It's All Journalism

Being an entrepreneur sounds exciting: Get a brilliant idea, make it available to anyone who might be interested, start raking in the money and become the next overnight success. The odds of that happening? Pretty much nil, said Brian MacMahon of Expert Dojo, an “early stage training academy of entrepreneurs” who wants to help prepare inspired, creative and hard-working people with great ideas become successful. “The failure rate in tech entrepreneurship is between 95-96 percent and 98-99 percent. It’s nothing like the glory we read about, everybody becoming Steve Jobs,” he said. “It’s mainly about people who will take their live savings, or $50,000-$100,000, and invest into their app or website or tech company,” only to wind up broke and working for years to try to recoup their fortune, or some part of it. Part of the blame for this cycle might rest on the acceptance of failure and the insistence it’s something positive, MacMahon said. “Learning is a good thing. Losing your house, there’s nothing glamorous about it. … We want to prepare early-stage entrepreneurs for the rules of the game,” including how to be wary of people who want to take that startup money and run. But there’s something else that could hold people back: “People really good at creative (endeavors, including journalists) normally hate telling people how amazing they are. They hate doing marketing channels and they hate almost cheapening the beauty of the creation by going out and selling their soul. The (business development) people normally create something far less worth and are happy going out there all day every day and talking about it, but the actual substance of the creation is way weaker than it could be.” MacMahon’s learning quite a bit as Expert Dojo helps others, too. “Our demographic is 38- to 44-year-old women. We love 38- to 44-year-old women,” he said. “We didn’t know that was our best demographic at the start — we thought it was going to be 20-year-old kids starting their own business, but they don’t need us because they already know everything there is to know,” he jokes. In truth, women in that age group are the ones more likely to come in expecting to fail when launching their venture because they have an idea but not the know-how. “This is wonderful: We have our low-hanging fruit client,” he said. The advice Expert Dojo provides to them “will still work with everyone else, but our low-hanging-fruit client is the one that needs us most.” — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, Producer Michael O'Connell talks to Brian MacMahon, founder of Expert Dojo, about some of the challenges early-stage entrepreneurs face in trying to take an innovative idea and turn it into a thriving business.

Being an entrepreneur sounds exciting: Get a brilliant idea, make it available to anyone who might be interested, start raking in the money and become the next overnight success. The odds of that happening? Pretty much nil, said Brian MacMahon of Expert Dojo, an “early stage training academy of entrepreneurs” who wants to help prepare inspired, creative and hard-working people with great ideas become successful. “The failure rate in tech entrepreneurship is between 95-96 percent and 98-99 percent. It’s nothing like the glory we read about, everybody becoming Steve Jobs,” he said. “It’s mainly about people who will take their live savings, or $50,000-$100,000, and invest into their app or website or tech company,” only to wind up broke and working for years to try to recoup their fortune, or some part of it. Part of the blame for this cycle might rest on the acceptance of failure and the insistence it’s something positive, MacMahon said. “Learning is a good thing. Losing your house, there’s nothing glamorous about it. … We want to prepare early-stage entrepreneurs for the rules of the game,” including how to be wary of people who want to take that startup money and run. But there’s something else that could hold people back: “People really good at creative (endeavors, including journalists) normally hate telling people how amazing they are. They hate doing marketing channels and they hate almost cheapening the beauty of the creation by going out and selling their soul. The (business development) people normally create something far less worth and are happy going out there all day every day and talking about it, but the actual substance of the creation is way weaker than it could be.” MacMahon’s learning quite a bit as Expert Dojo helps others, too. “Our demographic is 38- to 44-year-old women. We love 38- to 44-year-old women,” he said. “We didn’t know that was our best demographic at the start — we thought it was going to be 20-year-old kids starting their own business, but they don’t need us because they already know everything there is to know,” he jokes. In truth, women in that age group are the ones more likely to come in expecting to fail when launching their venture because they have an idea but not the know-how. “This is wonderful: We have our low-hanging fruit client,” he said. The advice Expert Dojo provides to them “will still work with everyone else, but our low-hanging-fruit client is the one that needs us most.” — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, Producer Michael O'Connell talks to Brian MacMahon, founder of Expert Dojo, about some of the challenges early-stage entrepreneurs face in trying to take an innovative idea and turn it into a thriving business.

