Matter News

Tim Fulton 0:14Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, we're talking about what makes news in Columbus. From gentrification to policing to protests, Matter News is reporting on issues with an approach meant to build trust while avoiding bias. This week's interview is with Matter News' editor-in-chief, Jaelynn Grisso. We discuss their nonprofit structure, how they decide on and execute their coverage, and the importance of objectivity in reporting, but not necessarily in a person. You can get more information on what we discuss today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. This episode of the Confluence Cast is sponsored by Gateway Film Center, a nonprofit cinema committed to storytellers and amplifying the impact of their work in our community. A story told by an authentic voice can inspire new ideas and has the power to entertain, push boundaries, spark new levels of empathy, and advance social change. To learn more about their program and plan your next visit, please visit gatewayfilmcenter.org. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Jaelynn Grisso, the editor-in-chief of Matter News, a Columbus-based nonprofit journalism entity. Jaelynn, how are you?

Jaelynn Grisso 2:04I'm good. How are you?

Tim Fulton 2:06I'm doing well, thank you. So tell us about Matter News.

Jaelynn Grisso 2:09Yeah, absolutely. Um, Matter News is relatively new. Um, I think we're in our third year right now.

Tim Fulton 2:17Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 2:17Um, we are a nonprofit news organization, uh, completely dedicated to and focused on, uh, Columbus, and we do broaden that out to be central Ohio occasionally, but primarily it's focused on the city of Columbus. Um, we're also investigative by nature, so, uh, we do some kind of shorter bits of content, but it's all leading to what we consider a broader investigation that's a deeper look into issues that are specifically affecting Columbus.

Tim Fulton 2:43Okay. Can you talk about some of those issues that you guys are focused on?

Jaelynn Grisso 2:47I would love to. So-

Tim Fulton 2:48Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 2:49... we have, we have two of them right now. Um, we originally started with, uh, just one, and that's the main one that we were doing, um, for about a year. Uh, and we really wanted to focus on only one so we could kind of show this is what we want this organization and this news product to look like, right? This is kind of what we are actually going to be delivering on. Um, and so that original issue is, we call it Develop Us. Um, it's all about the growth and development of Columbus. So it kind of started from this idea that Columbus is going to get a major influx of, uh, population within the next, like, decade or so, right? Um, and we're already seeing that in tons of different ways. Like, we're seeing the cost of living going through the roof. We're seeing people from coastal cities that can't afford to live there anymore moving into Columbus, and that's causing prices-

Tim Fulton 3:33Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 3:33... to go up here. You know, lots of new development, lots of new growth here. Um, and so we started with that because we felt like that was a topic of conversation that was happening in Columbus a lot and was something that Columbus was specifically dealing with because obviously issues of revitalization and gentrification happen everywhere.

Tim Fulton 3:50Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 3:50But for Columbus, not just on a neighborhood level, it's almost on a city level in context of the country, right? Um-

Tim Fulton 3:56Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 3:57... and so we felt like that issue was one that really needed more, uh, of a nuanced discussion around it. It needed more context around the individual stories that were coming out, so it wasn't just like, "Here's this new development. Here's this new development. Here's this new apartment building." But instead-

Tim Fulton 4:12Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 4:12... is like what led to that apartment building being created? What do the residents that live there think about it? What do the new residents that are moving into it think about it? What have policymakers decided in, like, terms of the most recent past or even, like, decades ago that have led to that apartment building being created? Um, and so we really kinda started building out Develop Us as a way to kinda show what our investigative nature would be and how we would bring that context and nuance to, uh, a conversation like that. Then, uh, in May, everything exploded. Um-

Tim Fulton 4:45Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 4:46... really Columbus blew up with a protest, right? And we had a very, uh, difficult conversation at one point where we were like, "We don't know that we have faith that the news is going, in Columbus, is going to give the proper context and nuance to this conversation." That is the kind of thing that we have built our entire brand around, right? So we've built this entire-

Tim Fulton 5:08Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 5:08... thing around how can we explain the news, provide deeper context, um, show, like, more of the overall pattern and trajectory of things rather than this kind of, like, spot news coverage. Um, and so we sat down and we talked about kind of what was happening and what was going on in that moment, and we decided we think it's time to open up another investigation. So we recently-

Tim Fulton 5:27Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 5:27... opened that one up in May. That's called Crossing the Line. Um, and there's a couple different reasons for that, um, title. Part of it is the idea of this thin blue line, right, which is the idea that the police are this thin blue line between society being orderly and chaotic and blah, blah, blah. Um, but also-

Tim Fulton 5:46Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 5:46... putting it on the idea of the protest itself, right? Of this, like, line, the front line of the protest, the front line where the police are on one side and the protesters are on other, on the other side, and we wanted to find a, a product or a name that kind of conveyed that we wanna show what both sides are saying and how there could be a bridge to gap those sides, right? Um-

Tim Fulton 6:05Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 6:06We launched that in May, um, and we've been working on producing a variety of content around that. Um, we have produced a couple explainers as well as some profiles of some protesters and things like that. Um, and we actually recently editor- uh, hired a new editor for that, for that, uh, issue as well. So those are the two main issues-

Tim Fulton 6:23Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 6:23... that we're focusing on right now. Um, the idea with Matter is that we will focus on issues as long as they are relevant to the community that we're in, which is Columbus, obviously. So-

Tim Fulton 6:35Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 6:35... that means if major legislation, major hap- action happens within the realm of police misconduct and within the realm of protests and things like that to where we feel like it's not as pressing of an issue in Columbus even more, anymore, even if it's still part of the national debate and national conversation, then we would retire that issue.

