Scales Of Success Podcast

#36 - The Dark Economy Behind Tween Influencers with Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

• Marcus Arredondo

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What happens when algorithms shape how young girls see themselves and who’s watching? In today’s episode, Marcus Arredondo sits down with Jennifer Valentino-DeVries to share the story behind her powerful investigation into the world of child influencers. They explore the hidden economies of social media, the role of data in uncovering systemic issues, and why transparency in tech matters more than ever. With warmth and clarity, Jennifer also reflects on her path into journalism, the writing process, and what keeps her pursuing the truth.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries is an investigative reporter at The New York Times, where she uses novel datasets to uncover and explain complex issues, often focusing on the wide-reaching effects of technology on society. In 2022, she was part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for exposing systemic failures in American policing that led to preventable deaths. Before joining The Times, she spent over a decade at The Wall Street Journal as an interactive producer, reporter, and member of the investigative team.

Learn more about Jennifer Valentino-DeVries:
Website: https://www.nytimes.com/by/jennifer-valentino-devries
X: https://x.com/jenvalentino
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifervalentinodevries/

Episode highlights:
(5:30) Tech, behavior, and addiction feedback loops
(6:57) Should social media be regulated?
(10:03) Lawsuits and liability in big tech
(13:21) Why Congress struggles with tech policy
(16:20) Advice for parents navigating tech
(18:58) Jennifer’s path into journalism
(28:47) Interviewing people with complexity
(35:33) Using data in investigative reporting
(42:29) Collaborative work
(47:27) The collapse of local journalism
(51:15) Winning a Pulitzer and what it means
(56:51) Her writing process and creative rhythm
(58:08) Outro

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Note: The transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(0:00) If you have people who are crucial to the story and are difficult to get to talk to, and if it's a sensitive subject or they have material that they're not really willing to share electronically, yeah, you need to meet them in person.

Marcus Arredondo

(0:22) Today's guest is Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, a Pulitzer-winning journalist whose path began with rejection from her college paper and grew into a career that holds the world's platforms accountable. (0:31) With an extensive background in quantitative analysis, Jen's work challenges the systems we're told to trust. (0:37) At The New York Times, she's exposed how Instagram's algorithm pushes content of minors to predators and how junk science shields police from accountability.(0:45) She shares how she trained herself to talk to strangers, what drives her to keep asking uncomfortable questions, and why discomfort often leads to her most powerful work. (0:53) From coding experience to confronting tech giants, Jen's story is about persistence, precision, and protecting the vulnerable. (1:01) Let's start the show.(1:02) Jen, thank you so much for coming on. (1:04) I'm excited to talk with you.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(1:05) Thanks for having me. (1:07) I'm excited to answer your questions.

Marcus Arredondo

(1:09) Well, there's a lot of different directions. (1:11) I think we talked a little bit offline about where I want to go, but I want to talk about a few of your more noteworthy reporting, and I want to use that as a springboard to talk about your process, how you got into it. (1:25) But I think maybe because it was more recent, I wanted to hear a little bit, for the benefit of the audience, if you can explain a marketplace of girl influencers and that entire investigation.(1:38) I have a lot of questions to follow that, but if you can just prime it by sharing a little bit of what your reporting was all about.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(1:44) Sure. (1:45) I think what we discovered over the course of more than a year of reporting on this was that influencer culture and social media culture is having a profound effect on adolescence. (2:08) We really wanted to take a look at the tip of the spear of that.(2:16) I think a lot of people know that social media is having some sort of effect on young people, and I was interested in looking at young women and girls in particular, and how algorithms and the feedback loop that they can get into on social media might influence them to sexualize themselves and see themselves, see their value in that way. (2:49) Interestingly, we found that there's a micro-economy around this specific idea. (3:00) In particular, there are parents who are pushing their tween girls to be influencers, particularly on Instagram.(3:16) Most of their followers, in some of these cases, are adult men. (3:23) There's an economy that has grown up around this. (3:28) Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, in some cases, in the worst cases, it leads to the production of abusive imagery of these children.(3:38) And so we were taking a look at this whole ecosystem.