Reporters are tasked with telling the story of a situation, collecting facts and being cautious in recreating events. When the assignment is covering the shooting of a person of color by a law enforcement officer, the stakes are even higher because every word written will be subject to scrutiny. A trio of organizations dedicated to social justice and improving race relations — Advancement Project (http://www.advancementproject.org), Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice (https://www.raceforward.org) and The Opportunity Agenda (https://opportunityagenda.org) — recently issued a series of guidelines and suggestions (https://www.raceforward.org/press/releases/best-practices-journalists-reporting-police-killings-black-and-brown-people) for reporters covering police-related shootings and deaths with the intention of helping reporters tell better, more equitable stories while keeping the history of racial tension in America in mind. “In a report Race Forward put out a couple years ago, called Moving the Conversation Forward on Race, a couple of things that we identified (that could be considered) harmful media practices include the problem of losing the system in writing the story,” said Rinku Sen, president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, and the publisher of Colorlines, an affiliated news site. When reporters individualize what has happened, he or she might try to pin a story on whether the officer is racist or has a history of racist actions. “If the reporting doesn’t go beyond that one question, what was in the mind or heart of the officers involved in the shooting of a black person, for example, the reporting doesn’t get us to what the systems are like. There has, in fact, been a fair amount of decent reporting out of the mainstream media about policing as a system, but the initial stories after a shooting tend to not be about systems.” The high-profile deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and others has brought to light something Sen asserts has been going on, out of the public eye and scrutiny, for a long time. "We know that there’s a systemic problem that leads to the killing of black and brown people by police officers," she said. But it would be a false equivalent to say there’s a similar longstanding situation with law enforcement officers. “There is not yet evidence of a systemic war against the police.” The guidelines released by the three organizations include what could be considered some basic principles for good journalism, she said. Reporters and editors should not rush to find or publish the mugshot of a shooting victim. If the life of the person who was killed is investigated in depth without calling into question whether the officer who shot the victim has a history of violent incidents, any racist actions or comments and details about their life prior to joining the police force also must be brought to light. “What we get is a lot of shaming of the person who has been killed and a lot of silence or protection, protective quotes of the police officers involved,” she said. "That kind of representation of victims of police shootings without a corresponding representation and digging into the records of police officers creates a real imbalance in the coverage.”

Reporters are tasked with telling the story of a situation, collecting facts and being cautious in recreating events. When the assignment is covering the shooting of a person of color by a law enforcement officer, the stakes are even higher because every word written will be subject to scrutiny. A trio of organizations dedicated to social justice and improving race relations — Advancement Project (http://www.advancementproject.org), Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice (https://www.raceforward.org) and The Opportunity Agenda (https://opportunityagenda.org) — recently issued a series of guidelines and suggestions (https://www.raceforward.org/press/releases/best-practices-journalists-reporting-police-killings-black-and-brown-people) for reporters covering police-related shootings and deaths with the intention of helping reporters tell better, more equitable stories while keeping the history of racial tension in America in mind. “In a report Race Forward put out a couple years ago, called Moving the Conversation Forward on Race, a couple of things that we identified (that could be considered) harmful media practices include the problem of losing the system in writing the story,” said Rinku Sen, president and executive director of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, and the publisher of Colorlines, an affiliated news site. When reporters individualize what has happened, he or she might try to pin a story on whether the officer is racist or has a history of racist actions. “If the reporting doesn’t go beyond that one question, what was in the mind or heart of the officers involved in the shooting of a black person, for example, the reporting doesn’t get us to what the systems are like. There has, in fact, been a fair amount of decent reporting out of the mainstream media about policing as a system, but the initial stories after a shooting tend to not be about systems.” The high-profile deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and others has brought to light something Sen asserts has been going on, out of the public eye and scrutiny, for a long time. "We know that there’s a systemic problem that leads to the killing of black and brown people by police officers," she said. But it would be a false equivalent to say there’s a similar longstanding situation with law enforcement officers. “There is not yet evidence of a systemic war against the police.” The guidelines released by the three organizations include what could be considered some basic principles for good journalism, she said. Reporters and editors should not rush to find or publish the mugshot of a shooting victim. If the life of the person who was killed is investigated in depth without calling into question whether the officer who shot the victim has a history of violent incidents, any racist actions or comments and details about their life prior to joining the police force also must be brought to light. “What we get is a lot of shaming of the person who has been killed and a lot of silence or protection, protective quotes of the police officers involved,” she said. "That kind of representation of victims of police shootings without a corresponding representation and digging into the records of police officers creates a real imbalance in the coverage.”

