, and Bob
calls me and says I've heardabout you from some of your
former Herald colleagues who arenow in DC and I know you love
politics.
Would you be interested inworking up here in Washington at
(07:15):
a magazine called CongressionalQuarterly?
So I'll keep that part brief.
Eventually I took that job andwent there because I didn't know
how soon I could get toWashington and I didn't know it
at the time.
But Congressional Quarterly wasowned by the St Petersburg
Times newspaper and wound upthen coming back to the
(07:47):
newspaper later on in an editingcapacity.
So we were all in the samebuilding up in Washington and I
got to meet these folks and itturned out Nelson Poynter, who
was a true visionary, and I cantalk about that again in a
minute.
He had created CongressionalQuarterly back in the mid 40s,
1945, actually because he reallybelieved that back in St
(08:09):
Petersburg, where he owned thenewspaper, there too, the folks
didn't really know what theirCongress people were up to.
Back then it was reallyCongress.
Angela Tuell (08:17):
Yeah.
Neil Brown (08:18):
You know, but the center.
And so he started a magazinethat would just write weekly
stories about what the membersof Congress were doing
everywhere, but particularly inFlorida.
And it caught fire.
From a standpoint of lobbyistsloved it because under tracking
what was happening in Congresswas an opportunity to make sure
(08:38):
their clients were wellrepresented, and that meant
making money, in particularusing tax law or financial
implications.
And so Congressional Quarterlybecame super successful as a
very expensive, not mass marketpublication.
So I learned a lot aboutmagazines and finance through
(09:00):
covering doing a CQ, which againwas founded by Nelson Poynter,
through covering doing a CQ,which again was founded by
Nelson Poynter, and having donethat for five years.
Then the folks at the St PeteTimes said you're really a
newspaper person at heart aboutcoming back to Florida, and so
my wife and I decided, yeah,we'll give Florida another
chance, this time in the WestCoast of Florida, tampa.
Angela Tuell (09:21):
So I must ask how was being a journalist in
Washington, a politicaljournalist in Washington,
everything you thought it wouldbe?
Neil Brown (09:29):
Yes and no.
So I love Washington.
I love politics.
I still do.
I'm a political junkie and, asa newspaper person who cares
deeply about it, I was so gladfor that experience and I truly
loved it.
That said, I was also.
This is why I wanted to go backinto the newspaper business and
get back to Florida.
I was also.
(09:50):
It was a defining situation forme because I realized you know
the folks in Washington, whilethey're trying hard to do the
right thing, they have a skewedvision of everything around them
.
It all rolls around through theprism of Washington and they
talk language that isdisconnected from the people
(10:10):
that they're serving and thatincluded the journalists, by the
way.
And so I try to be, even in myrole of pointer and even when I
was running the St Pete Timesand the Tampa Bay Times, I try
to be mindful that theWashington perspective is a
little bit disconnected fromwhat's happening out in the
regular world, and politics kindof does that to people.
So I found that an extremelyimportant life lesson, even as I
(10:33):
respected it, and I did feellike everything in Washington
was being sort of run through aprism of am I going to be a
winner or a loser, you know.
From a political standpoint,yeah, that was not a I going to
be a winner or a loser, you know.
From a political standpoint,yeah, it was not a good place to
(10:53):
be, and it further, I'll add,not to ramble too much, but I
did feel like the WashingtonPress Corps, on one hand, has a
very hard job they have aparticularly hard job in this
current environment but theyalso do get too close to their
sources and it is a risk for ourbusiness when Washington
journalists are a little bit, Iwouldn't say behold, and that's
a little too strong, but therecan be a little too aligned or
(11:14):
embedded with the people theycover.
And so that was an importantprofessional lesson for me to
learn out of Washington.
To some degree it wasdisappointing, but ultimately I
just thought it was like alesson right.
Angela Tuell (11:25):
Right right.
Neil Brown (11:26):
And it made me more excited to go back to a local
newspaper and be in the localspace where there's just a
greater diversity of thinkingand interests.
Angela Tuell (11:39):
Yes, yes.
Neil Brown (11:40):
The prism through which everything is seen in
Washington.
Angela Tuell (11:43):
Yeah.
So during your time at the StPete Times, the paper won more
national and state awards thanat any time in its history,
including six Pulitzer Prizes.
What led to all the success?
I'm assuming you.
Neil Brown (11:58):
I think that's a trap.
I think that question is a trap.
We had an exceptional team andI do mean that.
I do mean that the mean thatthe tampa, the saint p times
then changes down to the tampabay times eventually.
Um really was at back in itsthe biggest when I was the
editor of it.
It was his, believe it or not,and this is I know.
We're going to talk about someof this going down, going
forward.
It was 400 people in thenewsroom alone wow so we some of
(12:23):
the most, uh, sophisticatedlocal zoning of stories, so we
would have different editions inthe five counties we covered
and it was what that allowed.
Which kind of gets to yourquestion is basically, within
the organization people couldgrow and develop their skills
and get better and betterwithout leaving, and people like
(12:45):
living on the West Coast ofFlorida, they like the weather,
the beaches were nice, climatefrankly wasn't as big a deal at
the time obviously and so thatallowed us to have a good
culture of writing and editingand I know your own audience has
a lot of interest in thosetopics.
Your own audience has a lot ofinterest in those topics.
(13:13):
But that certainly contributedto a real sort of culture of
trying things getting better andI think certainly that's where
you wind up getting the prizesdown the road.
But if you don't start withlike a real strong fundamental
base of strong ethical reporting, I think all good things come
out of that.
Let's put it that way yes.
(13:33):
So what led you to the PoynterInstitute?
So I was at the St Pete timesin a leadership capacity for I
don't know, I guess I could dothe math but probably 20 years
as a leader of the newsroom.
He's either the manager,managing editor or editor, and
um, and pointer owns the tampabay times right okay.
(13:54):
So I was part of the the familyall along.
I knew the folks at pointer, Iwas part of the governance,
through the different boards aswell, and the opening for
president came open and I wasthis is like they call this the
dick cheney story.
I was on the search committeeto find the new president, oh,
(14:15):
and we were doing candidates andthey were doing okay.
Some of them were good, youknow, but it wasn't.
It wasn't as strong, uh, asknow, we weren't as enthused
about all of the possibilitiesas we maybe should have been or
could have been, and so the jobgot reframed as a little bit
more about initially Pointer'sbrand.
(14:37):
By the way, in this coming yearwe're going to celebrate our
50th anniversary.
Wow, and for 40 of those years,the number one thing Pointer did
and that was Mr Pointer'svision was to train professional
journalists to be better attheir craft.
Wow, through its struggles andit really is now going on 20
years of those struggles ourmain audience at Poynter was
(15:08):
journalists.
Well, that was a shrinking pool, and so Poynter needed to
expand its portfolio to not justhelping elevate the work of
those who do journalism, but wesaw an opportunity to help those
who consume journalism have aconnection with the journalists.
(15:30):
So we suddenly went from justserving journalists in a very
effective and very powerful way,with ethical training, to also
working with citizens andbringing the two groups together
.
Well, when the job got kind ofbigger than it had been in that
regard, then I wound upexpressing an interest and I was
(15:51):
hired as the point of president, and after 20 years running a
newsroom and going through allthe ups and downs, it was time
to try something a little newand different.
And this was a little bit moreon a national and international
scale than my local newsbackground.
Angela Tuell (16:04):
Yes, yeah, and the rest is history right.
Neil Brown (16:09):
Not yet, and we're still making history.
That's for that.
Angela Tuell (16:13):
For those who are not super familiar with Poynter
Institute and you mentioned alittle bit there how else would
you describe what you all do?
Neil Brown (16:20):
So I'm going to take one quick I'll try to be real
quick about Nelson Poynter for asecond, particularly since
we're headed to the 50thanniversary, and then I can
expand a little bit about allthe things we're doing.
But you know, sometimes in ourworld we talk about, we throw
words around like leadership andvisionary kind of quickly.
But this guy was really avisionary and here's how, in the
1940s he wrote a statement ofownership principles when he
(16:44):
bought the newspaper the StPetemps from his father.
And back then he said owning anewspaper is a sacred trust that
we needed to be sure in theaccuracy and integrity of the
information, say in the 1940s,that we shouldn't be afraid of
(17:09):
technology and that we needed toimprove and expand our thinking
or we will dwindle and die, hispoint being we need to adapt,
to change.
But here's the other thing,angela, that he did, which was
kind of profound and it kind ofcame to fruition in the 1970s.
He knew that back then, not somuch anymore, running a
newspaper was very lucrative, soit not only had the important
(17:29):
mission to serve its community,but it was making people a lot
of money and he feared that theheirs of the owners of
newspapers around the country inall, in great markets like Los
Angeles and Dallas and Chicagoand other places, that the heirs
won't want to be in thenewspaper business and they will
eventually sell out to bigcorporations.
(17:51):
And that would mean that localnews organizations would be
owned by out of town owners,right, and all corporations,
right.
And so what he did was hecreated three years before his
death.
He created a school then calledthe Modern Media Institute and
(18:11):
he announced when I die.
He didn't know he was going todie in three years, but when I
die, instead of leaving thenewspaper, his St Petersburg
Times, to his heirs, he willedit to be owned by the school.
He said while I'm alive, theschool will train journalists to
get better at their jobs.
(18:32):
Back to that adaptation part.
And then, when I die, topreserve the independence and
keep it out of the hands ofcorporate owners, I want the
school to own the company.