Marcus Arredondo

(3:44) One of the things that I want to explore in your reporting is the convergence of technology and human behavior. (3:54) I'm obviously reducing your reporting severely and identifying it that way, but what I'm fascinated by is, from a tech perspective, you also use a large amount of data as it relates to in your reporting. (4:12) You've got a background in some quantitative background in quantitative analysis, which I want to get into.(4:19) But when I talk to some tech enthusiasts or those in the tech world, I get a varied response in terms of what we should be most concerned of. (4:30) There is a section that basically says, I'm okay using technology because it ultimately inures to my benefit in how I function in the world, how I acquire information, how I acquire products. (4:43) It increases my efficacy.(4:46) But I think there's an underbelly, not just with AI, but data in general, as it relates to how it starts to infuse how we behave. (4:56) This is a perfect example. (5:00) This is only one of many different cross-sections you've evaluated.(5:05) What's your take on step one is identifying the problem, but step two is, how do you see a way to mitigate some of these behaviors, if at all? (5:17) To a large degree, it's almost like we have to be policing against our worst selves because we're incapable of doing it as a human species.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(5:27) Yeah. (5:27) I don't actually have all the answers. (5:31) I'm not specialized in making policy.(5:37) I think that my role as a journalist is to present people with issues and ideas and options for different policies, not to advocate for a certain one or against a certain one, unless it's just really, really stupid. (6:00) In which case, it just becomes so obvious that I feel sometimes okay doing that. (6:06) But I think that there've been a number of proposals that I think are worth considering.(6:15) I think that it's important to think about young people using things like algorithmic feeds in social media or AI, chatbots, anything that is playing on a certain type of addiction to get people to spend more time on it. (6:42) I think that there's plenty of science demonstrating that young people in particular are vulnerable to addiction. (6:52) I think that there are some countries that are looking at limitations on social media for young people.(7:01) I think that it's important for technology companies to be more transparent about what their algorithms actually do. (7:13) Right now, we just don't have a control. (7:19) Unless you're putting your phone away and not getting on these products at all, it's difficult to avoid the addictive behaviors that they promote.(7:37) Of course, it's like any other product. (7:40) It is a choice. (7:42) But we do have policies that we enact as a society to make sure that people are healthier and not taken advantage of, particularly when they're young.(7:58) I think there are some interesting cases now. (8:03) There's a case in California, a huge federal case that is against Meta and a few of the social media companies, particularly looking at what they've done as a consumer problem. (8:26) They do have a lot of protections in their products just from the First Amendment and from Section 230, which allows them to have things on their platform that might be harmful for some people, but they aren't necessarily going to be held liable for that.(8:53) But what these sets of lawsuits are doing is saying that, well, actually, they promised a safe environment for kids and teens, underage people, and they have not provided that. (9:09) Instead, they've made addictive platforms that are pushing kids toward more self-injurious behaviors and other unhealthy behaviors. (9:24) It'll be really interesting to see where that goes.(9:27) It's actually made it through. (9:29) It's survived some motions to dismiss based on Section 230 and the First Amendment. (9:37) It's actually going through in the trial process as of right now.(9:44) So I think that'll be really interesting to see.

Marcus Arredondo

(9:48) Well, I'm glad that you brought that up because if I remember 230 correctly, it's effectively arguing that these tech companies function as a public forum, public square for people to interact with freedom of expression. (10:01) But that's based on a static linear public forum, not one that's algorithmically supercharged in a lot of ways. (10:12) That leads me to the idea that while I can appreciate your stance that you're not here to present solutions, you're here to expose issues as they arise.(10:25) But as it relates to solutions, I'm wondering what your perspective is relative to... (10:32) There's really three ways to mitigate this. (10:35) One, it falls within the companies themselves, the others within the government, and then there's self-advocacy.(10:42) I'm sure I'm missing something, but I think it falls broadly in one of those three categories. (10:47) Obviously, I would encourage self-advocacy, but with respect to minors and even adults to some degree who don't have good limitations or self-control, gambling is a perfect example. (11:00) I think it's a fair parallel to what teens are probably exposed to relative to social media.(11:09) But I'll land the plane here. (11:10) My question is, and I'm envisioning the Senate hearing a few years ago with Zuckerberg, where some of the questions being asked by our politicians are so antiquated. (11:22) Our policies were not set up for this type of technology, and that's not necessarily as a slant to politicians or policymakers because we never expected this rate of technology improvement.(11:37) The rate at which our technology is improving is increasing. (11:42) It's an exponential growth in a way that we have not seen. (11:47) Maybe the Industrial Revolution is maybe the last growth period we've witnessed, but that was relatively linear.(11:56) I'm curious, is it just through the judicial process where we start to shake this out further, or do you think that there's ever any element of self-policing that occurs? (12:10) I mean, I don't see what incentive they would have to do that.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(12:19) Yeah. (12:20) I've had a lot of experience covering self-policing for my entire career, and my experience is that it has a great number of limitations on it. (12:32) It works to the extent that it also happens to coincide with being profitable for the company.(12:44) You're right. (12:45) Policy in this area has been difficult for a number of reasons in the US. (12:52) One is that, as you mentioned, policymakers are not themselves up to date on some of the details of this technology.(13:04) It's funny. (13:05) I mean, it's actually gotten better than it was when I started covering this 15 years ago or something, but yeah, it's still behind. (13:17) Another problem is that our federal legislative system right now is not very efficient or active, and so that has led to, I think, a lot of inaction at the US federal level.(13:41) There have been some states, including California, that have enacted some technology legislation, and I think that Europe has actually been moderately successful in having regulations on technology. (14:04) I know people don't always agree with their regulations, but they do regularly put forth new laws that are related to technology, so GDPR, which is the big privacy law in Europe, it did result in a lot of changes. (14:24) I mean, you see (14:25) some of them, I think, kind of ended up like it's unclear that they have done what they intended (14:35) to do, so that is the sort of thing that when you see now little pop-ups come up that (14:42) ask you to accept cookies or not accept cookies or whatever it is they ask you, (14:48) that kind of started with GDPR in Europe, and the companies go along with it because Europe's (14:55) actually quite a large market for them, and yeah, I don't know that those notices actually (15:04) do a whole lot, but I think that over time, their courts are actually trying to (15:11) refine these regulations and actually make them more useful, and I think (15:21) that just points to an idea that I think is important, which is that a lot of technology (15:29) companies said GDPR was going to kill their profitability, and it shouldn't be passed, (15:35) and they would have to completely pull out of Europe, and that has not happened, and I (15:42) do think it's possible to have policies that aim to make sure that technology is (15:51) working for consumers and that consumers are protected.(15:56) It really is tough, though.

