Tucson Trailblazer: Irene McKisson’s Bold Move with Arizona Luminaria
In this captivating episode of the Life Along The Streetcar podcast, host Tom Heath sits down with esteemed journalist Irene McKisson to explore her remarkable journey from an 18-year career at the Arizona Daily Star to co-founding the groundbreaking nonprofit news outlet, Arizona Luminaria.
Join us as Irene McKisson shares the pivotal moment that led her to make the daring decision to venture into independent journalism. Discover the challenges and opportunities she encountered along the way, and gain valuable insights into the mission and vision of Arizona Luminaria.
During the interview, Irene delves into the concept of audience-focused journalism and the importance of serving the community’s information needs. She discusses the changing landscape of journalism, the impact of digital transformation, and the need for sustainable news models in today’s media industry.
With her deep-rooted passion for reader-first journalism, Irene McKisson provides a thought-provoking perspective on the role of journalism in democracy and the evolving relationship between news organizations and their communities.
If you’re curious about the future of journalism and the efforts being made to create a more transparent and inclusive media environment, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in now to gain insights from Irene McKisson’s experiences and learn more about the groundbreaking work happening at Arizona Luminaria.
Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s Sunday in the old Pueblo You are listening to KT DT Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community sponsored, volunteer powered rock and roll radio station.
Tom Heath
On this week’s show, we’re going to speak with Irene McKisson, who, after 18 years of working for the Arizona Daily Star, left in 2021 to co found the nonprofit news source, Arizona Luminaria. We’re going to ask her about that decision and how the independent news outlet is going.
Tom Heath
Today is July 16, 2023. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to life along the streetcar. Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about, from a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between. You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on downtownradio.org. We’re also available on your iPhone or Android with our very own downtown Radio Tucson
Tom Heath
app. If you want to interact with us on the show, you can do so on Facebook and Instagram under Life Along the Streetcar. We also have more information about our show, our book, past episodes, or if you want to contact us, you can head to lifealongthstreetcar.org. And we always invite you to listen to the podcast on all kinds of platforms that are out there. I don’t know if you celebrated yesterday, but it was Linda Ronstadt’s 77th birthday and July 15 has been designated here in Tucson as Linda Ronstadt Day. That happened back in 2021 for her 75th, and Mayor Romero expressed her wishes for the celebration to honor Linda Ronstadt, not only for her contributions in performing arts, but also her dedication to Tucson and helping to carry the signature character and cultures that she does and share those with the world. So happy 77th to Linda Ronstadt and I hope you enjoyed it. Linda Ronstadt Day Arizona Illuminaria is a nonprofit news outlet and it was started and co founded by Irene McKisson.
Tom Heath
She’s got a 18 year history with the Arizona Daily Star and she decided, you know what? I’m going to go make a change. So we wanted to learn more about that. It’s been a little over a year since this Luminaria has launched and we wanted to see how things are going. All right, we are joined by Irene McKisson, the courageous co founder of Arizona Luminaria and a lifelong Tucson lover and been highlighting a lot of things in our community for years. But Irene, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Irene McKisson
Yeah, thanks for having me. I am a lifelong Tucsonian, by the way.
Tom Heath
Okay. I wasn’t sure about that. I know you went to the U of A and I know you’ve been doing Tucson stuff for decades, but I wasn’t sure if you were born here. So thanks for clearing up that question check.
Irene McKisson
Yeah.
Tom Heath
Anyway, welcome aboard. We’re going to talk about your latest project, the independent news station and outlet that you’ve got. But I’d like to get a little bit of your history because you’ve got a degree from the U of A, but then you also helped create something for the Daily Star called this is Tucson. Are you able to talk about that?
Irene McKisson
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I have a journalism degree from the University of Arizona. I also went to CDO High School where I was the editor in chief of the Palantir newspaper, which is where I fell in love with journalism. And I went straight from the UVA to the Arizona Daily Star and I kind of grew room and learned everything I know about journalism there. And so toward the end of my tenure there in 2016 with my work partner Becky Palic, we created this is Tucson at the Arizona Daily Star. And it was
Irene McKisson
an experiment in building something for a very specific audience. And we built Mrs. Tucson for young women and families, basically and did something different with it in that we went and listened first, went and talked to people and built the thing that people were telling us that they needed. We were trying to solve a problem for them. And so I spent five years as the editor of this Tucson and in that time also learned a lot about the business side of journalism, which is kind of unusual in the journalism industry. And got to think a lot about what does it mean for a digital journalism outlet to be sustainable and was able to do that kind of underneath the umbrella of the Arizona Daily store.