Tim Fulton 6:53Okay. Got it. And so ob- so do you continue then pursuing the, uh, Develop Us issue? Is it Develop Us or Develop Bus?

Jaelynn Grisso 7:02Develop Us. So it's kind of a play on-

Tim Fulton 7:05Develop Us. Okay.

Jaelynn Grisso 7:05Yeah. It's kinda-- And if you look at our, like, uh, designing for it, it's a bit of a satirical play off of the Columbus, right?

Tim Fulton 7:12Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 7:12Like the us within Columbus. Um, and so it's kind of a bit of a play off of that because of some of the marketing and things like that that the city has put forth in terms of trying to get people from the coasts, um, and other places to come to Columbus, which I wanna be clear isn't inherently a negative thing, um, but has consequences-

Tim Fulton 7:29Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 7:29... for the city of Columbus that we wanna delve into and explore.

Tim Fulton 7:33Well, and that was gonna be my next question of certainly the, the development issue is one that it can very easily be perceived as we are taking a neutral stance, and we wanna make sure that people-

Jaelynn Grisso 7:44Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 7:44... are well-informed about how these things are happening in our community.

Jaelynn Grisso 7:49Right.

Tim Fulton 7:49The crossing the line issue can be easily perceived then as one that you do sort of have to take a stance on, and I've reviewed some of your coverage-

Jaelynn Grisso 7:57Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 7:57... and it's very, it's on the ground, right?

Jaelynn Grisso 8:00Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 8:01And so you're inherently on one side physically at least-

Jaelynn Grisso 8:08Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 8:08... of-

Jaelynn Grisso 8:08Right

Tim Fulton 8:08... what's happening. Um, do you guys take a either political or, or, or specific view of where your coverage is coming from?

Jaelynn Grisso 8:22This is a great question. Um, so as an organization, no. Uh, we really aren't-

Tim Fulton 8:27Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 8:27... siding specifically with either one side. I think that individuals on both sides could make arguments that we are catering to the, to one side or the other. Um, but we don't explicitly aim to lean on one side or the other or, like, give, you know, uh, more favorable content or even just more coverage to one side or the other. Um, but-

Tim Fulton 8:46Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 8:46... it is difficult because we're aware of the landscape that we're in, um, in terms of, like, other news organizations in the city and, um, as well as, like, just the information that people need, right? Um, so-

Tim Fulton 8:58Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 8:58... in a case like this, I think you're absolutely right. Like, if you're going and covering a protest, you quite literally have to pick a side. Either you're going to be embedded with the protesters and seeing what they're doing, or you're gonna be embedded with the police and you're gonna be seeing what they're doing. Um, and-

Tim Fulton 9:11Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 9:12... I think that we, uh, primarily embedded more with the protesters because we felt like that's where we would be able to get more nuanced coverage of kind of what is really at the heart of this protest. Um, but-

Tim Fulton 9:24Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 9:24... I don't think it would be w- out of the realm of what we're doing to, to a certain extent balance that out and also be embedded with the police occasionally. Um, it is difficult because there are a lot of stories that other outlets within Columbus are running that are directly coming from the police and don't really weigh out the protester side of things quite as much. And so in a-

Tim Fulton 9:45Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 9:45... certain way, we do want to balance that out a little bit as well, like, to a certain extent uplift voices that we're not hearing from as much because the police are heard from a lot more frequently. We wanna make sure-

Tim Fulton 9:54Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 9:54... that protesters, and of course there's, like, a diversity of voices and opinions within that, are being represented-

Tim Fulton 10:00Right

Jaelynn Grisso 10:00... as well. Um, but I think it's a great question because it also gets to, and people ask us this all the time, it gets to the heart of this question of, like, objectivity within journalism, right?

Tim Fulton 10:10Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 10:10And how do you maintain objectivity, and should you maintain objectivity within journalism? I think it's a really difficult question. I think for me personally, what I've always landed on is that objectivity should not be the goal, um, if for the reporter itself, for the reporter him or herself or theirself. Um, instead-

Tim Fulton 10:29Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 10:29... objectivity should be the goal for the piece that you end up producing, um, and that it should be fair within the context of what you're reporting on. So-

Tim Fulton 10:37Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 10:38... I as a human am not gonna be able to get rid of my biases, right? Like, I'm a-

Tim Fulton 10:42Right

Jaelynn Grisso 10:42... woman. I'm going to, like, be more aware of what it's like to be a woman in the world than it is to be a man in the world. I am also identify-

Tim Fulton 10:49Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 10:49... as queer, so, like, I'm going to know what that experience is like more than it's like to be straight. I'm bringing all those experiences into the reporting and the work that I'm doing, right? Because it's gonna color what I'm interested in, what I wanna report on, like, all of those things.

