California child care programs leave many families behind
S1: A look at why child care resources are elusive to so many families.
S2: Child care is very expensive. It costs as much as university tuition in a year.
S1: I'm Jade Hindman. This is KPBS midday edition. The impact of redeveloping old California Restaurant Row in San Marcos.
S3: So we've seen it grown and this was the epicenter of the town and the seed just disappeared and.
S1: Indigenous tribes are having to buy back their stolen land. And a conversation with writer illustrator Truong Lee Win about the magic fish. That's ahead on Midday Edition. This morning , California Governor Gavin Newsom announced his budget plan for 2023 into 2024. The outlook for the state includes cuts to programs to close a projected $22.5 billion deficit. Among the cuts are 20,000 new child care slots intended for California's neediest families. The state says it is delaying funding for those spaces until next fiscal year. As any parent of young children knows. Finding safe , affordable child care can feel like an impossible task. Well , a new multipart series from the San Diego Union-Tribune takes a closer look at child care in California and shows a complicated and underutilized system of resources for California families and how that crisis leaves many unable to afford child care at all. Here to tell us more about the series is Kristen Takata , education reporter with the San Diego Union-Tribune. Kristin , welcome.
S2: Thank you for having me.
S1: In your reporting , you write how California's child care programs and subsidies are not reaching families who actually need them.
S2: One is that the subsidies , basically the financial aid that does exist for families to help pay for child care. It hasn't been fully funded , so it hasn't ever served all the families who are eligible for those for that financial aid and those subsidies. So there are thousands of families who qualify but don't get the care because they have not gotten cleared off of the waiting list yet. So that's one issue. And then the other issue is that there are a lot of families who do need help paying for child care , but they don't qualify for those subsidies as partly because the income limit you need to meet the eligibility for those programs is is not matched with how much it actually costs to live in California , which is obviously an expensive state. So , for example , in San Diego County , you do need to make a higher income to get by here because everything is expensive. But like that higher income you need to get by automatically disqualifies you from subsidized child care. But as we all know , child care is very expensive. It costs as much as university tuition in a year. So that leaves a lot of families falling in a gap where they don't qualify , but they also can't pay for child care on their own.
S1:
S2: Mainly , they come in two forms. One is there are some child care centers and providers out there who will enroll families with children who qualify for subsidized child care. So it's like you go to the program almost for free. Sometimes you do have to pay a fee depending on your income level. And then there are also providers who accept state vouchers for child care. So that's also like if you're income eligible and you meet the requirements , then sometimes you can qualify for a voucher that allows you to go to a child care of your choice. So I'd say those are the two main ways that the state subsidizes child care for poor families. And for both of those you can if you think you qualify , I would recommend going to your local child care resource and referral agency is what they're called. There's one for every part of the state , but they're the ones who would help you figure out if you qualify and if so , how to apply for that.
S1: In your reporting , you tell this story of one local mother , Zaira Reynoso. Tell us about her. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So I wanted to feature her story because I felt like she really kind of represents a lot of like a lot of the struggles of like a middle class typical family in San Diego County where it is expensive to live and meet basic needs. So she had grown up in an impoverished childhood where her family couldn't afford basic things like uniforms. And so she really wanted to kind of advance from that and build up her life and then build a new life for her own children and make a better life for them. And she was really determined to do that. But she ended up running into all these almost like disappointments about like how much everything caused. And she can't afford child care for her new baby. And that was actually like one of the the main obstacles she had in deciding to have another baby. She really wanted to give her young daughter a sibling. But the lack of childcare and being able to afford childcare was one of the only reasons holding her back from giving her daughter a sibling. And so now she is struggling to make ends meet , even though she feels like she did like everything , right ? You know , she she has a career in early childhood. Her older her husband also works and. So they're both trying to make everything work out for their family , but they're coming up against these obstacles. And one of them is childcare , the huge cost of it. And they don't qualify for subsidized childcare. They fall in that gap where they don't qualify , but they still can't afford it. So that's why I wanted to feature her , because she's like really clear example of families who are falling in that gap and who need help but aren't getting served.
