← The Tara Palmeri Show
The Tara Palmeri Show
How Independent Journalists Are Breaking the Stories Legacy Media Won't Touch
00:54:45
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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:19]
B
Thank you all for coming here bright and early. This is our panel, the front lines of resistance journalism. I'm Julia Anguin. You know, I have come to Perugia for the past 10 years and I always have thought one thing I've always been impressed by was there's a strong police presence here protecting some of the journalists who are under threat from their sources. And I remember thinking, I live in the us I don't have to worry about this. Joke's on me. So this panel is really about how journalism has changed in the United States in this current administration and how we're facing more attacks than ever. Right. We have seen the, the climate for journalism really changed dramatically. We have journalists who have been physically attacked, shot at, at protests, deported for covering protests, arrested for covering protests, detained. And we've had government pressure against leading journalists like Jimmy Kimmel and, you know, Stephen Colbert. And we've had a lot of our leading institutions taken over by companies and people who have claimed sort of an allegiance to the administration. So this is a very different world and it's one where it's concerning to be a journalist, but it's also more important than ever because when you're in A situation where you have an aspiring authoritarian. One of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is the attempt to capture the media landscape. And so it's really. This is a very contested space, and it's really important for people in journalism to do brave and courageous work. So when I was thinking about pitching this panel, I was like, who are the people that I really wanted on stage? And it's really. I'm so thrilled that it's these three people. They're all doing incredible work. And so actually, I'm going to go and just give you a little introduction to each one of them and a little conversation about their work, because I think I'm just thrilled to be able to introduce you to them. So we'll start with Marissa, who runs a newsletter on substack called the Hand Basket. And what it refers to is hell in a handbasket, which is a phrase like, we're going to hell in a hand basket. Is that right? Yeah. So I guess the working assumption of this newsletter is we're on our way to hell and Marissa is just going to tell us what it's like on the road. And she is. She started this newsletter in 2022 and has really become like, the leading place where particularly federal government workers go and provide her with information about what's happening inside the government. One of the biggest stories that she broke was the Trump administration's attempt to freeze all federal funding. And she posted the memo. That was an internal memo about that. So I was wondering if, Marissa, you can just start with telling us about how did you become the hub for all of these government leaks? You know, as a journalist, I spent years trying to, like, figure out how to position myself to get leaks. And I. It's always just. And you just are like, everyone wants to tell you everything.
- [05:20]
C
First of all, thank you for having me. This is wonderful. Hello, everyone. Good morning. It happened somewhat by accident. I'm not trying to be humble. Like, it was literally an accident. I was covering politics in the news for a while. I've worked in digital media a long time. And then in the first week of the second Trump administration, I happened to get this one leak about travel freeze for a government agency. And then I just happened to have a really well placed source who wanted to hand over this memo that came out a few days after that about how this top government agency was planning on freezing all funding across the entire government and they were hoping that people weren't going to find out about it. And I actually posted it initially to social media. That was how I broke the story, which was unusual in and of itself. And so I think there were a lot of people wondering why on social media, who is this person? Where is she coming from? But that scoop just kind of led to another, led to another, led to another. And I think it was because we're in this moment where there's not a lot of institutional trust. So whether that's the government or media institutions, I think people are looking for alternatives. Different types of media and different types of reporters who they feel they can trust people because they're not beholden to any special interests, because their bosses aren't donating money to build a ballroom at the White House. And so I think it was the confluence of just being approachable and having some of the right friends and a really perfect moment to make it happen.
- [07:02]
B
Well, you make it sound easy, but I'm guessing it's not actually that easy. Next up, we have Tara Palmieri. So Tara started her YouTube channel and substack the Red Letter about a year ago after a career in traditional media, including stints covering the White House for Politico and ABC News during the first Trump term. Unlike many YouTubers who stick to political commentary, Tara's actually doing original reporting, which, honestly, I have to say is. It's hard. I mean, that is a time consuming. And then also creating YouTube videos that are lengthy and is also really hard. And that's why most people don't only choose one or the other. So Tara is really an expert on, unfortunately for her, all the dirty corners of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And Tara, how do you manage covering such an incredibly legally risky story as a solo operator without, you know, lawyers? And I'm hoping you have some lawyers, but tell us how that works.
