In this episode, Caryn G. Mathes shares her inspirational journey from a wire copy rewrite girl to becoming a trailblazer in public radio management. We discuss her experiences, challenges, and the importance of community engagement and diversity in journalism.
Key Takeaways:
- Overcoming Challenges: Caryn discusses navigating the challenges of being a woman of color in media during the mid-70s and the importance of family support.
- Public Radio’s Value: Caryn explains the unique role of public radio in maintaining journalistic integrity and community connection.
- Diversity in Journalism: Learn about strategies for ensuring diversity, the importance of humanizing coverage, and systemic changes in journalistic organizations.
Guest:
Caryn G. Mathes, president and general manager at KUOW and public radio advocate.
Resources Mentioned:
- Caryn G. Mathes: LinkedIn and X (formerly known as Twitter)
- Organization: KUOW, Puget Sound Public Radio
- Read More: Caryn G. Mathes’s work at KUOW
- Public Radio Sponsorship Guidelines: KUOW
Quotes:
-“Public radio is a beacon of hope, serving the public good independently.” – Caryn G. Mathes
-“Empowering others and creating opportunities is the real impact of leadership.” – Caryn G. Mathes
Listener Challenge:
This week, engage with your local public radio station and think about how they serve your community. Share your thoughts with us on social media using #BEATSWORKINGShow.
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Transcript
The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.
[00:00:00] Mark Wright: Caryn Mathes, welcome to the BEATS WORKING podcast.
[00:00:02] Mark Wright: It’s great to have you here. Welcome.
[00:00:04] Caryn Mathes: it’s terrific to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:06] Mark Wright: Caryn, I thought we’d start our conversation today by talking about the value of public radio. I think there are two camps in America right now, people who know what public radio is and people who don’t have any clue what public radio is. So I’d love for you to explain that. For that person who really doesn’t know much about public radio, what it is.
[00:00:25] Mark Wright: And then we’ll talk about the value
[00:00:26] Caryn Mathes: Sure, I will try to do the Cliff Notes,, version. Public radio is, uh,, independent media. We are supported largely by, community donations and business sponsorships. We had our start, oh my goodness,, a lot of stations started back in the, in the 1900s when, uh, FM radio wasn’t so popular. Thought to be worth a whole lot.
[00:00:52] Caryn Mathes: And, uh, they had handed out these free licenses to mostly universities. And then when the, uh, commercial world [00:01:00] discovered the marketing and sales opportunity for radio, they started grabbing up the frequencies and,, constituencies for education, arts, music, labor said, Hey, wait a minute, we’re getting ready to be shut out of this.
[00:01:14] Caryn Mathes: technology, we need to reserve some of this frequency, for uses for the public good. So that was our, our beginnings. the problem was we were set aside,, bandwidth on the, uh, radio dial, but no guaranteed method of funding. So that’s why you see so many public stations raising funds in a variety. of ways, including the ubiquitous on air campaign.
[00:01:39] Caryn Mathes: But I like our, business arrangement because it keeps us very close to our community and very close to the audience. So there are, several, hundred, uh, public stations that are affiliated with National Public Radio, which is its own separate 501c3 organization. And we work in concert [00:02:00] with NPR to bring quality news and information and audio experiences to millions of people a week.
[00:02:08] Mark Wright: , over my shoulder, I have a picture of Edward R. Murrow. In 1958, he gave a very famous speech, as you know, and he made reference to wires and lights in a box. And he said that television had great potential if it was used properly. And I think, you know, less than 10 years later is when Congress passed the Corporation For public broadcasting act, that may not be the exact title, but, uh, that’s when public broadcasting was founded.
[00:02:35] Mark Wright: And, and I guess what I’m trying to get at is that, here was one of the most seminal journalists, uh, in our nation’s history, who was very concerned about the future of of journalism. because even then, there were some crazy things happening. Caryn, from your perspective, why is public radio so important today in today’s landscape?
[00:02:58] Caryn Mathes: In almost every [00:03:00] market in the country, public media is the last media outlet that hasn’t been consumed by a mega conglomerate. Now, you know, I’m a capitalist. Our system here in North America is capitalism, so I’m not, you know, against that, but it’s just a different experience when you’re beholden to directly to your community and you’re thinking about your audience, uh, and ways to serve them directly rather than, you know, rolling them up in a nice package to hand off to advertisers.
[00:03:35] Caryn Mathes: That changes the relationship between the media entity and the audience. So public radio being, often the, the last, entity left standing in, in most markets. Being independent and not, owned by a conglomerate, it, maintains, community connection, community voice, community influence on the media, which is really diminishing when you see , the size of some of the conglomerates.
[00:03:59] Mark Wright: [00:04:00] Yeah, I have a love for public radio. I started my career at Northwest Public Radio in Pullman at Washington State University is the license holder there. Went on to KBSU Boise Public Radio as a legislative reporter in Spokane Public Radio. So I just absolutely love what public radio is and what public radio does.
[00:04:19] Mark Wright: And having worked in both public broadcasting and commercial broadcasting, I’ve seen from the inside that in public radio, there is a very thick firewall between sponsorship and news content. And at some TV stations today, there’s almost no firewall now between the advertising side of some TV stations in the newsroom, which is really troubling.
[00:04:44] Mark Wright: In
[00:04:44] Caryn Mathes: Yeah. Oh, you know, and that’s, been a phenomenon that’s not just lately. I started, my electronic media career doing commercial television news in the seventies. And I remember at the height of the gasoline crisis and the [00:05:00] recession, the general manager of the station where I was in my hometown of southern Indiana, walked into the middle of the newsroom and said, Stop publishing all this bad news.
[00:05:10] Caryn Mathes: It’s bad for sales. I thought, wow, that’s quite something. so that’s been a vulnerability for, for decades that, in public media that doesn’t exist, there is a firewall. you know, I can comment on the. content and coverage that we do as a listener, but I don’t, dictate. what is news, what our teams cover, nor does my board.
[00:05:33] Caryn Mathes: , we have, you know, ethics, policies and editorial policies, but they really are quite an independent, operation we’re very closely connected with our community. We invite the community in to make comments on our programming, and we always have a human respond to people. And monthly we do reports on how is our coverage.
