Guest: Jonathan Slade

Taking a seat at my kitchen table this week is Jonathan Slade, a college professor, documentarian, and the creator / reporter / photographer of the hyperlocal newspaper, The Mason-Dixon Surveyor.

I was really excited to sit down with Jonathan and dive into the impetus for him to start the paper and the logistics of what it takes to bring good writing and news to his small community.  Jonathan also provides deep insights about a number of other topics as he talks about his concern that stories about our communities are vanishing, the impact of poor media literacy, the importance of talking to people who aren’t normally talked to, and how he doesn’t want to be known as the guy who wrote great emails.

Let’s see how many of my GenXers can spot the mentions of dittoes, rolodexes, phone books, typewriters, and white out! Get cozy!

Intro riff by Dale Lytle (concert husband).

All content edited (I use that term very loosely) by Karen Shaak.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I was really excited to sit down with Jonathan and dive into the images for him to write the paper and the logistics of what it takes to bring good writing and news into his own community. Jonathan also provides deep insights about a number of other topics as he talks with me about his concerns that the stories about our communities are vanishing, the impact of poor media literacy, the importance of talking to people who aren't normally talked to, and how he doesn't want to be known as the guy who wrote great emails. Let's see how many of my Gen Xers can spot the mentions of ditto's and Rolodexes and phone books and typewriters and point out. It is a really beautiful day, and it is a really beautiful backdrop for your campus.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

I would imagine all the leaves come out. It's yeah, it's uh looks like something right out of a Hallmark movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah. Yeah. I I know I had mentioned before I have this thing about college campuses, and I wish I could say why that is. I think there's always gonna be for me that feeling of like possibilities when you sort of step on a college campus. But yeah, if my husband and I do like weekend trips to places, I'm like, okay, well, what's the closest to university and can we go? Like just walk around the campus.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

And I I've always been uh a huge fan of school, even when I was in elementary school, and and just you know, an opportunity to learn. Like I just I'm curious about everything. Yeah, you know, I kind of know that's why the internet could is gonna be my downfall because it used to be you have to write a list of things and go to look open in the library, and now now it's like you can literally Google it when you're in a drive-thru. So no, I just uh yeah, just being around so many people that are interested in learning and and so many different ideas, I think is uh, you know, it's it keeps your brain young.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I agree. And it's interesting that you framed it like that too, because it makes me want to ask you questions about like have you created a community here? Do you look at a college campus as your community? But I think before we do that, I'm probably gonna need to have you intro yourself. Okay, because I don't want to lose that. I want to capture that part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Uh yeah, my name is Jonathan Slade. I am the uh founder, editor, and publisher of a small quarterly, free quarterly uh hyper-local community newspaper uh in Lineborough, Maryland. And that paper is called the Mason Diction Surveyor. And I've been uh publishing and writing for that uh paper since January of 2020.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Awesome. I greatly appreciate having you agree to chat with me for the pod today.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

So before we dive into the questions that I actually have for you, I do kind of want to go back to that. So could you also explain what you do here at the college?

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Right. Um I just wrapped up my 23rd year full-time of teaching at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. It's a small liberal arts college, and uh I uh teach in the Department of Communication and Cinema. So I teach uh things like media literacy, television production, script writing, things like that. And uh no, it's uh it's a really a wonderful place to sort of you know interact with young brains trying to figure things out, you know. And uh it's uh it's challenging and rewarding and exhausting and exhilarating. And uh yeah, so 23 years, I'm starting to start my 23rd year in the fall, and eight years prior to that, I was also a an adjunct here in the same department.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

And so, you know, we weren't really intending to talk a whole ton about teaching, but I think that just some of the stuff that you were talking about before is interesting. One of the con the conversations that I do have on the pod a lot centers around connection and community building. And I thought it was really interesting how you were talking about being curious and being around other people who are being curious as well. And do you feel like you've created a community here or that this has provided a community for you?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Gosh, I wouldn't I wouldn't claim credit for creating a community. I'm part of a community that I think, you know, uh has a lot of um, and that this community is both colleagues and students that are, you know, interested in things and creative problem solving and working together and teamwork and all that kind of stuff. Uh so no, it's uh, you know, it's you know, I'm not coming in and punching the clock and doing the exact same thing every day. I'm coming in and every day is radically different.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Uh, you know, depending on what sort of challenges arise at that moment. So it really does uh teach you to be on your on your toes. Yeah. Um I I like to say, you know, teaching in a classroom is one of the few jobs I think where you probably have to make a thousand real-time decisions during the course of a 90-minute or three-hour class without, you know, other places get to workshop things and focus group them and you know, uh PR manage it. And like it's like in a classroom, it's just you and the kids. And it's like, and you have to ask yourself, am I gonna solve this with humor? Am I gonna solve this by referring to the syllabus? Am I gonna solve it by reiterating something or saying, see me after class? And you've got to do that in a tenth of a second in your brain. So it does keep you agile and uh you know flexible, I think.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yes, and I think plus as far as kids go, they are gonna throw stuff at you that are out of the blue sometimes. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

I mean, some sometimes like sincerely and unintentionally, and other times there's a more nefarious reason for them doing it. But uh no, it's uh no it's can we derail Professor Slade? Yeah, exactly. I'm really hard to derail, believe it or not. I uh you know, I like I say, it's not my first rodeo. Right. But uh yeah, when you said, like, oh, do you have enough to talk about for 90 minutes? I'm like, I teach a 90-minute class. You could you could ask me one question and walk out of the room and I could I could fill this entire box without any trouble. So I just want to make sure I hit the things you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Sure, sure, sure. Actually, and I'm totally okay with tangents, and I I know we've talked about that before as well. So wherever it takes us, it takes us. Okay, cool. So let's actually go back to the paper. Can you talk a little bit about the paper itself, just the area it serves? Well, you did kind of already talk about how often you publish, but what types of stories do you cover?

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Yeah, well, I'll tell you a little history and then I'll get into that. So I, you know, one of the classes I teach at McDaniel College is Intro to Media, and I've been teaching that since like 2003. And um, you know, my wife and I live in a small little town, Limeborough, Maryland. I don't know, maybe 60 houses, it's a little railroad town. And, you know, we've lived there since uh what 2001 or so, so a quarter of a century. And like local media used to cover it, like the Carroll County Times, which is the local paper in Carroll County, Maryland, would cover it. And uh uh Hanover Evening Sun would come down and cover stuff, and the York Daily Record, WTTR, local radio station used to come out and do stuff with the fire hall. And it's like, you know, I started realizing in the 2018, it's like nobody's covering LimeBorough anymore. Yeah, and I know we're just a tiny little town, but I was like, you know, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here. And so, you know, I was complaining about it as I often do to my wife, and my wife was like, well, if anybody has the skills to do that, uh, you know, you teach media, you could probably figure it out. And so in 2019, uh before the pandemic, I was like, um, all right, darn it, I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out how to do this. So uh I have a long history of newspapers. I did my first newspaper back in uh third grade, Barbara Devil Business Class. I remember that I um I used to uh get my work done really quickly, and I would annoy the other students who weren't working as quickly. My teacher came over and said, uh, what do you want to do? With that time, and I just for some reason I still will never know the answer to it. I said, I want to make my own newspaper. And this is in the third grade at William Winchester Elementary School, right here in Westminster. And uh and and she went and got a ditto. Now, I I don't know if you're old enough to remember what a ditto is, but it did it's before Xeroxing, right? It's this like inked piece of paper, and she just gave it and said, All right, make a newspaper. And so I don't know, I would you know, interview my classmates. It was just one page, you know, and and then I just uh I don't know. And so my elementary school, I had a little paper, and I was not a uh extrovert at all. Uh uh I'm a learned extrovert. And so, you know, all of a sudden, like, you know, people come to me, oh, can I write for your paper? And of course, this is just a ditto, it's a one-page. And then, you know, I remember the uh this girl I had a crush on who I would never have the have the you know uh strength to go talk to was like, oh, can I write jokes for your paper? I'm like, oh my god, pretty girls are want to write for my paper. So I don't know. It's just it it sort of I guess transformed, and I'd always been interested in writing. So that was when I first got interested. I edited my high school paper, I was front page editor, I edited my college paper here at McDaniel uh when I was undergrad. And so I thought I was gonna go into journalism my whole life. And uh then at my senior year of college at McDaniel, I one of my mentors here, a faculty member, said, Look, you could literally graduate with your undergraduate degree and go work with a newspaper right now because you've done an internship there, you've you've been on papers your whole life. And is there anything else you like to do? And I just said, Well, I'm always been interested in film. And so literally, my senior year of college, I pivoted and I applied to graduate school in film and I went to the University of Southern California School of Cinema Television and studied film, and then the whole newspaper thing just went away for decades. You know, I uh I still read the paper pretty much every day. I I like good journalism and things like that, but like I had not produced a paper. And so when this opportunity, which strange opportunity came up in 2019 to start one in my community, you know, I was literally drawing on stuff from 30, 40 years ago trying to figure it out. I, you know, I taught myself Adobe in design to lay it out. It's I lay it out at a dining room table with the cat sleeping on the keyboard, you know. And so that's uh so I started and I really, you know, you're asking me like what kind of stuff would be in it. And you know, early on I was like, okay, I'm just gonna do a little eight, eight-page, you know, tabloid size, uh full color thing. And just, you know, I thought, like, oh, I'll I'll write about like because there's like a little community Facebook page, and people are like, oh, there's a pig wandering around on Rogebank Road, whose is it? Or, you know, it's or like you know, who can come and clean the leaves out of my gutters? So I thought, like, okay, this paper is gonna be like fire hall news and and like you know, uh vegetables that look like presidents and just you know, just little whatever. And so that you know that was my goal, and just some kind of stories that no one else is interested in that would never reach any kind of regional paper or whatever. And very quickly, you know, my first issue came out in January 2020, and the second issue, we were like well into, you know, we were like, oh my god, what is this pandemic? And so, you know, I had this sort of very low-stakes concept of what I was gonna do with this paper, more like a zine. And next thing I know, I'm writing about people dying from COVID in the community. I'm writing about like there were these eagles come and hang out there, the eagle population, and suddenly there were a bunch of them that were poisoned. And I'm I'm writing about that. And there's a dangerous intersection right in this town of 60 homes, right? Right where uh people are getting wrecks, you know, multiple times a month. And I'm writing about, and I was like, wow, where did all this real news come from? You know, and uh so all of a sudden I was like, you know, I accidentally sort of became this a real paper. I still put that in quotes though, because I don't really consider myself a journalist. You know, I had the only journalism training I really ever had was, you know, I had a class in high school, which was excellent. I had a class here as a grad uh as an undergrad at McDaniel College, but you know, I never really studied it sort of professionally, although I've done a lot of it. And so uh I don't know, I don't want to be like, I'm a citizen journalist. I don't know. It seems like that's not a that's not a title you give yourself. That's something a community has to ultimately bestow on you, I think.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

