Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Evolution of Independent Journalism with Emma Jade

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

In today’s episode, Sharon talks with 7-time Emmy Award winning news anchor, Emma Jade, about the evolution of journalism and news in the age of social media. After working hard for a successful career in traditional television journalism, Emma realized that she wanted better balance between her work and family, which led her to explore new ways to communicate the news to others, specifically mothers. She created her own daily newscast from her home, Momcast, and now curates news on her independent social media platforms. Sharon and Emma ponder the future of independent journalism, and what having freedom from corporate rules and interests might mean for how news is shared–the pros and the cons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Dairy Farmers of Ontario, from our families to your table, everybody milk. Visit milk.org to learn more. Hey friends, welcome. So glad you're here. And today I'm sharing a conversation with journalist Emma Jade. And I absolutely love this conversation because Emma is both a traditional corporate journalist and also an independent journalist. And so she has a very unique perspective on the role of journalism, what goes into making a good journalist, and why journalists are more important than they've ever been. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I'm so excited to chat with my friend Emma today. Thank you so much for

coming. I just died for the fact that you said that I'm your friend because I feel like I look, I mean, I, I join you and I watch your stuff every single day of my life, especially recently. It's so nice that like the feeling is reciprocated. It's not just a looks at a relationship. Oh, I think you're lovely. I really do. And we've chatted before. You've interviewed me before on your platform and you have some amazing, you have an amazing

community, extremely nice people. And I walked away from that feeling like this woman needs her own talk show for people who are not familiar with you. Yeah. Tell people about your career. Tell people what you have done and also what you do on Instagram. Now, when I first went to college, we're going that far back. I remember looking at this whole list of careers and I saw broadcast journalism. I was like, Oh, I think that's kind of like the path that Oprah may have gone or I'm so obsessed with her. And I just remember clicking it on the computer, going to my first communications class. And it was that exact feeling of like your last piece

of the puzzle that just like clicks, you know, knew that this is what I want and was meant to do. It feels silly saying that, but Oh gosh, it was just so perfect. And I was so enthralled by everything that communications was going to fill me with. So I, I just dove head first. I did every single internship I could possibly do. I lived in New York for a little bit and worked at ABC News. I was able to fly out to Wimbledon and work with NBC Sports. And that internship turned into a job with NBC Sports where I got to go to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. I got to go to the Vancouver Olympics. I got to go to London and Sochi, Russia with NBC Sports. And then after that, I lived in New York for a little bit longer and worked with ABC. But that was all behind the scenes.

And I knew I wanted to be the one telling the story. I knew I wanted to be the one getting the story and interviewing the people. And to do that, I had to put in the work. And that meant putting out to the smallest town that would accept me and my tape. And that was Idaho Falls, Idaho. My first gig where I was really like in front of the camera and how it works in television news is they give each city a number. So New York is number one. They're the biggest city. So they're number one in the television news market. LA is number two. Idaho Falls was number 162 at the time. So it was the smallest town. I'm from a family of nine children. It was my first time living, not only living by

myself, but having my own room. And it was terrifying. It was so terrifying, but I dove into the job headfirst. And the great thing about the experience of living in Idaho, after I had been to the Olympic games and after I had done all this big stuff with the networks, the greatest thing that the opportunity in Idaho afforded me was I was able to learn everything. I learned how to be a reporter. I learned how to be a really great shooter with my camera. I learned how to be an awesome editor. I learned how to write. I learned how to look at all news websites and different news outlets and glean from that what was most important to the community that I was reporting to. I learned all these incredible skills that remarkably somehow was able to launch me

from market one 62 in Idaho, all the way to market 11 at the time in Phoenix. But the problem was because I was so new and because I was so green still, I'd had some cool things on my resume, but I still had a lot to prove. So in Phoenix, I had to accept a job that was not what I wanted to do. Like I didn't want to be a producer, which is writing the shows the whole time, but I accepted doing that. And not only was I the producer, I was the overnight weekend producer where I would work by myself in a newsroom all alone. I would get in at 10 PM. I would work the entire night writing a two hour show alone and then editing the video alone. And then the anchor would show up. I can tease him now because he's my good friend, but the anchor would show up 15 minutes before and tell me,