- [08:13]
A
We do use lawyers. It is really difficult because this story is about some of the wealthiest people in the world and they are looking for you to make any error. Most days I get a legal threat. I got one yesterday. I'll probably get another one today. And that's just before you publish at all. You're really kind of rolling the dice. And. But that's even after you've done, like, your due diligence and your reporting. And like you mentioned reporting, original reporting takes time. It is exhaustive. And I really do. I mean, I am holding myself to the same standard that I've held myself to throughout my career. Obviously, you know, some standards around crimes against sexual people who have victims of sexual assault. Like, I think it's a good thing that we're starting to change the standards around reporting around them. And I think that the. That the Jeffrey Epstein story is so established at this point in terms of, like, the fact that there were crimes that he committed against these women. But they've made it very clear that there are a number of other men. You know, victims have told me that. They've told Congress, they've told American people. There are other men that were involved in this massive sex trafficking ring that are, you know, living about their daily lives free, not facing any consequences. And so, you know, maybe the public is still intrigued by this story since Melania Trump comes out of nowhere and says, says, I had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. But really, we're only at the tip of the iceberg. This is a much bigger story, and there are a lot of people who have not been held to account. And so I'm still working on it, but it takes a lot of people. And I'm really encouraged by the independent journalism community and how much they've dug into the story themselves and just look through the millions and millions of files and they, like, I don't think we could have done it without them, frankly, or AI.
- [10:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think just this week, the. The scandal about Eric Swalwell was led. The reporting was led by content creators online. Yeah.
- [10:37]
A
And I actually reached out to those content creators a few weeks ago to try to get the story out there. And, you know, like, it was really hard because when we would talk to staffers, like, they were terrified. And often it's just like breaking the seal. One woman coming out and saying, this happened to me, and then you get the flood. And now we know there are allegations that he strangled and raped someone. At the time when I started this story, it was just improper use of power with interns and sexual harassment and sexual abuse. But, yeah, no, it's gotten. It's amazing. I mean, there's. I do feel like a sort of moral obligation to try to get these stories out there, because, I mean, if we don't, they just state they're never reported on. There's so much fear, there's so much stigmatization around it. And so, yeah, if we. If that independent journalist hadn't gotten the story out first, he may have been the next governor of California.
- [11:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, it is shocking because once it came out, everyone said, oh, I knew. And it was like, wait, if you all knew, where.
- [11:45]
C
Where was everybody?
- [11:46]
A
I thought we all had an idea. Like, you know, I had heard, obviously, rumors about him. I had been around him. Just gone and got the sleazy vibe. You know, I Hate to say it, but I really did. But I did not know the extent of the crimes. And, you know, as I tried to do the reporting where I was trying to get multiple sources, which is what we try to do in traditional journalism. You know, you had independent media, you had, you know, newer, you know, people who hadn't been trained in legacy outlets coming out with just one single source. And that cracked the whole story open.
- [12:20]
B
Yep. Okay. Well, next up, we have Memo Torres. Memo is the director of engagement for. For LA Taco. And as the name implies, L.A. taco is known for covering tacos and which ones are the best ones. This is a very important job in la. There are a lot of tacos to choose from. But the interesting thing is that La Taco has really also evolved since last year as basically the hub for covering all of the ICE raids in Los Angeles. And this really was when Memo, I guess, basically just sort of said, I want to start covering this, and quickly became the hub. And so people send their videos to Memo and say, okay, I saw this raid. Or, you know, and his job is to verify these, try to make sure which ones are right, which ones are wrong. It's a really hard job, and I'm hoping you can tell us, how does that work? How do people. How do you manage this incredible flow of information?
- [13:28]
D
Thanks for having me, but, yeah, Yeah. I am the guy that went from covering tacos to covering ice. That's what I'm known for now. But to answer your question, it's chaotic. Every morning I wake up and I'm getting flooded already. Because ice, if you don't know, it's the arm of Donald Trump that's going after anybody that, of course, color that looks like an immigrant, arresting them violently and then trying to detain them in what we now call concentration camps or deporting them. But most of them are getting detained and put in concentration camps. So every morning I start off my day and I get this flood of messages. I develop a network with community patrollers that are formed rapid. They're formed as rapid responders. So there's organizations all over Los Angeles that have gone from being advocates for, like, you know, tenants against their landlords, advocates for day laborers, people that were, you know, had cop watch, that were watching police and their activities and their abuses, and have all kind of turned into forming these watch groups, following ICE around. There's also, like, people that have just become soccer moms, that have become these incredible patrollers that are just following ICE around and getting arrested and detained and putting their Bodies on the lines. And I've developed relationships with hundreds of these community members around LA that can help me do surveillance out there. And we share intelligence, and they report. We get videos. I get information from them. I get from community videos from community members. And then I share that with the patrollers out there. And we've really developed this, like, whole grassroots organization of people that are following ICE around, holding them accountable, recording their activities. And that's how I'm able to verify a lot of that through people. So when I get information, I send it to the proper hub, and I'm like, I got information about ICE being here and doing this. They're like, yes, we're on it. And they will verify information. It was actually, you know, and ICE is like a catch all term, which makes it difficult, too, because it's not just ice. There's like, hsi, Homeland Security Investigations. There's Erosion, there's. The Border Patrol was involved for a hot minute. There were the violent ones. So you gotta figure out which agencies. They're also. They're hidden. They're not marked. They're masked. You can't tell who they are sometimes. We've gotten to know them. We give them nicknames. I give them a lot of nicknames. They're not very friendly nicknames.