As of July 19, there were 254 open cases of sexual assault on college campuses, both public and private, across the United States. These cases have been open since at least April 2011, when the Department of Education announced it was going to be paying more attention to the issue and requiring institutions of higher education to start taking reports of assaults more seriously. In the same timeframe, 50 cases have been resolved. Now The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) is taking a closer look at the progress college campuses are making in the form of a new, searchable database that allows users to look at open investigations based by institution or state. “We see it as a tool for people to learn more about this issue,” said Sara Lipka, senior editor on the Title IX Tracker (http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix/), originally launched in January and relaunched in June after a redesign that made it easier to search. “Our goal is to let people keep up with this process, to see which campuses are under review, to search by institution or keyword.” Few issues surrounding higher education have demanded as much interest in recent years as campus sexual assault, prompting “widespread concern with how colleges are handling these reports, which they’re required to do under” Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, she said. Some schools might have one open investigation while others have four or five, Lipka said. The source data for the tracker is a weekly PDF published by the Department of Education, which her team has to request every week, in addition to FOIA requests and, in the rare event of a closed case, public documents including resolution agreements. “We’ve FOIA’d for a lot more,” Lipka said. “We’ve also reported on each campus under investigation to fill in some of the details — what is the campus doing in response, does it have a task force, does it have resources for students — so we can show on each page what is happening at each institution outside the investigation. After the initial information was collected, it was turned over to web developer Jon Davenport, who worked to determine the search fields that would best represent the data on hand. Ben Myers, a data developer, initially made the case the “unit” for searchers, later changing the format to make the campus the focal point. “We were able to show the information in a more logical way, in a way we think about the institutions,” Myers said. “We can now look up the institution of interest, see all the cases there and explore all the documents” available for those cases. The database can be sorted at the state level as well, Davenport adds. “It provides more context as to how many cases there are at specific types of institutions.” — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, producers Michael O'Connell and Nicole Ogrysko talk to Sara Lipka, Jon Davenport and Ben Myers of The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com). The Chronicle recently relaunched its Title IX Tracker (http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix/), which keeps assembles and makes searchable data about sexual assault cases at hundreds of college campuses across the U.S.

As of July 19, there were 254 open cases of sexual assault on college campuses, both public and private, across the United States. These cases have been open since at least April 2011, when the Department of Education announced it was going to be paying more attention to the issue and requiring institutions of higher education to start taking reports of assaults more seriously. In the same timeframe, 50 cases have been resolved. Now The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) is taking a closer look at the progress college campuses are making in the form of a new, searchable database that allows users to look at open investigations based by institution or state. “We see it as a tool for people to learn more about this issue,” said Sara Lipka, senior editor on the Title IX Tracker (http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix/), originally launched in January and relaunched in June after a redesign that made it easier to search. “Our goal is to let people keep up with this process, to see which campuses are under review, to search by institution or keyword.” Few issues surrounding higher education have demanded as much interest in recent years as campus sexual assault, prompting “widespread concern with how colleges are handling these reports, which they’re required to do under” Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, she said. Some schools might have one open investigation while others have four or five, Lipka said. The source data for the tracker is a weekly PDF published by the Department of Education, which her team has to request every week, in addition to FOIA requests and, in the rare event of a closed case, public documents including resolution agreements. “We’ve FOIA’d for a lot more,” Lipka said. “We’ve also reported on each campus under investigation to fill in some of the details — what is the campus doing in response, does it have a task force, does it have resources for students — so we can show on each page what is happening at each institution outside the investigation. After the initial information was collected, it was turned over to web developer Jon Davenport, who worked to determine the search fields that would best represent the data on hand. Ben Myers, a data developer, initially made the case the “unit” for searchers, later changing the format to make the campus the focal point. “We were able to show the information in a more logical way, in a way we think about the institutions,” Myers said. “We can now look up the institution of interest, see all the cases there and explore all the documents” available for those cases. The database can be sorted at the state level as well, Davenport adds. “It provides more context as to how many cases there are at specific types of institutions.” — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, producers Michael O'Connell and Nicole Ogrysko talk to Sara Lipka, Jon Davenport and Ben Myers of The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com). The Chronicle recently relaunched its Title IX Tracker (http://projects.chronicle.com/titleix/), which keeps assembles and makes searchable data about sexual assault cases at hundreds of college campuses across the U.S.