I don't like any of your first block of news. Like you're breaking news. More stories here, here, here. But I tried to always remember regardless of where I was and what I was doing. If I was getting food for someone at an internship, or if I was writing in the middle of the night for an anchor who was kind of grumpy to me, I always tried to remember not only my purpose, but my passion. And if I could remember those two things, I knew that I could not just get through it, but also get through it with a smile and still be kind to others. And so I worked the weekend producing gig for a while until I proved myself enough that like, hey, I'm not a complete dope on camera. Became part of the morning show and was doing that for years. And then my, my

biggest and probably most shining moment was when I was asked to join the today show on a special project where I got to live in New York for a couple of months and be their behind the scenes today show reporter for all of our NBC stations across the country. And it was, it was everything that I could possibly have wanted. Everything, Sharon. I mean, you wouldn't believe the interviews that I got. Like I remember sitting there and Stephen King walks in. I'm like, Hey, can we do a quick interview? And he's like, no, I have to go to my next thing, but you can walk with me. So I'm walking with him, interviewing him about his next book. Martha Stewart's there the day before Thanksgiving. I'm talking to Martha Stewart about the meals that she's preparing. Jay Leno walks in all by himself and he comes in and he talks to me about cool cars and like

Steve Harvey and Russell Brand. And it was just one of those experiences where I was finally in a place where all this hard work, it really started to pay off. The problem I guess was I was pregnant with my first baby. Of course, that opportunity popped up and it was a really great, as, as horrible as the timing felt at the time, it also helped me really decide what I actually wanted. I knew that I just wanted to be more present and wanted to be able to have the opportunity to like be home when I wanted to be home and to take my kids wherever when I wanted to take them. Something that really bothered me with our business when I was having all of these kids, and this is someone who's obsessed with television news, is I noticed, especially with my third baby,

that I was not watching television news. Like I never woke up and watched it from someone who had been in the business for over 10 years to not ever watch it. It just didn't make sense. And that's when I started to craft the idea of, okay, well, I'm the mom and the decisions that I make for me and for my kids are super important, but I don't know anything that's going on. Like I'm not, I'm not up to watch the news. I'm not going to record it and watch it later. Like my kids would never let that happen. Right. Right. So I thought there has to be a better way. There has to be something that makes more sense and is more applicable to just me. I don't have time to sit and watch a show. I don't have time to read all of these different things. What can I do? What can I create?

And that's where MomCast came in. Yeah. I love that because you're so right that there has been a significant shift away from news consumption via television and towards just reading it. And so many people get their news via social media now, either from a legitimate news organization or from just a friend who was just being like, I can't believe that happened. And then suddenly that's how you got that news. Exactly. And good and bad. So I launched mom cast on my Instagram page. What was it? 2019. And the pandemic happened and it just like zoomed took off. There was never a bigger need for moms, especially to have news better for worse, because my gosh, we went through a really dark period on mom cast where I felt like I was attacked daily with conspiracy theorists, but I still was so fueled by the fact that news to me is necessary to not know what's going on in the world is doing not only yourself a disservice,

but your family. And I just, I felt it. I still feel it within me every single day when I'm looking at my kids, when I'm making decisions for my family, especially with how the economy is now and what's going to happen in the future, if I don't know what's going on in the world, I can't make a good decision. And I know that there are so many moms who are just like me, who are overwhelmed when they turn on that from my news experience, I know will be applicable and helpful to them. And that alone, it fills me with so much happiness and purpose that I can do that. I love that about social media. There's so many things to hate about social media, but it has connected me with some of the coolest women on the planet who oftentimes forgotten because forgotten like apart from social media, what are other ways that you're able to like, really talk to those moms, right. To their ideas.

Yeah, it really is. It's Instagram and it's Tik TOK and things like that. So thankful for, I totally agree with you. I have, there's many things to dislike about social media, obviously, but social media is a tool, just like a hammer is a tool that can build a house or smash a window. Social media can be an amazing tool to facilitate important discussions, to meet people you would have never met. We would never have met each other. You know what I mean? And I, I can list off probably 4,000 people that I'm like, my life is better because I know them. And I would have never met them had it not been for social media. How different is it than what it was when you were a kid and where your parents were kids? There's still a man and a woman who are sitting there at a desk. They're still opening up with a really big story. And then they're going to video. That's one of the biggest conversations that we're having right now is how do you move news forward? So I'm going to ask you where, where do you think news needs to go? That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about

too, is the future of independent journalism, because I think that that's going to be so interesting to watch. And you, you are kind of right now straddling those worlds of corporate journalism and independent journalism. And you understand perhaps better than almost anybody what it's like to work in corporate journalism and also what it is like to try to be an independent creator on social media in the space of news. So can you tell us how does the experience differ from, obviously there's this like machine that fuels the corporate news broadcast, the staff, the graphics, the studios, there's all of this infrastructure that fuels corporate journalism that most independent journalists don't have. But outside of like, yeah, well, we have cameras and lights and like outside of that, how did those two experiences differ?