Tom Heath
Okay, and you touched upon something I was going to ask you about this concept of audience development because as I understand, you’ve been speaking on this for some time and even talk on it nationally, don’t you?
Irene McKisson
Yeah, I speak nationally about audience and thinking about other journalists who want to talk about this stuff. Part of that is I came of age in an industry that was in intense disruption. So journalism since about 2008 has had a massive business model problem. But it also has other issues. And a lot of those are about an audience that grew up without newspapers and without journalism. A little bit because of that business model problem forced us to stop and think better about how we were reaching people and perhaps to think about the harms that journalism has done to communities by covering them without regard for what they needed.
Tom Heath
I think that leads me to my second question, which was your bio says you’re obsessed with reader first journalism. Is that what you’re referring to?
Irene McKisson
It’s about thinking about what does the community need information about and then matching that to what you know in doing the research on the story should be told so traditionally, right. The way a newspaper has worked in terms of workflow and editorial is one of two ways. An editor says, I think this story is important. I’m going to assign it to you, reporter. You, reporter. Go report that story and come back and write it. I will edit it. We will publish it. Or a reporter comes back and says, I got a tip about XYZ. I think we should write it up. The editor says, okay, they write it up, and they publish it. Those two workflows methods don’t take into account your need as a reader. And it could be something as simple as why is it that building is taking six years to get built? I’ve been watching this building go up for literally a year. What is going on? And that is valid. And reporters should be also thinking about that. What is it that you need and where are your information needs and
Irene McKisson
how can we fill those? Journalists should be in service of the community, not the other way around.
Tom Heath
That seems like where journalism would have started was with that mentality, and maybe that had shifted away because of the power that it garnered.
Irene McKisson
Yeah, I think so a little bit. Yeah. That we’re coming back around. And some of that is just like the privilege of having been very profitable for many, many years and not needing to think about those things. And now we’re kind of at a reckoning where the business model doesn’t work. And there’s been a huge disinvestment in journalists in our communities.
Irene McKisson
There’s been layoff after layoff after layoff at the Star. And so you end up with a place where you have to listen to your community, or they have other options. Right. Like, the Internet did a lot of that for us. You can go get that information somewhere else, perhaps. And so we have to listen to our communities and have to do a better job of thinking about readers first.
Tom Heath
And we’re seeing nationally, like, a lot of consolidation. So big firms being swallowed up by others and representing fewer and fewer larger interests. Is that kind of counter to what you’re saying, that those organizations probably aren’t as community focused as they need to be? They’re more business focused?
Irene McKisson
Well, I think that is a piece of it. That when a news organization in a community is owned by a corporation that is based out of state, if your newspaper is owned by Ganette, for example, who owns many newspapers across the country because of consolidation, and they’re based in Virginia, their interest is not maybe in the people of Tucson. And so you end up with kind of imbalance of power there. Yeah.
Tom Heath
So then after being with the Daily Star for I think it was like 20 years, right?
Irene McKisson
20 years. Yeah.
Tom Heath
You decide that this model makes sense, and you start out with what is probably like, the craziest thing you can possibly do, which is start up an independent news outlet as it’s facing all of these challenges.
Irene McKisson
Yeah. I said journalism was a service industry. We’re all crazy journalists. Part of that is just like I deeply believed in this, that information is important, that it is a piece of democracy. And without it, if you can’t get the information that you need to do whatever it is you want to do in your community, you can’t function. The community actually can’t function. And so I believe in that mission really deeply. But yes, it was crazy. I quit my job, jumped off to do a startup and to try to rethink some of these things and start from scratch.
Tom Heath
We’re in the middle of our interview with Irene McKisson of Arizona Luminaria. We’ll be back after the break to find out how things have been going with this news outlet startup. But first of all, I do want to remind you that you’re listening to Lifelong, the streetcar on Downtown Radio. 99.1 FM and [email protected] support for Downtown.
Tom Heath
We’re going to finish up now with Irene McKisson. If you’re just joining us, she was 18 year veteran at the Arizona Daily Star with a few cohorts, she has co founded in 2022 the Arizona Illuminaria independent and nonprofit news outlet. We got a little bit of her history and her decision to make that leap and the need for Arizona Luminaria that she saw in the marketplace. Now we’re going to find out how the experiment, the process, the new venture is going.
