Crayton Webb

So statistically speaking, if you look at trust around whoever’s in the White House, regardless of party, members of Congress, any elected official or corporations – the media actually ranks lower in public trust surveys than all of those others combined. It’s astounding that we live in an age where people just don’t trust the news media anymore. Our guest today is in the center of that. She is the CEO of the Texas Tribune. Sonal Shah, thank you so much for joining us here on Reputation Matters.

Sonal Shah 

Crayton, it’s so great to be here, and I’m so looking forward to our conversation.

Crayton Webb

You have an amazing past. You, of course, went to University of Chicago, Duke University. You studied economics, right? You were the first, as I understand it, Founding Director of what is essentially the social impact department at Georgetown University. You founded a nonprofit organization. You worked in the Obama White House and the Social Innovation office. You were a policy director for Pete Buttigieg when he ran for president in 2020, you were in the social impact team for the likes of Google as well as Goldman Sachs and now are CEO of a non-profit, non-partisan journalism outlet, the Texas Tribune, the first in the country. Why did you do that? Why would you go to journalism?

Sonal Shah

First of all, when you read all that off, it makes me feel like I can’t keep a job.

Crayton Webb

It’s impressive. It’s impressive.

Sonal Shah

But I, you know, I believe in the news. I worked, I started my career in international finance, so mostly international economics. I’ve lived in Bosnia and Kosovo. I’ve lived in Indonesia. I’ve worked in Rwanda. And when you look at what was missing in all of those countries, and what was happening in all of those countries, is news had become fragmented. Information had become fragmented. And this is long before the advent of social media, and when factual information of things that we believe as consistent fractures, society has a fracturing, because you don’t know how to believe in that information. And so when I came to work at the Texas Tribune, I see the same, same patterns in the United States where we fractured. We believe this news organization versus that news organization. And what I think we have the opportunity to do with the Tribune, but also the news media in general, is to think about, how do we rebuild trust? How do we build a base state of facts that we can all believe in? And how do we do that in a way that in today’s environment looks at and what we’re competing with, which is your telephone, that we can do it effectively.

Crayton Webb

Why do people not trust the media, and how did we get here?

Sonal Shah

I think that’s a multiple part answer. I think part of it is, you know, government leaders, and I don’t blame just any one government leader. We’ve been told, don’t believe in the media, don’t trust this, don’t believe what you’re reading, it’s not true. So that’s sort of degrading for a point of time. I think in some cases, in the news media, we also needed to pay attention to when we were losing trust, and thinking about trust as our barometer, not the number of readers or the number of clicks, like but how did we think about trust, and how we were maintaining, building and retaining trust? And then the third piece of it is, I think, as information has become so fractured, and it is, it is in so many different ways, we need to understand how people are getting information, which ways they’re getting information, and who do they trust, and what are ways that we might realign ourselves?

Crayton Webb

Yeah, media. I always used to refer to it as the fourth check in the check and balance system, but literally, just in the last 24 hours, was talking to a colleague and a client who made the comment, “we’re living in an age of yellow journalism.” What do you, what do you think of that?

Sonal Shah

We can’t taint all journalism as yellow journalism. There is good journalism out there, and we have to be able to discern when it’s good journalism versus yellow. There is more partisan news today than there ever has been any many of the new news organizations being created are partisan, and this idea that you are non-partisan, non-aligned, is almost not even believed anymore. When I tell people that we are a non-profit, non-partisan news organization, the general answer, people say is, there’s no such thing, right? And I say we can, but our job is to make sure we’re letting you know what the information is, not giving you our opinion of what the information is. And I do think, I do think some parts of the news has become opinionated, and it’s not about opinion, it’s about news.