But and I think it's probably fair to say that that you are. I would like the community has probably said so.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Well, I I guess my where I come from is uh I just I love telling stories. I mean, I love telling, you know, meeting people and talking to them and and you know, talking to people that you know are like it's like, why are you doing this? Yeah, a little bit like your podcast, right? That's why I was really connected with you over that. It's like people are like, why are you doing this? And it's like, and and there's there's an answer, but there's not really an answer. You're just sort of compelled by something that you can't quite explain.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah. Um, and so it's almost like in the rear view, you can kind of see what those seeds were that got you there, but it was not with the intent necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I have people all the time going, Oh, you must love doing your paper. You've been doing it for six and a half, almost seven years now. I'm like, No, I don't love it. I said, I love having done it, right? The doing it is hell. Yeah. I'm calling people and they don't call me back because they don't know who I am. I'm sending emails and people are like, Are you legit? Are you some sort of ideal ideologue who's gonna like, you know, frame things in a hostile way? Or you know, so it's it is exhausting that just to put together eight ish eight pages four times a year.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

But what I I early on I decided, look, I'm not gonna cover any kind of politics, I'm not gonna cover any kind of religion because there's plenty of places to go online and fight about that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

And so I'm I'm literally, I guess my litmus test is like if any other paper's covering it, I'm probably not gonna do it. Or if I am, I'm gonna cover it in a way that's hyper-local, that's uh specifically talking to the people that are in the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

So four times a year I print a thousand copies. Uh, I can afford to do that. They're in 30 stores in uh southern Pennsylvania, York County, and northern Carroll County, you know, like um pharmacies and liquor stores and uh senior centers and the library and things like that. And I also have a newspaper vending box in my front yard uh in LimeBoro, which is hilarious because like when my first issue came out, I put it on Facebook, like, hey, this new paper, I put it together, it says, Come and get a free copy. And I had some woman go, uh, I have to drive all the way to Manchester to pick it up. Like, it's a LimeBoro paper, isn't it? And I'm like, Manchester's like three and a half miles away. You don't ever drive through Manchester. I was like, all right, legit complaint. So I went online and I found uh a guy who bought up all the old newspaper boxes around the country. And he has a warehouse up in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, he has like a warehouse, like a it looks like the Raiders of the Lost Art warehouse at the end of the, and it's just full of vending machines, uh, newspaper vending boxes from like the San Francisco Chronicle to the Washington Post. And so I went up and I bought one and uh and then I went down and put my logo on it, and like there in February of 2020, uh, right as the pandemic, I'm I'm digging a hole in my front yard and pouring concrete and put in this vending box and made it some beauty. So now I have a vending box on my front yard. And uh, so I put you know, I put some copies in there in addition to the 30 other places or so that are around. And and it's it was the craziest thing because I remember uh, you know, people of course people are gonna come and pick them up. And I remember one day I was late for work in February and I'm on the parking pad trying to leave, and this pickup truck pulls right in front of my driveway, so I can't leave. What the hell? And I see this little old guy get out, shuffle over to the vending box, open it up, take a paper, get in his truck, and drive away. And I have no idea who that guy was. Yeah, no idea. And I was like, oh right, people are reading this thing, right? So uh it's crazy. We from our living room window, we can we can see like my wife's like, somebody's taking another paper.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Isn't it the coolest feeling though, in a way?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Well, when people discover it too, yeah. And um, so yeah, so that's pretty much it. And so, you know, I uh try to have something fun. I mean, like, but also I try to cover serious things that like you know, I just did something on solar facilities that they want to put in Carroll County, and nobody's writing about that, you know. Um I uh accidentally uh I go to town council meetings and which you know I'm the only they have like 20 some chairs set up and these council meetings, and nobody's there. Yeah, it's just me sitting there uh in some case. Now, Glen Rock's better. There's actually Glen Rock is a lot more active folks in town, but yeah, you know, some of the towns here that I cover in in northern Carroll County and Maryland, nobody's there. Yeah, and uh, you know, I just just at one point a couple years ago, I heard one of the council members go, Oh, and we're waiting on the the P the PFAS uh results. And then they went on. I'm like, PFAS, oh my God, what they're testing municipalities for PFAS, and PFAS is a uh, you know, it's kind of very toxic surfactant that like, you know, is in Teflon and things like that. And it's pretty deadly, it causes a lot of cancer. It's also in firefighting foam uh and things like that. So uh yeah, I was like, what? What are they testing uh municipal waters for that? And then so after the council meeting, I walked when I talked to the guy and said, I'm like, what are you what's just going on? He's oh yeah, all municipalities in the state of Maryland have to be test for PFAS because there's a lot of, and then I I just I kept asking questions and I found like literally Hampstead, Maryland, which is just um I don't know, two towns over from where Lineborough is, has the highest uh PFAS contamination of anywhere in the state. And I'm like, what? And like no one was reporting on it. Nobody was reporting on it. I I literally put it, it was in my paper, and I sent it out, and uh, you know, I went and interviewed the council or the uh the town manager and folks, and they were great. Um but then like three weeks later, the Washington Post had had it, and I was just like, that's crazy that me, a pretend journalist, like stumbles into something like that, right? Uh and it's just it's just it just concerns me that like you know, stories about our communities are vanishing, they're being overtaken by national reportage, uh reporting, you know, international reporting. And so we have these small towns like Limeborough fighting over these big national issues when local things that really need to be taken care of, you know, like clean, clean water and and wastewater and sewage and you know, uh internet connectivity and transportation for elderly people, like none of that stuff is getting talked about because everybody's fighting about these big national issues that are almost not really gonna be come home to your neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah. And I do like at some point I do want to get to that because I think it is it's super important, and I think you have a lot of really interesting perspective on that. But I think before we go further down that path, I want to kind of go back to third grade you. And I want to understand, do you why did you choose a newspaper? What was it about a newspaper?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I have no idea. I mean, I just I mean, I remember my grandparents like and my parents like reading the paper every day. Yeah, you know, when it came. Well, it wasn't even every day, because I remember when the Carol Kenny Times, which by the way was a local paper, and then it was bought by Landmark, uh, which was a sort of a uh, you know, a regional paper. And and then, but the Caracon Times has since been bought by like the Baltimore Sun, which was bought by the Chicago Tribune, which is bought by Alden Capital. So now it's it's all owned by the same large venture capital company. But but you know, I remember when the Caracon Times was like twice a week, I think it was Tuesdays and Thursdays. And uh, you know, I grew up on a small family farm north of Westminster, Maryland, and you know, it was like a quarter mile walk to our mailbox. So I remember every Tuesday and Thursday I'd get up and I'd walk to the mailbox to see what the newspaper was, right? Yeah. Because I grew up on a small family farm. And so, in some way, I mean, we had it, you know, we had TV and whatnot, but um, you know, it's like that paper was a window on what was going on outside the valley, my brothers and I grew up on. Right. So I was like, you get it, you're like, you know, reading about what's in town, but you're also reading, oh my gosh, there's all this AP reporting and Reuters reporting about things are happening around the world. And um, and so I don't know. I guess I just I've always loved reading. Uh, I've always loved writing. You know, the first thing I ever wrote was a ripoff of a Dr. Seuss poem, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Remember, I was four years old, and uh, and uh I I did it, I changed fish for winter or flake. One flake, two flake, three flake, four flake, all the flakes come down from the north. Oh, oh, it's winter. That's like the first thing ever. I remember having to ask my parents how to spell every one of those words. So I, you know, I've just been interested in writing and and I've I've it's it's a weird thing because I, you know, the world is not a meritocracy. And uh I think I'm a pretty good writer. And and yet, you know, I wrote for my my college paper and a community paper and everything. And yet, you know, I've submitted my writing to things like, you know, I guess immodestly to the to the uh New Yorker and to the New York Times and the Washington Post on that level, and but also the Baltimore Sun way back and you know, a couple a couple close uh regional um magazines always got rejected. Yeah. Just rejected by everything, you know, just and and and actually most often not even getting a response, right? Because like, you know, we have so many submissions we're not even and yet I have people that read my writing and go, hey man, you're really good. Yeah, like oh thanks. And like, you know, I keep trying to submit it through the normal pathways, uh, you know, maybe a query letter or writing something like that, and just literally no response. And and I once I had a colleague of mine here at McDaniel once say, Man, you write the best emails. And I just had this like hot sweat go through my body and like, oh my God, that's what the world's gonna say. My OBIT is gonna like, he wrote a hell of an email.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

This guy writes great emails.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

So I was like, another reason why I started the paper was just I just, you know, I love to write, and I just, all right, nobody else is gonna accept my writing. Nobody else sees the value in it in in the professional industry. Clearly, people in my community do. So I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna I'm gonna write it and I'm gonna put it up there and you know, and have people give me feedback for it, and like, you know, and I I still, you know, I read a New Yorker uh all the time, I read The Atlantic all the time, I read Washington Post, New York Times all the time, you know, Wired magazine, things like that. So I'm interested in good writing. And I just I was like, all right, well, if they're not gonna accept my writing, then I'm gonna create my own, and again, this is in quotes, you know, New Yorker magazine for Library, Maryland. Like the people who live in these small rural towns, they deserve to have good writing too. They do, you know, and and and I've gotten responses from people going, like, wow, that was, you know, I had some guy on a motorcycle. Once my wife's like, Oh my god, there's a guy with a motorcycle, take him something out of the vending machine box. I'm like, okay. And then uh, and then like a week or two later, he was just sitting there uh in front of the fire department, because we're right across from the fire department in town. It's very small town America. Yep. And he came out and says, Is that your paper? I'm like, Yeah, and he goes, I read every article in that thing. Wow, you know, and I'm like, I don't even know this guy. Yeah, so I you know, I think that you know, I'm not saying I'm a great writer, but I I do think I'm not bad. Yeah, and uh, so I'm like, damn it, nobody's gonna run it, nobody's gonna see. Value in it because I'm not part of the, you know, the you look at the New York Times and and those folks, like if you're gonna write an op-ed or something in there, it's like you know, you got to be from Oxford or Harvard or Princeton, and uh and you've got to have written a book within the last five years, or they don't care about so that they're literally not paying attention into a huge swath of of of the country that that are people that live in small towns, people that live in agrarian communities and things like that. There's important things happening there too, and they need to be informed as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Totally agree, totally agree. So you are a storyteller by nature, it is one of the things that you've talked about. That's a through line for you. And you you mentioned already you did not follow the journalism path in college. Right. You end up studying film.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

How does that inform your career path with respect to storytelling?