[00:05:57] Caryn Mathes: hitting the community. What do they think? And that [00:06:00] information is pulled back into the newsroom so that they don’t become so insular that they’re not listening to who they’re creating for. And so I think that’s one of the defining differences of public media is that, you know, that service community service is at the forefront.
[00:06:15] Caryn Mathes: You know, if we can achieve, a survival, Audience share so much the better. But , we’re not, you know, driving for huge audiences to make, uh, money through advertising on the audience. We’re really focused on service.
[00:06:29] Mark Wright: I’d like to go now back to your, uh, I’m laughing because your professional career actually started in childhood. You started writing for newspapers. I think, what was it? Middle school, Caryn, that you
[00:06:41] Caryn Mathes: It was middle school. Yeah, I was 14 or 15 years old and, uh, just had a wonderful, situation. I grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana, Southern Indiana, and one of the two local daily papers in Terre Haute, the Terre Haute Tribune, devoted a whole section of their Sunday paper to youth news. And so [00:07:00] any school from middle school on up through high school that wanted to have a news bureau And that was a unique opportunity.
[00:07:08] Caryn Mathes: And, uh, you know, it’s important to show young people, professions that they might not have been of which they might not have been aware. And so that definitely, you know, the joy of writing and the thrill of starting with a blank page and creating something that caused people to feel a certain way or react a certain way or evoke a certain emotion.
[00:07:29] Caryn Mathes: That was pretty magical for me. So yeah, that was my start.
[00:07:33] Mark Wright: So you wanted to get a job in newspapers. apparently they weren’t hiring at the time, but an editor said, wow, you’ve got a great voice. Have you, have you thought about radio? Have you thought about broadcasting? And that led to, another amazing opportunity.
[00:07:47] Mark Wright: How, how did that work?
[00:07:49] Caryn Mathes: opportunity. Yeah. And in the moment that was said to me, I was offended because I was part of the old school print journalism cadre that felt that, oh, electronic that upstart [00:08:00] electronic media, that’s not really journalism. But then I got desperate, needed a job. And so I went to the, CBS station.
[00:08:08] Caryn Mathes: Affiliate at the time in Terre Haute, WTHI, and they were an AM, FM, and TV combination and I was filling out an application for the radio station and somebody grabbed me and did a quick interview and took me to another person, another person, and finally I was in the inner office of Harry Fry, who was like the Walter Cooper Cronkite or Tom Brokaw of, Terre Haute Media.
[00:08:33] Caryn Mathes: And he was so gracious and he was thumbing through my portfolio of print clips and invited me back the next week to do a camera test. And so I was hired and honest to God, this was the title of the job. I was hired as wire copy rewrite girl.
[00:08:52] Mark Wright: That’s like a, that’s like a credit in a bad movie or something.
[00:08:55] Caryn Mathes: yeah, exactly. Uh, Best Boy Grip. [00:09:00] Wire copy rewrite girl number one. But, uh, you know, in those days, the television news video was film. And the film was prone to break. And so if the film, uh, stream broke and you needed filler, I wrote the the filler stories, localized, wire copy. Picked a stock film to go with it.
[00:09:21] Caryn Mathes: And so sometimes all my work for that evening would never see the light of day. And sometimes, you know, I was the savior of the day. And then, but you know, I, I’ve talked to, uh, young people and students, about this, wherever you land. Utilize pester power to learn as much as you can. So I would pester the other reporters to, you know, take me out with them.
[00:09:46] Caryn Mathes: How do you do a stand up? How do you position yourself? Let me watch you interview. Channel 10, WTHI had the only female head of photography in the country at that time, Betty Chadwick, [00:10:00] and she was not a willing mentor. She was not happy about it, but sometimes she would help me when I was pestering her.
[00:10:07] Caryn Mathes: Just to make me go away, you know, Benny, show me how you, splice film and edit film and how, much lead time do you need to run the film through the big developer before the news cast? And so I just pester, pester, pestered my way into, a beat. So I had the education beat, walk on the set, do my special story, walk off.
[00:10:28] Caryn Mathes: And then eventually, got tapped to be weeknight, co anchor and I was 19.
[00:10:34] Mark Wright: You’re still a teenager at this point. I’ve, that is, that is unbelievable. I want to back up a little bit, Caryn. you know, as a writer and as a journalist, finding your voice is really, the key to becoming. Really who you are and to, grow into your full potential. How did you find your voice when you were young?
[00:10:53] Mark Wright: Were there people in your life that, that helped you? Because when I hear you talk today, and we’ve spent a lot of time around each other in various [00:11:00] organizations, I’m always just so impressed at how measured and how powerful and calm your presence is, and it’s, really rooted in, this amazing voice that you have.
[00:11:11] Caryn Mathes: Oh, you’re so kind. thank you. Well, I was an only child. Until, uh, age eight. And so I spent the majority of my, childhood around adults, and my maternal grandparents lived right next door. We were in and out of each other’s, homes, you know, several times a day. And I was, you know, kind of the, the listening ear, you know, underneath the kitchen table to a lot of adult conversations and learned.
[00:11:41] Caryn Mathes: How, uh, you know, mature adults viewed the world, navigated issues and challenges, and I think that was quite, formative. I had the extreme privilege of having an intact, Two parent family, a stay at home mom, a [00:12:00] grandmother and grandparents, just across the yard. A great grandmother in my life, who was barely an hour away in Indianapolis, Indiana, who came to visit frequently.
[00:12:10] Caryn Mathes: And my whole family, when you talk about that proverbial Village takes a village to raise a child. I had that village. And then you add to my nuclear family, the church and the school and education was highly, highly prized in my, uh, family. And, being able to express yourself clearly. And articulately was very important.
[00:12:34] Caryn Mathes: , I spent a brief stint before I got really involved in journalism, on a debate team and interpretive reading competitions. And, uh, you know, that was. My family was fairly strict, but they did indulge educational and creative pursuits. I played in band and orchestra and pit orchestra for the shows.
