Navigating Journalism in the Digital Age | 17min snip from Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson

Speaker 2
I love that. And then that leads me to another kind of aha moment I had listening to your podcast. And it's something I think about a lot, but it's the role of a real journalist and going out and reporting and talking to so many different people and then producing these high-quality products that are fact-checked and vetted and, you know, institutions stand behind them versus the Wild West of the Internet, of which I am a part of just random, random ass people talking, you know, just saying whatever they want, blasting it out to these large audiences. You know, I think I'm, you know, hopefully I'm not doing any any damage, but I think there are a lot of people that are putting stuff out that have very large audiences that are not adhering to any sort of journalistic standards. And in fact, they've got real agendas. And this is zooming out a lot. But I'm just curious, as you think about the role of journalism, in my mind, it's more important now than ever. But it seems like it's kind of uphill battle at this point. But how do you think about the role that you play and the role that your fellow journalists play in telling important stories versus just kind of what the Internet has done and allowing anybody to have anybody that can build an audience to have a pretty wide reach? I think journalism is
Speaker 1
vital to a vibrant and functioning democracy. And you're right, we're losing so much, like, not just social media, but just terms of our media consumption bubbles, echo chambers, like, in all of these issues, not just endangered species things, but including endangered species things, so much of what we consume is what we want to hear. We're not pushed outside of our comfort zone. We're not exposed to facts that don't jive with our worldview. And that's a huge role for good journalism. And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish with this series and other work I produce, too. I don't have the answers on how to get people out of their bubbles. But it starts with curiosity, I think. It starts with trying to truly not just think about your own side, but trying to understand things you don't. It starts with just being a genuinely curious human and wanting to understand why the heck does somebody think in the way they do? That's, I think, what good journalism can produce. Like, I hope that anybody that listens to this show, whether you're pro-delisting or anti-delisting, you can come away and be like, huh, I never thought about that side of it before. I never thought about it in that way before. Getting people to engage, getting people to hear it, that's the big battle, right? Like, how do we cut through the noise to get the most important and compelling and powerful and rigorous and balanced things out there? I don't have an answer to that. And I think there's a whole lot of people exploring ways. But I just hope I can be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Speaker 2
No, you're doing, I mean, you've already done it. I mean, you've done it and you've done it time and time again. But I just, I think about podcasts a lot, obviously. And I think about what it takes for a new podcast to make its way into my queue. You know, I've got, I probably got like 10 podcasts that I rotate through and I listen to maybe every other episode. But, and vast majority of them have nothing to do with anything my work has to do with. They're all like comedy. I'm just sitting there laughing
Speaker 1
hysterically
Speaker 2
as I'm doing the dishes.
Speaker 1
I'm the same. You got to tune out from the rigors of the world sometimes.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. You have to. And one of my favorite podcasts is Conan O'Brien. And he tells a story about he's in the comedy world. And somebody had a picture of him when he was writing for Saturday Night Live. And he finally went on a vacation. And he's sitting on a beach reading The Rise of the Third Reich. I think it's good to branch out. But but I mean, this podcast, it, you know, it made its way into my queue. And I loved it. And so I think, I mean, I think the, ultimately the, the quality of the, of the work and figuring out a way to make it engaging and fun and, and, and the kind of thing that people want to listen to. And then they finish it up and they're like, Oh, now I know all this extra stuff about the, the endangered species act or, you know, history, whatever politics. And so I'll just say you're humble, but I'll just say you're already doing it. And then that brings me to another question. You do so much, podcasts, books, articles, you're a great photographer. What do you like best? What do you see? What do you like best? And then what do you see as having the potential for the most impact? That's
Speaker 1
a really tough question. I think my heart is with audio, but whenever I finish up a big project, I'm ready for something else. So like right now I'm entering burnout stage to be totally honest. I'm like, all right, I'm ready to not be recording things and not looking at waveforms and like, oh man, writing so much easier and more fun. And then, so I'll probably write for a little bit after this and then I'll get sick of that and be like, huh, audio is so great again. So I think I go through phases. And I don't think I have one. I think I'm just trying to be a better storyteller in whatever form I'm working with. And that's my main goal. There's not while my heart is in audio. I want to just be be better at it. And I'm constantly looking to tell stories in a better way, in a more moving way, in a more relatable way, whatever the format I'm doing it in. When
Speaker 2
you look back at your old work, like we'll just take audio, for example, when you look back at some of your earlier work, like I know you did one of, if not the first podcast that REI put out. Can you look, do you look back at it with admiration or does it, is it like fingernails on a chalkboard when you look at your old work versus how you do things now?
