Bringing back hyper-local media with Hell Gate

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30:32One story that stood out to me last year that like really put Hellgate on my radar was there were all these think pieces coming out about Dime Square. And a lot of people were like rolling their eyes or, you know, engaging in it. Then y 'all dropped a piece that was like, what do Chinatown residents think of Dime Square? Like no one had really been talking about that. And I thought that that was like a cool example of like an alternate perspective on the topic. Yeah, I mean, for me, like a kind of like pet peeve of mine is like New York has so many publications based out of it that nominally or like part of their remit is to cover New York and its arts communities and its culture.

31:18but there's a sort of eyes in the sky kind of like perspective that I think doesn't always like do justice like it is fitting to think of New York as this like cultural epicenter that is like connected to the country and to the world and to the internet that I think is super important but I've always found it to kind of be a shame that like New York's arts and culture publications don't really cover New York's arts and culture communities as if they're like happening in a real city like with real communities you know speaking of like you know holes in New York coverage that Helgi's trying to fill is like a sense of like covering New York arts communities like they're really happening in a real place and not just like on the internet right like the art itself doesn't exist in a vacuum usually they would just kind of take whatever aspect of like like a cultural scene or what an artist is doing that like, I don't know, isolate the aspect of it that would like travel farthest on the internet or something.

32:19Yeah. It's like, why would generic nondescript internet viewer who may be anywhere care about this New York artist, like covering them from that angle, as opposed to like, why would a person in New York care about this New York artist? Right. Like we're not writing stuff to go viral. You know, obviously going viral is good because more people subscribe you know like we do we do like money we do like money just for the record we we do like money and want more of it but yeah totally like yeah but like no hate it's like we're not writing to get like screenshotted on twitter like we're writing to write about the thing we're writing about we want to describe what we're writing about we're not trying to like coin anything i don't know and i also think like we're really like we're there i don't know it's not stupid i mean i'm sure everyone is sending reporters to stuff but i i I just feel like at bigger publications, kind of like, ironically, because you would think if they have more resources, they would be making people do this more.

33:16Like, we really have to go to pretty much, you know, most of the stuff we write about. Like, it's a lot of in-person reporting, which I think is kind of unique, even from like an arts and music and culture perspective. People are not always having to interact with their subjects as much as like we do at Hellgate. And I think that makes a really big difference. Everything Adlin writes about, like he's going, you know, like if I'm writing about, I'm writing about weed, I'm smoking it. Like, you know what I mean? I think also, again, because we're the ones who are steering our own editorial coverage as a team, like the things that we're choosing to cover are things that we all tend to be really passionate about and engaged in, both in our professional lives and in our personal lives on a personal level.

34:03And I think that makes a really big difference. We're not covering anything that we don't want to cover. And I think you can tell. Yeah. I was just going to say it is part of our sensibility, whether it's culture or news from City Hall or whatever, is just like, as Katie's saying, just like be in the room. Like, it's important to me to just be like, here's what the room was like when this show happened or whatever. That's just an important part of our sensibility. And it's not the only sensibility that's worthwhile. while but like that's something that is attractive to me and like that's just the way that I prefer to cover arts and culture yeah I mean it makes sense because we live in such a like an armchair kind of friendly media climate you know there's armchair reporting armchair commenting like so little like actual like IRL interfacing so it's actually quite it's quite valuable and it makes a difference and I mean it makes you know on a on a personal like kind of selfish level it makes you a better journalist like you should have to go talk to people if you don't talk to regular people who are participating in the things that you're covering you will be weird you will not have the whole story like straight up it will make you weird if you're only talking to other journalists about the things you're all writing about you will become weird and so i think that's something that we work really hard to avoid it is it is something like really with with culture journalism in general just like so many pieces that just like land and people are just like what are you talking about like just like uh it does kind of like help avoid that like just like something you put out just like hitting the timeline with an absolute thunk because people don't know what the fuck you're talking about it helps to like go to places and talk to people hellgate touches grass hellgate touches grass like we are running our fingers through the grass actually i really do feel that again not to yeah suck around dicks but well there was like this sense like definitely when i was starting out in music journalism that like the people you respected what their opinion was were like the people who were in the mix and like knew their shit and had specialized knowledge and expertise whereas like i feel like as the 2010s went on it became this other thing where everyone was i don't know no one was an expert on anything or something not that you had to be the most mass but that everything was just like through this feedback loops of sort of like looking at what culture was bubbling up on the internet already and then writing some piece that's kind of like random about your interpretation of what it was or something and it's interesting that like maybe there's an appetite for going back to the way that things were before yeah not to not to also like i have a ton of respect for like internet culture journalism and some people do it like incredibly.