[00:12:56] Caryn Mathes: And that was, you know, the one reason, Hey, I’m [00:13:00] practicing, my piece, mom or dad, or I, my muse has just descended. Um, I’m, I can write this, uh, essay that I have to write. I, Really don’t want to come to the dinner table right now. They would indulge that, uh, but other times, you know, it was, it was pretty, uh, pretty strict upbringing, pretty tight control.
[00:13:18] Mark Wright: So as you’re a teenager, you’re on television, you’re a woman of color. what was that like, Caryn? I don’t know much about the racial makeup of, of Terre Haute, but when we talked a few weeks ago, you said that there were some challenging times, you know, as you, as you started.
[00:13:35] Caryn Mathes: Yeah, it was tough. And I think my management at WTHI shielded me from a great deal of it. I was the first person of color news anchor that had ever been. If you could imagine that in the mid 70s. This was late 74, early 1975. First person of color. And so, of course, I’m sure more than I heard, people were [00:14:00] calling in saying, what the heck do you, are you doing having, her on?
[00:14:04] Caryn Mathes: , one of the biggest challenges was when I was and doing things, um, you know, something like voice on the street stuff. And, you know, white people would write in and say, Oh, she’s covering too many black people. And black people would write in saying she’s not, you know, interviewing enough black people.
[00:14:22] Caryn Mathes: And it’s like, I can’t win here. So that was, that was really tough. There was some scary things that happened that had I been, a male, a black male, It might have not gone as well, for me. You know, no cell phones in those days. If you had to stop and call in a story, you had to find some place, to go and use their pay phone.
[00:14:44] Caryn Mathes: And a lot of times it was these kind of rural off the beaten path places, you know, the do drop in kind of, kind of places. And, you know, you walk in and all conversation stops. And that is a weird feeling. One [00:15:00] night on a late night assignment, I had a sheriff say, deputy level his shotgun in the news car window at me.
[00:15:07] Caryn Mathes: And, you know, what are you doing here, girl? And, you know, big smile, uh, you know, young, young woman who’s kind of maybe, you know, too, too dumb to be afraid and just, hey, you know, here’s my credentials and I’m here to do this. And so, you know, I, I never, was physically harmed, but there were some challenging a little bit frightening situations that, again, as a woman, I may have been shielded from, from some things that a black male would not have been.
[00:15:38] Caryn Mathes: So
[00:15:40] Mark Wright: wow. That must’ve been, Kind of a frightening time and challenging, just sort of not knowing what was going to happen next,
[00:15:48] Caryn Mathes: yeah, it leaves you a little bit shaken. Although again, at that age, 1920, You’re still in that phase where you think you’re invincible. Oh, nothing’s gonna happen.
[00:15:58] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:15:59] Caryn Mathes: But [00:16:00] needless to say, I did not tell my mother about most of those experiences because she would have been quite upset.
[00:16:07] Mark Wright: Caryn, how did you get into management? Because, you were appointed interim general manager at W D E T. you kind of resisted, you were sort of arm twisted into that, to that position. How old were you? How much time had you spent in the business when you transitioned into management?
[00:16:23] Caryn Mathes: by the time I became a general manager of a station, I was 28, which was still quite young. I had been a news director for a couple of years before, that. So, 20, late 25, 26 years old. And again, in those days, and I suspect even in these days, a lot of times, When young people, people of color, people not of the mainstream, when you get an opportunity, it’s because The thing has already kind of gone to hell in a handbasket and people feel like, what the heck?
[00:16:57] Caryn Mathes: You know, let’s give the little colored girl a chance. [00:17:00] And so, you know, my, I got laid off from W. J. R. A. M. And the only job offer that I had that wouldn’t require me to move again was being news director at the public station. And that was my first experience with public media at W. D. E. T. And it was You know, they had huge layoffs, and the facility was a shambles, and the staff was a shambles, and the news effort was a mess, and so I always tell students that, blossom where you’re planted, bloom where you’re planted, take that maybe not ideal situation, and do the best you can.
[00:17:40] Caryn Mathes: And so again, pester power, getting more experienced people to help me learn and train me. And so people recognize potential. Wow. She took that Sal’s ear and turned it into a silk, close to a silk purse. Okay, let’s give her another chance. And so I was news director and [00:18:00] my GM at the time decided he had come to the Midwest from the East.
[00:18:06] Caryn Mathes: West, far West, and he decided he didn’t like the Midwest. He was going back to the West. He wasn’t on the best footing with the university owner of the station. And he said, I’m leaving and I’m going to name you interim GM. And if you don’t at least try this, you’re the biggest chicken in the world. So he really threw down the gauntlet.
[00:18:26] Caryn Mathes: And I thought, Oh my gosh, I had never even aspired to being news director, let alone a GM. And I called my mother. Who even though she never worked outside the home, she was a go for it kind of gal. And she said, well, The guy that you’d be coming in behind is not doing so well, right? I said, yeah, she goes, well, you know, go for it.
[00:18:49] Caryn Mathes: Just , get it in writing that if you totally wash out, you can have your old job back. And I’m like, Mom, that sounds like a plan. Okay. So I, you know, I took the gig on an interim [00:19:00] basis, got, the gig full time, didn’t wash out, and the rest is history. That was my first of three GM stints.
[00:19:09] Mark Wright: So as you rise through the ranks. In management, you’re starting to put a, I’m guessing a toolbox together of skills and understanding of, how to motivate people and how to build teams and just how to run things. What were some of the early lessons, Caryn, that you learned that led to success when it came to managing and leading other people?
[00:19:30] Caryn Mathes: Oh my goodness, Mark. I bumped my head a lot. I was a bull in a china shop because it wasn’t until I was six or seven years into my tenure as a GM at W D E T that I got any formal management training. And when I finally got some, it was a campus wide program with the TQM total program. Total quality, management built on the Dems, method.
[00:19:58] Caryn Mathes: And, uh, it was, it was like a [00:20:00] whole nother college class. I ended up getting like 97 hours of management training. But in those early years, you know, you go in and I was kind of a, well, it’s going to be my way or the highway kind of manager. And wow, that, that, guess what? That doesn’t work. And so having , to learn the hard way to be collaborative, to To you, build and use skills of persuasion.
