I did a podcast about journalism for 12 years and this is what I learned

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hello everyone and welcome to the It's All Journalism podcast.

spk_0 My name is Jill Ohmstad, a proud journalism professor at American University here in Washington

spk_0 and a long time broadcaster who is delighted to be able to host this final edition of a podcast that began a regal 12 years ago.

spk_0 Today we're going to turn the microphone around to talk with the host and one of the founding producers of It's All Journalism, Mr. Michael O'Connell.

spk_0 And Michael, I first want to congratulate you on a really remarkable achievement putting this podcast together with your tireless team of pros,

spk_0 you know, your village of producers and audio and website editors, logo designer and music composer.

spk_0 It takes so much commitment to keep a podcast going for a dozen years.

spk_0 Yeah, it really is about collaboration and teamwork and a lot of luck.

spk_0 You know, Jill, you know, I wanted to thank you for agreeing to help us with our final episode.

spk_0 And just to let everybody know, the other producers and I thought the best way to wrap things up was to flip the format a little bit and invite Jill to ask me some questions and lead a discussion.

spk_0 So Jill, the podcast is yours.

spk_0 Well, thanks, Michael. We're going to start with some reflection. Your podcast is wrapping up after 650 episodes. Wow.

spk_0 So just to put that in some perspective, there was a study by Rafaannick, which is a podcast database.

spk_0 And it says that less than 12% of podcasters who start a show even make it to 50 episodes without pod fading.

spk_0 And of course, what that is is when a show just disappears. So think about that.

spk_0 You should really feel proud of the show. So give us your thoughts as you wrap this podcast up.

spk_0 You know, I actually were back here at American University where I was a graduate student, but also, you know, I got to teach here for teaching podcasting here for three fall semesters.

spk_0 And one of the things I told people was it was something that I had heard from one of the podcasting platforms that, you know, they looked at all of the podcasts, the many different podcasts they had on their system.

spk_0 And they were able to figure out that most podcasts actually stop after 12 episodes or at the most six to 12 episodes.

spk_0 Wow. And a lot of that he said, you kind of agree with him. It was that it's, you know, when you get this impression,

spk_0 at least when I started podcasting that suddenly you're going to have 10,000 people listening to what you do. You're doing you're going to be Joe Rogan, but building an audience in podcasting is really difficult.

spk_0 Finding what your your voice is is the other thing. And you know, a lot of people just sort of concentrated on the technical end of it, but it's really about what unique perspective can you bring to the discussion.

spk_0 And so we were interested in sharing, you know, our enthusiasm for digital media and how things are changing, you know, I started this podcast with two other people, Megan Clority, who you heard last episode and Julie Lee.

spk_0 We happened to the moment to be working at the same company. And we got talking about all these great conversations we had when we were in the American University digital program together.

spk_0 And I was really big into a podcast at that moment. I would love to have done a podcast. So that's kind of how it started. And you know, they went by their way. And then I began bringing other people in it and it became a really, you know, to sustain it that long.

spk_0 It was really more about, it was much more personal in the sense of I am enjoying doing this, but I'm also learning a lot.

spk_0 And that's probably the thing that drove me the most in wanting to keep this alive, because there were several moments when, you know, maybe it would have made sense to wrap things up and says, okay, move on to other things.

spk_0 But, you know, I would run into people, you know, I wasn't, we weren't getting huge, you know, amounts of email giving us feedback or ratings on Apple iTunes.

spk_0 But, you know, I'd run into people at conferences, oh yeah, listen to your podcast. Oh yeah, and I would get occasional email. And it will always surprised me, but I guess it shouldn't.

spk_0 Because, you know, I didn't set out, you know, when I took over the podcast and started building it into this thing that sustained for 6, 650 episodes, with the idea that we're going to have a, you know, huge audience.

spk_0 We had a particular niche that we wanted to go after, you know, we weren't PBS NewsHour, we weren't these other organizations that look about, you know, media matters, things like that.