36:44So like, I'm not being like, I'm just speaking for different ways of doing this. Yeah. And it can be an, it's an and, non, or. Or even in the context of internet journalism, it's like the difference between someone who just like writes about what other people like them who are also media people are saying about something versus the people who like actually embed with the internet communities and like know those people. Totally. Right. Talk to them. For sure. Right. No, it's like no hate to the Internet or whatever. But like you shouldn't be using the Internet as like a crutch if you're writing about, especially if you're writing about stuff that's happening in real life, you know.

37:24And I think that's like a really easy habit to fall into and doesn't, again, like make someone a bad reporter or anything. I just think, again, like the demands of a traditional newsroom, like you are going to find yourself doing the easy thing, like doing the topic du jour. If your metrics are like, how many eyeballs can I get on this? How many pieces can I pump out a week, a day, whatever, and not what am I genuinely interested in? What do I have something to say about? Yeah. It's almost like ridiculous that we're even talking about this just from the perspective of like the fundamental tenet of what journalism is like and has been since the beginning is like going out there and just talking to people or being at the thing and then being able to like trustedly relay that back to an audience who wasn't able to be there.

38:10Like that's literally what it is. Although some people do make an art of being like this most unbelievably internet brain thing in the world is actually the coolest and most important and vital part of culture right now. And if you don't know what it is, you're a fucking idiot. And like just farming people's bewilderment and rage on that. So respect to people who do that too. To zoom out for a second, like, how do you think these holes that we've been talking about have impacted media literacy and like civic involvement on a larger scale? Like just the fact that like news feeds have become so homogenized because even like the big local media orgs are kind of covering things on more of like a top level perspective.

38:50We've talked about how our side of things as a journalist have been impacted by these gaps. But like, how do you think like the lack of this kind of more hyper specific local journalism is like impacting people's relationship with media and kind of like interacting in the world in general now? Well, yeah, I mean, I can speak from the arts and culture perspective of just like, this is conjecture, but I would imagine that it is difficult now to have any like kind of like real tactile sense of like what people are actually excited about. because there's so much press just generated purely through the cycle of like PR and people just kind of operating off of a sense of what is important.

39:31You lose like a sense of like what is actually meaningful and like what is actually exciting people. I mean, I think, you know, if there isn't hyper specific, like field oriented, you know, journalism for people to read, they're going to sort of get their ideas about what's happening in real life. elsewhere and that elsewhere is probably just like social media it's like tiktok creators it's why like when a tiktok about a restaurant or a venue blows up then like that place is mobbed you know just kind of a like funneling effect in like a different way and like i am a journalist because i believe in journalism hell yeah go off sounds a little stupid but but i mean you know there just is like there's a big difference between you know an instagram reel about a about a news event you know dramatic club or like this altercation happened versus like vetted journalism about that thing so i also think you know it's it's kind of scary because when local news isn't like stepping up and providing people with information and like unengaging and exciting and like connected to reality way, less reliable sources of information kind of step in to fill the void.

40:52And I do think, yeah, there's like the journalism versus content thing. And I think when you sort of lose your grip on making local journalism that people want to read and consume, you kind of lose to content, which I clearly think is worse. In New York in particular, the systems of power are so opaque and so intimidating and like deliberately obscure and like hard to wrap your mind around that it's important for people to feel empowered. Not to, again, not to jerk ourselves off too much, but like, you know, I would say that that's part of our mission is just for people to not feel as intimidated and lost among all of the huge mechanisms of power that operate in the city.

41:36And also to like make people aware of those, because I think there's really like, you know New York City is so fun living here is so fun and I think it's easy you know especially when you're younger to interact with it on this kind of like playground level but I think it's really important especially if you're going to live here long term to like not do that and to like invest in what's going on on like a culture level but yeah like Adlin said seeing how you know culture is impacted by policy by like city politics it's just kind of like the respectful thing to do, I think, is to like make yourself aware of what's happening in the city you live in.

