E120: Innovation takeaways

What does it take for news organizations to evolve and stay relevant? In this episode, Rebecca is joined by Emily Ristow, Director of Journalism Strategy at the American Press Institute, who shares key innovation lessons from the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program. Drawing from her own experience and years of coaching media teams, Emily unpacks the mindset shifts, tactical strategies, and organizational habits that lead to meaningful change.

Transcript

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Hi, I'm in the studio today with Emily Risto, who is the Director of Journalism Strategy for the American Press Institute, so API. And welcome to the program, Emily. Thanks so much, Rebecca. It's great to be here. It is so delightful to have you because you were the keynote speaker at the Press Association's recent conference. And when I heard your keynote, I thought, well, we cannot hide Emily's light under a bushel. We have to pull uh her keynote into a wider audience so that we can really have those takeaways. So to sketch out and not to... not to build up so much that you're like, oh my gosh, so much pressure. But you were one of the coordinators of sort of API section of the Table Stakes program. And you talked a lot about, I think it was the five takeaways that you had from that program. And so why don't we start off with telling us a little bit about what you do and what API does and what this whole Table Stakes thing. is or was. Sure. So, yeah, so as you mentioned, I work for the American Press Institute um and we support local and community-based media throughout the U.S. through research programs and products. So Table Stakes is one of those programs. The Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program started in 2015. It is just now sunsetting as the funding has concluded for the various versions of the U.S.-based program. But in the core program, organizations went through this year-long process where they identified their own challenges for digital transformation. What did they need to really improve on? And then came up with their own tactics and strategies and solutions and tested those. ah So that was the core program. And then at API, we also ran some sprints just for Table Stakes alumni. And those were around specific ah subjects for each of them. So there was one around um improving subscriber revenue. There was one around live events and convening your community. We did ones about launching new products. ah So there was just kind of a variety of different things, still related to digital transformation, but then everyone in the program was kind of doing uh the same thing. um So. central question, like the problem that Table Stakes was trying to solve was how to take a print-based organization and bring it into the digital age or was it more subtle than that? Well, I mean, it was was all media types, actually. So the programs that I worked on mostly helped major Metro newspapers, but there were public radio stations. There were broadcast television stations. There were even some digital startups that maybe operated more like a legacy newsroom. ah So it was really about what do these organizations need to do to be digital news organizations far into the future? Like, what do they need to be sustainable to? um better serve their communities. So it was like really quite broad. um But most of the challenges focused on, there was always something obviously tied to revenue, but a lot of them were around like, how do we remake our organization so that we have like the right roles, the right people, the right coverage to really continue on for many, many years. And in some ways that feels so universal because every organization, know, like right now we're all sort of like grappling with the, the, um, the benefits and the pitfalls of AI, but that's happening in every company. Like how can we position ourselves? How can we serve our constituency, whether that's readers or clients or buyers, or how can we make our products in a way that, um, that increases the stability of the business. like, were you kind of seeing some of those big issues writ large or am I oversimplifying? No, mean, yeah, there were definitely a lot of those issues. think um a big one, also kind of spans the business community too, is this idea of trust. um And do people trust us? Do people find value in us? um And then in terms of AI, like there may have been some of that, but the core programs have sunset in the past couple of years. um So I think a lot of organizations hadn't quite been grappling with that yet, but. Well, I feel like there's lots of lessons learned. when you, and you worked specifically with the major sort of Metro dailies, which honestly, I think are the um media companies that have seen the most seismic changes because the super niche, like small hometown pubs, they're the only game going. They're still really critical in the communities. The major Metro dailies that are trying to be all things to all people, that audience is fracturing a little bit. And so I feel like that's an inflection point or that's uh a group of organizations that are really in an industry that's struggling. I feel like those are ones that really need to reimagine. Is that, do you think so as well or? Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely true. I mean, and I think a big lesson of Table Six is you can't be all things to all people. A lot of organizations started with, we're sort of like the general store, like for our community, we have everything. And then they sort of realized that they needed to focus on specific audiences, specific communities, and really creating a strategy that's a little bit more tailored. um Because yeah, you simply like, you know, You mentioned like sort of the seismic change these organizations have had. A big part of that is their staffs have really shrunk over the years, right? Through layoffs and buyouts. um So they just cannot do what they used to do because their staffs are half the size or smaller. So kind of like figuring out where can they excel and where are things that maybe other organizations in the community already have covered or things that might have become a little bit more obsolete over the years, like Are people maybe not going to that newspaper, either