- [15:50]
B
Oh, tell us a nickname, please.
- [15:52]
D
There's this one guy that looks like. I don't know if you guys remember Princess. The Princess Bride movie. There was Prince Humperdinck. That's my favorite one. He's got this long hair and he's kind of tall. There's a bunch of Buzz Lightyear characters. There's Buzz Lightyear one, Buzz Lightyear two, because they got, like, the masks that go over, and they're all fat with their vests, so they just look like Buzz Lightyears. Yeah, there's. There's Pineapple Boy, who we found out has a grind. Has an account on Femdom. Femdom was looking for a good time. Yeah, we get a lot of information, so we're, like, trying to DD agents and who they are, and there's people out there giving. You know, just digging into them, and then we'll put them on blast. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's. It's a whole network of people. And it's incredible because these people from LA that are preschool teachers, nurses, mechanics, plumbers, have all of a sudden become these, like, intelligence agents out there gathering information. And we're keeping track of agents. We know where they live and all this stuff. So that's how we've been able to verify information from collecting data all the time with community members.
- [17:01]
B
Can you tell us about like a. Do you get a lot of videos that you. That are not true or that you've had to debunk and maybe tell us about one?
- [17:10]
D
Yeah, I mean, constantly, I think during, up by day, I'll get like, I'll get like 40, 50 videos and we can verify about 30 of them and about 15 we debunk. There was this one crazy incident where an influencer drove by this house in a neighborhood and saw like a bunch of agents that looked like ICE agents, but because they were unmarked, they assumed there were ICE agents and they assumed they lived there because they were in the driveway hanging out by a pickup truck. That video went viral. Like dozens of influencers reposted it without verifying any information. I'm actually from that neighborhood. I was able to call my buddy who's the neighbor. He's like, no, they don't live there. They were undercover sheriffs and they were actually looking for somebody. That house actually belonged to an old lady and she was getting harassed daily. Like hundreds of people were driving by, throwing eggs at her house, throwing shit, honking, harassing her. And this poor old lady had nothing to do with this. So those are kind of the examples of like, you know, just having these community ties where you can just call somebody and be like, hey, can you look into this?
- [18:13]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think this is the situation that's so weird right now. Is that a lot of the best coverage of like, at least of the ICE situation is really coming from citizens on the street. But then that also means there's an opportunity for a lot of fraud and confusion. And so I. I mean, there are outlets like La Taco kind of springing up across the country in many cities that are sort of doing this type of verification work and becoming these hubs. But you guys have the best story because if you join La Taco, you also get free tacos. Apparently.
- [18:53]
D
The best tacos. Yeah.
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B
So you guys really have got good marketing.
- [18:57]
D
I mean, fighting ICE with tacos. I mean, it's a dream job here.
- [19:01]
B
It's pretty good. So, you know, the title of this panel is Uncensorable. And the reason I said that is because, you know, you all are reader supported, right? Like your community of viewers and readers actually funds your work. And so in theory, that means you're kind of uncensorable, right? You don't have a corporate boss who's going to tell you not to Cover something which, for instance, is happening at Seattle. I think the head of 60 Minutes quit because he said he was no longer allowed to cover who he wanted to cover. Right. This is happening at legacy media and you guys don't have that problem. But there are also downsides to having your own, your audience. You have such a close relationship. And I want to hear what is that relationship like? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? You know, are there stories that you have to hold back on because of your community obligations? You want to start?
- [20:01]
C
Yeah. I feel really fortunate with my audience. I happen to have developed a group of people that really trust me and don't tend to get too mad at me. I think I'm very intentional about the stories I choose. And so even if there isn't always an exact through line, I think the way I approach it is always the same. It's very, very human centered, justice centered. And so a problem I was having when I was pitching legacy media as a freelancer was I felt like there was a real failure of imagination on behalf of the editors, that they wanted a specific type of story that fit a specific mold. And when I had an idea for something that was a little bit more expansive or outside the box or, or perhaps told in a more personal way, there wasn't space for that. And so I felt like the stories that I had brimming inside of me had nowhere to go. And so I think here I've set the tone for the readers and they know what to expect from me. And so that's my subscribers. And then there's also social media, of course, and that brings in a lot more people. But that's also been an incredibly supportive place for me too. I use a platform called bluesky predominantly, which is for those who are unfamiliar. It's a similar thing to Twitter, short form, text based. And as I was growing the hand basket, it was sort of as Blue sky was growing at the same time. The timing just worked out and so people there became, I think, very invested in my success and wanted to be part of it and were excited to watch. And I was very transparent about it along the way. You know, if I reached a certain milestone for subscribers, I would share it with people and I would say, like, oh, I'm X number away from another big milestone, like, help me get there. And so even though it's a one woman operation, it does have this sense of community I think that I've created.