That's crazy.
Back in the day a couple of hisrich colleagues at the time
said Nelson, what are you doing?
Why don't you leave it to yourheirs?
And he supposedly said to themhey, look it, I've never met my
(18:57):
great-grandchildren and I'm notsure I would like them.
And so he dies three years laterof a stroke unexpectedly, and
the school which we laterrenamed the Poynter Institute
owns the Tampa Bay Times.
So that's one thing Poynterdoes.
We are the owner of a localnewspaper and it remains
(19:18):
independent and locally owned tothis day own to this day.
Subsequently, we became theleader in the training of
journalism and writing ethicscodes for news organizations
around the country.
So we are a leader in ethicstraining and that'll be relevant
as we talk about AI and otherthings going forward.
But if it comes to social mediapolicies, ai, how you treat
(19:41):
sources, your transparency withyour audience it's all built
around ethics that Pointertrains in, trains professionals
in and has helped them writetheir policies.
Now, when I came to Pointer inthat way I described about
wanting to diversify and expandbeyond the audience of
journalists brought with me aproject we started at the St
(20:02):
Petersburg Times calledPolitiFact.
Angela Tuell (20:04):
Yes.
Neil Brown (20:05):
And PolitiFact is now.
I was part of the creation ofit and we moved it to Poynter
because, you know, the Tampa BayTimes didn't have the money or
the wherewithal to support it.
But Poynter is a national brandanyways, and so it makes sense
to be at the National Institute,and so Poynter now owns
PolitiFact.
Be at the National Institute,and so Pointer now owns
(20:28):
PolitiFact.
And so, for those of youwondering what Pointer does, it
runs PolitiFact and is sort ofthe headquarters of
fact-checking really around theglobe, because PolitiFact, in
addition to being its ownwebsite, gave rise to something
called the InternationalFact-Checking Network, which is
based at Pooynter.
And so we also provide supportto fact-checking organizations
(20:48):
in 130 countries around theglobe, so we have a staff of
five.
We help them get grants, wehelp them fight legal fights in
their own countries and youmight imagine, in some places
facts are even under moreassault than they are here in
the United States, and so we dothat at Poynter.
And and media literacy isworking again with citizens and
(21:12):
consumers.
So when they get information,they have some of the tools so
they can figure out forthemselves whether what they've
got on their phone or on theirwebsite, on the websites they're
looking at is true or false orfact or fiction or out of
context or whatever it may be.
So I go back to we work withjournalists, we fact check
(21:34):
politicians and we work withcitizens.
All rolling up so we hope alittle bit more of an
environment where you can.
I know there's challenges and Iknow we're all feeling it, but
we work into a situation wherethere's an environment for
quality information so thatpeople can participate in
democracy or guide themselves intheir day-to-day life.
(21:55):
It doesn't have to be a loftydemocratic question.
Angela Tuell (21:58):
Sure, I'm sure you saw as creating it that it was
needed, but did you imagine andmaybe you did that it would be
needed as badly as it is today?
Neil Brown (22:09):
You mean PolitiFact?
Angela Tuell (22:10):
Yeah, that, and-.
Neil Brown (22:11):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you the truth.
It's funny you say it that way.
So we started PolitiFact little.
We said this is a three monthexperiment and it probably go
anywhere.
So we fact check thepresidential campaign that year
in 2007, when Barack Obama wascoming on the same scene,
hillary Clinton was running andwe were going to check the fact
check all their statements wededicated resource and said
(22:33):
we're not going to do journalismthe traditional way out of
Washington.
Same way, we told ourWashington beer chief don't just
write the same thingeverybody's writing.
Do this fact checking.
He was a believer in the ideabig time.
It came from him and so wededicated the resource and after
three months we realized oh myGod, people love it.
(22:54):
We kind of used to talk aboutit almost like it was like the
consumer reports, but forinformation, right, and so
something we started as anexperiment.
Then it did take off, and sothe answer is no.
We didn't imagine it would bethis big a deal, but within
about a year we did yeah, butnot right away.
Angela Tuell (23:13):
How are you reaching the citizens?
What does that outreach looklike?
Neil Brown (23:17):
So you know a variety of ways.
So, first of all, politifactitself.
If you think of our journalismtraining as B2B, business to
business, where the companieslike the Washington Post or
small digital news organizationsor the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting these outfits wouldhire pointers to work with
their journalists, improve theirwriting, their photography,
(23:41):
their video, storytelling, theirethics, that's B2B, right, we
reach citizens.
B2c that means consumer, but italso means citizens through
PolitiFact, which is entirely aconsumer based product.
It's just a news organizationthat you know, pushes out its
stories online and through textand through social, and is the
(24:05):
audience for that work is 100percent regular people, right,
right, whatever the medialiteracy work that is truly
citizen oriented we have.
We started that work.
It's actually the credit goesto somebody, to Google, which
was, you know, feeling the heatabout Stanford University, to
work with them and do acurriculum in middle and high
(24:36):
schools so that kids in thoseschools would learn how to
discern fact from fiction online.
And it didn't have to be justabout politics, by the way, it
could be about entertainment,health, anything.
And so do a bit of aula forschools and work with the
(24:57):
teachers.
And so we created even a teenfact-checking network, feeling
like you know what teenagerswould probably believe other
teenagers more than they'llbelieve us, right?
And so we trained teenagers towork with their teachers and to
fact-check.
You know, again, all kinds ofclaims, mostly on social, and we
said we're not going to createthe website, just do it all on
(25:17):
Instagram, do it all on TikTok,where they are.
Well, the next thing, you know,aarp wanted it like wait, this
is good for 50 and older.
And so it just started toblossom into tools for anybody
who gets information online tosay you don't have to go to a
(25:39):
journalism site, you don't haveto be a journalism, you're just
a regular person who wants toknow.
Like, can I have some I don'tknow power in this relationship
with information to know what'sright and what's not, just so I
could learn?
So there's a series of toolsand we spread them online.
We did a course on YouTube andall of it is a way that we did
(26:01):
things on college campuses wherewe trained college students to
train other college students init.
So you just kind of have tocome at this misinformation
challenge with about a hundredways, right, just keep trying
all kinds of things.
It's not a single approach, butall of those things back to
your question expanded our reachfrom just journalists to now
(26:24):
citizens as well.
Angela Tuell (26:25):
Yes, your work is so invaluable.
I want to talk a little bitabout how you spent much of your
career in local media, and wecontinue to see local newspapers
, things downsizing, gettingsmaller, closing.
What do you think has?
I mean, we know some of thatwhat has caused that?
But what are your thoughts onit?
And we're also seeing the riseof independent journalism
(26:47):
outlets.
Neil Brown (26:48):
Yes, so it's an actually, you know, maybe
because I come from Chicago, I'man optimist, midwest optimist,
so so we actually put out areport earlier this year.
I'd be happy to send it to youor any of your audience called
On Point.
(27:09):
The news environment haschanged dramatically, including
thousands of jobs lost, manyfewer news organizations than
their local news organizationsthan there were before, and we
do not diminish for one momentthe strain and stress caused in
part Now this is a businessmodel point with the collapse of
(27:29):
advertising in thosepublications.
Collapse of advertising in thosepublications and so advertising
was very lucrative and alsoallowed a subsidy so that the
subscriber or the audiencemember didn't have to pay very
much.
Right, it has been a shift, andso we ask now more through
either subscription ormembership.
Reader revenue if you use thatterm reader, streaming,
(27:51):
streaming viewer you know.
Subscriptions to pay more, andthat has not replaced the loss
of advertising dollars.
So a third leg of the stoolthat has emerged both in an
excited way, but one we have tobe clear-eyed about, it's not a
panacea is philanthropy anddonor support for journalists.
(28:12):
So now there's kind of threelegs to the local news model.
Advertising still has a lot,but also revenue from the
audience members I guess I'llcall it that.
And then philanthropy and newsorganizations, for the better
part of the last 15 years, havebeen slow to understand.
You're going to have to tounderstand You're going to have
(28:33):
to charge more.
You're going to have to goafter grants and have people in
your organizations that have theskill sets to acquire
philanthropic dollars.
That takes a particular kind ofskill.
That's not like you know, andit needs to be honored.
And you need to have bettermarketing and better comms
people who can tell your story.
You have a very important storyto tell, so all of that rolls
(28:56):
up into something and that thereport that I mentioned we
called it On Point P-O-Y-N-Tlittle brand there is to
basically suggest you know whatwe get, how hard it's been, but
it's time to let go of what Iwould call a narrative of loss
and it's time to stop aperpetual lament, even as it's a
(29:17):
very difficult environment, andit's time to start sharing some
best practices and figure outwhat's the future about.
Not how can we go back in thepast?
And in that spirit, thesesmaller news organizations you
mentioned who are funded byphilanthropy or grant, they are
starting to fill in and do somevery interesting and important
(29:41):
local news reporting.
New products at some of themore traditional organizations,
including podcasting or events,is a way to generate revenue
that can help support more localcoverage.
Working partnerships I knowyour organizations that listen
to you and that you work withPartnerships are extremely
(30:01):
valuable in not going it alonein the way we might have 25 or
30 years ago to make all ofthese things work, and so I say
that to sort of say like againyes, I don't celebrate at all
that there are fewer local newsreporters.
We need more, we have to getthere more, but it's time to
focus more on not how we can goback, but how can we start to
(30:22):
build some new opportunities.
Now let me add this importantpoint the marketplace still
decides.