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Right. Well, when I got out of uh when I got my master's degree at University of Southern California, um, I came back and I was hired, very lucky to be hired at Maryland Public Television to do uh, you know, among other things, kid shows and documentaries. I also worked on our membership drives and things like that. And so, you know, I created a kid show when I was there, Bob the VidTech, vid kid. It was a you know, guy running around in a goofy green jacket learning and all this stuff. And I also did like historical documentaries and you know, tech technology documentaries and things like that. And I really enjoyed it. And um, you know, when the opportunity came to teach, I sort of got recruited away from MPT by my alma mater. Hey, come back and teach. You know, you work in the industry and do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

And so was there overlap there, or did you did you leave one to do the other?

SPEAKER_02 23:31

No, I well, I started as an adjunct here, um, I guess in I think it was in 1995. And then um and then in like 2002 or 2001, they came to me and were like, hey, you know, we've got two openings here if you're interested. And I was like, No way, I am not teaching. Are you kidding me? Both my parents were public school teachers. I saw how horribly they were treated. And they're gonna go, but this is college, it's a lot better. And then I was like, uh I don't know, I really love public TV, it's great, you know, I get to tell those stories. Yeah. Um, and they were like, Well, come and teach. And if you hate teaching college, you can always go back to television. I was like, okay, all right, makes sense. Yeah, and then I realized how much of like being in a classroom is telling stories, right? You know, you're relating history or you're a good way to do something or a time that you messed up so they don't do the same thing. And so so much of what I think is good teaching is being able to be a storyteller in front of like, you know, 20 some kids to keep them engaged and right, you know, so it's not just sort of rote memorization of things like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Um, but what I this kind of didn't realize this right away, but um, you know, I did a bunch of documentary stuff when I was in public television, and then I I I look at the paper and I and I really feel like the documentaries that I did really informed or uh impacted the way I put together a paper. Okay. Um and and so just things like, you know, and when I did my documentaries, I was always interested in talking to people that hadn't been talked to before. You know, it's like, yeah, there's producers I know and some reporters I know. They've got a you know, a Rolodex. It used to be a Rolodex, now it's in their phone, but like, oh, I gotta do something on this, I'm calling that person. I want to do this, I'm calling. And so they're always talking to the same eight people that they have a relationship with. And so we keep hearing the same stories or the same perspective over and over again. And so when I was doing documentary MPT, I was like, hey, who can I go talk to? That's like, I want to point a camera at somebody who's never had a camera pointed at them before. Right. I want to hear what they have to say because they're not polished, they're gonna speak from a genuine, sincere perspective that probably isn't what you've heard before. You know, it's not like you know, sanitized or, you know, you know, cleaned up for marketing. Um, and so that and just the visual nature of it, like, you know, like what images do I need in this documentary that help, you know, illuminate what this person's talking about. And then, you know, when I just a couple years ago, I had this realization. I was looking at my paper, I'm like, my God, I I borrowed a lot of stuff from documentary production for this paper. Among them is like, I want to talk to the people that have never had anybody talk to them. Right. You know, I've literally knocked on doors and they're like, You're what? A new I'm like, all right, I'm a fake newspaper guy, but would you talk to me? I'm like, oh, okay. And it's like, and I'm hearing something that like, because so much of what people cover now, uh, and you know, and I'm I don't want to bash newspapers. I don't, you know, sure. But but so much of what they do in order to be, you know, these poor reporters are required to be sort of efficient uh and and with and create some kind of clickbait that people click on. And so, you know, what's the easiest way to create all the copy? Like, I don't know how many column inches of copy they have to create a day, but you know, it's like one of the easiest way is to find a press release, you know, and just print it and maybe rewrite it or make one or two phone calls and and but that's not really reporting. Like you can't do all of it from like, you know, from your desk and from an email. That's you know, you're just getting and press releases, it's terrible. They call it churnalism because that's not even reporting. You're taking the perspective of that agency or that company, and you're just running it without really providing any original perspective to it, right? Just churning their ideas through the through the machine and things like that. So, yeah, so when I when I do a story like I'm I'm driving when I did the thing about the power lines um coming through in October of 2024, uh coming through Carroll County, and it's like, you know, they're gonna build these power lines right across the county, and not at one electron is gonna come to us and it's gonna jack up our our bills, and it's uh, you know, it's gonna uh take out pristine farmland. And so, you know, I I saw how other papers covered it, and they were covering like, you know, the pronouncements from the county commissioners or the legal matters, which is important. And I was like, I'm gonna go out. So I traced it, you know, I traced like exactly what where the northernmost route of this power line was gonna go. I talked to farmers and you know, uh people and merchants and you know, council people, and whatever. So whoever I happened to cross. And so I think that's really, really important. And so the things I borrowed from the documentary is like talk to point a camera or talk to people that haven't been talked to before.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

And the second thing is like you just like in the documentary, you can't shoot it at your desk. You have to be on location, you gotta go out, you gotta talk to people. That's right. So you can't do it from your desk. So the second thing is like you've got to be up to your neck in it, yeah, in the real like world environment. Uh, and then the third thing is really just uh the visual natures of it. Like, I uh it really started as like, you know, maybe do I have enough stuff to fill an eight or twelve-page issue? So I'll put a couple other photographs in it. But I really started thinking, like, you know, because I do, I take all the photos in it, uh, I take all of I write all the copy in it, I lay it all out, unless there's a byline from somebody on it, I wrote it. Um, unless there's a uh you know, a photo credit that's not me, I took the photo. But I was starting, you know, so I the papers is very visual. I mean, I think it's like I go out and I'm thinking in sort of the language of cinema. Like, I need a wide shot here, I need an establishing shot. Now I need close-ups to actually point out things that people are talking about, you know, different image sizes. And so uh yeah, I I do think like what I the work I did at public television for um 11 years full-time, yeah, uh really did impact sort of the way I not not just reported for the paper, but also how I laid out.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, I love that. And I love the framing too, because it takes me back to a couple of things. One is when we chatted for background and I was talking about like, did we just become best friends? Because I also love film, I've loved films since I was a kid, and you were like, not so much me, that's not how I came to it. So it's always interesting to me how we can have relatable interests, we can be into similar things, but come at it from such vastly different perspectives. Right. And I think sharing perspectives is so important.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Well, I can speak a little bit of that if you want. Sure, yeah. What we were talking about is like, you know, when I went to USC, I was really an anomaly. I have a friend of mine that says, I vibrate at a different frequency of the universe.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

That's so funny. I had a former boss who used to say the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

So when I was at USC uh back in the late 80s, you know, I'm surrounded by people that like just consumed film. I mean, they were like, and and I have a lot of respect for my they knew so much. I mean, they would watch four, five, six films on VHS a day and be able to talk about it, have this deep knowledge. And when I was there, you know, I mean, yeah, I I watched film, I like film, but the the thing that really drew me to storytelling uh and going to film school was not that I wanted to sit and watch, be in a dark room and watch movies all day long. Uh in some way that's sort of hiding out from the world and living in an artificial world for two hours at a time. For me, uh the thing that really got me interested in film is like going out there with a camera, you know, in the weeds, yep, uh, or with a bunch of people and like making a movie, telling a story.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

So for me, it was about telling a story, not sort of passively receiving stories. So in a uh in a weird way, it was sort of the opposite of like many of what my um classmates were the reason they were there, you know. Yeah, they were in some sense, they were film nerds, and I have a lot of respect for them. Uh, you know, how much they knew. And for me, I was just like, yeah, but how do we, you know, how do we get out and like tell, I was very interested in American independent cinema. How can we tell stories that we haven't seen Hollywood tell? Right. I don't want to be the next, like when I left to go to U the USC film school, you know, the local paper, Carroll County Times, you know, did his article and it was like, he will be the next Hitchcock, the next Gilbert. And there it is on the front page of the life section. I'm like, what?

unknown 30:54

No.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

It's like that's not my aspiration, you know. It's like, and then like you come back, you're a failure. It's like I came back to Carroll County, like, you're a failure, you're not a Hitchcock, you're not. It's like, you know, I never wanted to be those things. I just wanted to be able to tell stories I was interested in, right? That I thought somehow reflected the human condition, or were somehow discussing or talking about something that people weren't talking about, that it was important. And even that sort of mindset spills over to the paper, too, in a sense. Like, you know, I just did uh in January did an article on um solar power generation in Carroll County, and it's you know, everybody's fighting about it now, but like nobody's covering it. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, farmers are like, wait a minute, I want to use this part of my property for solar generation. Then people are like, you can't do that, it's gonna kill farmland. And it's like uh, and then the farmer's like, yeah, but I can put it on the side of a hill that where I can't typically farm, and that gives me a guaranteed revenue even if crops fail. So, like, but none of this conversation was really happening. It's just like people shouting each other on Facebook and social media about it. And so, you know, I went out and I spent a good amount of time and I talked to a local town councilman who like has literally saved Hampstead, Maryland, like millions of dollars, I'm sure, over the past decade and a half or so with the with their solar, but nobody's talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Um, you know, uh there was a very conservative um uh county commissioner who everybody's you know, and then I chatted with him and I was shocked about like his willingness to to figure out ways to uh make solar work, you know, who's a farmer. And so, you know, why we lose that conversation and everything becomes polarized.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Uh if we don't have some kind of central place to have a conversation that's respectful.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah, totally agree. And I think that brings me to the the second point about that framing that you that you just did is that it's one of the reasons why, again, in the rear view, looking back at why I started doing what I'm doing, part of it I think initially was just I want to connect with people differently. But part of it is exactly that. We lose so much nuance and context, and we don't seek it. I mean, I shouldn't say that's a blanket statement, and that's probably not fair. I don't think enough people seek it.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Well, you're almost too busy, you're almost so overwhelmed with all the BS of life.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

Like, do you have time to carve out to find a credible source?