- [22:07]
B
Tara, I think you're audience. I think, I think it's probably fair to say counts on you to really fight for women. And I'm wondering, what is your relationship? How do you view your relationship with your audience? Because you also have a thing that your tagline is, what? No agenda, no bias.
- [22:27]
A
Yeah, I know it's hard to say that. Maybe my agenda is social justice. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Right. That should be what we want. But maybe in these political times, being for social justice means more to people. When I think that should just be, like, the baseline of journalism. What's the point in getting into it if you're not trying to improve the lives of people that you're writing for? I mean, I ultimately believe we are in service to our readers, to our audience. And journalism was designed to. To be a check on power in a democratic system. So people with less power, we need to be working in service to them. You know, people who have the resources, the, you know, the microphone, like, you know, or the stage or the bully pulpit, like the President of the United States. They don't need more people carrying water for them. And so, yeah, I feel like I am surrounded by an audience, especially on the Red Letter, which is my substack, and on the Tara Palmieri Show. I mean, there are people who are like, keep going, keep going. We want more. We want more. And they send me a lot of tips, things that I missed, or connections that I've missed, too. And so it's become really interesting because it has become a bit of, like, an interactive investigative community, in a way. And I know there's always been a tip line, right? Every newspaper has always had one. But it feels more connected because I see in the comments section conversations, and there's a way to directly interact with me, and I interact with my audience. I mean, that is how independent journalism will survive, is through the community. Community aspect of it. Because otherwise, it's just. It's not. I mean, the economic model, people can't really afford to pay for all these substacks.
- [24:28]
D
Right.
- [24:28]
A
Membership programs. But if you become invested in what the journalist is doing and their approach and the stories they cover, I think that is how we move forward into the future. So people come to me because they believe in what I believe in, and they see it in my work.
- [24:48]
B
Yeah, it's funny, right? Because like, in traditional newsrooms, there's basically no interaction in the comments. There's. There is a tip line. But every newsroom I've been in, it's been like the worst job for the intern to go through the tip line. No one like, in actual power, would read any of that. And partly because it was always flooded with garbage. Right. Whereas I feel like. I don't know. I'm curious. I bet you have a higher quality of tips.
- [25:17]
A
Well, if you're putting a comment and into Substack, for example, or YouTube, you have to sign up for those. For those platforms. And so you usually have a name associated with you at the very least. And you have to have subscribed to that person. And I think there's just, like, a little bit more commitment than just calling in a tip. I think you have to actually sign on. You have to become a subscriber to that person. And, I mean, I could go through. And I send out. Every time I write something, I send it out to my audience. I was like, what do you think? What are you hearing? Keep it a conversation. So, yeah, we don't have that in a traditional newsroom. Hey, want a cookie?
- [25:58]
C
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A
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- [26:02]
C
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- [26:25]
B
Results may vary. I mean, this is something I'm always trying to tell people in legacy media because they're like, well, we started vertical video, so now we're really cool. And I'm like, that's not the whole game. Like, that's just the. That's just what it looks like to you from the surface. But actually, the real game is the interaction with community, right? And that is part of the comments. It's part of, like, there's a thing that a lot of creators do, I'm sure most of you do, which is, like, you might make. Especially this happens on TikTok, you make a response video to a comment, right? Like, where you answer a question and, like, that's just something that was trained out of me in my years in legacy media. Like, the whole idea of responding to comments about your story, and the lawyers were like, no, you know, don't. Don't add anything that hasn't been vetted, et cetera. Memo. Tell me about your relationship with the audience. How did they feel about you abandoning tacos for ice?