Tim Fulton 11:03Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 11:03But it doesn't have to color the process nor the people that I'm talking to, nor does it have to stop me from talking to people who even if I personally am not ideologically aligned with them and still, like, giving them a voice and giving them a platform. Um, and truly in a lot of ways, that's what the heart of journalism has always been. Like, and to a certain extent, the heart of journalism has never expected the journalist to be objective but the process-

Tim Fulton 11:25Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 11:25... to be objective. Um, and that's what we really-

Tim Fulton 11:27Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 11:27... strive to do. Especially as investigative journalists, we are really going into the policy, to the data, to the records, and really looking at what is written down in paper, what are the actual numbers saying about this, even outside of what I believe or what we might believe, um, a- as a team.

Tim Fulton 11:44Mm-hmm. And so it's, let's divide it between, I, I don't know if the, this is a structure, but divide it between the three Ps, right? It's the person-

Jaelynn Grisso 11:52Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 11:52... the process, and for lack of a better term, the product, that-

Jaelynn Grisso 11:57Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 11:57... the person you can't necessarily expect to remain objective, but the process by which they're gathering information and the product that they're packaging up and, for lack of a better term, selling But in, in the form of eyeballs or ears or interest-

Jaelynn Grisso 12:13Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 12:14... is objective, and you want to be able to demonstrate a certain amount of trust in that.

Jaelynn Grisso 12:19Yeah, exactly.

Tim Fulton 12:20How do you, how do you do that? Let me caveat that with la- last year I did, as the Democratic debates were going on, I did an interview right before one of the debates with the editor-in-chief of Ohio Capital Journal.

Jaelynn Grisso 12:37Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 12:37And I asked him a very similar question of, like, do, basically, do you take a, a bent to your-

Jaelynn Grisso 12:43Mm

Tim Fulton 12:43... coverage? You're, you're, you're inherently covering, uh, political issues. I think your content could be viewed as politically skewed.

Jaelynn Grisso 12:54Mm.

Tim Fulton 12:54And he immediately said, "I'm skewed. I hope-"

Jaelynn Grisso 12:58Mm

Tim Fulton 12:58"... that our product, that we're put, what we're putting out there isn't." But he also talked about the inherent inability to translate that to some people-

Jaelynn Grisso 13:09Mm

Tim Fulton 13:09... because of their bias.

Jaelynn Grisso 13:12Right.

Tim Fulton 13:13So let's talk about an investigation as a whole and hoping that we get to that, right? When you set out, you guys in May identified, we're gonna, this thing is blowing up. Forgive me for putting words into your mouth, but maybe there's, you're not seeing coverage that's hitting all sides of the, the issue or the story.

Jaelynn Grisso 13:34Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 13:35And so you're both filling those gaps and adding in, um, sort of the context around it, that context that everybody has, every TV station that's down there filming and every, a- and frankly, The Dispatch in terms of print.

Jaelynn Grisso 13:55Mm.

Tim Fulton 13:55Um, how do you... So when you launch on a campaign-

Jaelynn Grisso 14:00Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 14:01... what are all the resources that you need to cull together, and are you sort of mapping out, here's how this is g- here's what we expect, and this may change, but here's how we make sure we're providing a product that is viewed as the truth with a lowercase T?

Jaelynn Grisso 14:17Mm-hmm. I think a lot of that, well, I think there's two parts to that. I think one is that we really aim to give a comprehensive view of what's happening, right? So in, within individual pieces, you might be able to say that you could find certain levels of bias, but we are covering this as an entire entity, right?

Tim Fulton 14:37Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 14:38So one of the ways that we really strive to fight against that is by not dropping the story. So in a lot of-

Tim Fulton 14:42Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 14:42... traditional newsrooms, as soon as it's less, quote-unquote, newsworthy, you move on, right? If it's not timely anymore-

Tim Fulton 14:48Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 14:48... if there's not enough people out, if a pro- if the protest is five people one day, you're not gonna cover it, right? It's just not-

Tim Fulton 14:53Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 14:54... news anymore. That's not the way the system is, is built to be. Uh, we wanted to build a system that was different than that, and that's not to, like, throw shade on traditional news. Like, we wouldn't be able to exist-

Tim Fulton 15:03Right

Jaelynn Grisso 15:03... without traditional news. We need that day in, day out spot coverage to see what's going on regularly to help be able to fill in the gaps and find that context, right? Um, but that's, that's where we really are coming in is, like, we don't leave when the story is no longer as newsworthy as it was, right? When it's no longer a buzzword, when there's no longer, like, hundreds of people out in the street, we're still there doing digging, looking into what happened during those protests, uh, doing records requests to find out about police misconduct overall. We're still-

Tim Fulton 15:32Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 15:32... looking at all of that stuff. So we really aim to take a very comprehensive view and create a very comprehensive product that is showing a lot of these different facets of it. So one facet might really heavily rely on, like, a single protester's explanation of what happened when he went out to protest one day.

