Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
Empowering Voices Through Innovative News Platforms with Sarah Alvarez
This week, Donna and Orlando sat down with Sarah Alvarez, the founder and editor-at-large of Outlier Media, to discuss their groundbreaking SMS System.
Sarah Alvarez, the visionary force behind Outlier Media, believes the best local reporting is a service that responds directly to community needs and reduces harm. In 2016, Outlier Media began as a “Txt Outlier” a texting service delivering critical information to Detroiters and allowing people to connect directly with a reporter.
As of today, this enhanced service allows their newsroom to better serve Detroiters, connecting them to information and resources they need in areas including housing, utilities, income support, employment, food and transportation.
Detroiters can text in at any time to get immediate, automated info, look up property details or get individual help. By texting “reporter” they can connect with an Outlier journalist, who may follow up with a phone conversation. The new system is more intuitive for users and improves internal workflows and communication.
For more information on Outlier Media and TXT Outlier, click here.
FOR HOT TAKES:
DETROIT LIONS CLINCH NUMBER ONE SEED AND WIN NFC NORTH AFTER BEATING MINNESOTA VIKINGS
INTERNAL DIVISIONS DOOM MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS IN THEIR FINAL DAYS OF LEGISLATIVE CONTROL
Up next. Authentically, Detroit welcomes the founder and editor-at-large of Outlier Media, Sarah Alvarez, to discuss Outlier's groundbreaking SMS system. But first this week's hot takes from the WXYZ and the Associated Press. Detroit Lions clinch number one seed and win NFC North after beating Minnesota Vikings and internal divisions. Doom Michigan Democrats in their final days of legislative control. Keep it locked.
Speaker 2:Authentically, Detroit starts after these messages Founded in 2021, the Stoudemire is a membership-based community recreation and wellness center centrally located on the east side of Detroit. Membership in the Stoudemire is available on a sliding scale for up to $20 per year or 20 hours of volunteer time. The Stoudemire offers art, dance and fitness classes, community meetings and events, resource fairs, pop-up events, the Neighborhood Tech Hub and more. Members who are residents of the Eastside have access to exclusive services in the Wellness Network. Join today and live well, play well, be well. Visit ecndetroitorg.
Speaker 1:Hey y'all, it's Orlando. We just want to let you know that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast episode are those of the co-hosts and guests and not their sponsoring institutions. Now let's and the world, welcome to another episode of Authentically Detroit broadcasting live from Detroit's Eastside, at the Stoudemire inside of the Eastside Community Network headquarters. I'm Orlando Bailey.
Speaker 3:And I'm Donna Givens-Davidson.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. Happy New Year to everybody. Happy New on all platforms. Happy New Year to everybody. Happy New Year Donna. Happy New Year Sarah. We're hitting the ground running in 2025, and we figure what better day to kick off the year than with the founder and editor-at-large of Outlier Media, sarah Alvarez. Sarah, for the first time ever, I think. Welcome to Authentically.
Speaker 4:Detroit. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. We're so happy to have you, my friend and colleague.
Speaker 1:Yes, on January 6th this is. You know this is a what a day, what a holiday. Okay, how is January 6th finding you, donna? Happy New Year. It's been a while. I was sick so I missed the last couple of recordings in 2024. How you doing? It's good to see you.
Speaker 3:It's good to see you and it's good to have you take back over the role of the quarterback.
Speaker 1:I'm the Jared Goff of Authentically Detroit. He is, he is.
Speaker 3:And I'm like you know this third string feeling like, okay, let's do that one more time. That is not where I live, so I'm really glad you brought even more inflection and enthusiasm than normal, so that's really good.
Speaker 1:That was a good day and January 6th.
Speaker 3:I think that I am recovered from politics right now, recovered in the sense that I don't think politics are going to fix what's wrong with us as they are currently structured, and therefore I'm of the mindset that they can't break us, because I think that there is something about the human spirit that won't let them go too far, and maybe that's my denialism or my optimism I'm not sure, the jury is out, we'll find out in the next couple of years but I'm not really focused on the news or on any of that stuff.
Speaker 3:I think that evil people rule over countries like ours because our country does things that are evil, period. I think when you look at the way that the US functions in the world, the way that we are engaged in exporting certain types of terror and violence, when you look at the way that our banking systems disrupt other economies and disrupt food systems and every other kind of thing, and you look at the way that our banking systems disrupt other economies and disrupt food systems and every other kind of thing, and you look at the warmongering that has taken place since this nation was founded, we want to believe that we are a good nation led by good people. But the reality is, I think we struggle to be good and I think that we are not winning that struggle.
Speaker 3:And to tell the truth, we struggle to tell the truth, yeah, because if you tell the truth, then you're going to have to do something about that.
Speaker 3:But I think, when you lie to yourself, when you're able to go into deep denial and thinking things are getting better, things are getting better. They have not been getting better for many people for structural reasons that aren't going to be fixed at the polls. So I believe that you know that there have been moments in history. After the Great Depression, you saw the New Deal, and the New Deal changed the course of our national economy and the way we functioned for a while. And then you had the civil rights movement. That changed some things for a while, and I think we're at one of these inflection points right now where we're going to need some major systemic change in order to advance the cause of justice. We're going to have to deal with what's happening with our planet. We're going to have to deal with the growing inequality, the fact that homelessness is mushrooming out of control, and understand that the fact that we have tolerated all of these things for so long speaks to some brokenness that goes beyond partisan politics.
Speaker 1:You said something profound in the beginning, and it was that politics solely cannot fix what is broken inside of the human spirit, and I too wholeheartedly believe that we have to explore all kinds of modalities so that we can become whole right.
Speaker 3:I look at things like outlier media arising in this era of corporate news.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You're not getting the truth and you're seeing independent media really asserting itself in meaningful ways in our city anyway. 10 years ago you weren't getting this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:When you were trying to get the news. You were trying to find something on the Metro Times. That was it, and then you had Michigan Citizen, a little bit before then. But now what you have is you have Outlier, which is not just a news. That's why I can't wait to talk to Sarah and talk about the inspiration for it, because it tells me that people are getting information differently, in structured ways, not just social media, where rumors are as popular as truth, but in a structured way led by journalists and people who have a deep commitment to justice. I think arts is a big part of the process of justice. People have to think differently before they demand different things, and it really is. In a nation that pretends, or sometimes tries, to function as a democracy, the people have to change before the politics really change, and the people won't change as long as we can pretend like everything's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's going to be my happy lesson. Well, happy new year. It's January 6th, you know, and we still are dealing with a whole subset of legislators who want us to believe that January 6th didn't actually happen. Sarah, I cannot believe. It's your first time on the podcast. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. How is today finding you?
Speaker 4:Today is finding me well. I'm extremely happy about the Lions, so still celebrating that win, and I am someone who does not support the National Football League, so it took me a real. It was very difficult for me to admit that I was catching lion's fever a couple of years ago, but now I've wholeheartedly embraced it. I only have lion's fever. I still have my feelings about the NFL. What?
Speaker 3:are those feelings?
Speaker 4:I think that football is particularly toxic and I think that I've been very disappointed by the way that the NFL, I think, conducts its business and gets away with a lot. I care a lot about accountability and it's really hard to hold things that you love accountable, and a lot of people love football, and so the National Football League is allowed to get away with a lot of bad behavior in its ranks and puts a lot of people at risk because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, it's good to see you.
