(Community Matters 183) Black Squirrel News Seeks to Rebuild Calhoun County Local Reporting

The team behind Black Squirrel News is taking a cooperative approach to rebuilding trustworthy local reporting in Calhoun County through a volunteer-powered, community-led model. Jeremy Andrews, Nick Buckley and Lucy Hough talk to Community Matters about why news literacy matters now, how a co-op approach could fund long-term coverage, and how residents can help shape what gets reported.

Episode Resources

Black Squirrel News Website

ABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERS
Former WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays, 8:00 AM Eastern on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.

Community Matters is sponsored by Lakeview Ford Lincoln and produced by Livemic Communications.

Transcript

Welcome And The Local News Gap

Richard Piet 0:02

Thank you for being here for Community Matters Saturday. Get together 95.3 FM anytime, Battle CreekPodcast.com or go where you get podcasts and type Community Matters Calhoun County, and you can subscribe, follow whatever the word is on your favorite directory, and then you'll get the little alert when new episodes drop. You know, if you've been listening to this since the beginning, you heard our very first community matters episode in which our guest was Dave Eddy, the morning mayor from WBCK for so many years. And why did we do that? We did that because we wanted to underscore why we were doing this. Community matters showing up in this way and growing over the last couple of years, thank you, to help compensate for the disinvestment in local reporting that has gone on in Calhoun County. I would wager to say you could even cross over into neighboring counties, and the desert isn't quite as dry as it is here. And the notion that we believe very deeply in reporting local information and making sure that those of us in Calhoun County are receiving that information. Since that first day, we've been here with you every single week, but also there have been some other stirrings going on trying to as well compensate for this disinvestment in local information that has gone on so fervently in Calhoun County. And we're here to tell you this in this segment about the latest one called Black Squirrel News. With us today, Jeremy Andrews, whom you know from Sprout and Uproot and many other things. Nick Buckley is here too, whom you know from Battle Creek Inquirer Days, and also from the downtown Battle Creek Zine, one of those aforementioned efforts to bring you local information in this uh desert of sorts. And Lucy Hough is here too, Lucy, whom you know from the county, who shows up in this vein personally because she feels so passionately about local information. Welcome to you all. Hey, Richard.

Lucy Hough 2:26

Thanks, Richard.

Richard Piet 2:27

Thanks for being here. So, Black Squirrel News. This is a new outlet for local stories.

Nick Buckley 2:36

True? Very true. Uh it's definitely local, hyperlocal. It's been created by uh local journalists and uh our neighbors and working together to strengthen that media ecosystem and fill some of those gaps that you addressed in our news desert. A lot of these challenges aren't unique to Calhoun County, but they're certainly felt. So this is a grassroots initiative. It's thus far all volunteer effort and uh just working hard to provide the the news and information and storytelling that we know Calhoun County deserves.

What Black Squirrel News Is

Richard Piet 3:12

Wow. Uh grassroots, I heard, uh also heard all volunteer. And I'm interested in this because one, it takes a lot of passion for this for folks to show up as volunteers to get this thing moving, but also it takes uh a couple of bucks to keep things rolling, doesn't it? So let's talk about all of that. Clearly, we hear the the commitment and the passion. How are we doing this?

Jeremy Andrews 3:39

Well, maybe uh maybe I can chime in here. In my role at Sprout, we spent the last five years uh organizing, fundraising, and launching Uproot Market and Eatery, which is a cooperative, which means that it's owned by a community member. And community members make a small, um, small investment and they own it and they get to drive it by voting for the board and or running for the board. And I'm just one person in this community that believed that we had a gap in local news. And I talked to plenty of other people who believe that as well. And uh, you know, and here are some of us together who believed it, getting together, cooperating together, and uh building a new cooperative around news. We still don't have any money to do this. This is all on uh on hopes and dreams. And but yet here it is. It exists and and it's going, and we are seeking some resources, and uh we'll probably continue to be seeking resources forever, uh hopefully forever, because that means it's still going. And uh my role as Sprout is because we have launched a cooperative, we thought, well, at the very least, we might be good at helping launch another one and maybe not run into as many problems as we did in the first one or you know, run into some new ones, but uh save some time because we've done this uh before. And we're hoping that we can be helpful. We can be a fiscal sponsor to get it going and receive dollars as a nonprofit. And we made all the relationships to start co-ops in in Michigan and sort of learned that along the way. So we're a little bit of an expert. I wouldn't call us experts in cooperative development because we've done a co-op, not many, but we're that that's kind of our role, part of my role here, and and we'll see where how that evolves uh going forward. But um, yeah, as a person and uh just an uh involved community member, I'm just really interested in ensuring that stories are told and helping create platforms uh that allow those to be told and helping promote them.