Irene McKisson
We built Luminaria as a nonprofit thinking about those business model problems and looking around the country at what was happening in other communities and how they were trying to solve this kind of news and journalism problem of disinvestment by corporate owners and of the business model and sustainability. So Arizona Luminaria is a nonprofit news organization. So I think it’s crazy to start an independent news organization, even crazier to start a nonprofit.
Tom Heath
So then where does your funding come from? Is it subscriptions and advertisement like traditional news outlets?
Irene McKisson
So that is the traditional path for news outlets. And part of the business model problem is that advertising is not the revenues generating stream it used to be. And so it’s very dependent on subscriptions, which means that the community can’t get at that news unless they subscribe it’s behind paywalls. So part of the mission of a nonprofit news organization, of our nonprofit news organization is to make sure that there are no paywalls. So all of our content is free and accessible and then our revenue is from a couple of different buckets. So there are national grants. So this is a national problem, obviously. So there’s some national movement to support local news, so some national grants, local grants, philanthropists, so major donors and then membership, so Allah, NPR, right. You support this thing because it’s valuable and you keep it free and open for everybody. And then we have some underwriting so businesses can support us as well. And then eventually we will have some live events
Irene McKisson
as a revenue stream as well.
Tom Heath
Okay, and you mentioned that this is a national problem. Are you finding collaboration in commiseration with other similar organizations like Luminaria across the country?
Irene McKisson
Absolutely. So there are hundreds of nonprofit news organizations across the country now, many of them formed in the last couple of years as the same thing has happened in many communities. And it’s been amazing actually to be part of that community because especially in the nonprofit news community, there’s so much generosity of help getting started. When we started, we reached out to a couple people that we knew at other nonprofits nationally in California, Nevada and Texas and other places, and they were just incredibly generous with their time and gave us documents that we needed and offered us all kinds of support. Like, here’s my business pitch deck. Take what you want from that and make it your own. Or things like that. So that’s been amazing to have.
Tom Heath
That doesn’t really happen in any other startup that I’m aware of. I mean, they’re all proprietary.
Irene McKisson
Yeah, exactly. And so is corporate news. Corporate news can be very proprietary as well. And so everybody is trying to do the same thing in this community of nonprofit independent news organizations that have kind of started up in the last five years, which is put more journalists back in communities. And so we’re all rowing in the same direction, it feels like. And so there’s a lot of support from a service organization level. We’re part of a couple service level organizations that help nonprofit news and independent news orgs and then just among other news organizations themselves who are just really generous with their time.
Tom Heath
So when you got out of journalism school, you kind of cut your teeth in the sports world. So I’m assuming Luminaria is all about sports. Is that what this is?
Irene McKisson
It is not. I did start in sports. I worked in sports for a long time. I was a sports designer and I was the night sports editor. So I worked a lot of late nights waiting for games to be over. And it was amazing and I loved it. And
Irene McKisson
I run into a lot of people, actually a lot of founders of startups who came from sports. And I think part of that is kind of fire that it puts you through of deadline and working quickly and working well. And I don’t know, there’s something about it that I think created a lot of people who are not afraid to go jump off cliffs and start their own orgs. So, no, it is not about sports. We’re not covering sports at all. Arizona Leminar is actually super focused on civic news and information. We’re covering community growth, we’re covering equity issues, we’re covering the environment as it relates to Southern Arizona. We’re covering education and we’re covering voting. And so it is very focused on audience again, actually. So before we built Luminaria, we went out and talked to people and asked them, what is the thing that you are so passionate about? You would hold a sign for it. And then how do you get local information about that thing?
Tom Heath
I saw those. I didn’t realize that was you. I saw the campaign.
Irene McKisson
Yeah, I didn’t realize. And so the question is, like, where are the gaps we were trying to identify? If you’re a person who really wants to go make change in their community, and there are a lot of us in Tucson, what do you need to do that? And how is information serving you right now, and how is it not serving you? And where can we come in and fill those gaps? And we heard a lot of things, and those things we cover, I mentioned earlier, those are based on the answers that we got from people about what they were passionate about. And then there’s lots of other stuff that’s based on that, too. We write really in depth stories, and that’s because we heard from people that they were super burnt out on news that was very surface level, that they were really tired of hearing about a decision that had been made after it was too late for them to do anything about it. And so a lot of the decisions we make about how to cover stories and what stories to cover are based on what we’ve heard from people
Irene McKisson
about what they need.
Tom Heath
So you launched this in 2021.
Irene McKisson
So I left in 2021, and we launched in 2022. March of 2022.
Tom Heath
Okay, so little over a year then. Has the response been what you expected? Better? Worse?