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah, that and that's also fair. I think that the podcast by itself is like I get to sit and I get to have, you know, an hour and a half, two hour long conversations with people where they're diving into like some nitty-gritty and some nuance. And sometimes that is relatable and helpful for other people who are listening. But I've also had people ask me, like, oh, I listened to your one episode. Are they all like that? Like, is it all about whatever women's health? And I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I literally had a friend on who decided to become a professional wrestler at the age of 43. Like it's passion projects. It's and so does that inspire other people because it's people telling their stories. I'm not telling their stories. I'm just helping facilitate, but it keeps me kind of close to storytelling in a way, oh just in a different format, but allows me to, I just get to connect. Like we just get to kind of be friends for an hour and a half, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

Well, it it makes me think of years, a couple decades ago, and I can't remember which news affiliate it was. It might it might have been CBS, but they had this wonderful thing they did once a week where they would take a map and they would throw a dart at the map. And wherever that dart landed, they would go to that town, anywhere in the country. Yeah, they go to that town, they'd open up a phone book. Remember this? Yeah. Open up a phone book, stick your finger on something, come to a name, and they would drive that person's house and they would tell that person's story. Yeah. And it was invariably a fascinating story. Right. You know, it was like, you know, this guy, oh, this guy living alone by himself, everybody's dead in his family, and oh, but he was like a World War II veteran, and he was in this battle that was like, you know, and so I yeah, I'm absolutely everybody has at least one at least amazing story to tell. Yeah. And and the more you get to know people, the more interesting things they uh they they have to talk about. I I will say you you reminded me of something. Um, you know, there's because I teach, you know, I I I dig around and look at like different uh studies about things, and and there's a study that and I think it came out of I think it's Syracuse in New York. Uh a young woman uh did a uh PhD, did a research, and found it like when a um when a local paper disappears in a community, that community automatically becomes more hyper politicized and partisan. They become divided.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I'm fascinated by that. I would love to read like her study.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

I I yeah, there's a I have a little uh uh softback bound book I can I'd be happy to to lend you. But yeah, so what she found is that like if a if a community has a paper, and it could it doesn't matter if that it's a right-wing paper, a left-wing paper, a centrist paper, whatever. Whatever that when if it has a paper and that paper suddenly goes away, almost immediately the community becomes more polarized. And it's because that paper uh is something that that community would talk about, whether they're at the diner, where they run into somebody when they're jogging, or they're you know working in the garden and somebody happens, but did you see that thing in the paper? You know, it was a conversation starter among neighbors, even if they had uh, you know, wildly different political views. Sure. And so so the paper, like you maybe you'd be like, I hated that editorial, it was too like left wing. It's like, yeah, but yeah, you know, and then it so it is fascinating to me that like you don't have to have a paper of like an even in a very specific type of uh mission. Right. Uh just having that common uh commonality among people in a in a sort of a proximity to each other, it it leads to community building because people are gonna have conversations about it. And so, you know, we've lost what, I don't know how many hundreds of papers over the last decade or so. Um many regional papers. And so, you know, people are getting pulled to the digital media, people getting pulled to social media to argue about things that are outside their community when what we really do need is like something that's telling stories that nobody else is interested in that that the community can share.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Well, sure. I think it probably serves uh to do a couple of things. One is you're you get to watch people process their critical thinking in real time when they have those things locally to discuss, right? I also think, too, that it's in a contrary way. It also is like as we're driving people to social media and other ways to find their news, you're also creating this path to people arguing over ideology rather than arguing or debating or discussing what's actually happening. So there's this sort of I'm sure there's a word I'm looking for that um it's failing me right now, but there's sort of that that juxtaposition of the ideology versus like what is real and tangible in front of you. I think it's not a fully formed thought.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

No, no, no. I I I I hear what you're saying. I I think, yeah, what happens is like it's in the in-I mean, I don't want to sound too conspiratorial here, but it's in the interest of large corporations and uh government, some government agencies and and government and politicians to sort of activate people to make their case for them. Uh and so you know, these people sort of get recruited into a certain mindset and they're arguing that mindset, and that but all that information has been downloaded to them from you know a party that has a lot of stake at how that comes out. So corporation wants to do X. If I can convince people to that, you know, to carry my message forward, then I can win that conversation. And and and often that has nothing to do with the well-being of the person who's carrying that message forward. Right. And so that you activate these people that frankly, you know, it's really terrible because you know, social media and corporations using social media and government politicians using social media, like literally, how do we force people to do something for us? How do we how do we bend their behavior for our financial gain? Um, that's been uh media's been weaponized against uh the people that use it. And you know, we don't we didn't grow up with like natural resistance to that, you know. We're most we were not aware that, oh my God, you know, like I say, uh people, you know, I grew up in the thing where Walter Crockett came on at every night and he said, that's the way it is. And God, we trusted Walter and we trusted, you know, uh Peter Jennings and we trusted Tom Brocall. Like they're gonna do the best they can to be as fair and factual as possible. And uh, even though, yes, there was a limited amount of news out there, but like it was largely credible and not like manipulated by large corporations or politicians. And so, like, we didn't grow up with that sort of like protective cushion or uh against sort of people that are manipulating us through the media, right? Uh, and so I think what happens is, you know, so much of the social media is out there saying, like, you know, fake news, fake news. But it's like, you know, by and large, the New York Times wants to do the best job it can reporting. Does it get it right all the time? No. I think the Washington Post, even though Bezos has been compromised a little bit by Jeff Bezos and his money, I think there's a lot of really terrific reporters that are still doing good work there. Sure. And like, am I upset that it's been compromised so much by Bezos? Yeah, but do I want that sort of, do I want that voice to go away? No, I don't because they're still doing a lot of important reporting in other places. It's really easy, I think, for digital media and social media to sort of vilify uh traditional legacy media. Uh, but really that that social media is more often than not, it's just commentary, it's it's outrage, it's uh, you know, it's psyops used against uh people who don't know enough to uh to vet it in a proper way. So, you know, the first uh issue I ever put out in my paper in January of 2020, the the editorial was called Hackproof Trees. I'm like, if I'm printing it on this paper, it's like my name is on it. You got some complaint about it, you can email me, you can send me a letter. I'm not an I'm transparent, I'm not anonymous. You know, some Russian PsyOps organization didn't like download this and print this, right? Right. Like they or and it has it hasn't been changed on on like here's what they said, oh, we'll fix it on day. No, it's locked in a moment of time, like in amber on paper. Yes. Uh, and you can read it. And I I did my best to report it as best as I could and be as fair as possible and hopefully make people think about things they wouldn't think about. Um, but like, you know, I'm not manipulating you. And so I I think the digital media has a leg up on vilifying traditional media. And uh, and you know, that worries me because you know, ultimately I'm sure digital media would like to just crush, you know, the legacy, like, you know, print newspapers and the the you know nightly news on on the networks and things like that, uh, because that would mean more money for them. But I think that's uh it's that's dangerous, um, not only to communities but to democracy if we sort of lose access to that sort of information.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

So let's kind of talk about that. It's a great segue into one of my next questions, and that is how do you feel, like what is your perspective on how the digitization of news has contributed to the erosion of factual reporting?

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Well, um, really the print media are the only media that have fact checking built into it. From the beginning of time, books, print media had to have a fact checker, magazines had to have a fact checker, newspapers had to have a fact checker. Once you get to radio and television, the fact checking is not built into the DNA of the medium. So uh what television does, they don't now there's ex there's there's uh there's examples of fact checkers, like 60 Minutes used to have fact checkers, you know, Jake Tapper and people like that. But by and large, television doesn't do fact checking because they're more a more ephemeral immediate medium. So what would happen is they their idea instead of fact-checking, they get a quote from one side, a quote from the other side, and call it done. So it's only print journalism um and books and magazines that actually have fact-checking built into it. So when you get to digital media, because it's such quick turnaround time, digital media isn't by and large interested. Um media originates digitally. Now there's there's things like the Post and the Times that that like originates one way and then becomes digital, but you know, media that originates digitally has no interest in fact-checking. They don't they only have interest in like outrage, you know, uh getting somebody's adrenaline going, getting them angry so that you'll retweet it or that you'll share it. Um because they're getting paid on the interview. Because they're getting paid on, and that's the model is like the more eyeballs, the more angry, the more confrontational people can eat, the more money that they that they make on that, right? So um the MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a thing called the Media Lab and they do all kinds of studies. And a couple of years back, the M uh MIT Media Lab did uh did research and said that like they can document on social media a lie, a falsehood travels faster and farther than something that's factually correct. Yeah, it just does. And what does that mean? That means a lie is always gonna outpace the truth. Uh, you know, if you get there first with a lie, it's really it's really hard to walk it back and say it's true because you by and large, you probably won't see the correction.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

You know, you won't you won't see that hear the follow-up.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

And that's what's first to somebody's mind.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Yeah, what's first it's really primacy bias, in my opinion, is primacy bias, what you hear first, uh always beats recency bias. So uh, you know, primacy bias is like, I heard it first, that's gotta be right. And then it takes like 13, 14 things to convince you that it's wrong. Yeah. And so, you know, so I think, yeah, social media is, you know, it's just it's there to get people riled up and angry. And and uh one of the problems with it, and you alluded to this a little bit earlier, is just the immediateness of it. Like social media, like I could post something now, and if it was really heinous, it could go around the world in, I don't know, an hour. And it could be everywhere, it could go viral, right? Uh now if I write a really factually well re uh researched article where I talk to credible sources about something that was really essential, nobody will ever necessarily see it, right? Yep. So I, you know, the pro one of the big challenges uh I think with social media is there's no time to be reflective. It's you you post it because you're angry, you want to get it out, or you post it because you think it's funny and you want to get it out. Um and so there's no moment to read, you can type it and instantaneously go around the world. Where, you know, I've I've said this before, like, you know, when I grew up, if I read something in the Kerakenny Times on a Tuesday or Thursday when I was a little kid, if it angered me, you know, I'm like, I'm really angry about this, I'm gonna write a letter. So I'm gonna dig out a typewriter and all right, I'm typing on where's that typewriter? You know, oh my gosh, you know, I weigh out, I gotta fix that, and now I gotta fold it up in the envelope. Who have any envelopes? No, I gotta stamp. Okay, I gotta go buy a stamp, and I'm gonna mail it to the paper and tell them I'm angry. And it's like, you know, by the time you've done all that, you had a moment to reflect on what happened, and you're like, is it really that important? Am I really that angry about it? And you're like, nah, I'm not angry enough to go buy a stamp. Okay, whatever. And in some sense, maybe they didn't get the feedback the paper needed, right? But in another sense, it that forced slowness, that forced lack of efficiency allowed uh us to be reflective on something and really put it in context and perspective, like, is it really that important? You know, am I sh am I saying what I want to say, or am I saying or am I speaking carelessly that's gonna that's gonna have other consequences and repercussions that that I didn't intend? And so I just think the lack of time to reflect on something uh in the digital media in the social space is really what's called causing a lot more damage than uh than it should.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah, agreed. So let's talk a little bit about media literacy because I know there are probably multiple facets of media literacy that I find fascinating, and I'm sure you see a lot of it as well. And I think you know, one of the things that we had talked about was, you know, older people, and and you can talk a little bit more about that too, but how I think that's what we think of when we're like, oh, people really need to learn media literacy, and it's we tend to think of that as like older people do. But then on the flip side of that, and as a professor, you probably see it from the other perspective as well, which is some of these kids now are growing up without having, you know, newspapers as a frame of reference, like tactile media as like a frame of reference. They're growing up with it and they don't know anything differently. So are they more or less media savvy? And so I'm just curious, like, what is your approach? Like, how do you approach media literacy with your students? What are some of the behavioral trends that you see over time?