S1: Yeah , And you know , Governor Newsom says he's got a plan to fund new child care facilities. How has that been working and is it likely to have a major impact on this problem ? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So that plan is part of that plan is to provide or fund 200,000 new subsidized child care spaces within the next few years. Yeah , they have been funding those new spaces , but well , first of all , 200,000 doesn't represent all the children who qualify but haven't been served. So that gap between how many people the state is serving versus how many people are eligible. It doesn't fill that whole gap. And then second of all , a lot of people are saying there needs to be changes and help for the industry itself in order to serve more families. So just adding more money to spaces isn't going to mean that more families will get served. And that's largely because , like the child care workforce in the industry is already so strange. And that's partly what I'm going to that's what I'm going to talk about in the next story of my series is that a lot of providers are surviving on very , very low pay. They have really not ideal working conditions. A lot of providers don't have like health insurance or benefits , like basic benefits that everyone would hope to get from their job. So they're so strained already that even if there were more families who are signing up for care for subsidized care , there's no guarantee that enough providers would be able to expand or open their doors to serve more families. So I think more needs to be done or a lot of people are saying more needs to be done with the supply side of the child care industry and supporting the mostly women providers who are make up that industry before we can end up serving more families. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. We'll look forward to hearing more of your reporting on that and seeing that article. I mean , in one article of your stories , you include a guide for Families in Search of Child Care.
S2: So things like where can I find childcare ? What kinds of childcare exist out there and how could I get financial aid or help paying for care , for looking for childcare ? I would like I mentioned before , I recommend starting with your local resource and referral agency. They're a great resource and so if you want to find yours , you can try calling. It's one 800 5437793 and you can also visit a website that's really helpful called my Child Care Plan dot org. It lets you put in the basics of what kind of care you're looking for and help you find local child care in your area and connect you with your referral agency. So I highly recommend going to that website. It's really easy to use and it's a good resource.
S1: I've been speaking with San Diego Union-Tribune education reporter Kristin Takata. Kristen , thank you so much for joining us.
S2: Thank you.
S1: The need for housing is impacting small businesses and a once popular hub for dining and entertainment. KPBS North County reporter Tanya Thorne tells us plans to redevelop old California Restaurant Row in San Marcos.
S2: Old California Restaurant Row was once a popular destination for North County families , but the scene looks very different these days with lots of empty storefronts as leases expire and the spaces aren't rented out. My feeling is that the previous owners really let the place go , which is why a developer came through in the first place and saw an opportunity to tear it down and start fresh. Erin Harper has been with Old Cal Coffeehouse for 12 years. She started out as a barista and worked her way to owner. Restaurant Row got sold in 2020. Her five year lease was supposed to be up for renewal in 2021 and there was no offer of a new lease. It kind of just rolled into month to month. So that was when we figured out that their plans weren't to really like work with us or preserve us. At least , you know , we weren't being told anything. Then Harper found out plans were in the works to redevelop the center plans that don't include most of the original buildings. The new owner has teamed up with developer Lennar Homes to build a mixed use development that includes 202 housing units and some commercial space. The businesses being displaced are now having to rethink their long term goals. For Harper , that means relocating and rebranding. The old California coffee house is directly tied to old California restaurant row and without restaurant row. To me , the name kind of just sounds like old coffee. She has the new name Ascend Coffee Roasters , but she hasn't settled on a new location yet. Not too far from the coffee house , Jim Hadley owns 55 yard line sports bar.
S3: And this was going to be our retirement. Run it until you know , real good. And then when we call it quits , I'll take our money and then retire. So now that's out the window.
S2: Hadley's lease will be month to month after February. He has about a year and a half to figure out his next steps.
S3: It's just it's just a feeling of to see this property in general go away. We've been in this in this town for 31 years , so we've seen it grown. And this was the epicenter of the town. And to see it just disappeared , said.
S2: Hadley says he understands the town is progressing , but he doesn't think the infrastructure is set up for that growth.
S3: Church San Marcos Boulevard is terrible to drive on , right ? The 78. Forget about that. And it's just getting more and more.