I couldn't do the independent journalism without the corporate background that I have. There's absolutely no way because when you strip down all of the extra stuff, which thankfully I never really had to get into the weeds of advertisers and things like, but I couldn't do what I'm doing now as an independent journalist without the foundation that I built in the legacy news that I was for over a decade. What I think is really what I love about the independent part that I'm doing right now is that I get to pick the audience that I want to speak to. So much of it is about connectivity. The opportunity that I have with doing independent journalism is that I've

curated this incredible audience who honestly feel like they're my buddies and my friends who I, I know, and who I know what they care about. I know what decisions they're having to make because I'm making them too. And that we can have a two-way conversation through these despicable DMs where they're horrifying to try and sit through. But I think that is one of the coolest things about independent journalism

and having that freedom to build my own audience and to really connect with them and to really spread information to them that I know is landing. It can't be a challenging environment to work in, but it can also be a uniquely rewarding environment that is unlike anything else. When you have a community that's like, you know what, let's donate $700,000 to Ukrainian refugees. You know what I mean? Like the ability to galvanize a community like you have done. It is very unique to social media. A&W is now serving Pret Organic Coffee, and you can get a $1 small coffee, a $2 small latte, or like me, a $1 small coffee and a $2

small latte. Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. Woo-hoo! Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a crime in Chinatown. Streaming November 19th only on Disney+. When it comes to trying to figure out where you go next, especially with social media,

because again, you were a teacher. What are some skills that you pulled from teaching, other than the way that you just talked to us? I feel like the way that you talked to us, you must have been the greatest teacher. Really? I don't know. I guess you still are, but are there any other skills that you feel like you learned from your background that help you navigate this world and explode to almost a million people following you every single day? Well, you do develop a thick skin. And then, you know, one of the other things that I, I really think has been helpful to me is being able to discern what is worthy of a response and also what's a big deal and what's not. You learn this as a mom, you learn this as a teacher,

even, even more so you cannot possibly respond to every single thing that is happening in the world, respond to everything that's happening in your classroom. Like, can you intervene in every fight your children have for all time? No. Every single time your child is like, I don't want to put away what dishes from the dishwasher. Does that need to be a federal case every single time? Or do you have to sometimes let things go? And so that is one of the things that I think that I have, I've continued to work on is, I mean, is prioritizing the relationship over being right. Prioritizing the relationship over proving my point to the degree that I want to. Sometimes people will say things to me that I'm like, well, that's wrong. And here's

why that's wrong. You know what I mean? It's so like the way you say it just right then. Well, that's right. Like that is, that's so hard to, to respond that way in DMs, unless you're recording videos for every single person, but I'm willing to listen to you because you gave me like a little, you know, you will humor, right. A little something to make me not feel like such an idiot, but also I've spent the time developing relationships with my community, just like you have with yours, just like you did with your news community. If there's not a relationship there, you're never going to hear it. No. Like I got that message, the message a couple of days ago from somebody who was like, have you heard this? And it was a story that was multiple years old. And the story from social media was completely mischaracterizing what the issue was. It was about a lawsuit, the water thing, the lawsuit water thing. Yes. And I made a point of telling her, I'm actually really glad you shared this with me. This is a super useful teaching moment. And the relationship was maintained.

this is a super useful teaching moment. And the relationship was maintained, you know, like it was, she was like, I'm so glad I asked. Thank you for showing. I'm so glad I asked. I could have been like, this person is believing garbage. Here's why you should. Yeah. Look at how dumb this person is. And that response is too often. I feel like that response is the norm on social media is to make somebody look as stupid as possible. It goes back to like kindergarten on the playground. When you feel insecure or whatever, you want to try and make yourself feel better by making other people look stupid. That's just, that never goes away. Yep. But that, that person then would, would probably unfollow. We would have no continued relationship. I would not be able to use that as a teaching moment for other people. Nobody would want to DM me those kinds of things in the future. They would feel

