Transcript
Josie Shaw
Welcome to the first episode of From Dusk to Dawn, where we shine a light and what we do at The Sunrise News. I’m Josie Shaw, the digital media and marketing specialists for The Sunrise News.
Harrison Neville
And I’m Harrison Neville, the editor in chief with The Sunrise News. Today, we are talking about who we are, what we do, and where we’re headed. This is our pilot episode. So we’re still figuring some things out. And you’re gonna hear us talk about that during the episode. But we hope that you stick with us, and we hope that you enjoy listening.
Josie Shaw
So Harrison, since this is our first podcast recording, I thought it’d be fun to start out a tradition of, you know, giving you a little thing to smile by giving you a little weather related pun.
Harrison Neville
Okay, hit me.
Josie Shaw
So I’m really good friends with all the weather, right? I have the moon and I have, you know, the rain and I have the thunderstorms. But the other day the sun told me that they’re really mad at the clouds. Just because they keep throwing shade. It’s it’s, it’s quite ridiculous.
Harrison Neville
Oh, gosh, that was painful. Genuinely, that was painful.
Josie Shaw
Well, there’s more to come from that. As we record our first episode of, I guess, working titles, sunrise…what did we discuss earlier?
Harrison Neville
Um, from dusk till dawn, from dusk till dawn, the real life story behind The Sunrise News? Yeah, I don’t know.
Josie Shaw
Well, no, I think it’s great too that we’re also admitting on air that we’re still figuring it out. Because this as we’ll get into, like this podcast is starting out. It’s a way for us to be transparent as journalists to talk about our process and what it looks like and feels like to be a journalist and share that with others. So it’s a little embarrassing that we don’t have a name yet.
Harrison Neville
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, it’s just sort of how sometimes it goes, and that’s alright.
Josie Shaw
You know, we’ll get more into that about what we’re doing here. But can you tell us like, you know, give me an elevator pitch. I think that’s the way I want to phrase it. Like who we are, what we do here? What is Sunrise?
Harrison Neville
Sure, sure. So, yeah, elevator pitch of what The Sunrise News is. So The Sunrise News is a small startup newspaper, online. Completely and totally online newspaper, we have a newsletter, we’re starting a podcast, and we have a website. And we are a small team of individuals with the goal of just providing news for the state of Alabama and kind of hitting under covered issues. And that’s, I feel like that’s an okay, kind of elevator pitch of what we do know.
Josie Shaw Yeah, I mean, I think that’s perfect. And I mean, just in case someone doesn’t know, we’re Alabama, you know, we’re all Alabama based, maybe more later on. But you know.
Harrison Neville
Maybe one day when we’re incredibly successful.
Josie Shaw
if anybody has $2 million, they like to donate for Sunrise News, then we’lll cover your state.
Harrison Neville
Exactly.
Josie Shaw
But, would you like to?
Harrison Neville
Yeah. So, Josie, why don’t you know, as we’re starting off this podcast, why don’t you talk a little bit about why we’re starting this podcast and what our kind of goals with it are?
Josie Shaw
Yeah, I mean, a lot of our news values so far with with Sunrise has been about, I think being on an accessible, personal level with our audience, being transparent is certainly a part of that. And I think we were trying to think of podcasts that we could do that would hit those kinds of themes, while also telling, you know, news, facts, information, also giving a personal side. So, you know, we wanted to make a behind the scenes little podcast of what we do, and maybe come in here and talk about, you know, journalism, ethics, talk about what it’s like to work for Sunrise, maybe talk about, you know, expand upon a certain like, story we’re working on for the week.
So that’s how we’ve decided to start it and, you know, it’s very adaptable, so we’ll see where it goes. But that’s where we’re definitely wanting to start with. And, you know, for those who don’t know anything about Sunrise, like, you know, I want to know why you decided to start sunrise, where did this news organization come from?
Harrison Neville
Sure. Okay. So it’s kind of a funny story. Sunrise started with a bit of a joke, you know, you know, when you’re talking to some friends and you go, Hey, one day we should, whatever, let’s we should start a band together. We should all move in together. We should all whatever, you know, you just have a group of close friends; you’re like, we should do this right? And no one really believes that. It’s just like a pipe dream, right?
So I was talking to Hannah, and one day back when I was still at the Alabamian, the University of Montevallo college newspaper. And I was like, “Well, you know, when I graduate, I’ll just start a new newspaper and we can all join that, and we’ll just keep on doing this.” And she was like, “Okay, do it.” So that’s the start of how we got here, I guess. The why, like, why I really felt this was important is, I’ve always been really passionate — well, since I got involved in journalism — I’ve been really passionate about it, right?
And so I wanted to see that the same sort of energy that I believed was needed in the newsroom, that I hoped I was bringing to my college newsroom, I wanted to see that energy and that devotion to ethical journalism brought into a business. And the easiest way I could see to do that was just to start my own.
Josie Shaw
Well and with that, I guess I’ve never asked you this before. But like, why? Why did you get into journalism? Like, why?