Speaker 4:But I still love the Lions and I'm really happy for them, but I still love the Lions and I'm really happy for them. And then, of course, there is the shadow of the events four years ago on January 6th, and I think we're still metabolizing that. Like you said, there's still a lot of argument around what truth is in this situation, right? So there was this insurrection at the Capitol and people are still trying to redefine what that meant, and now we have an administration coming in that really wants to continue to change that story, and we're still, we all saw it and we all had the opportunity to see the same things, right.
Speaker 2:We saw it.
Speaker 3:And so when people say this is not America, america saw this, we lived through this, and if America saw this and lived through this and returned not only Trump but all of his allies back to power, then this is literally who America is, and I think we need to stop pretending like we're good and we've been taken over by some bad folks, because even before Trump, you had these. There's always been this sort of fascistic, authoritarian strain of racist people in America. It's been here, you know, since its founding actually, and it, you know, we don't remember things about the past.
Speaker 3:Rachel Maddow has a book, has a podcast, where she talks about stuff that happened around World War II and the rise of Nazism in the United States, and just how powerful Nazism actual Nazism was, how certain members of Congress were allied directly with Adolf Hitler, going to Germany and arguing on behalf of the Nazi soldiers and saying that the US soldiers had oppressed them during their imprisonment or whatever. This is our history and we keep forgetting our history, and if you don't know that this is as America, as everything we like about this nation, then you don't ever really fight it. What you do is you go into this mindset of well, this is outliers, but they're not outliers. I think that they are.
Speaker 1:Let's call them something else they're anomalies.
Speaker 3:I don't think they're anomalies. I think that they are as fundamentally part of the nation as all the good people are, and we have to understand or acknowledge the fact that there is this real tension between people who actually believe in things like free speech and equality and all of those good things, and then those people who really want to hoard power and resources and who act with white supremacist mindsets and male supremacist mindsets, such that you they're trying to preserve it because it's being threatened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw something today that was really crazy. Kamala Harris was swearing in a senator, a Republican senator out of Nebraska, and once the senator was sworn in, vice President Harris shook her hand and her husband was holding the Bible that she was sworn in on and Vice President Harris went to shake his her. She went to shake his hand and he refused. It was really, really telling I mean his face, his posture and how she very clearly reached out her hand. The vice president of the United States, who just swore in your wife reaches out to shake your hand and he just refuses. He gave a head nod to the vice president of the United States, without ever looking her in the eyes, without ever looking her in the eyes Without ever looking her in the face.
Speaker 1:And I was, I was flat, I was I don't know why, because this is the kind of thing that happens, but it still doesn't. It still doesn't take away the sting and many people still feel like this sting. I agree with you that this is as America, as America has always been right, but sometimes seeing this stuff play out it stings a little bit.
Speaker 3:It does, but it reminds you that you have to fight against these things that you like to believe have gone away. You know, I went to Mercy High School it's a majority white high school then and I literally went through my classes most of the time feeling invisible. People did not acknowledge my existence. It's not just that they didn't speak to me or like me, there are people who did not acknowledge my existence. And then there are people who did my friends in school and I'd see them out in the community and they'd be like do I know you? Yes, I sit right next to you in class. No, it doesn't come to mind. And so now you know, 40 years after the fact. And so now you know, 40 years after the fact, some of these people are reaching out to me. Hey, donna, remember me. We used to be such good friends in high school and I'm like you did not know me in high school and I have unremembered every single one of you, so it's going to be very difficult for me to reach back.
Speaker 3:I can't Do. I know you, but I think that it's that desire to make people invisible. It is the dehumanization, it is the lack of respect. This is not an idea war of words or ideas, because we can all disagree on ideas. But when your ideas make me inhuman or not worthy of respect, that's when we can't be on the same page. And if you're not doing that, but you can tolerate people who do that because they share your values and morals and other or you get a little bit more money in your pocket.
Speaker 3:Whatever, whatever your reasoning, is, whatever your reasoning is, if you can tolerate hate, I can't tolerate you, and I can tolerate you, but I'm not going to support you and I think that reminds us that we have to fight, that we've known since childhood really, that this was a fight, that justice was a fight. I've never lived one time on this earth believing that this was an equal place, because I am a woman, I was born a girl and I'm black. Okay, and those two things together, whether I was fighting sexism and racism, and sexism, racism all combined it's always been a thing, and it's a reminder that we're not here to live simply and comfortably. We're here to continue to advance justice.
Speaker 3:I really do believe that's our responsibility to look out for other people. You know, am I my brother's keeper? Absolutely? Am I my sister's keeper? Absolutely? That's what makes life worth living. That's what will make this nation great. I would just say, make America great.
Speaker 3:Okay, because we have potential in all of these ideals that we set out, but we don't live out that potential and we never have. And so, rather than spending a lot of time commiserating over what happened last year and all of the raised expectations and flattened hopes, I think it reminds me that we still have a lot of work to do, and we have to start at home, in the city of Detroit, in the neighborhoods that we're in, trying to see what justice looks like here. And the final thing I'll say about that is that you know, the New Deal did not start in DC. The New Deal movement started in little pockets all over the United States. Some of it started right here in the city of Detroit, where Mayor Murphy was actually acting out and creating programs that he then helped model for the White House. And you know, remember that at the time Murphy was mayor of Detroit, he was a Democrat.
Speaker 1:When most black people were Republicans.
Speaker 3:Those programs and that process is what moved black people into the Democratic Party. And so what happens locally between now and the next big elections and the big change? We've got to start at home, trying to demonstrate possibilities of change and really organizing people and getting them engaged, and that is my fight right now.
Speaker 1:While also fighting against the hate as we advance all of these causes. And right now Detroit is hated, especially by people who are from Minnesota and they are Vikings fans. The Detroit Lions clinched the top seat in the NFC after beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-39. They blew those boys out In the final game of the NFL regular season. Detroit and Minnesota were both 14-2 going into the game and each team needed to win to get the top seed and a bye week for the first round of the playoffs. The top seed and a bye week for the first round of the playoffs.
Speaker 1:The Lions defense had one of its best games of the season, stopping the Vikings multiple times in the red zone and on fourth down, only allowing nine points through the fourth quarter. Jamar Gibbs also scored four touchdowns in the game for the Lions. I was on social media. People were like, ok, y'all could sit them down. We good, we good, you know, seat the starters, let the starters rest. Three rushing and one receiving. He set the Lions single season record for total touchdowns this season. The Lions will now have next week off and will have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Lions will face the lowest seed remaining after wildcard weekend during the divisional round and I got on my hoodie today and all of that. I started to put on my jersey but I'm like, no, I got to go to work. I shouldn't wear the jersey to work, but we are excited here in the city of Detroit.
Speaker 1:Personal story my good friend, one of my best friends, who I grew up with right, he happens to be yes, I have a really good friend who works for the NFL. He's the assistant defensive line coach for the Minnesota Vikings. He grew up here in Detroit, he was born in Louisiana and on their way to Detroit, he had a lot of things to say. He had so many things to say like, oh, this is God, I am going to win in my hometown and then I'm going to go to the Super Bowl in the city I was born in. And I was like God must have a sense of humor. I don't know why, you know, I don't know why you believe that, but I let him, you know, talk his junk.
Speaker 1:So when they were getting off of the plane and loading the buses, he sent a photo update. He's like oh, yeah, we're here, we're getting ready to stand on business, and I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything and he's like hey, you want to come to the game Because they get tickets, but they get the worst seats in the house. And so I politely declined because I would not have been able to cheer for the Lions or wear my Lions gear or anything like that. No, I'm not going to be able to make it. Still, I watch, I see him on television. It's always a joy to see him do his thing.