Crayton Webb

Yeah, no question. In fact, I’ll take it a step further. I mean, it used to be where, you know, reporters, I think just and as a recovering journalist myself, you know people would say, “Oh, all of you reporters are liberals,” right? I mean, I can rarely remember someone saying, “All you reporters are conservatives,” right? That never seemed right, but that was always the vernacular. Now we almost live in an era where it’s clear that certain news outlets have made a business decision. Fox and MSNBC may have been amongst the first, but even CNN, over the last five, six years, it feels like we have made a business decision, not that we’re going to overtly say that we’re on one side of the other, but it’s pretty it feels, as a consumer of news, pretty, pretty clear. How did we get there?

Sonal Shah

I think over the years we have, we’ve sort of wanted to buy in with the conflict stories all the time, like there must be a conflict. So I’m going to put one conflict here versus another conflict there. And let me step back and say, I think people are not that conflicted, right? When you go into communities, people may disagree on policy, but in many cases, they’re neighbors. They trust each other, even within families. I have them within my own family, there’s differences of opinions and we support different candidates, but we’re not talking about issues. We’re talking about a person and a candidate versus what is it we believe in and what is it we don’t believe in? So I think in some ways, we’ve bought into the moral outrage machine. And I don’t think that’s a moral I don’t think most people are morally outraged. And I think we sell conflict, and we can’t sell conflict. That’s why we’re a nonprofit. We don’t want to sell we want to inform and that’s our job. But I think we have to be careful that we’re not selling conflict.

Crayton Webb

I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit more about The Tribune in a moment. But, yeah, it almost feels like, and I’m aging myself, that it we’ve, we’ve decided we’re living in the Jerry Springer show, right, it the conflict sells. So which do you, which do you? Do you think has come first? Is it that the politicians said, “I know that if I make people afraid, they will come out to vote and I will get media coverage when I say outrageous, outlandish things.” So in that scenario, the media is being manipulated, a cynic would say or is it the media that said, Hey, we get more clicks. If there’s controversy, we get more people reading more shares, more air, I mean and if you’re old school, more air time and advertisers, both for print as well as for for television or radio. Which came first, was it a media decision or a politician decision, or a little bit of both?

Sonal Shah

I think it’s a little bit of both. But like, you’ve been on both sides of it, right? You’ve been on the journalism side, but, but I think you see it too, which is that, I think from the media side, for a long time, we were looking not to create conflict, but to challenge assumptions that government officials had or others. And also, I won’t go back to the one term you said liberal. I think the term liberal, the definition of liberal, has changed. It’s become a political term, versus when someone used to call a journalist liberal, it was largely because you were challenging the government, right? If you were challenging government, you were considered liberal. It didn’t matter whether you were a Democrat, challenging a democratic government or a republican government, will be considered liberal.

Crayton Webb

The status quo represented “Let’s be conservative. Let’s move slow,” exactly like not politically conservative, but conservative. Whereas if you’re liberal, you’re questioning correct status quo.

Sonal Shah

And that definition has changed over time, so now it’s a political conversation and not a challenging status quo conversation. And so I think what’s happened over the years is the business model of journalism has gotten harder. We’re, we’re selling the outrage piece of the opinion or people want more perspective, as opposed to the facts and the news. And I think that has and then, and then when you’re coming to give the information, you’re saying, “Well, what’s going to get people to listen to me?” So you start doing the same. So, it’s just become a cycle where it’s a self-reinforcing cycle and our I don’t think any one side can solve that problem. It’s got to be a consistent conversation, that it’s okay, you know, that we don’t need to sell this all the time and that’s not really what’s going to get there. And I actually think that’s, I don’t know how we get out of the cycle, but I believe we’re in a cycle and that we need to reimagine the cycle.

Crayton Webb

Well, and I think your point is well taken that this is not necessarily new, right? There was always the adage, if it bleeds, it leads. I mean, I remember being in conversations and debates with producers talking about, what is the, from a television perspective, what is the lead in show before the 10 o’clock? And that’s

Sonal Shah

-going to make people want to stay for the 10 o’clock.