Marcus Arredondo

(15:59) Well, as a parent, I'm curious, from one parent to another, from what you've seen, you've seen the sausage being made, what advice do you have to other parents navigating these technologies through the lens of their children?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(16:16) I don't think that you can be, I don't think people should be terrified of technology, right? (16:26) I mean, a lot of these things are just tools, right, but I personally think that it (16:36) is helpful to try to limit things like smartphones and devices that are always with the child all (16:43) the time and on as long as possible, and just let their brains mature before they're having (16:54) to deal with something that's just in their hand constantly with bright colors and messages that (17:03) may not actually be healthy for their developing minds.(17:08) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(17:10) Well, I'm hoping, as I've got a very young child, he's two and a half, but I'm really (17:15) praying that this idea that phones are confiscated before school or not allowed at schools, it (17:24) really takes flight, because I think that seems like a really lonely battle if you're the only (17:28) one fighting it, but it really takes more of a consensus, but it seems like there's enough (17:34) science out there to be meaningful to warrant substantial change.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(17:40) Yeah, I think, I mean, it's here in New York, I think, yeah, a lot of the schools I'm aware of don't allow phones in the school. (17:51) I'm not sure about the high schools right now, but for the younger kids, they have to put them away.

Marcus Arredondo

(17:57) Well, you mentioned how long you've been in technology doing journalism, and I was just curious how you, you weren't always, I mean, you got a master's in public policy, which I can see how it dovetails, but was, I'm curious how you got down this path. (18:17) Were you always interested in journalism?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(18:21) No. (18:21) We went to school together. (18:22) We didn't have a school paper, really.(18:26) Did you guys have a school paper?

Marcus Arredondo

(18:28) Yeah.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(18:29) We didn't in our year either. (18:31) So I had not really considered journalism until I went to undergrad, which was at UT Austin.

Marcus Arredondo

(18:40) But would you say you're a writer at that point? (18:43) You enjoyed writing? (18:45) Was that something that drew you?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(18:48) Yeah. (18:49) I mean, I liked writing to some degree. (18:55) I mean, like academic writing, maybe fiction writing.(18:58) I had not really considered journalism. (19:00) And in fact, I thought that it was, I figured it would be kind of easy because it's relatively easy to read, right? (19:10) It's written so that normal people can read it.(19:15) And I think that gives a false sense that it's easy to write, and it is not. (19:23) So I went down to the Daily Texan, which is the student paper at UT Austin, and thought, you know, I'll just, this seems like a decent extracurricular, like, seems fun. (19:41) And I didn't get hired.(19:44) They had tryouts, and I did not get hired initially. (19:48) I was on the waiting list or whatever. (19:50) And I was really mad.(19:53) It's the first waiting list you've ever been on. (19:58) And so I kept coming down there, and it turned out that the waiting list was kind of like, like, you know, this is a paper run by students, and students don't always show up in the morning to get their reporting assignments. (20:12) And so if I just showed up, they would give me something to do.(20:16) And yeah, I figured out how to write journalistically and write clearly. (20:23) And, but it wasn't even until, you know, my senior year that I thought that maybe I could do this as a career. (20:32) I was really indecisive.(20:33) I didn't know if I wanted to go to law school or, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

Marcus Arredondo

(20:38) Well, can I push on that for one second? (20:39) Sure. (20:39) What was your, what was the process like?(20:41) I mean, how does a school newspaper, I have no insight into this, so this is very interesting to me. (20:47) How does a school newspaper, how is it run? (20:50) How do you, you're saying that there was stories assigned to you.(20:53) So like, how does that even work itself out? (20:55) How do they know what your niche is? (20:57) Is there, are you articulating a preference?(21:00) How are they finding these, these leads?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(21:03) Yeah. (21:03) So, okay. (21:04) So this was like 25 years ago, right?(21:06) So I don't know what they do now. (21:08) I assume it's, it must be pretty similar, but you know, you get, you would go into the newsroom, which is, I think everywhere, just like student newsrooms are dingy and the computers are old often. (21:24) And there's like some crappy couch that people, you know, fall asleep on.(21:31) And, but you know, there's like a calendar of university events, right? (21:39) You can just see what's going to happen that day. (21:41) So that's part of the assignment or the assignment process is, and that's true at any paper everywhere.(21:49) I mean, you just have, you know, what events are coming up. (21:52) So we're going to go cover those, right? (21:56) You know, even for business papers, you know, you know, who's releasing their earnings on a certain day.(22:03) Yeah. (22:03) So that's the easiest part of it. (22:07) And of course things are divided up by interest to some extent.(22:13) So, you know, if you are interested in writing art reviews or about architecture or something, you know, something like that, or sports, you know, you would go and try to work for those specific departments. (22:30) And that is the case in professional newsrooms as well. (22:34) But then you're also just given assignments based sometimes on your area of expertise or your skill at reporting, you know, you're, you'll be given a more difficult assignment, the more experience you have.(22:55) And sometimes it's just, they need somebody to go do something, right? (22:58) So it's just who's there.