online or the print edition itself, um for recipes anymore, for example? That's a big one. They're probably not, right? They're probably getting those from just Google searches or other online recipe sites or social media. So part of this challenge for these organizations was figuring out what they could give up because they were no longer sort of the only game in town or the best game in town on that particular subject. Well, and it seemed like from your, part of what Table Stakes was doing was like providing this framework for introspection to really get to know like, who am I as a media organization and what's my place in my community? So can you talk a little bit about kind of that voyage of self discovery that publications went in? that's like, journalists are not all that introspective when you come down to it. I'm because we're so focused on getting the news and going out and doing like, okay, and here's the need and we're filling it as opposed to like really contemplating sometimes. So was that a challenge to sort of get people into that framework? Yeah, so it sort of depended a little bit. So I actually went through table stakes as a participant myself back in 2017 when I was with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And at that point in my career, I hadn't done a lot of strategic stuff. So it was a big mindset shift for me personally and a lot of members of our team to sort of do that introspective. Because before it was sort of like, okay, like we know we need to do this thing. Like what's the process to execute on that? And now we're forced to think, well, do we need to do that thing or what thing is better or what's the value of that? What's sort of the trade-off? um So in that core table stakes program, it really relies on these tools of performance. Oh my gosh. Yeah, these like is a performance driven change. Sorry. I always go to the acronym. I'm like, what's that middle work? Performance driven change, which were developed by Douglas K Smith, who helped start the table stakes program. Okay. Um, so that's, call it challenge shaping and it is kind of a multi-day event. Uh, so, when the program used to be in person, it took place over kind of a day and a half. Um, as some of the programs moved to virtual, was, you know, spread out over a few days, but you really go through this whole process. You take this kind of evaluation to sort of develop, to sort of get an idea of where your, deficits are, where your challenges are. Like, are we doing this thing? Are we not doing this thing across like a bunch of different. categories, both like staff as well as like coverage and products and things like that. ah You then come up with like an overarching from to statement that describes like where your organization is now and where you want it to be, which can be a really powerful thing to then share with others in your organization. So you all kind of have the same North Star. You start sketching out some strategies, you're setting specific smart or smarty goals. ah So you the, I know what a SMART goal is and just to level it, let's it's strategic measurable action. yeah, yeah, the acronym, yeah, because there's a few different ones. So the ones that we use are specific, measurable, aggressive, yet achievable, relevant, time bound. So that's SMART. And then when the programs that API runs, we do SMARTy goals, which is something that we um have borrowed from the management center here in DC. But the I and the E stand for uh inclusive and Okay. something we wanna make sure is part of the goal setting process too. And that may be ah what the overall goal is about. It might be who you're involving within your organization, or it might be some of the metrics and measurements that you're using too. So that is one thing about performance-driven change tools and table stakes overall, is it's very outcome and impact oriented. So you really wanna make sure that what people are doing is... toward their larger goal, right? We're not just like chucking activities off of a list. So you go through this whole challenge shaping process with your team. I should mention it was a team-based program, right? So there were multiple people from the organization, from different roles, from different departments, which was also a big shift for folks, right? Like you may be sitting down with like an ad director that as editor in the newsroom, you... maybe saw their name on some emails, but you didn't interact regularly either. So that was like another big part of the program. But you go through that process where you're identifying your strategies and everything. And then you work with a coach to figure out how you're going to actually test those. And most people um kind of take on an agile method approach where they just pick a small chunk of it, test that iterate, you know, and build on it as they go. Because the big thing with table stakes, I think I mentioned this in the keynote too, is like there is no perfect plan. And a lot of times when organizations think about big transformational change, they spend years developing this plan, but they're not doing any testing along the way. So it can really like fall flat. So table stakes really just encourages you to like to get trying and get doing stuff too, which I think has been really helpful for organizations. Well, and I do feel like when so many organizations do a strategic plan or whatnot, it's often like this, A, it's a huge lift and you spend so much time on it. It feels like the silo over here. But if you don't figure out ways to like weave it into your everyday life, know, like bring it up at meetings, like map it out in different ways, it really can just risk sitting on a shelf and being this esoteric idea. And so, I loved the practicality of what you kind of brought to it. so um tell me the takeaways that you found most powerful that people who, unfortunately, know, funding's done for this version of the table stakes. So windows closed. But if people are trying to, if organizations are looking to innovate or mulling their strategy, what are the takeaways that you felt were most important? out of your kind of version of table stakes. Yeah, so there's two ways I kind of approach this. So I did write a larger digital transformation guide that came um from all of the programs in terms of sort of like the