Tim Fulton 15:49Okay.

Jaelynn Grisso 15:49But that's within the context. That's part of one piece of the mosaic that we are putting together of what this really looks like for Columbus specifically, right? So I think that's one part of it. I think the second part of it is that objectivity really should not be the gold standard. I think the gold standard should be trust within the community, and it's really-

Tim Fulton 16:08Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 16:08... really hard in this era to build trust within the community. It's really hard to make sure that people trust the product that you're creating because there's a lot of both people on the ground locally and more powerful figures as you go up that are undermining the work that journalists and very legitimate journalists are doing day in, day out. So-

Tim Fulton 16:25Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 16:25... building that trust is a very difficult process, and we are kind of figuring out what that looks like and how we can continue to do that. Um, but we really strive to be very involved with the community in that way so that we can build that trust. So one example of that is that we, until the pandemic, were going to community events at least two or three times a week, and it would be, like, me or the managing editor or Cassie, like, all coming together and, like, talking to these people on the ground. Um, we also developed this program called Matter Mobile, which also has been postponed due to the pandemic, but it was-

Tim Fulton 16:59Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 16:59... essentially, um, we got a grant to build a pop-up, uh, audio/visual studio.

Tim Fulton 17:05Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 17:05So it's literally this collapsible thing that you can put in the bed of a truck, a pickup, and then you take it wherever you want to, pop up in whatever community that you want to, and it creates this little studio where you can record audio and video with, um, soundproofing, all, all nine yards so that you have nice quality, uh, product and nice quality recordings. Um-

Tim Fulton 17:23Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 17:23... and, and there, there's a couple reasons for that. That is not just to be able to make sure that we get quality recordings, but it also provides privacy for folks that are answering questions in the kind of, quote-unquote, "man on the street" style 'cause I've-

Tim Fulton 17:34Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 17:34... I've been an intern many times, and I've been the one sent out to do those interviews many times, and people often don't really wanna talk to you, one, because they're busy doing their lives, and two, because, uh, there's not much privacy, right? So there's a big camera in front of their face, and people are very aware of it, and people make a show of it, and it becomes like-

Tim Fulton 17:51Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 17:52... a very jokey thing very quickly. So the studio provides privacy for folks to be able to come in and tell their story. And then we also were working with, um, different community partners to be able to show up in places where we can say, "Hey, this person is having us here. Like, come out and talk to us." They can say to their, the people that they know in that community, like, "Hey, this group is coming. If you wanna share your story, if you wanna get your voice amplified, come and talk to them." Um, so that's one of the ways that we've been really trying to foster that community engagement. Um-

Tim Fulton 18:18Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 18:18... another aspect of Matter that we are in the process of kind of building out, because it's gonna be a fairly- ... robust program, but it's been one of the cores of what we wanted to do for Matter forever, uh, is doing, is getting direct community input on what issues we should be reporting on.

Tim Fulton 18:35Okay.

Jaelynn Grisso 18:35So what we plan on that looking like is, um, a combination of, um, panel discussions with community leaders throughout the city, as well as an actual citywide poll with certain incentives and things like that. So you get your, quote-unquote, "everyday people" coming in and telling you what they wanna hear about and what they need information about.

Tim Fulton 18:52Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 18:52And then that informs what issues we look for, look into in the future. That's something that we've been kind of continuing to flesh out, and we've done more, um, informally until now, because we are kind of getting our feet under us. But that's been a core value of ours forever, is that we really wanna make sure that the reporting that we're doing is driven by and informed by the community, not by what we wanna cover, not by what the biggest buzzwords are, not by what will perform best for SEO, but instead what people here in the community actually need more information about.

Tim Fulton 19:23Okay. Talk, so is the, the Matter Mobile, was the content generated out of that primarily surrounding the Develop Us campaign, or was it basically whatever folks wanted to talk about? And I'm thinking of StoryCorps-

Jaelynn Grisso 19:40Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 19:40... in terms of what you'd, it's like, come and talk to- about whatever you wanna talk about, that whether it's here's what's affecting me today, or-

Jaelynn Grisso 19:48Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 19:48... here's what problems I have in my community, or here's my autobiography. Is that, was it much more open-ended than that, or were you sort of tasking people with how is development affecting you and your community?

