1 10 S1 E10: Fighting Disinformation and Elevating Diverse Voices with Martina Guzman
- Verdad - An AI tool that monitors Spanish-language radio for mis/disinformation
Martina Guzman
CHANGE THE REEL with Piper and Monique
Executive Producers: Monique Velasquez and Piper Kessler
Producer: Arielle Morten
Director/Editor: Simon Beery
Copyright 2025 Monique & Piper
Transcript
And I remember standing there and these women kept going to other people and they would never, they never asked me what I needed.
Martina:And I didn't understand until way later.
Martina:And I was like, oh,
Martina:it
Martina:was like this whole big piece was like where to get the best tamales in the Mexican community.
Martina:And I was furious
Martina:because
Martina:that news, first of all, it's tourism reporting.
Martina:And that news is not for us.
Martina:That news is for people out in the suburbs because you know what?
Martina:We already know where to get the best tamales.
Monique:Change the Real, a podcast with Monique Velasquez and Piper Kessler.
Monique:For over 20
Piper:years, we've run a video production business
Piper:that has achieved what only 3% of women entrepreneurs have
Monique:done.
Monique:Exceed $250,000 in revenue.
Monique:We want to see business owners that look like us succeed.
Monique:That's why we've started this podcast.
Monique:Change the Real will drop twice a month.
Monique:We'll release two types of episodes.
Piper:One is with Piper and I kicking it and talking about using video in business.
Piper:And the second features conversations with business owners using media to drive diverse perspectives.
Piper:This is Change the Real.
Piper:Representation starts here.
Monique:Hey, y'all.
Monique:Hey, y'all.
Monique:I'm Monique.
Monique:And Piper.
Monique:This episode of Change the Real is the last of season one.
Monique:After this episode, we'll take a hiatus from dropping our usual episodes, but we'll return after the summer.
Monique:Usually this episode is just me and Piper kicking it, but
Monique:today
Monique:we are going to
Piper:add another guest.
Piper:So, today we want you to meet Martina Guzman, an award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker.
Piper:She thoughtfully covers race, justice, and systematic inequality.
Piper:She has made a career in journalism after running a small entertainment business and working in politics, which sometimes probably mixed.
Piper:Lastly, Martina is the creator of Verdad, an AI tool that monitors Spanish language radio for mis and dis information.
Piper:Hey, Tika, how are
Monique:you? Thank you for being with us.
Monique:It's
Martina:been here with you guys.
Monique:I am so excited. Look, I see you're going here and there. Where are you right now?
Monique:Are you at home or are you on the way somewhere?
Martina:Right now I'm at home.
Martina:I will be heading to a big journalism conference in Boston and trying to get in front of as many
Martina:people as possible to talk about that and to talk about this tool that I created, this AI
Martina:tool, because disinformation on Spanish language radio is pervasive and it's frightening.
Martina:So I'll be doing something I don't normally do, which is go on like a conference circuit.
Martina:But yeah, right now I'm in Detroit.
Monique:Yeah, I saw that you were going to do that, and I was really excited to see that and to be able to do this podcast, because I do want to touch on the app, but we're going to start with something that we ask all our guests.
Piper:We always ask our guests, if you could hand out your flowers today,
Piper:who
Piper:would you honor for shaping your entrepreneurial journey?
Martina:Oh, Monique Velasquez and Piper Kessler.
Monique:But you had a business before you met us, right? You and your sister did something together.
Martina:What you guys taught me
Martina:was
Martina:that I had all of these skills that I didn't know how to monetize.
Martina:And I remember one time you told me, Monique, you have to stop giving it away.
Martina:And I didn't understand what you meant.
Martina:You know, I was just a creative person working on creative projects.
Martina:And
Martina:I
Martina:didn't realize that I could monetize my creativity.
Martina:I think I felt that as a creative person, there was no space in which to make money.
Martina:or I didn't know how to make money.
Martina:And I have to tell you,
Martina:that's kind of parlayed into the work that I do now,
Martina:where I teach young journalists
Martina:who feel that they can't make money writing,
Martina:that they can absolutely monetize it.