So, whether you're funded by aphilanthropist, a donor, an
advertiser, your product needsto be relevant, trusted and it
needs to provide the value thatyou say you're going to provide.
(30:45):
I think good news organizationsdo provide that value and I
think we ought to make surewe're building relationships
with our audiences to show thevalue and express the value that
we can bring, because if you'renot bringing value, then I
don't care whether the moneycame from a philanthropist or an
advertiser.
It's not going to keep coming.
Angela Tuell (31:06):
True.
Neil Brown (31:07):
You have to.
The marketplace does get todecide, and so our products need
to be relevant and valuable toour audiences.
Angela Tuell (31:15):
Yes, those are great points.
I also want to talk about AI,as you mentioned.
It's such a hot topic, and isthere a place for these tools in
journalism?
Neil Brown (31:24):
100%, I mean.
So I'm not unrealistic aboutthe challenges, but I would say
in that same, more optimisticspirit, ai is a story of both
possibility as well as anxiety.
But, I think there's been adisproportionate focus on the
(31:46):
anxiety.
Now that doesn't mean thereneed to be guardrails.
We did a LinkedIn Liveyesterday, all with our team at
Poynter, all about AI innewsrooms.
First, assign some people tolearn the tools.
Don't be afraid of them withouteven spending some time
training and learning them.
Two, be very open with bothyour staff and your audience
(32:10):
about some ethical guidelinesand your audience about some
ethical guidelines.
The same ethical guidelinesthat have guided our business
for generations can apply in AI,for example.
Don't mislead your audience.
Be honest about where did theinformation come from.
This is where AI and humantalent could come together.
(32:32):
Somebody and I do mean in thiscase a body, not a machine has
to stand by the information.
So, and share these guardrailsand these policies with your
audience, even as you experimentwith very interesting and
powerful tools.
I'll give you an example of aplace that's using it.
(32:55):
I think, off to an interestingstart with it Now.
It's a big organization, sothey have resource, even though
they're a little bit in the newsthese days, and it's the
Washington Post.
The Washington Post came upwith an interesting product
called I think it's calledClimate Answers, and the
Washington Post knows like we'vebeen covering all these climate
questions, weather questions,consumer-related oriented
(33:18):
questions in the Washington Post.
So the information was createdby people, it's been edited,
it's been vetted and it's inthis huge database.
Well, their audience was tryingto understand like God, I have
so many questions about climate.
Well, the Post didn't have thetime or the people to answer the
questions, so what they did isthey came up with an AI tool
(33:38):
that audience members can use toask the Washington Post
questions.
The Washington Post AI toolwill answer the questions only
using information that's alreadybeen part of the Washington
Post.
So it's already been sort ofhuman approved, right, but the
(34:00):
Post didn't have time to answerevery email.
The Post didn't have time toanswer the phones, if that's the
way people wanted to get it.
But now it's found a way toengage with its audience on
climate in a transparent and waythat they can trust at a
cheaper cost point.
Wow.
So if you kind of confine thetool to meet a need and you do
(34:25):
so openly and honestly with youraudience, now AI has
facilitated a relationship.
It's not put distance betweenyou and the customer.
Angela Tuell (34:35):
Yes, that's exciting to think of it that way
.
Something else is contentcreators and the trend of that?
How do you feel it's affectedthe news industry?
Neil Brown (34:46):
Okay, and so and you'll see in this report, you
know we're pretty big on thecontent creators, believe it or
not.
That may seem counterintuitivefor an organization that grew
out of very traditional, youknow, kind of pillars.
And let me be clear there's alot of anything online.
There's just there's some greatstuff and there's some real
(35:08):
garbage, right, I mean, it'sjust the volume is profound.
But I would say that whatcontent creators should be
opening our eyes to, from ajournalism standpoint, is this
fundamental thing that we havebeen teaching for years, which
is tell stories in meaningfulways.
(35:29):
And, whether it's a two and ahalf minute TikTok or an
Instagram reel, or a longnarrative in the Washington Post
online, or an entirelyvisualization, data
visualization story told by,maybe, the LA Times, or a TV
documentary told by anybody,storytelling needs to be honest
(35:57):
and it needs to be accurate andit needs to be compelling back
to that value.
Yeah, content creators arecoming at things in some new and
interesting ways and I think weshould follow their mission of
accessibility.
Now, what they need to do anumber of them need to do is
learn some of our guardrailsaround, like why you could trust
(36:19):
this or, as a point of view,actually no problem.
Just be honest about the pointof view right.
Take some ownership of yourcontent.
It's not.
You're not just putting stuffout and don't mislead people.
But the fact that it'sentertaining, that people get
news from TikTok, that's great.
It's great.
(36:40):
It's just like let's put someguardrails around so nobody's
fooled and it can be used.
And then when it's juststraight up silly or
entertaining or what for noparticular purpose, that's okay
too.
Just don't pretend it'ssomething else.
Yes, entertaining or what forno particular purpose, that's
okay too.
Just don't pretend it'ssomething else.
Angela Tuell (36:54):
Yes.
Neil Brown (36:54):
So I think that there's some good lessons that
that sort of long-term modelsand new models like influencers
and creators can learn from eachother, and it would be better
to bring more of these peopletogether than to kind of
separate them.
Angela Tuell (37:10):
Yes, I love that outlook.
Something else I'm veryinterested in is your
international work.
How do you see journalism inthe US compared to other
countries?
Neil Brown (37:20):
So I mentioned the International Fact-Checking
Network.
We're seeing fact-checking andfact-based expression still
being something that's valuedaround the globe, but also under
strain, because governments,whether they're in Europe or you
(37:40):
name the region, are findingthat sort of press freedom isn't
necessarily a core value intheir worlds, and yet there are
really courageous andinteresting people who are
trying to do that.
We have some of the samestrains here in the US, and so
one of the things we're tryingto support through Poynter is
let's bring these folks together.
(38:01):
Let's bring them together withthe platforms which are
distribution models.
We do some training on thatmedia literacy stuff that I
mentioned on WhatsApp andtext-based only, because that's
how people are gettinginformation on text.
So I think there's like a lot oflessons, but there also have to
be an understanding ofdifferent cultural mores,
(38:23):
different cultures, differentapproaches, certainly different
laws, and so I think it's nevergoing to be, in this world of
fast-paced information, in thisera we stories in visuals to see
what's going on in ways that so, particularly with the decline
(38:57):
of resources that newsorganizations even bigger ones
have, we wouldn't know what'sgoing on without them.
I mean one of the, and then, ofcourse, you have the power of
cell phones and cell phonevideos for citizens to be giving
us information.
Now again, even that has to beseen through a you know the
(39:19):
understanding that, well, justbecause somebody moved a picture
doesn't mean it's an accuratepicture.
It's true.
At the same time, it's notimportant.
It's important not to look awayeither.
So you know, I think that youknow, look at, there's a lot of
just unbelievable difficulty inthis world right now, and
journalism and fact based workneed to be celebrated, protected
(39:43):
even.
And that's a long, a long gameand we're gonna have to do one
story at a time, but it's worth.
It's worth talking about andthinking about.
Angela Tuell (39:51):
Absolutely.
I know that you have a veryoptimistic outlook, but is there
anything that keeps you up atnight about the future of
journalism in our country?
Neil Brown (40:01):
So I know this is super current and I don't really
I try to sleep pretty well, butI would say in the United
States and this is a challenge Ido believe that increasingly,
records are not open to thepublic government.
(40:22):
That is secret.
I believe that, unfortunately,as the revenue I do think
optimistically the revenue willstart to grow for local news
organizations, but, as it hasbeen hit the ability to fight
(40:43):
for press freedom, for opengovernment, to protect reporters
, the assault we're seeingthrough lawsuits against
journalists, this is anenvironment that is, I believe,
undemocratic.
That doesn't mean there can't bedifferences of opinion, but I
do believe that there is agrowing culture, fanned by some
(41:05):
in our political sphere as wellas internationally, to suggest
that freedom of the press is notpart of our democratic
principles, and that is a hugeflaw.
I think we are finding,unfortunately, less protections
in the courts than we once were,and that is emboldening those
(41:27):
both who have money and power totry to fight open society and
open government in a way that istroubling.
So if I have any concern rightnow, it's that there's a lot of
news organizations that areunder not just you know
harassment, which is terribleand ugly, but they're also under
(41:48):
legal threat and they may nothave the wherewithal to fight
back.
And so I think back topartnerships.
I think we have to start to seesome alliance to begin to push
back on some of these challenges.
Angela Tuell (42:00):
Yes, I'm sure that's something you're looking
at at Poynter for sure, andhelping others.
Neil Brown (42:05):
Yeah, it's going to take a village.
Angela Tuell (42:07):
Yes, a village, that's for sure.
Much of our audience ispublicists and PR professionals.
Neil Brown (42:22):
Do you have any advice for us when interacting
with journalists and how best tosupport them?
I know your audience willunderstand that and you know
what goes with relationships,what I would call front end
conversation.
So you know whether it's lunchor coffee or some kind of, you
know, opportunity to get to knoweach other so that when your
(42:42):
worlds intersect, hopefully fora bunch of good reasons good,
accessible storytelling, but theoccasional, you know, sense of
conflict that there is arelationship there.
So so that's one thing, whichis, you know, reach out and and
meet the, the, the journalismprofessionals in your community,
and I encourage journalismprofessionals to reach out and
(43:05):
meet your members of youraudience because, again, I think
there's a lot more in commonthere than there's than there's
not of your audience, because,again, I think there's a lot
more in common there thanthere's not even as we all have
our own jobs to do.