five categories of strategies. um Those were adopting a product thinking mindset, diversifying revenue, practicing engaged journalism, collaborating internally and externally, and managing people through change. But that is a lot. So how I kind of like boiled it down to like three kind of actionable steps that organizations could could take. And these were the ones that I mentioned in the keynote. um Those three were center your community and all of your work, experiment, fail and iterate and stop doing what no longer serves your mission and goals. That sounds so simple. So let's unpack those a little bit. And I love the idea of centering your community. And I think sometimes no matter what industry you're in, you get caught up in the you part of your industry as opposed to recognizing that it really is for someone else or for some community. And if we can center that community or that client or that end user in the work. you're never going, like, I think it comes into these themes of relevance. So tell me a little bit about um what centering your community really means to you and those takeaways. Yeah, I mean, you use this word just now, I think, in terms of like serving the community, right? It's really about centering, serving the community. And that can mean a number of different things. I think like when I was in an organization participating in these like news brainstorming meetings, it sort of like, well, why is why do we say that that's a story and that's not a story? And some of the divide we saw there was like, well, some of the staff was younger and lived in the city. some had families and lived in the suburbs and sort of, so sort of evaluating how does your news organization decide what is newsworthy and what's covering? And is that in alignment with the communities you're actually trying to reach and serve? Or is it in alignment with the editors making the decisions? That's a big one. Thinking about how you're telling those stories. Are you telling them in the way that the community wants to receive them? Or are you... I mean, well, an example, you mentioned print papers before, like, is your community going to either subscribe to the print paper or go and, you know, buy it at the gas station or whatever? um Or are they getting most of their news online through apps or social media or website or, you know, are they searching Google to find out what's going on? So kind of thinking about how people prefer to get that information. um And also just like. the backdrop of all of this, is like, are you keeping your own biases in check throughout that story selection process with the reporting, with the editing? And then a lot of these organizations that have been around for a while have caused a lot of harm in their community over the years. So how are you kind of reconciling for that harm? How are you thinking about building trust once you do reconcile? Because I think some organizations, and this is maybe another kind of... wake up call that some organizations had in table stakes is they did do more community listening, is they had assumed that they were not only a respected brand, but a well-known brand. And maybe they aren't, especially for folks who are newer to the community. I know, I mean, it's a little humbling, but yeah. But yeah, they might like, you know, because, you know, they used to maybe be like the sponsor for everything and they were. including like the sports teams in the area and the parade and this run and whatever else. And now maybe these newspapers or other legacy media don't have that sort of visual presence throughout the community. But they just assume, yeah, like people know who we are. And they might not, or they might be like, yeah, like my grandpa read that or my mom read that or whatever too, depending on the audience that you're trying to reach. So I think that's another big part of it too, is trying to understand that community. what people's needs are, what sort of information they're looking for, sort of the value that you can add to their day-to-day life. Yeah. beyond just looking at your readers. do feel like within the industry, we're really big on, well, let's do a readership survey. Let's find out what readers want. But if you're really kind of positioning yourself to be stable and to serve the community for the long term, all of our communities are changing. mean, in demographically. uh geographically in terms of coverage and the issues that are coming up. And it also, so I want to understand how you get to know a community that you may have come out of touch with. And while you're kind of formulating, because I feel like you've got a whole laundry list of great things on there. I also wanted to ask, is it helpful to um for organizations to kind of get to their why in some ways like. Why do they exist? Because I think once you have, for me, like, once you have like, our goal is to, you know, uh be the connector in our community and share critical information. Like then you have a lens that you're like, okay, this is what we do. This is our goal. So can you kind of compare those two? Like making a goal that works and actually listening to a community. Yeah, absolutely. ah So I think that sort of the why really comes into that North Star and kind of vision uh exercise that folks said at the beginning of Table Six when they were really developing like what their focus was going to be. So that is part of that. So organizations like public media and other nonprofits often arrive with kind of a mission statement. Mm-hmm. So some of the conversations for them might be, does this still feel relevant and timely? Or if we were to like shift how we think about this for the purpose of this program, what might we change? ah Whereas like, mm-hmm. in with that goal and mission because they're so fundraising driven? uh it's on their website usually. So I think that is a part of it. Yeah, like, yeah, when you do fundraising, you tend to have a more like visible mission statement. um Certainly other like for-profit organizations have developed that as well. But I would say like, well, you know, when I started, don't like, didn't, I don't know if the Journal Sentinel had a mission statement or not. It wasn't something that we really talked about. We had sort of a general idea. So part of it was like, yeah, like a lining. What