There’s getting slapped with a lawsuit, and then there’s getting hit with a SLAPP lawsuit. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP, “are designed to keep people quiet,” says Kevin Goldberg, legal adviser for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (http://archive.altweeklies.com) and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (http://asne.org). “It’s a use of the legal system to put people on the defensive.” While not a new tactic — Goldberg jokes that SLAPP lawsuits have been around since “people started speaking in writing” — there have been some high-profile cases in recent years worth noting, especially for journalists. “SLAPPs are about more than just defamatory statements,” he said. “They can hide in the guise of anything from a copyright infringement to tortious interference with a business contract, to anything. Ultimately it comes down to trying to get people to stop criticizing.” A few years ago, the Washington City Paper published an article rather snarkily listing less-than-flattering characteristics of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins NFL team. The Washington City Paper, an AAN member, used a photo of Snyder on the front page of that issue and gave him devil horns and a goatee. Snyder, who is Jewish, claimed that portrayal was anti-Semitic. “That set things off on the wrong foot,” Goldberg said. “Even if it was, it’s not defamatory in any way—legally, it’s not defamatory.” Other things Snyder claimed were defamatory, including a passage that said he’d “gone all Agent Orange on the trees growing on his land by the Potomac River, they were cut down but technically, as he points out, he did not use Agent Orange,” Goldberg said. “That’s the absurdity of the whole thing, he’s claiming the City Paper said he actually used Agent Orange and therefore the article is false and defamatory.” Additionally, the City Paper article said he’d been kicked off the board of the Six Flags corporation, which Snyder claims is “not technically true.” Instead of using his name, position and high-profile status in Washington, D.C., to get his own publicity and tell his own story, Snyder had his lawyers contact the hedge fund company that invested in the City Paper. The letter included a statement saying: “Indeed, the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper.” In other words, Snyder’s lawyers told the paper to “stop writing mean things about me, take it all back, or I will sue you and make you spend money you don’t have.” Another example of someone who uses SLAPP lawsuits to scare detractors? Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. “SLAPP lawsuits aren’t just about the threat (of legal action); the SLAPP is the lawsuit itself,” Goldberg explained. But some 28 states and the District of Columbia have enacted anti-SLAPP laws to protect those people and publications who make statements believed to be, rightly or otherwise, defamatory or unflattering to go beyond the protections afforded by the First Amendment. There’s been legislation introduced in Congress that would create a national anti-SLAPP law, but the support has been slow going and it could take several sessions to gain strength, he said. — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, Kevin Goldberg, legal adviser for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (http://archive.altweeklies.com) and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (http://asne.org), explains how Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) can have a chilling effect on free speech.

There’s getting slapped with a lawsuit, and then there’s getting hit with a SLAPP lawsuit. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP, “are designed to keep people quiet,” says Kevin Goldberg, legal adviser for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (http://archive.altweeklies.com) and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (http://asne.org). “It’s a use of the legal system to put people on the defensive.” While not a new tactic — Goldberg jokes that SLAPP lawsuits have been around since “people started speaking in writing” — there have been some high-profile cases in recent years worth noting, especially for journalists. “SLAPPs are about more than just defamatory statements,” he said. “They can hide in the guise of anything from a copyright infringement to tortious interference with a business contract, to anything. Ultimately it comes down to trying to get people to stop criticizing.” A few years ago, the Washington City Paper published an article rather snarkily listing less-than-flattering characteristics of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins NFL team. The Washington City Paper, an AAN member, used a photo of Snyder on the front page of that issue and gave him devil horns and a goatee. Snyder, who is Jewish, claimed that portrayal was anti-Semitic. “That set things off on the wrong foot,” Goldberg said. “Even if it was, it’s not defamatory in any way—legally, it’s not defamatory.” Other things Snyder claimed were defamatory, including a passage that said he’d “gone all Agent Orange on the trees growing on his land by the Potomac River, they were cut down but technically, as he points out, he did not use Agent Orange,” Goldberg said. “That’s the absurdity of the whole thing, he’s claiming the City Paper said he actually used Agent Orange and therefore the article is false and defamatory.” Additionally, the City Paper article said he’d been kicked off the board of the Six Flags corporation, which Snyder claims is “not technically true.” Instead of using his name, position and high-profile status in Washington, D.C., to get his own publicity and tell his own story, Snyder had his lawyers contact the hedge fund company that invested in the City Paper. The letter included a statement saying: “Indeed, the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper.” In other words, Snyder’s lawyers told the paper to “stop writing mean things about me, take it all back, or I will sue you and make you spend money you don’t have.” Another example of someone who uses SLAPP lawsuits to scare detractors? Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. “SLAPP lawsuits aren’t just about the threat (of legal action); the SLAPP is the lawsuit itself,” Goldberg explained. But some 28 states and the District of Columbia have enacted anti-SLAPP laws to protect those people and publications who make statements believed to be, rightly or otherwise, defamatory or unflattering to go beyond the protections afforded by the First Amendment. There’s been legislation introduced in Congress that would create a national anti-SLAPP law, but the support has been slow going and it could take several sessions to gain strength, he said. — Amber Healy (mailto:phfyrebyrd@gmail.com) On this week's It's All Journalism podcast, Kevin Goldberg, legal adviser for the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (http://archive.altweeklies.com) and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (http://asne.org), explains how Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) can have a chilling effect on free speech.