42:16And if there isn't, you know, local media that is drawing those connections, like it doesn't have to be us and it's not just us, but that ecosystem kind of needs to be there to help people sort of connect the dots and be, you know, better New Yorkers, I guess. I don't know. Is that lame. No, I mean, very, very few other places are around that are really doing that right now for New York culture. Yeah. And just to make it like a little less like I'm being like, you know, we are the people's voice or whatever. Like I, as a New Yorker feel like condescended to in relation to these like, you know, huge power structures that like I'm absolutely like getting fucked over like in ways that make me feel crazy.

43:00And so less like, oh, like we're like necessarily empowering people but more just being like you're not crazy this shit is fucking nuts like the way the way that the city operates is fucking nuts like penn station is nuts like yeah totally and i want to turn the question around a little bit and like we talked about like the effect that not having a robust local media has on readers and consumers but especially from a cultural perspective i'm wondering how this affects like local scenes like you know we used to have the village voice which was like important in incubating several different kinds of culture across media music film etc and you know during probably even like a decade ago in like the blog era we had like this robust kind of indie music scene bubbling up in Brooklyn right and then you had like a whole network of blogs that were covering it and it was kind of this like feedback loop but we haven't really had that kind of dynamic for a while.

44:01And I'm wondering like what impact you think that has on like local artists or, you know, people starting culture businesses. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't want to be too like New York's ability to incubate scenes is in danger, but I do think you can feel how things have become notably more like internet brained and fashioned to drive engagement on the internet. I don't want to be too moralistic about that, but there's also like a ton of other ways to be, including like engaging with people in community, in real life and like creating spaces for shit to happen. Yeah, totally. I mean, I also just mean like, like the stuff that you are covering, Adlin, I think your first piece was like about Dweller having a reading that was fun.

44:46And you wrote about like Screen Slate, which is a really cool kind of New York focused indie film publication, Mackenzie Wark. But like these things that, you know, there aren't really many places where you can write about that in like a local specific way anymore. And when you can't do that, it doesn't make it harder for people to even like recognize the cool shit that's going on in a city. Does that make sense? Like, does the media need to play a role in terms of culture journalism of sort of pointing to what is there so that people know it is even going on and then creating a virtuous cycle where like interest and money flows towards these things?

45:25yeah and yeah like if you go back and read issues of the village voice from the 90s i think so much about you know these incredible writers that came out of the village voice culture section in particular for me but like a huge amount of what the village voice does was just like straight up service journalism just being like here is what's happening like here is like a bunch of stuff that you can go to and also like you know pairing that with critical perspective and part of that role is being played just by social media. Like obviously so many functions of the traditional media have been relocated to just like the theater's Instagram feed or whatever.

46:03But I do think there's something still useful about like having critics perspective, a arts journalist perspective to connect with an audience and be like, here's why you might like this thing as opposed to just everything being self-promotion or PR or advertising based.

46:39How do you see the role of local media or alt-weeklies having changed since their heyday? I'm thinking like you just mentioned specifically about like the ways that technology or like social media have either like maybe replaced or like hurt things like, you know, concert reviews and calendars and all these kind of staple functions that they served like, you know, in the 90s or the early aughts that we kind of have apps for. I think that that sort of mentality like extends to a lot of other different needs that all weeklies serve. And I think it's kind of like steamrolled a lot of them and has really hurt them.

47:14So how do you see the necessity of them or the role that they fill having changed since then? To me, it's like kind of as simple as it's like an alternative to an algorithm. And like, you know, as speaking as someone who like uses all these social media apps In those cases where people want someone to be like, here's my perspective and here's why I think you should check this out. Or here's why I think that this is fucked up. Or here's why I think that this sucks. It's simply a person-to-person connection. I think people are always going to want that. And, you know, people are also probably always going to want, you know, what song is next when I click next on Spotify?

