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VVK Podcast With Craig Fahle
The Detroit based VVK PR+Creative team takes a deep dive into the important and interesting issues. Hosted by longtime radio and podcast host Craig Fahle, each episode will feature conversations with thought leaders from Detroit, the State of Michigan, and beyond.
VVK Podcast With Craig Fahle
Building Community Trust Through Hyperlocal Journalism: A Conversation with Bridge Detroit
At a time when public trust in media continues its precipitous decline, what does it take to build a news organization that truly serves its community? In this revealing conversation, Craig Fahle sits down with Laurén Abdel-Razzaq, Executive Director of Bridge Detroit, to explore how hyperlocal journalism can reconnect citizens with the information they need most. The conversation delves into the profound challenges facing journalism today: shrinking attention spans, the proliferation of misinformation, and the fundamental question of how to earn community trust. "Trust is very easy to lose and extremely difficult to get," Abdel-Razzaq explains, outlining how Bridge Detroit builds relationships before they need to rely on them, particularly in communities traditionally underserved by mainstream media. Whether you're concerned about the state of media, interested in community-centered approaches to information, or simply curious about innovative models for rebuilding trust, this conversation offers valuable insights into how we might reimagine journalism for a fractured age.
Greetings everyone and welcome to the VVK podcast. I'm your host, craig Folley. On this program. We connect you with people doing important work in our community and hopefully we learn something along the way, and one of the things I plan to do on occasion for this program is to introduce you to some media members who are tasked with bringing you the news and information that you need to be informed. The hard work of reporters, editors, anchors, news directors and publishers is a critical component of our democracy, and all of them play an important role in the work that we do here at VVK. Now, as a communications NPR agency, we know how critical clear, honest and impactful communication is, not only for organizations but for the communities they serve. Today, we'll connect the dots between effective messaging and the essential work that Bridge Detroit does to communicate the stories that matter most to the people of Detroit. Today's guest is Loren Abdel-Rizak, executive Director of Bridge Detroit. Now, at a time when polls routinely show Americans' faith in mainstream media is eroding, it is important to talk about the impact that's having on our discourse and our true understanding of local, national and world events. Bridge Detroit is taking a unique approach to building audience trust. We'll talk about that and also about what we can do to encourage people to seek out quality journalism and beat back the dual threats of misinformation and disinformation. That's what's for dinner on today's VBK podcast. Thanks for joining us.
Craig Fahle :Hey, welcome to the VVK podcast. I'm Craig Folley, glad to have you with us today, and this is an important discussion that we're going to have today, because this is an interesting era we're living in when it comes to the truth, when it comes to journalism, when it comes to people getting accurate reporting, accurate news and building their opinions based on facts, not conjecture, not speculation, not flat-out lies. It's a challenge to do so in this day and age, mostly because, frankly, our long-time media is facing significant challenges. We have all seen staff cutbacks at major newspapers across the country. We've staff cutbacks at major newspapers across the country. We've seen ownership change at major newspapers across the country. We have seen new online and cable television players that, basically, are skewing the news any way they want, and we have also seen social media have a significant impact on what people actually understand and where their base of knowledge is coming from. It is creating a challenge and it is showing up frankly in our political results, and I don't necessarily want to suggest that anybody made a bad vote or voted the right way or anything in this last election.
Craig Fahle :But whether or not you made your decision on who to vote for in any election, was it based on facts and relevant information? And where do you go to get factual information, something you can trust? It's becoming more and more difficult for people to find every single day, so this is going to be an ongoing conversation I'm going to be having on this podcast over the course of however long it takes for us to sort this out, and my first guest on this year's version of the VVK podcast to talk about it is Loren Abdel-Rizak. She's the executive director at Bridge Detroit, a part of Bridge Michigan, a part of the Center for Michigan. Welcome to the program. It's a pleasure to have you here today.