Because you didn’t — like we went to college together — I studied, you know, journalism, but you were in a different department. So kind of what led you to that? I mean, the practical answer, what is that, but also like, your passion behind it? Where did that come from?
Harrison Neville
Right. Well, practically speaking, I’d always kind of wanted to just casually be involved with the newspaper. Right? Some of my favorite books growing up involved — like I read this book called The Landry News, by Andrew Clements loved it. One of my favorite books ever. About some kid who started a newspaper at her school, right? And so I always wanted to be involved but my high school didn’t have that option. Or they did, but I was never able to get involved. So when I got to college, I was like, this will be fun, right? I’m gonna be a teacher, but it’ll be fun to do, you know, a little bit of collegiate journalism for a while. Right? So that’s how I got started there. I just joined the Alabamian and got rolling. Sorry, remind me again, what the full question was?
Josie Shaw
That’s fair. I guess just like, where does the passion come from for you? And asking this too. It’s funny, because, you know, we’re journalists, we’re used to not being able to, like, express our emotions. So now I feel like I’m like, pulling a little string on you. But like, tell me why. Because, you know, that’s what’s cool about this. So yeah, I’d love to hear why.
Harrison Neville
Sure, sure. Yeah, no, the whys here… I… gosh, you’re really, actually making me think about this. I know why I’m passionate. But I’m thinking about the why of how I became so passionate, you know? And, um, a lot of that was the people I had around me. Like, I… when I went to college, my plan was I wanted to become a teacher. And I wanted to do some good because I had some teachers who had done an amazing job impacting my life. So specifically, I want to do some good in other people’s lives, right? I wanted to like, have a positive impact on so that’s why I wanted to be a teacher. And then got into journalism and I went, huh, there’s a lot of ways you can really help people just by informing them of what’s going on.
And a lot of my passion for that came from the Alabamian. Because there’s just a really passionate news team — when I first joined, they were understaffed, underfunded, everything you can think of, but they worked really, really hard with what they had. And they genuinely cared. Like, these are a group of journalists who only a handful of them are getting paid, and what they’re getting paid is pennies. And they really, really cared about what they were doing. And that was inspiring. It was like, the care is for the idea that you’re doing something that matters, right? Like, when they go out, when I was first starting out, we like, actually covered some news stories that mattered. And we were looking into real issues. It’s like, we don’t get a paycheck really at the end of the day, I didn’t get a paycheck for my first year and a half with the Alabamian I think, and when I did, I mean, you know, you worked on the Alabamian. My first paycheck was for $35 every two weeks. I was not making bank.
Josie Shaw
Well, and with that experience of college journalism that a lot of people at Sunrise have, you know, what was the process like starting this new thing? This completely fresh, new thing. Maybe what are some things that you experienced when establishing an Avengers like journalists group of journalists that people wouldn’t expect?
Harrison Neville
Yeah, well, I think, well, for starters, I think some of it was it’s exactly what you’d expect. How I recruited everyone is I found a bunch of recent graduates from my college newspaper and said, “Hey, I got something I want to talk to you about,” gathered them all up, and then just sort of dropped the idea on them.
And the idea has changed a lot from when we started. The general organization structure has changed a lot from when we started, like, I had a lot of bad ideas at the very beginning. Like, it’s hard to describe just how many bad ideas I had when we started and how many mistakes I made, but I think it’s all part of the process. So, the first step was just recruiting all of them. The first step was just recruiting everyone and getting them on board. So first, I talked to everyone and I like, sold them on the idea. I was like, Okay, here we go, here we go. Here’s the idea. Let’s do it.
After that, I talked to a lot of people. Getting their advice on the general kind of idea, like, “Hey, do you think this is a good idea?” I had a lot of people tell me no, actually. Numerous people told me, “You should wait; don’t start this now. Wait until you’ve had a few more years of experience, spend some more time with other newsrooms. Get some more experience.” And I don’t think that was bad advice. I think that’s really logical, smart advice. I did it largely because, I didn’t want to do this alone. I didn’t want to start my own newsroom and just sort of build it slowly, piece by piece with me and then find someone else. I wanted to take a group of people and form a newsroom. And I knew more than likely the only way I could accomplish that was to do it. While we were all young and didn’t have a lot of responsibilities, because people get older, they get married. Once you get married, you’ve got you know, you’ve got a spouse that adds on responsibility then and sometimes you have kids. If you have kids, kids are a whole nother level of responsibility.
So I went to a bunch of people who had just graduated from college who had no major responsibilities yet, and could, you know, potentially commit to working on a project that for several years might not see huge payoff. And like everyone involved — you know, Josie, financially speaking, Sunrise is not really giving anyone much yet. This is a passion project. The plan is for it to be giving people money. The goal is to be able to actually fully employ staff one day. But we’re not quite there yet. So.