S2: San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones recognizes the traffic concerns and the need for housing. She says she also talked with the developer about preserving history. Yes , we need housing. However , you know , it's important to remember that this is something that the community really cherishes as far as the quality and the , you know , the history of San Marcos , because truly Restaurant Row was part of what's put San Marcos on the map. She says the city expected changes for the site. When he got zoned for mixed use development more than a decade ago , not that it would change right away , but that it would change at some point in time. We reached out to in our homes multiple times to ask about the project , especially what kind of housing is in the works. But no one from the company was available for an interview. Whatever is in those plans. Erin Harper at the Old California Coffeehouse says she hopes they keep some of the elements that make Restaurant Row so unique. And I'm hoping that they'll really preserve the character and what people love about Restaurant Row because like the wood beams and the tile work , like this isn't just some run of the mill cookie cutter development. This place has a lot of character , and I think we need to work to preserve that as well as the hardworking business people here. Work is expected to start in the spring. On an Environmental Impact report for the Development. Tanya Thorne , KPBS News.
S1: You're listening to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Heineman. Governor Gavin Newsom is setting aside 100 million to support Native American tribes in buying back their ancestral lands. It's part of his 30 by 30 pledge to preserve one third of state lands and coastal waters by the year 2030. But once a tribe gets their land back , how do they restore and preserve it ? KQED Izzy Blum reports from Humboldt County , where an indigenous tribe bought back 48 acres of land earlier this year.
S2: The 48 acres of coastal property is rich with wetlands , meadows and spruce forest. If you look at it on a map , it's an island of green surrounded by residential development. The Wyatt Tribe , an indigenous tribe that's lived in the Humboldt Bay region of Northern California for thousands of years , identified this site in 2015 as a high priority to reclaim in part because of its cultural importance. The land is referred to as Burwash or Walk , the name of a historic Wyatt Village site on the property.
S4: It's the first forest land to be returned to the tribe. So I think it just represents a place where tribal citizens can finally feel comfortable practicing these cultural traditions , like berry picking or mushroom hunting , where they don't have to feel like they're just on public land or trespassing or , yeah , a place to be that they can call their own.
S2: That's Adam Canter , the natural resources director for the Wyatt tribe. He took me on a hike through the forested property.
S4: Watch out. This is really slick.
S2: Pointing out Sitka spruce trees with egret and heron , rookeries and hazelnut branches used by the tribe for basketry whittle.
S4: Redwood violets that are going to get choked out.
S2: By the return of our wash. Your walk is the first time the state of California has funded native land back to address climate change. In July , the State Ocean Protection Council awarded the Wyatt Tribe $1.2 million through its Proposition one grant program so the tribe could buy the parcel from a private landowner. When Governor Gavin Newsom rolled out his proposal to fund native land back as part of his 30 by 30 climate pledge. He used this project as a poster child for the initiative. But $1 million of the grant was used just to purchase the land , leaving less than a quarter million dollars to actually restore and maintain it. Here's Adam Kantor. Again.
S5: Again.
S4: There's a lot of attention towards land return right now. But , you know , if land return also isn't tied with funding for management , that kind of almost burdens and puts the tribes in a rough spot. And so the tribe is really hoping to be able to use 30 by 30 funds to assist with the management of this property.
S2: The tribe is also partnering with Cal Poly Humboldt , which is helping with restoration , planning , improving water quality and removing invasive species. I think higher education institutions should feel a great sense of responsibility to assisting tribes with meeting whatever goals that they have for the lands and peoples and the projects and the things that they're developing because higher education institutions occupy stolen , dispossessed , indigenous lands. Kutcher Rosalind Baldy is the department chair and associate professor of Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. She's also the co-director of the university's Partnership with the We Are Tribe. And as part of that partnership , the tribe and university are also involving students in the restoration work , including indigenous students in STEM and other students in environmental science and Native American studies. When we're able to return land , restore land and reconnect to land , what you see are brighter future climate resilient futures that really matter for the whole world. Riesling Baldy hopes that tribes and higher education institutions will continue building fruitful relationships that center indigenous knowledge and practices.