Martina:So I would 100% give you both bouquets of flowers.
Martina:I've learned, I created my own business because of you.
Martina:I have an LLC because of you guys.
Martina:So anyone out there listening to this,
Martina:Monique and Piper, yes,
Martina:I have so much gratitude for your support
Martina:mentorship, but I have paid it forward to a lot of young Latinos.
Martina:Well,
Monique:I was not expecting that,
Monique:but thank you so much. That means a lot. And, you know, having that capacity to be in front of young
Monique:people and putting that idea back out there,
Monique:I
Monique:love that. I love that. I love that so much.
Monique:I mean, it's so gratifying, right, to just like give them that idea, that spark that, you know,
Monique:It's like, oh, yeah, this is what I love. And then like, what? I can get paid for it too? Come on.
Monique:Tell us about your philosophy around representation. I know you had a small business,
Monique:you know, in the entertainment field, and now you have the app. You know, what's the heart of what
Monique:you do and what keeps you motivated to show up and create that representation every day?
Martina:When I was doing entertainment, I was putting on events for the Latino community, whether they were
Martina:art events or music events. I have a family who just were naturally mass communication people.
Martina:You know, I had a brother who was a very well-known DJ. My sisters and I put on all of these events,
Martina:but always all for the Latino community, right? We were sort of expressing our culture to people.
Martina:And the thread through that has been whether I've done entertainment, whether I've done politics,
Martina:because that's how I ended up in North Carolina, was we were registering Latinos to vote. We spent
Martina:months doing that. And then I left that because after working with you, I actually realized that
Martina:I could make a living at what I loved and then went back to my art, which was documentary photography,
Martina:then documentary films. Then that turned into
Martina:working
Martina:at public radio and at public radio,
Martina:you know, I wanted to be the reporter who reported on Latino issues because we're a community that's
Martina:literally ignored. I think I can generalize and say this, that we are just not considered when it
Martina:comes to economic development, to our massive cultural contributions, to our politics and how
Martina:we vote. You know, it's only after the fact when they want to like put blame, oh, Latinos didn't
Martina:vote for so-and-so. But when it comes to the before, you know, we are not considered. The threat of all
Martina:of my work, whether it was entertainment, whether it was politics, whether it was documentary,
Martina:filmmaking, journalism, or working for NPR is representing the Latino community. And because I
Martina:believe, not I believe, I know our voices are invisible. And I'll give you like a quick example.
Martina:Recently, last year around this time, Cinco de Mayo, all the newspapers step up and they're like,
Martina:we got to do something Cinco de Mayo. And there was an article that came out where it was like this
Martina:whole big piece was like, where to get the best tamales in the Mexican community.
Martina:And
Martina:I was furious because that news, first of all, it's tourism reporting.
Martina:And that news is not for us.
Martina:That news is for people out in the suburbs, because you know what?
Martina:We already know where to get the best tamales.
Martina:We already know where to get the best food.
Martina:And that kind of reporting is infuriating to me.
Martina:So my work has been that kind of representation.
Monique:For me, my head always spins because I don't spend a whole lot of time immersed in the Latino community, and I forget where the outrages should be.
Monique:And that reminds me that that representation is absolutely on point that it is not for the community that is Latino, but for tourism.
Monique:I read something the other day that was kind of in that vein where it's like, oh, you know, are you indigenous?
Monique:Right. And so for me, I get that idea.
Monique:It's like, oh, yeah, I'm indigenous. But like then the next question is, what tribe?
Monique:It's like, well, I read detribalized and I was thinking, well, damn, that that says it all, doesn't it?
Monique:I recognize that there are some, you know, colonialism
Monique:thinking
Monique:that I am still trapped in.
Monique:And so that mainstream media and representation in a very hard way to point those things out isn't always around.
Monique:And I appreciate that you are expressing why it is not the best way to represent the idea of representing this community.
Monique:It's like you didn't ask us. You just decided, oh, tamales is going
Piper:to be what you're going to talk about.