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Boy, I could I could talk for a many minutes. I'll try to trim it down. Well, I've taught intro to media now since 2003, and so I've really seen the evolution of students uh and their relationships with media um as as social media and digital media grew. I sort of I saw that happen. And so, gosh, I have so much, my brain is getting a traffic jam of whatever. I know I didn't mean to fry you.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

No, no, no, no, no. Fried the circuits.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

I I would say for a generation of people that are steeped in digital media, they are uniquely unreflective about it, uh, and they're at the mercy of it more than more than I think they should be. Because you know, they're like, oh, these this generation is digital first. Yeah, they're digital first, but they don't ever think about it critically. Uh and so that means if you don't think about it critically, they're at the mercy of it. You know, when I do the newspaper section, when I talk about uh traditional newspapers, and my they're like, why would anybody read a newspaper? You know, I mean I get that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

And I'm like, okay, well, here's the thing. As I mentioned before, print media are only media that have fact-checking, legit fact-checkers they hire that are in their DNA. If you actually turn on uh a television channel, which most of them aren't gonna do now, they're gonna get it on TikTok. But even if you look at news online, like what happens is these uh venues, these quote unquote news venues, don't have their own researchers or fact checkers. How many of those articles actually start with the Washington Post reported today, or like the Wall Street Journal reported today? So uh media that don't have their own fact checkers are still relying on newspapers to be the fact checkers. So they'll use that article, they'll even quote that article as a jumping off point for whatever they want to talk about. So the fact checking has rolling consequences across other media. So if those newspapers go away, that base of fact-checking, that foundation of fact-checking that's used by other media goes away as well, right? Yeah. So that's why you should be concerned about the death of newspapers, because right now they're the ones that really are focused on getting it right, not just getting it first and getting it efficiently. So um, so no, I um I I'm very concerned that uh um, as I've seen since, you know, in the 20 some years I've taught, I more and more um I see kids uh consuming multiple media simultaneously, which means they're so distracted that they're not even consuming what they're uh faced with. I also uh I do a media exposure project in the first or second week of my class where they have to take 24 hours and write down their exposure to all media, uh whether it's you know, book, magazine, newspaper, TV, you know, video games, music, but also digital media. And um, you know, where do you consume that media? And 99.9% of those people consume it all in their dorm room or in their apartment. So like they are literally not leaving their apartments because they're so I'm gonna use it, addicted. They're addicted to can to cons uh consuming media. Yeah. And so they're so addicted to consuming media, they don't even leave their apartments. They they have more communication anxiety, uh, face-to-face communication anxiety with a human being than any other generation I've seen. And I I want to be careful not to vilify them for this because the truth is they're up against massive forces that they have no uh protection from. Um, you know, so it's like, you know, it's it's a kid, he's a little bored, he picks up a phone, he starts scrolling, and he's scrolling for 10 hours and doesn't leave. And I I literally have had people who've been interacting with media for you know 22 hours out of 24, 24 a day. Like to the things like, you know, they're playing video games while they're listening to Spotify, while they're you know, the TV's on in the background, and and like, you know, you never get away from it. Uh, you know, uh you you go gas up at Wawa and there's a TV station right in front of it. It's ubiquitous, right? Yeah. There's an advertiser for Wawa on the gas pump while you're filling up. Yeah, you know, you're in the shower uh and you're listening to music on a you know on a waterproof player speaker or whatever. Yeah. Or or like, you know, I've had kids in their media journals say, like, you know, I I went to sleep last night and I was dreaming about uh, you know, Grand Theft Auto because I was playing it. So the media's even invading our subconscious. So I I don't want to, you know, I I feel, you know, I I have a lot of kids like they get kind of angry with me, like, you're an old guy, you know what you're talking about, you know, fear of missing out, FOMO, all that kind of stuff. YOLO, you're only once, and then I'm saying, but it's like, and so they're defending these large corporations, and by extension, the government is not that's not really regulating them, but they're at the mercy of this. I mean, like, you know, their their entire attention has been colonized by corporations who want to make money off of them. You know, they don't give a they don't give a crap if whatever you're looking at is meaningful or not meaningful, as long as you uh encounter X number of advertisements and they can make more money that way. That's right. So uh I you know what I try to do is just explain to them, like, you know, if uh if you're using something and you're not paying for it, then you are the product.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Like that that company is using you uh to make money and they don't care how isolated you become, how depressed you become. There was a study that said uh that in starting in 2012, you know, with the uh uh cell phones rose in classrooms, you know, uh what happened? Suicides rose, yeah, depression rose, anxiety rose. Yeah, uh only thing one of the things that dropped was sexuality. These kids aren't having sex anymore because they're on their phone so much, right? Yeah, so uh, I mean it's really hard and it's actually irresponsible to ignore how this media is affecting our young people because um, you know, um, and you can't just yell, you gotta put that phone down. No. Because you but there's gotta be some way to like, and for me, media literacy is is trying to sensitize them to the fact that they're sort of being played. And it's like, you know, it's okay to just turn off your phone and sit outside in nature a little bit and think about your place in the universe. I mean, we talked a little bit about something called the default mode network. And the default mode network is this thing that um that's been studied for years, and essentially what it means is that like in the human brain, you need time moments in the human brain, it's why people meditate, where you're not overwhelmed by stimuli. Every human brain needs a moment where they're not overwhelmed by stimuli, where they can just sit and then you can listen to their breathing and and boom. And that what what happens when you're not being hammered by stimuli from the media and elsewhere is that your brain kicks into what's called a default mode network and your brain starts processing stuff that happens to you. And it's when you start thinking about like, oh my gosh, the big questions, like you know, what is my place in the universe? What what's happy? Uh what makes me happy? What makes me sad? What do I want to do? What are my goals? And so your brain processes that when you're not hammered by stimuli. And what we're seeing is kids are so overstimulated by media now, they never access their default mode network. And what does that happen? It creates more anxiety, more depression. That's right. And so, and also kids say, I have to listen to music all the time because I when it gets quiet, I get scared and I get bored. And it's like, but boredom is what leads us to many important things. When you're bored, you start thinking about why am I bored? What is it I want to do to be unbored? Yeah, and so we have And that's when you get creative. Yeah, exactly right. Boredom leads to innovation. It does. Right? It does. And so, but if you're constantly being stimulated in the service of these large corporations that are raising money off you, literally farming your brain, farming your brain for their for their uh financial bottom line, then they're using you up and you're not being creative, not having a chance to reflect on who you are. And so I'm just really I'm very thankful that I grew up in, I'm um like to say I'm just an analog kid living in a digital world. I'm glad I had that analog time where there was like four TV stations and and like you could go outside and like you know, video game was like Pong, you know what I mean? And but like I could still go outside and play wiffle ball with my friends, you know, and and so uh yeah, and I I'm really concerned that the generation that now and the one before that didn't really have an opportunity, you know, they were so consumed by media since around 2008 or so that like they don't know who they are.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

It's true. Have you, and I don't maybe you're you're using this as part of the discussion, but have you read or heard about um the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Heid?

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Yeah, I have. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

I haven't read it yet. I so I've listened to him on podcasts. I have the book.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Um, in fact, I made my my sister, I highly implored my sister and my brother, whose children are younger than mine, right, um, and are growing up in this now. Right. Uh I was like, you guys have to listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

You have to. It's it's crazy. I have the book and it's bright yellow color uh cover. I think it's got a bright yellow cover, and I have the book, it's on my nightstand. I started reading it um uh I don't know a year or so ago. Because I was thinking I was gonna use it in my media class, and I didn't get all the way through it. And part of it was like, I mean, he studied it. I'm no expert, but I was like, Yep.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Yeah, you're like absolutely it checks every box.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

I know, I'm like, uh you know, I don't, you know, it's a this is just reinforcing what I already believe. Right, right. Um and uh and of course, you great researcher and and a great writer, but I I just I stopped reading it because it was just like okay, I have to deal with this every day in class. I don't want to come home and read five minutes or ten minutes of this before I go to bed every night. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

There is a an element of it that is a little bit depressing as well, because you're like, he's probably shouting into the void and he has a voice and he has a platform and you know, to try to change course. But my thought was if you could get a parent to listen to it and make changes, it's like, okay, then you've helped up.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

But even but even uh yeah, parents need to be aware, kids need to be aware. But the truth is, like, one parent versus meta. I know. One parent versus I know you know, ex.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

It's like it's not a fair fight. You know, it's it's a massacre. And so what has to happen is like there has to be some way to uh just act on the um I mean we regulate every the car industry, we regulate, you know, the phone industry. Yes, yeah. Uh, you know, uh just because these billionaire companies have a lot of money to dump on politicians, again, it's irresponsible not to be thinking about the kids. Totally. Like, because we're, I mean, you know, we're sort of like we've turned our kids out over to these corporations. Uh, oh yeah, we're gonna adjust Instagram so it's uh, you know, less um troublesome for young women who feel badly about, oh yeah, we've upgraded our algorithm. There is no such thing as a benign algorithm. No, there is not. That algorithm is designed by somebody who has a very specific uh purpose. Uh and most of that purpose is like, how do I further colonize someone's attention and increase my profit?

SPEAKER_00 56:30

Because we live in an attention economy. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

So it's uh it's I I mean, uh, people I've had this conversation with colleagues, and they're like, so what's the upshot? What's it, you know, are you up? No, I'm not optimistic. Yeah. You know, I mean, I you know, I don't want to be like, you know, doom and gloom about it, but like somebody has to step in who really knows what they're talking about and come up with a way to uh to just you know help wean people. And it's not it's it's older people too, like you said, you know, people who are just like, you know, watching hateful things all the time or listening to hateful things all the time. Sure. They too are being manipulated by the media. And they and there, it's harder for them almost too. They become even more entrenched because they grew up in a world with Walter Crankheit and Tom Burkhall, Peter Jenny. So they're more. Or you believe in them. So they're like, whatever's on TV is true. Yeah. You know, I'm I remember in the 90s when people are like, hey, whatever's on the internet is true. Like, can you remember that? Blair Witch project. People actually thought the Blair Witch project was real because who would lie on the internet, right? Yeah. And so uh, yeah, so I think, you know, just like younger folks are so steeped in it that you know, they're drowning in this pool of media, uh, I think older folks are just unprepared for it as well because that's not the world they grew up in.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

Yeah, yeah. We really are an interesting generation in that we've been able to see both. Yeah, it doesn't mean we're not susceptible. And I I have to check myself a lot. Like, so and that is something I want to make sure that I caveat. Like when I'm asking these questions and when I'm talking to you about these things, I'm also not trying to vilify any one group or person. Yeah it it is observation, not judgment, that that this comes from for me.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

It's really easy to get judgy with kids and like put that on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

And then a parent is like, you know, watching something on TikTok at the same time as they're listening to music as they're watching Real Housewives or whatever. It's like you're just as guilty as your kid.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 58:14

But again, you're also at the mercy of these well-financed, you know, global forces that are, you know, not only are they mining your attention, they're selling your information. They're the these data brokers are like they're selling that information and that information being sold to literally bend your behavior, to get you to do something you might not be 100% inclined to do, but to convince you. So it in a way it's radicalizing people, right? You know, which is uh wow, is that what we want companies to do?