Craig Fahle :Greg, thanks for having me on Well and I gave you a little bit to think about there at the beginning. But you know, bridge Detroit is something that didn't exist until 2020. And, frankly, you know we are pretty well covered here in Detroit when it comes to a media landscape. We have a couple of different radio stations that are dedicated to doing news. We have two daily papers, which is something that most communities can't say that they have. We've got multiple television stations that take their local news game fairly seriously and you know we thought we had it all, but we still started seeing the same cutbacks that are impacting everybody else. Bridge Michigan comes along, I think back in about 2016 is when they first formed. Four years later, bridge Detroit comes along to sort of fill a gap that was created when we started seeing these cutbacks. Local news coverage was really taking a hit. So talk a bit about Bridge Detroit, its creation and what need you saw and how you thought you might be able to fill it.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Well, first off, you're absolutely right. Detroit is incredibly lucky because there are not a lot of cities out there that have two daily papers or as many nightly newscasts in different stations out there. The other reason Detroit is really lucky is because there are a lot of alternative and nonprofit news organizations that are operating here as well, so if you are a resident in this area, you have a lot of different options for getting information. Bridge Detroit was really created to kind of, like you said, fill a gap and provide service to residents. We are a hyper-local nonprofit newsroom. We're also nonpartisan, which means that we're not going to tell you who to vote for, how to vote, but we are going to tell you the importance of why it matters, why you should be engaged in civic life, and so our goal and our mission really is to provide residents of Detroit with the resources, the information and to empower them to be able to make good decisions when it comes to their own everyday lives.
Craig Fahle :Well, you know, when you talk about hyperlocal, especially here in a city like Detroit and this is one thing I learned in working with government I mean trust is everything. Getting people to trust that the information that you're bringing to them is accurate and something that is going to be helpful to them is a really difficult thing to accomplish. How much time did it take you to sort of figure out which approach you needed to take to make sure you were getting through to people that are very naturally skeptical towards a lot of messaging?
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:So this is an ongoing battle that we have all the time. I would never say like, oh, we've accomplished it, we've earned trust. So this is true for any newsroom, including ours Trust is very easy to lose and it's extremely difficult to get, and part of that is about being consistent. We try to build ourselves as a place where it's not transactional. We want to be able to reach out to people, talk to them, hear their opinions, talk about really just the big issues in their lives, even if it's something that on a larger scale, isn't a huge impact, we want to know and so that way we can really build relationships before we have to rely on them. And so I don't ever want to knock any of the other newsrooms in town, because I did.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:I used to work at the Detroit News for 10 years, I worked at Cranes for two, and so you know every reporter that's out there works on building trust and working, especially if you're working a beat and you're talking to the same group of people over and over again.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:The issue is that you know there's often a gap in terms of low income, in terms of BIPOC audiences, bipoc residents that don't always get to have that interactive experience.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:There's a Pew Research study that was showing that you know, the younger you are, the blacker you thing happening to them. We want to make sure that we're in their communities, that they know what we're doing, they know who we are and what our values are ahead of time. That's a very different model than some other organizations, but it's also a testament to being independent and being able to make our own decisions, not being owned by a hedge fund or some other kind of bigger conglomerate. We don't necessarily have to do the daily rush of news. In fact, at Bridge Detroit we don't do the daily rush of news because we know we can't do it as well as the news and the free press and the TV stations, and so we're never going to try to be that. But we try to fill the gaps and spend our time talking about some of the better things that are going on in the community that may be overlooked.
Craig Fahle :Not just that, but you're also talking about things that actually matter to the people that you're serving right now.
Craig Fahle :You know, if you go onto Bridge Detroit's website right now, you can see stories that are talking about foreclosure prevention. You can see stories about what people need to do to become a homeowner as opposed to a renter, you know, and talking about programs that exist for people out there. You talk about the risks to potential infrastructure damage. You know, and what's going to happen if we don't address some of the underlying structural problems we have, with the water main break, for instance, we experienced a couple of weeks ago or a week ago in Southwest Detroit, and you know the fact that, hey, without some action, this is going to continue happening.
