Episode 116: Zuri Berry

Speaker A: And so what's interesting for us is that we have this sort of strategy of going into these communities and we're saying it county by county, but sometimes it's really a focus on one municipality or another, one town, one community, et cetera. We, we go in and we really provide that hyperlocal coverage there. But then we also sort of step back and want to make sure that we have statewide coverage as well.

Speaker B: Welcome to what works, a podcast about the future of local news coming to you from Northeastern University School of Journalism and the center for Transformative Media. Dan I'm Dan Kennedy.

Speaker C: And I'm Ellen Clegg. Today's guest is Zuri Berry, the executive editor of the Banner in Montgomery County, Maryland. He's also a Boston Globe colleague from days of yore.

Speaker B: Well, I always say, you know everybody. Alan Zuri is one of those journalists who's done a little bit of everything. We're talking reporter, columnist, video producer, digital editor, radio host and audio editor over more than two decades in this business. And he's got an MBA from the McCall School of Business at Queen's University of Charlotte. On top of all that, which is a combination that you don't always see in a newsroom leader, he also knows his sports stats.

Speaker C: He started out as a sports writer back in 2003, covering sports in California and in Massachusetts. So he's helped cover in NBA Finals, two Stanley Cup Finals and a Super Bowl.

Speaker B: From there, he went on to become deputy managing editor at the Boston Herald, managing editor for two NPR member stations, and now executive editor at the Banner's Montgomery county edition. And the accolades speak for themselves. He was part of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize winning team for breaking news coverage of the 2013 marathon bombings. And at the Banner, he supported last year's Pulitzer winning series on Baltimore's overdose crisis.

Speaker C: The Banner, based in Baltimore, is a nonprofit that's only about three years old, and Zuri's goal is to grow it into a statewide news outlet. He's got a great opportunity to fill gaps left as the Washington Post withdraws from metro coverage. Zuri has also held leadership roles in the national association of Black Journalists and including chapter president in Sacramento and vice president in Boston.

Speaker B: Ellen I've got a quick take for later on in the podcast about a journalist who's run afoul of ICE and who faces deportation to Colombia. As Stephanie Rodriguez, a reporter for a Spanish language newspaper called Nashville Noticias in Tennessee, was arrested by ICE earlier this month, even though her lawyers say she entered the US Legally it may be a case of retaliation, as Rodriguez has reported on ICE activities in the Nashville area.

Speaker C: My quick take is about a small newspaper in Wyoming that ditched its police blotter, and almost nobody misses it. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle made the change after taking a course at the Poynter Institute on, um, deepening crime coverage. Dropping the blotter gave staff much more time to do actual reporting. But now let's hear from Zuri Barry.

Speaker B: Zuri, you've had a varied career that's taken you from California to Boston and now to the Baltimore Banner, a large digital startup where you're executive editor for Montgomery County. After Jeff Bezos eviscerated the Washington Post coverage of local news and sports recently, the Banner announced that it would also expand into Prince George's county and start covering Washington's baseball and football teams. So please tell us about the Banner's mission and the opportunities that have been presented by the Post. Decline.

Speaker A: Yeah, so let me reframe it as our aspirations, really. We really want to be a statewide news outlet that services all Marylanders. And so what does that look like when you're Talking about covering D.C. sports, for instance, while doing the suburbs? Well, we know that our residents and community members are very much Commanders fans. They're very much Nationals fans, and they're very much interested in the Captain Wizards as well as the Terps. So all of that is to say that we started in Baltimore. That's, uh, our home and our heart, if you will. And we've expanded beyond that to the counties and now to the most populous suburbs of Washington, D.C. in order to better serve Marylanders statewide. And D.C. sports is a part of that as well.

Speaker B: Now, the Banner has been covering Washington's Maryland suburbs, but so far it's stayed out of Virginia as well as Washington itself. Do you imagine that's going to change at some point? It's been reported that the Banner has reserved the URLs, DC Banner.com and the DC Banner.com. might we see a Washington Banner sometime soon?

Speaker A: Uh, no. No, I don't believe we are going to see a DC Banner anytime soon. I think, uh, as you guys are probably paying very close attention to the market here in D.C. has changed pretty dramatically in just the last month or so with the announcements and cuts at the Washington Post. So new players have sort of come into the market at this point in time. Some locals, like CityCast, the 51st as well as Notice, are sort of expanding in scope. And we have sort of looked at all of this and said, well, where is the opportunity for us. And I think, you know, there may have been a thought at one point or time about D.C. but I think it helped clarify for us that serving Marylanders is the way to go for us.