S1: That was KQED , Izzy Bloom. For the first time in 15 years , the American Academy of Pediatrics is changing its guidelines for how doctors should address a common disease among children obesity. The new guidelines include early and aggressive treatments , which are not currently widely used , including surgery. Joining me is Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer , a specialist with Rady Children's Hospital. And , Dr. Schwimmer , thanks for joining us.
S6: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
S1:
S6: And so it's roughly 20% of all children in the country.
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S6: And they're really about obesity care. And so the starting place is they they want all pediatricians to be more aware of the problem and understand what to expect over time. And so a lot of attention is given to earlier awareness when we see children in clinic. Often what we'll do is we'll go back and look at their growth chart. And we can tell a lot of what has happened has taken place over the first five , six years of life.
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S6: I think a lot of attention has been given to recommendation 12 medications , recommendation for teen metabolic and bariatric surgery. And not enough public attention has been given to the larger context. And that larger context is that over the last 20 years , there now is the body of research to understand the health consequences happening not only in adulthood , but even fairly early on child , as well as enough information to see that there are a number of treatments that can be quite effective for children and adolescents.
S1: So I'm seeing in the headlines that even bariatric surgery is being recommended for children. That's something I've never seen before.
S6: That's recommendation 13. So there are many other recommendations that were made in this case. What they're saying is that for adolescents , 13 and older who are at the severe end of the obesity spectrum , not all children with obesity , that metabolic and bariatric surgery is something that should be available as a treatment option. And that is because it's been shown that for those at the severe end of the obesity spectrum , having metabolic and back surgery as a teenager rather than waiting until one's 20 , 30 , 40 is associated with a lower rate of long term disease like diabetes and cardiovascular disease and associated with many other markers of better overall health.
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S6: We know that there are many things that can contribute to excessive weight gain in children , and some of those things happen in utero. So quality prenatal care and attention to health for an expectant mother is really the starting place. Once a child is born , good attention to proper nutrition and healthy lifestyle from the very beginning to set the stages for all children to be healthy. It's important in terms of starting to look at the issue of obesity itself. That is something that really begins between the ages of two and five , and that's because looking at the growth trajectory between two and five gives us a lot of information about which children are much more likely to have weight and or weight related health issues later in childhood and early adulthood.
S1: And so , you know , I mean , there seems to be a significant shift away from the the wait and see approach.
S6: So as you had mentioned , the previous guideline came out about 15 years ago and the guideline before that had come out in the late 1990s. And back then there was a lot of concern about what does it mean to start using these labels that have been really just used in adults. And there wasn't that much information. But there has been a very large body of research done over the last 20 years that shows that children not only experience substantial weight gain in some cases , but we're starting to see more and more children who have liver disease , kidney disease , diabetes , heart disease , even in children. So the consequences of it , as well as we now have a much larger body of evidence that there are many therapies , many treatments that can be very effective.
S1: And , you know , I think people have a lot of perceptions about what obesity is , what it looks like.
S6: Obesity is a very complex condition. We all eat. We all have have a weight. All children are supposed to grow and gain weight. So at what point does it become more weight than it's helpful for that child ? Is really what the term obesity is about. It says that that child has a substantially increased risk for health problems in terms of what causes that. Over the last 20 years that I have run the Weight and Wellness Center at Veterans Hospital , I've seen that there are more than 50 things that go into the contribution to obesity. And the complicated thing is that for any one child , which elements and what proportion they have varies tremendously. So we know that genetics play a large role , but certainly there are many environmental factors , some of them within the household , some of them within the school , some within the larger society that all can be contributing.
S1: Some doctors now describe obesity as a brain disease.
S6: The majority of those genes are things that affect the brain or the interaction between the gut and the brain. And so they influence our daily habits and influence. But foods , we have preference. They influence how much we eat , how much pleasure we derive from eating. And they also influence how likely we are to be active and how likely you are to be sedentary.
S1: And I guess , you know , I'm wondering how important it is for doctors to be familiarized with this new research and this new data when treating children and even adults.