Piper:And that was going to be my next question was about, but you went right into it about a moment when you realized representation was missing.
Martina:What that's telling me is that you don't have any Latinos in your newsroom or you don't have any Latino editors, right?
Martina:Because a Latino reporter would have been like, no, you know, if you want to do a food piece on tamales, that's one thing.
Martina:But when you don't cover a community comprehensively, that's offensive.
Martina:And somebody with any kind of insight would have been able to know that.
Martina:You know, Monique, a little bit over a year ago, I was sitting with Tristan Autone.
Martina:Tristan Autone is a very highly regarded Native American journalist.
Martina:He was the head of the Native American Journalists Association, and he created this really incredible
Martina:piece that's online.
Martina:You can look it up.
Martina:It's called Land Grab,
Martina:where
Martina:he mapped out how all of these universities stole indigenous land and then sold it to create their endowments.
Martina:Right. So
Martina:I
Martina:was sitting with him.
Martina:he was giving a presentation at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and we began to have a
Martina:conversation about indigenous people and how there is a movement between
Martina:indigenous
Martina:members of
Martina:indigenous people in the United States who have, like, belong to actual tribes, and some white people
Martina:who don't consider Mexicans
Martina:to
Martina:be Native Americans, right? And, like, let me just clarify,
Martina:Mexican people are indigenous people, full sum, period.
Martina:There is nothing after that.
Martina:We are just like you.
Martina:We were colonized.
Martina:Our community was ripped apart.
Martina:We are a combination of Spanish, indigenous, and some black blood, right?
Martina:African, you know, slaves came to Mexico too.
Martina:We are a combination of all of those things.
Martina:But we are mostly European and indigenous, right?
Martina:And when you look at a map, when you look at, especially if you go to the Native American Museum in Washington, D.C., there is a map of all of the indigenous communities that started in like South America, far south, all the way through North America.
Martina:And when there is no border, it shows you where the Yaqui Indians were.
Martina:It shows you where the Aztec Empire was and all of them cross borders.
Martina:So just because you were sanctioned by the United States, where you somehow have this territory, does not not make us indigenous. And, you know, we are constantly
Martina:trying
Martina:to reclaim our identity, trying to decolonize how we eat, decolonize our thinking. And guess what Native Americans from the United States? It happened to us too in Mexico.
Martina:So and even if you were from Texas or if you were from New Mexico and Arizona, where like those
Martina:those
Martina:indigenous communities still cross borders, you know, and I think that we really need to sort of claim our indigenous roots and talk about it as such.
Martina:Yeah, I mean,
Monique:I'm with you all the way on that one. It's an interesting thing,
Monique:talking about representation and the ideas that are not apparent to the mainstream
Monique:purveyors and the gatekeepers of ideas. So I appreciate that you're out there and that you're
Monique:teaching the next generation to look for these places to, you know, figure out what is really
Monique:being done in the media. What was the moment that you realized
Martina:representation
Monique:was missing?
Monique:Like, was it when you were a kid? Did you see something happen?
Monique:I
Martina:think when I was in college,
Martina:so I went to art school and I studied photography. I wanted to be a photojournalist.
Martina:And there was only two Latinos in the whole school. And I kind of began to slowly realize that
Martina:Everywhere I went, I was the only one.
Martina:I was the only Latina here.
Martina:I was one of only a couple of people of color there.
Martina:Right.
Martina:And
Martina:I
Martina:think what I thought initially was like, oh, isn't this wonderful that I was invited,
Martina:right, to be part of this?
Martina:I didn't really have the kind of conceptual thinking around it that I have now after so
Martina:many years.
Martina:So I'm in North Carolina and the woman who had hired me to do the outreach and Latino voting, right?
Martina:She wanted to do long-term outreach.
Martina:I remember her telling a group of us that she said, I just remember clearly she said,
Martina:if you are the only Black or Latino person in a room, you should ask yourself why.
Martina:Why are you the only Latino or Black person in that room?
Martina:And I remember that hit me.
