For this next session of day two of the 20-25 Widening the Pipeline training, many of you have already told us in preliminary conversations and in your applications that one of the things that you would like to work on is building your investigative reporting expertise. We are privileged today to be joined by a woman who actually joined our Widening the Pipeline class last year to talk about some of her work. Carice Jackman is the National Consumer Correspondent for Gray Television's Investigate TV. Carice has produced some extraordinary examinations into various aspects of American life, equity, access. It's almost breathtaking. The topics that she takes on and the questions that she asks are very important. I asked her if she would, for this year's class, put together some tips, some strategies, some ideas about how all of you, even if you're not investigative reporters right now, can bring that energy to your beats and to what you're reporting on. So Carice is a valued member of the Widening the Pipeline family, and we might be able to try to get her to come and be our media trainer this year, because she was a fabulous one last year. But welcome so much, and thank you so much for being here, and welcome. Oh, it's great to be here, great to help. So I'm going to turn it over to you and let you go through your presentation, and then we'll open it up for questions. Sounds good, sounds good. And then, I don't know, can I shift the chair just a little bit so I can kind of see you, or stand maybe? I can stand? Okay, okay, good, because I'm a talker and I'm loud. But if you can't hear me, let me know. But no, I'm so great to be here, so great to see all your beautiful faces. And I was, again, like Rachel said, in your shoes once, where I was doing general assignment reporting, but I knew investigations was basically what I really wanted to do. That was my brain and butter, that was my passion. So let's go into, let's dive into it a little bit, and I'll tell you a little bit about how I kind of got into the mode of investigative reporting. And this is kind of the trajectory that I took working in news. So graduated from the University of Georgia. I was a born in New York, raised in Atlanta. Typical Guyanese immigrants, you move to New York first, and then you kind of trickle your way across the country. So I was born in New York, raised in Atlanta, went to University of Georgia, graduated in 09 with broadcast news and international affairs. And then the very first job I got out of college was at WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi. I was a news producer there, so I worked behind the scenes on the morning show. But I knew that investigative reporting was like, not investigative reporting, actually, I knew reporting was what I wanted to do. So I left there, took a little bit of a pay cut, traveled to Columbus, Mississippi, which is about two hours north from Jackson to become an MMJ. And if you don't know what an MMJ is, it's 'you shoot, you write, you edit all your own material.' So I did that for a little bit. Only time I ever had a photographer is when I went live. So that was an adjustment. So then from there, I went up north to Flint, Michigan, as a general assignment reporter where I didn't, I was like a pseudo MMJ. I didn't shoot, but I had to edit all my material. So I did that for a little bit. And then I went back and I did a little bit of my stuff. But it was there that I fell in love with investigation because if you could see there, that is Melissa Mays. She is one of the spearhead activists for the Flint water crisis. And the Flint water crisis occurred when I was in Michigan. And it just, it didn't make sense to me what the city was saying, what the state was saying, and what the people were experiencing. And I was like, something doesn't add up. And that's kind of the keen sense that you get as an investigative reporter is like, okay, I'm covering the story of the day, but there's more to this. I need to dig deeper into this. And so that's kind of where I fell in love with it. And we were doing it periodically as we were going along. And then, of course, then it became a big national issue, but that's kind of where I fell in love with it. So I left Flint 2016, went down to New Orleans to be a general assignment reporter. And New Orleans taught me so much because there's so much big news happening in New Orleans. And that's kind of where I kind of molded myself even more into investigations. I was doing investigative reporting during suite periods, during months where we had ratings. And I said to my boss, I want to be on full-time. And he said, well, we already have three. And I was like, okay, that's a no then. So I just started looking for jobs in investigations. By now, I've been doing it for two different markets, right? So I left there, went to Nashville, Tennessee, to WSMV, where I became a consumer investigative reporter. So doing stories on scams, fraud, anything affecting home ownership, fraudulent issues. That's kind of where I did that. And I always say you never know who's watching your work. Because when I was in Nashville, Gray Media bought our station. So I was at that time, a few years later, that we had my own company. And the leading guy that was in charge of the investigation for the company was at our competing station in New Orleans. And I remember I said to my agent, I said, Okay, we've been bought by Gray. Lie Xerd is now Director of Investigations. Can you send him my clips, please, maybe he'll remember me, little old me, from New Orleans. He remembered. He said, You did solid work as a general assignment reporter. Let's talk and I want to know what you've been doing now as an investigator reporter. So we talked, got the job. And I've been here at the DTACC. I've been here at the DTACC. I'm here at the DTACC. I'm here at the DTACC. I'm here at the DTACC. I'm here at the DTACC. And I'm here at the DTACC. And I'm here at the DTACC. And I'm here at the DTACC. And I'm here at the DTACC. And I'm here Bureau ever since 2022. And what I do here is I do two things. I still kind of do general assignment reporting where I do a franchise called Watching Your Wallet, which is our consumer stories, not necessarily investigations, but it gives our store, our stations' content for consumer awareness, protection, things that run weekly. And then that's what I do on the short term. And in the long term, which could take weeks, months or years at a time, I do long form investigations. So let's talk about how to pivot into investigations. So how many of you did say that you want to try to do more investigative work? Show of hands. I love it. I love this because I always say we need investigative reporters and we need investigative reporters of color because, and I'll show you at the very end why that matters. So let's talk a little bit about how to pivot. First of all, number one thing that I think that people don't realize is you don't need the title of investigative reporter to be an investigative reporter, right? Any good journalist should be able to do good investigative work, right? And you can start by you can start by looking at things that don't add up. You know, if you're at a press conference and you hear, I don't know, the sheriff or the cops say something and it doesn't make sense, or if you're at a city council meeting and somebody comes up during the public opinion time and they say something and you're like, that is an intriguing story. It might not be my story today, but let me give them my card. Let me talk to them when we're all done with this. If I have a moment between after this and I go live, let me talk to them really quickly and just see if I can get more information out of them. That's how you kind of build it. You start digging. You start listening to other things that are happening around you. So it's all about your mindset. I said it's an investigative mindset that you have to have. And I always say anything that can be questioned can be investigated. You know, it may not end up you know you after you got it. And after you go through it, it may not You know, it may not end up, you know, after you got it. And after you go through it, it may not not turn out the way you want it. But if you're questioning it, look into it, right. So how do you do that? I always say make a list of your questions. Make a list of your claims. Sketch out how you can prove or do this prove these through people and documents. So lawsuits. If you were a ensures Keep digging and work hard at small equities and looking at your