Speaker 1:And then they got blew out. Nine points was the only thing they could score, and two of those were at field goals. Okay, so he always has this thing after they lose. So I let him have a few minutes, just a few. And this morning I said good morning, we love you Always good to see you in your element. Have a fantastic week. I didn't even rub it in like I wanted to, but we out here, we out here, we out here.
Speaker 3:You don't have to rub it in. I have to say that it was really exciting to me on so many levels because this is not just a Detroit team. It's a Detroit team when Detroit teams do really well. Think about the Pistons Bad Boys back in the 80s. When the Bad Boys were beating these other folks in the 80s, it was always such a pleasure because we had this roster of has-beens and people who didn't—.
Speaker 1:They weren't superstars, they weren't considered superstars.
Speaker 3:Individually, they were good. Collectively, we were great. And we were able to go and we were able to beat teams. Michael Jordan was playing for the Bulls and he could not beat the Pistons.
Speaker 3:Not because—you know Isaiah Thomas was not a better point guard than Michael Jordan, but what he was was he's a better team leader and we had that team. I see that in these Lions. I see real teamwork. I see where, if the offense is struggling, that defense steps up. We've seen games where the defense looked like it was on vacation and the offense had to step up, but the reality is that they take care of each other and Jameer Goods had an amazing game. This is a man who was laughed at prior to coming here. Why would the Lions choose him? The national media couldn't understand who he was.
Speaker 1:And they hate us so bad. Nobody had us winning this game.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's okay.
Speaker 1:The commentators. They really don't like us.
Speaker 3:No, they's okay. The commentators, they really don't like us? No, they don't. And you know what they say about us. They say the Lions play dirty. You have to have an explanation for why a team that doesn't have the level of superstardom that you're used to seeing is winning all these games. They say the Lions play dirty. You know what else they said that about.
Speaker 1:The Pistons.
Speaker 3:The Pistons, they call them the bad boys, that's how the bad boys name came about, because when you have teams really playing collectively and you can't figure how to defeat them, then you have to accuse them of cheating or playing dirty, kind of like last January 6th.
Speaker 1:Four years ago Four years ago.
Speaker 3:Four years ago, january 6th. It's this mindset that people have that I should be able to win, and if I can't, then you cheated. And that just makes me all the happier, because it's like stop me.
Speaker 1:It was fun. They spent $2 million on tickets. The Vikings did. The Vikings spent $2 million on tickets for Vikings fans. That didn't help.
Speaker 4:That didn't help.
Speaker 1:Sarah, did you watch?
Speaker 4:I did, of course I did. How are you feeling? I feel great. You feel good, I do.
Speaker 1:We're going to do it, we're going to go all the way, but you don't want us to say it, don't?
Speaker 4:say that we're not going to say it. We're not going to say it. No, I'm very superstitious.
Speaker 1:I won't a whole subset of the nation wins right, because I think that so many people feel seen even if they're not here, even if they're not from here. There's this spirit about us that when we show up, we make people feel seen right, and so I think we are also going to become, and are becoming, america's team Right. America will want us to win, and I think that part is exciting. All right, we got one more story Internal divisions doom Michigan Democrats in their final days of legislative control. This is by Isabella Volkmore and Joey Capoletti at the AP.
Speaker 1:Michigan Democrats, recently, held as a model of electoral and legislative success, ended their final days in complete control of the state government, mired by divisions and outright rebellion that has stalled votes on key priorities. Tensions peaked on December 19th as the state House's top Democrat ordered absent members back and barred the doors, only to reverse course and end the year's legislative session. The chaos erupted after a Democrat joined Republicans in skipping, leaving the chamber without enough members to hold votes. Here's the quote Everything that was on the agenda today in the House is dead. House Speaker Pro Tem Lori Patusky said, told reporters, and the 55 members that did not attend should feel free to own it. The turmoil and fegrim pointing in the final days of the legislative session underscored deep divisions within the Democratic Party on how to move forward After significant setbacks in the November general election. Along with losing control of the statehouse, democrats watched President-elect Donald Trump carry Michigan on his way to another term at the White House and face frequent criticism for not meeting for session more often earlier in the year.
Speaker 1:Here's the other quote. I think that if those needs were prioritized then we would not have seen what happened November 6th said state Senator Sylvia Santana, who boycotted the Senate session on that Wednesday. Democratic Detroit Rep Karen Witsett, who skipped session both Wednesday and Thursday, appeared with Republican Minority Leader Matt Hall on Thursday and took shots at Democratic leadership, a sign of the growing unrest toward and within the party's leadership. Earlier in December, detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a longtime Democrat, announced he was running for governor in 2026 as an independent, in part due to a partisan toxic atmosphere. We've got Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in her second term had also told leaders from both parties that they should not expect her to sign any bills until her priorities are first addressed. Whitmer wants increased funding for economic development projects and road repairs. According to a source who requested anonymity to discuss private matters conversations. I know both of y'all got a lot to say about this. Donna. What say you?
Speaker 3:Nothing good about Karen Whitsett. Let me just say this Mike Duggan's decision to go independent. I think that there are those people who are holding back and Sylvia Santana is one trying to demand progressive change. That is not Karen Whitsett and that's actually not Mike Duggan. Mike Duggan has not led the city as progressive.
Speaker 3:Never, he never pretended to he never pretended to, and so when you have somebody like that going independent, understand what that means for our state. Understand that this is a person who is going to, in his mind, work both sides of the aisle, and both sides of the aisle don't have Detroit's best interest in mind. There's a lot of issues that I'm concerned about with that, and so I don't want and it kind of concerns me that some people are celebrating their defections as if that's going to fix what's wrong, as opposed to them being part of the problem. Nobody had Joe Tate's ear more than Mike Duggan as mayor, who was trying to push the land value tax on the rest of the legislature. Couldn't get it done. He couldn't get it done, but whose idea was that? Whose priority was that? It was not progressive priority, it was Mike Duggan's priority, and so I feel like you know, I mean his police chief, his deputy mayor, became a Republican and he became an independent. These are not the people who are going to help reform the party.
Speaker 3:That said, the Michigan Democratic Party has been problematic for decades. This is not new. It has not adequately represented the needs and interests of people who are at the most vulnerable in our society, and it has not put forth the best leaders over these decades, and so I think it does give us an opportunity to think about revamping the party and really having some requirements for what it means to be a Democrat. You can't just call yourself a Democrat and do things that are in conflict with what most Democratic voters want to see. We've got to define what that is.
Speaker 3:The thing about Republicans is like them or hate them. I hate them for the most part. They're very clear on what they stand for and what they will not stand for, and I don't think that really being that rigid and punishing people and functioning more like a gang than a political party is the answer. But I think it's the lack of clarity up and down the aisle that says these are the things we're going to stand for in this state and these are the things we are going to collectively promote. These are the things we're going to stand for in this state and these are the things we are going to collectively promote.
Speaker 3:I think those things are missing. I know that we have looked at reproductive freedom as one of the things that we're going to collectively promote, but I can't think of a whole lot of other things that differentiate us from, you know, independents or Republicans? I think that not collectively. Individually, we've got some great legislators, but I don't think that we have a collective will, and I think that this is an opportunity for us to build it, starting in Detroit. Sarah, what say you?
Speaker 4:Well, I'm looking at this mostly from the perspective of what Detroiters wanted, who are overwhelmingly Democratic in terms of their votes right and who vote for Democratic policymakers, and their main priorities are housing, utilities and transportation. And the legislature had a lot of time not just in the final days, but a lot of time to deliver on those priorities and did not. And I do think that we have to have an honest conversation. Reporters need to report on this more and I think that at the community level we need to have more productive conversations about the role of corporate goals and how those conflict with some of the goals of Detroiters, the goals of Detroiters.