Martina:It like knocked me over.
Martina:And I was like, you know, if you're the only one there, that means people are making decisions
Martina:about
Martina:who's in that room.
Martina:And then after that, I just every room that I've been in and I don't see people of color.
Martina:I look to whoever's organizing the event.
Martina:I look and ask those questions.
Martina:Why are there no Latino and or black representation in this room?
Monique:Women.
Monique:Thank you.
Monique:I mean, that is like, you know, one of those key places.
Monique:Now, do you remember, you know, like traveling outside of your community when you were a kid,
Monique:like what it was like
Monique:to
Monique:like not hear Spanish someplace or
Monique:to
Monique:hear predominantly Spanish in
Monique:someplace?
Monique:Because in my, you know, my world, we left Texas and we left the community that spoke
Monique:Spanish. And so like going back was always an amazing
Monique:thing
Monique:because I heard Spanish and people
Monique:look like me
Monique:after,
Monique:you know, living a life without that exposure. Do you remember that sort of
Monique:experience for you?
Monique:And
Martina:for me, it was going out into the suburbs because when I was growing up,
Martina:Detroit had become a predominantly Black city. But within that Black city, there was this really
Martina:strong, small, but mighty Latino community that had their own schools, their own grocery
Martina:stores, their own businesses.
Martina:And you could actually live within this community and kind of exist and never have to learn to
Martina:speak English, which is what many people did for generations, right?
Martina:They didn't really have to.
Martina:They lived in this community that everything was there.
Martina:So if we were to go out to the suburbs, no one was like us.
Martina:And I remember one time going shopping at this kind of fancy shopping.
Martina:We didn't have shopping malls in Detroit or places to shop.
Martina:And so I went out into the suburbs and I stood at a counter.
Martina:I wanted to buy like a cream for my face.
Martina:And I remember standing there and these women kept going to other people.
Martina:And they would never, they never asked me what I needed.
Martina:And I didn't understand until way later.
Martina:And I was like, oh, they didn't.
Martina:That was, I was like, that was not an accident.
Martina:That was on purpose.
Martina:I didn't, my, you know, my immigrant mother wasn't speaking English.
Martina:I don't know what they thought of us, but it was all of these things that I began to notice.
Martina:That I was like, yeah, and it was, and I remember going further up northern Michigan, where it was extremely white.
Martina:And
Martina:I
Martina:remember driving up with my sister and we locked our doors.
Martina:We were afraid.
Martina:I
Monique:love that.
Monique:I love that image.
Monique:I mean, but I get it.
Monique:Right?
Monique:Yeah, I get it.
Monique:Feeling unsafe.
Monique:Do you remember ever walking your doors like feeling unsafe, Piper?
Monique:Oh, yeah.
Monique:Tell me.
Monique:Tell me.
Piper:Well, that was after we found out our neighbors were
Piper:in
Piper:the KKK.
Piper:Whoa.
Piper:whoa whoa and it was
Piper:a
Piper:little boy who i was friends with i mean he was like probably my first
Piper:long-term friendship i mean and it wasn't like the healthiest friendship because he always like
Piper:intimidated me into doing stuff and all that but i was like oh you're chicken you know and i was like
Piper:i'm not chicken and
Piper:but
Piper:yeah finding out we we did something he really did it but i got in trouble
Piper:for it too we almost started a forest fire but
Piper:and
Piper:his father was in the volunteer fire department
Piper:but
Piper:it
Piper:was after that something happened there was an occurrence and i
Piper:through
Piper:my parents so i think
Piper:my parents tried to block it from me of they were i think trying to protect us and it was i realized
Piper:later that he was his father was a member of the kkk
Piper:and we
Piper:you know we had friends that came over
Piper:to that i think back and i'm like we had people over at the house all the time
Piper:and
Piper:black black
Piper:folks that like sometimes they babysat me sometimes they were just there for hanging out
Piper:hanging out whatever
Piper:but yeah
Piper:so that i in my memory it's really weird i don't want to drag this
Piper:out. But in my memory, I remember us being in the living room. And now I wonder if we were in the
Piper:living room and taking cover because there was a tornado
Piper:or
Piper:if it was because my parents were
Piper:concerned that we'd been, the KKK was going to be visiting our house. Like we turned off all the
Piper:lights. And I remember being in the living room and being crouching down. And it only realized,
Piper:The only reason I realized that is a friend of mine here in Durham, her father, he was a preacher
Piper:and
Piper:he got targeted by the KKK and her stories of their family and having to protect themselves and him being very aware that
Piper:his
Piper:life was in danger
Piper:because
Piper:he had spoken out.