spk_0 We wanted to talk to the people who were experiencing the digital revolution or disruption, however you want to call it, in their daily lives.

spk_0 So, we're dealing with it in the office that who may be like me a long time journalists and suddenly realize that they have to pick up some new skills and change direction of the careers.

spk_0 Well, and it's just something that you had something to say. And that is what is all important in having a podcast. It is not about the technology. It is about having something to say.

spk_0 Now, Michael, your show has a subtitle. Some listeners may not even have noticed it, but I did because it's very fun and tongue in cheek.

spk_0 It's all about journalism, the broccoli of media focused podcast. So, where did that come from?

spk_0 The original sort of like tagline is what you would call that, or motto, or whatever was journalism is changing. Let's change together.

spk_0 And, you know, that was probably the first couple of years. And it was after Julian Megan had left. And it was pretty much doing the podcast by myself. And it was like, well, how can I best codify the perspective of what our podcast is?

spk_0 It's like what I was saying before we're not media managers, you know, something serious. We want people to understand that we're going to be talking about important things.

spk_0 Maybe not the thing that you want to sit down and think about or hear something about, but you know, it's good for you. And so the broccoli of media focused podcast just came to me out of the blue.

spk_0 I was not inspired by anything. It's just the phrase came into my head and I thought it was funny. And then, you know, I kept thinking about it. And so then I was like, well, hell, you know, this is my website. I can put whatever I want to. So I just went in and changed.

spk_0 Well, it's it's a lot of fun. And I think it's thought provoking as well. And in thinking about this podcast series, when I look back at the website, I was just really impressed by how beautifully it's all laid out.

spk_0 And so I was like, well, I'm not going to talk about each episode as a photo, an overview of the content. And boy, I wish all shows would be so clear and thorough. So you've done something really special for your audience. And that's the point. It's not for you. It's for the audience.

spk_0 So let's talk a little bit about what you consider perhaps some of the highlights and successes. Some guests that may have just really wowed you.

spk_0 Okay. Yeah, probably mentioned this a few times on the podcast. For me, I mean, I can't think of it, particularly any bad episodes. There were some maybe I wasn't always happy with how they turned out. But everybody was gracious to come in and talk about things.

spk_0 But we had Ryan Sarell of the Candacea Defender on our podcast.

spk_0 Kind of a hot team right now, you'd say. Yeah, are you are you familiar with them?

spk_0 Absolutely. Yeah. You know, the night before I do with a recording, you know, I put together some questions that I send to the guests. And so I was sort of looking through because they had won some awards.

spk_0 And I kind of vaguely knew what it was and why they were important. And as we got into the conversation, he started saying a few things. And at one point, I was just like, well, you know, how do you see yourself, you know, as a journalist doing, you know, doing acts.

spk_0 And he's like, I'm not a journalist. He's the publisher of the Candacea Defender. And then we got to this very long conversation about community journalism. And the success of the defender is that it is it is serving its audience, just like, just like podcasting that they recognize that there was an underserved audience that their side of the news, their story, their greater story was not being covered by other Candacea media.

spk_0 And so they put themselves in that place. But because he wasn't a journalist, he was coming at it from an activist standpoint. And what that meant was they sponsored basketball games. They were out in the community.

spk_0 You know, people knew who the defender were. People knew what the tone and the mission was. And that's because they took those extra steps. They saw a need. And they addressed it. And I think for me in that moment, my mind was kind of blown because so much of the podcast.

spk_0 Up to that point, it was almost operating within this idea of, you know, oh, people just need to learn learn how to use Twitter or people just need to learn how to use digital video. And then all of the ways that we did journalism in the past, we just kind of just fit into that.

spk_0 But that's kind of when I began to see that the journalism was changing in a very significant way. And that there were different ways to do journalism. And the work that we're on is doing, I think, you know, 10 years ago, people said, oh, he's an advocate. They would dismiss what was going on. But you can't argue with the fact that he's serving an audience that was not being served is serving them better than anybody else could.