Crayton Webb

And so, you know, as a journalist, we were like, really, we’re, we’re going to make a journalistic decision based on business, based on numbers? And the answer was-

Sonal Shah

Absolutely, right, because you wanted the most popular show at nine o’clock to be on. So, when you’re on TV at 10 o’clock, they’ll stay to watch the, to watch the news. And I think it’s just human nature. It’s like, what is it today we’re competing with the phone. Then we were competing at airtime, right? Right? And if today, the phone is what we’re competing with, it’s like, how do I make you want to read the news? What’s gonna what’s the dessert I need to give you to get your vegetable?

Crayton Webb

Yeah, right. So how does that impact at the Tribune, your editorial decisions, the dessert piece, the click piece. How do you get people to read the whole story, to click on it to begin with? We

Sonal Shah

We find that, you know, people are still interested in policy and politics. You know people are interested in what’s happening in their communities. Sometimes you lead with the human story of it and sometimes you might lead with the political story of it. But you have to know what people are looking for. Is it, is it the political story or the human story? And we’ve added both. We’ve added the human side of the impact of what a policy means, as well as the political here’s what’s happening in your legislature and how they’re debating the issue, but you’ve got to give both and and I think both of those, both of those are important being having reporters in nine cities in Texas, having people outside of Austin, outside of Houston, outside of Dallas, has built trust in those communities and it’s really helped us build an audience in other parts of Texas, in, you know, in in Lubbock, in Midland, Odessa, in El Paso, in Amarillo, in Dallas, in the outskirts of Houston and in the excerpts of Austin, San Antonio, Rio Grande Valley, because we’re there and because we are writing about the stories that are about their communities and what’s happening there and that’s how we can, we’re gonna have to build trust one step at a time.

Crayton Webb

So why a non-profit news outlet and that, you know, we’ve, we’ve got folks who listen outside of Texas. So the Texas Tribune was the first, and of course, not withstanding NPR, which was, you know, government, public radio, government funding plus fundraising. There certainly are partisan what they we would call, well, I guess they have to be careful with being partisan nonprofits, but there are partisan news outlets. What was the impetus for the Tribune? You’re the second CEO in its history. What was the impetus for it starting? And why do you think it spread? Because there’s now others around the country.

Sonal Shah

Well, I have to give John Thornton, our founder, a lot of credit, like he had a vision that you could do nonprofit public service journalism and that’s Evan Smith, John Thornton together, coming in, saying, this is a possible thing to do and that’s what people need. 2009 in Texas, no one was covering the state legislature in its fullest. Yes. Dallas Morning News did have reporters there, yes. Houston Chronicle did have reporters there. Yes. The Austin American Statesman did have reporters there, but not in its fullest so their theory was, let’s cover the state legislature. Let’s cover it better than anyone else and let’s do that and let’s give people a full expectation of what’s happening in your legislature. Our legislature meets once every two years for six months and there’s a lot that happens in that. And how do we make sure people know about that? We’ve expanded now to education to health to energy and environment and other issues, but I think this having and regional reporting, but having that is actually, you know, understanding that we started off very focused- filling a gap that didn’t exist. We became really good at it, and then we’ve expanded to give people more information from that. But I give our founders a lot of credit for being very clear about why they were doing it. And the reason it’s a nonprofit is the business model on the for profit side of journalism is failing. There’s not enough advertisers. That model has been dying for a long time, the tech companies and the platforms have taken on the advertisers. They target it better, they know what people are looking for, and non-profit allows us to keep remaining as a public service, yeah, to the public, not to any particular donor.

Crayton Webb 

But doesn’t it lend itself to the criticism that you are following the whim of the donor, right? You got, you know, big foundations who will come in who clearly have an agenda, right? Agenda has also become a bad word and isn’t any organization has an agenda, right? So wouldn’t it be natural to criticize the nonprofit news outlet for being influenced by the money that comes in and the agenda of its donors.