Craig Fahle :There are a lot of stories that directly impact people where they live. That is not something you necessarily get and again, not to knock the news and free press or the TV news but they do focus on, as you mentioned, the worst day of their lives, those sorts of stories about crime and things like that and, of course, the big headline stuff. But we don't get granular and we don't necessarily see reporting that actually is intended to inform people on things that can make their immediate life better make their immediate life better.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Granular is kind of where we live, to be honest, and again, that's by design, because this is, you know, the place where we can play and we can make a difference.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:You know, our goal is always to try and serve the residents, make sure that they have what they need, and so these kinds of guides, these looking at you know, infrastructure some of the more boring things that maybe wouldn't necessarily make it to the nightly news, some of the more boring things that maybe wouldn't necessarily make it to the nightly news we have the time.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:We don't have to fit everything into a 30-second segment. We've also been focusing this year especially on presenting stories and information in different ways, because we know that not everyone wants to sit there and read a really long story, and so we've been doing more with audio and video. We've been doing more with graphics and other things like that. We're still working on it, we're still adapting. But one thing that's really beneficial is that we're able to kind of survey our folks. We do a lot of surveys. We do reach out to folks in the community and show up to events and talk to people. We also have a community advisory committee that we can rely on for some input. It's made up of members of the community and residents of Detroit, and they're able to provide us with feedback of what they're hearing in their neighborhoods.
Craig Fahle :Loren Abdel-Rizak is my guest right now from Bridge Detroit. You mentioned something there that I want to get to. You said you're venturing into some video, you're doing some podcasts, which you just introduced, I believe yesterday a partnership with another online news source, detroit, is different, that you're going to be working with Kari Frazier. As a matter of fact, good person Steven Henderson is going to be working on that an old friend. It almost seems as if you recognize that. You know the social media space that is where a lot of people, especially younger people, are getting their news these days is not going away anytime soon. What's it going to take to sort of compete in that space for some of the flashier, more sort of rumor-centric things fake news coverage? I'm making little quotation marks in the air here that they think that they're getting, because discerning between what's real and what's fake is not always easy.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Yeah, this is the big question, right, I think all newsrooms are going to battle with this and we have folks that are actively out there trying to provide, you know, disinformation. So you have misinformation where people you know something is not correct, but disinformation is where it's not correct. But it's done from a sinister point of view, deliberately to try and manipulate folks, and we've seen that time and time again that this lives out there on social media. It's very prominent. It's in other places you know other media websites that mimic news organizations and other things. I think this is an even bigger challenge with AI and how much AI is improving, especially from a video and photo perspective. So I think what this really comes down to is a lot of it is like education.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:So, these young folks I can speak from experience because I have some younger cousins and I know that they've never once picked up a newspaper in their life.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:So the key here, I think, is really trying to reach them where they're at. But even that space is so competitive for getting in front of eyes. So I really think that we have to plan those spaces. We have to try and serve the people the way that they want to be served, but it also has to start with education, and so we are talking about we've been trying to work out a program where we'll start to go and speak to students in some of the classes around Detroit. We're going to talk to folks in senior centers and try to kind of give them a media literacy, you know layout, and offer for them some resources and explain some things. I see it so often where you know there's a video on social media and you can tell I can tell that like it's fake, it's obvious, but it's not labeled, and then I have all you see the comments of all these people being like, oh, my goodness, this is crazy, this is amazing, and you're like, okay.
Craig Fahle :It's also fake.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:It's also fake, but you see the thing, and then you have to ask yourself is what I'm seeing too good to be true or really unlikely? And then you have to take that extra step. People want instant gratification. They don't want to take the extra step of verification. And so now we're getting back to why it's important to have news organizations still out there, that why it matters, because verification is what we do.
