Staying Alive S02E03: Understanding News Deserts with Anita Li
​​RUNNING TIME 
22:52
SPEAKERS
Anita Li, Winston Sih


Winston Sih  00:05
News deserts are nothing new to Canada. In fact, they've not only grown significantly prior to the pandemic, but COVID-19 has exacerbated local representation in many communities across Canada. We're seeing more news deserts and ghost newsrooms in areas where communities are left without any representation by a newsroom, or a broadcast or publication that is bare bones and filled with network content. And with the convergence and vertical integration of newsrooms with national networks in modern day, we find ourselves with more of these news deserts in Canada. Initiatives like the Local News Research Project aimed to combine content analysis and digital mapping to explore issues related to local news. They maintain news poverty research to examine local coverage and Canadian communities at a time when print and broadcast outlets are scaling back, consolidating or closing. So where do we go from here? We're going into the desert. Well, the news desert anyways. I'm Winston Sih, this is Staying Alive. 


Running a media business is more complex as ever. We don't just sell advertising to stay profitable, increase competition, global players and shorter attention spans. Add on convergence and consolidation, you likely have a headache. Joining me to explore community and cultural representation is Anita Li. She is a journalism consultant, educator and entrepreneur specializing in audience engagement, media business models, innovation, diversity, equity, inclusion and ethics. Welcome to the show. 


Anita Li  02:01
Thanks so much for having me. 


Winston Sih  02:03
I want to start by talking about the research because there's a lot of research that suggests there's significant change in local news representation across Canada, namely the Local News Research Project. Now, ownership by those like Postmedia, Torstar, Bell Media, Corus, in many cases, they've merged production. We've closed departments, often entire newsrooms in favor of network news from other markets to fill broadcasts and print pages. So let's start with the basics. At its core, what does this mean to a community and ultimately, democracy? 


Anita Li  02:49
So media consolidation in general is not necessarily the best thing for democracy, especially at local levels. And the reason for that is because for me, I'm fiercely in support of independent local news outlets that are able to really understand the needs of their community and best serve them. So when you have a situation where you have consolidated media outlets, and a lot of the news that you're delivering to a specific community is much more generic or you're basically just reprinting things from Canadian Press, it's not as useful for the audience. 


Winston Sih  03:24
So I think what's really interesting is also this promise of digital. In many ways, editors and producers thought that online websites, apps would be the savior of legacy media. We saw the Toronto Star move to this digital only publication for a couple years. And that didn't work out too well, so that collapsed. But this assumed success isn't always the case for digital only players. We've seen newsrooms like Yahoo and Buzzfeed launch rounds of layoffs. Corus recently took out digital journalists and these journalists were initially tasked with creating digital first content. So many of these small and medium newspapers pivoted in that direction, as a lifesaver of sorts. But that isn't necessarily the key to success. So what does that say about the business model of these digital only operations where we are seeing these rounds of layoffs? 


Anita Li  04:24
I don't know if there's a one size fits all answer to that question. But I will say that part of the reason why a lot of news outlets have struggled with the business model is because in recent years, digital first publications have relied on largely advertising revenue. And one of the issues with that is a lot of these larger tech giants have been eating up digital ad dollars that have historically gone to these, especially newspapers, for example, that used to obviously rely on things like local advertising and classifieds but because of the lion's share going to larger tech players, that has really severed one of the main revenue streams for these news outlets. So, there's been a recent pivot to a different business model whereby a lot of newsrooms are prioritizing subscriptions and memberships over advertising and not necessarily over because I think a healthy business always has diversified revenue models. There's so many different reasons why an individual business might fail or struggle. I wouldn't attribute it to just one overarching trend, but that is one that is significant. 


Winston Sih  05:31
I like that you mentioned that there's no one size fits all approach, because when you look at what different online only players are doing, there are different models. When I look at the example of Village Media, they still have classifieds. They also operate on scale. You get a sense that, you know, maybe the profit margins might be on the thinner side, but they really thrive on scale and really selling that platform that they have. And then you look at other newsrooms, including your operation at The Green Line, where you're doing things a little bit differently. Some people with email newsletters rely heavily on donations and subscriptions, whereas others will rely on tax credits. Are there examples of organizations that you would look to from The Green Line where you look up to them? They are examples of people who are doing it right in Canada? 