Richard Piet 5:49

Well, this is what it takes, isn't it? Out of the box thinking. Sorry, it's probably an overused phrase now, but we have to think of a new way to do this because the old ways aren't happening.

Co-op Funding And Volunteer Reality

Nick Buckley 6:01

Yeah, I think you nailed it. The legacy media model, um, that's again not unique to what's happened here in Kelvin County. And in also the way people consume news and information has changed, and it's on us to adapt to that and meet people where they're at. And that requires multimedia storytelling, such as a podcast and radio and photo galleries, um videos. It's not just the the written form, but but that's kind of where my background lies, and I think that's a great entry point for a lot of people. So we're aiming to build something that helps fill those information gaps and provides it from a reliable source so people can make better decisions and feel better connected to where they live.

Richard Piet 6:46

Lucy, what are the guiding principles here? When you develop this, what's important?

Lucy Hough 6:51

Well, and I think you know, from this big picture concept, we can all agree that there's need in our community. Um, and for our purposes, we did try to identify how specifically might we try to address the need, fill the gap, really show up for this problem that we have in our community with information sharing. And so we identified three pillars as the foundation of Black Squirrel News, and that's original content. So wanting to create original reporting about why things matter, not just what happened. Um, the second pillar is aggregation. So curating strong local work that does exist already in our community. We recognize there's great stories already happening. Richard, you are a source of one. Um we have numerous other folks who are trying to tell stories. So wanting to bring those together so people know where to find them so that we can elevate the great storytelling that is happening. So aggregation is the second pillar. And the third pillar is news literacy. And that's something that's really important to us about wanting to have the conversations, address the importance of news literacy as a community. Um, and so we do that right now, especially in what we produce, whether that's the aggregated content or the original reporting, um, by kind of talking about how we reported things, wanting to like go there and explain why did we, you know, make certain choices or just offer a level of transparency. And so trying to bring news literacy into the work that we do. And then we also have dreams of educating and having these conversations and live activations in the future. So those are the three pillars that we're really working from right now to kind of give us a foundation that we can continue to build from.

Richard Piet 8:39

What does news literacy mean? And maybe all of you have an answer to this, but let's just talk about that for a second because that's a big part of this, isn't it?

Lucy Hough 8:47

If I might start, I'll just share that the reason why, and I think Nick can really get into the importance of it, but I also feel that our community in particular has really, you know, in the in maybe an absence of certain types of news, has started to lean very heavily on social media for receiving information. And that's a place where it gets harder and harder to have strong media literacy. And so I do think that, you know, sort of without great journalism, kind of these like landmark or legacy uh journalism, like Nick was saying, um we kind of fall into patterns that maybe lack that sort of discernment on like strong news literacy. And so that's something that we wanted to bring into what we do, you know, whether that's transparency, you know, or context about how information is created or, you know, verified. So that was kind of something that we recognized a lack of and hoped that Black Squirrel News could help to bring that through in the work that we do.

Richard Piet 9:51

How would it do that, Mick?