47:59Like what album, what like what's the algorithm going to serve me? They're two different appetites. And I just think that people are always going to want someone like the radio DJ or like someone to be like, I think this is cool. So you should check this out and decide if you also think it's cool. Totally. In this sea of content, you need the trusted curator again. And I think it's interesting that I don't know if y 'all saw, like, there is some talk on media Twitter this week about how the New Yorker changed its or they didn't they were saying they killed its goings on about town section. They didn't actually kill it.

48:36They just turned it into a newsletter. Like, that's a format that does feel very like all weekly, that that was an important role that all weeklies used to fill to tell you, like, what was happening. I don't know if that's a function that is still essential to the work that needs to be done now. But it's interesting to think about certain formats, like whether they make sense anymore. There has simultaneously, however, been maybe not in mainstream media, but especially on like underground media and Substack, a return to party reporting and like events reporting, not in a way that it's like, OK, we send reporters on a junket to Coachella to write about it more like here's this underground party that may not be written about in like any way that was interesting and people using the party to write cultural criticism like dispatches from your cool smart friend you know yeah i mean if i were to like read the tea leaves or whatever it feels to me like in terms of like getting that cool smart friend whatever perspective people are finding less use less utility in like the you know what we call like the voice of god in criticism of like you know this like uh kind of like assumption of authority that like the big legacy media outlets are good at transmitting and finding more use in like a kind of like personalized perspective as like someone in a room giving their perspective on what's happening and i think that that's kind of like the role that if i if yeah if i were to say that like there's a you know a direction that cultural criticism that I see it going I see it becoming more personal and more uh kind of like a transmission from a particular person's point of view as opposed to like adopting what is this publication's desk how have they judged this work it's just more useful to me as a person living you know with apps that serve me all this shit on demand to get like a personal perspective than a kind of institutional one.

50:40It's almost like how on Google, they found that like people had developed a habit of like searching like something and then Reddit, the term Reddit, which I do sometimes. You're like, I don't know what to trust anymore. Like what's just like branded content or I can't find what I need. So I just want like a real person, even though that's not necessarily authoritative content, but like you want like a real person saying something. Yeah, precisely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like it's like I totally do that, too. Just being like, if I search this question, it's just going to be ads. Just like in a world that's just nothing but ads and PR.

51:15Just like finding something that just feels like a person said this shit. On that note, like I'm curious, how did both of you go about thinking about your beat for Hellgate? Or like, what are you thinking about when you decide what stories to cover? Sure. I mean, I honestly don't. I feel like I can never nail down a beat. To be honest, I don't know that I would say I necessarily even have a beat at Hellgate. I think I have a few, you know, I think I've been writing about, yeah, the gray market weed industry a fair amount. I've done a few labor stories. But, you know, kind of like I was saying before, it does feel like it's been a really great space to just kind of follow, you know, whatever sounds interesting.

51:59I guess that's just kind of what I've been thinking about, my own personal interest. So vibes-based, interest-based. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It is. It honestly is just kind of vibes. It's like, what questions do I have? What do I want to know about? What are my friends asking me about? What am I, you know, if I'm walking around without headphones on, what do I hear people talking about? You know, that's sort of what I have wanted to pursue. So I don't know. So yeah, I think Adeline's definitely gotten a little bit more specific with protest stuff too. But again, that's just what I was interested in before I was at Hellgate.

52:35So it's been cool to kind of continue that and really dig in and do it in a field-oriented way. Yeah, and I guess I started my blog doing concert reviews and writing about nightlife just because... This would be an interesting question for Emily and Andrea. Like if you've ever like tried to like pitch a concert review to a cultural publication in the last like five to 10 years, it's like. Oh, yeah. I've barely bothered. It's just not happening. Yeah, it just that it's just something that I in becoming like a music journalist was always something that I gravitated towards was just like, you know, what's the feeling in the room?

53:16And like as a freelancer, I was just like trying to find different ways to be allowed to do that. Yeah. And then like at Hellgate, I just because we are a local publication, it just makes sense for me to approach the arts that way. It doesn't seem like for the most part you're or it seems like you're doing a lot of stuff that is maybe other places aren't wouldn't be covering. I don't see you covering like a lot of Gov Ball kind of vibe. That makes sense. yeah no i mean i am happy that working at hellgate i get the latitude to write about stuff that i tend to gravitate more towards and try to like cover like arts communities and stuff but you know every once in a while i could go to go fall send them in to go fall 2024 and i i do also think i mean like like we've already mentioned there are it is a team of six.