[00:20:23] Caryn Mathes: , one of the management gurus of old, I can’t remember if it was Peter Drucker or Stephen Covey, but they said leadership is the management of people’s hearts. And I, when I read that, I really took, that, to heart because, um, you know, you can’t really force anybody past the age of two to do anything.
[00:20:44] Caryn Mathes: You have to, you know, cultivate them and bring them along and make them want, to do it. So that, you know, cultivating people’s, the hearts and showing people. a vision. years later, you know, I had a, uh, trainer in change management and [00:21:00] they said, you know, stop acting like change is holding hands and skipping down the yellow brick road changes, changes, death, changes, scary changes, death of the old way.
[00:21:11] Caryn Mathes: And you have to help your staff see themselves on the other side. of the change. And so you’re going to have to hold their hand and walk them through the valley of the shadow of death. And I, you know, I had never thought about, cause I kind of like change and it’s like, Ooh, exciting. We don’t know how this is going to turn out.
[00:21:29] Caryn Mathes: Most people hate that. And, and so learning that I had to be a, guide and a mentor and be able to tell the epic saga and incite people to want to go down that scary path. that was a big, Big learning moment for me that you couldn’t just bend people to your will.
[00:21:48] Mark Wright: Yeah. KUOW? It’s a long way from, you know, where you grew up. you’ve been here, what, nine years or
[00:21:56] Mark Wright: so. Is that right? 10
[00:21:57] Caryn Mathes: 10 now. Yeah. About almost 10 and a half. [00:22:00] Well, I, You asked earlier, you know, finding your voice and your skill set. And because my very first station where I was GM, by the way, for 21 years at WDET, I got a reputation as a financial turnaround manager. So these stations that were, destroyed, kept calling and I’m like, Oh, I don’t know that I want to do that again.
[00:22:24] Caryn Mathes: And then I had the opportunity, a search firm sought me out and I, I went to, WAMU in DC. They weren’t, well, they were a little bit, you know, financially challenged, but more reputationally challenged. So again, I’m building that poor portfolio as a fix it, manager. And so when I was approached by another search firm to come to, Seattle, they were quite sneaky.
[00:22:52] Caryn Mathes: about it because I had, we had just refurbished a beautiful 50, 000 square foot space, in DC. And I was pretty firmly [00:23:00] entrenched at WAMU. And the search firm approached me and asked me, did I know, Wayne Roth, who was my predecessor here at KUOW. And, you know, would I consent to be a consultant?
[00:23:10] Caryn Mathes: to help find Wayne’s successor and I owe new skill set. Ooh, yummy. And so, uh, it was a total bait and switch and I, you know, researched the market and put together a whole presentation and did the presentation for them at their, at their, And there was silence and I thought, oh boy, I didn’t do well.
[00:23:33] Caryn Mathes: And they said, you know what? We think we might be interested in you for this position. I was kind of like, what just happened here? But you know, I was intrigued. They had me on the hook. By that time, Mark, because I had researched the market, I knew what the intriguing things about, , the Seattle market were.
[00:23:51] Caryn Mathes: There was so much public media here, multiple radio stations, multiple TV, stations, all of them being pretty well, uh, [00:24:00] supported. The youth, bubble in the population, the tech bubble, which nobody had really cracked the code Of how to make digital technology really work well for media and be able to monetize it.
[00:24:13] Caryn Mathes: So all those things were an appeal factor. So after I went through the recruitment process and they offered the job, I was bought in. I was, I was sold. Let me add it. And it was a different kind of challenge. I had had a financially destroyed station, a reputationally destroyed station. KOW was looking really good because it didn’t have either of those problems.
[00:24:37] Caryn Mathes: It was, what the board told me was that we want KOW to be more, be bigger, be engaged with the community. Don’t be this erudite island away from the world, be more. be integrated with the community. And so, you know, to build the station’s ambition and reach into the community was the challenge here.
[00:24:58] Caryn Mathes: And so it’s been just very [00:25:00] fulfilling , to do that here.
[00:25:02] Mark Wright: So Caryn, when they told you to make KUOW bigger, what, what did that actually look like once you were on the ground?
[00:25:08] Caryn Mathes: yeah. Well, you know, the first, as in, in a lot of ceo level jobs in any industry, you know, your first several months, you’re getting out into the community, meet and greet, see how your entity is perceived in the community. What’s the persona? And, you know, the attitude about KUOW was, well, you know, fantastic, interesting features, not really a willing partner in anything in the community.
[00:25:38] Caryn Mathes: And it’s like, wow, cause that wasn’t what I was hearing inside our walls. People did seem to want to partner with the community, but they hadn’t been given a roadmap or an outline for how to do it. So , we started by bringing in. outside, consultants and we developed this schema of what we called the time outside [00:26:00] in.
[00:26:00] Caryn Mathes: We were going to let the community in to our editorial thinking, our, priorities setting. We were going to value people’s lived experience as valid. We were going to diversify our sourcing, not just the content. The usual voices, the usual newsmaker suspects on air, and it takes a while to build trust because when you haven’t been that kind of partner, community folks will look at you askance like, oh, are you just, being a voyeur here?
[00:26:30] Caryn Mathes: Are you just parachuting in for a minute? And then we’ll never see you again. So it took, you know, just repeated, presence and true partnership and being vulnerable. I told staff, you know, shields down, Mr. Sulu, and just hear what people have to say, even if it’s critical because we can’t get better.
[00:26:49] Caryn Mathes: Unless we’re in tune with how people perceive us and how they’re using us. So, you know, it started, gosh, probably the second year of my tenure [00:27:00] doing that, and we just had to persist and grow. We ended up building this quite robust community engagement unit that we have now, which, uh, which I mentioned earlier, they, do a lot of, The, listener feedback, listener input, taking that into the newsroom to impact and influence the makers of our content.
[00:27:23] Caryn Mathes: , they put on a number of, events where again, we get input on, issues of community importance and take that back into our maker, unit. So, you know, it’s been a big investment. We have a team of, three people. In our community engagement unit. But community engagement is in all of our heads. And so it’s something now that’s just in the fabric of the station.
[00:27:45] Caryn Mathes: And we have people seeking us out as partners. Which was not, the case when I first got here. So that’s something I’m quite proud of.