Speaker 4:Utilities, you know, utility reform cannot happen if legislators are afraid of making DTE and consumers unhappy. Right, transportation reform cannot happen if Democratic legislators are afraid of making the insurance, the auto insurance industry, unhappy because Detroiters still pay the highest rates in the nation for auto insurance. And you know. Also, housing, I think that is less of a clear. There's not one corporate interest that is on the side of, you know, less housing supply and less affordable Banking and real estate.
Speaker 4:But well, that's not like one corporate. It's not like one company, right, like DTE or Allstate or something like that. Right, it's a more diffuse set of interests, but it's the same kind of similar problem in that we are. These legislators seem to be willing to not act on the things that people sent them to Lansing to do in order to appease a set of economic and corporate interests. And I think when you there's a lot of dialogue about that, right, like you hear that all the time, right, like corporate interests are ruining government, about that right, like you hear that all the time, right, like corporate interests are ruining government. But this is a very clear, very non-conspiratorial example of what that means and what that looks like. Right, so the Democratic Party was sent to Lansing by Detroiters and doesn't really-.
Speaker 1:With the trifecta for the first time in 40 years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, doesn't deliver on some of these very clear priorities, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean I don't know that they are very clear, to be honest with you, because I don't know that people have taken a lot of time organizing Detroiters and really helping to articulate their issues. I looked at one study that came out of U of M recently and I talked to them and they sent me the study and said what's the biggest issue that you want to see government solve Crime. We paid for that study, but I'm just saying crime.
Speaker 1:It's like we see what you're saying.
Speaker 3:They said safety, safety. But you know, when I talk to Detroiters, that does not rise to the top. I hear housing issues more than anything, the fact that housing did not take a more prominent position, the fact that homelessness did not take a more prominent position, because I think there's a whole lot of Detroiters that nobody's talking to and I actually asked them about it and I know that you paid for it. I asked them about, like, what is your methodology? How do you get people? Well, them about like, what is your methodology? How do you get people? Well, we go to households. What about people?
Speaker 3:If you go to a household and I'm the head of the household, you're talking to me. If you go to a household and my sister and her five adult children are living with me, you're not talking to them. There's invisibility in the process. I think we've got to do a better job of making invisible people visible and making them want to vote, because we have such low voter turnout rates and I think when I talk to people who vote, a lot of times their votes are on things that they don't have a clear agenda in their own mind of what they want to see happen. They may think housing is a good thing, but I don't know that most Detroiters have a clear set of goals.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm not sure. I think that these goals are not mutually exclusive. So a few things about that study. It was 1,100 Detroiters. That is a really large sample where these kind of studies are concerned. So I don't think that it's that the sample was not the right sample. We also checked the demographics and it was a very representative sample of Detroiters, so you had homeless.
Speaker 4:Detroiters. I don't know that those folks are at homeless Detroiters are not included, but that you do not need to not have. But many people who have insecure housing are included.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm just saying that in my work with the community I did raise that and I got different responses. I think that that represents a certain type of person in our city and I think there's a lot of people who are just politically invisible. So I'm not necessarily criticizing. I think that we can't really get to those people because we don't know how.
Speaker 4:I think that that's a separate issue from whether or not people are sent so, people caring about safety because they did not say crime. They said safety, that they want to feel safe. And there's a really important distinction between people having safety as a priority for policymakers in particular, and and saying crime, Because safety does include things like housing, like neighborhood stability. Right, If you go deeper into those questions, which we do, you know and ask like, well, what would make you feel safer? That's a question that people do not get asked enough. No, they don't.
Speaker 3:But you know, when I saw that study, I thought this is going to reaffirm everything Duggan's going to do put more money in the police, put more money in, you know, in green light, because I think a lot of people don't interpret it that way.
Speaker 3:And so I hear what you're saying and I think safety is broad. And I'm not meaning to criticize the study. I'm meaning to say that I think there are a lot of people who are not heard and I think that the process of hearing those people can't be through that mechanism. I think we've got to do and by we, we, my organization, has got to do more street outreach. We've got to go to places where people don't show up and talk to people who will not answer the door. There's so many people off the grid who are not heard and I don't think that that can be fixed unless people are willing to do the work of talking to them. And that's the broken politics that I see. And it's not because when I talk to people I mean look, duggan has won how many times as mayor?
Speaker 3:And yet his agenda has not reflected the agenda of most Detroiters. So if you say we sent him to you know downtown and he's not reflecting that, most city council people aren't? We actually work to get a city council person elected from our district and the actions and behavior of that city council person at the city council table is not what people in this community expected.
Speaker 1:I also think we have to delineate the electorate from the citizen.
Speaker 1:There is an electorate base here in the city of Detroit that votes in municipal elections, that votes in national elections and in regional elections. Right, and the wants and needs and the organizing of the electorate, I think is vastly different than organizing citizens. Donna, you said it earlier, we can't even get enough people out, we can't even turn out the folks to vote, and so conversation to be continued, but we'll continue it when we come back, because we have more with Sarah Alvarez. When we come back. I want to talk to her about, uh, the impetus for starting outlier, the sms system, more about the research and all of that. We'll be right back with the founder and editor-at-large of outlier media, sarah alvarez have you always dreamed of being on the airwaves?
Speaker 5:Well, the Detroit Eastside Engaged Podcast Network, or DEEP for short, is here to make that dream a reality. Located inside the Stoudemire, the DEEP Network offers studio space and production staff to help get your podcast idea off the ground. Doesn't take a whole lot of work to get started. Just visit the Authentically Detroit page at ecn-detroitorg or call Sarah at 313-948-0344.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone. Sarah Alvarez believes the best local reporting is a service in response directly to community needs and reduces harm. In 2016, outlier Media began as Text Outlier, a texting service delivering critical information to Detroiters, allowing people to connect directly with the reporter. As of today, this enhanced service allows our newsroom to better serve Detroiters, connecting them to information and resources they need in areas including housing, utilities, income support, employment, food and transportation. Income support, employment, food and transportation. Detroiters can text in at any time to get an immediate automated info, look up property details or get individual help. By texting reporter, they can connect with an outlier journalist who may follow up with a phone conversation. The new system is more intuitive for users and improves internal workflows and communication. The outlier newsroom can now track and analyze emerging accountability gaps, manage much larger amounts of data and conversations, measure impact and user satisfaction, and continue to expand both automated and individualized information offerings. Donna, you wanted to follow up on our previous comment.
Speaker 3:I did Just real quickly. I just wanted to say I think that when you look at a lot of people who vote in Detroit and I think just differentiating voters from citizens is super important, because I think people who vote a lot of times are people who have the most privileged people within a community right, there are people who want to see their tax rates go down. Their property taxes are too high and they own homes. Or there are people who want to see their neighborhoods made more safe, or there are people who want to see their neighborhoods made more safe and I mean everybody wants to live in safety. But I think a lot of times the people I'm hearing they're trying to look at housing values increasing that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:And then I talked to a whole nother set of people who are just trying to find a place to live, who are trying to find a school for their children, and their basic needs aren't being met.
Speaker 3:And we don't have people, we don't have a real basic needs agenda that is part of any party in our state.