spk_0 And so, you know, if that's advocacy, okay, well, then is solutions journalism advocacy is, you know, are these other forms that are sort of a combination of citizen journalists. I mean, as a citizen journalist and activist, I mean, I think we need to sort of break beyond some of the bonds that hold us is to, you know, journalism is this. Well, you know, our platforms are changing, our focus is changing, you know, let's change with this. There's almost going back to our old metaphor.

spk_0 Well, there is an old saying all journalism is local. And I mean, that is what people care about because they go to their local grocery store, they go to their local bank, etc. So their lives are involved in a community.

spk_0 And so if you're going to find success in journalism, I think it is absolutely starting local. So as you look back, I wonder about a particularly impactful interview you may have had 12 years.

spk_0 There's a lot of them probably, but is there one a particular that stands out in your mind?

spk_0 We have a number of really amazing guests. And I can point to lots of different ones. We talked to a few photographers who had been in war zones and the issues they were facing, you know, dealing with PTSD and other things like that.

spk_0 Which is something that journalists never used to talk about just like soldiers never used to talk about it because it was seen as a sign of weakness. Now of course, culture has changed. And a lot of people argue that really that's a sign of strength.

spk_0 Yeah. And I think it speaks to the change in newsroom culture. And that was something that sort of came about early on in the podcast. I had this sort of feeling that, you know, we need to get rid of some of these old stories.

spk_0 And what I told people about what a newsroom is and how people interact in a newsroom and what the future for you is an individual journalist is as you're moving through that that newsroom.

spk_0 The focus of the podcast sometimes is very much about how the job of journalism is changing. We had somebody come on who was talking about safety.

spk_0 How do you keep yourself safe when you go out to cover a protest? How to keep yourself safe when you're going out to cover a hurricane or something like that?

spk_0 But, you know, there were several people who kind of jumped down at me. Shannon Fault, you know, I interviewed her again in 2023. Go back and listen to 2023. There's some amazing interviews in there.

spk_0 And she is a New York City journalist who started a podcast in Israel in her families from Israel. And she was a broadcast journalist. And she was, you know, a one woman show.

spk_0 She would go out in the morning and she would cover the news herself. She would take photos and record audio and then do daily reports and daily newsletters.

spk_0 And anybody who's done something like that, that's a lot of work. But she had set herself up so that unfortunately she was on the ground when a war broke out in Israel. And, you know, she stepped up.

spk_0 And, you know, for me, that's kind of key to one of the great things about the way our industry has changed that you can be one person.

spk_0 And if you have an idea, if you have, you know, a need that you see that needs to be filled and a passion, you know, it's not too difficult to pick up a lot of these skills.

spk_0 And you can commit yourself to it. Now, you know, she made it so that she had to, you know, write for some other people at that time so that she could sustain herself.

spk_0 But it was very exciting. You know, this is somebody who is living story to story day to day, living inside the story and, you know, sending that.

spk_0 And so she had a huge audience back in the United States because here's a voice, you know, somebody from our community who is in Israel who is experiencing these things that we really care about and loving it. And so they, you know, would support her as well.

spk_0 I mean, that's a great example of, you know, how our industry has changed to the positive and how the technology has made it so that we can do different types of journalism.

spk_0 We don't have to be dependent upon a big city newspaper staff. We do not need to have, you know, three editors above us. You can do this on your own.

spk_0 And certainly that's something that figures into this podcast as well.

spk_0 Now, there's no doubt that as we changed course a little bit here that 2024 was a tough year for journalism for podcasting.

spk_0 There were widespread layoffs, fewer shows were produced. But I would argue there still is a vibrant community out there.

spk_0 There are sold out podcast festivals. The one this past fall at Virginia Commonwealth. There are still blockbuster podcast deals, at least for some people, the Kelsey brothers, Alex Cooper from Caller Daddy.

spk_0 And of course, we notice the impact that podcasting had on the presidential election. This is where the candidates bypassed traditional media to talk in depth and directly to an audience.