[00:27:54] Mark Wright: After the death of George Floyd, a lot of companies and organizations started getting more serious about [00:28:00] diversity within their ranks. You started doing that. I think you told me in 2017 in terms of. You know, an actual structure to examine diversity within your organization. You told me that in interacting with some of your peers, people were like, we’re like, Caryn, give us a checklist of what we need to do to, to accomplish, diversity within our organization.
[00:28:20] Mark Wright: And that just drove you crazy.
[00:28:22] Caryn Mathes: Oh, my
[00:28:23] Mark Wright: yeah, tell me a
[00:28:24] Caryn Mathes: Yeah. Well, the fact that because, you know, you’re correct. 2017 was when I first commissioned a racial equity team and in the early going, it was rugged because we weren’t used to having those kind of conversations. We were dragging a lot of things into the light. We started with some anonymous.
[00:28:47] Caryn Mathes: Surveys that we were able to divide the responses, demographically, but maintain anonymity if enough people responded to each question. And you know, most of the white staff were like, we don’t have any [00:29:00] problems here. And most of the staff of color was like, we have a big problem here. We can’t have racial discussions.
[00:29:06] Caryn Mathes: And so just dragging those conversations into the light in the early going of our racial equity team, you know, there were tears, 20 percent of the team quit because it was just too intense. And they’re like, my job is hard enough. I don’t need this. And we just had to persist. And I, I understood, from having that runway before, the horrific, events during the pandemic and the George Floyd murder, that it takes a complete transformation.
[00:29:35] Caryn Mathes: Of your organization. And so when people thought, you know, it was something superficial that they could just check off, I would get, you know, quite, adamant that you need to strap in and be prepared to examine it. Absolutely everything that you do. Representative diversity among your staff is just a baby step.
[00:29:55] Caryn Mathes: Yeah, you can’t get any further if you don’t at least do that. [00:30:00] But you then have to change your management structure to make that happen. Inclusive and representative because let’s say you have a lot of brown faces on your on your content teams, but they’re hitting up against a non diverse tier of management with their story pitches.
[00:30:18] Caryn Mathes: And if nothing ever gets green lighted, they’re going to get very discouraged and it’ll be as though you never hired them because you’re not infusing that inclusivity of thought and perspective. in your organization. So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a work in progress. It’s on ongoing, to continue to figure out how do we speak to one another?
[00:30:40] Caryn Mathes: How do we keep shields down, Mr. Sulu? And when somebody does make, a misstep, maybe says something insensitive. How do we refrain from incinerating that people and instead lean into a learning moment? That’s a lot to ask of people. And we [00:31:00] tell our staff, hey, if you are not in an educational mood on the day that something happens, feel free to say, you know what, I’m going to step away and I want you to just think about what you’ve said.
[00:31:11] Caryn Mathes: I’m not in a head space to be able to educate you today, but I want you to just think about , what you said. It took us a long time to get to that, point of maturity of discussion.
[00:31:22] Mark Wright: What’s your best advice, Caryn, to maybe that middle manager or upper manager listening who’s kind of struggling with the idea of DEI and how to actually embrace it as an organization? Because there are so many facets. There are so many things and ways that you have to consider, for that manager whose head is kind of spinning at all of this.
[00:31:44] Mark Wright: , what’s your best advice?
[00:31:45] Caryn Mathes: Yeah, get outside professional assistance the best that you can afford because, DEI and equity work, that’s a profession and that is not our core profession that won’t be that middle [00:32:00] manager’s core profession. So, get a guide, get somebody in there to help you and you can start surveying and taking the temperature of where your organization is.
[00:32:11] Caryn Mathes: Listen more than you talk. and be open to discomfort. That’s one of the biggest things. Get, professional help and be open to discomfort because you are going to be uncomfortable. Nobody wants to think that they have racist or even privileged, tendencies. We all do. One of the first exercises that our first trainer took us through was you filled out a questionnaire and it, was getting at privilege.
[00:32:42] Caryn Mathes: You know, did you have an intact nuclear family? Uh, were you able to, uh, go through, higher education? And all these questions and you would, on, on a continuum line, you would circle, How privileged you are. And, you know, as a black woman who grew up in, in, rural [00:33:00] Southern Indiana, I had this perception of myself.
[00:33:03] Caryn Mathes: But when I looked at my rating sheet, I actually am quite great. You know, having that family, uh, unit, no food insecurity, extracurriculars like, you know, music and camp and that sort of thing. And so kind of understanding that we’re all somewhere on that continuum line. And, you know, we sh we have to look for common ground and we always should listen and seek.
[00:33:29] Caryn Mathes: to understand first more than seeking to be understood. I think that’s a Stephen Covey line, but it’s true. Listen more than you talk.
[00:33:37] Mark Wright: And I had a chance as a journalist for 35 years to see the value of systemic diversity. because. What I think a lot of people at home don’t know is that the way journalism is done, journalism is a series of decisions over time by many, many, many, many people. [00:34:00] Who do you pick up the phone and call? Who do you interview?
[00:34:03] Mark Wright: Who do you put in your story? Who do you decide not to put in your story? , there are just so many decisions that lead to how a story gets covered. Everybody goes about that process differently based on their background, their social network, their view of the world. And so the value of that systemic diversity, because, like you said, if that diversity only exists.
[00:34:29] Mark Wright: In one layer of the organization, it’s going to, it’s going to bump its head on the next level. If, that understanding doesn’t exist. So I loved, I love the fact that, I mean, what used to be a, you know, an exclusively white male industry has now evolved to include, many voices. I guess it would be interesting to hear from you, Caryn.
[00:34:51] Mark Wright: What does ideal diversity look like when it comes to the people who are on the air? And the value of, that diversity.
[00:34:59] Caryn Mathes: [00:35:00] Yeah. Gosh, that’s a good question. Cause we, we struggled with that early on and just to kind of latch on to some metric. We looked at the census data for the, population, percentages just to give ourselves a place to start. And we set, you know, targets for ourselves. Like our target is to have at least 30 percent of our supervisory core, tier be people of color.