did we see? as the main mission and purpose for the organization. Um, so there's, there's that sort of like internal alignment and, and, and oftentimes people, no, I'm saying no one comes up with, we're going to make a bunch of money or anything like that. Usually the mission is very like community focused, right? it's helping people. Um, it's holding the powerful accountable. Um, it's being, um, crucial to people's lives. That's the sort of themes that you see across the missions. And obviously then you need revenue to support that mission. ah So that's sort of the backdrop of this. But in terms of the listening sessions, I'm really glad that you mentioned this distinction between your current readers and audience and the larger community. Because that's really important, right? Part of what you need to do is just grow your overall audience and serve more of your community. Um, so for that, there's like a number of different like tactics and strategies you can use. Um, we did a program where we helped organizations really think about community listening. So those folks followed kind of a multi-step process that was also, um, informed by, uh, API's inclusion index work that they had done up in Pittsburgh with a number of organizations there. But that started with just showing up to community events and not to write a story, but to be there. and meet people, just sort of get to make those one-on-one connections. And then from there, they invited those folks that they had met and maybe some other community leaders and kind of movers and shakers that they knew to some listening sessions. And those listening sessions were really about what those people wanted to talk about, what they wanted to know. You don't invite people in and be like, well, what do you think of our newspaper? That's not a question. That's not how you start, right? It shouldn't be about you. you know, it's along this theme of centering the community, right? So you should be trying to figure out ah what they want to know. ah So you might ask questions about what do you think is really important to celebrate in the community? What are some problems that you want to solve together with the community? What stories don't get told? What do you wish others knew? So, you know, those are sort of questions that you would do in the community listening. And again, like this isn't about ah writing up stories or coming up with ideas for coverage. It may eventually lead to that, but it really is about better understanding and just gathering more information and kind of building trust with folks too. Right, yeah, because it is totally tone deaf. Like you would never walk into a party and try and make friends and be like, let me tell you all about me and why I think I'm great and got it. Like that's just not the way nobody would come to that. uh You would be a pariah at the party. And so I think, yeah, I love that idea of like making it broad enough so that you're getting actionable anecdotal data. Mm-hmm. like knowing, yes, you're kind of like convening focus groups, but being strategic about like, we need community leaders in here. And also kind of understanding, especially in a major Metro daily, there's lots of communities. Like those are audiences that have a lot of strata. So like, who are you focusing on? uh Because maybe you're, and I loved the idea of getting into format because in um a lot of more mobile communities. They're certainly not going to be looking at print, but they're probably not even looking at, they're not looking at your website. They're looking at TikTok. They're looking at all sorts of things. uh how do you, it feels like at some point you have to always talk about format and like the practicality of feeding that beast. And maybe that gets into um the experimental and the stop doing something takeaways. But when you feel like you've centered your community, have a good sense, then testing and sort of making those forays, how do you make it, how do you test in a way that gives you a good sense of how something's going to go without making it so ponderous that it collapses? Right. Great question. Yeah. So I think it is really just like, yeah, it really is just like taking a piece of it. So like, if you think that from what you've learned, like people are interested in more food coverage. So using an example from the Kansas City Star. So they, they saw that like people, you know, it was something they had really cut back. was sort of like dining out restaurant coverage. um But they saw a desire for more of that. So they're like, okay, well, let's try like, let's for a few months run an experiment where we'll take volunteers who will write a column about their favorite dish at a local restaurant. So they didn't, you know, come up with this plan and then like, make the case we need to hire like three new food writers or something like that, right? It was just like, okay, like, journalists love free food. I think we all I mean, everyone loves free food, but Sure. is a huge motivator in newsrooms. ah So this experiment allowed them to cover the meal. So the journalists got some free food out of it. They got to do something that was a little more fun and lighthearted than what a lot of them were doing on kind of a day-to-day basis. And then they wrote the column. So it was a chunk of the editor's time, right? Because there was an editor who now had additional content they needed to read. And the visual staff, of course, had to go and take photos to accompany these restaurant reviews, do some videos, and things like that. or not restaurant reviews, but know, like columns. um So there was some additional time from those folks, but otherwise um they were able to just kind of kind of test it over several months. And they saw that those stories were very popular among subscribers. They also just did a quick like kind of pop-up newsletter that is now a permanent fixture to accompany that. And the readership of that newsletter really grew. So that was just a way to kind of like test a concept. Mm-hmm. And then, yeah, without like doing this like really elaborate plan and the really expensive plan, I think is another thing that can really hang up people with experimenting is like, well, where are we going to get the money for this? And sometimes you just need to kind of find the