integrity. In the end, the potential of a η It's public records, body camera video, audios, data. If you're interviewing a woman and she says, the cops came to my door, mistreated me, accused me of stealing when it was in there, I have the records to prove it, ask for the body camera footage, you know? Find ways to collect data and information to prove or disprove if this is in fact a story. And after you vet that and you get that documentation, you really start digging and collecting information and looking for patterns. So, I always say this to say, there are a lot of sketchy, shady people out there. But also, you have to remember too that not everything is nefarious, right? And sometimes you learn it as you go. Some things are systemic. And that's also a big part of investigative reporting. A lot of the issues that I deal with and I look into are systemic issues. And we'll show you that in a minute when I talk about my Black Cemetery story. But just because it's not nefarious doesn't mean it's not worth covering, right? Just because you don't have to cover or you don't have one person to accuse of doing something or holding accountable doesn't mean that you don't need to do the story. So, that's one thing to remember. Sourcing. I cannot stress enough the importance of building sources. And it doesn't matter if you're a rookie. It doesn't matter if you've been in the game for 15 years, 20 years. You can always improve on your sourcing. There are still people that I talk to in Mississippi from my early years on. And that was 16, 17 years ago that I still keep in contact with. Whether it’s through a social media post and I tell them happy birthday so they remember who I am or they might text me and be like, are you going to be in Mississippi anytime soon? There’s this story that I think somebody needs to cover. And that's because you care about the people that you're covering. And sources can be anybody from someone that works in a police department to a community activist. It's just building those contacts and building that trust along the way. And never forget about it. You can be out of a city for 20 years but you never know when that’s going to lead you back to that city, right? So, that's one thing to remember. That's one thing I want people to remember. And then, look for opportunities to work on special projects. Say you're just a beat reporter and you're just doing your daily grind. But, especially in broadcast news, we have months called sweeps months, right? Where it's like February, May, July, and November. And so, what I would do is I'd work on my stories. I'd grind and be a good reporter doing the daily news grind. But I'd look for opportunities that I could say, hey, I know May is coming up. I've got a story. I've created what we call a pitch sheet. So, I create a pitch sheet with the data. I do a little bit of digging. And I tell my boss, this is what I think we should cover for May, right? And they'll be like, well, what do you have? Oh, I've got everything right here. I've already done the background research, right? And that can help you get into the mode of investigative reporting, gradually getting into it. So, that's one thing I always tell people. Look for opportunities where you can work on investigations while still not ignoring the day, the job that you were assigned to do. And again, excelling at general reporting will give you those opportunities to do investigative work. If your boss sees that you are a stellar investigator or a reporter, they will oftentimes give you more opportunities to do this kind of work. And then last but not least, organize, organize, organize. I, just the day in the life of how what I've been doing this week. So, I got back from Alabama last week from a trip for an investigation. Monday, I had a shoot for my watching wallets. But I also had to start writing my draft for an investigation. I had to go on set to do another story. So, sometimes as an investigative reporter, you're doing five, six different stories at once. But it's about organizing your life. It's about organizing what you're doing in the morning, what you're doing in the evening, what you're doing in the afternoon. So, organizing your life is a huge part of investigative journalism as well. That I don't think many people think about until they start doing it and they get overwhelmed. So, if you ever want to talk about how to organize, please let me know because that is a huge part of investigative journalism. All right. So, the very first story I'm about to show you is a story that I worked on called Let Out. And remember, I told you I worked in Flint. Well, 10 years after leaving Flint, I never forgot about the issues with the pipes. So, because I worked in Flint, I knew that the 10-year anniversary of the water crisis was coming up last year. And I knew that I wanted to work on a story about where we stand today. Well, I knew that the problem in America is that we have lead pipes, right? That's the problem. It's hazardous to our health. And this is a story anybody can do in any market, honestly. What data do I need to find? Well, I know that Joe Biden passed the bipartisan infrastructure law allowing federal funding to move to remove lead pipes in America. The Biden administration said we want this done in 10 years. Me living in Flint, I know how much of a daunting task it is to remove just even one lead pipe, let alone identifying them and knowing where they are, right? Again, this is where your experience comes in. So, I said, all right, let's just be realistic here. It's a daunting task, but the federal government wants it out. Is that realistically possible? So, what did I see? Do some digging. I found that many attorneys general said that they didn't want to do this because they thought it was underfunded and unnecessary, okay? Those are the people that are against this. What about the EPA? So, I secured an interview with the EPA, and they said, we feel it can be done, right? And I knew something that is important to do is following up. So, I knew that if I did that story in April, the first major deadline for lead pipes for states to follow was coming up in October. So, push this story out as an introductory investigation. Follow through. When October comes, go back to the EPA and say, how many people met this first deadline? And what we found out was many states missed it. Many states and water systems missed it. But again, what did I say in the beginning? Maybe it's not necessarily all nefarious. So, what we did was we secured an interview with DC Water. And I said, DC Water, I want you all to walk me through what it's like to experience removing lead pipes from your water systems. We got a tag along and we saw that many times, we had to do it. Many times, they don't-they have rickety record keeping, it's hard to track. And we found that back in the 20s and the 10s, 1910s, there was a propaganda machine to promote lead pipes across the country, even though they knew that it could potentially be wrong. So, that's what I mean by peeling the layer back, right? Peeling the layer back to see what's going on. And this is one that we can-anybody could do today. So, what's the future of the lead pipe removal program now? The Trump administration took over; we all know that the EPA, the EPA is not somebody that they see as somebody friendly. I have reached out to them twice to say, 'What are you all doing about the lead pipe removal program?' They sent me the same generic statement that they always do. And I'm like, 'Okay, you all gave me the same statement; what is being done?' And I'm still waiting to hear back. But that's how you follow through with a story that you're passionate about, that you can continue to reveal to your audience and your viewers. So, the one, a clip I'm about to show you is a three-minute version of my eight-minute story. But this is the lead-out story that we did. Oh, wait, hold on, oh, shoot, can we play? Oh, gotcha, gotcha. And this is how you bring everything I just told you to life, essentially. Hello, how are you? Good afternoon, my name is Danielle Crouch, I'm with DC Water. Handing out flyers. DC Water. Leaving messages. It's not a political campaign these volunteers across Washington, D. C. are canvassing for. Okay. And at this time, DC Water is offering a lead-free program to have your service line replaced for free. But rather a push to get the lead out of all pipes in our nation's capital. The same mission in place across America. So, when you start to think about drinking water in this area, we serve about 700,000 