Craig Fahle :But we also have an attention span that seems to be shrinking as a society. And you know, I actually had a person who shall remain unnamed, put back in a response to me TLDR too long didn't read to which I replied it's not my problem that you have the attention span of a net. You need to read this because it's really, really important. That's a problem in that real reporting, real journalism, requires nuance, it requires perspective and it requires putting things into context, which you can't necessarily do in a 30 second TikTok or even just a short snippet of the news. And I appreciate the fact that there are organizations out there that are putting out like news summaries for people so you can at least get a bit of it and maybe follow a link if you want to read more. But that's a challenge. How do we get people to be willing to spend the time to really understand something?
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:This is a question that everyone in the industry has been trying to figure out, and I think that we've seen organizations put a lot of resources into this, like, for example, the Washington Post comes to mind. They did have a full team working on TikTok, and so you know, I think that they saw some success, but I would say that you know they were the gold standard for that and they still didn't solve the problem. They put the money, the resources, the time and the effort into it and didn't come up with like the perfect model, and so this is a challenge and we have to figure out what we're going to be doing. So for Bridge Detroit, what that means, we've been focused on, you know, launching other products, so we do have a social media strategy. We are adding shorter videos that have information on them. We've got links on everything trying to bring people back to our website. We've also launched the Detroit Next podcast, and so the podcast is really the story of our newsroom realizing that 2025 is going to be an incredibly important year for the city of Detroit and its residents.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:When it comes to the elections, we're going to have a new mayor. For the first time in what 12, 13 years? We're going to have new city council members. They're redistricted. Some people don't even know that they're in a new district. And then we've also got board of police commissioners, which a lot of people ignore, but they're extremely important because they are the ones who police the police. And so you know, we've taken it upon ourselves. We want to be the best resource for Detroiters in the city when they come to say who should I be voting for? How you know how should I be voting. We're not going to tell you who to vote for, but we're going to give you the information you need to understand who the candidates are. We're also launching so this podcast. It's hosted by Stephen Henderson and Malachi Barrett. Malachi is our civic and politics reporter.
Craig Fahle :He does a good job.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:He has the city council notebook that he does every week where he sits through the city council meetings.
Craig Fahle :As somebody who used to have that job, I feel for him.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Yeah, it's a lot, and he takes those really complicated and long meetings and condenses them down into useful newsletters so that people can get the information they need without having to sit through six, eight hours of it. So it's kind of an extension of that. Knowing that this is important information, how do we get it to people? And so it's a channel. There's going to be clips, there's going to be audio. There's going to be clips, there's going to be audio, there's going to be video and there's going to be a biweekly podcast. We're doing it in collaboration with Detroit is Different. So I want to shout out Kari Frazier, because he is a great partner and we're so excited to work with him in his studio.
Craig Fahle :No, it's fantastic. I think it's a great idea and it's something that is needed right now. I want to get a little bit bigger picture here, because I think one of the things that sets Bridge Detroit and Bridge Michigan apart is the fact you are a nonprofit, right? You are independent. You don't have corporate ownership. You don't have the possibility of your owner deciding that he wants to switch the editorial shift of your paper, just like that which, of course, is costing the Washington Post a whole lot of subscribers right now, but we'll get over that.
Craig Fahle :But you're not facing the same sort of pressures that the big newspapers have felt under corporate ownership in recent years, where the bottom line matters more than the product that you're putting out. And it seems strange if you want to sell more papers that you cut at the place that actually makes the news that people want to read. It's backwards. It seems that everything's a little bit backwards in the way that they're approaching this and the numbers cutting. Yes, you rely on contributions. You rely on philanthropic contributions If businesses want to support you individuals. It's an interesting way to go, but how does that insulate you from some of those other pressures that we're seeing newspapers fold under right now?
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:So the nonprofit newsroom model is a growing model around the country. We are definitely not the first to do it. There's multiple nonprofit newsrooms in the city.