Nick Buckley 9:52

Well, I think like Lucy had mentioned too, is being transparent and showing how we report things, um, adding that important nuance and context so everything is not surface level, so people can have a baseline of understanding about things that matter to them in the community. You can do high-level journalism, but the whole cliche of you can lead people to wire, but you can't make them drink it. So I think that education component and helping people understand that they need to trust where they're getting their information from is more important than ever, especially in 2026 and beyond, with advancements in AI and deepfakes and uh the ease at which somebody can repost bad information and it can spread like wildfire. So you need to return to those things that uh journalism is rooted in, and just verifying sources, accuracy, having ethical editorial standards, those type of things, the the backbones of journalism, those don't go away, but we do need to adapt how we present that. And uh, you know, like we Lucy had mentioned too, just being very transparent about this is how we came to this reporting. We're not trying to tell you how to think about things. This is a nonpartisan effort. We're trying to reflect the diversity of Calhoun County, and that's uh, you know, geographically, demographically, and ideologically, uh, it's a very diverse county, and we want to reflect that and hold up the mirror. And it used to be the paper of record. We we want to become that institution uh that serves as the record and lets people make uh critical decisions about the community they live in and to see their neighbors and to see that uh we obviously have a lot in common. We all choose to live here and showing the people behind the institutions, I think, is important and that human-level storytelling that's rooted in the people who live here. So, yeah, that's why it's so important to provide that news literacy component so that we make sure people understand that they can trust what they're hearing from Black Squirrel News.

Richard Piet 11:44

You've got the whole opinion thing mixed into literacy these days, which makes it tricky. But even in the traditional model, I mean, if you think about newspapers, for example, and some of them still have this, the editorial board, which has known to be of one side of the center or the other, is that part of this, or does it even need to be?

Nick Buckley 12:11

We are uh uh going about this in a phased approach, currently in our our phase one launch. So you should not be seeing opinions or editorials right now uh until we can build up the capacity to do so. And even so, uh you will easily be able to differentiate between something that is an editorial or an opinion versus what is the news. That is another thing that Richard, you're spot on that it's hard to discern the differences between what is news and opinion sometimes. And uh that's uh again a thing that goes well beyond the county borders, but we can only control what we can do here and uh and lift up the good things that are being done, the the good reporting that's being done, the the good podcasts like community matters, and to help fill the gaps, we don't have enough Richard Pyots in the community, so we want to help uh build on-ramps for people to see themselves as storytellers and journalists and work with people so they can contribute to that, not just be consumers of news.

Three Pillars Of The Project

Richard Piet 13:12

The co-op part of this, Jeremy, you described as at least as it relates to say uproot. For example, you own a piece of the rock, as uh the expression used to go. That's the same here. If you want to be a a member, let's say, of Black Squirrel News, you get to be part of that in that way.

Jeremy Andrews 13:32

Yes, and um, we haven't entirely figured all of that out yet. We're starting with community supporter sort of blanket membership, just be like a co-op membership at Uproot, you know, one member, one owner type thing. However, uh it will likely evolve into institutional memberships and other kinds of memberships at different, maybe different levels or different potential um commitments or different roles. You know, some journalists who are giving a whole lot of their time, like I would say, like already have ownership stake in it because they've already given a ton of time and and should have earned that ownership multiple times over already. And and so we'll we'll we'll probably figure out how that works out. I would say it's at its nascent stages and we're still figuring that out. We're still figuring out our bylaws, and um, and then we have to pay an attorney to establish us as an entity, as a cooperative entity, and that costs uh money. And so those are resources that we are hoping for and waiting for, and then by the time those come, they will go and be spent, and we will be trying to find new ones. Um, but uh I believe in general that this is also an opportunity to promote and educate the public about the cooperative model with ownership. Um, small rust belt disinvested towns like this should be thinking about how to cooperatively own the machines that make everything happen because all of those owners left. They left big empty buildings for us to pay for, and so we should figure out how to do those things together.

Richard Piet 15:14

I just have to pause for a minute and let that land because that makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? We can sit back and wait for somebody to dream up a new uh news model, or we can do it ourselves. Here we are trying to do exactly that. Are there other co-op media models that you've looked at?