- [27:20]
D
Well, I'll never abandon tacos. Tacos. Come on. True to my heart and my Belly See at La Taco. We, we started off by our whole model at La Taco, celebrating the taco lifestyle. And through that we've kind of done the opposite of what legacy media does. We've developed a community around tacos in Los Angeles by celebrating the different tacos, having events, telling people where to go eat. We have like our biggest tacit event this month. It's going down. We have a Taco Manus bracket. We have like 64 taqueros going at it, fighting in on social media for votes. And then we have an event where people can go and enjoy these tacos and vote for the best one on site. But we've been building community around our brand. Like all our shirts, like what I'm wearing now, they're made by local graffiti artists, street level artists. So we've, we've brought community from artists to, to taqueros, street vendors, restaurant owners, to organizations like, you know, right now, the ones covering and helping immigrants with immigration issues. So we've built this sense of community where like people now feel like they're a part of La Taco. Like we kind of have this strong loyal following and that's kind of what's helped us build our subscribers, build our memberships and also get our, get our, our tips like people. Literally, like we, I, I, I made sure that through social media we engage with our commenters, with our DMs. Our DMs are flooded. I'll just spend all day on DMs, sometimes talking with people. And that's really important. People want to feel connected, they want to know that they can trust you and they want to understand that you're part of the community. And our whole approach to our journalism at Elitaco is community service based journalism. So when Trump administration took over and we knew that they were going to come after immigrants and do this whole mass deportation policy, we immediately started developing resources and guides for people like, look, if you, if you need lawyers, here's a list of pro bono lawyers. If you need immigration services, here's the list of services. If you want to help. If you feel like compelled and obligated to help your community members, these are organizations doing the help, buying groceries and delivering groceries, or if you want to go out there and patrol, here's how to do it. So we develop like community based journalism so people see that, they understand that we're here, here for the community and part of it and that's why they come to us. When things are happening in the community like the raids, it's really, we're really. When legacy media decides to, like, don't get too close, don't get too involved, we're the opposite. We're in there and we're with them.
- [29:55]
C
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- [30:23]
B
I mean, you do a daily. It's called the Daily Memo, after your name memo, where you're on. Your face is on Instagram, Right. And you, you talk about what happened. Basically a roundup of, like, what happened with ICE today. And you've been doing it since June
- [30:41]
D
of last year, since Juneteenth. June 19th.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah. And one of the side effects of this memo was telling me before the panel is that people just walk up to him on the street, recognize him, and start crying because they have seen some terrible things. Right. That you shared with them. How is that for you?
- [31:04]
D
I mean, it's really touching. I mean, the reporting every single day, the Daily Memo. I had to figure out a way to, like, tell people about the 20 raids that happened today in Los Angeles. And I can't do 20 reports on each single one. So I spend a day verifying and communicating with people and getting all the information, gathering the videos and the footage. I've been building this archive of videos and pictures, pictures from the beginning of the raids. I have about 10 terabytes worth of video right now. And I clip it. I do it as a B roll, and I explain to people in like, three minutes, this is what happened today. And there's a lot of traumatizing videos. I also try to explain to people how they're doing it, who they're going after, how to protect yourself, what the changing strategies are, what patrollers are doing or how they're going after patrollers or the retaliation. So I just try to give as much information as I can. And people would just come up to me and just cry. They're like, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. And it's hard, you know, like, it's
- [32:00]
B
really hard, especially when you're just trying to get coffee in the morning.
- [32:03]
D
Yeah, sometimes I'm trying to have a good day and Then they come up to me, start crying. I'm like, that's a day.
- [32:11]
C
Yeah. I just, I was thinking how so much of the work is establishing this profile outside this public profile Persona of who you are as a journalist and what you do to create that comfort for people to come to you privately. So there's kind of these two very different sides to the work. There's this very public facing aspect to it, like being in the community and engaging with people and really being a part of it and then also being a safe space for people to share the hardest day of their life, the worst thing that's ever happened to them. A lot of that is done through signal, through secure messaging, through. You know, people will approach you initially without their name because they're kind of feeling you out. And so it's a lot of trust on both sides that needs to happen. And so I think that is also a huge part of the work.
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- [33:36]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's. The thing is that is funny is when I talk about how passionate I am about supporting independent media because I do think, you know, as the battle in the US for the media landscape continues, I do think that the nodes of fearless journalism, although there's still plenty of it at places like ProPublica and great, great more traditional outlets, I do think a lot of it is happening in these emerging spaces. And what my friends in legacy media will say to me, oh, well, they don't do the investigative journalism. They're really just commentators. Like, there's a little bit of that line, because the line is they're right, which is it's a lot harder to do real investigative work as a small outlet because it's legally risky. You have to get media liability insurance. You need to find lawyers to help you defend against. I mean, I didn't realize you're getting a thread every day. That's a lot.
- [34:40]
A
Well, maybe every other day. I didn't get one today. Every other day I Also haven't set anything out this morning. It's probably three in the morning in
- [34:49]
B
America, so it hasn't happened yet today. But I guess I would like to hear from you all because the reason I picked you all is you are doing the work that is really hard to do alone. Right. And you have a small. You have 15 people. Tara, you have a. I have like five or six. Five or six? Yeah, you're one. One woman. So why don't you start with like, how do you, how do you do this with. Without the resources to like, build the kind of scaffolding of defense you would want for, for legally risky reporting? And also, have you been. Do you also get threats every day?