Craig Fahle :Every public radio station.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:And you know we have some great partners in this community. I want to talk about Planet Detroit and Outlier, and you know Chalkbeat and you know Bridge Michigan is a partner, sister Paper and a partner. So there's a lot of different models out there, people trying different things. The reality is is that there's no perfect model for journalism. What gives us strength also can create potential risks for us. So nonprofit newsrooms we're lucky, we're blessed because we do have flexibility, we can experiment, we tend to be smaller, we don't have those crazy overheads and histories of like you know, the 150 years on guard type of thing, and so that allows us to play in spaces that maybe were not available and try new things, do things on a smaller scale but quicker. At the same time, we're very much at the whims of philanthropy, because until we can find a model that is completely supported by readers and donors, we have to.
Craig Fahle :Where did that go wrong? What happened? Because it used to be that nobody would think twice about plunking down their 25 cents for their newspaper every day. They got it delivered to their home. They would pay the paper boys $2 when they came to collect every couple of weeks. That was something that we just did, and then we stopped doing that.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Where it went wrong is the internet.
Craig Fahle :Putting Jeannie back in the model. When it comes to paywalls, I mean, look look at Cranes, who used to work for, and I read every single day they're surviving. They've got a paywall and they are very, very fierce about you going around that paywall and I don't blame them. This is how they make their money. This is how their business stays. Afloat is for people paying for the product. Why aren't people, do you think, willing to pay for news the way that they?
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:used to be willing to pay for news. I mean there's a million reasons, really, but ultimately, I mean, the internet has democratized information. Again, we're talking about whether it's verified and gone through a process of you know, checks. You get what you pay for, yeah, you get what you pay for. Basically, bridge Detroit in particular, we keep everything free and that's by design. Again, this is one of the benefits of being a nonprofit newsroom is that we get our funding from other sources. We don't have to have subscriptions. We want people to subscribe and support us. I do, yeah, and donate to us. Bridgedetroitcom slash donate.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:But you know, we have flexibility and we have a mission and that's what makes us different, right? So our mission is not and again, not to insult anybody our mission is not to, you know, fill the pockets of some hedge fund. We're not making money for a conglomerate. Every cent that we make gets put back into the business so that we can continue to do good journalism and provide the service. And so, you know, a lot of times when we get our donations, they're $5 or less, because, you know, when you serve an area like Detroit, we're dealing with a lot of low-income people here and some people need the service. They like the service but they just can't afford or they don't have any money to offer.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:I think it's wild that we'll get messages sometimes where it's $5 from someone and they message us and say this is all I could give you after you know, I've paid my bills this month. I wish I could give more, but I just want to give something. Or people will message us and say I don't have anything extra this month, but you know, but maybe I will try to support you in the future, and so it's just very interesting coming from such different models. Previously in my career I was at the news when they instituted the paywall and it was so controversial at the time, but it was so necessary, and I think that it's been for at least five years now. I don't know necessarily what the status is now for the news and the free press, but you know, if that's what you need to do to be able to stay in business and keep journalism alive, then that's what you have to do. So really you have to make the case every single day, with everything that you do, that this is worth paying for. There is value here.
Craig Fahle :Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I will you know, send a link to an article to somebody and they say, oh, it's stuck behind a paywall. I'm like you know, for two bucks they've got a special right now for $2 for the next two months for you to actually get access to this article. Maybe you should pony up and I usually will do that, and you know, leave it at that. But OK, one last question for you, and I sort of want to bring this back because we are a public relations agency here at VVK but the relationship between public relations agencies and journalists is a very important one.
Craig Fahle :We are reliant on each other for information. Sometimes, you know, it can be a little bit adversarial, but not usually. I mean normally. We want to cooperate in any way we can. We want to give you the information that you're looking for. We want you to cover our stuff. So it's sort of a give and take kind of a thing. One of the things I've seen in PR recently is that, with some of the cutbacks we've seen in news organizations across the country, is that a lot of what I put out there in press release form almost gets verbatim printed in papers, and while I'm thankful for the coverage for my clients, at the same time. That's not the way this relationship is supposed to work. I'm just sort of wondering, like what's the level of skepticism on press releases you get? I guess what would make your job a little bit easier when discerning what's important, what's not.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Well, first of all, you should ask for a byline whenever they're running your stories. I mean, I think that is also a symptom of having fewer people in newsrooms.