time. Yeah. Well, and I think that's such a powerful question. Like when you're blue sky and you're talking about things and people like, I think a lot of problems hide themselves behind money. and if, because oftentimes it is time is the biggest resource or like feeling the, like the mental capacity to take something on. But I'm curious when you, when you say people are testing and trying it, like, How do they pitch it? Do they just say, hey, we're trying this? Do you say straight out like this is an experiment or do you kind of couch it as like new short-term feature or like occasional feature? How do you make it sound like you're not totally all over the map, but also like this is something we've really actually thought about, not just something that came up on a, I don't know it worked. about in terms of like the audience or internally? more the audience, because I do sort of feel like the world is very fractured anyway. So, you know, like in the olden days, when you had a print newspaper, you could be assured someone through the power of serendipity is paging through that and saying, here's something new. And you can have the little, you know, letter from the editor that's saying for the next six weeks, we'll be doing that. And people were consistent enough readers that they could see that. And now like they might interact with that column. you know, through a Instagram post because people like to look at food or through the journalists own place or on the website. So how do you make it not seem chaotic? Yeah, so I think, I mean, I think a people are not paying as much attention to us as we think they are sometimes, I think, like, because I think that's another another fear. I mean, it is sort of like, no one's thinking about you the way you're thinking about you. That quotes Schitt's Creek. But yeah, it's like, yeah, I think like part of it is, yeah, like they might, yeah, they may just like not notice or not. think or care if it's part of like some series. um So sometimes it's just, you don't say anything right away and you just like start doing the thing. um Sometimes you may say it's like a limited series and then you could say that it's like something that's being continued. um Yeah, there's just sort of like a variety of ways to approach it. And I would say that same kind of hang up of, well, what are people gonna think about this? Or we're gonna get a bunch of feedback or whatever. Also comes to that like last takeaway of like stopping things. A lot of times people don't notice if you've stopped something because it really wasn't that popular of a feature or whatever. Yeah. So you might get like one or two emails or something. um Obviously like there are things where you're going to, know, like your TV insert or whatever, like heaven forbid that like doesn't end up in a Sunday paper. Like you will get so many phone calls. um I know as working as a Sunday editor. So there's certain things obviously where you do want to be really clear about why you're stopping something. um And oftentimes that messaging includes like what you're replacing it with. But like sometimes honestly, like people won't notice or you couldn't just include an editor's note. Like this is the last week we're running this. And then like that's, that's what it is. But yeah. And then the internal communication. I think a lot of people are more comfortable with the idea of an experiment and that's usually how I would couch it when I was working within a newsroom experimenting with stuff is, we're going to try this for six weeks or a month or whatever and we'll see how it goes. um yeah, that internal communication I think around experimentation can be easier than um what you may or may not decide to communicate externally. Well, and I think also when you're like going through that experimental phase, like internally, it's always helpful to think also like, what are your measures of success? Like, when does the experiment stop? Like, is it a time-driven experiment? Because no one likes to sign on to like this open-ended thing that's gonna give them more work. And we're not really sure like, if it's a good idea or whatnot. So like, what do you... What do you think about those measures of success and how do you counsel people to think that through? Yeah, yes, definitely like any experiment you need to know both what success looks like and what failure looks like. And when I was working within a news organization, we're working with people on experiments, I'd sort of set the goals with them. um So if it was something around, I was a social media editor for a while. So if it was something about like, we going to continue posting on this Facebook page or whatever, I'd be like, okay. um looking at like our flagship page, which we were at that point, Facebook was a huge traffic driver. So we were going to continue to post there, of course. Like this is sort of what we're seeing in terms of engagement, in terms of link clicks. And then this is like the amount of people we have following that page. So then you sort of like, okay, now this page has a smaller following. So this is kind of what we would expect here. So this is, this is really where we want to get to see if we want to continue to do this. So let's let's test that for six weeks. Like here are some strategies we use on the main page that really seem to help and sort of like help them kind of develop a plan. um And this is a situation where someone wants to continue to do the thing, right? But maybe it doesn't make, it may make sense in the larger scheme. yeah, so like you develop, you really do like develop those goals with them. And like, I would like check in with people too. um Like it wouldn't, I wouldn't just be like, All right, six weeks have passed. It's me again. You know, like we started like, how's it going? You know, kind of do like weekly check-ins and stuff like, how's it going? ah Just have some conversations around around that stuff too. So you really want everyone to like feel like they're part of the process and not like something is like happening to them. I think is like a really important part of experimentation. And I love this idea of experimentation because I feel like you're making incremental changes to your product and to your uh culture over time. Did you find in the table stakes cohorts that you worked with