like, well, she's just going to make fun of me. And so maintaining the relationship is more important than taking that person down a bunch of pegs about how stupid they are for believing that thing. This is literally the same lesson that you can apply to parenting. Yes. And good, good relationships with your colleagues to having relationships with friends, with family members. Absolutely. Another interesting thing, because we, you know, we do the same thing with, with looking at news headlines and then trying to break it down for, for the people who follow us the way that I've always done it and even when this goes back to my producing days when I would write an entire show

was just I had like probably 50 plus tabs open you go through all of my favorite news websites we were talking Wall Street Journal ABC NBC CBS you have everything open and then I would I look at the the headlines that you see the most often and apply to the most people. And then that's how I come up with my newscast day in and day out. Thankfully being an independent journalist on Instagram, I'm able to not just look at the top headlines, but then I always look at the stories that matter the most to moms recall when it comes to baby food or stuff that's happening at the grocery store and gosh, like what's going on economically with your home prices or with gas prices or the wage gap.

What is your process? Especially because you have an audience that isn't like me. It's just, I've really just gathered up so many moms and women and local to me as well. But for you, when you have such a vast spread, what is your process? Is it different than that? It fundamentally is very similar in terms of looking at huge number of news sites every day and making sure that I am looking at a broad cross-section of stories and not just, um, not just taking something that seems sensational and running with it. Also trying to figure out how important is this story? Is this story actually important or is the story a gotcha piece? Do you know what I mean? Yes. Is this clickbait for a certain audience? And so I really do my

best to not post clickbaity type stories that are like, you will not believe that this horrible human being did this one time. Do you know what I mean? I try to stay away from clickbait, try to make sure that things are actually important. I try not to harp on details that are ultimately unimportant to something that are only meant to make people angry. So consequently, that means that sometimes you choose to ignore certain stories because they're clickbaity. And then people get mad at you and are like, I don't see you reporting on X. And I don't view myself as a journalist. So yes, it's a broad variety of tons of reading every day, so much reading. And I have a focus on my page, which is very heavily into America. And that has changed a little bit since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, because that

is very directly, very deeply related to America. American troops, American economy, America's foreign relations, that is a very important story to America. American troops, American economy, America's foreign relations, like that is a very important story to Americans right now. But I do not tend to report a ton of international stuff or talk about a ton of international things. I tend to talk a lot about Supreme court cases. That's a personal interest of mine. Because I, oh my gosh, that is like one of the things that I'm just so grateful for on your page, because to me, it's so easy just to go cross-eyed even after the first couple of lines, even in a news article about a Supreme court case, just because the verbiage alone,

it's not any, any part of my diction. Like I, half the words in there, 75% literally look like hieroglyphics to me. And so what do we do in that situation? Go to the next story. We tune out and it doesn't apply to me, even though it's about abortion or even though it's about race, it does apply to us. But why on earth do they make it like that when they know that the vast majority of Americans can't understand what's come on, the vast majority of Americans can't understand what's come on. Something has to change. Legal language is so dense. It's so dense. And it is difficult. Yeah. It is difficult to sift through an indictment that is all written in law in, in legal language and to parse out what is happening. But I tend to not report a lot on crime unless it is a crime of national importance.

That to me is news that is better discussed at a local level, unless it is a very significant, like a school shooting or something that has bigger national implications, I tend to talk about the United States government and its activities more than other people might. What is Congress doing? What is the president doing? What is the Supreme Court doing? What are issues that are of national importance? So tell me, because again, when it comes to what is Congress, you do need an interpreter. Thankfully, we have you because you really are the interpreter when it comes to what's going on in Congress and what's going on. Tell me why they don't just make it easier.

Because sometimes I can't help but take it as like a, we're going to make it sound this way so that the majority of you don't understand it. It's so obnoxious to me. It really bothers me because I just think it's unfair. If you're making decisions for Americans, don't you think that everyone should understand those decisions before you make them? No, they don't think that. They don't. They don't think that. No, no. Well, yes. I mean, you're not allowed to feel like that. They don't think that. Also, one of the things that's very unique about Congress is that Congress makes all their own

rules. We have in our lives, this outside arbiter of the law, right? It's illegal to just light your house on fire for the insurance money. It's illegal to do these things. We have this external force that is helping us determine what activities are legal and what aren't. Congress doesn't have that. Congress literally makes its own rules. There is no outside force outside of the Constitution that is saying you should have a committee meeting. Make sure that the bills have this amount of support from people on both sides of the aisle. You shouldn't spend more than one hour a week doing press conferences. They don't do any of that because they make their own rules.