Speaker C: The Banner's editor in chief, Audrey Cooper, recently told Mike Blinder of Editor and Publisher, that she sees reviving local news as a key to encouraging civil civic conversations and overcoming partisan divisions. She's speaking our language here. And she said, further to me, saving the Great American Experiment means saving local news. End quote. Zuri, you've spent a good part of your career in local news, and I'm wondering what excites you about community journalism. Do you think engagement in local issues can help us get past the blue red divide?

Speaker A: I don't want to make a, um, proclamation, if you will, on that latter part. Right. Because I think there's a real division in this country at this moment in time. But I do think that we have a role to play and an opportunity to seize with respect to at least bridging the gap ever so slightly. And that is certainly the information gap, the contextual gap, the understanding, the empathy gap, all of those things. I truly believe that those of us who work in community news, those who work in regional news outlets, small news outlets, micro news, hyperlocal, however you want to call it, we are very much at the forefront of the trends that oftentimes get picked up in our national partners and our national colleagues at some of these bigger outlets. The Banner has this position of being the largest news outlet in Maryland. Uh, we're going to be at about 100 journalists in our newsroom. And so what's interesting for us is that we have this sort of strategy of going into these communities, and we're saying it county by county, but sometimes it's really a focus on one municipality or another, one town, one community, etc. We go in and we really provide that hyperlocal coverage there. But then we also sort of step back and want to make sure that we have statewide coverage as well. And we talked just a little bit briefly about sports in D.C. but that's also sort of the case with Baltimore sports being something that is more of general interest to a wider breadth of people in central Maryland. And so, uh, we have this sort of both small, but sort of larger sort of view of how we sort of, uh, attend to coverage. So that puts us in a. A really great position when we try to say that we are really trying to service people and give them the news and information that they want. The politics of it all with respect to sort of information that you may need in order to make determinations about your elected leaders and things of that nature. Like, I feel really strongly that we do a great job one of informing people about the folks that aspire to lead us, particularly in Maryland and beyond that going deeper into the candidates and the races that people may not even consider are of interest. And, uh, I just got out of a conversation about an hour or so ago about our voter guide. And, you know, we're talking about the many candidates across the state, but also at the local level. And just to give you a sense of perspective, I'm digging into all of the local candidates for Montgomery county and Prince George's county right now. And between the two, we're going to end up with something like 250 people who have filed petitions to run. We're going to be sending out questionnaires to a lot of these people, and we are going to be providing a voter guide that sort of, uh, encompasses a little bit about everyone in terms of biographical information, but also asking them some pairing questions about the role and why they may be the best person suited for that. That is something that we make available to everyone statewide as a service. I, uh, think we're in a great position to do that kind of work as local and community journalists in a way that our national partners just aren't not going to be able to dive into Maryland racist the way that we do.

Speaker C: And that brings up something else. Can local news and local political coverage, local coverage in general, can it cut through the din of the national news and international news and CNN and Facebook and Fox, msnbc? We seem so divided and so focused on national and global. How can you be heard?

Speaker A: Uh, this is the real challenge for the journalists, the audience development teams, the people at the Banner that work behind the scenes. But think strategically sort of about how we get our journalism out to as many people as possible. And this is one of the roles that I held at the Banner prior to this role now focusing on digital strategy. And so much of that focus for those people, on those teams is about, well, how can we make sure that our journalism travels as far as possible and to as many people as possible. Uh, I think the onus is on us. I think for a long time in our industry, we have really put out great journalism and stories and articles that we believe people will just find, if, if not by SEO or some other mechanism of social media, that they'll just come across it. And I think what this moment requires of us in this sort of age of AI and zero click searches and these other issues that are sort of affecting traffic at, uh, regional sites like ours. It requires us to be much more engaged and active and proactive with respect to getting our journalism to people. And so what does that end up looking like? It ends up being more emails and email alerts. It ends up really focusing people to sign up and download our app so that way they have a direct connection with us so we can send them push alerts if necessary. It's about deepening that relationship with readers and people in the community. Now, is that always going to be an easily solved thing? I mean, it sounds easier the way I say it, but no, getting people into that funnel is our problem. It's our challenge to solve. And so that's where we spend the bulk of our time.

Speaker B: Zuri the Baltimore Banner is unusually large for a nonprofit digital startup. It's what some people refer to as a replacement level project, launched because the Baltimore sun was shrinking into a shadow of its former self. Now, Audrey Cooper told E P that the Banner is up to 75,000 paid subscribers and the newsroom comprises about 100 journalists. The banner was started by a local billionaire, Stuart Baynham. What's the business model? Is it self sustaining now? And if it isn't, how's it going to get there?