Sonal Shah

Sure. So the way we approach it is three parts, one, making sure that we have diversified funding so we’re not dependent on any one source. We have 25% foundations from Texas and outside. We have 25% individuals, people that give largely more than $5,000 we have 35% from advertising through our events or newsletters or on our website, 10% members. So expanding our membership, people that give less than $100 a year, and then some syndication. People use our information and they pay us for it. But at the end of the day, that diversification matters, because no one group has more power over another. Second, we are, we make sure we are transparent about every donor that we have. And if someone is funding an education reporter, we make that public, and we let people know that, you know, this is funded by this, you know, this foundation, they fund our education reporter or thing anything like that, we are fully transparent about and it’s important for us to do. But the third piece and then just a reminder to everybody, a nonprofit is still a business and so we have to be we have to think about it on a constant basis, like ensuring a, that the reporters get to do the job that they do, but B, that what we can give our sponsors or our donors, if they want to put their sign, you know, on an event, we will say we’re being sponsored by British Petroleum or this event is being sponsored by, you know, HEB, and that’s okay. We just want to be transparent about it, because that’s the best we can do.

Crayton Webb

Yeah, the optics can be tough, but it sounds like you’ve figured out a way. Is this the future of journalism? Is the nonprofit path the future?

Sonal Shah

I think that’s where we see the most growth happening. The most promising spaces that I see are nonprofit outlets across the country that are opening up. Even in Texas, there’s Fort Worth report, there’s San Antonio report, there’s El Paso matters. All of these are nonprofit news organizations. There’s Austin monitor in Austin. Like these are all nonprofit news organizations. We’re seeing it across the country, Houston landing. We’re seeing it in Ohio, we’re seeing it in Mississippi, we’re seeing it in California. Socal matters, I think these are the places where non what, where it’s growing is communities are realizing they want news, yeah, and community organizations, we just opened in Waco, the Waco bridge, but thanks to the Community Foundation there, the Waco Community Foundation was the lead, was the lead organizer of wanting local news in Waco and that was community foundations, the Cooper foundation in Waco, as well as the Rappaport foundation that have been our network of people that have been helping us navigate that space. So, it’s all about bottom up, and we believe that’s why, I think nonprofit news will do well, is because it’s starting with, let’s build for the community, not let’s build something and then let’s take it to community.

Crayton Webb

How do you know it’s working? I mean, what I mean by that is, I mean, certainly you can bring in more, more donors. I mean, we used to joke like, if, if, if I covered both sides of the story. Well, everybody’s mad or everybody’s happy, I suppose. But as a journalist, you’re less concerned about people being happy. You want to, you want to be fair. You never say to a journalist, thank you for doing that story, right. Then they feel like they’re we miss or miss something, right? Where we missed something, or I sold out in some way. But how do you know that the product is superior to national organizations that are for profit? I mean, you know because you know, right? You you know. But how do you measure that?

Sonal Shah 

We see it in three ways for ourselves. So one: number of people in Texas and outside of Texas that read us at the Texas Tribune, 50% of our readership is outside of Texas. Wow. And I’d say of that 50% many of them are Texans living in other states and wanting to know what’s happening in Texas. But the importance of Texas in the nation is actually really critical. What happens here? It’s with 30 million people. So what happens in Texas is happening in other parts of the country, where 30 million people, 40% Hispanic, 13% black, 7% Asian, right? This is what America is and what America looks like. And what happens here is happening in other parts of the, it’s happening in other parts of the country. So that’s one. The second is, we see how far people reading us. Are they? Are they just clicking on the headline, or actually reading through the story, or listening, clicking on the listen? Or are they actually listening through the story? We want to know, are people reading it? Are they seeing it? Are they responding to it? And then third, we see how many people. Are referring to us, right? This happened at the at the Texas Tribune, or the Texas Tribune reported this at the border, or Texas Tribune reported this about the state legislature. And when that gets picked up, whether it’s in Texas and outside of Texas, in Texas, we are many times reprinted, I think last year, we were reprinted 800 times in different newspapers across the across the state. So because we’re free and free to republish, we see that happening. We find that national news outlets are picking up what happened at the Texas Tribune festival. So when we see that, we feel like we’re making a difference. We’re making a difference where people are paying attention to what’s happening in Texas. From Texas.