[00:35:27] Caryn Mathes: Now, when it comes to coverage, we’re kind of in the school of thought. that, you know, the percentage of stories that you do, that metric then kind of doesn’t hold up because a, marginalized communities, stories and perspectives have been suppressed for so long or ignored for so long. It’s probably worthwhile to kind of oversample, you know, maybe beyond what the representation of the population is in coverage, but also if you’re doing it right, [00:36:00] You aren’t going to BIPOC sources for just stories about race.
[00:36:07] Caryn Mathes: Uh, you know, we had an outside firm called Impact Architects come in and review all of our coverage, our photos, our graphics, our headlines, and one of the things that they checked was, okay, you used this many diverse sources, but what type did you use? of stories did you use them for? Did you have a black surgeon talking about, you know, the latest developments in, heart, uh, surgery?
[00:36:35] Caryn Mathes: And so if you’re just trying to get diverse expertise to the front of the line, to the table, then that the demographic thing doesn’t matter. You’re just looking for the expertise. And we built a, database and, you know, as a former journalist, you know how, well, you’re still a journalist, but it, you know, you know how covetous journalists can be of their sources.
[00:36:58] Caryn Mathes: And so it took a lot to get [00:37:00] our journalists to put, their sources into a centralized database with meta tags so that other people could search them. But when people, you know, find a good source, topically and then you can tag it that, oh, this person self identifies as a person of color or LBGTQ, you know, now we have this centralized repository and we’re trying to grow it every year so that we aren’t just going to the, regular suspects all the time.
[00:37:27] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Caryn Mathes: for coverage, for quotes for our talk shows, any of that. So, yeah, it’s a multi pronged. Attack that we use to ensure diverse perspectives. and you know, this gives way to another big discussion in our industry that I’m sure you’re aware of. Journalism, it used to be the voice from nowhere.
[00:37:50] Caryn Mathes: You don’t tell anybody. You know, what you’re about, anything about , what you do in your personal life, what your hobbies are. It’s the voice from nowhere and the [00:38:00] journalist is invisible to the coverage. And now we’re kind of questioning that because if we’re hiring for diverse perspective, but we try to scrape all of that away from you, then kind of what was the, the point.
[00:38:15] Caryn Mathes: So walking that line between, you know, no, you can’t come on and advocate. You need to disclose like Bill Radke. Every time he, does a story or has a panel discussion about Boeing, he discloses that his wife works at Boeing. you know, you could disclose things, but we, want you to bring that diverse mindset to the table.
[00:38:36] Caryn Mathes: That’s why we hired inclusively. So
[00:38:39] Mark Wright: Yeah, and I think what that’s brilliant that , you’ve systematized it with a database because otherwise it’s just going to be hit and miss on the day that that story comes up. Hey, does anybody know who we can talk to, to cover this story? That’s really cool. And I think, Caryn, a few weeks ago when we talked, you, you mentioned the conversation that I had with my former co anchor, Joyce Taylor at [00:39:00] King five.
[00:39:00] Mark Wright: About race right after the George Floyd incident and all the riots. And being real on the air was, I think it was one of the prouder moments that I had because I just let my guard completely down and said, this is who I am. And Joyce and I had, it was a gut wrenching and beautiful conversation about race and how very different our experiences were based on the color of our skin in this country.
[00:39:30] Caryn Mathes: It was, I remember seeing that and it was profound and, one of the takeaways I will always remember is that you found common ground. Uh, you started talking about, you know, your love for your families and children and wanting the best for them. And it, it kind of, You know, the conversation just further blossomed from there.
[00:39:53] Caryn Mathes: And that’s important. we’re in a very divisive time. And I think if people would put [00:40:00] shields down and talk to one another, we’re all more alike than we are different. We really are, you know, we care about a lot of the same things and it’s only through those honest. conversations, and if it’s not, you know, a face to face conversation, those honest portrayals in the coverage that public radio does that shows the, humanity.
[00:40:22] Caryn Mathes: of people because it’s human nature. It is really easy to just broad brush. Oh, those people, you know, whether it’s, politically or neighborhood wise or racially or, globally, uh, it’s real easy to other. people. And, you know, when we, when we can get to some common ground of what do you care about?
[00:40:47] Caryn Mathes: What do you care about? And, then we can relate to each other as human beings.
[00:40:52] Mark Wright: Yeah, I’ve heard racial experts say that in liberal cities in America, discussing race is a greater [00:41:00] challenge because you’ll often hear people say, well, I don’t see color and they don’t understand that the point is to ignore the color. It’s to acknowledge the color and the diversity and the background.
[00:41:12] Mark Wright: So Seattle’s a really, it’s a tricky area to discuss race because there are some really amazing liberal, great people, but the way that they navigate the world. Discounts what we actually need to do.
[00:41:25] Caryn Mathes: Right. That’s, I’m so glad you brought that up because I have, one of the things the DEI training, taught us was how to, it’s called calling people in instead of calling people out because when you smack somebody down and they recoil, well then, end of discussion. And so we learned how, you know, different tactics for, calling somebody in to help them understand why that wasn’t the best thing.
[00:41:51] Caryn Mathes: And several times I’ve, you know, somebody has said that exact phrase. Well, I don’t see color and not in front of the group, but I would pull them aside later. [00:42:00] And I said, I don’t know if you realize What that says to me as a black person, my, my whole orientation is around being a person of color, culturally, how I move through the world, how the world treats me, and when you’re dismissive.
[00:42:16] Caryn Mathes: of my color and you don’t, then you’re saying I’m invisible to you and that, you know, and they’re like, Oh, well, you know, they never even dawned on, they were like, Oh my God, thank you, for telling me, that. And so, you know, yes, I could have incinerated them and done some finger waggling. but you know, that’s, not the way to build.
[00:42:34] Caryn Mathes: Common ground and understanding and continued dialogue. So I’ve, I’ve learned the art of the, you know, the quiet in the corner conversation to just give people some context.
[00:42:47] Mark Wright: When we spoke a few weeks ago, Caryn, I was really impressed with some of the management awareness that you, that you have now in this, era, the pandemic changed everything. it accelerated [00:43:00] a movement that was already underway among young workers in America that really empowered them, kind of put them in a new position of being able to demand more in the workplace.