SPEAKER_00 58:41

I know. Too late.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Well, I I will say that the only hopeful thing, because like I say, my wife calls me a pessimist. Um, I think I'm a realist. The hopeful thing is, you know, I I've had to allow cell phones in my classroom for years, right? Sure. Because once I was like, you know, I still remember the guy's name. Mike Pfeiffer loved him. He was a great student, but I'm like, Mike, put your phone away. He goes, but I'm using it to take notes. No, you're not. Holds it up. Sure enough, he's taking notes on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

But like uh just last year, I I said something like, all right, guys, take a picture of this on the dry race board. And the kids were like, Oh, can we take our phones out? And I'm like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 59:18

And it was a weird moment, and I was like, hey, what's going on? And they were like, Oh, we weren't allowed to have cell phones in our high schools.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

It's I was actually wondering about that.

SPEAKER_02 59:25

And and so it was a really kind of like a wild moment for me because yeah, so now I've had like two semesters of kids that, and it absolutely makes a difference in the college classes. I love that. I love hearing that. I I was like, oh my gosh, they're like, you know, they're they're they're at least aware of, you know, the the there's another study. I'm sorry, I wish I don't can't remember the names of these, but that's a good thing. So it's like like once you're ding you're interrupted by a notification, yes, it takes 12 minutes for you to be fully back engaged in the conversation where you were. Yeah. Because even you bing, you check, you think about all the what were we talking? Oh, yeah, but you know, and it's like, imagine that. Like if you have a 90-minute class and you get a couple of notifications, you're paying attention for 15 minutes out of 90 minutes. Yeah. Because this, so um, so the fact that these kids are like, they're now like literally, they would collect these phones according to the kids in my class, and they weren't worried about having them at your desk. And or they put them in a bag. And and so now the idea that they're at least conscious to the point, like, okay, they're in my pocket, you know, I'm not reacting to them every that's it's not the primary driver of my attention uh in a classroom, is like it was a little astounding. I was great. Right. So so I do hope, uh, and and I know nobody's listening to me and taking me seriously, but like if you're in a public school, I mean, uh, or you or you or private school and you have an ability to sort of ban cell phones in the classroom, I'm actually seeing the beginning primordial versions of how that's improving the college classroom.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

I love that. That's amazing. And it's funny too, because I think I was just reading um another study that there the studies are about digital note-taking versus handwriting, right? Like writing it down. Handwriting's always better. Always better. And so there are schools now in the country that are taking that to heart and are eliminating the computer from the classroom and going back to books. And I was like, oh, thank God.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

It's so easy for it's so easy for schools like college and and and other schools to say, like, oh, tech technology, we need to invest more in technology. Kids are gonna need to know technology. Sure. Because it's an easy thing to throw money at it, looks like you're actually accomplishing something. But the guy who was an NYU professor in the 1990s, he was the first guy that said, like, we ought to be using laptops in the classroom to take notes. He's long since come out and said that was a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

That was bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Because I mean, I see it like if kids are trying to take notes on their laptop, first of all, they're getting dings from everything, right? Of course. So they're distracted. Yeah. Second of all, like I've literally been in presentations where I sit in the back of the classroom, somebody's presenting, and I look, laptop, laptop, laptop in front of me, and I can see over their shoulders, and like one kid's buying something on eBay. Of course. You know, another kid's like, you know, watching TikTok videos. So like it looks, there's the illusion of taking notes, and they're not. But even if they are legit taking notes, there's a study that says what they do, if they're taking notes on the laptop, they try to trans to translate verbatim what you say. Right. So they're trying to tra literally transcribe what the professor is saying. Right. And that's not processing it in any way. When you have to take notes by hand, it has to go in the brain. Yep. And then your brain has to say, all right, how can I write this down quickly so it means meaningful to my brain?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

Uh, and so writing, handwriting it is uh such the more effective way. Yeah. And yeah, I've literally had kids come to me and say, like, why do I have to take notes in your class? And I'm like, You're kidding, right? Like, yeah, well, my other teachers, they'll take the notes for me and just give them to me. I'm like, nah, that's not the way it's gonna work. And uh and I said, if you were hired for a business uh and you're sitting down with a your, you know, a bunch of the C-suite or whatever at a table, and here's you're gonna get your assignment, would you go to your boss? Hey, could you just email me that uh the notes that wouldn't want me to do?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

You'd be fired, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

So uh yeah, there's uh yes, handwriting notes, important, and literally just being present in the classroom and being there and involved in the conversation and reacting to things uh like I didn't understand that, or that's really fascinating to me. Here's my own personal experience that connects with that. Right. Uh uh, you know, that's that's what I think you really need for a like a dynamic, effective classroom.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Yeah, I definitely think it speaks to a different way of being intentional. And I think present is that is such a life lesson. It's not even about how we are in the classroom. I mean, that's just life. Like some of the same things that you're describing about seeing in the classroom. I mean, I see it when I'm out to dinner with my friends, and it's like you're trying to engage and connect and be present and intentional. And I definitely have friends who are every time the phone buzzes or dings, they're picking it up and they're like, Oh, oh, excuse me, I have to. And it's like you don't have to.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:38

But they've been social. That's the crazy thing. Totally. They've been they've literally Pavlov dog been Pavlov dogged into picking it up when it dings.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

And it's like, so the only thing you can do is turn it off and put it in your pocket. Yeah, just put it away. Turn it all the way off. And otherwise, because we've all been trained by these large companies to just do that. We're working for them. And I'm actually gonna loop that back around to what we're talking about. It's like, you know, my paper, um, the the Mason Dixon Surveyor is like, that's my attempt to be pre- We're talking about presence in the classroom. That's my attempt to be present in the community. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's it's like, you know, to say, like, hey, guess what? I'm showing up at this town council meeting, I'm showing up at this uh, you know, fire hall event, you know, I'm showing up to this per, you know, the the feed mill that's getting the new food mixer that's put being put in, right? So it's like, you know, just being present in your community and sort of even if your politics widely uh vary. I mean, like my wife and I, we live in a very conservative neighborhood, one of the most conservative parts of the county. And yet, you know, I'm trying to write about things that I think are important that are typically vilified by the conservative media. And so, like, you know, how how do you do that when you think, hey, I think it's important we should talk about this, not fall back on bumper stickers, and just this like you know, explanations of things. You know, part of that is like being present, being somebody who goes and uses that shop or you know, goes to this event and they see you there and and they know you as like, oh, you're the guy across the street, you know, not just like you know, you're somebody outside of the community who you know is going to take some political position that's opposite of what you know I've been told to believe.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Right. And you're also not doing it from behind the computer screen where you're a faceless, nameless, whatever, but you're throwing things that piss people off out into the void for the sake of pissing them off.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

Totally different. You live in the community.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

Yeah, and I'm not, yeah, I I don't think I've ever written anything that to just sort of try to piss people off. I'm not saying I haven't angered people, but even in my my op-eds and my editorials, you know, I'll talk about something that's sort of political like I say, I don't do religion or politics, but I'll talk something that's politically adjacent, but I'll talk about it through the lens of history. Like, you know, here's because you know, a lot of folks in my conservative community all love the history channel, right? So if you want to talk about something that's potentially a third rail, try to position it in the sense of history. Right. Like, you know, uh, you know, and I mean I, you know, I never use a specific uh I've never used a party's name in my editorial, I've never used a particular politician's name in my editorial. Um but I'm talking about like, hey, here's where we encountered this kind of thing before, and here's what the outcome of it was, and you know, what kind of questions should we be asking now? Mean there's not some really horrible things going on out there that I think need to stop. Absolutely. But um, you know, in the part of community building is first like identifying as a community, right? Like, like here's here's things that we as a community think are important. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

Um, you know, so for those in the community that your paper serves, have you noticed an increase in community awareness, engagement, et cetera, since you started the paper?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

It's so hard to know, right? I mean, a lot of times you said I just feel like I'm shotting into an empty bathtub. Sure. You know, I mean, I have a thousand issues and most most that I print every four, four times a year. And, you know, most of the time they all go um because they're in so many different places. Um, but you know, do I do I really feel like there's some kind of shift? I I unknown. Sure. Unknown. I mean, you know, I've had people like on Facebook go, oh, I always look forward to reading this paper. Or I've had other people go, Oh, I'd love to be able to buy advertising in the paper, which unfortunately I don't have the the time yet to sell advertising for the paper. You know, I always wish I had a greater impact than I than I really see. Yeah. But I I see people I don't know picking it up. I know I get like a sentence here and there on social media, you know, enjoy the story about this. Every once in a while I'll print reader feedback and things like that. But you know, has has there been some sort of mass, you know, shift in sure. I I don't think I'll ever know. I don't think I'll ever know. I mean, I mean, I've had people get angry about me, you know, and uh I and I don't print angry, like insightful letters or things like that, but I've had people write me personally, you know, DM me and things like that, you know, like, you know, why did you do this thing about the trans protest that was on the street corner in Manchester, Maryland? And I'm like, you know, they're part of our community too. That's right. These weren't people that were shipped in from some other state.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

Like they're uh, you know, they live right, they live on Main Street in Manchester, and they got together with signs that said, like, you know, we're not a threat. I mean, like, what do you mean don't cover that? They're part of the community just as much as anybody at the fire hall and you know, anybody at the gun club, you know. So yeah, a community is a many faceted thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:58