Crayton Webb

Yeah, yeah, so that they’re leaving your stories informed and educated, as opposed to just outrage, exactly. But speaking of outrage and even advocacy, do you see a difference in the individuals who want to be journalists? And what is different now that you’re seeing, if anything,

Sonal Shah

Well, I think, and we’ve heard this, I think, and we saw this, I think, probably in 2021 especially after the, after George Floyd passed. The challenge there is, people want an opinion. Journalists want to be able to say where they stand on issues and that’s not our job. Our job is to give you the information, and that is a very, I just want to remind everybody that’s listening, like that’s very hard to do today, to stay neutral and to give the facts and let people discern what’s happening and give them all the information so they can understand it. But to not have an opinion is a very hard thing to do, because people want you to have an opinion. Yeah, and I think what I hear from our journalists, at least the ones that we have, they are always looking for the facts and they are always looking for the stories. They’re always looking for the, the people that represent those stories and being able to ask others that may not agree with that opinion, but to be able to produce and give that information is actually really hard to do. And I give our journalists, I give journalists a lot of credit that do that and I don’t, what I hope we don’t do is show that there are really good nonpartisan journalists and label them as anything else, other than they’re doing their job really well. And again, I think if both sides dislike them equally, they’re doing their job extraordinarily well.

Crayton Webb

Well, subjectivity was always a myth, right? In my opinion, right? Because you, the words we choose correct reveal our socio-economic background, our geographic, our religious raise, how we were raised. I mean, just, just how you choose to write a story in and of itself-

Sonal Shah

Is coming from a perspective, exactly.

Crayton Webb

Yeah. But I think to your point about advocacy, advocate, yeah, it feels like whereas before, there was always some journalists, a handful of folks who got into journalism because they wanted to be famous. Now it feels like there’s folks who get in because they want to be advocates and make change and not change in a holistic way, like I want to make the world a better place by informing but change as in “I want to change policy.” How do you vet those journalists out?

Sonal Shah 

I think our editor-in-chief and our team does a really good job of ensuring that the questions they’re asking are like, “are you coming to journalism, to understand the story, to chase the story, to know when it’s a good story, to know if there’s something that we should be looking at further. Have we talked to the people?” I think our team does a really good job of that, and I think they, that’s their job. The second thing is, we also make sure our editors, it’s not just the journalists, it’s also the editors that edit those stories are asking and training and bringing, bringing the conversation and asking those hard questions of the journalists, so they’re learning along the way, because it’s not, it’s always, not just about the journalists, it’s also about the editors that that are asking those hard questions. So, I think our editors, our journalists and our managing editors, do a really good job of making sure we’re pushing on a constant basis, and that’s, that’s the job that they do. And you know, you have a really great team when there is that learning that’s constantly taking place. And I take pride in the fact that our journalists are still with us, right? Because today, the great journalists get picked up by people all the time. And the fact that we’ve had journalists with us for 4,5,6,7 years is really incredible. It’s a hard thing to do today. And why do you think recruiting? Because, because we give them the opportunity to go find their stories, we make them better journalists. And they, many of they love Texas. They love being here. They want to tell the story of Texas from Texas, because it’s such a big state. I mean Texas, when we think about Texas, it’s like, it’s big. It’s diverse. It’s 254 counties. There’s just so much happening here. And I believe and I that we should tell the story of Texas from Texas. You don’t need two New York Times reporters coming in and telling you a story about Texas, right? That should be about because Texas is more nuanced, more complicated than people want to make it out to be.

Crayton Webb

I think that’s right. So when it comes to the state of journalism, what keeps you up at night?