[00:43:11] Mark Wright: But you told me one of the challenges that you run up against is you wish that more people in the workplace would assume good intent as they, as they go about their day for that manager listening. What does that look like in an organization and what’s the damage that can be, can be done? Care. Hmm.
[00:43:28] Caryn Mathes: Yeah, and I don’t maybe it was the isolation of the pandemic that accelerated this so much, but people seem to have a hair trigger to assuming that, you know, whatever. was said or done or how it if it didn’t land well on you, you assume the worst possible intentions on the part of the perpetrator. And so first, you know, just pausing, take a breath.
[00:43:54] Caryn Mathes: Well, what? What else could this be? Ask the person. Wow. You know, when you say that, [00:44:00] That makes me feel, you know, just like they tell you in marital counseling, don’t say you always, it’s like, that makes me feel, uh, and I don’t want to feel that way. And so, just, Taking it to the source, talking, uh, directly.
[00:44:14] Caryn Mathes: Well, what did you, let me repeat back to you what I heard. Is that what you really meant, to say? But yeah, we’re hair triggered to assume the worst. And among my younger cohort of employees, hair triggered toward what? Grievance, oh you didn’t meet my deadline. So you’re disrespecting me Personally not that oh you were busy or you had something going on that I didn’t know about and just trying to get people To pause ask more questions Talk talk talk before you go to email Go in person, pick up the phone.
[00:44:52] Caryn Mathes: I just published a couple of articles that I got from the Harvard Business Review newsletter. when [00:45:00] to and not to use email because email is a terrible tool. You know, if, if, uh, what is the percentage? 85 percent of communication is nonverbal. And when it’s in an email or even a text, you’ve stripped away 85 percent of the meaning.
[00:45:15] Caryn Mathes: And so that, just lays fertile ground for assumption of bad intent. So just, uh, and this is, a continual, challenge because, our young people, they don’t feel empowered often and they feel put upon and they wonder, you know, why aren’t I there and why are you making that?
[00:45:34] Caryn Mathes: salary, Caryn, even though you’ve been in the business 50 years, why are you making that salary? And I’m making this salary. And so there’s just this, the weight of this, grievance, this culture of grievance that I find really wearying. For me, that’s one of the worst things in the workplace. And I really have to work hard to keep my positive attitude and counterbalance that because it’s like, why didn’t you just go?
[00:45:59] Caryn Mathes: Talk to the [00:46:00] person. Why did you, and you know, you do have power. Everybody, not everybody’s not equal, but everybody has the right, you know, to ask a question and follow up. And so getting people to feel empowered in that way has been a challenge in our workplaces. I’m sure it is in a lot of workplaces. So it’s just continual training and encouragement.
[00:46:21] Mark Wright: Yeah, and getting people to understand , how beautiful and disarming it is like if, if somebody quote unquote disrespected me and then I just run to my computer and I send a message to my supervisor, you won’t believe what happened to me instead of doing that. Just going to that person and saying, you know, I, I don’t think you meant to hurt my feelings on this one, but, like you said before, talk, say it back to them and, can you help me understand this and just how much better the workplace would be if everyone navigated the problem with that scenario is it takes courage, it’s scary.
[00:46:55] Mark Wright: It’s scary to initiate that conversation. But as you said, if we really want work to be [00:47:00] redeemed, we have to assume good intent in the workplace, and we have to communicate in a way that builds up those relationships and doesn’t end there. call them into question and tear them down.
[00:47:10] Caryn Mathes: think the other thing that’s key, Mark, is management has to take the chip off its shoulder and be transparent and answer questions, and you’re going to have to answer the same questions over and over and over again because, you know, your, team doesn’t live with it. your tier of the workplace every day.
[00:47:31] Caryn Mathes: And so , it doesn’t stick on the first time. So you’re going to have to repeat it. And then some people will keep asking the question cause they don’t like the response. And they think if I keep asking, especially reporters, if I keep asking, I’ll get a different answer. No, you won’t. but we do like my, my, my C suite, we call it the DLG, the division leads group.
[00:47:52] Caryn Mathes: We, on a monthly basis, have a convening where it’s called, DLG Ask Us Anything. And [00:48:00] we spend an hour with whoever shows up in the room, and they can just ask us anything. And we answer, and if we don’t have the answer in the moment, we go fetch the answer, and bring it back, uh, around, and then, we have monthly, all staff meetings where we’re, talking about the product.
[00:48:18] Caryn Mathes: There’s a standing agenda item where we have comments from listeners. Cause you know, again, we’re focusing on our, constituent, service, but , telling, showing people the finances, the good, bad, and the ugly, we have all hands meetings that are totally focused. on the finances. And so, the contraction in expense that we had to announce this week, the handwriting was on the wall.
[00:48:41] Caryn Mathes: You know, the staff, there was still some, surprise, but, this, we had been honest with the staff about this run rate isn’t looking good for how fast we’re pivoting to get digital consumers to give. And so you just have to, You know, take off those epaulets and get real and talk to people and [00:49:00] share information and not be offended by questioning.
[00:49:03] Mark Wright: I’d love to talk more about the idea of finances. KUOW is a, is a nonprofit organization. And when we spoke a few weeks ago, you said that one thing that’s damaging the nonprofit world is the expectation of very, very low overhead. So that’s one thing that we do as, as people who give to philanthropic organizations is we, take a look at their overhead percentage.
[00:49:28] Mark Wright: And if it’s too high, we say they must be wasting money. But. You suggest a healthier model when it comes to assessing nonprofits. And I’d love for you , to let our listeners know
[00:49:38] Caryn Mathes: Yeah, overhead is not a good measure because, so look at where KUOW is now. I like to say we went from kind of a two ring circus of the live, broadcast, uh, you know, pushing content out and then a website. And we’ve gone from a two ring circus to a website. to a 12 ring circus with all of the different podcasts [00:50:00] and events and a web that has, uh, interactive things on it.
[00:50:05] Caryn Mathes: So it has grown a lot and that takes technology. And, platforms and our big new thing is we’re getting ready to get a really robust mobile app because for our younger, uh, potential audience, everything is through, you know, is through this, this device, this smart phone. And so, yeah, it’s going to cost 10, 000 a year.