Speaker 3:It's almost as though we're speaking to middle class or workers. There's these groups. We put people in and you know, when people talk about workers, I say they're not talking about cafeteria workers. They're not talking about necessarily the food service or the janitorial workers. They're really talking about people who are occupying higher wage status, with union benefits and things of that nature, so unaccountable because there's just nobody speaking on behalf of large segments of our population in policymakers' ears and actually helping to promote them. I think that's a fix, and so I think once we identify who those people are and bring them together, we can improve the quality of feedback that is collected in surveys, because we have figured out how to reach them. And that's one of my goals is to do a better job of reaching out to people who don't show up here for meetings, who don't come here for dinners, who don't bring their kids here for afterschool programs, which is probably most of the community right and so we sort of reach out to.
Speaker 3:We're really good at connecting with people who are the easy people to touch Returning citizens, homeless people, people who are the easy people to touch Returning citizens, homeless people, people who are dealing with substance abuse issues and other kinds of real critical issues don't show up in most of our conversations in any real way. In my opinion and I'm not blaming any source I'm saying all of us have to come together and figure out how to make them more visible in our work.
Speaker 3:And you're doing a great job. So I do want to say like, your texting service is amazing. How do I get more people using it?
Speaker 2:How do I make more people aware of it, so that it's not something that people in the know use.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Well, it's not designed to be that. That the way that the text message system, which is called Text Outlier, works is. It was designed the way it was designed to deal with the same problem that you were talking about earlier with unresponsive politics, right? So all people, all groups of people, especially powerful people, have a tendency to want to stick to those people who show up, who want to be accountable just to the people who are right in front of them. That is true for politicians and that is true for reporters and people who work in news organizations. It is the responsibility of politicians and representatives and this is what I was saying earlier like it is their responsibility to deal with the needs of the community and the needs that the community articulates, even if those are not the people who show up to vote. Right, like that's a patronage system versus an actual democracy. That's representative, and that's true in news, too, right?
Speaker 4:Most news organizations only really meet the needs of people who already read their papers, magazines, listen to their shows, because those are the people that they're in community with, right, for lack of a better term, that's like who they have their feedback loops with, and there's a tendency of those folks to kind of double down on people who already are there rather than try to expand and reach actual needs. Right, and it's so easy to once you're in, that, once you've started, that it's really easy to trick yourself that you are meeting the needs of a bigger group of people. Right, like you will hear I'm sure you all hear this in podcasts right, you get a lot of positive feedback. You get some negative feedback too, but if you are looking to feel like you're doing a about data again to make sure that you are meeting needs of the entire community, not just focusing on needs that you feel like you can meet, right, or you should meet, I mean it's true with community development too.
Speaker 3:Right, Absolutely.
Speaker 4:It's true in everything.
Speaker 3:It's true in everything you do. I think you're raising a really good point right. We serve people well who show up here, sure, and that's part of your job.
Speaker 3:That's part of our job, but another part of our job is to expand the universe of people who show up. But I also think that if we were all doing our jobs in partnership with each other, we'd all do a better job right. In partnership with each other, we'd all do a better job right. So if politicians were working with us and we're working with politicians to better understand needs, that would be better. If we were taking the tools that you have and making sure people have access to them, we broaden them. If you were sharing with people what we do, you broaden our, and so I think how do we as a community come together? And I think you're doing a really great job. So I also want to start there. Like you were doing some stuff, getting some information, and now I know that you're using your outlier tech service. Is that what it is, to also push information to people about how to get their needs met?
Speaker 4:We always have, and it was the, so I started outlier in 2016.
Speaker 1:Yes, give us the origin story.
Speaker 4:Well, it's short. I started Outlier in 2016 because I was a public radio reporter and I was very unsatisfied with how public radio in particular is called public radio, but it is not focused on a big set like a big tent of who's in the public. It's really focused on pretty high income and pretty loyal listeners. That is not something I knew about public media before I worked in it and I was very disappointed, and so Outlier was designed to say what would really public media look like? What would it look like if we were truly looking at the information needs of the public and then working as hard as we can to meet those needs? A text message system was the first product, because people don't want to read your stories. They're not interested. It's too long, they're not useful.
Speaker 1:It's such an interesting way to start right. You didn't start with writing stories, you didn't start with the newsroom, you started with the text.
Speaker 4:Right, because a story is actually like a very poor mechanism to deliver information. It requires you to be calm, it requires you to have time, it requires you to go through something and pick out what you need, rather than you tell someone what you need, right. So we looked at United Way's 211 service, for example, and that is a place where people call in and they tell the United Way what they need most.
Speaker 4:They say I most need help with paying my electric bill, I most need help finding affordable housing. So we took that data and we started there, and so we only worked on housing first, because we was not we, it was just me. So it was only me and I had a limited ability to, you know, provide a service as one person. But what we were able to do if we didn't worry about a story necessarily was to say, okay, well, reporters can go out and find information that people needed, and in 2016, what people needed to know is, if they were at risk of tax auction, what to do about it, and especially if they were renters and they were living in a home where the owner was being foreclosed and had no incentive to tell them.
Speaker 1:I remember that word.
Speaker 4:It was terrible times.
Speaker 1:I was here and we were dealing with that here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and, like those owners, had an incentive to keep that information from ren, if their property has been foreclosed, and then be able to ask a reporter. Does that mean I still need to pay?
Speaker 2:rent.
Speaker 4:No, that is a way that reporters can create accountability. That's actually so much more effective than writing a big expose and a very long article about tax foreclosure.
Speaker 1:You had a hard time, right.
Speaker 4:I mean because folks would say I mean I've done my share of the other one of the like long articles.
Speaker 1:But is that journalism right? That's what folks you know.
Speaker 4:That was a huge question. People felt like it was advocacy, but it's not. I am not an advocate, as you can tell by my like total silence during your conversation on politics and my discomfort with that, but I am not.
Speaker 4:I've learned how to flirt in and out, but journalists are often afraid of advocacy and so afraid that they're unwilling to create valuable information that someone could use to act Right, and that's very different, right? So if one thing that I like to say about information gaps is that, like, information gaps are where accountability goes to die and misinformation goes to breed, and so an information gap is. For example, it's very hard to figure out who owns your home, and if you can't figure out who owns your home, then you don't know who you should really be paying money to, and you, as one individual person, can't hold your rent back from someone who is not owed it, but you know what Fake landlords In my world we do call that advocacy right Because you aren't making.
Speaker 3:It's not political advocacy but it's knowledge advocacy. It's making sure people understand their rights. Know your rights is a huge advocacy approach.
Speaker 4:It's not really a right. It's more like closing an information gap.
Speaker 3:for me it's closing an information gap that will equip people with the tools to understand their status, and it's directed towards people who are marginalized, and so I think that journalism can be. I mean, all journalism advocates for something right, whether it's the Wall Street Journal or it's.
Speaker 4:I don't know that, I don't think it does. I will push back on that. I think that what I would like to see is that reporters have an accurate understanding of what needs are in the community. I think where many journalists become advocates is that they decide what someone's need is. They decide what the priority issue is in a community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I guess we just disagree with definitions of advocacy, because I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 3:I think if I'm working with people in the community and they come to me and they say I'm in need of this and I help them get that, then I'm advocating for them by helping them meet their needs. I'm not pushing an agenda on them, but I am being an advocate, whether it is getting you the information you need or helping you know where to find it. That's how in our sector, we call advocacy not maybe in the sectors I think everybody has a different understanding of it, but I meant it in that respect that there's an audience you're trying to reach and share information that will equip them with something Right, and whether it is a cooking audience and you're just equipping them with recipes and where to get the food, or it is a cooking audience and you're just equipping them with recipes and where to get the food, or it is a business audience and you're equipping them with information about what's going on, all of what we're doing is equipping people with something. You are equipping people who have been left out of this information thing.