spk_0 So I'm wondering in light of that, do you have concerns about the future of journalism?

spk_0 I almost wanted, and I always shouldn't. I almost want to make a distinction between journalism and podcasting. That's just a, there is some.

spk_0 Yeah, right. But this is kind of also where I come from in the in the podcasting space. I started when being a podcaster, focusing on news was a little weird.

spk_0 Why isn't this a detective podcast? You know, why aren't you serial? But it's been very interesting is a look back over 12 years and reflect on the guests we've had and how things have sort of changed.

spk_0 And to be honest, when I started the podcast, there were a lot of people talking about how much things were so different than that they couldn't imagine where we would be in 12 years.

spk_0 And well, here we are. There have been so many different changes. The financial issue, I think, is number one is the problem that somehow has to be cracked in journalism.

spk_0 But that being said, as I mentioned, Shanna, there are ways to get around that. But it takes some commitment. I know that when I came into journalism in the 80s, there was a track. You would work at a small newspaper. You would work at a medium-sized paper. You'd end up becoming an editor and you'd work around the up to be a columnist or whatever.

spk_0 And so when you chose journalism as a career, you kind of knew the direction you were going to go. Now, really, the world is open to you. There are so many different ways to do journalism.

spk_0 Unfortunately, the thing that probably stops a lot of people is just the financial end of it. And traditionally, journalism not made a ton of money. Now, you mentioned some of, you know, podcasts who get these big contracts, podcasting, all this talk is a podcast through now.

spk_0 Not just necessarily a journalist. If you're going into podcasting to make money, then you're probably in trouble. You know, we talked about people not podcasting or stopping podcasting at some point.

spk_0 And the financial aspect of is a huge piece of it. It takes a lot to put together a podcast episode. The reason we're at 650 episodes is that we did this as a team. I was a one-man show for, I don't know how many episodes.

spk_0 You know, I did everything and it was hard. And I don't think we would have gotten to this place if I had just been the only one in it. So collaboration is key. But going back to the point about sustainability and podcasting, maybe that's not the money maker in the thing you're pushing.

spk_0 Maybe it's the thing that you point to that says, look, we do this podcast, but also as we did to a degree, we could produce a podcast for you. That's how we've been able to sustain with the help of the American Presidents Institute and the Better News Initiative.

spk_0 We've been able to do a podcast where they would pay us and that allowed us to, you know, continue to pay our fees and continue to go on.

spk_0 There are solutions out there for you to build a career, a unique career around your interests and your passions. And so, you know, I've been able to do that with podcasting. I don't want to get so much into me and the podcast, but to be truthful, me doing this podcast has radically changed my personal political perspective.

spk_0 You know, I benefited and you know, as I said, I taught for three years here, I wrote a book. I got a book contract and I wrote a book. And, you know, I got to talk to journalists all over the world. And as I like to say, it will continue saying this because it's one of the most favorite things to say in 2018, the United States State Department invited me to go to to Jika Stan to teach young journalists how to podcast.

spk_0 And if you allow me to digress, I know I've been talking a little bit, but it only came in recently that I began to understand, especially in light of the current situation and state of journalism and the politics in America, to Jika Stan was an eye opening experience for me, not necessarily because it was the other side of the planet, which, you know, for me was like incredible.

spk_0 But the reason the State Department wanted me to go there to teach them podcasting specifically, and I remember thinking, are you sure this is what you want them to do?

spk_0 But as I began to understand, to Jika Stan was, I would say fascist or dictatorship, it was controlled by, I guess, all the guards, a family.

spk_0 And the freedom of expression in the press was kind of frozen. Journalists were afraid to do anything because like our industries used to be, you had to go work for a paper, you had to go work for a radio station or whatever.

spk_0 And the radio stations and the papers were afraid because if they got negative feedback from the government, the government could put some pressure on their advertisers and suddenly the papers would fold.

spk_0 And so basically shutting down any free thought or free expression, free expression.

