I’m attending the National Conference on Media Reform here in Minneapolis this weekend.
In a media system dominated by large corporate conglomerates, independently owned outlets provide important alternatives but rarely reach significant audiences. This session features creators of independent media that actually reach the masses. What have been their successes and challenges? What lessons do their models have to offer? How do these outlets use their reach to spread critical perspectives that the mainstream ignores?
Speakers: Davey D, Arianna Huffington, Greg Watkins, Lizz Winstead
Moderator DD: When I think about media reform I think about not being beholden to others and that to me is owning my own radio station.
DD Q for Greg: Can you give examples of your success? Greg: Identify your audience. Understanding what their needs are, what kind of content they want. Allhiphop started out because there was no daily hip hop news, site has evolved since then. With 7-10 million young people reading allhiphop, this is an opportunity to get young kids to read again. You have to be from your audience; can’t speak to them credibly if they can’t relate to you. DD: Allhiphop used txt to push messages waaaay before political campaigns did. Greg recognized that more kids who are into hip hop have cell phones than have computers. Greg: Recognizing that the future is in mobile devices.
DD Q for AH: Tell us how/why you started HuffPo. Arianna: What could we do with media that could reach beyond the people who are already converted. 3 goals at launch: News aggregation/sticking with stories/countering MSM’s ADD with OCD/”on what page of the WaPo will the front page story be?”, opinion/blogging, community. We do not have a target audience, not interested in demographic data. Want to reach everyone. “It’s a simple hope.” New non-politics sections bring people who don’t necessarily care about politics, much like Greg said that people who like hip hop discover reading when they come to allhiphop. AH got street cred from her daughter when Perez Hilton linked to HuffPo, in entertainment section, drove a lot of traffic to HuffPo, 8% of which stayed at HuffPo for other things. DD: With the challenges POC have in the media sphere, does HuffPo make a point to reach out to different demos. AH says yes, we try to reach out to everybody. We are constantly reaching out. People avoid me because I’m constantly asking them to blog.
DD Q for Lizz: Re: Daily Show, was your goal to supplant traditional news? Lizz: Started out doing political comedy. Using a humorous approach helps people who aren’t into politics get it. Want to use their own tools to point out their hypocrisy.
AH: MSNBC has become the network of blondes reporting on missing blondes.
Audience Q for Greg: Why are you disrespecting newspapers? Greg: So what? Not his fault that newspapers are dying. Not disrespecting the craft, allhiphop has a weekly column in the largest paper in Delaware.
Audience Q for AH, Greg: Should you all be thinking about audiences that aren’t there, folks that don’t have internet access? Greg: Everything we do is a distribution game. How can we get our content to as many of our readers as possible. The goal is to distribute the content by any means we can. Trying to recognize we’re an international business as well. AH: We try to appeal to different interests in people. We may like politics, but we have other interests, too. The Living section is the section other than Politics that she’s most passionate about.
(DD: Rep from print couldn’t make it.)
Audience Q for Lizz: Is Jon Stewart a journalist? Lizz: “We simply wanted some answers to questions. Jon asks questions and does it in a funny and interesting way.” “Wolf Blitzer: No follow up required, I think, is tattooed somewhere on his butt.” Deplorable lack of follow up in tv journalism. DD: Have we maintained that since Katrina? Lizz: Katrina was handed to people. They didn’t go find that story. Why didn’t someone actually go ask Jeremiah Wright what his deal was? That’s why you’re on television, not to voice the question i asked myself in my house. “Wondering aloud should not be a profession that you get paid for.”
Audience Q: How do you prevent yourself from being taken over by corporations? Greg: I have a responsibility to the people that read allhiphop. Also, Radio 1 has formed a group called Interactive 1, and they sell 80% of our ads for us. We were able to get a deal and get money without having to give up ownership or editorial control. DD: Is it important for it to be black owned? Greg: It’s just important for us to own it. AH: We started literally with family and friends donations. 2nd and 3rd round from softban (?). We don’t pay bloggers, we pay editors, reporters, etc. (production team). New paradigm: we get great content, you get extra traffic. Make partnerships.
Audience Q: Will HuffPo be blogging about third party candidates, Diebold machines, political prisoners, etc., so that becomes normalized conversation. AH: Invites people to just email her stories: arianna@huffingtonpost.com. They get a lot of content out of their inbox. Also, citizen journalist initiative Off the Bus. If it’s newsworthy it will absolutely make their front page. “War in Iraq has taken up so much oxygen, we’re not even debating the war on drugs.”
Audience Q for Greg: Will you cover black news above and beyond hip hop? Greg: Anyone can email anything you think is newsworthy or that you think we’ve missed. I think people will be surprised to see the newsworthiness of the content that is already on allhiphop. See the features, beyond the entertainment news. e.g., There’s a story of/from a major rapper about his fight with diabetes.
Audience Q for AH/Lizz: What do you think of Al Franken? Can a comedian be a Senator? AH: Absolutely. Anybody want to blog about the ludicrousness of people freaking out about his comedy/satire? I did a thing in 1996 with Al called Politics in Bed; I should publish it on my site before Norm Coleman uses it in the general election. Lizz: With comedy, there’s no guarantee that everyone’s gonna like it. There are people that think Rush Limbaugh is hilarious. A satirist becomes the people they lampoon, because you say the things they say to point out how ridiculous they are.
AH: We don’t do conspiracy theories. We believe that the facts are on our progressive side. We also have a very strict fact checking policy. We embrace what is best about old-fashioned journalism, challenge what is worst about it. If you don’t follow guidelines you get your password revoked.
Audience Q: You all have your respective mediums, do you see yourselves branching out to other media? Greg: We’ll go where our audience wants us to be. AH: Absolutely. Working on video and podcasts. We’ve launched a comedy site 23/6, section called Eat the Press. Lizz: shootthemessengernyc.com (?) Transitioning to where media is going. I refuse to have some tv network tell me to do a show that’s interesting. I’m going to do a show that I think is interesting. Finding the balance of humor/truth is important. New show does the satire, then interviews someone doing really good work.