Piper:And he was high up in, I can't remember if they're Baptist or.
Piper:Oh, yeah.
Piper:And the Senate of the church.
Piper:And his son has since written a very famous book, and now it's a movie, about an incident that happened when he was in high school.
Monique:So, yeah, I was not expecting that as your story, because I don't remember you ever telling me.
Piper:Yeah,
Monique:I don't think I've
Monique:—I
Piper:may have talked to my brother about it, but I think
Monique:that's about it.
Monique:That's a very different
Monique:experience,
Monique:right?
Monique:You know, we've had this conversation before, like we're aware that people in the room will say something different if I'm in the room than if you're by yourself in the room.
Monique:Oh,
Martina:100 percent.
Martina:100 percent.
Martina:That to me, so my ex, who we were together for a very long time, white man, couldn't believe the things that people would say
Martina:to
Martina:him thinking, I don't know what they thought.
Martina:I mean, they would say he said some of the most horrifying racist
Martina:things
Martina:to him
Martina:and
Martina:look to him going, you know what I mean, right?
Martina:Like trying to get him to agree.
Martina:You know, meanwhile, he's like married to a Mexican, you know.
Martina:And he was like, no, I don't know what you mean.
Martina:And would come back and tell me about some of these incidences.
Martina:And
Martina:yeah,
Martina:when people think they're in a space where they can express those views.
Martina:It's very
Monique:different.
Monique:And so creating safe spaces is we are doing.
Monique:And we're just I think people that are true to the idea of representation and media are trying to just push the boundaries so that there are bigger, safer spaces for people that look like us.
Martina:And, you know, Monique, to that point, I think that there is like a kind of a little bit we're in the beginning of a golden age.
Martina:And the reason I say that is that as all of these newspapers have begun to close, which is terrible, right?
Martina:They're closing in rural communities.
Martina:They're closing all across America.
Martina:Like news as a whole like is in crisis.
Martina:But the bright light that I see is that all of these people of color are starting their
Martina:own podcasts, are starting their own online newspapers, are starting their own like video
Martina:shows, are starting, right?
Martina:So they don't have to have the kinds of money that it used to take
Martina:to
Martina:create a media outlet.
Martina:You don't need the big cameras, right?
Martina:Like you can do it with your phone now.
Martina:So it sort of democratized people's ability to tell their own news.
Martina:And I think that when I see that, especially here in Detroit, you see people of color starting
Martina:their own media outlets.
Martina:That's really inspiring for me.
Martina:That's something that I see as a very bright light in the midst of all of this crisis when
Martina:newspapers are, you know, and starting their own media outlets.
Martina:So why does
Piper:inclusion matter
Martina:to you as a journalist?
Martina:You know, one of my favorite sayings is by
Martina:a
Martina:man named Robert C. Maynard.
Martina:Robert Maynard, it was after the Kerner Commission.
Martina:The Kerner Commission was this sort of landmark body of work that was commissioned by Congress
Martina:iots and the uprisings of the:Martina:All of these cities, you know, were having, you know, there were National Guards rolling
Martina:into cities because there were fights and clashes and fires.
Martina:And why was that happening?
Martina:And one of the founding ideas in the aftermath of the Kerner Commission was that there was no representation in the media.
Martina:And when there was representation, it was negative. Right.
Martina:So it is about 55 years after the Kerner Commission report.