spk_0 And what the State Department, why they wanted somebody to come into podcasts, is they knew that there were all these young journalists who were enthusiastic, they wanted to write these important stories.

spk_0 And here was a technology that would allow them, you know, like Shana in Israel to create content for an audience that was not dependent on big power, big financial aid.

spk_0 And that's why we're trying to make sure that the media is not being able to make a big deal of structural structures to succeed.

spk_0 Well, right. I mean, podcasts are now mainstream.

spk_0 Online audio listening hit new highs in 2024, half a billion people expected to listen to podcasts. And that growth has been in areas where media traditionally was not.

spk_0 It is female listening and female broadcasting and young people.

spk_0 So podcast reach is now as big as television, which is certainly not true in the baby boomer generation that I am from.

spk_0 So really what you've seen is is podcasts replacing traditional media consumption and young people are watching TV less, browsing social media, playing video games.

spk_0 That's what all of the research shows. And that's of course fueled by technology, smartphones, smart speakers, in dash entertainment systems, etc.

spk_0 As you look towards the future of the practice of journalism, what are your thoughts?

spk_0 Sort of a continuum on what I was saying about podcasting. Yes, there are fewer jobs. Yes, there are, you know, people out there who are actively attacking newsrooms who are saying that fake news, you know, I've talked to journalists who have experienced threats.

spk_0 Towards themselves who have went out and covered events where, you know, they may be were upon reflection, they were concerned about their safety.

spk_0 There were maybe they should have been more concerned about their safety. What are my concerns for journalism? I mean, sadly the money thing.

spk_0 I think until we get a workable solution to how we're going to pay for our journalism, you know, we're always going to be under the thumb.

spk_0 But I don't necessarily think that that means that journalism is going to go away. I think people have seen, and even my own personal experience is a local journalist that there are levels of journalism that need to be done that people respond to.

spk_0 You know, I've said this many times in the podcast, I would go out and do stories and people will come up to me and thank me because they were there, because they never saw a journalist going to cover a particular meaning like they used to do.

spk_0 And so there's people when they see a journalist doing what they're supposed to be doing, reporting the news, being fair, being timely.

spk_0 You know, people appreciate that. I just covered an election in the city of Fairfax. My coverage started out with somebody accusing me of being biased in an email to all of the candidates.

spk_0 So I was kind of like, OK, well, where is this going to go? So then I spent the next two months showing that person that, you know, I showed up, I was fair and I did everything.

spk_0 And the fact that she lost, you know, great. That's me being petty. But anyway, what I point out as as indication that podcasting and journalism are good steps going forward, just look at the top podcast of 2024 from Apple.

spk_0 Six of the 10 shows are news related. You've got the daily from the New York Times, a true crime show, crime junkie, Dateline NBC, Huberman Lab, which is science tools.

spk_0 This American life, a classic and up first from NPR. So those are all very, very hopeful signs. Yeah.

spk_0 Another big thing that happened was only in 2020, the prestige just Pulitzer Prize began being awarded to podcasts and talk about impactful.

spk_0 I mean, the first Pulitzer was awarded to this American life. It reported on the personal impact of the Trump administrations remain in Mexico policy.

spk_0 There were others that, you know, found injustices in race and got people, you know, off life sentences. I mean, those are all examples of the positivity going forward in journalism.

spk_0 Do you have any other thoughts about where the future of podcasting might be?

spk_0 I think it's in a good, good place for a lot of things that you were saying there, you know, obviously there's evidence that these types of podcasts have an audience.

spk_0 And many of them, the successful ones have an influence, you know, no matter what you say about Joe Rogan, he has an audience and he's able to leverage that audience, it may be politically, but also, you know, financially.

spk_0 And so, you know, you go on that show, you're going to have some sort of influence, you're going to have a platform where you can say things.

spk_0 And this is another thing. If the podcast had gone on for another couple of years, I probably would have spent some time, you more this idea of the influencer because I think that you're talking about the future of journalism.