Jaelynn Grisso 20:04Um, so I think StoryCorps is definitely in line with what we were thinking of, um, but not quite-

Tim Fulton 20:09Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 20:09... as open-ended. So in the format of, like, how they go into different communities, get sound bites, um, that kind of general structure, like a mobile studio. Like, we're not going to be reporting on you from our desks, but instead are going to go out into the community to be reporting from the community rather than on the community. Um-

Tim Fulton 20:26Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 20:26... that's definitely in the same vein. Um, but the idea was always to be able to, um, be, have it be related to the content that we're producing. Um, so it would be around Develop Us, and we might give people a prompt to say, like, you know, "How has evictions during the pandemic," for example, "affected you in your life?" Or, "How has the pandemic-"

Tim Fulton 20:45Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 20:45... "affected your housing" more broadly, right? To, again, to give them something to start with, um, but is very open-ended in terms of being under that umbrella of Develop Us or CTL or whatever it is.

Tim Fulton 20:56Talk about the choice to have Matter be a nonprofit entity.

Jaelynn Grisso 21:02Absolutely. A bit of Matter being nonprofit actually has to do a bit with my personal career trajectory. Um, so I'm gonna-

Tim Fulton 21:08Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 21:08... explain a little bit of that as background, um, and then I'll go into, uh, why we-

Tim Fulton 21:13Sure, that was, I mean, that was a follow-up too, so let's go into it.

Jaelynn Grisso 21:16Great. I'll just intertwine it for you. Um, so, uh, I've been working in journalism for about 10 years. Um, I actually started when I was in high school. Uh, so I grew up out west. I grew up in rural Wyoming and Montana. My parents are divorced-

Tim Fulton 21:30Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 21:30... so I went between the two. Um, and in Montana, I started working at a small newspaper. The town was, like, I don't even know, I think it's, like, 5,000 people maybe. So pretty small town. Um, and kinda started learning the bare bones of what local journalism looks like there. Um, from there, I went to J school, did a bunch of internships. I went to Ohio University. I actually went to the Scripps school there. Um-

Tim Fulton 21:54Great

Jaelynn Grisso 21:55... I think I did four or five internships over the course of my, um, getting my college degree. Um, and saw, in that process, saw tons of different aspects of the journalism industry. Um, because I worked from, like, you know, uh, from a startup in Manhattan that was full of people that used to work for local broadcasters and then got laid off and decided to start their own, like, venture, to traditional-

Tim Fulton 22:19Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 22:19... own news station, to traditional newspapers and, like, news radio stations, to, um, major, like, national publications, right? So-

Tim Fulton 22:28Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 22:29... really kinda ran the gamut and saw what the newsrooms looked like in, in all of those capacities. Um, and it was after I graduated from high school, I... Or excuse me, from college. After I graduated from college, I was offered an internship, um, with a publication called Honolulu Civil Beat. Um, so I actually got to take a paid internship in Honolulu for the summer, which is quite a dream. I-

Tim Fulton 22:52Not bad.

Jaelynn Grisso 22:52Yeah, it's really not. Um, when they told me where I would be, they were like, "Are you sure you want this?" And I was like, "Yeah. Yeah. No, I do."

Tim Fulton 22:59Yeah. No, no, I'll, I'll handle that.

Jaelynn Grisso 23:01Yeah. Um, so I started working with Honolulu Civil Beat, and they actually started out as a for-pron- for-profit entity, but always kind of had nonprofit ideals. And then the day that I started, they actually converted the entire company to a nonprofit.

Tim Fulton 23:16Okay.

Jaelynn Grisso 23:16And I had not been very familiar with nonprofit news before that. Um, but as I worked with them over the summer, I started to see how much the nonprofit label was much more than just a tax break or a tax identification, right?

Tim Fulton 23:30Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 23:30It was really a culture that permeated the entire company and the way that reporters acted within the company. It was-

Tim Fulton 23:36Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 23:37... seeing journalism really as a public service and a public good, rather than a means to an end or a product that needed clicks or needed ad dollars, right?

Tim Fulton 23:45Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 23:46And so that kind of changed my perspective of how news could be, how news could operate, and what the culture of news could be. Because I always felt that growing up I really wanted to be a writer, but I also really wanted to help people, and to me, journalism was always the intersection of those two. I could be a creator-

Tim Fulton 24:01Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 24:01... I could be a storyteller, but I could also do good while I was doing it, right? And nonprofit news really delivers on that. It really shows you, or it really does create, in my opinion, the most ethical model for sust- and, and sustainable model, but, um, primarily it creates the most ethical model for, uh, journalism, and especially local news today. Um-

Tim Fulton 24:22Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 24:22... after I was at Honolulu Civil Beat, I actually went, um, to a, for a fellowship at Mother Jones magazine, um, and which is also a nonprofit, but a major-

Tim Fulton 24:32Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 24:32... national investigative news nonprofit. Um, and started seeing that kind of more of the intricacy- intricacies of how that would work on a much bigger scale, right? And how you could actually have such a big donor base that you really could create sustainable revenue, and could have fellowships, and could look and operate in a lot of ways like a for-profit national entity, right? A national journalism entity.

Tim Fulton 24:52Mm-hmm.