residents in the District of Columbia. Kirsten Williams is with DC Water, a utility company covering D. C., parts of Maryland, and Northern Virginia. So, just this past year, we have knocked on over 24,000 doors to educate them about our lead-free D. C. program. In the 10-year plan to get the lead out, fall 2024 marked a big milestone. Water systems nationwide had an October 16th deadline to submit their initial lead inventory numbers to their states. We found some states like Massachusetts reported that they received 99% of their water systems' inventories. But we also found states where hundreds of water departments missed that deadline. In Virginia, for example, around 300,000 water systems were sold. More than 1,500 water systems out of more than 1,500 did not turn in their inventories on time. In Georgia, over 400 out of more than 1,900 water systems did not meet that deadline either. So, how did our water systems get to this point? We have a genius graphics department. You have to go back in time. The lead industry promoted the use of lead pipes, despite there being complaints and major concerns about the use of lead pipes. Public Health Researcher Richard Raven has been documenting the lead industry's history for more than 30 years. Combing through a large box of lead industry records, he showed our team the messaging used by companies dating back a century. Raven says to downplay the dangers, the Lead Industries Association sent workers around the country to promote the use of lead using ads like these in newspapers and magazines. I became extremely upset. You might say that they were selling their product at the expense of the health of children and adults. And now crews are left digging for lead-laced answers laid beneath homes and streets across America. But unknown water lines and sometimes wrong historical data are the challenges several water departments are facing across the country as they try to identify the number and location of their lead service lines, uncovering more lead pipes than they originally anticipated. But now there could be a futuristic solution to 100-year-old rickety record keeping. To right the wrongs of the past, Blue Conduit, a water analytics company based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, is using artificial intelligence to help predict where lead might be, using things like historical documents. And so, when we look at other service lines where we know all of those pieces of information, except the material, we can then make a prediction, a best estimate, of where the lead might be. And so, when we look at other service lines where we know all of those pieces of information, except the material, we can then make a prediction, a best estimate, of where the lead might be. And so, when we look at other service lines where we know all of those pieces of information, what's the likelihood that this address has a lead pipe? It's a tactic D.C. Water's using too, taking advantage of groundbreaking technology and community engagement, utilizing every resource possible to get the lead out of one of the nation's oldest cities, making the water lines for homeowners safer, one block at a time. So yeah, that was the shorter version of the story, but you kinda get the gist. It's okay, we know the problem is lead. What's being done about it? What are the problems that stem from this? How is it systemic? Well, you know, the accountability I have, all the people are dead. Everybody that put together the lead of propaganda is dead, but it's important to address it still. It's important to expose the issue and peel the layer back and talk about why it's an issue today. All right, so the second story I'm about to show you is one of my favorites. It's called Sacred Ground, and it's about the desecration of black cemeteries happening across the country. And it was a three-part series, and we investigated basically how these sites are being erased. Whether it's because they're unknown, they're not documented, or people are just nefarious, and they see that there might be a burial site, but they just don't care, and they just build condos and things over it, right? So the way I got involved in this story is: I received a tip from an old, my old high school football coach, I mean basketball coach, in the metro Atlanta area. He was like, CJ, you gotta come down and do this story. And I was like, what are you talking about, Coach K? What are you talking about? So he said, in the south side of Atlanta, there is a discrepancy between this old cemetery where they removed, they were supposed to remove the remains, put them somewhere else, because they were building construction, but they didn't do it, and they didn't remove the headstones, and they didn't remove the bodies, allegedly, right? So I knew, me being a black woman, I know that this happens everywhere, but how do I prove that, right? So you need to find patterns. I know this problem exists. It exists in black communities and indigenous communities, but how do I prove this? So you find patterns. I started searching, searching for lawsuits, searching for other issues and places where this is happening so I can link it, put together a pitch sheet, send it to my boss, and say, we've gotta work on this. It's systemic, right? So I found a cemetery that this is happening in Maryland. So I said, okay, I've got Maryland, I've got Georgia, I've got Virginia. Let's keep going, right? So we combed through all of that, and then one thing I think, again, going back to sourcing, is building trust with communities, right? So for so many people, these are their loved ones. These are their great-grandparents, and they may not trust us right away as people in media. Even though I'm a black woman, they may not be like, what is your intention here? What do you need? So I oftentimes, what my colleague Daniela and I, Melina and I do, she's one of my favorite producers to work with, we do background calls with people. We open up and we show them that we're invested. We talk to them. What is the problem? Tell me where it started. Just regular phone calls for like 30 minutes, maybe an hour, just make some time to just talk to people. Meet them for coffee, right? Show them that you're invested. And I knew that I was in with the Maryland team because on a Saturday, and I'm not saying it worked over time, but I was passionate about this. And they had like a town meeting, a town hall meeting about this issue in Maryland. I went, and they're like, oh, well, she's about this. Like she cares, right? And so building that connection, especially amongst our communities is so important. Because yes, I might look like you, but they still see you as news, right? And they wonder what is your real intention? And I'm like, I'm here, I really care about this issue. It's happening in my neighborhood in Atlanta, you know? So another thing we did, especially when it comes to our stories, we all know that when sometimes the data that we're looking for doesn't exist, right? You look for federal data, you look for state data, it's not there, but you can find data and information in different ways. I asked them for, what are your property deeds? What historical maps are out there right now? What oral or written testimonies do you have to showcase that this was a burial ground for the enslaved and people who got out of slavery and Jim Crow? So that's what we started looking at. And we started collecting that information and kind of creating our own database for where this was happening. And then I think this is also so important, just like the lead story, give it historical context. Whenever you're doing a story about issues affecting us, oops, it's important to go back in time and talk about why we are, we're here. I know that people are trying to erase that history right now, but that is important to add to your story, right? And if an editor says, well, I don't know if we have time for it, well, make time. Because this is important. And then what we did too, after our first story aired, as we were getting ready to do our second one, in our tag, we said, 'Hey, we wanna hear testimonials from you. Can you all reach out to us and let us know if this is happening in your neighborhood? And that also helps you collect the data again.' And we heard from people from Vermont to Florida, to Hawaii. And some of them were not even necessarily African-American cemeteries. And some of them were not black Americans reaching out to us. They were white Americans saying, 'I know that there's a burial ground in my neighborhood that is African-American.' I