spk_0 I think that is going to be somehow part of the mix because that is part of the way that people are consuming media now that they're people who that they like or who have the same sort of interest.

spk_0 And so, I think, you know, podcasting is maybe a more formalized way of that. I mean, I'm not surprised by the podcast that's on that list. I forget which one it is, the science one. You know, people like things like that.

spk_0 And journalism is a lot of different things. This podcast has a very wide arms as far as what is journalism. And so, I'm pretty optimistic. I'm not saying, you know, we don't have some things that we're going to have to get hurdles over.

spk_0 But I've interviewed a lot of smart people who are working with lots of the problems of journalism, including coming up with ways to sustain podcast Mrs.

spk_0 Sustain journalism. I don't think it's going to win.

spk_0 You know, Mike, that you talk about influencers. I would argue that podcasters are the original influences because all the surveys show that the amount of trust.

spk_0 Yeah, the audience has in the host of a podcast show far surpasses that of mainstream media. So, there's another development too. It's a great way to spread education.

spk_0 Right.

spk_0 I'm a formal educator. There are academics from sociology to science to the humanities that are doing podcasts. It's a less stuffy way of getting information into people's heads.

spk_0 So, there's even a podcast directory now called higher ed pods, which just began in the first this past year. So, all of those are positive developments.

spk_0 Yeah. One of the problems with a lot of the journalism, the startups that happened, many of the solutions that people are trying to come to for the financial end of it was this idea of scale.

spk_0 Yeah, this is good. This is doing this, but you can't scale it so that it's like a cable news channel or it's like an old daily newspaper.

spk_0 Well, maybe that's not the scale you need to exist at. Maybe the digital startup you do is focused on a sector of your city. And maybe that's where you could find either through support, donations or grants or even maybe advertising because people do buy ads on podcasts.

spk_0 Well, there's also the aspect that you can put up a campaign to raise some funds on your own podcast. You don't have to wait for a formal advertiser.

spk_0 So, there are lots of ways that you can make a little money to at least cover your expenses and such. So, that's all good.

spk_0 As we talk a little bit about the future of journalism, one of the things that is both good and bad in my head is artificial intelligence.

spk_0 And it's good in that it can help with the more mundane things with website information, transcripts, show notes, marketing. And that's something actually that marketers will tell you producing clips for social media.

spk_0 But can it take the place of a human host?

spk_0 I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. I don't think so. I want to hope I don't think so. They're just going to happen.

spk_0 I think we've only done a couple of podcasts about AI. And we probably would have more if we were going to be around for the year or two because it's certainly a hot point of discussion right now, especially in journalism.

spk_0 We're speaking, we're in American, we're an American university, we're in America, we're in a capitalist country where successes measure how much money you can make.

spk_0 And part of that formula is, well, how do I keep our expenses down? And you can see many different scenarios where levels of journalism will disappear because it's a lot cheaper for us to have an AI do this.

spk_0 And so then it comes out to what value does the human journalists have? What can they bring to it? What perspective? And you know, again, not to say that podcasting is a solution to it, but that's an example of, you know, I found an audience that I'm going to serve, you know, the Candacea Defender.

spk_0 This is a community that's not being served. You know, these are conversations that people aren't going to have with AI.

spk_0 So I think, especially in the local arena, there may be other arenas, maybe around certain political factions or, you know, sports teams or whatever, where people gather and they share information.

spk_0 I think people still have that hunger for the human mind. And if everything that I've seen at this point, I'm not sure, and I'm not saying it's not going to change, is, you know, AI is collating at this point.

spk_0 It's not necessarily creating in the way that a human journalist creates is not making those decisions out that may change.

spk_0 Well, the hopeful note is that the testing that has been done when people have tried to use AI as the host, most people tune it out.

spk_0 So that's the hopeful note for those of us who still want to talk to and hear from real people.

spk_0 I want to go back to something that we sort of touched on about, you know, the loss of jobs and sort of the closing of newspapers and this lament that some people have about, you know, there used to be three networks.