S6: That's incredibly important. And that's that's a great point to make , that that is one of the key elements of this document. This really is a physician to physician document that they want all pediatricians , all primary care doctors who take care of children to be aware of the importance of obesity and how to better evaluate it , how to be aware of the consequences of it. So if you look at the things that they ask pediatricians to do , look for to screen for starting at age ten , diabetes , fatty liver disease , high cholesterol , high triglycerides. If you look , there's tremendous variability across the country as to whether that actually happens or not. There are some places where patricians are very good about doing that and there are other places where that happens incredibly infrequently. And so all pediatricians being aware of and this is an important point.
S1: Do you think the insurance industry is caught up ? I mean , I know some of the interventions like the drug wegovy is recommended and intense health behavior and lifestyle treatment even.
S6: And so now with the Affordable Care Act , we saw a substantial improvement in insurance companies covering the evaluation for obesity. In terms of the medications , those are newer and the coverage has been quite variable. And so many children who would qualify for it and would benefit from these medications are not able to receive them because of how expensive they are and the fact that insurance is not covering it. So that's an important issue that we need to work harder on.
S1: I've been speaking with Dr. Geoffrey Schwimmer , a specialist with Rady Children's Hospital. Dr. Schwimmer , thank you so much for your time today.
S6: Thank you very much for the conversation.
S1: You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. This year , KPBS , one book , one San Diego selection for teens is The Magic Fish , a graphic novel by writer and illustrator Truong Lee Wen , also known as Trumbull's. The novel is about a second generation Vietnamese American teenager who uses fairy tales to help his mother learn English. When spoke with KPBS arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans.
S2: Hi , Chang. Thanks for joining us. Hi.
S6: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
S2: So this book is told primarily through the perspective of ten , a teenager and his mother living and working in the United States. Can you tell us a little about who this family is ? Sure.
S6: So I based a lot of the characters in The Magic Fish on the experiences of my own family that I observed kind of growing up in the United States and learning English and learning the culture alongside them as well. And so it's a family that these dynamics are kind of based on what I observed , both in my own family and in other immigrant families that I grew up around.
S2: And Tan is gay and he struggles with coming out to his family. He says that he doesn't know the word in Vietnamese.
S6: This was a struggle that I also had growing up , trying to articulate my sexuality to my parents when I was growing up. We didn't share a language or share a vocabulary to discuss these things. And so it was one of those situations where I do remember going to the library and trying to find language resources to be able to articulate the exact things that I wanted to tell my parents. And I think I was really encouraged to explore this in the Magic Fish , because when it comes to describing sexuality , when it comes to describing gender and queerness , the ways that we talk about these things , the words that we use kind of change all the time. They're dependent on where we find ourselves in time and regionally as well. And so for the magic Fish , I think the continued impetus for me to want to tell this precise type of story is that even within queer communities , we we shift in the ways that we describe ourselves and we kind of have to offer each other a little bit of grace around the language through which we find ourselves , basically. So I think exploring language both within the context of culture and within the context of very practical day to day existence , that was something I was kind of interested in exploring in the Magic Fish.
S2: Now there are several fairy tales told inside of the book. Some of them are retelling of the Cinderella story and another of The Little Mermaid. Can you tell me about your use of fairy tales in this story and why those stories ? Sure.
S6: I think the the seed of this project was I had always wanted to retell the Vietnamese Cinderella as I had heard it growing up , because that was a story that was familiar to my parents. And I have a lot of strong , warm , sentimental feelings about it. And so I'd always wanted to take it on as a project. And originally the Magic Fish was just supposed to be a bunch of Cinderella story is kind of put together. And then I had to figure out what these stories meant to me and why I was drawn to Cinderella stories and stories about transition in these ways. And so I kind of started with the Vietnamese Cinderella , and then I told another Cinderella story as a point of comparison for readers to kind of give them the sense that even those stories might be very similar. They have different priorities depending on who's telling the story. And then transitioning from those two stories into The Little Mermaid felt very natural for me because even though The Little Mermaid is not strictly a Cinderella story , it is a story about giving up the things that are familiar to you in order to be with the people that you love and to have the life that you want for yourself. And that's something that I find to be really resonant as an immigrant. But The Little Mermaid is also a queer allegory in the iteration that we best understand it through Hans Christian Andersen , it was sort of a love letter. And so all of these themes sort of coming together wasn't something that I had intended at the very beginning , but reaching in and exploring why those themes were really resonant with me really helped me tether the important elements of the fairy tales together within the context of the overarching story in the Magic Fish.