Anita Li  06:22
That's a really good question. The Google News Initiative continues to have a database called Oasis. I was one of the research consultants on the original iteration of that. They looked at basically the origin story of a lot of successful local new startups and their trajectory. So I have actually a pretty strong sense of how a lot of these more successful digital startups or local news outlets, what their models were, and how they were able to build successful businesses. There is no one exact model for The Green Line and that I look to specifically. There's one in particular, there's a couple actually, that I'll shut out that I've admired in terms of their ability to be profitable, and also deliver really quality news. There's The Narwhal. It was built off of a nonprofit local blog called DeSmog. And so they were able to basically leverage the subscriber base that existed there that already supported a lot of the climate-focused journalism that they produce and parlay it into something really fresh, and very, like youth driven. They really transformed like the branding of the publication, and just really the entire vision. But it was built on this existing base, which I think is really smart, because there's another publication called Austin Common, which is an American publication that's new based in Austin, Texas that did something similar, where they built their initial audience off of the existing subscriber base that already had some alignment with this new vision or new direction that they were moving in. There's also The Peak, which is a very successful business focus newsletter that launched and is based in the West Coast, then they've done partnerships with places like BNN. And that's something that the Greenline's done with CityNews Toronto as well. And so I'm seeing a lot of publications actually do partnerships with existing legacy institutions. All the publications that I'm talking about vis a vis The Green Line have pretty different target audiences than I do just have to be nimble, and be able to just leverage all your resources at your disposal. And that's something that you've seen from the publications that I've cited. 


Winston Sih  08:24
How key is it that news startups rely and really have that strengthened relationship between tech giants like Google, like Facebook, or even having the backing of public policy, to have access to these kinds of funding so that they can do the work that they do, but also have the distribution that they need? How important is that connection to distribution partners like Google?


Anita Li  08:51
And that's a really good question. And something that I think about and have thought a lot about in my innovation newsletter that's really focused on Canadian media called The Other Wave. And that's something I've publicly mused about in the process of building The Green Line, because I was grappling with the initial thing that I mentioned earlier, which was a lot of these tech giants are eating up digital ad dollars, but then also thinking about the fact that they are players who exists in this ecosystem that you cannot just deny or ignore, because they're just behemoths at this point. And to deny their existence would just be like naive or not paying attention to objective reality. But they've also reinvested a lot of the money like their own kind of money into media industries worldwide. There's a lot of debate around like to what extent that relationship really benefits an individual country and their respective democracies. Personally, from The Green Line's perspective, we have a very diversified funding stream and a lot of how I was able to start my publication was by bootstrapping, and just basic hard work and being able to anticipate the fact that I'm not somebody who comes from money and that I wasn't sure if I wanted to take money from tech giants out of the gate. So I really knew that I had to rely on my own funding. That's why I set up The Other Wave consultancy with the anticipation that I want to invest in my own business. Before I figured out who I wanted to be able to borrow money from or take money from. I eventually took a small amount from the Google News Initiative much further down the line and that was from one of their equity news funds that they gave to hundreds of publications worldwide, or definitely, at least across North America. The way I was able to decide that, and I think it really depends on the individual news outlet, was because I really, like I sat with it. I also-in the actual contracts, they are very explicit about the fact that they have no kind of editorial say whatsoever over the nature of the news that we produce. And I certainly have no intention of self censoring the publication either. And so as long as there's that explicit commitment to the ecosystem, then I'm comfortable having some sort of relationship with any sort of institution that's really transparent about their perspective, and their intentions and values so that I can determine whether my values and my publication's values align with theirs. 


Winston Sih  11:07
Absolutely. So it's important that we don't just think geographically when we think of news deserts, because this often affects cultural and ethnic media, too. They're lacking resources to properly cover their own backyards. We often rely on news wires to fill pages. But when I think of ethnic media, they're also often centered in metropolis cities like Toronto and Vancouver, and there's a whole other country outside. Anita, what are some of your thoughts? 