spk_0 And so we kind of, everybody knew the same sort of, say the name stories. We had people, we had people who were aggregating for us.

spk_0 There were three places we could go that information. Now we have information coming at us from millions of different directions.

spk_0 But the thing, the promise, the success of digital media is that it puts so much into the listener's hands.

spk_0 And so in the early days of the podcast, I used to point to the DVR. I says, that was a revolutionary moment because suddenly broadcasters lost the power of, well, you can only see this at this point.

spk_0 I would add throwing into that like Netflix. Oh, you know, you're going to have to wait 10 weeks to watch this whole series. No, I want to watch it in one night.

spk_0 So suddenly the control of consumption is in the hands of the consumer. And what that does is it behooves the journalist, it behooves the podcaster, whomever to think about what product they want to bring, what message they want to bring to their audience.

spk_0 And again, you know, pointing back to the defender, identify your audience, give them what they want, give them a perspective that they may not see, and they will be loyal to you.

spk_0 And that's, I think, what you were talking about with podcasting. And again, this is something that I covered in the book that I wrote. You have to develop this relationship with your audience.

spk_0 And, you know, people like Shana in Israel who, who find an audience because they've done that leap. They've identified the need, they have the skills and the desire to do it and the freedom. So anyway.

spk_0 Well, podcasts are narrow casting. It allows an audience to go for a specific piece of content that they are interested in. And what this has enabled producers to do is it's allowed minorities of,

spk_0 every stripe, every age group, every gender, every race, every religion to build their own network of people.

spk_0 So you don't need to necessarily have huge numbers. If those numbers are targeted, that's what people have found. Even businesses have found so great about brands that they want to promote.

spk_0 It's not huge numbers, but it's targeted numbers. And that gets your audience through.

spk_0 Yeah, and they're loyal. I mean, this was one of the things when I started podcasting that they were saying is is like podcast listeners. I mean, they're loyal to their, you know, the person who is the host or whatever.

spk_0 And it's true. And it also goes back to the, the idea of choice. It comes down to what the consumer wants to listen to. Unfortunately, now we're in an environment where we're competing with so many different choices.

spk_0 I mean, how do we make the content that we're putting out there? Something is people are going to be interested in. Again, it's why it's important that we recognize who the audience is and use our journalistic skills of telling good stories and identifying things that are going to be beneficial to your audience.

spk_0 That they're going to want to hear and find. Let me get you to have some concluding thoughts here. It must be a little bit sad to to end one chapter, start another one.

spk_0 Yeah, it's the starting of the other one that I'm still struggling with. Aren't we all?

spk_0 If we are, if we all, it was a group decision to end our podcast. And I thoroughly believed is the correct decision because the podcast as it is, you know, I don't think it's necessarily what journalists need right at the moment, especially given the recent changes in political direction.

spk_0 What I would say to people though, and what are the things that I've been thinking about about what I want to do next is what can they do that will matter to other people, but also to me that, you know, what is it that I'm going to be able to give from the skills that I have and then, you know, bring to other people, but then also what other ideas and perspectives that I could obtain because for me, again, going, I really don't want to make this all about me.

spk_0 But for me, the podcast journey has been one about self discovery and in changing my perspective by listening to people that I would normally not talk to, not because I was avoiding them or something, because they didn't have those opportunities or I wouldn't give myself those opportunities.

spk_0 And then understanding those are my choices, you know, that's probably for me if this goes back to the, hardening back to the thing that does give me some worries is that, you know, people who are willing to start a journalism career or are in their journalism career and they're dissatisfied.

spk_0 I went back to school when I was 50 years old. My life changed because I went back to school. It changed again when I started a podcast. And I'm not saying everything was rosy. I lost my job at a certain point, less about my skills, more about probably my personality, but, you know, that's who I am.

spk_0 But if there were some one thing that I wanted people to take away from its all journalism is that what we do matters. And the reason we do journalism is because we know we love to tell stories, we love to talk to different people.