wanna help them. And I'm like, well, let's talk, right? And so that was another way of us collecting our own data, creating our own spreadsheet, and making the story sing. And then finally, the story I'm gonna show you is the part three. So the other two I aired, I sat down with lawmakers to find out what is being done about this problem. Because what I found out was that there was actually an African-American burial ground legislation passed, but $0 were allocated to it. So it's just sitting there. So these families, and I remember I was telling this to my mom. And she said, 'Wow, they don't respect us in life, and they don't even respect us in death either.' And that was what I remembered as I went through this story. So here is the third part where we go to lawmakers and ask them what's going on. And we also caught up with the first set of people in Maryland as they took their case to the courts. OK, I'm sorry. When it comes to funding the preservation of neglected and abandoned African-American cemeteries, Congress passed an empty promise. Why has it not been funded at this moment in time? Well, it hasn't been funded because Congress too often engages in petty fights. I mean, it's why people don't like Washington too often. Sherrod Brown is a US Senator from Ohio. When he was contacted about an African-American cemetery in his state desperately in need of repair, he wanted to act. I heard about Union Cemetery in Cincinnati. We toured the cemetery. We saw the decades of neglect. Brown, along with other congressional leaders, passed bipartisan legislation to create the African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Act. Signed into law in December 2022, it provides a program of the National Park Service to provide grants and technical assistance to local partners to research, identify, survey, and preserve these cemeteries. Representative Alma Adams from North Carolina also sponsored the bill in the US House of Representatives. It's about the sacredness of our families and respecting people and respecting the sites that we've left them in. Funding is appropriated through the congressional budget process. The National Park Service proposed $3 million for the program, as well as an increase of $1 million to spread across other grant programs. But after all of that, right now, there is no money. Congress didn't approve the budgets, leaving many descendant communities in limbo. For the families who, sadly, have been fighting these battles to make sure that their loved ones' Remains were sacred and taken care of, they sometimes feel like Congress doesn't care. People in D. C. don't care. What would you tell them? Well, some of us care. We fought to get this bill passed. Uh, not enough of us care, which is why we pushed my colleagues in Congress, in both parties, to do this right. We have to get enough people, uh, to put this as a priority item. I think it is a priority item, but I also have to get my colleagues to think that as well. Our national investigative team spent months exposing this problem happening all across the country. African-American burial grounds at risk of abandonment, erasure, or being potentially destroyed by construction and development. Our team found that black cemeteries are rarely tracked state by state. In most states, the permit process to remove remains from one location to the next is virtually non-existent for African-American cemeteries, especially when historically burial grounds where enslaved Africans buried their loved ones were rarely documented or put on historical maps. Should state agencies do more to make sure that these sites are protected? Absolutely. States have a responsibility. The federal government has a responsibility to help the states in terms of providing the support, which is what we would be doing in the future. Through the legislation that we're proposing. If Congress can't act, families of loved ones who have passed on are hoping the judicial system can spur action. This was the first time that a case of this sort has been argued in front of the Supreme Court of any of the 50 states. Desecration is a hate crime. In Maryland, the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, or BACC, is currently in a legal battle with the state. The state has asked the private developer and Montgomery County to preserve the burial grounds where enslaved people are buried. We first met Robert Stubbifield last year. They paved a parking lot over it. That's on one part of the cemetery. The other part of the cemetery, they're trying to build a storage unit. We have to stay strong because the time is coming where future generations are going to be standing on our shoulders. And this year, we caught up with Stubbifield and dozens of other supporters at a rally in front of the Maryland Supreme Court. Following BACC's oral arguments, to stop the construction. There are times I think that we would have, that we probably would have made it far, but I don't think we would have been as strong as we are right now. Because when we started about like eight years ago, there was roughly four or five of us. And now all of a sudden we have crowds and to the point that we didn't just pack the courtroom, we actually were overflowing the courtroom. I don't think we could have even imagined that. Steve Lieberman, who represents BACC, hopes the case sets a tone across the country to pay attention to issues impacting the country. Black communities and honoring the dead. You wouldn't want somebody parking on top of your grandmother. I don't want anybody parking on top of my grandmother. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit should not be forced to watch cars park on top of their grandmothers. Lieberman says the outcome of this case could set a precedent nationwide. And I think people all across the country are going to be looking to this court to see if it's going to say that our legal system can do justice here. I'm with Great Television, just want to know if you'd like to respond. Thank you. As for the developer, did not answer our questions after delivering oral arguments, but told us previously that they properly observed the laws which protect burial grounds in Maryland and that they acknowledge the significance of the African-American history affiliated with this site and will continue to respect and honor the legacy in the community. If they don't make clear what the law is, there's open seats on descendant communities everywhere. That means developers, whether they're government agencies or private developers, they can run roughshod, they can develop. Senator Brown and Representative Adams say they'll keep pushing for federal funding and support so descendant communities can visit their loved ones' burial sites and not worry if their history will be destroyed. There's a proverb that when you drink the water, think about who dug the well. And that's what we need to think about in these. It's the people that are buried in that cemetery that build up our communities, our black communities, our white communities, our communities overall. And we honor them. Yes, and that was, again, one of my favorite stories. The Supreme Court kind of ruled in the descendant community's favor, but it's being appealed. So it's still in the process. But this is what I mean by starting a story. And I've seen many stories being done about black cemeteries, but it's, you know, people cleaning it up, right? Like the general assignment story. But I knew I wanted to literally dig deeper into the issue and show how it's a systemic problem, right? So that's taking a story that you've seen or that you've worked on and giving it an investigative lens and an investigation. And I think that's what I'm trying to do with this story, is I'm trying to do it in an investigative scope. All right. So now I want to talk about visuals. So, you know, obviously you saw kind of the cool graphics and things that are being made. And one thing I want people to remember is no matter if you work in print, broadcasting, again, think about the investigative mindset. What can I visually show to people? And I love that, like, the AP and ProPublica are great at doing this for print publications. I was just browsing the Internet last night, and I saw that the AP had this story where they were talking about the U. S. making AI models when we were in the U. S. during the war and concerns about the text rolling, who lives and who dies, right? And as I'm scanning the website, I'm like, oh, my God, they had, like, satellite images and all these kind of, like, rotating