I'm not naive.
Secondly, I would say here'ssomething we all have in common,
which is it's important that weall know how to write.
Write and write clearly rightand that never gets corny.
(43:28):
So finding ways to worktogether on clear and effective
communication is vital, and sowe actually a pointer have been
trying to reach out and dowriting work with PR
professionals, and I've met somegreat folks in that space, and
you know, we want somejournalists to learn the insides
of your business, as you have,as you want to come to do so.
(43:49):
That, again, it's all aboutbeat reporting in the sense that
if we understand the worldyou're working with, it'll be
more honest and accurate andeven, you know, in both good
times and in difficultcircumstances.
And the third thing I'd say is,again, respect.
What we both have to do, whichis we're all trying to tell a
story and be effective for ouraudiences, and sometimes that
(44:12):
lines up well, and sometimesthere's going to be some
conflict, and so respect is likein both camps, but I think all
of that is sort of solid if yousort of develop relationships.
Angela Tuell (44:26):
Yes, I could ask you questions forever, but one
more before we go.
I must ask about your work onthe Pulitzer Prize board.
It's quite an honor to be onthat board, and for nine years,
a couple of them being co-chair.
I know this isn't a fairquestion, but are there any
awards that particularly stickout or an advice on what makes a
piece a Pulitzer Prize worthy?
Neil Brown (44:47):
Sure, sure.
So yes, I was on the PulitzerPrize board for nine years and
then that's the term limit I hadto come off.
In the last two years I was theco-chair.
It was just the greatest honorof my career, to be honest with
you, to see so much good work.
And there's a few things I'llsort of note.
First of all and I'm not justsort of saying this, but there's
(45:08):
work every bit worthy of aPulitzer Prize that never wins a
Pulitzer Prize.
I mean tons of great work thatjust doesn't make it.
And we used to always have thiskind of little bit of a saying
around those in both newsroomsand at the Pulitzer level, which
is to win a Pulitzer Prize youhave to be both lucky and good,
(45:28):
and everybody is a finalist.
They all got the good part down.
I mean there's a lot of greatwork.
You just have to kind of getlucky, because human nature it's
a board of 17 people.
People have different interestsand different tastes and so you
almost you certainly can't sayI'm going to do this story so I
can win a Pulitzer prize.
I guarantee if that sentenceever gets uttered in the process
of the journalism, it's notgoing to win, it doesn't happen,
(45:51):
you it?
doesn't happen.
No, it doesn't happen if youthink that.
So there is that sort of luckin all of that.
Certainly there has been greatwork that I have been just sort
of you know honored, you knowsort of to read and to listen to
and win.
There were certainly very smallorganizations have won Pulitzer
(46:12):
Prizes.
A little digital outfit alittle digital outfit you
mentioned digital journalism.
Mississippi Today won aPulitzer Prize for local
reporting a couple of years backfor exposing how important and
well-to-do personalities likeBrett Favre of the Green Bay
Pack formerly the Green BayPackers was getting money that
was supposed to go to welfare asa misinformation.
(46:33):
There's a podcast from myhometown of Chicago that won in
audio storytelling last yearabout just a profound story of a
young black man who was beatenup by a white man in the early
in the late 90s and the citycouldn't figure out who did it.
But it turns out they had anidea who did it and he sort of
(46:54):
got away with it, but thatmembers of the Black community
were kind of willing to takefinancial resources to look the
other way as well and it justshowed you how complex things
are and that was one, I wouldsay, where audio storytelling
and podcasting is a new form anda new way to embrace things.
Certainly, there have beenprofound public service
(47:18):
journalism that was honoredthroughout the pandemic Frankly,
the New York Times' prize onthe war in Israel and Gaza in
this past year, no matter howdivisive and how painful that
story is, and the New York Timestakes a pile of grief all the
(47:39):
time for it, right, whicheverside you're on it, you probably
know what you think because ofthe New York Times.
So there's just all this kindof, you know, courageous kind of
work work.
And then there were some booksthat were like amazing winners.
There was a book, uh, calledevicted um, by matthew desmond,
(48:00):
uh, that I commend to you.
That talked about how, you know,in trying to make neighborhoods
better and evicting problemtenants, it was having evictions
were having a disproportionateand really horrible effect,
making it's the definition ofstructural racism and structural
poverty, because it wasadversely affecting women and
(48:23):
children, and so I commend thatbook to your, to your audience.
So it was a great honor.
I got to read cool things likeDemon Copperhead, which tells
the opioid crisis in a differentway, entirely through fiction,
better than journalism has everbeen able to do.
So lots of great, great workthat won prizes and it was an
(48:44):
honor and, as I say, there'slike nothing you don't get to be
part of there.
That couldn't be worth aPulitzer.
Angela Tuell (48:51):
I'm sure we will link to all of those things that
you discussed in our show notes.
And how can our listenerssupport the work you do at
Poynter?
Neil Brown (48:58):
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me
on and giving me a chance tochat with you and your great
questions and the audience.
I wasn't kidding.
I really admire the work you'reall doing.
We're all doing it and sharingstories.
I would recommend you go topointerorg and see our news
coverage.
We try to hold the media worldaccountable for its work as a
(49:24):
way to make sure that you knowthe best way to build trust and
transparency is to do work at avery high and important level.
Next year is our 50thanniversary at Pointer and we're
going to come out with thePointer 50.
I wanted to plug that andthat's going to be a series of
stories throughout the year.
You will have a ball readingthem or watching them.
(49:45):
Some of them will be visual,where we're going to look at 50
of the most consequentialmoments over the last 50 years
that have changed the mediaworld and the media landscape.
So keep an eye on that.
On pointerorg, go to PolitiFactand get your fact checking
there.
You can support us that way.
Obviously, we're happy toreceive donations, but mostly if
(50:06):
you will engage with us, that'sthe value we want and all good
things will flow out of that.
Angela Tuell (50:12):
We will Thank you so much, Neil.
Neil Brown (50:15):
Thank you, angela, really appreciate it.
Angela Tuell (50:18):
That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes
, a podcast by CommunicationsRedefined.
Please take a moment to rate,review and subscribe to our show
.
We'd love to hear what youthink you can find more at
communicationsredefinedcompodcast.
I'm your Angela Tuell.
Talk to you next time.
Welcome to Media in Minutes.
This is your host, Angela Tuell.
This podcast features in-depthinterviews with those who report
on the world around us.
They share everything fromtheir favorite stories to what
happened behind the lens andgive us a glimpse into their
world From our studio here atCommunications Redefined.
This is Media in Minutes.
In today's episode, we aretalking with Neil Brown, the
(00:32):
president of the PoynterInstitute, a leading
organization in journalismeducation, where he has served
since September 2017.
With four decades of experiencein journalism and media
leadership, including nine yearson the Pulitzer Prize board,
Brown has a distinguished careerthat began at the Miami Herald.
He rose through the ranks atthe Tampa Bay Times, winning six
(00:54):
Pulitzer Prizes during histenure as editor.
Under his leadership, Poynterhas become home to initiatives
like PolitiFact and theInternational Fact-Checking
Network, training journalistsand promoting ethical standards
worldwide.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate ofthe University of Iowa, Brown is
a Chicago native dedicated toadvancing the craft of
(01:15):
journalism.
Hello, Neil, how are you?
Neil Brown (01:18):
I'm good, Angela, good to talk to you.
How are you?
Angela Tuell (01:21):
Yes, doing well.
You're in a much warmer placethan I am.
I believe you.
How are you?
Neil Brown (01:26):
Yeah, we just had a cold snap last week where it got
into the 60s.
Angela Tuell (01:37):
Oh, okay, I won't say what our temperature is then
I am very much looking forwardto talking with you today.
You've had such an incrediblecareer thus far in journalism
and it's hard to even know whereto start.
So how about we talk a littlebit about how and when did you
know you wanted to be ajournalist?
Neil Brown (01:52):
Well, I was one of those kind of nerd kids who got
into thinking about journalismat a very early age.
I was in, I grew up in Chicago,okay, in our house we got four
newspapers a day, back in theday, you know, and serving the
city of Chicago.
My dad was a lawyer who waspolitically interested and we,
(02:13):
you know.
So journalism was something wereally valued, I will tell you,
putting you know some age behindit, I guess my dad was so
fascinated by the Watergate thecase of Richard Nixon and
Watergate that PBS back thenwould replay the Watergate
hearings that were being held inCongress where they were trying
(02:34):
to get to the bottom of theschool, and PBS would replay
them in the evening.
The hearings would go duringthe day and they would replay
them in the evening, and my dadactually wielded the TV into the
kitchen so we could watch, andso at that point our family no
longer was hey, what are youdoing at dinner over dinner?
Well, how was school?
It was all about quiet.
(02:54):
Sam Irvin is on TV, these arethe hearings, this is important,
and I think that kind of gotthe bug in me.
And then I wound up going tohigh school in a little suburb
uh called skokie, illinois, andthere the um.
It had a large, huge, largepopulation of holocaust
survivors and the and the whatand the local chapter of the
(03:17):
american nazi party wanted tomarch in skokie and uh, just
sort of inflame the environmentand I wound up getting assigned
by the local newspaper, thelittle community weekly, to
cover the rally and some of thelegal hearings.
The rally wound up beingdelayed by the legal hearings.
Anyways, it was a, it was outof a like it kind of a.