Speaker 2:Ecosystem.
Speaker 3:Ecosystem. Thank you With the kind of knowledge that they can use to better their lives.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the text message system is really not meant to equip people. It's meant to be responsive to their needs. The documenters program that we run, which we can talk about later or another time.
Speaker 2:Don't talk about it.
Speaker 4:That's a program where we train and pay Detroiters to go to city, county and community meetings, to take notes at those meetings and to publish those. Those notes are then edited by a variety of different newsrooms here in the city and then those notes are published and put into the public record. But what documenters also do is help be the eyes and ears for the entire community, help keep eyes on all these bodies and make sure that they're working in the public interest. That is a program where we really are equipping people, we're not just informing them. And the responsiveness that I was talking about with the text message system is really because I think that if you're coming from a community organization and you are meeting needs every day, then you have like we're starting from different places In the news ecosystem.
Speaker 4:Most news organizations have failed so completely at doing anything of value that advocacy is so far down the road right. That advocacy is so far down the road right. It's also something that we don't do because it's not something that we. It's unethical for us to advocate too strongly, and so that's like part of the reason why we don't advocate and don't use the word.
Speaker 4:Right, but it's also that when you're if you're you know when I was starting a news organization from scratch, what I wanted to do was build the most valuable thing first and also show that news organizations could be built in a different way, that they would always be working to provide value. Because, again, so many news organizations have just failed. They may still exist, they may still be in business, but what are they really doing for you If you consume all of the content that they have? How are you better? What do you know? How to do more?
Speaker 3:But that's kind of what I was saying that you're trying to help people be better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're trying to first be responsive.
Speaker 3:Right by being responsive. You're trying to help people be better by being responsive to their information needs.
Speaker 4:I was trying to build a news organization. That could be better by being responsive, first by saying what are the needs and then, if we identify the big information gaps in these areas, is there a way that we could fill them? And then is there, how would we do that in a way that makes it so easy for people to use the information right? I think that information is most valuable when it, when it's easy to use right, when you don't really have to like look at it and be like, well, what should I do? You mostly know so what is the what is your success story.
Speaker 3:I mean, what is your what? How do you measure the success of this work?
Speaker 4:Well, we measure it in a lot of different ways. We measure it in people saving money, first and foremost, right, like if you did not pay rent to the person who did not own your home, that is a huge success for you and for us that's an accountability win. We measure it in the number of people that we reach. We have a list of about 700,000 people that have used Outlier's text message service since it began. That's pretty incredible, right? That's what we want to see. That's what news organizations should really aim for is like a big swath of the public can interact with you. Maybe those aren't your most, you know they're not reading the stories that you do every day. They don't know all of the reporters there and feel like they're a part of the family, but if they need something they know they can get it from you. That's actually what we want. So we look at success that way. And then we look at success by focusing, in our case, other news organizations and elected officials, on the daily concerns of Detroiters. So we want to help elevate the needs of people, right? That's why we pay all this money to do these surveys, so that it's very hard for people to turn away from that information to say, like, oh, I'm sure housing's fine now.
Speaker 4:Like no, people are still saying we need help with housing. Like, oh, I'm sure housing's fine now. Like no, people are still saying we need help with housing, right. People are still saying we want lower utility rates. People are still saying, even if legislators in Lansing have forgotten about it, detroiters are still saying I really want my auto insurance lowered. It's not fair and these are the ways that it's affecting me. The text message system and journalism in general can't meet all of is not a good way to address all of these things, and auto insurance is a really good example of that. No amount of information about how unfair auto insurance rates are here in this city is enough to change it.
Speaker 1:We've done it. We've put out so much information.
Speaker 4:Oh my, God, so many words.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I myself have written so many words on auto insurance and it's not enough, because people do not have any option, right? You either pay that money or you put yourself at risk of getting an extremely expensive ticket or going to jail. That's not a choice. Or you don't drive Again here in Detroit. That's not a choice. So we do have to be really thoughtful about how we use our resources, because as much of a priority as insurance is and we will not let that issue go we have to be able to use the text message system to deliver information that people can really use. So that's why we focus so much on housing and that's why we connect people so directly to reporters. Anybody can use the system and like talk to a reporter right off the bat, basically if they have a question that we can't answer. Somebody texted in today medical records. I was like what are you talking about, right? I'm not sure what they need, but I followed up and asked them well, what is it that you need, right?
Speaker 3:And I'm not a social worker, nobody in the staff is, but if it's an information problem we can help them or we can connect I hear you, but I just want to say that's what a lot of people who are not social workers do when they're supporting people, and so I want to honor that. And advocacy journalism, I think, is a thing. It may not be your thing, but I think it is a thing. I think that every single news organization has a point of view, whether or not they openly acknowledge it or pretend that they're objective. They have audiences they're trying to reach and they have communications that they're trying to somehow a communication gap they're trying to fill.
Speaker 3:And I think the problem is that unless people are intentional about filling information gaps for poor people, for black people, for Latino people, for other people who are marginalized in our community, then they just get left out.
Speaker 3:And so I think that being intentional about we're going to reach out to these underserved people who are not communicated with so they know what they need, is essential to an effective democracy and effective community, because otherwise what ends up happening is it's like what is it right if you don't know you have it? What is if you don't know that you have this right, or you don't know how to exercise this right? You don't have it at all, and it is equipping people with by being responsive, with what they need in order to reduce their budgets or whatever they do. It's really, really important, and I think looking at it as journalism is new to me and I think it is to a lot of people. And I also think it's important for me to understand that when somebody is posting stock market information, they're helping other people, right, they know who they're helping. I don't think it's different.
Speaker 4:I think it's different only because it's not done as often and you innovated in that way, yeah, and I think that that is another reason why I really pushed back against that advocacy thing, because really, when people were asking me this isn't really journalism, this is advocacy, they were doing it to belittle the work that I is advocacy. They were doing it to belittle the work that I was doing. They were doing it to ghettoize the work that I was doing, to say like this isn't even journalism.
Speaker 3:Is that real journalism?
Speaker 4:It's not real, and what I want to say is if you aren't doing this, I don't know what you're doing. You are doing some kind of work that is stock market quotes. Why don't you go? Do that? Right. But if you want to do journalism, if you want to be a reporter, if you want to work in public media, then it is your job to serve the public and this is the way that you serve the public.
Speaker 1:I appreciate your clarification. Can I ask you this question as Outlier is getting ready to turn nine years old? How does it feel to be you?
Speaker 4:Well, I feel a lot more relaxed that I'm not the editor-in-chief anymore. This was the first Christmas and New Year's vacation where I did not work the whole time. Yeah, so I am really proud of what we have built together with Detroiters. I am still really hungry to continue to deliver on the promise of this kind of work, to make sure that we do an even better job. Understanding needs asking. So after that first survey where people said what I want is to feel safe, we're doing another survey that says what would you?
Speaker 2:need to feel safe.
Speaker 4:Because we have to have better information if we are going to deliver on it.
Speaker 1:On our service Right.
Speaker 4:So I still really want to see us reach more people. I want to see more people using the system and knowing that that's a place that you can turn right that if you have a problem. One of the data sources that I used, especially in the beginning, to find what people's needs were, was using 911 calls and using non-emergency 911 calls. So people across the city, despite the poor response times, will call 911 for all kinds of non-emergency meeting like reasons because there's just not someone else that they know how to call. Right, who else would you call? That is a place where you should use the text message system right. That's what I want to see people say Like something is wrong here. It's not an emergency.