Martina:After that, there was a guy named Robert C. Maynard, African-American, who was the very, he was a pioneer in diversifying news outlets across the country.
Martina:And initially he was housed at Columbia University and he started this whole kind of diversity program of getting journalists of color, you know, creating a pipeline, getting people of color into newsrooms, you know, getting people to change how and who they considered to be experts.
Martina:You know, that there were black doctors that they could interview, that there were black professors that they could interview and so forth.
Martina:And Robert C. Maynard has this famous quote where he says, you know, all people deserve front door access to the truth.
Martina:Right. And
Martina:so people like Robert C. Maynard, you know, I stand on the shoulders of a lot of people who have done this work before.
Martina:And what I see differently now, though, is that their newsrooms are still kind of run by white men.
Martina:You know, these editors of these legacy media outlets, you know, the big newspapers, I'm
Martina:sure the News and Observer, more than likely probably run by a white man.
Martina:You know, same thing here in Detroit, all these legacy, even the corporate media, you
Martina:see CNN, CBS, like mostly run by white men.
Martina:So that's their worldview, right, is through the lens of a white man.
Martina:And if they're not
Martina:understanding
Martina:what it means to have people of color on staff and the revenues
Martina:that that generates. So there was a study done. So Faride Shadea, who was a
Martina:program
Martina:director at
Martina:the Ford Foundation, would always talk about this study, that it was actually a fact, an absolute
Martina:fact that if you did stories about people of color, and you covered people of color comprehensively,
Martina:that they would have more revenue, that more people would buy their newspapers, more people
Martina:would buy ads. The reach was better. So it's always astonishing to me. Like if that if you
Martina:know that that's a fact, why don't you do
Monique:it? And why pull back and all the things? Right.
Monique:So why cover just the tamales? Right. So I
Martina:did a survey last year in the Latino community and I
Martina:asked these series of questions and it was really difficult to get people to fill out this survey.
Martina:Right. I was like, I tried to make it under 10 minutes so that you could just answer yes or no
Martina:questions. And many of the people I called and been like, you know, what do you, in terms of news,
Martina:what do you want to see? I held an older Mexican woman who had been here for like three generations
Martina:and she just kept saying, there's a donut shop in our community that was recently bought by a young
Martina:ike, there was been since the:Martina:but they were selling this young Latino bought it. And she just kept saying, do you know, it's called
Martina:donut villa do you know donut villa is putting a window you know to carry out window she kept
Martina:saying it over and over again and it took me a minute but what she meant
Martina:it
Martina:wasn't necessarily
Martina:that it was donut villa is that it was about economic development that while all these other
Martina:businesses get profiles about them that the latino community who are known entrepreneurs right no like
Martina:every statistic about Latina women are the number one
Martina:people
Martina:who open up businesses, right? And our
Martina:businesses were not being covered. That's what she meant. So yes.
Monique:That survey, yeah, exactly. And so
Monique:let's pivot a little bit and talk about how video and storytelling helped you amplify your voice to
Monique:connect with your audience in a way that feels authentic, right? Maybe, you know, pivot a little
Monique:bit about what the app is doing for you too.
Martina:So, I mean, I think Monique, I mean, if the audience
Martina:doesn't know, Monique Piper and I have like done two documentaries together. And one of the first
Martina:documentaries we did was there was this huge
Martina:influx
Martina:of immigrants around:Martina:was everybody just kept saying, these immigrants are coming, these immigrants are coming.
Martina:Every news station would say the same thing.
Martina:And what we noticed was that nobody was asking the question, why?
Martina:Why were they coming?
Martina:What was happening in their country that they were coming to America?
Martina:So the three of us went to Mexico and we filmed a documentary about it.
Martina:And what we did was we told a story from the perspective of the other side about how these
Martina:people who for generations grown this
Martina:organic
Martina:corn, you know, this heirloom corn, as they call it,
Martina:for generations. But because the United States was subsidizing American corn, right, that had
Martina:pesticides and all of these things in it, and was flooding the Mexican market,
Martina:people
Martina:were beginning
Martina:to buy that and not buying this heirloom corn from the people who were growing it. And they began,
Martina:And so we filmed a documentary about what that meant for the women left in these villages in Mexico.