54:11And I would say, yeah, Adlin, especially, but also like myself, like we're doing the bulk of the culture coverage. So it's like, we just don't, we have to allocate our resources pretty carefully. And one of the biggest resources that we have access to is our personal time and our personal commitment to making Hellgate special and making Hellgate work. And so that kind of forces us, not even for you know it forces our hands such that like we're not necessarily going to just write about like the topic du jour unless we have something really interesting to say about it or really like different than what everyone else is doing like we don't have to do a lot of like compulsory like so that happened like coverage because you know we can't really like afford to be doing that like that just wouldn't be the best use of our time or whatever um so that's kind of nice i think it it does like sort of result in we have yeah kind of stuff that other people aren't talking about because other people already talked about it so we have to uh cover you know the other shit that people aren't discussing that makes a ton of sense it can also make it harder sometimes to like choose your battles yeah i mean it's something a challenge that i've been trying to figure out.

55:29Like the other day I went to the La Tigre show at Brooklyn Seal and I like was trying to find a way to write about it and just came out just being like, I have nothing to say about this. It wasn't a Hellgate angle. Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah. And like, that's like, you know, something, you know, thinking about, like, if I went to Govball, like, what would I write for Hellgate about Govball? I think that those stories are there. It's just, that's something I am trying to figure out. I am in Los Angeles. And so one thing I've been amazed, do you think the Hellgate or Defector model is replicable outside of New York, outside of a big city like New York?

56:09And what obstacles might stand in the way of people doing something like this in other markets? I.e., is this just a New dark thing no do it start start the la hell gate do it now um no but i mean yeah i think the obstacle is always just going to be building and finding like a stable kind of like audience that you can get to pay for the website every month and that's obviously something that we feel pretty good about how we're doing in accomplishing that but like something that we're still you know endeavoring towards. But, you know, like I do fundamentally believe in the product. And I think that like people like this stuff, people like like people writing about their community and like doing rigorous journalism and like covering things in a critical way.

57:02I think people just fuck with that fundamentally. And I think that, yeah, it's just a matter of connecting. Yeah, I think you could do it anywhere if you are able to get together, you know, a dedicated enough team. If you're living in a place that people like feel connected to the fact that they live there, I guess, like I do think that's important. I mean, I think it's kind of a joke about New York is that like if you live in New York City, you do not shut up about the fact that you're living in New York City. But I think there are a lot of places like that. I think even though, you know, we've talked a lot about how, you know, a lot of people are living a lot of their lives socially, culturally, online.

57:46If you live somewhere, you interact with it no matter what. And so if you interact with something, you're going to have questions about it or thoughts about it or want to know hopefully more about it for some reason. And so that's why I think, yeah, also probably easier in some of these places because you don't have to make as much money to live. There might also be less competition in certain markets than there would be in New York. No way. Yeah. It's like, honestly, step up. Like, where's your hell gate, Chicago? my friend's always talking about$800 apartment. Oh, okay. Where's your hell gate?

58:24Where is it? You know? So yeah. Also, yeah, it's like, you know, modeling behavior, you know, like not to be too tech entrepreneur or whatever, but like people see people touching grass and they want to touch grass. And the more people touch grass, the more grass touching is dispersed throughout the community. Yeah. There's kind of an interesting story. I guess it probably would be about contemporaneous with Hellgate, but in North Carolina, where I used to live, I did a stint working for this very long running alt weekly called Indie Week, which is kind of like the progressive alt weekly that has stuck around.

59:01Like it's like the village voice of the Triangle area. Interestingly, simultaneously, a new site called The Assembly, which is, I don't know if It's like a workers cooperative, but they're like a subscription based politics magazine. It's kind of like literary started up a couple of years ago. That's like catering to a little bit more of a niche audience, I guess. And they like they're not acquiring Indie Week, but they might. They're like teaming up and joining forces and like taking Indie Week, which has been struggling financially under their wing, which I think is kind of interesting. And it shows that there's like room for these models and other markets and like underserved markets, especially when a lot of traditional alt-weeklies are having a hard time.