Anita Li  11:38
I think that'd be super cool to be able to have ethnic media outposts in like more rural areas of the country. And just from a bridge building perspective, what news does is historically, it was about creating a shared truth, or shared understanding about a particular issue or topic, or phenomenon. And when I think about like the fact that oftentimes, local news especially builds bridges and helps create understanding, if you do put a an ethnic media outlet, in especially a smaller town where maybe there's just like, more segregation, unintentional or otherwise, or there's just not as much interaction between like an ethnic enclave and maybe the more dominant white population, especially in a rural area.


Winston Sih  12:18
Okay. And, you know, one of the things that is really important to think about as well is, and when we go back to news deserts and representation, when we have these ghost newsrooms, a newsroom doesn't exist without that trust with the community. Can that trust exist without proper representation? And I say that referencing a fantastic piece you wrote for Poynter about this. How do practitioners strengthen and deepen those relationships?


Anita Li  12:49
I often speak about this when it comes to serving, especially, news deserts, so news deserts, for the uninitiated, I define them in two ways. So news deserts are basically a geographic area that is not well served by existing media. I also think about identity based folks who are underserved. So folks who are for example, from BIPOC communities, queer communities, people with disabilities, people who are working class, these are groups of folks who have been underserved by existing media and have been harmed by existing media narratives historically. And so these groups have less trust with these, especially major, media institutions. It's really just about listening and talking with these communities, and just really just simply asking them about issues that they care about, that they've seen that have been overlooked by media. So as basic, as you know, disseminating a survey, I've seen news outlets like Outlier Media, for example, use SMS texting where local community members can text a certain like number and then gets access to information that's automated or be connected to a reporter that can answer the questions if it's not included, if the answer is not included in the automated messages. Something that a really good reporter does, consistently consults community leaders in a given neighborhood or the community that they serve. The thing that I really want to reinforce is that it's not just individual tactics done by an individual reporter. 's really important and something I advocate for a lot. It's building these processes where we're consulting communities from the bottom up, and embedding that process into your newsroom’s existing workflow to ensure that those gaps don't emerge, or at least that you're mitigating gaps in coverage. 


Winston Sih  14:35
Absolutely. And there are so many complex issues, both cultural, racial issues, they've become so important in public discourse. Anti-Asian hate, anti-Semitic attacks, Islamophobic crimes in mosques, we're often not covering these issues with I would say enough nuance or depth. It really does require time and resource to get into the communities, but also proper community engagement, as you said, and would you say that there's an inherent responsibility for us to build better processes so that we are telling these stories in newsrooms, not just in these larger communities, but also in smaller newsrooms, especially the startup newsrooms that you have experience with? 


Anita Li  15:21
I want to add a bit more complexity to that, because I think it's really important to say, to acknowledge that not all newsrooms are able to have the resourcing to do this. So they're obviously under-resourced legacy newsrooms that are, you know, losing money. And they don't have--much staff to do kind of even like baseline reporting these days. So we're faced with that. And then there are startup newsrooms that are obviously starting up and they also don't have a ton of resources to be able to do extremely robust reporting, especially in their early days. But I still think it's incumbent on the industry at large to take on this responsibility and to ensure the gaps in coverage are being covered basically, for the betterment of obviously, our local democracy, but also like our national democracy, I wouldn't I would never say like, "Oh, like every single newsroom has to do this." What I would say is like, "They should make attempts to be able to incorporate this into their newsrooms workflow," to at least like to start to move in that direction. And one thing that I usually advocate for is partnerships between, like, you know, smaller newsrooms that do prioritize engagement work, for example, and are much more bottom up with more establishment legacy newsrooms that might not have that knowledge, also the resources to do it, but through the partnership, then you're able to get the best of both worlds. Even The Green Line's done this with CityNews Toronto. I've seen just like a lot of great examples of partnerships in media ecosystems in Canada, and worldwide, which heartens me a lot. This work is really essential. It's why I've dedicated my life to it, and I believe in it a lot. But I also acknowledged the limitations for individual newsrooms, and I think it's really important to kind of triage and figure out solutions that work for everybody rather than me just saying, everybody has to do this in this exact way. Because again, it's not a one size fits all. And for me, it's more important to have newsrooms start to think in that way, and to move in that direction, rather than just "say, okay, like, you have to do this out of the gate in this specific way." 


Winston Sih  17:17
Is there an opportunity for public policy to be better involved? We give public funding to the CBC to tell some of the stories. Is there a need to divert some of that attention to smaller operations, so that we're telling more diverse stories?