Jaelynn Grisso 24:53Um, and so I started seeing these little veins of how it permeated the company culture, how it created a better product, how it allowed for those products to be given out for free in a lot of instances, um, and how it just kind of shifted this entire dynamic of n- not necessarily what we're doing, but why we're doing it. Um-

Tim Fulton 25:13Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 25:14... and so throughout the course of working for those two companies, I got intimately familiar with an organization called The Institute for Nonprofit News. Um, and they are really the leaders in the nonprofit news space, both nationally and really internationally. They have, I think, almost 200 members now, and we actually are one of the members as well. Um, and they really lead the charge on what nonprofit news looks like and what the benefits of nonprofit news are. So I started digging in more and more to that, and the more that I dug into it, the more that I realized that nonprofit news does not just create a company culture that is more about doing a service, doing a public service, um, but it also allows for certain things like more accessibility to content. Because we don't have to be paywalled-

Tim Fulton 25:54Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 25:54... because we don't have to worry about subscriptions, we don't really have to worry about ad dollars as much. Obviously, all of those things are helpful and can be helpful revenue sources, um, but it's not the end-all be-all for us. The end-all be-all for us is people donating, people who can afford to donate, donating to us because they believe in the cause of-

Tim Fulton 26:11Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 26:12... journalism and of having a more robust media to create a more engaged and informed society. And that-

Tim Fulton 26:17Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 26:17... really what it comes down to, is buying into that cause rather than paying for the specific product, the specific article, things like that. Um, it also really helps us to be insulated from really having to be clickbaity. It's hard because there are so many organizations that are doing really, really good work, and I think the nature of the internet and the way that people work on the internet has made it to where they've had to go for the most outlandish, the most sensational, the most whatever of whatever topic-

Tim Fulton 26:44Right

Jaelynn Grisso 26:44... that they're producing on, and whatever topic they're producing content on. And what that ends up meaning is that it ends up discrediting journalism. It ends up discrediting what the process is and what it looks like. Um, and it dilutes the, like, really good information that people actually need, right? It ends up making all of the news about entertainment rather about the value add. Um, and I really-

Tim Fulton 27:04Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 27:04... think that you can make both of those things combine, um, but not if your profit model is all based off of how many clicks you're getting on your articles. Um-

Tim Fulton 27:13Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 27:13... so it really freed us up to be able to make it more accessible so that our content is free to anyone, regardless of how much money you make. Um, we don't have to rely nearly on, as much on ads, which helps to build trust and doesn't mean that you're getting spammed with ads when you're trying to read the content that we're producing. Um-

Tim Fulton 27:28Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 27:28... and it creates a culture where people are more invested in doing something for their community than in getting their name out there, building their brand, things like that.

Tim Fulton 27:38Well, and they... To be... To harken back to our person, process, product conversation-

Jaelynn Grisso 27:45Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 27:45... the individual reporters, yeah, they can build up their name and reputation, but it's simply on the back of the quality of work that they're doing-

Jaelynn Grisso 27:54Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 27:54... rather than here's how much I was able to m- make in terms of traffic for my owner or other financial stakeholders. And it's about the, the value that's being delivered, and that's the i-i-in your model, that's what the important thing is.

Jaelynn Grisso 28:13Yeah, exactly.

Tim Fulton 28:15So as a pretty new organization-

Jaelynn Grisso 28:18Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 28:19... covering some pretty ingrained topics-

Jaelynn Grisso 28:22Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 28:23... in that there are folks who have a lot of power over those topics, I'm thinking specifically about race relations and development-

Jaelynn Grisso 28:30Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 28:31... and folks who, given how the way that they deal with those issues, could lose power within those spheres, be that politics or the ability to influence the development that's happening.

Jaelynn Grisso 28:45Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 28:45How have you guys been perceived by, not necessarily the, the, the person on the street, but the people in power? And I'm thinking about being credentialed, being-

Jaelynn Grisso 28:57Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 28:57... led into news conferences. How has that process been for you?

Jaelynn Grisso 29:02That's a great question. Um, it actually hasn't been too difficult in terms of being credentialed and things like that. Um-

Tim Fulton 29:09Okay.

Jaelynn Grisso 29:10It, it is interesting because I think that in some ways it's almost been more of an issue for the person on the street for, like, protest coverage, for example. I think it's almost been more of an issue for the person on the street because there is such a fractured level of trust with news media. Um-

Tim Fulton 29:26Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 29:26... I would think there were more people in the street that were skeptical of us, even though we were clearly labeled as press, like, had press shirts on, had press passes, big old camera and equipment. Like, very label... very, very clearly labeled as press and had, like, exactly where that press was going to be going. Um-

Tim Fulton 29:40Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 29:40... I think there were still more people that were wary of us in that space. Um, that being said, I think it really depends on what level you're at. Um, so m- me as editor-in-chief, when I'm reporting out stories and I call somebody up, there's a certain level of, uh, credence I think that is given to me that is not necessarily given to other reporters. Um, and, uh, to be completely honest, there have been other reporters of color and, um, folks like that that have gone out and definitely been questioned a lot more, which always leads me to question the motives behind that questioning a little bit. Um-