59:46And even just like newspapers and shit in a lot of these places, especially as like the AI creep happens, like, I don't know if from a sheer self-preservation angle, I think it's something that journalists should absolutely be considering. You know, like Adlin and I, we've talked about this a lot. It's like, we have a job we're not going to get fired from. I mean, unless we do something really bad. We're not going to get randomly laid off. The projects might fold, but that's a big difference. That does a lot for you. That does a lot for you in terms of the work that you feel capable of doing when the specter of being unemployed is not constantly hovering over your shoulder.

1:00:27So yeah, other people should absolutely look into making it happen. They don't have to make it happen exactly how Hellgate made it happen, but it is possible and it's absolutely something people should think about because you can you can make some really cool stuff so yeah there are always there is also just like the raw predicament of like if not this then like what else like i'm not like a media business genius or whatever but like at this point shit is so fucked that it's like the way that i kind of look at it is like well yeah we may as well try this because what i like like the fucking like work for a legacy publication or die in a ditch like model that the rest of the industry is on right now, like, doesn't really seem like, like, we have to try something, like, something else.

1:01:08We got to try something else. Yeah, my ass is not taking the LSAT again. I didn't do that well. Totally agree with all that. As sort of, like, a closing thought, I'm from New York, but I don't live there currently. Andrea's over on the other coast. But I think there's sort of, like a perception sometimes, even for me as someone who moved away as things were getting more and more expensive, the scene that I was involved in kind of died down. There's this perception that, you know, New York is not as cool or fun, as exciting as it used to be. As people who are like covering this for a living, like, does this actually feel true?

1:01:46Or is that perception somehow a function of the fact that like the city itself has just become almost arguably a news desert where there's just, you know, fewer people doing work like you to cover what is actually going on. I mean, like, it's certainly real that we're at a crisis point, like, hopefully, as bad as it gets, knock on wood, it is just materially harder to do anything other than, you know, try to extract money from some big corporate business or whatever. And so that's real but also like find me a more lit city honestly i mean that's just how i feel that's how i feel yeah it's like it's not gonna be fun fun fun 24 7 but yeah the whole country is not as fun as it used to be you know what i mean but it's like ew you know am i gonna live somewhere else like that's disgusting so no i'm just kidding but no exactly i think it's it's like how exciting are you willing to be you know if you if you don't think new york is fine it's like maybe you're not fun okay all right calm down new york no but i mean yeah i mean you know shout out to you guys like i just had this conversation with jesse rifkin about his book yay we love jesse yeah and it's like it's unthinkable the idea that like oh new york is over like i don't even know what my retort to that is like because it's just like like there are just there's just millions of people trying really hard to do cool shit here and like that's just the way it is like even though it's really hard and it sucks like there's still just like raw human passion here it just might be like harder you have to either be rich or just like really really committed yeah yeah no and like yeah it like there's a ton of you know struggle and suffering but human ingenuity and like the human spirit or whatever.

1:03:44Like people are trying really hard to do stuff. Totally. And even if you look at like Jesse Rifkin's book, he was on a previous episode of The Culture Journalist as well. Like he talks about how it was always getting harder and harder. Like the prices were always going up and up. And even if you get to like 10 or 20 years ago, people already had to be way more entrepreneurial than they had been, I don't know, during like Patti Smith era or whatever. I think if you're committed enough to having fun and engaging with cool stuff, you can do that almost anywhere. But yeah, if you can't find cool stuff in New York, like you're doomed, you know, I kind of think.

1:04:24All right. Well, Katie and Adeline, this has been wonderful. Big fans of Hellgate. It was really great getting to know it. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having us. I'm a big culture journalist fan and subscriber. So thank you. Subscribe to the culture journalist and subscribe to Hellgate. Yeah. Support your independent media. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you all so much. This was super fun.

1:04:55This episode of The Culture Journalist was produced by Emily Friedlander and me, Andrea Dominic, with editing by Tony Giambroni. Our theme music is by Mark Donica. To check out Hellgate and more of Katie and Adlin's work, head to our sub stack. That's theculturejournalist.substack.com. If you like what you're hearing, help people find us by leaving or rating a review on Apple Pods or sharing us with friends.