Sonal Shah

Everything all the time. The two main things that are constantly keeping me up at night is, are we retaining our audience? How are we finding our audience and where are they finding journalism? And today, before it used to be, people came to your website. Now people find us on Instagram, they find us on LinkedIn, they find us on YouTube, they found us on TikTok. Like, how do we make sure we’re staying up with the platforms where people are finding news and making sure we’re there so they can get that information on a timely basis in a manner that’s accessible to them. So, we have to be where people are, so that keeps me up at night. Are we? Are we constantly where people are? Technology worries me a lot and worried because deep fakes are going to get harder to discern in a year or two, as the technology continues to improve at such a rapid pace, making sure we can stay up with the technology and ensuring that we understand the technology ourselves, not just our recipients of how people use it, but that we’re on those we’re using it in a way that’s helpful, AI things like that. I think that that those things keep me up at night and how do and then finally, I’d say one more piece is, how do we ensure that misinformation – that we are there before the misinformation is so people have that information?

Crayton Webb

The term threat to democracy feels overused right now, especially amongst our politicians. But is, but are the threats that you’ve just outlined as it relates to journalism and the state of journalism and informing the electorate? Is that an overstatement? That it’s a threat to democracy?

Sonal Shah

I think the way that the word the threat to democracy gets used as much more as a top down, like there’s a threat to democracy broadly. I think the bigger threat in our democracy is that we’re not looking at information and understanding what is good information versus bad information, what is just information versus what is news? And how do we discern that information and know that? And I think that the bigger challenge that we all have is, how do we train to understand information? How do we train to understand what is valid information versus what is just information? And that’s the, that’s the bigger challenge we have. I don’t think it’s not overcome able. I think, I think if technology can create all that it’s created, we can also think about how technology can create trust. Yeah, and I think that’s the opportunity that we need to flip the question to say, how do we work with technology to build trust and good information, versus just everybody’s everybody’s a journalist, because they can take a video and post it somewhere. That’s not journalism, that’s just a video, right? You know this from being a journalist, it’s like you validate that information. You want to know who else said it, what? What else happened around that video? What else was going on before you saw that video like that is, that’s the information that’s, that’s journalism.

Crayton Webb

Which requires context, discernment, exactly, not an agenda. So, you’ve said a couple of interesting things, as I’ve heard you before, that seemingly might contradict, but I don’t think they do, but I want to understand more. On one hand, you’ve said, look, there’s, there’s no going back. We have to embrace the future, and, of course, the digital age and we’re, we’re, let’s look forward, because the waxing poetic about yesterday and the good old days just isn’t going to happen. On the other hand, I know the Tribune, and you’ve described this with your offices around the state of Texas is really focused on being hyper local, developing relationships in communities. I mean, the good old city hall reporter, Main Street USA, that sounds like going back to something that we all miss. How do you coincide those two things?

Sonal Shah

Well, both things exist at the same time, which is good. I think the beauty of journalism always has been the local, right? We forget that local journalism is where trust was built in the first place. You were a local TV reporter. Yeah. And look, you did local news. People knew you because people saw you on TV. They could see you in the they could see you at the grocery store, they could see you at an event. They could meet up with you, right? You know that, and that’s, that’s the part that we, that local trust was always local and yes, it might be technology, but again, when they when you meet someone, you see them in person. So that is, that is that exists. When I say we have to think about the future, it’s like, how do we do both? And how do we both build trust at local levels but find you on the platform that you’re actually looking for the information on. If a long time ago, we would all go to, I mean, you hear this, I’ve heard this right, like, we all trusted Walter Cronkite for national news, it’s like, well, three TV stations don’t exist anymore, right? There’s multiple TV stations. That was the advent of cable. That’s the advent of now all these platforms. Like, there’s so many different places. So how do we do both, and how do we build trust at a very local level? But how do we find people where they are on the platforms by which they are receiving information? And that’s a both end, and we have to, we have to do both just because I report it, just because I write it, just because it’s 800 words, no one’s coming to my site. I have to translate that 800 words into three YouTube videos or different places that people can want to appreciate and get that information.