that that kind of embedded in their psyche on, okay, and this is how we generate new products or this is how we do new innovative things? Did it go deep enough? Absolutely. Yeah. So there's another uh thing that we ran and continue to run related to Table Stakes is betternews.org, which is where we have a lot of case studies and success stories of these table stakes alumni organizations. And a lot of those came from the table stakes program itself, but many of them didn't. Many of them came after they had like graduated from table stakes because they continued to use these same processes. So I do definitely see. Um, a lot of different like products and experiments and stuff that I know, like sort of developed out of that way of thinking, um, from these organizations that have gone through table stakes. And we've definitely like heard that from folks too, when they've done programs to like get back in touch and be like, yeah, we use that same process that we learned and the product sprint to launch this other product. And, um, yeah, it really does become, um, kind of a way of working. Yeah. you have the initial idea, you figure how to make it scalable with, you know, sort of like it doesn't need making it achievable with the resources that you have measuring the success and making it as like inclusive as possible. those that sounded like those were the three like pro tips if you were going to be an experimental group? Is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. um I think the other thing is kind of making sure that you are have built in points of evaluation as you go as well. Yeah. right. So you're not just popping back six weeks later and be like, how do we do guys? oh and so you're able to iterate as you go too, or be like, oh, that goal is actually not at all within reach. Maybe there's something in between there. That was too ambitious. Let's see how we might scale that back. Well, and like the theme that I'm also taking away from our conversation is it is not that deep. Like no one's setting their watch by, you know, your features or what's going on. And if we just have a little bit of freedom to feel like, okay, we're going to, we're going to let our seams show. We're still putting out good work, but we're trying different things. And we're transparent about how we're trying it, both internally and externally. I think that frees you up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, all of these things are also within like the ethics and practices of your organization to like, no one is experimenting with something that feels like, like that doesn't, that feels like too far off from what I thought this news organization was. Um, but yeah, yeah. And I think too, like, someone in a different session I was in today said this, the same thing too, about like, um like we're like, sometimes people forget, like we're like, people in our community. And that's another thing too, that some of these experiments can show too, that there's like people behind this journalism. Because I think sometimes that can be forgotten, right? um Anyone who's answered the phone in a newsroom knows that people forget that sometimes, that there's like another human, right? Yeah, so. I think there was that Pew study just uh a year or two ago about how few people in the US know, think that they know a journalist and sort of really personalizing that news to be like, yep, I am part of this community. It's not some like bot or someone coming from out of carpet bagging in and sharing the news. Like we live here, we go to the grocery store, our kids go to school, all those types of things. So in that final takeaway of stop. doing something. You know, I think if you have all these great experiments that are like, well, that didn't take us a lot of money. And like, it was just an incremental lift. You can get all these new projects, but something has to give because, and I think the industries in general are very much like, well, we'll just do more with less and keep it going. And so talk about just right-sizing is nobody wants it to be a burnout situation because that's not going to be sustainable life. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So the, stop doing list concept was something that the team that I was on at the journal Sentinel kind of stumbled upon when we were working as our team. Again, we had all these things we wanted to try, but we just felt like we didn't have the time to do those. um So we just pulled up a Google doc and like made a list and then we started color coding it as we worked through things. So that became a little bit more of a formal exercise and subsequent table stakes cohorts. But it asks you to kind of... Yeah. for a second and be like, what types of things were on that list? Like, um we don't need to edit three times or we don't need to do like, like, did you like go in a process way or was it more coverage or was it other? yeah, that that list was was truly just a brain dump that then sort of got kind of like organized. But but things on that list included um quite a few process things um in terms of like how we were posting on like different social media accounts manually in a way that like didn't really matter. Um, there was this Facebook live, politics show that we did, um, which was a huge production, um, literally in terms of video production, it was also a podcast clips were pulled from it. It pulled in a bunch of different reporters. Um, There were some other sort of like mindset shifts, like we're not going to all show up for the 3pm news meeting and just read the budget lines that everyone also has like sitting in front of them. um We're not going to make an interactive for every just for the sake of making an interactive. We're not going to spend extra time hand coding these pages for investigations for every single one unless it helps tell the story better. So there were some things like that too. um Just some things that had sort of become like, we can do that now and it's digital, so we're going to do it. And then there were some things like, we're not going to just write things to fill print holes, or if we do need to fill a print hole, we're not necessarily going to put that story online. um So I think what, like when we first sat down to write that list, we thought it was going to be a lot of like