And so that is very difficult for Americans, I feel like, to grapple with, that they're just out here going rogue. They literally, in many cases, not all, many cases going rogue and using our tax money. So then what can we do? So that's the question. That's the million dollar question, right? Is what can we do? Obviously, some of it is voting some of these people out. Some of these people have got to go. There's no question. The system is deeply broken. And the system, in my opinion, it's time to abandon many of the things that are broken in the system and just be like, this is not even worth fixing. We need to stop playing this broken, tired game and we need to build a new game.

Is there hope in that? Do you believe that that could, that that is something that we could do? Sure. Absolutely. You're saying sure. Like, yeah, sure. Sure. I'm going to go to the grocery store today.

No, like really? Like you're talking. Somebody, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to do it. And it might as well be me. I will be your right hand gal, whatever you need. I am there because I could not agree with you more. I think that it's time for, for us to not only understand exactly what's going on at the top, but to be part of it in a more, in a way that really feels like we're being listened to. I mean, the things that are going to happen, you were talking about the Russia and Ukraine situation, the things that are going to happen over the next couple of years, as a result of, of that, the way it's going to hit the everyday person, every household

is going to drastically change the way that we operate. Like my daily life is going to change drastically very soon. And if I'm not in tune to decisions that are happening at the top, you're going to get caught flat footed. Exactly. Yes. It's difficult to make educated decisions without any education. And so understanding is power. You understand how something works, then you can change it. If you're a heart surgeon, you have to understand very intimately how the heart works. If you hope to operate on it for the betterment of the patient, right? You can't just have a bunch of people with knives, hacking things up. You have to understand intimately how the system works. If you want to change it for the better. It's so incredible,

Sharon. I'm not trying to like, like make you feel like I'm just filling you with hot air, but really it is. I'm so thankful. I'm just so thankful to know you and to follow you and to be part of that community. I want to tell you how important I believe journalism is in a democracy. We would truly not have a democracy without journalists. Look at any country that has no, that does not have democracy. They have state-run media. Look at Russia for goodness sakes. That's right. North Korea, pick a country that has an oppressive government. They have no free press. The freedom of the press is absolutely, I cannot overstate how important free press is, how important journalism is. As bad a rap as some people get. And some people deserve a bad rap. There are bad people in every profession, but the importance of journalism, it is, if you believe in democracy, you must believe in journalism, period. You cannot have

democracy without it. Not an exclamation point. Yeah not and exclamation point yeah the exclamation point and journalism is quality journalism is not a dude typing in the comment section from his mother's basement something that you want to hear that is not journalism no it's not and that has been clouded in the last couple of years. the standard that almost anybody on the internet is using. And so the work that journalists are putting into this, providing us with information, we greatly underestimate how much work goes into doing quality journalistic work. Greatly underestimate. And where do you, go ahead. We forget that it is service-based. Like we're here to serve the people. That's right. Our neighbors, our friends, people we don't know. I'm in this, not for myself, for others, because I know the value of it. That's right. And it's a service

to the listener or the viewer. It is also a service to democracy at large. So thank you for your service. I adore you. I truly believe that journalism is a service to democracy at large. I am writing that down. I'm emblazing it somewhere on my wall. I'm going to look at that every single day because you know what? We're forgetting that so many people are forgetting that. And exactly what you said, you cannot have democracy without journalism. You really can't, when you strip back all of the, the commercials, the advertisements, the, this, the, that, the stuff that you watch on television news, or even on Instagram, that's the basis that's in it. That's the foundation. And that's why we need it so badly. It is, we would be nowhere and nothing as a nation without quality journalists like you who do their best to report accurately and fairly on a story that cultivate those sources that

provide fact-based information for the rest of us to use, to make quality decisions with. I would not be able to do what I do without journalists like you. And so again, I just think you're the best. We hug now. I know, right? Like, all right. Where can everybody find you online? Find me on Instagram at Emma J TV. I also have a YouTube account and that's linked right there on my Instagram page, but Instagram's the best way. Thank you so much for doing this. Can we, I just like, we do this every week. I just want to talk to you constantly. I know. I know. I think you're just fantastic. I love you. Fabulous. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon says so podcast. I am truly grateful for you. you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time. Hey, Torontonians. Recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital responsibility.

By recycling properly, you help conserve resources, reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and protect the environment. Toronto's Blue Bin Recycling Program ensures the majority of the right items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference, because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right.