Speaker A: Let me start at the end there. We're not self sustaining. We're not sustainable at this moment in time. Uh, we're at about 78,000 subscribers. So since that interview we've gotten a little bit better. Right? And the business model is one that again, clearly is dependent upon individual paying subscribers. So the people who are willing to support us on an, uh, individual level. And then there is the leg of philanthropy that we also rely upon. So we have that as well. We also sell digital advertising. So there are one, two, three stools right there. The fourth stool for us is events. And so these are all things that you may have heard different news organizations try one, two or three of. And that subscriber sort of way sometimes, uh, shows up as a membership or, you know, uh, optional membership if you will. I think, uh, for us it's very clear to us that one, we knew we needed a subscription model. I'm saying this as somebody who did not make any of these decisions, but I'm so glad that they did, that we, we needed a subscription based model, that we needed philanthropy, which is why we're set up as a nonprofit, that we also needed advertising, which is also crucial to us. And then I think, just speaking Both to the journalistic aspect, but also to the business of it all. It's critical for our journalists to be out into the community and connecting with people. And so events become both a business necessity, but also a journalistic necessity in my mind. And so we have a pretty remarkable event that happens in October, impact Maryland. We oftentimes get a lot of industry leaders, academics, the governor and others to come to that event. And it's a fantastic sort of showing and good conversation, moderated often by the journalists in our newsroom and others that we sort of bring into the fold. I've thoroughly enjoyed that, and I think people are starting to really appreciate these type of events that we've been putting on. So the more that we do that kind of work, one elevates our journalism, but also supports the business overall. So, uh, again, the four legs, that's really the business model there, and that gets us to where we want to be. Now, the other part of your question, Dan, what's it going to take to get to the sustainability aspect of it all? All? I think we have a bit of a goal in which we're trying to reach. I think it's unclear at this moment in time what the specific number is, if you will. But we know that if we weren't a journalistic institution with, uh, 100 people in the. In the newsroom at this point, we would be sustainable. But because we've had so many opportunities to grow, because we recognize that there are additional expansion opportunities right now that being in Prince George's county, we're still underway in Montgomery county, that we have to invest in these places in order to really serve that larger mission of becoming a statewide news outlet. And so we're, uh, still in the growth phase. And that means that there's still some money that's burning there. But we're getting to that place where I think we're going to be able to say we're sustainable. It's just not at this moment in time.

Speaker B: Well, we love events because it's such a great way of connecting with the community. But you're also describing it as part of your revenue plan. Do you charge for the events? Are they sponsored? How does that work?

Speaker A: Yes, and yes. So some of them are sponsored, some of them are paid for, and then some are free that, you know, are sponsored. There's certainly a mix of the type of events that we do. There are also some just community events that we do. In fact, tomorrow I've got a listening session that I'll be doing with our team in Prince George's county at, ah, at the local library. And again, no sponsor, no selling of tickets, just us wanting to go and listen to people tell us about the stories that they believe we should be doing about their community.

Speaker C: You've held leadership positions in the national association of Black Journalists, and you and I worked together on an event long ago when the NABJ brought its national convention to Boston. There have been calls for more diversity in newsrooms going back to the Kerner Commission in the late 1960s. Yet the numbers remain well below what they should be. As a number of news organizations shrink, recently hired journalists of color are often the first to go. That's not even taking into account the pressure on DEI initiatives that we've seen since Trump's return to office. So, Zuri, what's your assessment of the state of diversity in US Newsrooms? That's a very broad question. I understand. And what do you think should be done about it?

Speaker A: So I guess my assessment is that it's poor. I don't think anyone would argue against that. I think what we've also seen and what I'm encouraged by, is that some of the folks, even my NABJ friends, have gone and started their own outlets or have initiated new sites, new opportunities for themselves. And I think that's a wonderful way to sort of upend, if you will, this dynamic of mostly being dependent, I think, on legacy outlets for opportunities. I do not know if there is a specific sort of fix here. What I can tell you is that somebody who is currently in hiring mode and currently is working on these things in the background is that there is certainly candidates out there, talented candidates out there, but if you're a black journalist and if you're going into the hiring process and you get that interview, which is to say that somebody already recognizes, just based on your resume, that you've got something there that I'm interested in. You really need to go out to your circle, to your past editors and colleagues, to your, the people that you've worked with in the past. And you really need to make sure that they are on board and aligned with supporting you. Because so many of uh, folks in the sort of hiring realm in the world are already connected or interconnected with others in leadership roles and, and they're talking to each other and they're asking about, well, how is this person as somebody, as an editor, I mean, how is their copy? I mean, I got the writing test back, but I'm wondering, uh, know what you had to deal with on a day to day basis you know, how's this person are they, they bring good ideas or they do enough work, et cetera, like those conversations are happening. What I found is that for some people that there is a friend group, if you will, that's already vouching for them, already out there and advocating on their behalf and, and for others, there is no one advocating on their behalf. And it's not because that there wouldn't be anybody or that there's absolutely no one, it's that no one has been asked. My small fix, it's not a big fix, but my small fix would be to say, if you're out there looking for opportunities and roles, make sure that you're talking to the people in your circle, people you trust, uh, and telling them to advocate on your behalf.