S2: And when you say there's a Vietnamese Cinderella as an immigrant , was it surprising that every culture has seems to have a version of these same fairy tales ? Yeah.
S6: When I was a kid , I was really surprised. I was like , Oh , there's this wonderful kind of underlying story. A type that manages to find its way across different cultures. And I realize that the Cinderella story wasn't the only one. There are a lot of really common fairy stories and common tropes that show up from culture to culture. And I think a part of my attraction to fairy stories is that they're so organic , they feel like they're they're people almost. I love the notion that a fairy tale is something that that can exist in multiple places or that it moves from place to place and it changes clothes depending on the culture in which it finds itself and it changes its priorities. And so fairy tales illuminated the notion that stories are more about the storyteller and that even though the content of the story might be really similar from place to place , depending on who's telling the story , you get a sense for that person's priorities and their hopes and their fears and their dreams. And all of those things highlight to me that storytelling is a communal activity , it's a shared experience , and it's a way for us to impart kind of difficult to describe parts of ourselves to each other. And I really love that about fairy tales.
S2: So this book travels through time and language and imagination where weaving through the present tense , his parents past , and also these fairy tales and you use color to kind of structure this. Can you tell us how and why you do that ? Sure.
S6: It's a combination of really excellent editorial feedback and also limitation. I had originally pitched the Magic Fish as a story that I wanted to tell in black and white. I grew up reading a lot of manga and a lot of Sunday comic strips , and so I was used to reading comics in black and white , and it was where I was most comfortable. Aesthetically and coloring is enormously difficult for me. And so I wanted to tell the story in black and white , and my editors really wanted to be able to print it in full color. And so we came up with a compromise where I could use a limited palette in order to tell the stories. And then because I wanted to tell the story in a way that was a little bit more elegant and I knew that I would be kind of jumping between different story universes. One of my editors actually suggested , Well , what if we changed the palette to help orient the readers in different spaces ? And so then we kind of came up with this palette change between the different story universes. I wanted to use different colors that way because I didn't want to use text boxes too much. I didn't want to be too didactic for the reader , and I wanted them to be able to pick up on the nuances of the shifts in the hues so that they could orient themselves in the stories for themselves that way.
S2: CHANG Thank you so much.
S6: Yeah , Thank you so much for your questions.
S1: That was Truong Lee Wen , author of The Magic Fish , speaking with KPBS , arts producer Julia Dixon Evans. The book is this year's KPBS one Book one San Diego Selection for Teens. For more about KPBS says One book , one San Diego , go to KPBS dot org. Sports journalist Jamal Hill has shattered glass ceilings and made a career out of exploring the intersections of sports , politics , race and culture As an Emmy Award winning former co-host of ESPN Sports Center and contributing writer for The Atlantic Hill is also known for telling hard truths. In her newly published memoir , Uphill. She shares the story of her success , failures and family. I spoke to Jemele Hill recently. I started by asking why it was so important to her to be transparent about her life.
S5: Well , I think most people have the expectation when they decide to dig into a memoir like they really want to learn about the person. They want to know what shaped them , what was important to them , their mistakes , triumphs , failures , all of those things. And given what my career has been as a journalist , I could not imagine. You know , writing a memoir and not being truthful and transparent , you know , kind of goes against the grain and the core tenets of journalism. So if that's the expectation that I have when I sit down with the subject , it felt like it would be insulting to the audience if I did not deliver the same honesty and truth and authenticity that I think most of us want to see in the people that we choose to listen to.
S1: One of the things that you talk about in your book is the backlash that you received when you called Donald Trump a white supremacist.