Crayton Webb

So, we’ve talked about the state of journalism and what you’re trying to do to, if I may say, improve the situation. We’ve, we’ve analyzed what the politicians and the networks are doing. What about all of us, the whether we represent ourselves as individuals or frankly, I mean, people are corporations, right? We’re the employees or the stockholders or the consumers of all these organizations. What’s, what’s our job to improve this situation and the trust of the fourth check in the check and balance system?

Sonal Shah

So, both people, corporations and organizations like have an opportunity. Let me just say organizations and companies. Companies do newsletters for their own staff. Nonprofits do newsletters for their follow, you know, for people that that are in their networks, look at trusted information when you’re passing that information out to your communities. What is it that you’re sending out and what does that look like? But more importantly, as individuals, how do we discern what is good information? And ask the next question of like, okay, well, what is that information telling me? Do I know the whole story around that? Do I understand? You know what that video actually meant? If you read it, even from us as a news organization. I hope what we do is help you ask the next three or four questions now you have the story. What are the things I need to know about what my legislature? How do I ask my legislator the next three questions? Not That’s truth or false but take it as you now have information to ask your legislator when you go vote or when you go meet them, what you want to ask them. Or if you read something about a school, ask your school the next three questions to say, “Hey, I read this. What does that mean?” Tell me why you are doing it this way, so you can be more discerning about the information you’re reading. But as consumers, we need to become more discerning about that information. Where are we getting it? Who are we getting it from? Where did it get passed on from me to me and let’s make sure we’re also conscious of it. We are part of the system. The system isn’t happening to us. We are part of that system.

Crayton Webb

Yeah, now more than ever, right? We’re interacting, as opposed to just being consumers. We’re part of the ecosystem, exactly. Yeah, and I love your comment, because it’s, it’s read us and then what? Yes, not read us, or another one or another one, it’s and then some, in order to further educate yourself exactly. So you are, you have a fascinating background. I love your story and I’d like to have you back another time just to talk about social impact in the Obama my favorite topic, I know and one of mine as well. So, let’s do this again, because I also want to hear about what it’s like to do social impact work for Goldman Sachs and for Google. But as we wrap up today, we do a lightning round. Okay, so I have to ask you, besides the Texas Tribune, what’s your favorite media outlet?

Sonal Shah

I have three that I read every morning. I read The Texas Tribune. I read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and The Financial Times.

Crayton Webb 

Do you watch any TV stat-? Any any TV news?

Sonal Shah

I don’t have TV.

Crayton Webb

Really? You have to tell us. Why. What happened?

Sonal Shah

I just never bothered to get a TV ever. I don’t have one. So, I may watch something on, you know, Netflix, but I don’t, I don’t watch TV anymore.

Crayton Webb 

Good for you. Okay, so do you have a favorite story that the tribune has covered?

Sonal Shah 

I have one that, I have two. I want to, if you don’t mind, I want to do two. On this one, one we just did one on the border, which was we had five reporters go to the border and sort of say, what do you see while you’ve been at the border for the last, you know, four days and you know, the story about what you might read and what you might hear versus what they saw and observed was so completely different. The number of people coming across the border was way lower than we all assume, like there’s an invasion coming in. And I just thought it was such a great story, because it really just… people were there talking to the communities, talking to the police officers, talking to the local mayors. They were asking these questions, and it was without an objective. It was just to understand and observe. And that was, my view, is one of the it was such a great story. And the other story that I think there’s a story that we, we have been doing about water in West Texas that has been, we’ve been writing about it several times in several different places, that what the farmers are facing there what the cattle ranchers are facing there in the lack of water and the aquifers drying out. I think that’s such an important story for parts of Texas, and for the cities to understand what the other parts of the state are feeling. And I felt like those two stories, to me, were like some of the best stories that I’ve you know, it’s not that there are other good ones, but I just it’s just a reminder, like we have to think about Texas differently.