(03:37):
It was a bug that bit me,related to journalism because it
was such a big deal in thecommunity.
So all of those kind of rolledup into this journalism thing is
just interesting andfascinating and a way to sort of
get an eyeballs view of things,sometimes before other people
did too, and that fascinated me.
Angela Tuell (03:59):
Yeah, absolutely so.
You went to college forjournalism, went to college for
journalism and political scienceOkay.
I wanted both.
And then you started yourcareer at the Miami Herald.
What was your first job like?
Neil Brown (04:13):
So my first job in journalism it's one of these
weird things like what turnedout to be the best job I ever
had.
Even now.
I'm saying that not to all of asudden, because what happened
is the Herald hired me and they,completely by luck, my first
job was in Key West.
Angela Tuell (04:31):
Oh, that's awful.
My first one was at the beachtoo in Salisbury, maryland, so I
know how that feels to be nearthe beach.
Neil Brown (04:38):
It's like near the beach.
You think this is awesome and Irespect I was closer to Fidel
Castro in Cuba by my like.
That was 90 miles away.
My nearest editor was 150 milesaway.
So I was the Key West Bureaufor the Miami Herald that I used
to write all kind of reallygreat stories about drug dealers
and corruption and the touristindustry and fishermen and the
(05:01):
collision between the old conkswho lived there and the new
tourists who were coming and thegrowing gay population.
I just got so many great pageone stories.
I really didn't want to leaveKey West.
I used to see Jimmy Buffett andTennessee Williams.
They were citizens down there,so all these cool people were
down there and it kind of skewedme to think, oh, this is
(05:23):
awesome, I don't ever want toleave.
Leave.
But of course I.
I wanted to rise up through theranks but my first job was Key
West and I had to write likecrazy.
We had keys sections six days aweek so I used to write.
It sounds like old, fogey stuff.
We used to take our ownpictures.
I take my story and then takethe film because this is
pre-digital journalism take thefilm and put it on a plane to
(05:46):
Miami every day at three o'clock.
Angela Tuell (05:49):
Wow.
Neil Brown (05:49):
They could put the pictures with my stories, which,
in my deadline, was like 9 pmthat night.
So it was a.
It was a great, a great time,and that was at the time when
Florida was really transforming.
There was a real migration fromof Cuban immigrants and others
and there was a lot of crime inthe state of Florida.
(06:11):
You know just from all kinds ofdynamics, and I was happened to
be in a newsroom at the MiamiHerald with just some superstar
folks, so I was able to learn alot as well, particularly as I
moved from Key West to Miami.
Angela Tuell (06:26):
Yeah, so walk us through your career a little bit
, how you went from there towhere you are today.
Neil Brown (06:31):
Okay.
So I kind of came up throughthe ranks after Key West,
covered politics in both Miamiand Tallahassee for a bit and
loved government reporting and Ithought someday I'm going to
get to Washington.
But it was kind of acompetitive field and I didn't
know if the Herald would haveany opportunities.
But I was willing to kind ofwait my turn.
(06:52):
When suddenly I was at thispoint an assistant city editor
and I get a call from a guy outof the blue with a magazine
called Congressional Quarterly.
His name was Bob, former WallStreet Journal guy, and Bob
calls me and says I've heardabout you from some of your
former Herald colleagues who arenow in DC and I know you love
politics.
Would you be interested inworking up here in Washington at
(07:15):
a magazine called CongressionalQuarterly?
So I'll keep that part brief.
Eventually I took that job andwent there because I didn't know
how soon I could get toWashington and I didn't know it
at the time.
But Congressional Quarterly wasowned by the St Petersburg
Times newspaper and wound upthen coming back to the
(07:47):
newspaper later on in an editingcapacity.
So we were all in the samebuilding up in Washington and I
got to meet these folks and itturned out Nelson Poynter, who
was a true visionary, and I cantalk about that again in a
minute.
He had created CongressionalQuarterly back in the mid 40s,
1945, actually because he reallybelieved that back in St
(08:09):
Petersburg, where he owned thenewspaper, there too, the folks
didn't really know what theirCongress people were up to.
Back then it was reallyCongress.
Angela Tuell (08:17):
Yeah.
Neil Brown (08:18):
You know, but the center.
And so he started a magazinethat would just write weekly
stories about what the membersof Congress were doing
everywhere, but particularly inFlorida.
And it caught fire.
From a standpoint of lobbyistsloved it because under tracking
what was happening in Congresswas an opportunity to make sure
(08:38):
their clients were wellrepresented, and that meant
making money, in particularusing tax law or financial
implications.
And so Congressional Quarterlybecame super successful as a
very expensive, not mass marketpublication.
So I learned a lot aboutmagazines and finance through
(09:00):
covering doing a CQ, which againwas founded by Nelson Poynter,
through covering doing a CQ,which again was founded by
Nelson Poynter, and having donethat for five years.
Then the folks at the St PeteTimes said you're really a
newspaper person at heart aboutcoming back to Florida, and so
my wife and I decided, yeah,we'll give Florida another
chance, this time in the WestCoast of Florida, tampa.
Angela Tuell (09:21):
So I must ask how was being a journalist in
Washington, a politicaljournalist in Washington,
everything you thought it wouldbe?
Neil Brown (09:29):
Yes and no.
So I love Washington.
I love politics.
I still do.
I'm a political junkie and, asa newspaper person who cares
deeply about it, I was so gladfor that experience and I truly
loved it.
That said, I was also.
This is why I wanted to go backinto the newspaper business and
get back to Florida.
I was also.
(09:50):
It was a defining situation forme because I realized you know
the folks in Washington, whilethey're trying hard to do the
right thing, they have a skewedvision of everything around them
.
It all rolls around through theprism of Washington and they
talk language that isdisconnected from the people
(10:10):
that they're serving and thatincluded the journalists, by the
way.
And so I try to be, even in myrole of pointer and even when I
was running the St Pete Timesand the Tampa Bay Times, I try
to be mindful that theWashington perspective is a
little bit disconnected fromwhat's happening out in the
regular world, and politics kindof does that to people.
So I found that an extremelyimportant life lesson, even as I
(10:33):
respected it, and I did feellike everything in Washington
was being sort of run through aprism of am I going to be a
winner or a loser, you know.
From a political standpoint,yeah, that was not a I going to
be a winner or a loser, you know.
From a political standpoint,yeah, it was not a good place to
(10:53):
be, and it further, I'll add,not to ramble too much, but I
did feel like the WashingtonPress Corps, on one hand, has a
very hard job they have aparticularly hard job in this
current environment but theyalso do get too close to their
sources and it is a risk for ourbusiness when Washington
journalists are a little bit, Iwouldn't say behold, and that's
a little too strong, but therecan be a little too aligned or
(11:14):
embedded with the people theycover.
And so that was an importantprofessional lesson for me to
learn out of Washington.
To some degree it wasdisappointing, but ultimately I
just thought it was like alesson right.
Angela Tuell (11:25):
Right right.
Neil Brown (11:26):
And it made me more excited to go back to a local
newspaper and be in the localspace where there's just a
greater diversity of thinkingand interests.
Angela Tuell (11:39):
Yes, yes.
Neil Brown (11:40):
The prism through which everything is seen in
Washington.
Angela Tuell (11:43):
Yeah.
So during your time at the StPete Times, the paper won more
national and state awards thanat any time in its history,
including six Pulitzer Prizes.
What led to all the success?
I'm assuming you.
Neil Brown (11:58):
I think that's a trap.
I think that question is a trap.
We had an exceptional team andI do mean that.
I do mean that the mean thatthe tampa, the saint p times
then changes down to the tampabay times eventually.
Um really was at back in itsthe biggest when I was the
editor of it.
It was his, believe it or not,and this is I know.
We're going to talk about someof this going down, going
forward.
It was 400 people in thenewsroom alone wow so we some of
(12:23):
the most, uh, sophisticatedlocal zoning of stories, so we
would have different editions inthe five counties we covered
and it was what that allowed.
Which kind of gets to yourquestion is basically, within
the organization people couldgrow and develop their skills
and get better and betterwithout leaving, and people like
(12:45):
living on the West Coast ofFlorida, they like the weather,
the beaches were nice, climatefrankly wasn't as big a deal at
the time obviously and so thatallowed us to have a good
culture of writing and editingand I know your own audience has
a lot of interest in thosetopics.
Your own audience has a lot ofinterest in those topics.
(13:13):
But that certainly contributedto a real sort of culture of
trying things getting better andI think certainly that's where
you wind up getting the prizesdown the road.
But if you don't start withlike a real strong fundamental
base of strong ethical reporting, I think all good things come
out of that.
Let's put it that way yes.
(13:33):
So what led you to the PoynterInstitute?
So I was at the St Pete timesin a leadership capacity for I
don't know, I guess I could dothe math but probably 20 years
as a leader of the newsroom.
He's either the manager,managing editor or editor, and
um, and pointer owns the tampabay times right okay.
(13:54):
So I was part of the the familyall along.
I knew the folks at pointer, Iwas part of the governance,
through the different boards aswell, and the opening for
president came open and I wasthis is like they call this the
dick cheney story.
I was on the search committeeto find the new president, oh,
(14:15):
and we were doing candidates andthey were doing okay.
Some of them were good, youknow, but it wasn't.
It wasn't as strong, uh, asknow, we weren't as enthused
about all of the possibilitiesas we maybe should have been or
could have been, and so the jobgot reframed as a little bit
more about initially Pointer'sbrand.