Speaker B: Surrey, a substantial part of your career was spent in Boston at both the Boston Globe and at the Boston Herald where you held a management position. Boston is one of the few cities that still has two daily papers. But the Herald is very tiny these days, partly because it's owned by Alden Global Capital, a cost slashing hedge fund. But let's say for a moment that you were put in charge of the Herald and, and given not an unlimited budget, but a budget that would let you invest in growth. What steps would you take?

Speaker A: So I haven't looked at the Herald's resource situation in a long time. I know they're much smaller than they were. My good friend Joe Dwinel is the editor over there. That's a difficult one for me because I don't know what they are doing and what they're not doing. What I would say is that you always need more audience people, you always need more people who can help your journalism travel, if you will. And I can't tell you an editor who wouldn't welcome, uh, more reporters, if you will, on multiple beats. So in terms of a growth strategy, in terms of what they're doing, Alden Capital and the Herald and the many newspapers that are in that group, I don't know.

Speaker B: At one time the Herald was definitely competitive with the Globe on certain breaking news stories. And even these days they are occasionally. I mean, was that an important part of the Herald's identity in your view?

Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. I loved waking up and looking at my Herald and looking at the Globe and seeing that we won that day. I can point to a number of situations where the Globe phoned it in with, ah, an AP story and we ran the numbers up on them. Listen, there's not a lot of people who pay that close attention to it. But I certainly did. And I know that Joe Shaka, when he was the editor, Joe Donnell, who's the editor now, obviously paid very close attention to that. I thought we were doing well. But as you know, the economics of this news business have changed drastically. And just because you're doing well in one aspect of the business, which is the journalism part, does not mean that you're necessarily doing well in other parts. And so if I could, uh, sort of cleave one aspect of it, I thought we were doing great right up into the bankruptcy.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I was on page one for many years. I can attest, Zuri, that you beat us on occasion. And I would always hear about it. So finally, a question we ask all our guests. What's on your media diet? What do you read, listen to and watch in order to stay current?

Speaker A: Oh, that's a good question. I wasn't ready for that. Well, let me just tell you because I am a newsletter heavy person. So I'm reading a number of newsletters, both local and sort of national, but also topic specific. Oh, and I should also say I'm heavy on podcast. Right. So obviously I'm familiar with your podcast, but I listen to, for instance, the Daily, the Journal, the BBC Global news podcast. Like, those are things that like, keep me sort of grounded with my day to day and then some, you know, pop culture ones as well. But I'm a big New York Times, Washington Post person. Those are my, like, go tos in terms of most, if you will, mainstream news media content and some of their newsletters as well. I'm a big fan right now of Zateo. I think they're doing excellent coverage and incisive, which I think is helpful and important international perspective, particularly as we engage in this war in Iran. I do look to my colleagues here in Maryland quite a bit. So Maryland Matters Bethesda today. Uh, you know, I'm highly engaged with the folks around here, the Baltimore beat. And if I step out a little bit nationally, I would say I'm a big fan of Capital B and Word in Black.

Speaker B: Zuri, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. We've been talking to Zuri Berry, the executive editor of the Banner in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Speaker C: Thanks, Zuri.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: You know, Alan, one of the things that struck me about our conversation with Zuri was his emphasis on events as a way that the Baltimore Banner has enhanced its bottom line in terms of revenue. Now, of course, we love events because they are a fantastic way of connecting a news organization with A community. And if you don't have that, you're really not going to succeed, uh, as a local media outlet. What was interesting about what the Banner does as well is that it's become a really significant revenue source for them, and they try different things. Some of them are paid events with sponsors, some of them are free events with sponsors, and then sometimes they just have listening sessions. I don't know exactly when people will be listening to this podcast, but as we were talking to Zuri, he was going to be talking with people at a listening session the next day. And this is just so key to rebuilding the social capital that you need to revive local news.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. I love the idea of listening sessions and, um, community panels, talk backs on issues that pop up, as well as the larger kind of tentpole event. We do one at Brookline News, Brookline stories at the Coolidge Corner Theater every May. But we're also planning some other events that riff off current events.