S5: I mean , I thought it was kind of obvious. So that's why I think in my book , I refer to it as one of the most unoriginal things I've ever said. And I was just as surprised as anybody by the intense backlash. I thought at that point , especially this post Charlottesville , that America had fully understood the element that was in the office of the president. But clearly , that wasn't the case. I do think some of the backlash and the reaction was rooted in the who and the where , the who being a black woman , the where , being ESPN. I didn't say this on the air. Of course , I said it on social media. But because this is so closely aligned to my identity , being a sports anchor at ESPN , I think it was the the unlikeliness of it coming from somebody like me who represented the company I represented at the time. You know , maybe it would have been different if I worked at CNN or a news outlet that traditionally covers politics. But because I was coming from a sports base , I think that drew a different kind of attention.
S1: How important do you think it is for a journalist and news organizations to be direct in describing these sorts of things , in saying when something is racist , you're saying it when someone is a white supremacist , just saying it.
S5: And frankly , I think the media has abdicated their responsibility , not just in telling the truth about racism , but also in telling the truth about a lot of things , about the fate of our democracy , about our political climate. You know , we keep trying to hide behind the false shield of objectivity. Objectivity is not what you should strive for as a journalist. You should strive for fairness. That's different and you should strive , you know , to obviously tell the truth. You know , that truth may be on one side or the other. And if you you know , if anybody's familiar with what are some of the core values that are supposed to be part of journalism , certainly ones that I heard throughout my career as I was coming up as a journalist , it was being a watchdog of society was holding people in power accountable. How can you hold people in power accountable if you don't tell the truth , if you don't ask questions , if you don't inspire people to critically think ? That's the whole point of journalism. So I think by the media in many cases , just not being courageous enough to do this. I mean , a lot of it is because media is so corporate and behind these corporations are people who are kind of invested in the chaos. And also there are people who support some of the political candidates or the people or the institutions that need to be most checked. And it's because of that that , you know , you wind up getting a very cowardly approach to some of the serious issues that we have in this country.
S1: Something else you talk about in your book , Where's your salary , the salaries that you made at ESPN , for example , and you gave insight into the contract negotiations.
S5: Because if you know what a company has to work with or if you can understand what the landscape is , I think it makes you more informed and a sharper negotiator when it's your time to negotiate a contract. And it was also , you know , my way of showing the difference between perception and reality. You know , when I first got to ESPN , the perception is that every contract you get , you're going to make an obscene amount of money. And that's not really true. I mean , my first contract , by the standards of the contracts that I had overall at ESPN was was pretty terrible. It was the worst one. You know , I felt like a new artist. They got the record deal that we know that first deal is just never going to do it right. And so so I think people , because I was at ESPN , just assumed that , you know , I just was balling and rolling in dough. And I think for black women who tend to be at the lower rung of the pay scale , it's really important that we share that kind of information so that we can truly capitalize on our worth.
S1: You describe yourself as unbothered.
S5: I don't care. But that's not what it's supposed to be is supposed to mean when you reach a point in your life where you're so comfortable in your own skin , where you don't really need validation in order to stick and stay in your truth and you don't need it as something that helps you program your every move. Then you reach a state where you you divorce yourself from caring about what other people think and how other people are judging your life.
S1:
S5: I hope they also understand the importance and value in getting to learn the full selves of the people they most care about so that you can understand their perspective. You're not saying you have to agree with it , but you can at least understand it. And more importantly , it leads to them getting more grace from you.
S1:
S5: Colin Kaepernick's documentary is 3430 that will , you know , be on ESPN. And that's been a fabulous experience with working with Spike Lee , who's directing it. I'm also launching a podcast network with Spotify , the Unbothered Network , which is for black women Centers. Black women , Black Women led in the first two podcasts in the network are dropping the first two weeks to November. Black Girl Bravado , which was an existing podcast that we license and. Sanctify , which is an original that addresses the modern way in which black women worship. Touching on all the taboo topics in the church that go addressed and unaddressed , particularly the things that happen outside the pulpit and the pews. And so I'm really excited about both of these projects.
S1: It sounds fascinating. Congratulations to you on your upcoming projects and the release of your book.
S5: Thank you. I appreciate it.
S1: I've been speaking with sports journalist Jemele Hill , whose memoir Uphill is out now. Jamal , thank you so much for joining us.
S5: Thank you.