(14:37):
By the way, in this coming yearwe're going to celebrate our
50th anniversary.
Wow, and for 40 of those years,the number one thing Pointer did
and that was Mr Pointer'svision was to train professional
journalists to be better attheir craft.
Wow, through its struggles andit really is now going on 20
years of those struggles ourmain audience at Poynter was
(15:08):
journalists.
Well, that was a shrinking pool, and so Poynter needed to
expand its portfolio to not justhelping elevate the work of
those who do journalism, but wesaw an opportunity to help those
who consume journalism have aconnection with the journalists.
(15:30):
So we suddenly went from justserving journalists in a very
effective and very powerful way,with ethical training, to also
working with citizens andbringing the two groups together
.
Well, when the job got kind ofbigger than it had been in that
regard, then I wound upexpressing an interest and I was
(15:51):
hired as the point of president, and after 20 years running a
newsroom and going through allthe ups and downs, it was time
to try something a little newand different.
And this was a little bit moreon a national and international
scale than my local newsbackground.
Angela Tuell (16:04):
Yes, yeah, and the rest is history right.
Neil Brown (16:09):
Not yet, and we're still making history.
That's for that.
Angela Tuell (16:13):
For those who are not super familiar with Poynter
Institute and you mentioned alittle bit there how else would
you describe what you all do?
Neil Brown (16:20):
So I'm going to take one quick I'll try to be real
quick about Nelson Poynter for asecond, particularly since
we're headed to the 50thanniversary, and then I can
expand a little bit about allthe things we're doing.
But you know, sometimes in ourworld we talk about, we throw
words around like leadership andvisionary kind of quickly.
But this guy was really avisionary and here's how, in the
1940s he wrote a statement ofownership principles when he
(16:44):
bought the newspaper the StPetemps from his father.
And back then he said owning anewspaper is a sacred trust that
we needed to be sure in theaccuracy and integrity of the
information, say in the 1940s,that we shouldn't be afraid of
(17:09):
technology and that we needed toimprove and expand our thinking
or we will dwindle and die, hispoint being we need to adapt,
to change.
But here's the other thing,angela, that he did, which was
kind of profound and it kind ofcame to fruition in the 1970s.
He knew that back then, not somuch anymore, running a
newspaper was very lucrative, soit not only had the important
(17:29):
mission to serve its community,but it was making people a lot
of money and he feared that theheirs of the owners of
newspapers around the country inall, in great markets like Los
Angeles and Dallas and Chicagoand other places, that the heirs
won't want to be in thenewspaper business and they will
eventually sell out to bigcorporations.
(17:51):
And that would mean that localnews organizations would be
owned by out of town owners,right, and all corporations,
right.
And so what he did was hecreated three years before his
death.
He created a school then calledthe Modern Media Institute and
(18:11):
he announced when I die.
He didn't know he was going todie in three years, but when I
die, instead of leaving thenewspaper, his St Petersburg
Times, to his heirs, he willedit to be owned by the school.
He said while I'm alive, theschool will train journalists to
get better at their jobs.
(18:32):
Back to that adaptation part.
And then, when I die, topreserve the independence and
keep it out of the hands ofcorporate owners, I want the
school to own the company.
That's crazy.
Back in the day a couple of hisrich colleagues at the time
said Nelson, what are you doing?
Why don't you leave it to yourheirs?
And he supposedly said to themhey, look it, I've never met my
(18:57):
great-grandchildren and I'm notsure I would like them.
And so he dies three years laterof a stroke unexpectedly, and
the school which we laterrenamed the Poynter Institute
owns the Tampa Bay Times.
So that's one thing Poynterdoes.
We are the owner of a localnewspaper and it remains
(19:18):
independent and locally owned tothis day own to this day.
Subsequently, we became theleader in the training of
journalism and writing ethicscodes for news organizations
around the country.
So we are a leader in ethicstraining and that'll be relevant
as we talk about AI and otherthings going forward.
But if it comes to social mediapolicies, ai, how you treat
(19:41):
sources, your transparency withyour audience it's all built
around ethics that Pointertrains in, trains professionals
in and has helped them writetheir policies.
Now, when I came to Pointer inthat way I described about
wanting to diversify and expandbeyond the audience of
journalists brought with me aproject we started at the St
(20:02):
Petersburg Times calledPolitiFact.
Angela Tuell (20:04):
Yes.
Neil Brown (20:05):
And PolitiFact is now.
I was part of the creation ofit and we moved it to Poynter
because, you know, the Tampa BayTimes didn't have the money or
the wherewithal to support it.
But Poynter is a national brandanyways, and so it makes sense
to be at the National Institute,and so Poynter now owns
PolitiFact.
Be at the National Institute,and so Pointer now owns
(20:28):
PolitiFact.
And so, for those of youwondering what Pointer does, it
runs PolitiFact and is sort ofthe headquarters of
fact-checking really around theglobe, because PolitiFact, in
addition to being its ownwebsite, gave rise to something
called the InternationalFact-Checking Network, which is
based at Pooynter.
And so we also provide supportto fact-checking organizations
(20:48):
in 130 countries around theglobe, so we have a staff of
five.
We help them get grants, wehelp them fight legal fights in
their own countries and youmight imagine, in some places
facts are even under moreassault than they are here in
the United States, and so we dothat at Poynter.
And and media literacy isworking again with citizens and
(21:12):
consumers.
So when they get information,they have some of the tools so
they can figure out forthemselves whether what they've
got on their phone or on theirwebsite, on the websites they're
looking at is true or false orfact or fiction or out of
context or whatever it may be.
So I go back to we work withjournalists, we fact check
(21:34):
politicians and we work withcitizens.
All rolling up so we hope alittle bit more of an
environment where you can.
I know there's challenges and Iknow we're all feeling it, but
we work into a situation wherethere's an environment for
quality information so thatpeople can participate in
democracy or guide themselves intheir day-to-day life.
(21:55):
It doesn't have to be a loftydemocratic question.
Angela Tuell (21:58):
Sure, I'm sure you saw as creating it that it was
needed, but did you imagine andmaybe you did that it would be
needed as badly as it is today?
Neil Brown (22:09):
You mean PolitiFact?
Angela Tuell (22:10):
Yeah, that, and-.
Neil Brown (22:11):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you the truth.
It's funny you say it that way.
So we started PolitiFact little.
We said this is a three monthexperiment and it probably go
anywhere.
So we fact check thepresidential campaign that year
in 2007, when Barack Obama wascoming on the same scene,
hillary Clinton was running andwe were going to check the fact
check all their statements wededicated resource and said
(22:33):
we're not going to do journalismthe traditional way out of
Washington.
Same way, we told ourWashington beer chief don't just
write the same thingeverybody's writing.
Do this fact checking.
He was a believer in the ideabig time.
It came from him and so wededicated the resource and after
three months we realized oh myGod, people love it.
(22:54):
We kind of used to talk aboutit almost like it was like the
consumer reports, but forinformation, right, and so
something we started as anexperiment.
Then it did take off, and sothe answer is no.
We didn't imagine it would bethis big a deal, but within
about a year we did yeah, butnot right away.
Angela Tuell (23:13):
How are you reaching the citizens?
What does that outreach looklike?
Neil Brown (23:17):
So you know a variety of ways.
So, first of all, politifactitself.
If you think of our journalismtraining as B2B, business to
business, where the companieslike the Washington Post or
small digital news organizationsor the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting these outfits wouldhire pointers to work with
their journalists, improve theirwriting, their photography,
(23:41):
their video, storytelling, theirethics, that's B2B, right, we
reach citizens.
B2c that means consumer, but italso means citizens through
PolitiFact, which is entirely aconsumer based product.
It's just a news organizationthat you know, pushes out its
stories online and through textand through social, and is the
(24:05):
audience for that work is 100percent regular people, right,
right, whatever the medialiteracy work that is truly
citizen oriented we have.
We started that work.
It's actually the credit goesto somebody, to Google, which
was, you know, feeling the heatabout Stanford University, to
work with them and do acurriculum in middle and high
(24:36):
schools so that kids in thoseschools would learn how to
discern fact from fiction online.
And it didn't have to be justabout politics, by the way, it
could be about entertainment,health, anything.
And so do a bit of aula forschools and work with the
(24:57):
teachers.
And so we created even a teenfact-checking network, feeling
like you know what teenagerswould probably believe other
teenagers more than they'llbelieve us, right?
And so we trained teenagers towork with their teachers and to
fact-check.
You know, again, all kinds ofclaims, mostly on social, and we
said we're not going to createthe website, just do it all on
(25:17):
Instagram, do it all on TikTok,where they are.
Well, the next thing, you know,aarp wanted it like wait, this
is good for 50 and older.
And so it just started toblossom into tools for anybody
who gets information online tosay you don't have to go to a
(25:39):
journalism site, you don't haveto be a journalism, you're just
a regular person who wants toknow.
Like, can I have some I don'tknow power in this relationship
with information to know what'sright and what's not, just so I
could learn?
So there's a series of toolsand we spread them online.
We did a course on YouTube andall of it is a way that we did
(26:01):
things on college campuses wherewe trained college students to
train other college students init.
So you just kind of have tocome at this misinformation
challenge with about a hundredways, right, just keep trying
all kinds of things.
It's not a single approach, butall of those things back to
your question expanded our reachfrom just journalists to now
(26:24):
citizens as well.
Angela Tuell (26:25):
Yes, your work is so invaluable.