Speaker 1
Oh, fingernails on a chalkboard for sure. I, you know, even, even new stuff. I don't want to go back and listen to myself. It's easier to go back and read yourself than listen to yourself. I think just because you can, when you hear things you're doing that, you know, you could do better or that you would change or just I don't I don't like listening to myself at all, you know. But total, total nails on a chalkboard. And that goes with as soon as one of my episodes is out, and it's out even with this show. I love these episodes. And I'm so happy with how this season is turning out. But even when it's out, I'm like, all right, I don't want to listen to this again. I think you'd
Speaker 2
have to be kind of a maniac to really enjoy listening to your own voice, like a real narcissist, almost like a psychopath. If you really enjoyed it. I mean, you have to listen to it. But if you really like you listen to it and you're like, yeah, yeah, that's about as good as it can get right there. When you look at the podcast, when it pops up on my player, it says season one. And so I'm curious. I know you're ready to be taking a break from audio for a while. I don't want to get you too wound up. But what is, is there going to be a season two? There's absolutely going to be a season two. And, you know, the idea about this show is I've worked with Montana
Speaker 1
Public Radio for a number of podcasts in the past. And one of the ideas here is like every time in the past, whether it's Richest Hill or Fireline or whatever, like we're kind of reinventing the wheel every time we create a show. So you're having to rebuild your audience from scratch. You have this whole feed you got to, like, direct people to. And this is meant to be something that can be a home for so much great journalism. So stuff that I'm doing, you know, I don't think we're gonna have a season two about the Endangered Species Act, but we will have a season two and we will have other content. Some of it could be one off. What we want this to be is a home for really compelling, good audio journalism out of this region that is like highly produced and thoughtful and balanced and engaging and just darn good storytelling. And that's what'll be there in the future. But also do stay tuned because I think there's going to be some really great extras related to Grizzly stuff, including maybe that charge thing. We'll see. I don't know what all the extras are going to be yet, but there'll be a little more endangered species stuff coming out there too, for sure. Great.
Speaker 2
I'm excited for that. I'm very excited. I mean, I'm so glad that we just happened to meet and then that now I'm like digging into even some of your past stuff that I'd missed the first time around. It's really, it's really impressive. Who do you admire in the, whether maybe in the journalism world or people that have been mentors to you in your career, maybe you know them. Maybe they've been dead 100 years. But are there any people that come to mind that you really admire that have helped shape you professionally and personally?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, the first person to call out is Amy Martin. She's the creator and host of the podcast Threshold, which is how I first got into audio journalism. Yeah, she so she was a fellow when I was in grad school. And I first day of school, she was like, Hey, I'm creating this thing. I'm looking for interns. And I went up to her and became an intern and became a producer for the show and was with Threshold for a while. So I learned so much of what I know about storytelling and audio from Amy. And I'm so grateful for that. And so she's the number one mentor without a doubt. In terms of other audio people, or just storytellers that I admire, there's so many, you know, I'll focus on audio here, because that's where my head's at. You know, I got into this all through This American Life and Radiolab and, you know, as podcasts and the sort of longer form storytelling before they were ubiquitous and everywhere. So, you know, all of those folks, Myra Glass, Jad, Appumrod, are just incredibly influential to me. You know, all the contributors to those shows, folks like Jonathan Goldstein. You know, one of my favorite audio storytellers and written storytellers is John Ronson. He's this British guy who contributes to this American life, wrote a bunch of books as well, like The Psychopath Test and The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was made into a movie. And so you've been publicly sharing. Oh, yeah, yeah. I love that book. I have that book. Yeah, he's so great. And I think he does a really great – when I talk about using yourself as a proxy for the listener, I think he does so great at that. He like knows – he's like a blank slate that builds and builds throughout. It's so good. So all those folks have been incredibly influential, whether from afar, you know, listening to things like this American life or really up close when it comes to, you know, Amy and Threshold.
Speaker 2
You know, I'd started my I started my podcast in 2016 and I lived in Boulder. So we very well may have overlapped then. Yeah. But I remember the first season of Threshold was about Buffalo and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And I literally I just started mine and I emailed with Amy for a while and we were going to do a pie. I'm just remembering this now we were going to do. I was going to interview her on the podcast. And then I think she went abroad for like a year. And then I, you know, kind of just forgot. But I so admired her and that podcast. And I still I'm still on the email list. And I've just been so impressed, like from a, you know, from an impact and storytelling perspective, what Threshold has done, but also from a business perspective. I mean, I feel like they've they've just done such a great job. So that's that's super small world because we were right there in the same town, I guess. Were you in Boulder?