Martina:So
Martina:creating
Martina:those documentaries with you was a way of telling like a full picture, again, a comprehensive story about what was happening to our community on the other side.
Monique:Yeah. And so you also talked about how, you know, people of color are creating these online video content, right?
Monique:And so how do you see that influencing, you know, sort of the future and like how you see representation and
Monique:the
Monique:impact it's going to have?
Monique:Because you talked a little bit about it.
Martina:So what happens is that the one thing that happened after the Kerner Commission was that everybody was like, oh, we need to hire
Martina:people
Martina:of color.
Martina:Right. And they would have like one or two people, which made them feel incredibly isolated.
Martina:And it took decades for that to happen.
Martina:What's happening now is that people of color are starting their own media outlets.
Martina:And what they're doing is that people of color are not an afterthought.
Martina:People of color are foundational, right?
Martina:They are part of the pillars of how they create these media outlets from the beginning, right?
Martina:They're not like, oh, we need to do blank so they don't get mad or whatever reason.
Martina:But like, no, how do we cover communities of color comprehensively?
Martina:What are the beats we need to have so that we cover these communities?
Martina:How many reporters, we don't hire reporters of color as an afterthought, but we hire a really full and robust newsroom so that it covers all of these communities.
Martina:And that's the difference I see.
Martina:Right. So from the very beginning, they're creating these news outlets differently.
Monique:Yeah. And I think, you know, with with media, it is like
Monique:I
Monique:think video.
Monique:It's always like where I go to since that's what I do for a living.
Monique:But media includes news and journalism.
Monique:And, you know, you were saying one of the last times we talked about how these Substack subscriptions are also taking off with journalists and that that is a means for communities to get very specific types of news.
Monique:Because the types of things that I'm going to cover and talk about are not going to look like what the office next door, you know, looks like at all.
Monique:And so talk a little bit about how you see Substack and that influence.
Martina:Well, again, that goes to my point earlier that people are creating their own media outlets, right?
Martina:And whether you're doing something on YouTube or you've created your own community newspaper that you can do through a website and report and upload it, Substack is almost the same thing.
Martina:You have a lot of journalists who are no longer in newsrooms because those newsrooms have closed or because they had to let half their staff go.
Martina:And they found a place, you know, that they can write and continue to contribute and continue to tell these stories.
Martina:So I think Substack is an incredible place for people to write.
Martina:I often write on these platforms.
Monique:Let's pivot and let's talk about the app, because I think that in itself has a real big impact on what is happening in media that is maybe not focused or led by journalists.
Monique:So
Martina:I think you're referring to the tool I created, Verval, right? So two years ago, I was
Martina:tipped
Martina:off by an incredibly credible source that Russians were buying airtime on Spanish language radio stations
Martina:and
Martina:spreading misinformation. And my jaw dropped.
Martina:I
Martina:was like, oh, my God. Like, are you kidding?
Martina:So for almost 12 months, I followed the story. I interviewed people across the country, interviewed experts. I interviewed people who actually knew that it was happening. I mean, it was confirmed from people who had who had worked in the Obama administration, but were now doing other work. And they were like, yeah, this is happening.
Martina:And so what I ended up doing is I left the story because what people were telling me,
Martina:when
Martina:I said, how are you listening? How are you
Martina:hearing
Martina:the disinformation? And they would say, I'm sitting there listening. And I was like, for hours. And they'd be like, yeah, for hours. And there was one woman who was really proud. She'd just written a grant so somebody could listen full time. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. You're sitting there for hours trying and hoping that you hear disinformation. Right?
Martina:And so I realized in that moment that there wasn't a tool
Martina:and
Martina:that something needed
Martina:to
Martina:be invented in order to cover this blind spot in the media.
Martina:When I realized that people were listening for hours, I remember thinking, this is insane.
Martina:First of all, who has that kind of time to listen for hours at a time?