I want to talk a little bitabout how you spent much of your
career in local media, and wecontinue to see local newspapers
, things downsizing, gettingsmaller, closing.
What do you think has?
I mean, we know some of thatwhat has caused that?
But what are your thoughts onit?
And we're also seeing the riseof independent journalism
(26:47):
outlets.
Neil Brown (26:48):
Yes, so it's an actually, you know, maybe
because I come from Chicago, I'man optimist, midwest optimist,
so so we actually put out areport earlier this year.
I'd be happy to send it to youor any of your audience called
On Point.
(27:09):
The news environment haschanged dramatically, including
thousands of jobs lost, manyfewer news organizations than
their local news organizationsthan there were before, and we
do not diminish for one momentthe strain and stress caused in
part Now this is a businessmodel point with the collapse of
(27:29):
advertising in thosepublications.
Collapse of advertising in thosepublications and so advertising
was very lucrative and alsoallowed a subsidy so that the
subscriber or the audiencemember didn't have to pay very
much.
Right, it has been a shift, andso we ask now more through
either subscription ormembership.
Reader revenue if you use thatterm reader, streaming,
(27:51):
streaming viewer you know.
Subscriptions to pay more, andthat has not replaced the loss
of advertising dollars.
So a third leg of the stoolthat has emerged both in an
excited way, but one we have tobe clear-eyed about, it's not a
panacea is philanthropy anddonor support for journalists.
(28:12):
So now there's kind of threelegs to the local news model.
Advertising still has a lot,but also revenue from the
audience members I guess I'llcall it that.
And then philanthropy and newsorganizations, for the better
part of the last 15 years, havebeen slow to understand.
You're going to have to tounderstand You're going to have
(28:33):
to charge more.
You're going to have to goafter grants and have people in
your organizations that have theskill sets to acquire
philanthropic dollars.
That takes a particular kind ofskill.
That's not like you know, andit needs to be honored.
And you need to have bettermarketing and better comms
people who can tell your story.
You have a very important storyto tell, so all of that rolls
(28:56):
up into something and that thereport that I mentioned we
called it On Point P-O-Y-N-Tlittle brand there is to
basically suggest you know whatwe get, how hard it's been, but
it's time to let go of what Iwould call a narrative of loss
and it's time to stop aperpetual lament, even as it's a
(29:17):
very difficult environment, andit's time to start sharing some
best practices and figure outwhat's the future about.
Not how can we go back in thepast?
And in that spirit, thesesmaller news organizations you
mentioned who are funded byphilanthropy or grant, they are
starting to fill in and do somevery interesting and important
(29:41):
local news reporting.
New products at some of themore traditional organizations,
including podcasting or events,is a way to generate revenue
that can help support more localcoverage.
Working partnerships I knowyour organizations that listen
to you and that you work withPartnerships are extremely
(30:01):
valuable in not going it alonein the way we might have 25 or
30 years ago to make all ofthese things work, and so I say
that to sort of say like againyes, I don't celebrate at all
that there are fewer local newsreporters.
We need more, we have to getthere more, but it's time to
focus more on not how we can goback, but how can we start to
(30:22):
build some new opportunities.
Now let me add this importantpoint the marketplace still
decides.
So, whether you're funded by aphilanthropist, a donor, an
advertiser, your product needsto be relevant, trusted and it
needs to provide the value thatyou say you're going to provide.
(30:45):
I think good news organizationsdo provide that value and I
think we ought to make surewe're building relationships
with our audiences to show thevalue and express the value that
we can bring, because if you'renot bringing value, then I
don't care whether the moneycame from a philanthropist or an
advertiser.
It's not going to keep coming.
Angela Tuell (31:06):
True.
Neil Brown (31:07):
You have to.
The marketplace does get todecide, and so our products need
to be relevant and valuable toour audiences.
Angela Tuell (31:15):
Yes, those are great points.
I also want to talk about AI,as you mentioned.
It's such a hot topic, and isthere a place for these tools in
journalism?
Neil Brown (31:24):
100%, I mean.
So I'm not unrealistic aboutthe challenges, but I would say
in that same, more optimisticspirit, ai is a story of both
possibility as well as anxiety.
But, I think there's been adisproportionate focus on the
(31:46):
anxiety.
Now that doesn't mean thereneed to be guardrails.
We did a LinkedIn Liveyesterday, all with our team at
Poynter, all about AI innewsrooms.
First, assign some people tolearn the tools.
Don't be afraid of them withouteven spending some time
training and learning them.
Two, be very open with bothyour staff and your audience
(32:10):
about some ethical guidelinesand your audience about some
ethical guidelines.
The same ethical guidelinesthat have guided our business
for generations can apply in AI,for example.
Don't mislead your audience.
Be honest about where did theinformation come from.
This is where AI and humantalent could come together.
(32:32):
Somebody and I do mean in thiscase a body, not a machine has
to stand by the information.
So, and share these guardrailsand these policies with your
audience, even as you experimentwith very interesting and
powerful tools.
I'll give you an example of aplace that's using it.
(32:55):
I think, off to an interestingstart with it Now.
It's a big organization, sothey have resource, even though
they're a little bit in the newsthese days, and it's the
Washington Post.
The Washington Post came upwith an interesting product
called I think it's calledClimate Answers, and the
Washington Post knows like we'vebeen covering all these climate
questions, weather questions,consumer-related oriented
(33:18):
questions in the Washington Post.
So the information was createdby people, it's been edited,
it's been vetted and it's inthis huge database.
Well, their audience was tryingto understand like God, I have
so many questions about climate.
Well, the Post didn't have thetime or the people to answer the
questions, so what they did isthey came up with an AI tool
(33:38):
that audience members can use toask the Washington Post
questions.
The Washington Post AI toolwill answer the questions only
using information that's alreadybeen part of the Washington
Post.
So it's already been sort ofhuman approved, right, but the
(34:00):
Post didn't have time to answerevery email.
The Post didn't have time toanswer the phones, if that's the
way people wanted to get it.
But now it's found a way toengage with its audience on
climate in a transparent and waythat they can trust at a
cheaper cost point.
Wow.
So if you kind of confine thetool to meet a need and you do
(34:25):
so openly and honestly with youraudience, now AI has
facilitated a relationship.
It's not put distance betweenyou and the customer.
Angela Tuell (34:35):
Yes, that's exciting to think of it that way
.
Something else is contentcreators and the trend of that?
How do you feel it's affectedthe news industry?
Neil Brown (34:46):
Okay, and so and you'll see in this report, you
know we're pretty big on thecontent creators, believe it or
not.
That may seem counterintuitivefor an organization that grew
out of very traditional, youknow, kind of pillars.
And let me be clear there's alot of anything online.
There's just there's some greatstuff and there's some real
(35:08):
garbage, right, I mean, it'sjust the volume is profound.
But I would say that whatcontent creators should be
opening our eyes to, from ajournalism standpoint, is this
fundamental thing that we havebeen teaching for years, which
is tell stories in meaningfulways.
(35:29):
And, whether it's a two and ahalf minute TikTok or an
Instagram reel, or a longnarrative in the Washington Post
online, or an entirelyvisualization, data
visualization story told by,maybe, the LA Times, or a TV
documentary told by anybody,storytelling needs to be honest
(35:57):
and it needs to be accurate andit needs to be compelling back
to that value.
Yeah, content creators arecoming at things in some new and
interesting ways and I think weshould follow their mission of
accessibility.
Now, what they need to do anumber of them need to do is
learn some of our guardrailsaround, like why you could trust
(36:19):
this or, as a point of view,actually no problem.
Just be honest about the pointof view right.
Take some ownership of yourcontent.
It's not.
You're not just putting stuffout and don't mislead people.
But the fact that it'sentertaining, that people get
news from TikTok, that's great.
It's great.
(36:40):
It's just like let's put someguardrails around so nobody's
fooled and it can be used.
And then when it's juststraight up silly or
entertaining or what for noparticular purpose, that's okay
too.
Just don't pretend it'ssomething else.
Yes, entertaining or what forno particular purpose, that's
okay too.
Just don't pretend it'ssomething else.
Angela Tuell (36:54):
Yes.
Neil Brown (36:54):
So I think that there's some good lessons that
that sort of long-term modelsand new models like influencers
and creators can learn from eachother, and it would be better
to bring more of these peopletogether than to kind of
separate them.
Angela Tuell (37:10):
Yes, I love that outlook.
Something else I'm veryinterested in is your
international work.
How do you see journalism inthe US compared to other
countries?
Neil Brown (37:20):
So I mentioned the International Fact-Checking
Network.
We're seeing fact-checking andfact-based expression still
being something that's valuedaround the globe, but also under
strain, because governments,whether they're in Europe or you
(37:40):
name the region, are findingthat sort of press freedom isn't
necessarily a core value intheir worlds, and yet there are
really courageous andinteresting people who are
trying to do that.
We have some of the samestrains here in the US, and so
one of the things we're tryingto support through Poynter is
let's bring these folks together.
(38:01):
Let's bring them together withthe platforms which are
distribution models.
We do some training on thatmedia literacy stuff that I
mentioned on WhatsApp andtext-based only, because that's
how people are gettinginformation on text.
So I think there's like a lot oflessons, but there also have to
be an understanding ofdifferent cultural mores,
(38:23):
different cultures, differentapproaches, certainly different
laws, and so I think it's nevergoing to be, in this world of
fast-paced information, in thisera we stories in visuals to see
what's going on in ways that so, particularly with the decline
(38:57):
of resources that newsorganizations even bigger ones
have, we wouldn't know what'sgoing on without them.