- [35:25]
C
Not every day. It's. It's difficult. I, I think that a lot of criticism of independent media is that we don't have the same standards or that we're not held to any sort of code. But if anything, at least personally speaking, I feel like I have to hold myself to an even higher standard because of the legal burden that exists. I can't just run every rumor that I hear or if I have something like terror said with a single source that I don't feel good about. I'm not going to go forward with it just to get attention, just to get clicks, because it's not worth it for me in the end. I mean, there have been times where, you know, I've gotten maybe an email saying that someone wasn't happy with something. And I see my career flash before my eyes. I see all my money just evaporating in legal fees. So it's a very real and present thing, but it's sort of this dark daily struggle of overcoming that fear because I know how important it is to report these things, and I know that powerful people don't want me to be reporting it. And then I do have some legal support. I mean, I have a lawyer that I can send a story to, have it, give it legal review before it goes out, but that's no guarantee either. You know, people, rich people love to sue people. And so I do everything in my power not to get, get sued while also not keeping things under wraps.
- [36:55]
B
Also, you did bring your own lawsuit. You want to tell us about that?
- [36:58]
C
Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, I was doing the suing, so that was more fun. I don't know how many of you are familiar, but early in the second Trump administration, there was this Department of Government Efficiency. It was run by Elon Musk, and they were going into government agencies and basically just bus busting them. Up, like, literally walking through the door and raiding them. And so one such raid was at this independent government institution called the United States Institute of Peace. And they came in and said, this building is ours now. Get out. Even though the Institute of Peace privately owned the building, it was all extremely illegal. But the thing that dawned on me was that police responded to this particular raid. And because the police were there, I knew that there would be body camera footage, which in the US is. It depends on the police department, but I knew that the D.C. police were required to have cameras that filmed the entire interaction. And so I submitted a request to have that footage released because it is public. And they never answered me. And so I was connected to a nonprofit called the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, US and they agreed to represent me for free in this endeavor to get the body camera footage. We fought for many months. We went back and forth. They did not want to give it, to give it to us. And then finally, in February of this year, the judge granted that they had to release all six hours of the footage completely unredacted. And it was just a huge win, I think, for the press and for me personally, just spending the better part of the year working on it.
- [38:41]
B
Wasn't there a little bit of a kerfuffle about somebody else getting the footage before you and trying to publish it?
- [38:48]
C
Yeah, so it was released to me after 12 days, and then once it's released, it is public. And so another local news station in Washington, D.C. tried, tried to, you know, they submitted their own request, and they were trying to break the story out from under me. And I. You know, that was sort of a bandwidth issue because I'm one person trying to review six hours of video and realize what. And figure out what to do with it. And they had a whole team, they had a whole newsroom that was able to tackle it really quickly and cut it all together. And so they reached out a couple hours before they were going to do the package about it, essentially getting the scoop. And I kind of blacked out for an hour and a half and wrote my own piece and scooped them by one minute, I think.
- [39:36]
B
One minute.
- [39:38]
C
I knew I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
- [39:42]
B
Tara, what about you and how you're handling the challenge of being, you know, out there on your own with your small team?
- [39:50]
A
Yeah, it's really hard. So when I say I have like, five, five or six people, they all do different things. So in terms of, like, editorial support, I really only have one person who is my editorial support, and they're very junior. I'm like, looking to, you know, hire people right now, probably like on a contract basis to help with research. But, you know, it's not. Everyone is kind of specialized in this. It's not, you know, I don't think you can learn it in school. I don't really believe that you have to go to journalism school, but I do think that you have to have some experience with, you know, with kind of review. I mean, that's not to say that everyone can't do it. I don't want to take. But for me, like, the kind of people that I. That I could probably afford at this point in my business, because it's only been around for one year, are people who are very junior and we're working on stories for senior reporters. Right. Luckily, I have like a community. Community of friends around me, some of whom are retired former editors and people like that who I kind of can run things by and ask for advice. You know, I even have friends that still work in mainstream media that like, can't necessarily get these stories out there and are. Have been helpful as well. And you know, honestly, there have been times where I'm like, you know, this story is. Might be really litigious for me to publish, like myself on my page, and they might just go after me for fun, knowing they don't want to go into discovery, but they just want to spend the time making my life a living hell. I'm going to pitch it to a mainstream publication and I have, and they have published for me. So I do write for a number of magazines and other places when it just feels like doing it on my own might just be too tricky. But I hope in the future that I don't have to do that anymore. I think I should be able to own my own story and not have to, because, like, that was the point of me going out and being an independent journalist. It wasn't, you know, didn't have to work with mainstream media. But maybe there is a symbiotic relationship. We all have to live. Right. I don't want the mainstream media to go down.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think collaboration, when you're kind of a profession under threat, like, you have to collaborate, I think, for survival.