Marcus Arredondo

(23:00) How did you sharpen your skills on interviewing? (23:04) I mean, because that seems like it's one thing to report on something, but then you need to get comments and input in context.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(23:12) Yeah, that was tough for me because I'm really introverted and I would have to force myself to, you know, call people or go up to random people and just ask them kind of, what do you think about, you know, whatever the subject was or the event or something. (23:31) I think when you start out, right, it's, you're covering events. (23:36) So, you know, or things that are happening, right.(23:38) Or like a lot of reporters, when they're starting out, they're covering something like the courts or cops, right. (23:47) And you're just down there and there's a cop there. (23:52) And you're just like, Hey, what's going on?(23:54) When there are people standing there and you talk to them and just ask them what they think. (24:00) And it's, there's not some sort of extensive preparation process that needs to go into that kind of interviewing. (24:10) You know, if there's been something horrible that has happened, you do need to, you know, just make sure that you're sensitive and empathetic and you're a human being, right.(24:21) But beyond that, it's not something I think that you really need to spend a lot of time thinking about. (24:33) It's not a cerebral process at that point.

Marcus Arredondo

(24:37) Well, and I'm going to jump back and forth a little bit in time because I do want to follow this chronology and sort of understand how you got into public policy. (24:44) But moving forward, how do you reconcile in today's world, having conversations with people who, you know, you may be reporting on and the reporting, you know, you may end up doing may not reflect well, or their own self-perception of how they should be viewed. (25:04) But you also need to maintain some element of, you know, a softer touch.(25:11) You have to induce some of that conversation, which requires an element of trust. (25:18) You know where I'm going with this. (25:19) I'm just curious, like, how do you play that?(25:21) How do you navigate that? (25:23) Because some degree you want to be neutral, but you also want them to start talking.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(25:28) Right. (25:28) Well, it depends on the subject of your questions, right? (25:35) So you might have somebody who is doing something questionable, and you want them to talk with you about that.(25:52) But that doesn't mean that they are going to be 100%, you know, the villain of your story. (25:59) You know, I think people are complicated. (26:05) And it's just important to remember that that is typically the case.(26:10) It is more common for them to be complicated than to have some cartoonish antagonist, right, in your story, although that does also happen. (26:24) And, you know, I just approach stories by thinking that what I want to do is describe what is happening. (26:38) And what is actually going on.(26:42) And talking to me is typically the best chance that if someone is going to be mentioned in an article anyway, talking to me is the best chance for them to get their side of the story out.

Marcus Arredondo

(27:01) Right.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(27:02) If they don't talk to me, I'm only going to be hearing from the people who do want to tell me how awful they are. (27:12) Right. (27:12) And I think that usually, that sometimes gets them to talk.(27:17) I mean, sometimes people just don't want to talk at all. (27:23) And that's fine. (27:25) You know, you do your work without having them talk to you.

Marcus Arredondo

(27:31) Well, I'm thinking of a specific example that just happened recently, which I think is David Pogue interviewed Elon Musk, where he criticized President Trump. (27:41) But the conversation was supposed to be about politics. (27:45) Elon came out saying, I don't want to talk about politics at all.(27:48) And started talking about spaceships for a little while and then eventually came back to it. (27:53) Right. (27:53) And which is what, you know, originally the interviewer wanted to talk about.(27:58) But it almost seems like you got to be patient and pick your pick your moment. (28:04) And sometimes it ends up there naturally. (28:06) Sometimes you don't get there at all.(28:08) But there does need to be some, I would imagine, I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but some coaxing or encouragement or sniffing around the boundaries to see if they start to nibble on any of the subject matter that you want to speak about. (28:24) Because I would imagine there's a lot of times that it's not direct, where they may not be willing to defend themselves or provide their side of the story per se. (28:34) But there's sort of an adjacent take that you're seeking from them.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(28:41) Right. (28:41) So I guess this is a good point to mention that there are a lot of different skills in journalism. (28:49) And so an interview like David Pogue's with Elon Musk or something where it's a reporter who is going to the White House briefing every day, or who is interviewing politicians on camera.(29:05) That is a really different skill, actually, from what I do. (29:10) Sure. (29:12) And they have a completely different process that I've never actually participated in.(29:18) That's just not what I do. (29:20) It's not what I want to do. (29:21) If I need to interview or try to interview somebody who is a CEO or a high-level politician, of course, I have done that just many times.(29:37) But it's not typically and it's never been an on-camera interview with the intent of publishing the interview and having the interview be the news vehicle. (29:54) I have worked on a story and spent weeks or months or whatever gathering facts. (30:02) And I go to this person after I have all of the facts in hand.(30:10) I'm never going to somebody like that until I have a lot of facts already behind me. (30:21) Unless maybe it is reporting that is like, you're going to send a survey to every single member of the House or something like that. (30:31) Which is, again, not the same as an on-camera interview, but is a time when I would consider that interview part of the initial fact-gathering process, as opposed to something that takes place more near the end of the process.(30:51) Once you have gathered facts from your own data collection or documents or interviews with normal humans, and that's what you're asking them about. (31:11) I don't need to beat around the bush. (31:14) I'm just asking my questions.(31:16) And if they don't want to answer them, that's their problem. (31:21) Okay, well, in the story, then we're going to say that the company had no response to when asked about why it had convicted sex offenders on its platform talking to children. (31:40) Like, okay, you don't have to respond.