traditional, like quote unquote print stuff, but it was mostly digital things. interesting. that had just sort of come like, like at some point in the past, however many years, this was a thing that we figured out we could do. So now we just like do it by default, whether it really like makes a difference or helps tell the story or helps the audience. So some of, yeah. those big traps because like you don't have uh space constraints in a digital world. You can do everything. It's so cool to have like, well, we'll, you know, pull up related stories, but you have to tag those and we'll have to connect this. like, there can be, you can do really cool stuff, but I love that idea of like, does it serve the story? Does it hit what we're trying to do? Right. And then the other part with digital is you have data that you don't have with like a print product, right? So you can also be like, actually, this doesn't seem to really make a difference. Like we spent X a number of hours, like hand coding this page for this investigation, and it had fewer page views than this other one that we just posted as a regular story, but spent time on the headline or, know, like whatever it is, right? So that is also the thing with digital that can be helpful is like. Yes, you can do all these cool things, but you also have the data to see whether it made a difference. Well, and it strikes me that um when you make that list, it's not everybody's least favorite thing that's on the list. Sometimes it's people's passion projects. I'm the one that really worked so hard on that investigation. I think it was absolutely critical to do that. So how do you navigate either some of the sacred cows of what people are doing? or people's passions because you don't want to stamp them out either. Yeah, yeah. So I think one place to start with folks is um you can ask them, like, what do you think you're doing that's not a good use of your time? uh Which may not be a question that anyone's ever been asked before at work, um but might surface some things, right? um And also, like, that's also kind of giving them permission to surface those things, because I think the other real thing to watch out for, if you do want to start kind of like a stop doing practice, is there's still like people are concerned about their jobs, right? This is an industry where you're always kind of looking over your shoulder and wondering like when the next cut is going to be. So um you want to make sure that people don't feel like they're volunteering to have their job work cut or their work cut, right? Like it's like, so really how you're framing these conversations, I think is important in terms of like, you can do a lot of really, really valuable things. What are you doing now that you don't think is contributing value? And then it can be either you have way too much on your plate. That's great. Like, let's take that off your plate or, okay, that's off your plate. So what else do we want to do here? um Is there something new you want to try? Couldn't they be part of one of these experiments or whatever? So I think also kind of like how you're framing that conversation. Well, and that flip question of like, what do you think is not the best use of your time and what do you wish you had two hours a week to work more on? And like make it really tangible. It's not like, you're not talking like, what do you wish you had 20 hours a week to work on? Cause that'll be a really different answer. But like, what do you think you could do? Like what would move it forward? Yeah, absolutely. Now, I think that that can be really helpful. so in that, do you also experiment in that same way in the stop doing portion of things? Do you set the metrics? Do you experiment or do you just like see it? Yeah, mean, I think, yeah, so some things that is like, thank goodness we got sign off to finally get rid of this thing. No experimentation needed. But other times it is like you mentioned, like if someone feels really strongly about something or if it's sort of like a passion project for them, then you might treat it as kind of like an experiment, right? So um we did this with a few newsletters at the Journal Sentinel. A colleague of mine directly led this, but I worked with her to kind of... think about, what are the metrics that we're looking for for this particular newsletter? What would we want to see those be to decide that it's worth the amount of time that is being put into it each week? So in that case, we kind of developed some metrics there. We had a, can't remember now whether it was like six or eight weeks. It depended on how frequent the newsletter was published, certainly, but some sort of, so it was time bound, right? And then we, So we treated it as an experiment there. some of the newsletters, was like, the authors were like, OK, I really want to hit this goal. And they started experimenting with some other stuff in the newsletter that helped reach that goal of having a higher open rate or having more link clicks or whatever the particular goal of that newsletter was. And that's great. Then they were like, mission accomplished. This newsletter now does what we hope it can do. ah But in some cases they weren't able to. So then you do have to like sunset the product then. But they were really involved in the process. You don't like just go up to them and be like, okay, your news, like this is the last week you're running that newsletter. Like say goodbye to your audience or whatever. it's, know, you really, people are, have, you know, very deep emotional attachments to what they're doing. Most people are in journalism with some sort of service mindset, right? So they do worry about their readers and their audience when something gets cut. So. I think really including them in that process of um deciding ah whether to ultimately like sunset something is really important. And I'm just thinking like these, those three strategies of center your audience, fast experimentation and stop doing something. Like that's a tactical series that you can apply, but then the five kind of big strategy buckets that you started off talking with are more sort of like the flavor and sort of like the, if the tactics are the what, your five strategy buckets are the how. So can you, I think. think and so I'm checking in with you. Does that make sense or totally off base? Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. mean, the sort of tactics fall under some of the strategies as well, pulled from some of those categories. But yeah, think, yeah, I think the way that you described it is one way to kind of like organize it um in people's minds too. Yeah, and then so what's those five again? Yeah, I know we just started talking a half hour ago. it was um adopting a product thinking mindset, diversifying revenue, practicing engaged journalism, collaborating internally and externally, and managing people through change. So I do feel like when you're in those tactical spaces, it's almost like the lens or the grinder that you're using. You have to check each of those five boxes in your process, or else it's not going to be centered change or effective change. Or lasting change, right. we can all remember something that some big change initiative that lasted a few months and then sort of fell by the wayside. Right. And I do feel like when you have a lot of failed change, like I can remember being in environments where like our publisher would just get like this great idea and we'd, and you know, we'd be doing it. And then his attention would turn somewhere else and we'd be like, all right, well, you know, you just keep doing it. so like you, you collect a lot of lost, lost toys that way. And so, I, I do feel like sustainable, sustainable change. is important, but then when you collect too many lost toys, you also kind of get that culture of like, well, we just have to sit through this latest exciting idea and things will go back to the way they were and people will leave us alone. So I do feel like, you know, having that five point checklist of the how in the centering community, experimenting and stop doing something process, like you can really calcify your community if you're not keeping those strategy pieces in place. Yes. Yeah. That sort of like this too shall pass mentality. Um, yes. Yeah. And I really, I really sympathize with that with folks who have been through a lot of changes like that. it, so one of the things that we help a lot of organizations with and table stakes was this idea of going public and staying public. And that speaks to some of what you were talking about is like, how are we aligning this, um, across the organization? How are we helping people understand how they individually are contributing to this and like, how are we communicating that this is not just the latest fad or the temporary thing, and tie it to these larger goals and communicate the milestones along the way too, I think is really important. And so as we finish up, because we could talk for hours, but who has the time? Tell us a little bit about uh sort of what you've seen the benefits of the Table Stake program and working in this way to some of the groups that have come through the program. Yeah, mean, think like, you know, groups have like organizations have like very specific and impressive goals that they've reached. You know, they've done double digital subscriptions, they've increased revenue, like, you know, all of that sort of stuff, too. I think the sort of lasting impact that we see is something we talked about a little bit earlier in terms of the kind of the mindset shift sort of changes the way that people work and work together within these organizations. how they approach problems, how they approach this sort of like constant change that we're under, because you are always going to be iterating and changing and experimenting. So figuring out how to juggle all of that, how to keep that larger goal in mind. I think those are sorts of the things that I think have been most impactful from Table of Stakes, as well as just expanding people's ideas of what is possible and providing some hope with that as well, I think, and seeing their fellow cohort members succeeding, seeing different ideas that they can steal and adapt and try in their organizations. I think that has been really powerful for the program as well and why API spent so much time working with this larger table stakes alumni community because um It can feel kind of isolating, right? If you're in like the local news organization, you feel like you're the only one kind of dealing with these problems. But then to be part of this larger community, you realize that other people have these same challenges and have tried different things. So I think, I think those are kind of like some of the lasting, lasting legacy of the Table Six program outside of the sort of like impressive, like numbers and new products launched and audiences grown and all of that sort of thing. Yeah, it's a shift really in the in the entire mindset. And so I believe you said earlier that you kind of categorize some of these best practices and ideas in better news.org. Did I get that right? Yes, yeah, so betternews.org um exists as a resource, um something that API has managed since 2018 for the Table Stakes program. And we're continuing ah to bring case studies from across local news, not just from Table Stakes alumni. And then I also wrote the digital transformation guide from the American Press Institute, which highlights those five strategy areas we mentioned. um And that pulls lessons and uh examples of success from across all of the various table stakes programs, not just the ones that API managed, but also the ones we coordinated with. And that guide also includes a bunch of like worksheets and checklists and workbooks. So if you're like, yes, I want to try this, there's a resource linked in there that's like free to you um that you can just copy and start filling out. And you can actually like get started trying a lot of these things. And that's on your just straight out your website. And I don't recall their year. OK. All right. Well, Emily, always such a pleasure talking to you. I feel like um everyone needs to go back, pull the worksheets, start innovating and thinking through their real challenge areas. And I just really appreciate that you've worked so diligently with your cohort to come up with the takeaways and really kind of analyze. some of the secret sauce that will help journalists stay in business and relevant and serving their communities for years to come. So thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me and allowing me to share it with more folks.