Speaker B: So, Alan, now it's time for our quick takes on developments in local news. I want to call attention to a journalist in Nashville, Tennessee, named Stephanie Rodriguez, who was pulled out of a car recently and arrested by ICE while she was with her husband, who's a U.S. citizen. They were reporting on an ICE raid in the suburbs. According to the Columbia Journalism Review. Now she's being threatened with deportation to Colombia, which is her home country. And given that she's reported on ICE operations for the Spanish language newspaper Nashville Noticias, we certainly can't rule out the possibility that she was targeted for retaliation. That's what her lawyers argued in a, uh, court filing seeking her release, according to the Nashville Banner, which is no relation, I should point out to the Baltimore Banner. Here's how Rodriguez's lawyers put it in their. These facts indicate retaliation against Rodriguez in violation of the First Amendment due to her work as a journalist, including reporting on ice. Now, this is a fast moving story, but Rodriguez is reportedly being held in Louisiana. According to the Banner, Rodriguez entered the US on a tourist visa in 2021 and has been seeking political asylum, saying that she received death threats because of her reporting back in Colombia. She's been taking all of the steps required to obtain U.S. citizenship, and she reportedly had a valid work permit. But ICE nevertheless calls her an illegal alien, that offensive term so beloved by the Trump regime. ICE also denies her lawyer's claim that she was arrested without a warrant, although the Banner reports that the evidence ICE produced to prove that was less than compelling.

Speaker C: So what happens next? What's going to happen to her? And is there a real chance she'll be sent back to Colombia despite the danger she faces?

Speaker B: Well, we've seen the arbitrary cruelty of how Trump and his deputy Stephen Miller, have carried out against immigrants. So I'm sure the threat is very real. Perhaps a judge will intervene, as a judge already has, but that's likely to result in her being held in limbo rather than being freed and allowed to resume her important work of holding the powerful to account. In fact, what's most disturbing about this, according to Rodriguez's own legal team, ICE is taking advantage of her immigration status in order to silence her reporting and possibly sentence her to death in her home country. It's an outrage. Then again, such outrages have become a regular occurrence. Now, at the time of our recording, the Tennessee Lookout reports that she's been granted bond, but that she continues to be detained because the government has filed an appeal.

Speaker C: Dan My quick take is about a small newspaper in Wyoming that made a big change. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne stopped publishing its police blotter on March 1, and surprisingly, almost nobody complained. Police blotters are a, uh, staple of small town papers. Editors who look at clicks above all else seem to love them. And in Gillette, Wyoming, for example, there was apparently a thing where people cover cars with slices of American cheese. It's called cheesing, and that's the kind of thing that ends up in a police blotter. But here's the problem. Blotters are also full of inaccuracies, and those inaccuracies can follow people for years. The Tribune Eagle has a staff of about eight people, and they only had the bandwidth to follow up on the biggest crimes. Everything else just sat there, getting more inaccurate over time, crime and safety reporter Ivy Seacrest said. Even though Cheyenne is the state capital, it's a town of about 65,000 people. Everyone knows everyone else. So having your name in a blotter online, that really sticks. The change came after the staff went through the Poynter Institute's Transforming Crime Coverage class, and Poynters ethics specialist Kelly McBride conducted it and she has written a story about it. They also adopted a policy to protect vulnerable sources, and they committed to covering public safety trends instead of chasing novelty and sensationalism.

Speaker B: You know, closer to home, the Keene Sentinel of New Hampshire took very similar steps a few years ago, and they worked with Kelly McBride as well. Regurgitating official police information was never a good idea, and now more and more news organizations are starting to realize that. So if the Tribune Eagle drops its blotter. Are they losing a reporting tool?

Speaker C: Well, not really. The reporters will still check with the police. They'll check jail bookings. And there's a practical benefit because that blotter ran three times a week and it took up to three hours each time to put together. So that's a huge chunk of time. Those hours can now go into deeper reporting. If somebody's, um, car gets cheesed, well, they can always write a story.

Speaker B: You don't want to leave out the cheesed cars, that's for sure. So that's it for this week's show. Thanks for tuning into this discussion of the state of media, past, present and future. You can leave a news tip, comment or suggestion on our website at WhatWorks Newsletter. That's where you can also learn more about our book, what Works in Community News. And please rate us at Apple Podcasts.

Speaker C: Our graphics are by Alison Booth. Our music is by Promiser, courtesy of Lucas Wilson. You can find Promiser on Apple Music and you can find us on Apple Podcasts and other, uh, platforms.