Wouldn't it be cool to make money from your podcast? Not a lot, just enough to pay your monthly hosting fees. Or maybe you want to pay your contributors or buy some new microphones or just get a cup of coffee for your effort. That would be sweet. Crowdfunding has become a popular way for podcasters, journalists and artists to raise money from their audience in order to pay for worthy projects. While many people have found great success with crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com), Indiegogo (https://www.indiegogo.com/#/picks_for_you) and GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com), those platforms are all built around single, fundraising campaigns. They're great to get startup capital, but what about providing sustaining income for an ongoing product, such as a podcast? One crowdfunding platform that does just that is Patreon (https://www.patreon.com), which allows fans of an artist or podcaster to provide support through monthly contributions. I interviewed Jordan Cope of Patreon at the 2016 Podcast Movement conference in Chicago. He explained how Patreon works and the simple way it can provide sustainability for a growing podcast. — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

Wouldn't it be cool to make money from your podcast? Not a lot, just enough to pay your monthly hosting fees. Or maybe you want to pay your contributors or buy some new microphones or just get a cup of coffee for your effort. That would be sweet. Crowdfunding has become a popular way for podcasters, journalists and artists to raise money from their audience in order to pay for worthy projects. While many people have found great success with crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com), Indiegogo (https://www.indiegogo.com/#/picks_for_you) and GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com), those platforms are all built around single, fundraising campaigns. They're great to get startup capital, but what about providing sustaining income for an ongoing product, such as a podcast? One crowdfunding platform that does just that is Patreon (https://www.patreon.com), which allows fans of an artist or podcaster to provide support through monthly contributions. I interviewed Jordan Cope of Patreon at the 2016 Podcast Movement conference in Chicago. He explained how Patreon works and the simple way it can provide sustainability for a growing podcast. — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

When you're launching a podcast, one of the big considerations early on is whether or not you should have a website. Easy answer: yes, you should have a website. Certainly, there are podcast hosting services, such as SoundCloud, that give you a space to post your audio, some text and maybe photos, but you should really have your own domain, a place to keep all your stuff and where you can send people. Having a website is important, very important, but it's not the most important thing to concentrate on when you start out. Figure out what your podcast is, how you're going to produce audio and what stories you're going to tell. Put your energies there. Somewhere in that mix, though, build a website. Eventually, as your podcast grows, the website will play a bigger role in promotion, monetization and interacting with your listeners. But in the beginning, keep it simple. Cesar Abeid works for Automatic, the company behind WordPress.com (http://wordpress.com), which many podcasters use for their websites. WordPress sites are easy to launch and maintain and are well-supported. It's All Journalism (http://www.itsalljournalism.com) is a WordPress website. I interviewed Abeid at the 2016 Podcast Movement (http://podcastmovement.com) conference in Chicago. We discussed the importance of having a website for your podcast. We also talk about his Abeid's own podcast, Project Management for the Masses (http://pmforthemasses.com). — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

When you're launching a podcast, one of the big considerations early on is whether or not you should have a website. Easy answer: yes, you should have a website. Certainly, there are podcast hosting services, such as SoundCloud, that give you a space to post your audio, some text and maybe photos, but you should really have your own domain, a place to keep all your stuff and where you can send people. Having a website is important, very important, but it's not the most important thing to concentrate on when you start out. Figure out what your podcast is, how you're going to produce audio and what stories you're going to tell. Put your energies there. Somewhere in that mix, though, build a website. Eventually, as your podcast grows, the website will play a bigger role in promotion, monetization and interacting with your listeners. But in the beginning, keep it simple. Cesar Abeid works for Automatic, the company behind WordPress.com (http://wordpress.com), which many podcasters use for their websites. WordPress sites are easy to launch and maintain and are well-supported. It's All Journalism (http://www.itsalljournalism.com) is a WordPress website. I interviewed Abeid at the 2016 Podcast Movement (http://podcastmovement.com) conference in Chicago. We discussed the importance of having a website for your podcast. We also talk about his Abeid's own podcast, Project Management for the Masses (http://pmforthemasses.com). — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