videos that were on there. That caught my attention, right? The same with ProPublica. They did this story about Georgia touts its Medicare experiment as success. The numbers tell a different story. Instantly, I'm like, wow, this is a pretty cool animation that they use as the first picture that you see. The same goes for our sacred ground story. I wanted a kind of, you know, old-school feel to our web article, right? So when you're thinking about doing an investigative story, think about outside the box. What visually do you want people to see? How do you want to showcase that? That's against stepping up and making it not just a general story, but upping your level in terms of what you want people to visualize. So the story I'm going to show you next is a story that I did with KFF Health News. I'm actually working on a story with them right now. It's going to air in March and April. But what we did for this story is we examined the cost of medical bills and healthcare inequities. And that's typically what we do in partnership with our KFF Health News. So for this particular story, the woman that you're about to see suffers from cervical dystonia. It's like a muscle spasm illness that she has, just to generically say what it is. And the issue is she had an issue where she was going to the same provider, the same nurses, the same place. But a hospital bought that building and started charging her kind of, as it were, as if she was in an actual hospital. And she was like, wait a minute. I got my bill at one minute. And then a couple of months later, it was a completely different bill. And she's on fixed income. So she can't afford to continuously have these surcharges in her bill. So we said, okay, well, let's look into that. Right? And the thing that I ran into with her is when we started the interview, we had a freelancer out in Michigan doing the interview. And we were doing it via Zoom. We ran into a couple of technical problems. And then I noticed she kept holding her neck. Right? And I said, okay, well, I don't want this to be distracting for the viewer. Because that's the very first thing I noticed when I saw it. You know, obviously, I feel for her pain. But I don't want the viewer to be distracted by the neck holding. So what do I do? Address it head on in my questioning. Right? So I said, and you'll see, I said, is that why you're holding your neck, Karen? Because I said, describe your pain for me. And I said, is that why you're holding your neck? And then we started going from there. And then I talked with my photographer. I said, okay, how can we visually showcase this? He was like, why don't we let her tell us what she's experiencing. I'll create kind of like an animation to go along with it. And we'll put it together like that. Right? So, and that's what I want people to know. Like how can you tell your stories visually, both in print, radio broadcast, that can showcase things to people? Can you use graphics to tell your story? If you're a reporter, is there a way we can do a green screen or a standup that illustrates what you're talking about, illustrates your data? Because one thing, when I'm writing a story, I'm like, oh, my God, this is a lot of information. This is a lot of data. But how can I visually show it so people are seeing what I'm talking about? Right? So that's kind of what we did for this story. So I'll show you the short version of this story and how we kind of went about doing this story to kind of explain her issue, explain the billing process, visually showcase the documents that we have and kind of bring it to life. So here we go. I think we are set to go. Rolling. All right. All right. I'm going to start recording now. Recording in progress. Cervical dystonia and dystonia. It's very painful. So muscles are in constant spasm and contraction. You know, my head is in constant motion. My shoulder is in constant motion. Is that why you're holding your neck, Karen, to keep your head still? So if I remove my hand, my head is going to go to the right. It's going to tilt to the right and my shoulder will come up. For five years, Karen Blandsey regularly received treatment for her condition at a medical clinic in Graniteville. Her insurance paid 100 percent of the cost. That was until February of this year. Instead of her bill saying zero, Blandsey had a balance of more than $1,100. They said that it was just some changes that they had made. My insurance company said the same and that it was a revenue code. They had switched from billing as an office visit for treatment and they switched it to outpatient. Outpatient hospital services. And there was nothing different about your treatment? No. Same provider, same doctors, same nurses? Yep, same place that I had always gone. Nothing had changed. Blandsey's clinic is owned by Corwell Health, a big health system that is the result of a merger a couple of years ago. At the end of last year, Corwell announced to patients that some clinics would now be owned and operated by the hospitals. In December, Blandsey got this letter from Corwell. She wrote to Corwell Health about the billing changes, stating that she can expect to see two charges on her statements from them in the future and that the clinic will begin provider-based billing. The letter says even though the clinic or practice Blandsey went to may be located several miles away from an actual hospital, the facility itself may be owned by the hospital or considered part of it. Corwell added, this is common in large health systems where the hospital system owns the space and employs some of the team members. For them to change the way they bill it and say that it's a hospital service as an outpatient, it just didn't make sense to me. Investigate TV reached out to Corwell Health for an on-camera interview. Corwell confirmed late last year Blandsey's neurology office became a hospital outpatient department owned and operated by Corwell Health Grand Rapids Hospitals and stated the change was not a result of the merger. But they declined to discuss her case, citing patient privacy and failing to explain the code. And look at this, you know, look at this nonsense. Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal, Senior Contributing Editor of our partner KFF Health News, isn't surprised. She says hospital charges for non-hospital care is a concern she hears from patients all the time. So she was getting a hospital facility fee charge or a hospital code. In fact, our partners, KFF Health News, found that the share of physicians working for a hospital, In fact, our partners, KFF Health News, found that the share of physicians working for a hospital, or in a practice owned at least partially by a hospital or healthcare system, increased from 29% in 2012 to 41% in 2022. And we see this over and over again. The rebranding of doctors' offices, of outpatient clinics as hospitals for the purpose of billing. And should the burden of that transition, that change, fall on the patient? Well, you know, how's a patient to know? Well, you know, how's a patient to know? I went to ask patients to sign a consent form beforehand, saying, 'You realize that as of this year we're going to be charging you a hospital facility fee.' But I have to say that was in a hospital. This was not. So I think it's another one of our buyer beware warnings in healthcare. As for Blanzee, she can't afford to pay over $1,100 every three months. Her treatments have stopped while her contractions and muscle spasms continue. But she has support in the hospital. She's Smiley, an outpatient of self-someone who can be a part of the hospital process. I would like to see them be more transparent. The bill is mine. I don't think I can do anything about that. But I can't be the only person that this has happened. So the cost of care is a lasting on a patient's mind. So, I wanted this to be visually compelling. Because I love doing hospital stories and inequities in healthcare. Care, but they are so hard to tell visually right because you're dealing with documents you're dealing with hospitals don't talk, they hide behind HIPAA, so it's hard to like actually sit down and hold them accountable. But you can find a way to visualize that-how people describe their pain, walk us through what you experience every single day, you know. Find different ways, talk to your editors, talk to your graphics department if you have it, how can I make this thing? Walk me through what I can do with this green screen behind me, right obviously you can't make like a whole bunch of AI doctors behind you right, but you can