Crayton Webb

Tell everybody what the website is,

Sonal Shah 

www.texastribune.org

Crayton Webb

Okay, so they can find – the .org is important. Yes, okay, these will be quick. Number one piece of advice you’d give to an aspiring journalist.

Sonal Shah

Know your facts and get to know other journalists because you learn the best from others.

Crayton Webb 

Number one piece of advice you’d give someone who wants to go into politics.

Sonal Shah

Not sure you want to be in politics but go because you believe in serving the public, not because you think it’s going to change anything. Your job is to, is to serve, to listen and to make sure that what you’re doing is for the community that you are representing.

Crayton Webb

Number one piece of advice you’d give to someone going into the social impact, business, corporate social responsibility.

Sonal Shah

There is so much opportunity and make sure you’re doing it, that you’re listening to everybody, both what the corporate, the corporate, the company wants to do, what the community needs, and finding the best opportunity between those two. Because that’s where, that’s where, that’s where it’s gold.

Crayton Webb

Very good. What was the biggest surprise coming to a nonprofit news organization?

Sonal Shah

The biggest surprise was how difficult the business of news is today, and how complicated and complex it is. It seems so easy from the outside until you’re in it on a day to day basis.

Crayton Webb

And I got to ask you this, number one surprise going to Google?

Sonal Shah

How much data people were looking at on a regular basis, and the importance of understanding that data, it’s similar to news and information. Just because it’s data, it’s not telling you anything until you can ask the next 10 questions around the data. Who gave it? How many people were responding to it? Where were they responding it from? But how they were looking at it was way more sophisticated than we give it credit for.

Crayton Webb

Wow. Okay, we’re going to downshift. What was your favorite subject in school?

Sonal Shah

My favorite subject in school was history,

Crayton Webb

Major in college?

Sonal Shah

Economics.

Crayton Webb

Of course, we talked about that. Your favorite holiday?

Sonal Shah

Christmas.

Crayton Webb

Favorite hobby?

Sonal Shah

Tennis.

Crayton Webb

Favorite guilty pleasure?

Sonal Shah

Watching “The Crown”.

Crayton Webb

Oh, that’s pretty good. If that’s your, that’s your worst on Netflix.

Sonal Shah

But I binge. This is my problem. Is like, I’ll binge watch TV, binge watch shows, and so I’ll wait till two seasons are done, and then I’ll come back and binge watch it, so.

Crayton Webb

Fair enough. You have a favorite consumer brand?

Sonal Shah

I do not have a favorite consumer brand.

Crayton Webb

Favorite movie,

Sonal Shah

Oh, uh, “The Matrix”.

Crayton Webb

Favorite day of the week.

Sonal Shah

Thursday.

Crayton Webb

What’s your hidden superpower?

Sonal Shah 

I am a great listener.

Crayton Webb

If you could pick one person dead or alive that you could meet for dinner, who would it be?

Sonal Shah 

My grandmother?

Crayton Webb

Yeah, okay, tell why?

Sonal Shah

Because she lived. My grandmother grew up in a very tiny town in India, I think of like 1000 people. And when she passed away, she lived in the United States with us. And her story of like, how she grew up, how she moved to Bombay, which was the city of 25 million people, and then moved to the United States without speaking a lick of English. I would love to have dinner with her and ask her all of those questions.

Crayton Webb

And you were born in Mumbai.

Sonal Shah 

I was born in Mumbai.

Crayton Webb

Moved to Houston at age four. Sonal Shah, we have to have you back. You’re brilliant. You’re wonderful. You’re a great storyteller, and it’s really fortunate to know you. Thank you for your time again. You can learn more about The Texas Tribune at texastribune.org. Thank you for joining us here on Reputation Matters. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to check out our other episodes at sunwestpr.com or on LinkedIn, and we’ll see you next time on Reputation Matters.