It is true. So do you like you self-fund the paper for right now? Yeah. So I'd love to shift gears and have you talk a little bit about the mechanics and the costs of doing what you do, particularly if there are people like me but out there listening who might be interested in like, okay, so how how do I do something like this in my community? Right. Because I think there are a lot of us who are feeling the absence of smaller town community papers.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Well, like I said, I had a long time love of newspapers that goes all the way back to third grade. So I did not in any way go, I'm gonna make money on this. Right. So I literally jumped in and like, how can I just throw away a bunch of money? I mean, you know, it's like betting on the horses or buying a boat that you take out twice a year. So I was very fortunate, uh, you know, not fortunate she passed away, but my mother passed away before the pandemic. And uh, you know, I my brothers and I grew up on a small family farm. Uh, and when she died, she sold the farm and we all got like a little bit of inheritance, not a lot. So when I decided to do a paper, you know, I went and started digging around. You know, I don't teach myself this stuff, and I was like, you know, where can I get it printed? And so I went to a bunch of local newspapers. Hey, what would it cost to get it printed here? And they gave me a price. I'm like, my God, that's so expensive. And so I went around, and it's crazy. I mean, paper goes out in you know, northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania, but the cheapest place I could find it getting printed is at a little printer in Stigler, Oklahoma. And uh, and they've been so nice to me. They're at Stigler uh printing and and uh you know I just upload the PDF that I lay out in InDesign. I taught myself InDesign, Adobe InDesign. I upload that, and then like anytime between five and eight days later, I get it UPS ground and it shows up on my front porch in Main Street Lineborough. And so uh yeah, I call around and even with like even though they're so far away, the cost of them printing it and then the cost of them putting it on UPS and shipping it all the way is still cheaper than getting it printed at some of the local papers, which I just totally don't understand. I would love, I would much rather get it printed. I don't want to mention the cities because you'll know who I'm talking about. I'm gonna bagmouth them, but you know, it's like it would be so much nicer to be able to just like, hey, I I uploaded it, I'll drive up and pick it up, it'll save me the UPS ground cost. But just weirdly, in the way the world and commerce works, it's cheaper to get it done there. So uh yeah, it's it's costs about I get a thousand of them printed and it costs me, you know, and they're it's eight-page tabloid size paper, which is the smaller paper, and but I do eight pages of color, and it's about 650 bucks per issue. So if I if I do the math four issues, and then I've got a UPS uh uh I'm sorry, not uh I got a US postal box, and then you know I've got a couple people that just pay to subscribe to it, so I mail out like maybe 30 copies, so I gotta buy the stamps envelopes for that. So it's it's about um $32 to $3,500 a year to do four issues through this printing company, right? And you also do a digital well what what happens is once all the paper copies are gone, I put it up on a digital thing, just a very, very simple WordPress uh thing. It's just like it's like the lowest maintenance thing you could do. Because I d I just don't want the digital to take away. It takes so much to do the actual paper version of it. And so uh, yeah, so like after all the papers are gone from the vending box to go around like so maybe three to four weeks after I'll I'll put it up digitally. And and it's so and because it takes a while to get it shipped back from Oklahoma, I don't I can't do breaking news, right? I don't do breaking news. So you know I'm doing sort of more long-form like journalism and uh and it's more like a you know, it's more timeless. It's a newspaper, but it's more like magazine content. Yeah, I've often in my brain I sort of think of it more of a zine than a you know than an actual community newspaper because it's it's it's a little bit different when you take a look at it. It's a lot more visual and I think. And so yeah, so uh yeah, so no breaking news, about $3200 to $3,500 a year. I don't and and and so you know, I I just pay for it. I mean, the money I got, the inheritance I got from my mom, again, not much. You know, I did the math and I was like, okay, well, I could, you know, do this for a while. And uh the reason is like, you know, I've had uh, you know, local merchants and something say, hey, I'd love to buy a uh an ad in your paper. And like a couple summers ago, I'm like, all right, great, I'm gonna lay out an extra uh four pages and this and that. And just the amount of time it took to lay it out and then start and talk to them, oh, it's not quite camera ready here. Can you lay this? And then all of a sudden I realize, wait a minute, I'm I'm spending all this time laying out ads and things like that. And it takes so much time to uh do all the interviews and get the photographs, and then people call back and write everything and transcribe the you know the the interviews and pull out the pictures, you know, it's like and lay it out. It's like it, you know, it it barely gets done. And so introducing this whole other um you know element, it it would it would kill it. I couldn't get it done. Yeah, but that's it, you know, people are like, oh, you should hire somebody to do that. Well, you know, I don't I'm not making any money. Like you're not getting paid on it. I'm not getting paid on it, so I never wanna hire. But you know, and your thoughts are like when I retire from teaching in a couple of years, maybe I'll have a little bit more time and then I'll, you know, it'll be the 2.0 version of it where I'll start selling advertising. I mean, I certainly have a list of very generous local merchants that have been like, God, I'd love to advertise in your paper. So I would I would go to them first. Hopefully they're still interested if I get to that point. Yeah. And so yeah, and uh another thing I I just I gotta tell you the story that I love is that like, you know, how did I get it into 30 stores? My uh when I first in 2019, when I first started thinking about like, you know, how you know how am I gonna do this? I'm gonna need some kind of help. My wife is great, she uh she's like the proofreader of it and she helps deliver. But um, I was like, so I started thinking about like, you know, I had a really great uh high school English teacher, uh Mary Kay Mauer. I just had a lot of respect for her. And she lives not too far from where my wife and I live. And I so I called up Mary Kay and I was like, Hey, you know, how would you like to be the managing editor of this thing? You know, I know you're retired, 42 years of teaching in public schools, yeah. Iron Woman, I don't know how she did it, but just one of the nicest people in the world. And she said, Um, ah gosh, you know, I'm retired now. I don't think I really want to do it. And um, I'm like, okay, okay, I respect that. And then a couple days later, she called me back and she goes, uh, her husband is the town butcher, was the town butcher for decades in Manchester, Maryland.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:51

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

And so she called me up. She goes, you know, I I don't really have time to do that. But like, I was talking to George and he's like, May I'll deliver it for you. I'm like, what? She goes, yeah, yeah. And she goes, you know, when he was the butcher in Manchester, he did every Tuesday, he delivered meat all around the county. He would drive to this grocery store, drive to that grocery store to deliver it. And he hasn't done that since he's retired. And she goes, but you know, he's still willing to do so, like it was just amazing. They were like, you know, I give them what 500 or 600 copies when they show up on my porch. And they just he went out and he he knows everybody because he's a town butcher. He's like, hey, you gotta put this on your front. You know, he walking into the walks into the, you know, the the liquor store and this and that, and like, hey Joe, how are you doing great? Hey, you know, you gotta put and he's just like just one of the happiest, nicest, most enthusiastic guys about the paper. And and that it, I mean, if it was up to me, it would be in like three places. And they just went around and reached out to all these people they've known for decades and like you gotta put this. And it's again, it's a pretty conservative town. And uh, and not that my paper is really progressive or anything, it's not, but I I don't have a lot of the sort of like standard hate that you would expect in in uh ideological paper. And so um, you know, a lot of people are suspect. Like, if you're not hating on somebody, then you can't where's the hidden message?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:03

So, but uh you know, bless them, uh Mary Kay and George, like you know, they're they've become like my ambassadors to a larger community outside of Lime Borough, and that's how they've worked their way up, and it's like in 30 places because, like, oh, you know, go to this tire repair shop. You know what, Joe, you gotta put this on your counter. So they've been like um just wonderful um supporters and enthusiasts for force. That's very great.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:25

So yeah. So I will say before I get to like the the sort of before we wrap, I do want to do just a couple things for the listeners. If you are not Carroll County, Maryland familiar, and you will recognize that Jonathan has mentioned Glenrock. Obviously, I have the Glen Rock connection. We've done some podcast episodes with folks from Glen Rock. Glenrock is like a couple miles up the road, basically. Um, in fact, I went to high school with somebody who lives on Lime Boro Road in Pennsylvania. So a couple miles down the road from him is Maryland. So it so Glen Rock ends up being one of the areas that gets served uh by the paper. Yeah, so northern, almost central, right? Northern Central Maryland.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:06

I specifically, you know, every uh people are like, oh, you ought to call it the LimeBoro Times. And I did I specifically called it the Mason-Dixon Surveyor. Yes. Because the Mason-Dixon line, which is the southern line of Pennsylvania, northern line of Maryland, runs right between Glen Rock and Limeborough. Yes. And so by calling it the Mason-Dixon Surveyor, I could cover stuff north of the line in Glen Rock. I can cover stuff south of the line in Limeborough. Sometimes I even go to Hanover, Pennsylvania, Manchester. So it's so it's kind of like this, it's kind of an interesting, it's not really a community that interacts with each other. Glen Rock interacts with Glen Rock. Yeah. LimeBury interacts with Limeborough, but it's a way to sort of read about people that are only like 15 minutes away from you.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

Yeah, it's just not far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay. So what are your goals for the paper in the coming years? You've talked a little bit about the potential for maybe advertising, but are you looking maybe in retirement to increase the number of issues? Are you are you do you just look to keep it basically the same and maybe expand into advertising?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:02

You know, I I I hesitate to say something because as soon as I say it, the cosmos will make absolutely certain it doesn't happen. Sure, sure, sure. Uh but no, I um honestly right now my goal is just to try to keep get four issues out of year. And go. Yeah. I know it doesn't sound like much, but like, you know, I I I write almost two dozen emails and and and phone calls, you know, just to get like three to four people to get back to me uh for each issue. And oftentimes the stories are d dictated by like who actually is gonna trust me enough to get back to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:33

Um, and so just literally getting I like I've got one story for the issue that's gonna come out in first week of July, and I and I've got a bunch of other ideas and I've like I gotta get on it, right? Yeah. So really I'm I'm just in like paddling as fast as I can to keep my head above water mode.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

Uh but when I get at, you know, what would I love to see? Well, I'd you know, I'd love to uh you know expand it, do uh more pages, you know. I would I would love to do monthly. Um, I'd love to have a small, you know, staff of people that could go out and do stuff because there's so many. It's like I for when I started, I was like, there's not gonna be enough stories for there's there's like so much stuff I've just I have to ignore because I just don't have the resources to tell the story. Right. That's another reason I call it the surveyor because it's kind of like a a broad survey of things that are happening, it's not the minutia of it, right? Um, but no, I mean I yeah, I'd love to like have the resources to um you know sell advertising. There's a thing called, I don't know if they have it in your community, but they have a thing called the merchandiser, which is like the local penny saver. Like a penny saver, right? And that was like really popular. And they went out of business like a year or more ago, and it just like on a lark, like their printing plant is right there in Hanover and it's still for sale for like $1.8 million, which I can never afford. Right. But I drive by it every now and again going, I could ever come up with $1.8 million. I'd love to buy that pot, you know, that plant.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:48

So your your when I win the lottery is a lot different than other people's.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:52

Yeah, it's true. Well, yeah, it's true. And the thing is, like I only buy a ticket when it gets up near a billion dollars. So sure, sure. The chances of me winning are like almost nothing, right? Um, so yeah, I it would be nice to be able to expand it and sort of better serve the community and uh, you know, have people at four town council meetings and the commissioners' meetings and you know, really cover that because that's where news happens and nobody's there doing it, you know. Right. So no, I yeah, the dream would be to expand it and have more research and things like that. But it's really hard because um, you know, I have people say, Oh, I love your paper. Here's a grant or foundation you can apply to money for. And I've looked into some of those, and you know, one of them is like, okay, you can apply for this and I could get an X amount of dollars for my paper. And then first thing it says, like, things you have to meet, criteria you have to meet before you can apply for this grant. And it says, like, your board of trustees or board of directors must have a tradition of philanthropy. And I'm like, Board of trustees. It's me, my wife, and two cats. There's no board of trustees, you know, or you know, a report for America or somebody, they were like, you know, all right, well, you know, we'll you pay that person their $50,000 salary and then we'll reimburse you after you. It's like, well, I don't have $50,000 laying around and I can pay. So I'm so small, it's really hard to get uh get grants for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:03