News Literacy In The AI Era

Nick Buckley 15:38

Yeah, we've taken note of a few. Um there's not actually many for a community of our size. There's been some in the Midwest that have popped up. There's another in uh England called the Bristol Cable that's been wildly successful. So we're kind of picking and choosing what makes sense for us, what makes sense for Calhoun County, because there is no place like Calhoun County. And I say that from a place of love, and uh, this is my hometown. And Jeremy and Lucy and the others that are helping build this are deeply rooted here. And to Jeremy's point, is uh want to embody that be the change you want to see. And we see the the fragmented local media ecosystem and understand the need, and we can't wait for somebody else to come in and try to fix this problem. It has to be fixed by us and the the us is the community. It's everybody can play a role in making Black Squirrel News the success it can be. Um, we we know that we have a lot of people putting in a lot of time and effort and thought into making this uh an institution that long outlives us. Uh, that's what makes it so exciting is that uh we're still really in our infancy, but we think this has legs and we're continuously inspired by the people who are fighting the good fight, like Richard Pyatt and uh another uh great example is Nueva Opinion, uh the Spanish language newspaper that's been doing it for 20 years here in town. And we know there's a lot of gaps too when we stretch out beyond the city centers of Marshall and Albion and Battle Creek, those news deserts are felt even more in some of those rural pockets in the county. And we definitely want to make sure we're covering all corners. And while each kind of city has its uh has its place in the cultural fabric of Calhoun County, we want to make sure that we're including all of that. So all that's just to say it's a it's a really exciting time. Uh, it puts a lot of wind in my sail when um I see others that have shared the same passion, and these conversations have been going for a while now, but it came time to actually do something about it. So, you know, with Lucy and Jeremy and myself helping to recruit some others, and uh, we're still looking to uh leverage those relationships and bring in people and tap into the talent that's here in Calvin County because there's so many great stories that aren't being told, and we know there's an audience for it, so we're just doing what we can to make it happen.

Richard Piet 18:08

Do you expect that there would have to be input from residents here to help guide this? That is to say, we we talk about those of us who've who've worked in media in the past, and so we feel compelled to to help move this along, this this effort collectively. But do you end up envisioning that you'd reach out to the average Calhoun County resident and say, what's going on in your neighborhood? Or what involvement do you have in your community that we can talk about? Or, you know, what program inspires your kids? I'm just grabbing at these ideas. But you get my point. We're trying to invite input, are we not?

Lucy Hough 18:53

Yeah, definitely. I think that's essential, especially for us to truly cover the communities that we feel tasked to cover. You know, especially a lot of us are based more on the western side of the county. And so really it's going to take a considerate and thoughtful effort to make sure that we're covering Albion, covering Homer, you know, bringing in areas that maybe we're not based or spend time as much. So that's certainly like the conscious effort that is required. But also, I think in order to truly tell the story of our community and represent, you know, the folks that hope to see themselves, you know, reflected in Black Squirrel News, we have to hear from them and engage with them. Um, and so that's definitely, you know, we make sure that our email address is on everything that we publish so that people know how to reach us. Um, and we hope in the future, especially as we have more resources and time to hold events in the communities that we serve so that that way we can be out and talking with people and learning and understanding, you know, what is happening in these communities that are the stories that need to be told about what's happening around us.

Richard Piet 20:03

Talk about the name Black Squirrel News. Where did that come from?

Nick Buckley 20:06

Well, I think if you live in Calhoun County, you should know the black squirrel well or the the eastern gray squirrel. Um, but we have the mutated version, and uh it's ubiquitous with uh just being a resident in Calhoun County, um, particularly where I live in in the north side of Battle Creek, they're everywhere. And uh we uh threw out some other names and there were some other strong contenders, but the group found that this one was a good representation of what we're trying to do. Black squirrels are super resilient, they're they're everywhere. Um they're in in the city centers, they're out in the country, and they're our neighbors. And I think that really the neighbor aspect of it is what we're leaning into because we are your neighbors and we're here to provide news and information uh that's very accessible. Uh that's one reason, too. I just wanted to note that you won't run into any paywalls or need to pay for a subscription per se. We want to remove all those barriers to information. So we want to be your neighbors that are out there, you know, with our cameras and notepads and having those conversations on a human-to-human level to dive down into some of the nitty-gritty too, and to help explain it in a way that is uh easily digestible. And so the black squirrel just made the most sense. It looks great on a sweatshirt. I already got some swag. Uh so yeah, I think it it it was a a great way to launch uh you know, from having that that kind of mascot of a black squirrel.

Keeping Opinion Separate From News

Richard Piet 21:40

You know, Lucy, before we go, can you talk about why, from a communicator standpoint, someone like you who's busy trying to share messages and information that this is important. I mean, you you know, sometimes people might say, well, it's You know, it's easier to not have to tell people things and we can just get things done. But uh here you are, personally at least, saying, look, we we have to have this, and you're among folks trying to connect information, and that means more work.