Marcus Arredondo

(31:42) Well, let's go back. (31:45) Thank you for that, because that's scratching my own itch a little bit. (31:49) But at the end of your undergrad, you decided to pursue this further.(31:54) That's where we left off. (31:55) So I want to make sure that we can maintain that continuity.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(31:57) Yeah, I didn't know. (31:59) I didn't know what I was doing. (32:01) What did you get your degree in?(32:04) It was just liberal arts honors. (32:06) I had no idea what I was doing. (32:10) Both my parents were teachers in public school, and I knew I didn't want to do that.(32:15) And basically, other than that, I really was not sure. (32:17) And they were not into the idea of me going into journalism at all. (32:21) They were extremely against it.(32:25) But I felt like that was something I was actually interested in. (32:33) I am not a good salesperson. (32:38) And I'm drawn to kind of the research aspect of journalism and felt that that could be a good career for me.(32:51) And so I got a job as a copy editor in Houston at the Houston Chronicle for a bit. (32:58) And then from there went on to grad school in public policy. (33:01) And I knew I wanted to stay in journalism.(33:04) You know, I would occasionally think of going into economics or some sort of research work, but journalism was just more fun. (33:15) And so I went to grad school with an act. (33:18) It was a very quantitative program.(33:19) And I kind of realized that that would be a good thing for me to specialize in.

Marcus Arredondo

(33:26) What was quantitative? (33:26) Can you break that down a little bit more?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(33:29) Yeah. (33:29) So it was a public policy program. (33:33) And they at Princeton, and you had to do a couple of semesters of economics.(33:42) And at the graduate level, you know, you had to have taken calculus and other prerequisites. (33:48) And you had to have statistics and econometrics. (33:54) And I ended up taking a lot of, a couple of econometrics classes and demographics and polling and stuff like that.(34:04) So that all uses a fair bit of math and statistical programming.

Marcus Arredondo

(34:12) What were you envisioning the use of those skill sets in journalism? (34:16) I mean, was it as clear as it now, how you'd be using it? (34:20) Because this was 2005?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(34:24) Yeah. (34:24) So yeah, I graduated in 05. (34:27) It was not, I thought for a while I wanted to do international reporting.(34:33) Then that didn't really pan out. (34:36) I know there are people who do great work internationally. (34:40) But when I tried, I had some internships and found that even though I was pretty good at languages, I just didn't feel like I could go as deeply on issues as I can in my native language.(35:01) So writing for an English audience and working with government and business entities that are doing their work in the language that I'm most comfortable in, I think is important for my ability to get in and see sort of patterns and spot wrongdoing. (35:22) And because a lot of times that sort of thing is really subtle. (35:25) And that is what I realized I wanted to do.

Marcus Arredondo

(35:28) And how are you using data now?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(35:31) I use data all the time and statistics, but it varies depending on the projects. (35:38) So in the set of stories we were talking about, where we were looking at girls on social media, one of the things we did was set up a sort of experiment where we ran ads on Instagram that had an image of a child on them. (36:09) It was anonymous.(36:10) There was a child in the back. (36:13) And this was based on a tip, but can I make this a long story short? (36:19) We found basically that the algorithm, even if we were asking for these ads to be delivered to people who were interested in things like childhood, cheerleading, dance, female kids activities, that the overwhelming majority of the people who got these ads, based on what the algorithm was deciding would get the most engagement, they were sent primarily to men.(36:51) And we got a number of responses from convicted sex offenders. (37:01) And these were the ones who were using their real name and photo on Instagram to cite being convictive child-related crimes. (37:14) So that involved analysis of data, but also the ability to set up an experiment where we had a couple of different control groups to adjust for how the algorithm might be viewing these images and making sure it was set up in such a way that it was difficult for Meta to refute our analysis.

Marcus Arredondo

(37:45) Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(37:46) So that's just one example.

Marcus Arredondo

(37:48) Well, how are you finding your stories? (37:50) How do you come across what you choose to engage with?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(37:56) Just, you know, things that annoy me. (37:59) I get annoyed a lot.