Speaker 3:I'm going to use the text message system and a journalist might help me, you know one day I went to city council and this was years ago and I was sitting in the office waiting to meet with a council person and Linda Wesley, who's now in the ombudsman's office was working at the front desk.
Speaker 1:She's famous there.
Speaker 3:And so she was sitting at the front desk and she was getting calls about dog bites. She was getting calls about downed wires and I was listening to her. She was like this. I was like who is this woman? She's amazing because she's taking the time out to explain to everything, and almost none of this was council business, and that speaks to people needing a place to call and not knowing where. And the ombudsman office is one place, but I think what I'm hearing is that Outlier Tech Service is another place that provides a broader array of information to people that the ombudsman office can't touch because they don't have information about who owns this home and all of that other kind of stuff. I think it's extremely important. I'm really excited about seeing the growth, especially now that you have a new executive director.
Speaker 4:Oh, I know, Can we talk about that?
Speaker 3:for a minute.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 4:And let me say also that the thing about the ombudsman's office not being able to address that is also. That is the city, so it and you know the city does a lot of good. The city also has a set of interests to protect Right, and so perhaps the city is not best positioned to create accountability for every issue. But journalists who are doing their job that is what is special about us, right Is that we can get that information and we can say wow, it really looks like somebody is not doing their job. It looks like this is a bigger problem. We need to get more eyes on this. We need to tell everybody about this so that collectively, we can address this issue, and that's when it becomes a news story.
Speaker 3:Well, that is, or investigative story, For us, that's true. So I want to hear about this new executive director.
Speaker 1:This is not on my list of questions.
Speaker 3:It's on my list. I have my own.
Speaker 1:What do you want to know?
Speaker 3:I mean, you know how has the transition been to executive director? You're working with a visionary leader who is really trying to take journalism to new places in our city, right? So talk about that.
Speaker 1:I would say this that the foreshadowing of even before I got to Outlier was always there. I would run into Sarah and Candace at Tech Town. I would see the work that they were doing. I always respected it. But I also saw a lot of the struggle when I and I'm still doing this hosting Urban Consulate. I had the opportunity to invite Candice for a one-on-one for Urban Consulate and Confidential to just talk about Outlier, to talk about the work.
Speaker 1:And it was a fascinating fun and beautiful conversation, still having no idea that I would one day end up there. But I ended up at a news organization that Outlier helped to found. They were at the table that created Bridge Detroit and loaned its model to Bridge Detroit, and so I got the opportunity to sort of work out the outlier model in many respects at Bridge Detroit, and so to have been asked to come on at outlier was a privilege that I could not pass up. I had the opportunity to do some overlap with Candace Fortman. Candace Fortman was so generous in her time with me and showing me the ropes, showing me around, introducing me to all of the important players internally and externally, and that time was beautiful. I think that we could package that up and tell people how executive transition should go. It was regenerative, it was useful, it was great. There was no power struggle. It was done in so much love and with so much intention. There was no power struggle. It was done in so much love and with so much intention.
Speaker 1:Seven months into this, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. We're raising money. That's good. That's always good, because we want I-Lighter not only to turn nine but to turn 10 and 11 and be around as long as we are needed Right and it's been. It's been a really generative journey. My colleagues have been my teachers up into this point and having the opportunity to govern the way that I govern Right With love and intention especially love for Detroiters first is has been a great privilege. I love going to work every day. I was, I was there all day today. Sarah don't work on Monday, so she don't know.
Speaker 3:When he first got there I said how is it? And he talked about loving the people and the culture People are wonderful, and so when you build a culture of good people, that's always so exciting. And that was his take.
Speaker 1:The first day. The first day, I called him. That's so nice. And I said how's it going?
Speaker 4:That's a great mentor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I want to talk about something else, though, because you took an unusual pathway into journalism.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:And so can you talk about that pathway and how it prepared you to be in the current position? Well, I started everybody knows this.
Speaker 1:I started in community development. I went to school for journalism and came home to a bankrupt Detroit and nobody was hiring anybody. The feedback that I kept getting was I need to go to a smaller market. Nobody starts in Detroit, right?
Speaker 4:That's a terrible thing to say. It's really.
Speaker 1:That was the feedback that I was getting from. I don't have to name the sources and I refused to leave Good for you.
Speaker 1:And Maggie DeSantis, who I had known since I was 11 years old, was still president and CEO of Eastside Community Network and I called her and I said I don't know what I'm going to do. She was like, come work for me and I spent eight years, almost nine years, here at ECN doing all kinds of jobs but really, really crystallizing, I think, my skill set, not only in community development, not only community organizing and outreach, reaching those folks that Donna talked about, but nonprofit management. Right. When I left here I was Donna's number two, right, and Donna trusted so much of her vision of the organization to me to run with, without a lot of supervision, with a whole lot of leeway, and I think that experience overprepared me for the position that I have now and it's been a joy. It's been a joy.
Speaker 3:Wouldn't it be great if all journalists started in the community? Right, I do think it's so important right.
Speaker 4:I started as a lawyer. That was my first career. What kind of lawyer? Civil rights, and it's the thing that is so valuable development. It is that client-centered approach. It's really not about you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what we think should happen Exactly.
Speaker 4:And news and journalism have become too much about what the reporters are interested in.
Speaker 3:Orlando's always been very good at that. So I have a story to tell. Oh gosh, when he got here, okay, we can go.
Speaker 3:But I'm going to tell this story. He got here and he's well-known and he's in the community and so one of the first grants I got was a KIPD grant. And we got these funds and they enabled us to do a really nice project. And so somehow somebody thought it was a really good idea to put Orlando on an advisory committee or something to revamp the KIPD process, an advisory committee or something to revamp the KIPTE process. And he sits on this advisory committee and he excitedly comes back and tells me that he's convinced the Kresge Foundation that they should not give money to organizations like ours. They should give money to organizations in the community that don't typically have access. And I said thank you, Orlando, Thank you very much, We'll be fine. That's right. Okay, you know, not putting the organization first, that's right. But really it was a real shift in our work from us really centering our success on our fundraising to our success in the growth of our community, when it wasn't us and when it was us.
Speaker 3:I love that. So it really did take us to a whole new level and, rather than shrinking our pie, it expanded Our expanded vision that we're here to equip other people with stuff. Took away this why should we give money to you when you're competing with everybody? Well, we're giving away some of that money to everybody too. We are not in competition with our community, with our neighbors, and it really is a way to exist inside of a community without trying to conquer it.
Speaker 4:That's exactly right.
Speaker 3:Conquest mindset.
Speaker 4:Right, and it's also so difficult, and something that your predecessor, candice Fortman, was so good at and that you're also so good at is really trying to have an abundance mindset in a industry that was built on Scarcity Pretending that there was scarcity.
Speaker 4:And pretending, built on pretending that there was scarcity and encouraging competition, which again makes you really believe in scarcity even when it doesn't exist. But that is not the way, like you said, to be in community right. Like to create scarcity, to create competition is not the way to be a local news organization. Create competition is not the way to be a local news organization and I think that that's why the innovations in news are coming locally and why some of the most disappointing things that are happening in news are happening nationally.
Speaker 4:And it's why Outlier is a national North Star and model. But we will never leave here.
Speaker 3:Well, it absolutely has to be national right Because, as we talked about, everything good starts local.
Speaker 2:That's right. I believe that right.
Speaker 3:The.
Speaker 1:New Deal.