On their podcast Ear Hustle, Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams want to tell stories from "the inside" — literally inside San Quentin Prison in California. Ear Hustle is one of the four finalists in Radiotopia's Podquest (https://www.radiotopia.fm/podquest/) competition, which seeks to find new voices in podcasting. Radiotopia will be announcing the winners of Podquest in October. Poor and the other finalists took part in a July 7, 2016, panel at the Podcast Movement conference in Chicago. For obvious reasons, Williams and Woods couldn't join the other contestants, but they did record a video that was played during the presentation. I had a chance to sit down with Poor after the panel. She shared some of the human stories Ear Hustle hopes to tackle as well as the unique production challenges the podcast faces by recording in a prison. — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

On their podcast Ear Hustle, Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams want to tell stories from "the inside" — literally inside San Quentin Prison in California. Ear Hustle is one of the four finalists in Radiotopia's Podquest (https://www.radiotopia.fm/podquest/) competition, which seeks to find new voices in podcasting. Radiotopia will be announcing the winners of Podquest in October. Poor and the other finalists took part in a July 7, 2016, panel at the Podcast Movement conference in Chicago. For obvious reasons, Williams and Woods couldn't join the other contestants, but they did record a video that was played during the presentation. I had a chance to sit down with Poor after the panel. She shared some of the human stories Ear Hustle hopes to tackle as well as the unique production challenges the podcast faces by recording in a prison. — Michael O'Connell (mailto:moconnell207@gmail.com)

The last time Chris Faraone spoke to It's All Journalism (http://itsalljournalism.com/137-chris-faraone-treks-the-oregon-tale/), he was in the midst of some independent investigative work out in Oregon. His work, Oregon Tale (https://medium.com/oregon-tale), looked at the phenomenon of small towns that didn’t have police services but were evicting people from their homes with military-style vehicles and operations. His work received new attention earlier this year during a standoff between federal agents and a group led by Ammon Bundy and his sons, when Bundy and supporters took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and demanded the release of two ranchers. “I’d love to say there were big changes; there weren’t,” Faraone admitted. “Some of those cases we looked at, some people did have some relief. But they’re still losing their homes.” Part of the problem is the evictions are happening in a “media desert,” and without the media, the factions that would normally speak to each other through journalists have no way to communicate. “I hope the people who went there saw that this is really a unique part of America … they’re not government-hating rednecks. I hope the tens of thousands of people who read the series, I hope it helps them understand that.” But he’s not resting on his past efforts. If anything, the work in Oregon has lit a fire under Faraone, now leading a nonprofit journalism endeavor in Boston. The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (https://medium.com/binj-reports/become-a-reporter-supporter-8f36321400a7#.cubivzk8o), or BINJ (which Faraone has tattooed across his knuckles), is inspired by alternative and independent publications in California, including the San Francisco Public Press, in which people are working collaboratively to bring about not only investigative journalism but to serve the public in ways traditional media no longer can. There’s a history of this kind of work in Boston, Faraone says. He points to the Boston Phoenix, an independent paper that went out of business in 2013 after more than 40 years of investigative work. “When the Phoenix went out of business in 2013, they were still doing four or five 1,200 to 5,000 word pieces every week. That really was the incubator” for investigative journalists in the city, he said. “Dozens of people at the Boston Globe, including at least one person on the Spotlight team who was portrayed in the movie, came up throughout the Phoenix.” It’s important to remember that some of those headline grabbing stories “covered by the (New York) Times or 60 Minutes, started in more grassroots community newsrooms,” he said. Now he’s working, through BINJ and Dig Boston, a news and entertainment website, to “keep alt press alive in greater Boston.” Boston has a rich media landscape but newsrooms are seeing their bottom lines cut, just as in other cities. “Our idea with BINJ is that we’re not going to be our own outlet. We’re not trying to take the credit for everything.” After meeting with every reporter, editor and publisher in town that would meet with him, Faraone and his partners asked those newsrooms for their wishlists of stories they wanted to cover but couldn’t, or issues that needed exploring but couldn’t be reached. “We started talking about the stories we were interested in developing and how they can play a role," he said. "If we do one story, how can we give a sidebar to this paper that’s relevant to that community? We want to do more than just syndication. … We want to be able to help with resources and network a lot of community outlets so their voices can be amplified to the point where the Globe or one of the TV stations will hear it, pick up on the story.