Yeah, one of the perils of hyperlocal.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:05

Yeah, it's true. And so um, so I'm I'm really just in that no man's land right now, you know. Yeah. Um and it's it's kind of it's more comfortable than you think it would be to be in that no man's land. But yeah, I mean, in my, you know, when I have moments to to you know think creatively, uh, it would be nice to find ways to expand it. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

I would be remiss before we wrap, not to go back to some of the documentary filmmaking. Not that I'm gonna ask you to humble brag and talk about, you know, accolades and stuff, but can you at least talk about the fact that you've not stopped doing work for for documentary film, right? So talk a little bit about you know some of the stuff you've been working on.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:42

Well, I was uh after I got out of graduate school, I was a full-time producer at Maryland Public Television for 11 years, like I said. I did kid shows and documentaries, also did some live TV. And yeah, so uh after I you know left and became you know a full-time professor, I had the luxury for a number of years to go back to Maryland Public TV and produce a documentary like every three or four years. And you know, I would pitch them an idea or they would come to me with an idea that they really needed to have produced or whatever. And so, yeah, I've done um a show called Historic Barns of Maryland that I pitched, which is all just about the agricultural um and architectural and historical significance of the barn types that we have here in central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, which a lot of people think that's really boring. But I got to talk to some fascinating uh farmers and architects and uh historians and and things like that uh about like you know how these barns were used or being used, how they're being adapted. You know, one of the uh then I went on and did one, uh that one was really well liked, I guess. And so I got to pitch another one. I did Barns of the Susquehanna Valley, which air has aired on WITF and uh around Maryland and around Pennsylvania. And so uh yeah, so you know that was something I did. I my wife and I did a documentary about electric vehicles back in 2012. We drove an electric car from Western Maryland, Oakland, Maryland, all the way to Ocean City before there was really any kind of charging infrastructure, yeah, just to see if we could pull it off. And we shot it all with GoPro cameras, and uh that was hilarious. Uh and that aired on public television in a couple places, and we were fortunate enough to win a regional Emmy for that one, which is very cool. Yeah, no, it's it's that's always nice, you know. Um, like I I like to say, uh, awards don't make you a better filmmaker, but it's nice to at least that shows you somebody somebody's tuned in. Yes, you know what I mean? Um so yeah, and I more recently, um in 2024, I started a documentary about the small town press. So I've been traveling around multiple states and interviewing publishers and editors of small town newspapers. You know, newspapers are collapsing as we talked about, but there is a subset of newspapers that are small, small town papers have been around for like a hundred plus years, 138 years, and they're okay. I mean, they're not like they're not people who run a millionaires, but they're making enough to stay alive. So, you know, my question is like, why are these small papers surviving when regional papers and even some larger papers are going out of business? What can they learn? And really what I've learned is what we've already talked about is you know, by talking to these editors, is it's all about community. Like, you know, that community loves that paper. They look at that paper in some cases every day, more often every week, and they see stories about people that live next door to them, stuff town council is important. When is the when is the pool going to open in the summer? Um, you know, they have a storefront in Main Street in that small town, and people walk in that storefront, the bell rings, and they're like, hey, I want to put this ad for my tire shop in uh in your newspaper. And so it's, you know, they these small town papers, as I found from this documentary I'm working on, is it really is just like, you know, and it's not like performative, like, look at us, we're part of the community. Sure. It's just like you are there, you are part of the part of the fabric of the place. And so I think that's you know, once a paper gets bought by uh somebody out of town and then that's bought by a venture capitalist, you know, there's no sort of community investment in it anymore. It's it's just some it's just a money-raising uh instrument, right? And so that's when people lose faith in it. Yeah. So so yeah, so I um, you know, the more you teach and the more administrative uh things you take on in college, the less time you unfortunately have to be creative. Uh and so um, you know, uh with personnel people you know moving out and here and there I've had to take on a lot more responsibilities in the last three years than typically I do. And so it's really slowed my work on this documentary. But I've had, you know, I have uh students of mine that help with editing or they come out in the field. Uh so it's really great um to have some of my cinema kids like work on some of these projects.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:27

Do you have an expectation of when you might finish it or no? You don't have to say it's mine.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:32

I I have 50, I think 54 hours of footage. I love it. Uh I really want to get it done. But um we're in the middle of a search for a new uh colleague this summer to hopefully like rebalance the equilibrium in the department and and uh sort of I can get some stuff off my plate. So I would say as soon as possible, but I also you know I see a lot of nonprofits and uh trusts, news trusts showing up, and I see a lot of good things happening in um in the new sort of the newspaper world that's not really being covered in a high-profile way, but certainly the conversations I've had with people so far with the documentary are gonna be relevant for a while. Yeah, but certainly I yeah, as soon as I can get on it, I really want to wrap that up.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:13

Awesome. Well, I'm gonna be bugging you until you get that done. Well, let you know because I can tune in.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

All right, cool. So we're gonna wrap. And this is the time of the podcast where I ask people to share three good things about your week, and you have thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

I do. You know, this is this is terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:31

It's not terrible, it's unique and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:33

I told my wife this morning, I said, Oh my god, I just saw that uh Karen wraps the podcast, was like, what are three things to be grateful for this week or three things, whatever, to be thankful for? And I was like, Oh, Jesus. And then I struggle with that. You know, I do. I I struggle with a with a question like that. And again, this is no judgment on the question. I think it's a great question. My wife was like, just pick three things and just say it and be done with it. And then why do you have to make it harder? I'm like, Nobia, that's my life. Take the easy thing. The hard things are easy, and the easy things are hard. And so I don't know. I I like what you know, in a weird way, I it's hard for me to pick things that I'm like grateful for in some sense because it's like, you know, I feel like as part of the human experience, it's like, you know, it's okay as part of the human experience to not be grateful sometimes, you know, and to be like, you know, I look at these poor people that are suffering from illness. I don't want to get too dark here at the end because we have a wonderful conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:29

But look, we like dark, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:30

No, no, and it's but it's like, you know, I see these people that are struggling with like illnesses or you know, I don't know, God for me being chased by drones on some war front somewhere, like, you know, and it's like, you know, just have truly horrible things that are going on in their life, financial or health. That's right. And it's like, you know, to ask them, like, hey, what three things are you grateful for today? In some sense, in some sense, it's like, you know, I feel like it's uh it sort of minimizes like the the struggles and challenges of the universe. And not to get too broad about it, but it's sort of like, you know, it's okay as part of the human experience to not be grateful because things aren't going well right now, you know. So well, you can always find something, you know. I was like, okay, I'm grateful for gravity, I'm grateful for oxygen. But like even the most heinous people in the world are grateful for those things, even if they don't say that, right? Right. And so I, you know, so I I don't know. I I I feel fortunate that I'm where I am today. And so I just decided I I was really stressing over this on the drive to come and chat with you. And I thought, like, okay, how how I want to show let me reframe the question.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:28

And so, so I'm gonna reframe the question uh and and say, like, not so much like three things I'm grateful for this week or whatever, but I'll I'll say, like, you know, what are like three things that I still feel like are worthy for my time? Like, I want to invest my time, yes, my energy, and my focus in, you know, and so I would say, like, obviously, like I'm glad I'm able to uh uh invest time in this lark of a newspaper, right? You know, that that I um still I think there's value in it and I want to still sort of like tell these stories and and uh you know in some way. become some kind of community building apparatus if that's possible. So I guess the paper, I mean I guess the second is, you know, despite its incredible challenges and and how exhausting it can be, you know, I I still feel like there is value in me investing time and energy and focus and teaching. You know, um I feel like, you know, again, as we said, I feel very fortunate that I'm Gen X and then I have like, you know, multiple perspectives like before the world was overtaken by digital media and and other things. You know, back when you could play outside, you know, and uh, you know, it's so weird that like outside play is over policed and online play is under policed. Yeah. And it should be the opposite. And so and so, you know, I I think there's you know, although a lot of students look at me as the old guy, sure. What the heck can he know? I don't know. I think that, you know, through my stories and through my teaching, I think there's a lot that I could still share with with people in the classroom to try to help them navigate you know a world that's becoming you know increasingly more violent and more you know extractive. Uh so yeah the paper and the teaching and then you know my my life with with my wife I mean as you could probably guess she's one of the most patient people on the planet.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:11

I should probably talk to her for the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:14

She's uh been a nurse for almost 40 years in the operating room. She's a registered nurse. Okay. So she has to deal with uh you know life and death situations every day in the operating room and surgeons that think they're God and you know and yet she uh so I know she has incredibly stressful days and yet she still comes home and uh hasn't given up on me yet and has an investment in both helping me grade papers for my teaching and helping me distribute and proofread. It's terrible because I'm always I'm I'm not a last minute guy. I plan ahead of time but invariably the cosmos like manipulates things so that like it's literally 2 30 or 3 o'clock in the morning on the deadline when I finally get it done. And she's like an ace proofreader. And so I'm like oh yeah she's asleep on the couch. Oh yeah can you proofread these eight pages I have to upload them by 6 a.m oh yeah you know I mean by all means you know whatever respect she should be able to just say go to hell so so I'm I'm glad I'm glad she's still willing to invest time and and good faith in our in our marriage and and um I'm I'm happy to do that as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:18

Yes well I love the framing and I think still in that framework you've still talked about three good things. So I love that. And I will say too I don't as part of that I don't usually provide three good things about my week. Like it's always the guest and then we sign off.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:35

But I will say as like having listened to your reframe and just knowing that I'm in a place in my life too where I'm starting to get very intentional about where I spend my time. What I will say is I am grateful that you chose to spend some time with me today and talk because you've got a lot going on. You could be doing any number of other things. And I appreciate you meeting with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:55

No and I I I really appreciate the opportunity because you know so much of the conversation that happens now is in like you know tweet length you know and yeah or or just like people shouting at each other for bullhorns and and just like to actually sit down and have a human face-to-face conversation is only going to become sort of more necessary yeah as AI takes over right as as AI becomes and we didn't even get to talk about it but as AI takes over we're it's gonna be uh really incumbent upon all of us to become the more most human that we can that's right uh in order to really survive.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:28

That's right. I agree we could also do a part two months down the road on AI.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:33

I almost intentionally stayed away from it's a whole there's too much there's too much to talk about so well I I am going to do my best I almost wanted to put in the top of my paper AI free but uh I haven't done it yet so uh I have deep thoughts about that too but thank you for your time I wrote yeah thanks