do different things too, even if it's just showing what you're talking about, showing the percentages, showing the stats, right. Those are different ways that you can visually make your story sing. I'm gonna end with this wonderful gentleman I met literally last week working with KFF Health News again on a story about rural hospitals, so I traveled to Alabama and I sat down with this wonderful man, his name is Leroy Walker. Leroy is a you know not a rich man, he lives in these housing projects. In a small town called Utah, Alabama, it's called Alabama's Black Belt, and it's pretty much it was an area where there was a lot of cotton, and there's not much industry or anything there now. Well, I sat down with him to talk about healthcare and the issues that he faces. If you can see here, he battles; he has a bunch of band-aids on. I know that from experience, not because I'm a doctor, but because my dad for 19 years battled kidney failure and he was a doctor and he was a doctor and he was a doctor and he was a doctor. And I could tell, I'm not a doctor, but from six to 27 when my dad died, I saw what he experienced right so as I'm sitting there and I'm talking to him, I didn't realize it until after I'm asking him questions that I've seen my daddy experience. Like, I'm saying how many times you go to do dialysis, three times a week. How do you feel after? Are you feeling great? You feel nauseous? You feel sick? He said sometimes I feel like I can run a marathon, other times I don't want to do a thing, you know. And I'm realizing that my perspective on this matters, our perspectives on issues like this matter, you know. Our backgrounds matter because it makes us great journalists and it makes us human. And before we left, he started crying because the last question I asked him which is what we all do as journalists is is there anything else you like to say before we finish right sometimes you get the strongest sound and interviews from you know sound from people when you ask that question and I kind of rephrase and I say is there anything else you like to add about rural health care and your health care and you know before we finish he's in my health care and he said I wish somebody asked me that when I was healthy he said I got I don't he said I ain't got no kidneys I ain't got a car I don't have any means of trans you know means trust patients like the world forgot about me he just started crying and I it was it Was emotional for me because I felt like my father, feeling that way too. And I just let him just talk it out, and it was to the point where the interview went on for another maybe 20 minutes, but it was okay, um, because again, that perspective of having firsthand experience at firsthand matters right? And it was to the point where he was like, 'Y'all leaving you sure I was like, 'I gotta go,' said Mr. Leroy, 'I got a flight to catch to Birmingham I gotta go, but it was just um, it's that why we matter, and that's why our perspective from all different backgrounds and what we experience is important to investigative journalism, and um, that's why I'm so glad. To see so many hands because we need to be in these, these, these spaces collecting data, collecting all that important woohoo, these awards! What is these people that we touch? That is why we do what we do, and I wanted to leave it at that, so any questions could you leave that slide up because that's that's so powerful. Have a seat here before I open it up to questions, um obviously a lot of our conversations over the past few days have included thoughts about how policies and practices now with the new administration are just changing, yeah, um by the minute every day, um and so particularly when it comes to the field of diversity, equity Inclusion on every tier, there's a challenge. But when it comes to producing an investigative story about people who've been locked out-have no access, you know, because of race or color, whatever is it getting harder? Or do you foresee a time in the next few years where you'll get shut down completely, or what? What are your thoughts about that? It's something that kind of keeps me up at night. Because I people like Mr. Walker right and and this is this town we went to-it's poor, it's black, and you know it's rough. Right? And so the fact that he was crying and he already feels forgotten about, touches me. Um, and I fear that um not all But I fear that many media organizations, because the pressure is on them to eliminate DEI, the homeless don't touch it, that people like him will be forgotten about, and um, it makes me sad, it makes me sad. The only thing I can say is continue to fight the fight. Um, I remember not long maybe about two years ago, I was thinking of quitting news because of issues like this happening, and um, a sweet lady that I know says, 'I mean, por kaise, you can quit, but you're gonna be black wherever you go.' Yes, so you could either quit and face this issue and another in another yard, or you've got to find a way to water, or you can stay here and find ways to make it happen right and I think that that that is why I stay because I was like oh fine you know and another story I'm pitching for this year was about the danger of hair chemicals in black women's hair and I remember I was like I don't know if I even want to pitch it and my sister was like girl if you don't shut up and pitch that story so it's it's it's challenging you often fight think oh my god if I pinch a story well my boss is like it will they accept it and surprisingly I'm the only black woman on the team they're not many black investigative journalists in the country let alone black women but I pitched it and people are like this Is interesting on and no more so, sometimes you'll surprise yourself, right? Sometimes you think, 'Oh my god, I don't know if I'm gonna happen, but I will say a piece of advice when you're getting ready to pitch stories about, especially about us, about people of color: come ready, come with receipts! It's already hard to pitch a story and get it accepted for our communities; pitch it harder. Right? Have the people on hand, oh, I already got five people lined up that can talk to me right now. Right? Find ways to make it work, and that is my piece of advice because it is harder out here, it is challenging, and we don't know what's going to happen. The foreseeable future, but for people like him, remember that. As I was listening to his sound, I was like I had to take a break; I had to like I had to get up and have to walk. I grabbed a glass of wine, but I went back and I was like, 'That part hit me.' It's what my colleague and I call emotional logging. Like if there's a part in the interview that you know will hit you when you go back and listen to it, write it down; write down the time code, because if it hits me, it hits somebody else. I showed this interview to uh, part of this full interview, to my um sorority sister last night, and she started tearing up, and I again I'm thinking, 'Which part did it hit Her because I think that that's what makes us human and, um, I so just have your interviews lined up, have the people that you want to talk to line up, and go in there and sell your story to your bosses. And, honestly, I think the best advice I can give is that I know it's hard, but keep going, keep going, because it's rough, I know it is. Any questions? Yes, any questions. Let's pass this over to Bob, please. To who hi Mark, where are you from DC, I'm Mark Edwards with the Washington Examiner, um, originally from Maryland, I live in DC, um, but yeah, no, I, I really enjoyed uh, your presentation, especially in the what really resonated with me. Was when you were talking about um the the cemetery story uh and I had a question on that because you know back in college, I did I was working on a similar story, it was investigative, it was around um a cemetery that was like in danger of being like basically torn apart by the city, but it had all these different elements; it was a historical element because the cemetery was like for it was like a community of free black people who like basically escaped slavery and started like their own community and did oystering, uh there is a family element for the people who own the cemetery and the dispute there and it kind of got bogged Down like in the weeds, it ended up I ended up running out of time on the uh semester on the story, so and I find that especially uh when you're investigating stuff in our community where you know maybe sometimes things aren't as well documented and there's a large historical element, a