- [41:58]
A
Right, Exactly. And some things it's like, I know I could do it. And maybe it's just I've calculated that, like, the cost of a lawyer or, you know, in advance is just like, not really necessarily in line with the piece. And if it can be published, then it's still in the public's interest, whether it's on my page or it's, you know, in another outlet.
- [42:17]
B
Right. What about you, Memo? You guys are doing, you know, some building some databases of all the deaths, ICE related deaths, with which I think what you said the number is getting up towards 60.
- [42:31]
D
Yeah, it's past 60 now.
- [42:33]
A
Wow.
- [42:34]
D
It's a big project that I've been working on and my team's helping us make it beautiful to be published. And it should be published any day now. But yeah, we were 16 people, but we were only like five or six people a year ago. And we almost disappeared. And we put a call out, we're like, we're going to have to shut down. And people were like, no, we love La Taco. So then they came and supported us. And then we started doing the ICE raids and we're growing to like 7,500 subscribers. And that's what's been able to help us get more people on staff. And like, for the first 120 days of the ice trades, I was doing all the ice reporting on my own every day, all the verification. And now I have a team. Shout out to Izzy, shout out to Aisha. Izzy was just too doing it on his own. It was keeping track of the raids as well and had these connections as well. And I ended up working with him through DMs, through social media. And then I was just like, I told the team, like, I need to hire this kid. Turned out he was sleeping on a bus. Bus stops, was like, you know, unhoused. And became this golden boy talent that I was able to recruit and have helped me. We got a girl, Aisha, who recently graduated from Berkeley School of Journalism. And she works with. She works under me now. She helps me do the investigative journalism. And I've been training her and training both of them. And the one thing she tells me, she's like, I have to unlearn everything I learned at journalism school now to work here at La Taco. Because the way we do our journalism is so more raw and scrappy than what journalism school teaches. But yeah, and then we have our editorial side that does so covers tacos and everything else in the city. But yeah, now I have like a small team of like four people that help me cover the ice.
- [44:21]
B
That's amazing. We're going to open it up to questions in about after this next round. So guys, start thinking about what you want to ask. I just want to end with sort of one of my favorite topics, which is objectivity. You Know, I grew up in a journalism world that sort of proclaimed objectivity as the goal. I, spoiler alert, no longer believe in it. But I would be curious to hear how you all approach it, because there is, I think, objectivity, at least in my opinion, was a stand in for something we do want, which is like fairness. Right. But you know, Marissa, you're pretty outspoken about your political views, so how do you balance your views on this?
- [45:07]
C
I think that there's enough journalists out there who are trying to perpetuate this idea of objectivity that I don't feel like I need to be one of them. I felt like there's space for something different. And I think especially with social media where people, well, a lot of times journalists were getting in trouble for sharing any of their views on social media, even pretty benign views. And I just didn't think that was right because we're humans at the end of the day, and we all have our biases that we bring to our work. And I think it's kind of naive to think that you can look at something without bringing any of yourself to it. And so I kind of thought, well, what if I brought all of myself to it? Let's do a radically different approach. Let's let me cover stuff as a woman, as a Jewish woman living in the United States right now under the threat of authoritarianism, what would it be like if that was completely apparent in my writing and that was something that it was a risk because once you start putting yourself into your writing, I think it's hard to go back. I don't think traditional newsroom would necessarily hire me at this point because I don't practice it that way. But for me, it turns out that people were looking for this different approach and it's actually quite possible to do unimpeachable reporting and bring a perspective to it at the same time.
- [46:42]
B
Tara, you pride yourself on being nonpartisan.
- [46:46]
A
Yeah, I do. I don't even vote for in elections when I cover them. You know, if I cover an election, I don't vote. But yeah, you know, I have like long prided myself on being a journalist that is not partisan. And I think for me, the fact that yes, I cover the Epstein files, but I also do a lot of political reporting and a political reporter for most of my career. And I don't want to miss a piece of the audience because they're like, oh, she's just some lefty journalist or she's like a right wing reporter. Oh, you can't really take anything she says at Face value, because she has an agenda. And I think that kind of matters more when you're doing more political analysis. Right. And reporting. But at the same time, like, you've sort of changed my mind a little bit about the idea of like, well, why do you report then? And we all have viewpoints, which I think might. My, I think my writing, especially now that I have my own newsletter, it's very much, it's, you know, it's first person, it's me, it's. I, I have a viewpoint, I have a perspective on the world, on life. And even if my perspective is that I don't want to lose you from listening to me because I don't want to be coming off as partisan. I guess for me, I see, you know, some independent journalists who are backed by super PACs or have like very, very clear affiliation, they're raising money for parties, telling people how to vote. Like, I don't fall into that bucket. In fact, I'm like, here's the information. You try. You, you, you, you decide. But also, why did I seek that story out? Right? And, and why am I making a declarative statement about the thesis or the information that I've found? I'm allowed to do that. So I think there's like a, there's a place in the middle. And that you've got really convinced me that objective is maybe not the word anymore.