Anita Li  17:34
I absolutely do believe there is a role that government can play. And we're also, you know, we're currently talking about this through the lens of Bill C-18. And I've also been pretty heavily part of those discussions, and have publicly spoken about how, especially when it comes to like the Qualifying Canadian Journalism Organizations, that designation, that it should be broadened out to consider a lot of unorthodox outlets, at least at this point. For example, the Green Line, the way we disseminate news in large part, for example, on Instagram, and we tailor our formats to that particular platform to meet our audiences where they are. So it doesn't necessarily look like traditional news format, or just the way we conduct our news gathering is much more bottom up, for example. So a lot of these kinds of emergent models that have gotten worldwide attention for the reason that they are filling gaps in coverage, and they are serving underserved communities. I do think these need to be supportive, because they are the future of Canadian media, in a lot of ways. And I do think that government definitely has a role to play in that, especially for an industry that is, so — it's like an intimate kind of centralized, much smaller ecosystem. It's not like America, where there is a lot more, for example, foundation funding, or there's a much bigger investment ecosystem than there is here in this country. So I do think government has quite a significant role to play. 


Winston Sih  18:52
Final question for you. What would you say is the key to success for a newsroom startup today, especially when we think about creating in spaces that don't have massive representation? Is it business innovation? Is it creative innovation? Is it a balance of many things? 


Anita Li  19:03
So The Green Line just passed its first year anniversary, and it launched in April 2022. And we are after a year are profitable, which I'm really proud of. I think back on, you know, how much we've accomplished to date. And I think about how methodical I was about building this, because I was in a privileged position to do so before I had launched my own publication, I spent time as a consultant. And prior to that I was in a bridge role at the Discourse, which was editorial but part business because I was an audience. So I was able to kind of absorb a lot of lessons along the way. The way I can answer that - I think this is a theme of this conversation. No one size fits all. Fundamentally, though, what I will say is it comes down to the quality of the journalism. It always always comes down to the quality of the product, in this case, news that you're delivering to your audience. And so I don't think there's ever a shortcut for that, you can be like a business whiz, you can understand marketing, you can understand branding and design. But if you don't have quality journalism that people trust, that they know is being vetted and is fact based, and is done by people with good intentions are working based on principles, journalistic best practices, then you're gonna be hard pressed to succeed. It's about surrounding yourself with the right people. So it's not just about having the right team of people who really buy into your mission and really believe in what you're doing. It's also about having value-aligned advisors and funders and investors. lso like having really good friends, and my husband's phenomenal, like people who just really support you because when you're going through this process, you'll encounter a lot of naysayers, you'll encounter people who cast aspersions who are not as kind. But you'll also encounter a lot of incredible people who really believe in what you're doing and just believe in the mission. Being smart about that, in particular, I cannot emphasize enough. For the business side, it is really auditing your business, figuring out what is actually converting your audience members to pay for your product, figuring out why they trust you, engage with you, and then really reinvesting in those revenue streams that are actually getting traction with your audience. So it's, yes diversified. It really depends on your individual business and how you're building it out. That's really what I was really serving your audience and is like, again, I cannot emphasize enough. Ultimately, it's being a human being, who just thinks about “what are my information needs? How would I actually like to interact with the news? And what is missing in my media diet?” And then really thinking about that, from the perspective of your target audiences, and meaningfully building products. And ultimately, I think that's actually really what will resonate with audiences.  


Winston Sih  21:31


Amazing. Well, like you said, it's not a one size fits all approach. But that really is the theme of this episode. It is such a complex issue, but adequate and quality representation is so important to local journalism in Canada, and not just in the big cities, but also in the smaller and medium cities that we have. Those communities really need the representation. So thank you so much for joining us today to explore this more in depth. Really appreciate your insights. 




Anita Li  21:58
Thanks so much Winston.  


Winston Sih  22:00
Anita Li is a journalism consultant, educator and entrepreneur.




In the next episode, we jump into the time machine and head into the future. We're talking about artificial intelligence and journalism. It's all over the headlines, ChatGPT everything. What does that mean for journalism? Is it really taking our jobs? And should we be scared? What are the ethical considerations? We explored that new frontier of AI on Staying Alive next? I'm Winston Sih. Thanks for listening.