Tim Fulton 30:13Yeah

Jaelynn Grisso 30:13... but for the most part, we really haven't run into any issues. And in fact, I think that we've actually earned, at least in our develop us coverage, with CBD and with Crossing the Line it's a little bit more difficult because all of a sudden there started being a chorus of news media around CBD and diving into every aspect of it, and I think-

Tim Fulton 30:32Yeah

Jaelynn Grisso 30:32... that's created strained relationships in general. Um, but there is still, there is still a certain level of understanding and willingness to talk to us, even on that front. Um, but with our develop us coverage- There was actually a point that we published, 'cause we had met somebody who works in the Department of Development for the city, um-

Tim Fulton 30:50Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 30:50... early, early on in starting the company and starting this coverage. And, uh, I had been having conversations with them and talking to them about kind of what we had been doing, and they were like, "Oh, we're very interested, wanna see what you're reporting on," so on and so forth. Later, quite a bit later, we produced this piece that was, um, explaining historic preservation and historic protections. And-

Tim Fulton 31:10Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 31:10... the kinda double-edged sword that that can be. Because in some ways it creates a certain level of protection for the city. It means that there's certain barriers to entry so that, like, you know, rapid development can't happen. You can't tear down buildings as much. But-

Tim Fulton 31:24Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 31:24... there's also this thing called the preservation premium, which means that in historically protected neighborhoods, the costs almost inevitably go up just because they have that protection. So-

Tim Fulton 31:34Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 31:34... you, while you are blocking out developers from tearing down historic buildings, you're also blocking out lower income folks from being able to afford to even get into that neighborhood and it, and to be able to enjoy that stability, right? So it's a very, it's a very tricky conversation to be having. And so we produced a piece that's kind of explaining what that looks like and how that all kinda plays out, um, both on the broader scale, but also specifically within Columbus. And someone f- the person that I had met earlier from the Department of Development actually reached out to me and said, "I'm really impressed by the piece you did. We have a really hard time informing the community about issues like this. Like, great work on this, I appreciate that." Which, as a journalist, sometimes when the people in power are telling you you did a good job, it kinda makes you go, "Oh no, what am I doing?"

Tim Fulton 32:14"Oh, I did it wrong." Right.

Jaelynn Grisso 32:16"Is this right?" Um, but I went and had further conversations, both with that person as well as many other folks in the Department of Development, and they have always been very willing and very open to talk to me about all of these issues. Um, even when I push back, even when I say things that they clearly don't agree with or that, like, run counter to the idea of what they're trying to do within the city, they've always been very responsive and very welcoming to have that conversation with me, and I think it's because I am giving them a, a seat at the table, right? I'm not saying, "You're the big bad guys that are creating this horrible situation, and you're just working with developers all the time, and your pockets are lined from developer money, and that's the only reason you're doing all of this," and not actually-

Tim Fulton 32:54Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 32:54... talking to them or not actually having these nuanced discussions or, you know, actually having a nuanced discussion rather than just calling them up for a soundbite or calling them up for comment. I think all-

Tim Fulton 33:03Right

Jaelynn Grisso 33:03... of those things have made them feel like we can have an actual nuanced debate about this, and that's made them much more willing to talk to us than I, than I honestly would've expected.

Tim Fulton 33:14And that's great. And so you're, you're actually going to them not just to sort of translate what you're saying. You're going to them not to contribute to and validate a story that you've basically already written.

Jaelynn Grisso 33:26Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 33:27You're going to them to see, "Hey, I have a question about how this works." And so they, while they're not, they the person are not becoming the story-

Jaelynn Grisso 33:37Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 33:38... it allows them to basically shed a light, journalism-

Jaelynn Grisso 33:43Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 33:44... on w- the, the situation and the things that are happening.

Jaelynn Grisso 33:48Yeah, absolutely. Um, and kind of to your point, I think that that longer dialogue is one of the things that gets lost in a lot of, uh, traditional news models. Um, because-

Tim Fulton 33:59Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 33:59... and part of that is because of that nonprofit versus for-profit model, right? In a for-profit model, you have to be producing content so quickly and so rapidly. You don't have time to just sit down and have a nuanced, meandering conversation that might end up having bits and pieces that go into four or five stories later, but just help you-

Tim Fulton 34:17Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 34:17... to have a deeper understanding of what the issue is, what they want you to know, what their perspective is on these things, um, and being able to kind of talk about them cons- comprehensively. Because in a lot of these issues, and I think development as well as policing both fall into this, you can't isolate out the parts. You can't dissect out the parts. Like, evictions-

Tim Fulton 34:36Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 34:36... are tied to development, are tied to real estate prices, are tied to tax abatements. Like, it is all part of the same system. And so you really need to be able to have the time and space to have those in-depth conversations that not, may not feel as productive or as lucrative immediately, but do inform your reporting in the long run and build those relationships, and that's something that only comes from having a nonprofit news operation.