Martina:And also, if you're not monitoring it, that means it's happening, it's pervasive, and nobody knows.
Martina:And if you don't speak Spanish, where you have all these American reporters who don't speak Spanish who are covering disinformation, how could they know?
Martina:So what I did was I tracked down.
Martina:It took me months to find
Martina:two
Martina:design engineers who could really create this platform.
Martina:And so if you go to verdad.app, you can get on it and see how it works.
Martina:But we covered radio stations first in battleground states because we knew the election was coming.
Martina:So we just started recording 24 hours a day.
Martina:And based on keywords, hundreds of keywords that we uploaded, right? Because every subject has its own words around disinformation, right? So if you do LGBTQ, right, the right has all of these words in which they use to disinform. If you say immigration, there's all these words they use to disinform. So we had to go through every single category, geopolitics, you know, the war in Ukraine. You mean, name the subject, and we were able to upload those words.
Martina:And so when the device hears any of those words, it begins to record.
Martina:And then it records in Spanish, it transcribes in Spanish, and then it translates it into English.
Martina:And that is how American journalists and Latino journalists are able to use this tool to monitor disinformation.
Martina:And
Monique:that's an amazing thing to have as a resource
Monique:to
Monique:actually cover the idea that, you know, there's missing disinformation.
Monique:It's out there.
Monique:I know we didn't get to finish that conversation real quick with Martina.
Monique:We do plan to reconnect and get that
Monique:buttoned
Monique:up.
Monique:So we'll do a part two
Piper:with Martina Guzman.
Monique:Change the Reel has been so much fun this season.
Monique:We talked about, let's see, creating safe space with Dr. Linnell Plummer,
Monique:how to leverage video streaming for real business impact,
Monique:ethical storytelling and representation with Natalie Bullock-Brown,
Monique:creating content that matters in business,
Monique:finding your authentic voice with chef Queen Precious Jewel Zabriskie,
Monique:Nonprofit video use.
Monique:Building content that connects with Fran Westcott.
Monique:The ultimate guide to hiring a video crew, which I thought was a lot of fun.
Monique:What it means to change the real and what this podcast is about.
Piper:And I learned a lot from all of our guests and I really appreciate the time they took to talk to us.
Piper:And I'm honored that they shared their stories with us and that they are out there changing the real.
Monique:Change the Reel will be back for season two. We'll be on hiatus for the summer.
Monique:We
Monique:have some really
Monique:exciting guests lined up for next season, and we're really excited about that. We're always
Monique:interested in meeting people who are active in how they change the reel on their story using media.
Piper:And while we take our hiatus, I want to remind you that we're offering the first 10 new clients
Piper:in our studio a special offer. We have a membership for six months to use the studio for 10 hours. Now
Piper:that can be 10 hours over the six-month period. It can be to book all 10 hours in one week.
Monique:So if
Monique:you're a business owner, a non-profit, or an association, we invite you to use our new space
Monique:to create live content and walk away
Monique:within
Monique:72 hours with an impactful video.
Monique:We
Monique:also want to
Monique:remind you that if you aren't in the Triangle area, this offer is still for you. You can choose
Monique:to book your 10 hours of studio time in a week, just like Piper said. While you're in town,
Monique:discover Durham's rich history of Black entrepreneurship and walk our historic Black
Monique:Wall Street.
Monique:Yeah,
Piper:we're really proud of Durham. It's also the home of civil rights leader Polly
Piper:Murray. We're a foodie town that hosts traveling Broadway shows, national acts, a world-renowned
Piper:dance festival, and an Oscar-nominating documentary film festival.
Monique:Durham is a special place for North
Monique:Carolina. It has significant and historical influential Black community, and I want you to
Monique:know that you will feel comfortable here.
Monique:Well,
Piper:it's time to change the reel on this episode.
Piper:See you next
Monique:time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Monique:change the rule.
Piper:If you liked the episode, follow us, share it, or hop on podchaser.com
Piper:and leave us a review. And remember, representation starts here. Hasta pronto. See you soon.