Josie Shaw
Well, I have a question. I mean, I think you’ve explained it up until now. And something I’m observing, that maybe the audience is taking away too, is that, like, it’s interesting, being a journalist, but also being a leader. Being someone making decisions, building something, and how those skills kind of crossover because we talked about adaptability. As journalists, we see all the time how stories change on the fly of you know, someone saying an off sentence, and everything changes, and you just kind of go with it.
You know, balancing our logical and emotional thinking like that kind of carries over for you. So I kind of want to ask you, what kind of ethics were you thinking of in building a newsroom and also a team, especially with being transparent with our audience, because, you know, we talked about our budget and what’s going on. So like, you know, what are those sort of ethics that you’re looking to establish with Sunrise?
Harrison Neville
Sure. Well, one of the biggest ones is being open and honest about where our funding is coming from. I don’t want that ever to be a mystery as we develop, and we build up and we, you know, we’ve talked about how we want to have multiple revenue streams, I never want it to be a secret from our audience where the money comes from. So that’s a big ethical thing that I thought about a lot. It’s why as of yet, we don’t have any advertisement on our site. That’s something I’ve talked about before that I really don’t want. Like any major advertisement, we’ve talked about some different ways we could kind of still generate revenue. But I’ve been avoiding it.
For you know, because it’s just not, I’m a huge fan of, because the real way to make advertising money online as a newspaper is you need to go to people directly. Because Google AdSense, you won’t get much. You need to go to different organizations and contact them. And I just, I’m not saying that one day, we won’t need to for financial reasons, but something I want to tread on very carefully because I don’t want there ever being a kind of a bias because of the people who are paying us, right? So I’m trying to, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. So that’s one thing. To always be open and transparent about where our funding is coming from.
The other thing is, journalism I’ve kinda hinted at this, but journalism for me has always been kind of a — how do I put it? It’s been a… it’s been mission oriented. Like journalism is a mission. I’ve always been a bit of an idealist. And that didn’t change when I became a journalist, like, I’m still a bit of an idealist. And I think as a journalist, it’s important to keep, you know, when I’m writing new stories to keep my opinions on various subjects out of it. But my ideals are what drive me, as a journalist. I cover the news, because whether you agree with my viewpoints or not, I want to give you the information, you have to make logically informed decisions. So, I’ve written about news stories. And I like to think that I’ve done a decent job where you can’t necessarily tell what my own personal beliefs are at the end of the article. But my ultimate goal there is to just give you information. I want the audience member — I want, you know, speaking to our audience — I want you to be able to read our news articles and whether or not you reach the same conclusion I have reached — because I promise you I have opinions. I’m human, I have opinions about everything I write about, like every single article I’ve ever written. I have my own opinions on what I’m writing about, I just do my best to keep them out. So I want you to be able to go away from that article, read it, and form — have the tools to make a well educated decision based upon that. So yeah, that’s kind of the ethics there. I see journalism as a mission. I see us as a public service. And yes, we are a private business. We are for profit. We’re trying to make money here. But we’re still mission oriented. That’s kind of the ethical situation there. Does that answer the question?
Josie Shaw
Yeah, no, I think absolutely. And it makes me excited to talk more about that in future because it’s, like, the side of ethics, and how do we feel about topics versus how we cover them is something I think, especially as like independent journalists, and you know, previously, student journalists, stuff we talk and think about a lot freely. But, you know, kind of stays in that inner circle. So I’m excited to explore that more in future episodes. And yeah, like, I guess, to finish up, can you give me a little bit of an elevator pitch of like, you know, why Sunrise? Like why should people care about sunrise? What is the need for sunrise?
Harrison Neville
Sure. So the need for Sunrise. Well, for starters, our state is… has a lot of different news sources already, right? So I can understand people going like, well, do we need more? And I would say, yes, I think, I don’t think any — I think those newspapers are excellent. The various newspapers we have, I think that we want to keep them around. I think the more newspapers, the better, because you can look at various news sources. But the need for us, I’d say is that we offer — we are specifically looking for issues that other people aren’t thinking about. We are young. We’re starting out digital. And bear with me, I realize I’m sort of deviating a little bit from a question I’m bringing it altogether. And we’re starting on digital. And that kind of shows our general mindset is we’re not having to deal with old, kind of, we don’t have the background of an older newspaper, like we’re not we haven’t been around as long as the Birmingham News, we don’t have their history and their traditions. But sometimes that can be good, because we have the chance to start something new and we’re people who are honestly critically questioning what does it mean to be a journalist? How do we go about serving the public in the most ethical, beneficial way? And we’re not afraid to ask this question. So I’d say that’s kind of the need for Sunrises, is we do need a bit of a fresh perspective on the journalism scene. And we can provide that.
Josie Shaw
I think that’s well put. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
Harrison Neville
I’m just really excited to be doing this. Honestly, I’m really looking forward to future episodes. I’m looking forward to really getting this podcast off its feet.
Josie Shaw
Yeah, me too. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for talking with me.
Harrison Neville
Thank you, Josie.
Josie Shaw
We hope you enjoyed today’s episode.
Harrison Neville
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Josie Shaw
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Harrison Neville
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you soon.
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