Marcus Arredondo

(38:01) What percentage do you think come from some form of tip?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(38:06) Like a tip being sent into a tip line, like, oh, this terrible thing is happening? (38:10) Not very many. (38:12) I know that definitely happens.(38:15) But most of my stories are, kind of, grow off of each other. (38:26) Or if I'm assigned to a subject, I will just call subject matter experts and kind of figure out what's going on there. (38:36) But a lot of them are technology-related.(38:41) And just, I've been covering this sector for a long time. (38:46) And, you know, you can see the, you get used to the hype cycles and what might be going wrong and, you know, who to talk to.

Marcus Arredondo

(39:01) What percentage of your reporting is assigned versus those you source?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(39:12) It's pretty reasonably split. (39:15) So I would, at this point in my career, right, I might get assigned a subject. (39:22) But it wouldn't be a particular set story, like, go out and do this very specific thing.(39:30) If there's a tip that comes in that's very much in my wheelhouse, you know, I might get sent that tip and look into that. (39:40) So I would say it's, a lot of this happens in conjunction with my editors. (39:49) So they might be really interested in a subject and have me go look into that.(39:55) I will also pitch things to them, which they may or may not like. (39:59) And then things might get, stay on the back burner if I'm convinced that it's a story. (40:05) And they're like, I don't think that's a story.(40:07) We'll revisit it in a year. (40:08) And I'm like, it's a story.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:10) Well, on that note, like, how do you, what are the rules of engagement there? (40:15) Are you, because I know you've done some work with ProPublica as well, right? (40:18) I don't know how this, how that works.(40:21) Are you precluded from writing a story, say, on your own?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(40:26) Yeah, generally. (40:27) So I haven't worked with, for ProPublica in years since I came to the Times. (40:33) Sometimes we do work with outside people, like reporters from ProPublica and do something jointly with them, particularly if it's a non-profit newsroom.(40:44) And we have a program now that I haven't worked with, but I think is great. (40:49) That is, you know, we, the Times gets applications from local investigative or local reporters at local newspapers who want to investigate something. (41:07) And so we will give them money to do that.(41:10) And we will edit their stories and co-publish them basically with the New York Times. (41:17) So, you know, there's a newspaper in Baltimore that we've recently done quite a bit of stuff with. (41:24) But other than that, yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not a freelancer.(41:28) I'm on staff here and I cannot go pitch something to somebody else that would be really weird and against my contract.

Marcus Arredondo

(41:38) What about books?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(41:42) Um, so I could, yeah, I mean, we can, we're allowed to write books. (41:48) I think there are rules that I'm not entirely up on because I haven't written a book. (41:54) Um, you know, but you have to get the, um, Times, I think has to sign off in some manner, but this is getting a little bit outside my expertise just because I haven't done it before, but people write books here all the time.

Marcus Arredondo

(42:07) I'm always curious when I see a list of authors on articles, how do you work together? (42:13) How, what's, I can't imagine writing a piece together. (42:16) Are those, because those roles don't seem clearly defined.(42:21) They have to have a lot of overlap and maybe I'm wrong.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(42:26) So some people really prefer writing on their own. (42:30) Um, I like working in groups, uh, because when I'm investigating something, a lot of times, you know, you start uncovering the stuff that usually ends up being just like bat shit crazy. (42:42) Right.(42:42) I mean, it's just, and you need somebody to share that and that person needs to either be, if you have a very accessible editor who does not mind getting, you know, repeated texts from me that just say like, WTF is this document that we just, you know, then that, that, that can work. (43:02) But, um, I like working in teams where I can share the puzzles that we're seeing.

Marcus Arredondo

(43:07) How does one person take a stab at the, the whole, uh, piece and then you, you contribute red line? (43:13) Like.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(43:14) It depends. (43:15) We usually, a lot of times we'll divide it up into different sections. (43:22) So you, you know, you see the little subheads on, because I'm writing like long stories usually.(43:27) Um, and, uh, you know, so the person who's the lead byline might write, like do the first draft of three sections and the person who's the second byline might do one, you know, whatever. (43:44) Um, or you have the lead byline person is writing most story, but the other person is writing like a few paragraphs that are really like their area of expertise. (43:56) But sometimes, you know, you might be getting that byline just because you did a lot of reporting work and you basically handed in like a memo of like summarizing your findings and putting in any interesting quotes that the person who's writing the story up can insert.(44:17) So just really, it depends on the situation and, you know, kind of what the findings are. (44:23) I, you know, I like working in groups. (44:28) Um, and then you go back and forth and, uh, we're all professional writers, right?(44:35) So when we have critiques of each other's work, it's usually pretty specific. (44:42) It's not like, I just don't like this, you know, um, that isn't helpful. (44:46) So it'll be like, this sentence is unclear after this comma, like, what are you referring to?(44:52) You know what I mean? (44:52) So some people deal with it better than others. (44:57) It's not like, I mean, I get grumpy, you know, sure, whatever.