Speaker 1
I was in Boulder, yeah. I was in grad school in Boulder at the time. And yeah, that season one on Bison, that's where I started. I started working on that show. And maybe we even emailed each other via that thing. And yeah, you're right. Amy, right after that season was done, Amy went up to the Arctic to start reporting for season two, which was about climate change in the far north. And, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, it was amazing to be part of that growth and that storytelling. And it's been amazing to watch it just continue to grow since I left. Man,
Speaker 2
what a small world. Crazy. Any books that have played a big role in your development? And, you know, sometimes I like to ask, hear books about the West or if there are any particular books that have been impactful, you know, thinking about this, this region where we live, but also I'm, you know, the crazier, the better. If there, are there any just, just wild books you've read or any books that have kind of been highly impactful in your life? Yeah.
Speaker 1
I mean, not about the West, but I already flagged, uh, John Ronson's books. I think those are all great. His most recent, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, is about almost cancel culture before it had that name, I think. But other books, I would say about these issues, so about the Endangered Species Act, probably my favorite book is John Mualim's Wild Ones. It's so good. He's a New York Times Magazine writer. He also has a great book of short pieces called Serious Face that includes a really good wildlife story about like macaques in Florida. But Wild Ones is about humans and the Endangered Species Act and the wild ways in which we are trying to – the wild ways in which we relate to wildlife and sort of entered in this world in which we are forced to like continually intervene on behalf of nature. I think that's a terrific book in terms of like extinction. You know, Elizabeth Colbert's The Sixth Extinction is a great one that comes to mind. In the West, you know, I'll leave it there. I've given enough books for people to think about.
Speaker 2
No, that's great. I'll have links to links to all those for people to click through. Yeah, that Ronson, I saw him. I heard a podcast with him. I mean, it was many, many, many years ago. I think it was Joe Rogan, which I don't really listen to all that much anymore. But I read Men That Stare at Goats, and he struck me as such an interesting guy. And I remember that podcast being one of the more interesting conversations. I mean, just a cool guy. And that one more question about that. You brought it up. The whole like cancel culture thing. I'm curious if you get much flack from people, whether on the Internet, I guess being off of social media helps. But do you get much negative feedback on anything you do? And if so, I'm curious how you handle it. And I'm just asking very selfishly because I'd like to adopt whatever you do.
Speaker 1
because people are listening or people are reading or whatever. And I think I more often do if I like publish a short piece and it's in a bigger outlet, then people will give you a flack because that's stuff that gets out there really deeply that people, they might just read the headline and have, you know, the short attention span. But really, I try not to engage with the comments. And so I don't really, like I said, like you said, I don't even have social media. So I try not to engage with that sort of world of hate. You know, one way to think about it is, hey, if people are hating what I'm doing, it means they're reading or listening to what I'm doing. And that's a good thing. And people just, there's going to be that out there, no matter what. Yeah, that's, I don't have a good answer on terms of how to deal with it. But I try to, I try just to not think about it. It with the nails and chalkboard of my past stuff too i'm like i don't want to listen to myself i don't want to listen to the people that hate what i do i just want to keep forging ahead and working on what's ahead of me i agree with that i
Speaker 2
just i mean not that it's about me but i i refuse to engage i rarely get negative stuff but as the thing has grown and more people listen, I get more on a percentage basis. It's probably the same. And it's a very small percentage, but I have several things all over my website. And in pretty much every email I send out that says like, Hey, do you have a strong opinion about this? And you want to file a complaint? Don't waste your time because I'm not going to answer. I heard a quote one time that said, if you wrestle with a pig, two things are going to happen. You're going to get dirty and the pig's going to love it. And that's how I think about Internet arguments. So for whatever that's worth. Last question for you. You've seen so much. You've dug so deep into so many issues that are so important to me and to all the people that listen to this podcast. And you've just led a really interesting life and you're doing such great work across so many different kind of sectors of the media space. I was curious if you have any kind of parting words of wisdom, anything you'd like to ask of the audience, just any way to kind of wrap this thing up in
Speaker 1
terms of wisdom like i said before i uh i hope i'm the dumbest guy here on the show so if you listen i don't know how how wise i can be about things um but i mean truly i think listening and empathy are are things that are missing in in the world in such a huge way you know those are things i hope i bring to the show and every every work i produce and that i hope people come away like whatever they're coming away with about the Endangered Species Act. I hope they come away a little more empathetic, a little more caring, a little more curious and a little more open to listening to others. That's what I hope I can leave people with in anything I do.

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