large emotional element in reporting. So how do you stay focused? How do you find the proper angle, especially when you're in the weeds and questions just keep bringing up more questions um and when do you know when it's time to pivot or when to stay true to the angle that you're on? That's a good question. My biggest advice is take it in doses right. I always say 'like' for my black cemetery story, the first part was the introduction to the issue-right, it's the introduction. There are these black cemeteries; they're not being documented. People are um, fighting for their loved ones remains, um, and then kind of giving the context that is the biggest part. And I might showcase maybe one or two particular issues happening in that community, Part Two-um, it's not just here, it's other places. This is their similar battle; these are their lawsuits. So look at it as continuing coverage. Don't if you it's easy to get overwhelmed and say, 'Oh my god, I don't have time.' I got to put it, it's okay. To do it in stages, it's okay to do the stage and that's kind of how you can pitch it, whether you're doing print or you're doing a documentary or you're doing broadcast. We want to make us let's make a series out of this part story one, we'll focus on this story two, we'll focus on this and then again for the third story, funding legislation what is being done right so my advice is it's overwhelming because you have a lot of information like how on earth am I going to present this put it in, um, in parts right break it up in parts and that will help you out in terms of doing that still having the investigative scope in each one. and talk about and look at how your scope can be different for each one what's going to be different what's the full investigative scope for each one and i think that's how you do it you just kind of do it as a series is what how i look at it because it's hard because there's i mean there's so many layers to all of our issues so many layers and showcase that this first part we'll talk about this crazy layer this part we'll talk about this one and that's kind of how you can break it up put it together and still say stay sane when you're trying to explain everything that's happening so that's my biggest piece of advice thank you so Much you're welcome, um, hi, I'm Tamiya, folks. I'm a public investigator for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, um, my role kind of focuses on kind of quick turn investigations, but even so, I find that there's often a lot of documents that I have to go through to, you know, get all of the facts corrected. I'm wondering what your organization process does look like for maybe like a shorter-term story that you want to come back to in the future, right? So it's so funny to say that I didn't work on this project when my colleague Josie did, so um one way you can look at it is if there's already a story that you kind of dug into that is kind of just sitting There may be that could be a part of a quick turn if an event happens, if a breaking news story happens. So, obviously we all saw the devastating plane crash that happened um here in DC. My colleagues were already working on issue um stuff with the NTSB and how they navigate things. So, the very uh their first story that was kind of a quick turn was looking at data they already have, already cataloged and can but also making it relevant to what happened with the plane crash if obviously there's a correlation right um and also looking at the congestion happening with planes across the country and how that was a big problem talking. to lawmakers finding old footage where laws were passed to make the the plane uh the airports busier right so i would say for quick turn investigations um find the present hook that is now but also peel the layer back and it doesn't have to be a big broad three-part four-part series like what we talked about but it could be looking at data nuggets that you find and then you can look at the data nuggets that you find and then you can throw in that in and continuing to follow through so that's typically how i do it i hope that that that explains it clearly but so yeah finding quick turns but finding nuggets that you put in and just continuing to follow up with that thank you hello hi my name is lionel ramos i cover state government for oklahoma um radio station kosu in oklahoma city uh first of all the the story about the the graves and stuff like that were just really hit hard because in tulsa right now they are undergoing the undigging of the victims that they can find of the tulsa race massacre and they're doing genealogically or genealogically like matches and studies and stuff and trying to build that history basically and there's a lot of controversy around the respect that's paid to bodies or the lack thereof and and so thank you for doing That reporting it really inspired me to kind of be thinking about that more as I as I do my reporting, especially knowing who my mentor is, who's living in Tulsa. Um, my question is actually related to hers, which is the opposite of that right? You have a so you have a project that you know that you're going to have to be reporting that's investigative and deep, and the deadline is six months out um but you also only have two and a half minutes four minutes for your for your broadcast piece and you know maybe 1500 words for the for the digital broadcast piece and you know maybe 1500 words for the for the digital broadcast piece and You know, maybe 1,500 words for the for the digital web post, um how do you organize that over the course of those six months and stay motivated, stay up to date when everything else is happening around you, um that's kind of where I'm struggling right now because I switched from a purely investigative long-form organization to daily turn broadcast and I still want to do the stuff that I want to do kind of thing trust me, I know and that is I think so many investigative units are dealing with that where you want to work on a project for so long but they're like 'okay what can you turn now' you know and you're like 'you know' so I would say one the one thing i do to keep up with things is i make um google alerts on my phone on my on my um in google so i have a whole bunch now i have for epa i have for black cemeteries i have for rural health and that's kind of how i dai i keep up with the daily changes happening right so i'm still working on my story but i'm like okay what are some of the daily daily things that are appearing on Google about the issue that I'm covering. So that's one thing. And then you can add that element into your story if need be, right? Another thing that I do is I find experts and people that can talk on certain subjects and I have it in the can. So if there's a part that needs a quick turn, for instance, take yesterday, for example, I'm monitoring all the craziness that's happening in DC with the firings and the terminations. And I know that we will probably work on something on this, but nobody's willing to talk right now. Federal workers, and understandably so, are scared to talk. My friends are scared to talk. But what about experts that study this kind of thing, right? So I have that interview in the can already, ready to go if I need it to go, right? Talking about what's the role of federal workers? How does it trickle down and impact people in all communities, whether you're in DC or Oklahoma or Florida? What's the impact of the federal workforce, right? So find ways that you can still have something ready to go if need be. And you already have an expert, you already have an analyst ready to go for that story. And that's kind of how I pivot towards a story that I'm working on, but I'm finding little nuggets to add to the daily grind of that story. Does that make sense? Yeah. So you look for little ways that you can still make it relevant and that you have things that can be ready to go while you still work on a larger piece. Because I know that the. The effects of the federal workforce being terminated, it's going to be long-term, right? But what can I do right now? So I'm just collecting, I'm collecting data. If I see an issue, if a friend tells me, look at this spreadsheet, don't give out my name, but I'm like, just send it to me. I'm going to hold on to, I'm going to put it in a folder, right? So you're collecting information as you go, but you're still finding pieces and interviews that you can run right now. And that's kind of how I go along with something like this, because in a situation like where we are now, we've never seen