- [48:36]
B
I know, sorry. I'm like a anti objectivity crusader because
- [48:40]
A
the thing that inspired me to become like the movement that inspired me to become a journalist was the progressive era and the era of the muckrakers. And I was like, wow, they were able to change this country with the power of the pen.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we do want to open it for questions.
- [48:59]
C
So
- [49:01]
B
who's got the MIC memo? Do you want to just give a one minute, one second?
- [49:05]
D
Yeah, be real quick about objectivity. Objectivity is bullshit and I'll tell you why. It's inherently. You're everyone here. I can ask every single one of you what's your definition of objectivity? And it's biased by nature. Everyone's definition of objectivity is biased by nature. And for me, anybody who claims to be objective is being untruthful to everybody because there's no way anybody can just be objective and not be, have some kind of internal bias. So I think it's more transparent and truthful to your audience to let them know what your personal biases are. And I think that's more honest. And I think being honest is more important than Being objective.
- [49:39]
B
Okay, question. I think you have the mic.
- [49:44]
A
Hi, I'm Mark Galloway from London from
- [49:47]
B
the International Broadcasting Trust. First of all, thank you for a fascinating session. I'm interested in your views on legacy media. From where you sit, I think, Tara, you said there's a symbiotic relationship. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of legacy media?
- [50:05]
A
Well, you know, independent media, we rely on legacy media. We really do. I mean, you see a lot of the biggest podcasters, you know, Instagram, TikTok news people, they're mostly reading off a lot of headlines with their perspective. And there are people who do investigative reporting like us, but a lot of people that have made their fame as sort of the new wave of news influencers, I might say. They're relying on your newsroom and the work that you do and the investments that you make in investigative journalism. And so do I. I mean, like maybe the, the I use your reporting, but we all do. And even in legacy, I mean, you know, NBC News breaks it, but ABC matches it or uses it. It's always been this sort of symbiotic relationship. We can't exist without each other. I want legacy media to succeed, but I do feel like it's kind of it's pitfalls. It's all the bureaucracy around it.
- [51:05]
C
And I also think that I also want legacy media to continue, but there needs to be mutual trust between them and us. And I think that there is a lot of distrust on their part. They don't respect what we do necessarily because we have a different process. And, you know, there are times where I'm breaking things before legacy media outlets are and not getting the appropriate credit for it because they don't see me as a legitimate source or, you know, maybe they didn't see my story at all. But I respect what they do and they have these incredible resources. And yet at the same time, I also think they often fall short because of maybe back to objectivity, you know, not wanting to touch certain things because they feel it's going to be radioactive for them, which is not a worry that we have.
- [51:58]
B
Okay, last 30 seconds to you, Memo.
- [52:01]
D
No, just. We'll go to another question. Yeah.
- [52:03]
A
Okay.
- [52:04]
B
Do we have time for a quick question? Okay, we're going to be so fast, guys. I'll be fast. Hi, I'm Rosa from Blue Sky. Thanks for giving us a shout out. I've heard a lot about community from each of you and I think that
- [52:20]
A
there's this interesting dichotomy of as community
- [52:23]
B
grows, it's much Harder to have that personal touch. And also the diversity of what people want also increases, as I've learned. And so curious as you guys think about how to engage with your community, like, as those viewerships grow, how do you manage, what are you thinking about in terms of how to help that community stay in touch with you? Okay, so we're already over time, so you guys each get to answer this in three words.
- [52:57]
D
I guess I'll answer because I'm big on the community. Yeah. As our community grows, so does our team. And we all grow with our own followings, and we make sure that we encourage our team to be personable with everybody. And we have lots of events, a lot of micro events. Community engagement as best as possible is really important for us, and it's essential.
- [53:16]
A
Spending about, I don't know, like, 30 minutes every day in the comments section, actually reading and responding.
- [53:24]
C
Yeah, for me, it's being on bluesky and responding to people that are responding to my work or just being friendly, you know, just being really approachable. That's been a huge part of how I've been able to get a lot of these sources. And just being a regular person and not making everything transactional, you know, talking about regular things as well, just being a normal person has really gone a long way for me.
- [53:44]
B
All right, thank you, guys. Thank you so much.
- [53:46]
D
Thank you.
- [53:52]
A
Hi, I'm Tamsen Fadal, journalist and author of how to Menopause and host of the Tamsen Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all, from dating to divorce, aging to adhd, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat, and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships. And trust me, it can. Each week, I sit down with doctors, experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations packed with advice on everything from hormones to happiness, and, of course, how
- [54:24]
B
to stay sane during what can be.
- [54:27]
A
Well, let's face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.