spk_0 But we want to feel that the work that we're doing has some importance that it can affect change. And I think it can. Good journalism can do that.

spk_0 I don't think that has not changed from, you know, August 2012 when we started this podcast. And I don't think it will change going forward. Now the delivery system, you know, are you going to be writing tweets or whatever the equivalent is on a new platform?

spk_0 Or what are you going to do? The big change at the end of the day is down to you. We don't have that path anymore to the noted columnists. You know, we have to go through the local newspaper work our way up.

spk_0 You know, on the one hand, we lose some of that security, but then on the other, it opens up a world to us. And especially I wanted to repeat sort of what you were saying about more diverse people in newsrooms, more diverse people.

spk_0 In the stories that we cover, I think if there was anything for me that I saw change in the dialogue around journalism was the idea of diversity.

spk_0 For years and years and years and years and years, it was, yeah, you know, these newsrooms are going to be more diverse somehow. I don't know how that's going to happen.

spk_0 And 2020 comes around and there's a reckoning newsrooms understood, you know, there's a real reason that we need to do this because there have been people who have been kept back in our society.

spk_0 You know, for whatever reason for their race for the religion for their their sexuality, their gender, and journalism is still a place that can build that dialogue that can help all people to advance and, you know, find security in our neighborhood.

spk_0 And it's a democracy. So given the times that we're at at the moment, I would say, your mission matters. You have the skills. There are tools out there that you can learn and that you can pick up and you can change your life and change the world by getting behind those and doing those things.

spk_0 That's the thing that I've taken away of it. I'm a very different human being than I was in August 2012 and I don't necessarily think that just because I'm 12 years older, but I think it's 12 more years of looking very closely at why people do do the things they do.

spk_0 But I think the lesson is it's all in your hands.

spk_0 That's terrific, Michael. You're ending this as the pro that you are speaking directly to the journalists who are passionate about what they do.

spk_0 As you say, letting us meet diverse voices that chronicle our world and, you know, spread light into the darkness.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Let's close out with will the audience be able to access old shows?

spk_0 Yes. This is the one part of the podcast that other producers and I kind of went back and forth on.

spk_0 For the foreseeable future, it's all journalism will still be available on our website.

spk_0 You'll still be able to get it on whatever podcast catcher that you subscribe to.

spk_0 One thing that's going to change, well, actually it's kind of two things that I'm going to go in and because I'm the guy who built the website and the guy who updates it now have more time to.

spk_0 There are some things I want to do the website and website to make things a little more accessible despite the fact that we say you can hear all our episodes on our website.

spk_0 That's a lie that I've perpetuated for the last few years.

spk_0 There are a number of episodes like in the 100s and 200s that I have that they are online somewhere but the link between them and our main website.

spk_0 It needs to be reestablished so that's one of the things I'm going to be doing so very soon.

spk_0 Yes, you will be able to hear all of that our podcast going back and maybe they'll be presented a little bit better on our website.

spk_0 Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you and so we're going to close this out.

spk_0 You've been listening to its all journalism, a weekly podcast about the changing state of media.

spk_0 You're broccoli of media focus podcast since 2012.

spk_0 After a dozen years and countless hours of work our little podcast is coming to a close.

spk_0 But before we go I wanted to share the names of the people who contributed to the production of its all journalism over those 12 years.

spk_0 Thank them but also let you know that it wasn't just one person or two people who did this.

spk_0 It was a team effort throughout.

spk_0 In alphabetical order its all journalism was presented by Carolyn Blesge, Amelia Brust, Megan Chlority, Nick Dupre, Amber Healey, Nicholas Hunter, Ellen Cortesoya,

spk_0 At Onquan, Julie Lee, Scott Masione, Sean McAlley, Anna Myers, Michael O'Connell, Julia O'Donohue, Nicole Grisco, and Steph Thomas.

spk_0 Thanks for listening.

I did a podcast about journalism for 12 years and this is what I learned

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