this happen before with the federal government. So I'm kind of learning as I'm going to have relevance, what's happening now, but also looking into how it can affect us down the road. So I know it's hard. Yeah, that's really actually helpful because what I'm understanding you to say is, is that you don't actually know what the story is going to be six months out. I don't. And that's kind of a fallacy to believe that you would, right? Okay. But what I do know is that people are struggling. People are upset and there are protests happening. So I'm just collecting. I'm collecting. I'm collecting. I'm collecting information. Really quick follow-up. You mentioned this with the federal workers and it's something that I run into pretty much every day. Sourcing off the record, on the record. How do you navigate that? How do you make it clear when you're on the record or off the record to individuals? You know, I'm thinking about members of the public all the way to elected officials. And how do you kind of keep those relationships going when, you know, oftentimes there's at least from the side of the sources, a need for kind of, you know, a little bit of a kind of a transitionary or transactionary situation happening, right? Where like they give you the interview, you give them the story and the public, like the publicity or whatever it is. But sometimes you don't want to talk to people to make them this character, right? Sometimes you just need their insight. They're, you know, whatever it is. I'm honestly just straight up with them. I say, for instance, when I interview experts yesterday, they're like, 'When is this story going to air?' And I said, to be honest, I don't know, but I want to have it so that we can. We can talk about it, right? And they're like, 'OK', sometimes it's just being honest with them. Or I did a story that's been waiting to be broadcast for almost a year, but I periodically checking with my sources. How are you doing? What are some updates that you can tell me? I know that this story is taking forever to be published, but bear with me. This is kind of the long game that we play in investigative journalism. And I tell them, like, we want to do it. We want to do it right. So that's going to take time. And that's kind of how I keep up with them. And then some sources will. I'll constantly call you, say, hey, what's going on? And I'm like, just bear with me. And I'm honest with them. I'm like, sometimes it's my editors that are causing the delay, you know, and I'm just waiting to hear back. So I am honest with them. I always say, I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. I don't know the timeline just yet, but I do appreciate your honesty. I do appreciate your feedback. And trust me, I care, you know, and that's kind of how I keep up and let the sources know I still care. Your story might not air for three or four months, but I'm in the long footer long haul. And let me know if you have any updates. I keep them engaged. You know, it's a two-way street. That's kind of how I keep it up. I have to jump in and share something that I saw yesterday on LinkedIn. And we all know about the layoffs and the people in the federal government losing their jobs. But it was a woman who worked for NIH and she said, I maxed out all my credit cards. I used all my savings. I moved my family from where here to D . C. And I've been here a month. And now I just had to clean out my desk. And so for us, just as she gave the example of a friend of a family calling her and saying, hey, CJ, you need to do this story. And it turned into this this great investigation. Keep your eyes and ears open in your communities about the impact. The guy across the street or the family over there who used to be out and about. Now you rarely see them. And it looks. It looks like, you know, something might be the grass overgrows or whatever. There are stories in there about people who are going to be affected over the next year about by what's happening right now. And it's an opportunity. It's a heart-wrenching opportunity. But but there is an opportunity. And what's going on for us to go a little bit more deeper and provide more context. We have time for just one more question, if there is one. Yeah, I have one. I actually got one after you told me you did. Yeah, and I did it. But then as you guys are talking, I was like, OK, thank you, Carice, for being here and taking time to speak with us. And also, Rachel, for that segment on Trayvon with Bloomberg. I find that some of my most powerful stories and also some of my colleagues' most powerful stories, and even the stories that you share with us are when they're people-focused and people-centered on these broader issues. But they're centered on one person or one individual, like with the woman with the billing. And I think that's a really good point. So my question is: how do you go about finding those individuals, especially in the kind of weeds of the broader headlines? How did you go about finding that woman to kind of tell and push this narrative about the issues that are impacting? Yeah, that's a great question. So for that woman, because we partner with KFF, I asked them for in their database, I said, do you have somebody that has had an issue with ER or like outpatient hospital services? And they kind of knew what story I wanted. And in that situation, I was lucky because we had a partnership. But other cases where I find just real people, general people, I sometimes will go the back end. Right. Sometimes it's just word of mouth. I hear what people are saying. I get a tip. Other times it's like that lawsuit with the Montgomery County. I found that through a lawsuit and then I found out who the attorney was. And I said, can you get me in touch with this person? And that's kind of how I find sometimes real people. As well, because the characters are the story. Yes, again, you can do the fancy graphics and data, but if you don't have that person that touches your heart, like that, it's not to me, it doesn't it doesn't resonate with people. So I always just look for different ways. Right. To find it. Another way I can find it, too, is just talking to people like I go to the press club every Friday. We have our taco nights on every Friday and I was sitting with it's made up of media people, government workers, all sorts of people. And I was there last time and out. And I had a friend who said, I haven't gone one week without crying during this entire situation. And I just listen. Right. I'm not even asking her for an interview. I'm just listening. And the fact that they see that we care, they'll be like two weeks later, people are getting laid off and they're like, do you want somebody that can talk? I think I know somebody is willing to talk. It's building that trust first, letting them know we're just not here to get a headline out of them and then showing that we're sincere and they will open up the doors to other people for you. They really will. You know, so I think that's what it is at the end of the day. Just being human at the end of the day, you know, talking to people like they're real people, like they're your parents, they're your cousin, they're your mom, your sister. And I think that's how you often get the best people to talk. And I was given that guy, Mr. Walker, through our partners at KFF Health News. But it was the connection that we had, the commonality that we had that had him open up. Right. So it's sometimes finding a commonality because when I sat down with him, I said, you know, my daddy was on dialysis, too. You know, he's he's passed away now. He was like, really? And then he started opening up to me in ways that we found common ground. Right. So I felt: I often feel like you can do that with people that you talk to, you know, and that to me is how you get sometimes them to open up in ways that you don't even can't even imagine. This has been a tremendous conversation about real-world opportunities to turn basic information that we see in our communities into investigation. And because it's been a tremendous conversation and we're not talking about inventive stories. And I can't think of a better person, a better messenger for that path than Karice Jackman of Gray Television's Investigate TV. Let's show our appreciation for joining us today. Yes. And please reach out to me. You're not going to bother me. Reach out to me if, if you ever have any questions or you just say, 'I don't know what to do with this story.' I don't know how to get these people to talk to me. I'm more than happy to help you guys, so.