Speaker 3:And then it becomes national. I think it's hard to differentiate between local news and national news when two or three organizations own everything. Talk about it, and so you know. Okay, you're not Knight Ritter, but you are Knight Ritter. You are not, and I'm not meaning to dump on anybody, but you have to understand that the corporate entities that control these things have an agenda, and that's the reason I say although I understand the distinction you've made that they're all advocating for something, they're all pushing an agenda, although they pretend to be objective. You read these things and it's like okay, I kind of get where you're coming from. When the bankruptcy happened, how many news organizations came out and said I mean, we had people winning prizes. That's insane For celebrating the destruction of our whole community. In many ways, oh, don't, don't.
Speaker 3:And people who are coming back and being remembered and saying, hey, look what we did. This bankruptcy was so healthy for us. Don't get me started. And without looking at the losses, and that's what I mean by-.
Speaker 1:The material losses the material losses.
Speaker 4:It's that you do so we have talked about needing to be responsive and the fact that that's what the text message system is built to do, but the other thing-.
Speaker 1:How do folks get in it? We haven't given it. We've done very bad promotion. Yes, we've done a really bad promotion, which I'm famous for Text Detroit to 67485 to opt into the text outlier system. Text Detroit to 67485.
Speaker 4:Standard rates apply. So you know, yeah, and you can text Detroit. You can text an address to that number, 67485. You can text medical records to that number.
Speaker 2:Don't send us your medical records.
Speaker 4:You can send the word medical records and, like, we will see it and we will get back to you. A reporter on the team will get back to you, will connect directly with you or, most likely, you'll be able to have your needs met through information that our reporters have already put into the text message system to deal with the most common questions, because we've been doing this since 2016,. We are very good at figuring out what people generally need and pre-populating that with extremely short answers that are, that's, most likely to direct folks to where they need to get. What I was going to say about being responsive is it's not just about being responsive, which is incredibly important, and again, number one, what news organizations should do. It's also about trying to prevent harm. News organizations are far too comfortable covering harm and not trying to intervene with it, and I think that would also get me labeled as an advocate. But again, I want to push back on that and say again like if information can interrupt harm, it should.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we don't have that much time and I apologize, we can talk to you.
Speaker 2:We can talk to you forever, sarah, so I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 3:I just have one more little story right. There was a local newspaper actually two local newspapers that are Detroit dailies. They were working with the Thompson Foundation and the Skilman Foundation and some other folks about 15 years ago. They were trying to figure out how to facilitate school reform in the city of Detroit. So you would have the editorial page editors of these posting articles about these Thompson schools and how university prep was a model school for the city of Detroit, even though at the time Cass Tech and Renaissance High School and don't let me forget, dsa were. I can't do that in these rooms.
Speaker 1:I was waiting.
Speaker 3:I know you and so, and King, even though they were outperforming them on every metric, you had these repetitive news stories that preceded the EAA, that preceded the emergency management, and everything that then was recognized, about 10 years after that, as being problematic. But they let it happen, and so you cannot pretend to me that your objective, when I know you're at this table helping to try to push a public policy. Yeah, that's terrible.
Speaker 4:We would never do such a thing.
Speaker 3:But they do it all the time. You cannot convince me based on me knowing this and I was invited to the table before they decided I was way too much of a rabble rouser to be sitting at their tables. I was told. One of my program officers told me to stop talking. That didn't work. But I'm just saying that it's important to me to just level the playing field. Quit acting like you're neutral when you're not.
Speaker 3:Not you, not you For sure, but I'm talking about all these organizations that try to diminish your brand by saying that what you are advocating for is truth and justice. If you're advocating for any needs of Detroiters through a lens of truth and justice. And if they're not doing that, then they are actually helping to support other things, and we know that corporate media has a tendency to promote corporate agendas, even though we don't always want to call that out.
Speaker 1:And we can talk about and I've talked about this very publicly and often about the fallacy of neutrality and objectivity. There's a wonderful book called.
Speaker 4:If people are interested in this particular conversation, there's a wonderful book by Lewis Wallace who is from Michigan.
Speaker 1:Lewis Wallace from Michigan. It's a book by Lewis Wallace, who is from Michigan. Lewis Wallace from Michigan.
Speaker 4:It's a wonderful book and it's called the View From Somewhere, and it's all about the fallacy of objectivity in journalism, and it's like the first book that Outlier is ever in. So that's also.
Speaker 1:We're in there, sarah Alvarez. We have to go. I'm sure we love talking to you, yeah, so you have to come back, thank you so much for being our first guest of 2025.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, thank you, you are our first guest.
Speaker 1:It's really good to see you.
Speaker 4:And I do hope that everybody listening to this just tries it out and texts the word Detroit to the number 67485 and see how that system works and see which of your neighbors would most benefit from it, samaya, would be so proud of you.
Speaker 3:We'd love to bring you here to a community meeting.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd love to come.
Speaker 3:Where you can listen, have some conversations make sure everybody there is equipped with that information, because if we put that number in the hands of more people, we're going to see more justice in our community. You're doing amazing work.
Speaker 1:Absolutely down for that.
Speaker 3:Not just because Orlando's working in there, but you're doing it. I've been a fan ever since the story about the-.
Speaker 1:Fake landlords.
Speaker 3:No, it was the overtaxation. That $600 million in overtaxation, yeah, christine McDonald.
Speaker 4:Christine.
Speaker 3:Detroit legend. Yes, and I had an opportunity, I think, to sit in the room with you and Candice and Christine and I was like, wow, look at these people actually doing good things with the news. I loved it, so I've been a longtime fan, Thank you.
Speaker 1:If you have topics that you want discussed on Authentically Detroit. I just have to end it because we will keep going. You can hit us up on our socials at Authentically Detroit, on Facebook, instagram and Twitter, or you can email us at authenticallydetroit at gmailcom. All right, it is time for shout outs. Donna, let's start with you. You have any shout outs? Your whole team in the big old room. I saw a whole team.
Speaker 3:Listen, I want to shout out ECN. The team did a couple of things that are really special. We were closed between Christmas and New Year's and today really, I mean between the 20th and today and so we started hearing from some of our community that it was going to be really hard for them over the holidays to not have access to our building because this is part of their support system and holidays can be so hard on people.
Speaker 3:So I said, okay, how about this? How about we recruit staff to come in and volunteer for five hours on the Monday, thursday and Friday surrounding the holidays both weeks and we'll give each of the people who does that $200 bonus. So all of the days were filled up and I thought that was great. That's amazing. But what I didn't know is the amount of effort people made. We had people coming in and cooking full meals for the community, serving them, passing out gifts, collecting stuff. We had some of our instructors our house dance instructors coming together and donating food, and so not only did they come and open the door, they served and gave love to the community over the holidays.
Speaker 3:And I just want to thank the ECN staff for the amount of love that they expressed to people who needed us and they were there. And I don't think it was just the $200. I mean, certainly it doesn't help, but I think people really felt good about it because they were posting on our chat, our internal chat. Look at these pictures about what we did. They were excited about it. I thought that was really good. So I love our team and I'm really happy to be back at work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sarah, you have any shout outs? Go Lions, go Lions. Yeah, and I will shout out Sarah Alvarez for being here. I'm really happy, I know. I am really really happy to have you here. It's been fun sitting in the presence of two large visionaries here in the city of Detroit who not only love Detroit but love Detroit's people so very much. It's always fun, so thank y'all. This was so generous and it felt good. It felt good. So with that, the first episode of 2025 is in the can. We thank you so much for listening. Love on your neighbor. We'll see you next time. Outro Music.