Marcus Arredondo

(45:01) It's work after all.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(45:02) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(45:03) How have you seen journalism shift since you started till now? (45:07) And I'm just sort of going off of the dingy couch and the computers but that's not the world anymore. (45:14) I mean, are you, are you guys in the office working these stories?(45:19) How often are you out in the field trying to track stuff down?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(45:23) Um, again, really depends on the story and the person and the beat that the reporter's on. (45:32) Um, you know, I am in the office a lot. (45:36) A lot of my work is on the phone or text or signal messages or data.(45:42) I do travel to do interviews. (45:47) I do think if you have people who are crucial to the story and are difficult to get to talk to, and if it's a sensitive subject, um, or they have material that they're not, um, really willing to share electronically, um, yeah, you need to meet them in person. (46:13) And yeah, sometimes you need to go knock on doors and annoy people.(46:19) But a lot of my work is, is done in the office.

Marcus Arredondo

(46:23) Have you ever felt your personal safety threatened either chasing the story or as backlash to a story that may have come out?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(46:31) I've gotten plenty of backlash on stories, but I've never felt actually threatened. (46:44) Um, knock on wood. (46:48) Yeah.(46:49) Um, you know, I get nasty notes and things, but I just respond very politely.

Marcus Arredondo

(46:56) What do you think?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(46:57) And I think that's funny.

Marcus Arredondo

(46:59) What do you think the future of journalism looks like now? (47:02) I mean, do you think that there's any legs to, um, you know, there's a lot more direct access to audiences, you know, in people who are followers and I'm not using followers in the social media category, but followers of your work. (47:17) Do you, where do you think that portends for journalism in general?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(47:23) I'm a horrible pun master. (47:25) I'm to your earlier question. (47:28) I mean, I think the changes in journalism have been felt primarily at the local level.(47:36) And I think that it is, um, the loss of journalism jobs at the local level is really detrimental for the fabric of our society. (47:49) I think so much happens at the local level in government and it's important to have people writing about where they actually live. (48:08) I haven't, you know, I kind of moved up basically from Houston and then I went to grad school and then I worked very low level jobs at the wall street journal.(48:19) And now I'm at the New York times. (48:20) So I haven't, I think I kind of just barely escaped the decimation of, um, local journalism jobs. (48:29) But I think that has been the most noticeable thing.(48:33) I mean, a lot of times places like the times that are doing well, um, it sort of feels like we're on this, like we're on an island or the last ship and everybody else is sort of, um, sinking or foundering and, um, you know, it can be pretty concerning.

Marcus Arredondo

(48:56) What do you think the biggest threat to that sinkingness is?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(49:00) Like the biggest threat to journalism?

Marcus Arredondo

(49:03) No, to, well, yeah, to journalism, but as a consequence to American citizens. (49:10) Yeah.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(49:10) Yeah. (49:11) I think that it has, I'm sure, you know, I'm not a media scholar, (49:17) but I feel like it has contributed to our angry partisan environment because everybody is (49:33) so much more focused on national politics and, um, the characters in national politics and just (49:42) the type of media that they are consuming is the type of media that can, is designed to best (49:52) succeed in a really, um, splintered environment, which is going to be very emotionally driven.(50:00) And relying on, you know, dopamine hits and anger and, um, getting people tied into watching a particular or listening to a particular show or reading a particular, um, outlet and, you know, they're not as engaged with actual people around them. (50:27) Um, and I think that has been problematic and I don't, who knows what's happening in, you know, a lot of places in the U S like, I think that there's just a dearth of, um, good reporting on most of the places where people actually live.

Marcus Arredondo

(50:50) Yeah. (50:51) I feel remiss and I know we're coming up on time here. (50:54) So, but I, I should have brought up obviously your Pulitzer award.(50:59) I'm just curious what, what was that process like to be nominated and to be awarded it, uh, as part of that team and how has your life changed at all after?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(51:11) So, you know, newspapers put up or whatever. (51:15) Yeah. (51:16) They put up, um, projects for awards every year.(51:21) Um, and I had actually, even at the journal, as well as previously here, um, been a finalist, um, for totally different projects a couple of times prior to winning. (51:36) And, you know, I don't know, but you just, they take your stories and they write some sort of, uh, essay to, I don't know, um, about them and send them out, send them off. (51:56) You know, I think, you know, it was an honor.(52:01) I, but I, and I really liked working on that series. (52:05) I will also say that like, sometimes awards are, it's just like, to some extent, not completely, but to some extent it's, it's a crapshoot. (52:16) And I think that's probably true of all awards.(52:18) Like, yeah, there are some years, some projects where you're just like, oh, well, this one's obviously got to win a hundred percent. (52:25) Like everybody knows it's a shoe. (52:27) And this is fantastic.(52:29) And, you know, and then there are also, there were plenty of projects where you think like, oh, that's really good. (52:39) And that totally could win, but this other one also could as well. (52:43) And, you know, who knows what's going to happen.(52:47) So I don't, um, my life didn't change at all.

Marcus Arredondo

(52:53) That's anticlimactic in my opinion.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(52:54) Yeah. (52:54) I'm sorry. (52:55) I got a little, you know, statuette thing.(52:58) I went to a night, you know, a dinner.

Marcus Arredondo

(53:00) Um, is it, where's it held?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(53:02) I have it on my resume. (53:03) What?