Craig Fahle :Yeah, I'm not blaming anybody for doing it. It's just they need content and they don't have people.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Yeah, it would have been unheard of to just run a straight press release for a lot of newsrooms. Been unheard of to just run a straight press release for a lot of newsrooms. I think, in terms of offering like suggestions or tips for PR folks when they send out their releases, I do have some ideas. Number one I would say don't write the story for your newsrooms. You know they have. If they have folks that are going to be doing the story, they want to be able to do it themselves.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:I would say provide all the information that you can to be able to do it themselves. I would say provide all the information that you can Be prepared to answer questions, because there's going to be questions. That's one of the most annoying things about us. We always have questions and then, you know, just make sure that there's information for follow-up too. If there's other parties involved that you need to be, you know, reached, provide information for them, contact information, the one-stop shop kind of press releases when those come out. That is, it's like a blessing because then you don't have to try and go and chase around other things like that. But also be prepared that you know the journalists are going to find things and approach angles that you may not have seen. So just understand that that's part of our job, that we're doing.
Craig Fahle :Yeah, and I try to advise all of my clients that that is the case and that you are likely to be asked this if you put this out there and you should be prepared to respond to this, and if you want coverage, you're going to have to do some of these things. So, it's always a bit of a give or take, but I do my best to be as responsive as possible. You, these things.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:So it's always a bit of a give or take, but I do my best to be as responsive as possible.
Craig Fahle :So you guys do a great job. Well, I appreciate that very much. Well, so does Bridge Detroit, and I wanted to give people an opportunity to learn more about what you're doing. And again, bridge Michigan, also hugely important, more of a statewide focus, obviously. Bridge Detroit, very locally focused, been in business for about five years now.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Yeah, actually, our fifth anniversary is May 15th, so it's coming quickly.
Craig Fahle :I assume there's going to be a giant party, lavish party with I'm sorry, Faygo and cupcakes, or something.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:You know what's funny? We really did talk about this, that we wanted to do that, but we actually decided this year to prioritize the elections and so we're going to be putting our resources into that. We are going to be having a lot of events coming up this year and there will be more information about that on BridgeDetroitcom. We are working to make sure we can hold a city council district meeting in every single one of the districts for meet and greets with the candidates, where people can get a chance to ask them questions, shake their hand. As a journalist, I have had access in my career to political candidates and I've always believed that if you can be in a room with someone and get a chance to meet them and talk to them, you will know who to vote for. You're going to figure it out, especially if you have some backup information and can get some really a sense into the kind of person that they are and what they believe in, and I want to make sure we can democratize that access for the residents of Detroit.
Craig Fahle :Well, and it is one way of blunting negative campaign ads too, that seem to cloud people's minds. When you actually meet somebody, you can make a decision for yourself whether or not the negative things you're hearing about. Them are accurate or not, but it helps. Well, Lauren, we appreciate your time very much. Thank you.
Lauren Abdel-Razzaq:Thank you so much.
Craig Fahle :Lorraine Abdel-Razak is the executive director at Bridge Detroit. We appreciate her joining us today for the VVK podcast, and that's going to do it for this week. Just to let you know. Our goal is to put one out each and every month. Now there may be occasions where we have special episodes that we will sneak in from time to time, but we will always let you know. Just follow VVK on LinkedIn, on Facebook, anywhere else that you are on social media. We've got accounts there. We'll let you know about new episodes that are coming out and what they're going to be about, and hopefully get some feedback from you as well. Don't forget if you've got suggestions for people you'd like me to talk to or some thoughts on things that we need to tackle, send me an email. Craig at VVKAgencycom. Pretty simple, Craig at VVKAgencycom. Thanks so much for listening. We will be back soon.