Tim Fulton 35:00Mm-hmm. Or one that's deeply ingrained that doesn't necessar- that every single person contributing-

Jaelynn Grisso 35:08Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 35:08... isn't thinking about sort of their quota-

Jaelynn Grisso 35:12Right

Tim Fulton 35:12... uh, whether that be column inches, number of stories, or number of clicks.

Jaelynn Grisso 35:18Yeah.

Tim Fulton 35:18Obviously, folks can get involved or, or consume your coverage by going to matternews.org. Are there other... Obviously, folks aren't doing the Matter mobile right now-

Jaelynn Grisso 35:30Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 35:30... simply because of the state of being that we're in. Are there other ways to, uh, get involved, contribute, um, sort of see this, uh, uh, model and the coverage that you guys are generating, see it come to fruition?

Jaelynn Grisso 35:47Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, uh, probably the biggest way is that we have a year-end fundraiser coming up. It'll be throughout the month of, uh, months of November and December. Um-

Tim Fulton 35:57Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 35:57... and it's a huge national campaign that we're participating in. It's called NewsMatch, and essentially-

Tim Fulton 36:02Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 36:02... for every dollar that we raise, it's matched by this organization, and for all sustaining members we get, which means people that donate a regular amount every single month, for every new sustaining member we get, they'll match it for the full year's value, so 12 times whatever that donation is. Um-

Tim Fulton 36:17Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 36:18... and that fundraiser really has been what has made Matter be able to be a reality. Because of that fundraiser, we were able to editor- to hire our first, uh, part-time editor and our first employee. We're able to have both of our co-founders actually on payroll. Like, we were able to stop using volunteers and make sure that we're paying all of our contributors the best rates that we can. So-

Tim Fulton 36:38Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 36:38... to be able to make this a reality and to continue doing the work that we're doing, we need donations, and the best way to do that and the best way to make any donations go the farthest they can is to donate during November and December.

Tim Fulton 36:50So basically your fund drive is coming up.

Jaelynn Grisso 36:52Yes.

Tim Fulton 36:54Got it. Got it.

Jaelynn Grisso 36:55Yes, exactly.

Tim Fulton 36:57And I wanna wrap up. I think that this, you, in most interviews I do, I sort of wrap things up by saying what's going well in Columbus and what's something that Columbus could do better. From your perspective, and this can be you as a person or, or as the editor-in-chief of Matter News, what is, uh, Columbus doing well?

Jaelynn Grisso 37:19Yeah. Um, I think Columbus is really good with having a very, um, engaged and thoughtful community. I have-

Tim Fulton 37:30Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 37:30... and it's, it's difficult sometimes because I think the idea of, like, collaborative Columbus and things like that can be blown out of proportion to an extent, but it is more true here than in anywhere else I've ever worked or ever experienced. People here in the community are so willing to help each other achieve these things that will help the community at large, and we've really seen that with Matter. I-

Tim Fulton 37:52Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 37:52... have been skeptical at times that we would be able to get individual donations and things like that to really help us be sustainable, but time and time again, people have come out and not only given us donations, but also, like, spread the word, helped us find people that were going to work with us, talk to us about how to get up and running, given us insight into things that we didn't necessarily know. And so I think-

Tim Fulton 38:11Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 38:11... that underlying culture within Columbus of being willing to really kinda put yourself on the back burner and help in whatever way that you need to, even if you're not specifically gaining from it, which I worked on the East Coast for quite a while, is very contrary to what I was used to. Um-

Tim Fulton 38:26Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 38:27... I think that that's a really beautiful thing that Columbus has had and is continuing to be strengthened in these, like, continuously difficult times.

Tim Fulton 38:35And what can Columbus do better?

Jaelynn Grisso 38:37Oof. I have way more answers for this one. Uh, I think that Columbus could do a lot better with the kind of news and information that's being shared, and that's both-

Tim Fulton 38:48Okay

Jaelynn Grisso 38:48... from the organizations, like the official news media that are producing content, um, as well as, you know, your Facebooks and Nextdoors and Twitter and things like that. I think there-

Tim Fulton 38:58Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 38:59... is a lot of information that's not, um, verified or that feeds into a false or damaging narratives that's not really thought about and not really checked. Um, and that is part of what we wanna do, is be able to fill those gaps, but we're one organization with three people that are working full-time on this, and that's about it, right? We can't continue-

Tim Fulton 39:18Mm-hmm

Jaelynn Grisso 39:18... to do that across the board. Um, and I think that the people of Columbus as well as, you know, those in power at news organizations and people that are, like, spreading information, I think could do better at making sure that the information that we're giving to folks is the most valuable, is accurate, and isn't going to be damaging or harmful in the way that, like, media has fallen into traps of in the past.

Tim Fulton 39:41Hmm. Okay. That's a good one.

Jaelynn Grisso 39:45Glad you think so.

Tim Fulton 39:45Jalen, thank you so much for your time today, and good luck with the fund drive.

Jaelynn Grisso 39:49Thank you so much, and thank you for having us on.

Tim Fulton 39:51Absolutely. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite reporter. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.