Marcus Arredondo

(53:04) Where's the dinner and the award ceremony held?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(53:06) It's at Columbia university.

Marcus Arredondo

(53:08) Yeah.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(53:09) Yeah. (53:11) Yeah. (53:11) I get to put it on my LinkedIn now or whatever on my bio.(53:16) And, uh, my husband's really like, uh, pleased to, you know, tell people that I won a Pulitzer and I'm always like very embarrassed.

Marcus Arredondo

(53:27) I would think it at least awards you, um, reservations at a hard to get spot in New York. (53:34) No, like it doesn't.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(53:38) So I don't want to, I can't tell us the sound. (53:43) How would you give us the sound? (53:44) Like all the people who sit around me, like in my office also have Pulitzer.

Marcus Arredondo

(53:49) Right. (53:49) Right.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(53:50) Right. (53:51) So, you know, um, good company then. (53:54) Right.(53:55) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(53:55) Well, um, I could talk to you for a lot longer, uh, for the benefit of the audience, that, uh, award was for systemic failures in American, uh, policing.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(54:06) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(54:07) Am I correct?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(54:08) Yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(54:08) Which is actually an amazing, it's a sequence of articles. (54:12) Um, yeah.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(54:13) And I wrote two of them. (54:16) Um, so it was, you know, put up a handful of articles, um, as a group and, uh, yeah, the ones I looked at were about, um, this is post, um, George Floyd. (54:31) Um, the ones I looked at were, or the ones I worked on were looking at, um, AIDS expert, um, who defends law enforcement officers and has also, um, produced a body of scientific work that claims that, um, you know, people can't really be killed by being held prone, um, and a lot of weight put on their body.(55:03) Um, and, you know, say that they'll say that one of the people like defended the, um, officer who was ultimately convicted of killing, uh, George Floyd saying in this trial that you can't kill somebody by putting them on their stomach and then like, um, sitting on them and putting pressure on them. (55:27) Um, and the sciences, uh, you know, obviously not, obviously there are a lot of questions about that. (55:38) Um, and so it was looking at that and then how they tell people that, um, you know, it's safe to do that.(55:48) They'll tell, they train law enforcement officers that it is completely safe to do these things. (55:54) Um, or, you know, to tase people in the heart, that's not going to kill them ever. (56:02) Um, because, you know, in their tests, they didn't, they were, they test things on healthy people and those healthy people don't then die.(56:12) Um, but you know, if you have any sort of issues like health issues, you know, that can be fatal. (56:20) So yeah, it was, it was looking at how they're promulgating behavior that then leads to death because the police are told that this can't, can't end in death. (56:30) So it's fine if they do it.

Marcus Arredondo

(56:32) My, um, what am I, well, my last question here, my second to last question is can you share what your, what your writing process is like? (56:40) I mean, is there a time where you tend to research in a time where you tend to write or is it sort of a constant mix?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(56:47) Um, no, I, there's definitely a time I research and report and then the time I write and I don't actually, I really prefer the reporting to the writing. (56:57) Um, but my process is just, it's a combination of outlining and, um, just forcing myself to write kind of a shitty first draft.

Marcus Arredondo

(57:11) Yeah.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(57:11) Um, and then editing a lot, I think.

Marcus Arredondo

(57:14) Are you a journaler? (57:15) Do you like, uh, I mean, have you, have you been a writer outside of professionally?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(57:21) No, no. (57:22) Um, interesting to me. (57:24) I mean, when I was a kid, I tried it, but, um, no, I'm not a journaler.(57:28) I hate going back and reading my own writing about anything besides, you know, if it's been, I'll, I can read it again if it's been good enough to put out professionally. (57:40) But other than that, I'm not going back and seeing what I've written. (57:44) So no, I'm not a journaler.(57:46) I don't write for much other than, um, to get paid. (57:51) Yeah. (57:53) To do when I have to.

Marcus Arredondo

(57:55) Well, um, Jen, thank you so much. (57:58) It's, it's great to connect. (57:59) Is there, uh, are you, you have any closing thoughts or questions you think I kind of missed?

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(58:04) I don't think so. (58:06) No, this has been fun.

Marcus Arredondo

(58:07) Likewise. (58:08) Well, thank you. (58:09) Thank you very much for coming on.(58:11) I, um, I'm excited to share this.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

(58:13) Okay. (58:13) Bye Marcus.

Marcus Arredondo

(58:14) Bye. (58:18) Thanks for listening. (58:20) For a detailed list of episodes and show notes, visit scalesofsuccesspodcast.com.(58:24) If you found this conversation engaging, consider signing up for our newsletter, where we go even deeper on a weekly basis, sharing exclusive insights and actionable strategies that can help you in your own journey. (58:34) We'd also appreciate if you subscribed, rated, or shared today's episode. (58:37) It helps us to attract more illuminating guests, adding to the list of enlightening conversations we've had with New York times, bestsellers, producers, founders, CEOs, congressmen, and other independent thinkers who are challenging the status quo.(58:49) You can also follow us for updates, extra content, and more insights from our guests. (58:53) We hope to have you back again next week for another episode of scales of success scales of success is an edge West capital production.