[00:50:28] Caryn Mathes: , to contract with a firm that’s going to do our app, skin it to look like us, do all the bells and whistles. And so, yes, that’s probably going to rack up in the, overhead or infrastructure column, but it’s necessary. for our survival and growth and future sustainability and audience service. So you can’t, you can’t just look at that.
[00:50:52] Caryn Mathes: I think, you know, a more realistic measure is, how many, how many people are you serving? Who are you serving? How are you serving [00:51:00] them? And that, that overhead figure should be, should play less large, uh, in the services that kind of judge and rate non profits like Charity Navigator
[00:51:11] Caryn Mathes: , That, that should loom smaller on the, horizon. Especially now when we’re having to invest so much in technology to reach new audiences.
[00:51:20] Mark Wright: Well, Caryn, as we start to wrap things up, I’d love your perspective on the future of, of journalism. I have a son who’s in college. He wants to be a journalist
[00:51:31] Caryn Mathes: Yeah. Poor guy. No,
[00:51:33] Mark Wright: you know, And I’m proud of him. He started writing articles in high school for the local paper here and, he’s doing it in college.
[00:51:40] Mark Wright: And, I just told him, look, we’re not sure about the future of journalism, but the skills that you’re going to be building will be, setting you up for, for success in, in whatever you want to do, communication is such a, a value, a valued skill, but as you look at the future of our democracy.
[00:51:57] Mark Wright: And you look at how siloed we are [00:52:00] in how we consume quote, unquote, news content. Now,, are you concerned about the future of our democracy? I feel like public radio is one of the last beacons of hope.
[00:52:14] Caryn Mathes: somewhat concerned and yet I’m also hopeful. I think it’s going to be, on the backs of the journalism industry to tell stories differently. try as we might, sometimes our political devolves into this. horse race and poll ratings and who’s raised the most money. And, you know, again, we need to center the human, experience.
[00:52:39] Caryn Mathes: Uh, I heard an interview on our air today about a young woman who was a single mom, very food insecure, trying to make it through college. And, you know, it was all about. Her humanity really came through, and she’s doing much better, now, but it’s like, wow, that was a political [00:53:00] science lesson rolled up into a 35 minute, interview, and it, was told in a way that it would hard to be polarized about that story because you’re hearing and empathizing With this, woman’s journey.
[00:53:14] Caryn Mathes: And so I think, you know, we have to make our stories more human centered. How is the news of the day landing? on, on individual humans and, and it’s more interesting. Audio is still compelling to people, you know, since cave times, when we were sitting around the fire, you know, telling stories and writing pictures on the stone on the cave, um, you know, stories are compelling.
[00:53:39] Caryn Mathes: They’re still, uh, compelling our website. broke from half a million people trying to do page views of the story we did about the cougar attack on the older women biking club and these women, uh, you know, these 50 plus. Aged women battled a cougar for 45 minutes. It was [00:54:00] riveting. It was riveting. And he had the audio of the 911 call.
[00:54:04] Caryn Mathes: Okay, we got him on the ground and we’re holding him down with a bike, but he’s fighting back. And I was like, you know, just in mid, you know, holding my coffee, riveted with this story. So audio continues to be compelling. Younger audiences, we need to hook them with a good story. Headline, a good story, and then you can go deeper with, oh, there’s historical context or racial implications.
[00:54:31] Caryn Mathes: , but you know, the story, we’re going to have to become consummate storytellers again and then give people all the good stuff that they need to know about that story rather than going in with just facts and figures and that’s boring to people. Nobody wants that or it’s it’s stressful to them. Nobody wants more stress in their life.
[00:54:51] Caryn Mathes: During the pandemic there were actually health care providers who were saying don’t listen to the news and I was like oh my god don’t don’t say that [00:55:00] but uh yeah I think if we tell stories properly. We keep humans at the center of the story. We’re inclusive in our representation of perspectives. I think we do have a future.
[00:55:13] Caryn Mathes: I’m hopeful.
[00:55:14] Mark Wright: Yeah. And those stories told, well, bring to light the experience of everyone in our society. And gosh, I, I think, you know, it goes back to that conversation that Joyce and I had that. If we do our part to understand everyone in our community, a lot more will go right than goes wrong.
[00:55:34] Caryn Mathes: Absolutely. I agree.
[00:55:36] Mark Wright: Caryn, what are you most proud of?
[00:55:37] Mark Wright: You’ve been in this 50 years.
[00:55:39] Caryn Mathes: Oh my gosh. Oh, what am I most proud of? The people I’ve developed. You know, there’s a lot of people that I, that I hired and gave an opportunity and developed to, even if they didn’t stay in media, they went on to do great things. I’m not a person who believes in, that your [00:56:00] legacy is in your work.
[00:56:01] Caryn Mathes: You know, for me, legacy is What kind of daughter, sister, friend, uh, auntie, was I, but I, I do believe that because there were people that had absolutely no reason to help me when I was in the budding years of my career. There was nothing in it for them, and yet they did. And so, you know, being that wind beneath other people’s wings and help them reach their full potential.
[00:56:27] Caryn Mathes: Potential, while not being a stage mom, I had to learn that early on because I could see, potential for people that they didn’t see in themselves. And I was trying to push and they were resisting. So I had to learn, you know, you can show it to them, but then leave it alone if they don’t want to go there.
[00:56:43] Caryn Mathes: My greatest fulfillment comes from identifying talent, uh, encouraging people and launching people, developing people. That’s the most fun for me.
[00:56:53] Mark Wright: and Caryn, when it comes to redeeming work to make work better for everyone, your advice to [00:57:00] that manager who really wants to make a difference in, in redeeming work,
[00:57:04] Caryn Mathes: Listen more than you talk, make yourself accessible, have portals for people to be able to offer suggestions and ask questions. Don’t gatekeep information. and you know, err on the side of trust, you know, trying to build a trust, doing those things that make people feel empowered and safe and that they have something to contribute.
[00:57:32] Mark Wright: Caryn Mathes, it’s been so great to have you on the show. Thank you for your time and keep up the good work.
[00:57:37] Caryn Mathes: Oh, thank you so much. Same to you. It was a pleasure being here.