Lucy Hough 22:15

But it's just so essential, I think, to having a strong community. I I think that in order for us to be in community with one another, we have to be able to share information about what's going on around us and having a place that can create that baseline of information is essential. And, you know, in some of our communities, we do have those. We've seen them change and evolve over the last, you know, 10 and 20 years, 30 years. And, you know, as it diminishes over time, I think that sometimes we feel that when major change happens in our community, such as development, such all kinds of development, even if it's renewable energy or 1800 jobs coming in, like we need to be able to understand what's happening. And it's beneficial when we can have that same baseline in a way that isn't clouded by opinion and is instead just like what that baseline is that then we can all operate from, allowing folks to come up with their own opinions, whatever those might be, all kinds of reasons, you know, but what is the baseline so that we're all operating from the same place? And that's something that I just have felt, you know, um, Richard, you know, I've been trying to communicate on behalf of the county for many years. And it's tough to find out where I can send this information so that I can reach as many people as possible. And so we talked about a fragmented, you know, news environment. And it is fragmented because it's very hard to reach a whole lot of people who need to receive the information, even on simple things. And so that's something that I know this team is really eager to help meet. And as Black Squirrel News grows, we hope to bring in even more complicated topics. You know, right now we're trying to keep it simple so that we can get kind of the engine rolling. You know, let's keep it moving so that we can start moving in a forward direction and over time continue to build so that we're able to have these sort of complex conversations in our community so that we all benefit from a higher standard of information sharing. And everyone's able to have access to that information without necessarily needing to know where to find it, having like resources or money to be able to access it. Everyone in our community is able to access that information. I think that's really critical.

Membership Support Without Paywalls

Richard Piet 24:39

I just want, before we go, to clarify a couple things that have been said. So, Jeremy, you talked about the co-op model, and folks can subscribe and give a little money if they want to and be a part of this. Nick, you also said, look, there's no paywalls. So help us understand that distinction for a second.

Jeremy Andrews 24:58

Well, from the co-op side, I'll compare it to the uproot market and eatery. The uproot market and eatery is a grocery store and a cafe open to the public. Everybody can consume all of the contents that are in there. Uh, they don't have to show a membership card. Those who are members get some special perks and they can possibly be on the board. They can run for election coming up uh next month and uh help guide the management team and guide financial decision making. In this case, community supporters, institutional members, etc., would all be similar to the community uh the member member owners of Uproot, in that they m would all have economic participation. That's one of the drivers of a co-op. And so they economically participate in the operation and uh they then get to help make decisions through elections. And uh that there possibly might be some other perks that we haven't figured out yet. But in general, it'd be a lot more, in my opinion, kind of like supporting NPR. You're giving an annual commitment or a monthly commitment or something, um, a lifetime commitment, and um, and there's other ways of investing in this so that all folks can consume it and those who can afford it or believe in it can help drive it.

Richard Piet 26:22

All right. Makes sense. Well, congratulations to all of you for this, and uh certainly happy to talk about this and stay in touch as new developments come about so we can tell people about it. And I would say to you, you know, our battlecreekpodcast.com site has a lot of our interview content on it. We're going to put a black squirrel news link on there so folks can come right through to you and find you.

Black Squirrel Name And Where To Find

Nick Buckley 26:50

Yeah, that's great, Richard. And um, and so people will know where to find us as well. Uh, we have our sub stack where you can subscribe to our weekly in-a-nutshell news digest where uh we share links uh so people can find uh your podcast, um, stuff from other uh media organizations that are covering Calhoun County. And that's a great place if you just want to get that that weekly in your inbox uh connection to what's happening. We also have uh blacksquirrelnews.com and our our Facebook page, and those are right now the the ways to uh follow along and um and to get involved.

Richard Piet 27:29

I saw what you did there in a nutshell. Squirrels like acorns. There's a little shell. Yeah, anyway. Okay, we got it. Blacksquirrelnews.com. Find them, find their website, find uh their Facebook and the Substack as well if you're so inclined. And the momentum has begun. So congratulations, and we'll stay in touch. Thanks, Richard.

Lucy Hough 27:51

Thanks, Richard.

Richard Piet 27:52

Jeremy, Nick, Lucy, all here on Community Matters from Black Squirrel News.