I mean one of the, and then, ofcourse, you have the power of
cell phones and cell phonevideos for citizens to be giving
us information.
Now again, even that has to beseen through a you know the
(39:19):
understanding that, well, justbecause somebody moved a picture
doesn't mean it's an accuratepicture.
It's true.
At the same time, it's notimportant.
It's important not to look awayeither.
So you know, I think that youknow, look at, there's a lot of
just unbelievable difficulty inthis world right now, and
journalism and fact based workneed to be celebrated, protected
(39:43):
even.
And that's a long, a long gameand we're gonna have to do one
story at a time, but it's worth.
It's worth talking about andthinking about.
Angela Tuell (39:51):
Absolutely.
I know that you have a veryoptimistic outlook, but is there
anything that keeps you up atnight about the future of
journalism in our country?
Neil Brown (40:01):
So I know this is super current and I don't really
I try to sleep pretty well, butI would say in the United
States and this is a challenge Ido believe that increasingly,
records are not open to thepublic government.
(40:22):
That is secret.
I believe that, unfortunately,as the revenue I do think
optimistically the revenue willstart to grow for local news
organizations, but, as it hasbeen hit the ability to fight
(40:43):
for press freedom, for opengovernment, to protect reporters
, the assault we're seeingthrough lawsuits against
journalists, this is anenvironment that is, I believe,
undemocratic.
That doesn't mean there can't bedifferences of opinion, but I
do believe that there is agrowing culture, fanned by some
(41:05):
in our political sphere as wellas internationally, to suggest
that freedom of the press is notpart of our democratic
principles, and that is a hugeflaw.
I think we are finding,unfortunately, less protections
in the courts than we once were,and that is emboldening those
(41:27):
both who have money and power totry to fight open society and
open government in a way that istroubling.
So if I have any concern rightnow, it's that there's a lot of
news organizations that areunder not just you know
harassment, which is terribleand ugly, but they're also under
(41:48):
legal threat and they may nothave the wherewithal to fight
back.
And so I think back topartnerships.
I think we have to start to seesome alliance to begin to push
back on some of these challenges.
Angela Tuell (42:00):
Yes, I'm sure that's something you're looking
at at Poynter for sure, andhelping others.
Neil Brown (42:05):
Yeah, it's going to take a village.
Angela Tuell (42:07):
Yes, a village, that's for sure.
Much of our audience ispublicists and PR professionals.
Neil Brown (42:22):
Do you have any advice for us when interacting
with journalists and how best tosupport them?
I know your audience willunderstand that and you know
what goes with relationships,what I would call front end
conversation.
So you know whether it's lunchor coffee or some kind of, you
know, opportunity to get to knoweach other so that when your
(42:42):
worlds intersect, hopefully fora bunch of good reasons good,
accessible storytelling, but theoccasional, you know, sense of
conflict that there is arelationship there.
So so that's one thing, whichis, you know, reach out and and
meet the, the, the journalismprofessionals in your community,
and I encourage journalismprofessionals to reach out and
(43:05):
meet your members of youraudience because, again, I think
there's a lot more in commonthere than there's than there's
not of your audience, because,again, I think there's a lot
more in common there thanthere's not even as we all have
our own jobs to do.
I'm not naive.
Secondly, I would say here'ssomething we all have in common,
which is it's important that weall know how to write.
Write and write clearly rightand that never gets corny.
(43:28):
So finding ways to worktogether on clear and effective
communication is vital, and sowe actually a pointer have been
trying to reach out and dowriting work with PR
professionals, and I've met somegreat folks in that space, and
you know, we want somejournalists to learn the insides
of your business, as you have,as you want to come to do so.
(43:49):
That, again, it's all aboutbeat reporting in the sense that
if we understand the worldyou're working with, it'll be
more honest and accurate andeven, you know, in both good
times and in difficultcircumstances.
And the third thing I'd say is,again, respect.
What we both have to do, whichis we're all trying to tell a
story and be effective for ouraudiences, and sometimes that
(44:12):
lines up well, and sometimesthere's going to be some
conflict, and so respect is likein both camps, but I think all
of that is sort of solid if yousort of develop relationships.
Angela Tuell (44:26):
Yes, I could ask you questions forever, but one
more before we go.
I must ask about your work onthe Pulitzer Prize board.
It's quite an honor to be onthat board, and for nine years,
a couple of them being co-chair.
I know this isn't a fairquestion, but are there any
awards that particularly stickout or an advice on what makes a
piece a Pulitzer Prize worthy?
Neil Brown (44:47):
Sure, sure.
So yes, I was on the PulitzerPrize board for nine years and
then that's the term limit I hadto come off.
In the last two years I was theco-chair.
It was just the greatest honorof my career, to be honest with
you, to see so much good work.
And there's a few things I'llsort of note.
First of all and I'm not justsort of saying this, but there's
(45:08):
work every bit worthy of aPulitzer Prize that never wins a
Pulitzer Prize.
I mean tons of great work thatjust doesn't make it.
And we used to always have thiskind of little bit of a saying
around those in both newsroomsand at the Pulitzer level, which
is to win a Pulitzer Prize youhave to be both lucky and good,
(45:28):
and everybody is a finalist.
They all got the good part down.
I mean there's a lot of greatwork.
You just have to kind of getlucky, because human nature it's
a board of 17 people.
People have different interestsand different tastes and so you
almost you certainly can't sayI'm going to do this story so I
can win a Pulitzer prize.
I guarantee if that sentenceever gets uttered in the process
of the journalism, it's notgoing to win, it doesn't happen,
(45:51):
you it?
doesn't happen.
No, it doesn't happen if youthink that.
So there is that sort of luckin all of that.
Certainly there has been greatwork that I have been just sort
of you know honored, you knowsort of to read and to listen to
and win.
There were certainly very smallorganizations have won Pulitzer
(46:12):
Prizes.
A little digital outfit alittle digital outfit you
mentioned digital journalism.
Mississippi Today won aPulitzer Prize for local
reporting a couple of years backfor exposing how important and
well-to-do personalities likeBrett Favre of the Green Bay
Pack formerly the Green BayPackers was getting money that
was supposed to go to welfare asa misinformation.
(46:33):
There's a podcast from myhometown of Chicago that won in
audio storytelling last yearabout just a profound story of a
young black man who was beatenup by a white man in the early
in the late 90s and the citycouldn't figure out who did it.
But it turns out they had anidea who did it and he sort of
(46:54):
got away with it, but thatmembers of the Black community
were kind of willing to takefinancial resources to look the
other way as well and it justshowed you how complex things
are and that was one, I wouldsay, where audio storytelling
and podcasting is a new form anda new way to embrace things.
Certainly, there have beenprofound public service
(47:18):
journalism that was honoredthroughout the pandemic Frankly,
the New York Times' prize onthe war in Israel and Gaza in
this past year, no matter howdivisive and how painful that
story is, and the New York Timestakes a pile of grief all the
(47:39):
time for it, right, whicheverside you're on it, you probably
know what you think because ofthe New York Times.
So there's just all this kindof, you know, courageous kind of
work work.
And then there were some booksthat were like amazing winners.
There was a book, uh, calledevicted um, by matthew desmond,
(48:00):
uh, that I commend to you.
That talked about how, you know,in trying to make neighborhoods
better and evicting problemtenants, it was having evictions
were having a disproportionateand really horrible effect,
making it's the definition ofstructural racism and structural
poverty, because it wasadversely affecting women and
(48:23):
children, and so I commend thatbook to your, to your audience.
So it was a great honor.
I got to read cool things likeDemon Copperhead, which tells
the opioid crisis in a differentway, entirely through fiction,
better than journalism has everbeen able to do.
So lots of great, great workthat won prizes and it was an
(48:44):
honor and, as I say, there'slike nothing you don't get to be
part of there.
That couldn't be worth aPulitzer.
Angela Tuell (48:51):
I'm sure we will link to all of those things that
you discussed in our show notes.
And how can our listenerssupport the work you do at
Poynter?
Neil Brown (48:58):
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me
on and giving me a chance tochat with you and your great
questions and the audience.
I wasn't kidding.
I really admire the work you'reall doing.
We're all doing it and sharingstories.
I would recommend you go topointerorg and see our news
coverage.
We try to hold the media worldaccountable for its work as a
(49:24):
way to make sure that you knowthe best way to build trust and
transparency is to do work at avery high and important level.
Next year is our 50thanniversary at Pointer and we're
going to come out with thePointer 50.
I wanted to plug that andthat's going to be a series of
stories throughout the year.
You will have a ball readingthem or watching them.
(49:45):
Some of them will be visual,where we're going to look at 50
of the most consequentialmoments over the last 50 years
that have changed the mediaworld and the media landscape.
So keep an eye on that.
On pointerorg, go to PolitiFactand get your fact checking
there.
You can support us that way.
Obviously, we're happy toreceive donations, but mostly if
(50:06):
you will engage with us, that'sthe value we want and all good
things will flow out of that.
Angela Tuell (50:12):
We will Thank you so much, Neil.
Neil Brown (50:15):
Thank you, angela, really appreciate it.
Angela Tuell (50:18):
That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes
, a podcast by CommunicationsRedefined.
Please take a moment to rate,review and subscribe to our show
.
We'd love to hear what youthink you can find more at
communicationsredefinedcompodcast.
I'm your Angela Tuell.
Talk to you next time.
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