Irene McKisson
It has been amazing. We are growing exponentially, both in terms of our business and in terms of our audience, our readers. We launched with zero full time reporters, and I’m excited to say that we’ve just hired another full time reporter. So we now have two full time reporters, three editors and executives. And so we’re at five full time in just a year and a half. And so we’re just growing really quickly. The impact of what we’re doing has been really exciting as well, to see because we’re writing for those people who want to make change, because we know so deeply what it is they need, it’s really exciting to see when we get response from them. Like, I had a woman who was like, I’ve been getting your newsletter for six months, and it feels like it was made for me. It feels like personalized somehow. And I don’t know how you’re doing that? It’s because we’re a reader first, right? Because we did make it for her. Really?
Tom Heath
Well then how do people get on this newsletter? How do they follow you? How do they support you? What are the connection points?
Irene McKisson
Yeah, so we’re at Azluminaria.org, you can Google us and our newsletter is there right at the top of the page. You can send it for our newsletter on our website. Our newsletter is weekly right now and we’re on all of the social channels, including all the new ones.
Tom Heath
What are the new ones? I can’t even keep up. I just found like Instagram just launched threads or something.
Irene McKisson
You can go find us there right now.
Tom Heath
We know what that is. I’m still trying to figure out ticking and talking like I don’t even know we know what that is. Now they’re threading me.
Irene McKisson
I know. We’re trying to meet people where they are. I mean, that’s part of the work of being a reader first. That’s part of that work is making sure that we’re where our community is and that they can find what we’re doing.
Tom Heath
And you’re handling all those is that AZ Luminaria?
Irene McKisson
Yes, AZ Luminaria. Yeah. And so we’re digital only. This is part of that business model problem I mentioned. Right? Print is a hard animal, so everything is online and we are covering deeply.
Tom Heath
Those topics I mentioned earlier, I’m assuming Luminaria light, Festival, Celebration, that’s sort of what all that evokes that’s what you’re striving for.
Irene McKisson
Well, we were looking, you know, the newspaper names that are all like Spotlight.
Tom Heath
Right?
Irene McKisson
We were looking for the Arizona version of that. The thing that would say we also live here. We are also from here. And I think that was where Luminara was born. So our tagline is lighting the path so you can take action.
Tom Heath
Oh, look at that. That’s so clever. It’s like you’re a bunch of writers back there. And then finally, I guess the support we can find you. You don’t have a paywall, but there is a cost to what you do. You mentioned many ways people can support. I’m assuming that’s on your website there’s different categories or ways to kind of click and donate kind of or underwrite.
Irene McKisson
Absolutely, yeah. There’s a support button right at the top of our website where you can support us with a monthly membership, which is the most helpful thing because it’s money that we can kind of count on. But we have lots of options and ways that people can support us. Even just sharing about Arizona Luminary is really helpful too. Yeah, the work is not cheap. Right. It’s important and it’s expensive to produce, to do the kind of work that we’re doing that’s really in depth and has a lot of context and takes communities into account. The reason that we don’t have enough of it is because it is so expensive to produce.
Tom Heath
Irene McKisson, you are an audience development expert. You’re obsessed with reader first journalism and you’re either incredibly brave or incredibly not bright, making this huge jump from a stable career in an unstable industry to co founding Arizona Illuminaria. And I’m excited to hear about your success and kind of want to stay in touch and maybe find some of that collaboration. We’re a nonprofit radio station and there’s probably some collaboration that we can do better.
Irene McKisson
A lot of people will ask us about competition. My answer to that is that we don’t have the luxury of competition anymore and that it is about collaboration and about making sure that communities are getting the information they need, however that is happening. Right.
Tom Heath
That is Irene McKisson. She is with the little over a year old Arizona luminaria. She started that with some co founders back in 2022. She had spent 18 years at the Arizona Daily Star and has been highlighting Tucson for decades. At this point now, we wish her super success in that venture. And Irene, if you are listening, that collaboration, I think that’s a thing. So we should talk. You are listening to Life along the streetcar on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtownradio.org.
Tom Heath
Thank you very much. Enjoy your evening. Bye bye. That’s a wrap on episode two five, 6256. Thank Irene McKisson for her time today. As with all of our guests, we’re extremely appreciative when they’ll spend a few minutes to chat with us about their projects that are really shaping not just our urban core, but by extension, our entire community. If there’s ever a topic you want us to cover, you probably know how to do this by now. We’re starting to get a lot more request in, which is really cool. A lot of people are heading over to our web page now, Lifealongstreetcar.org. There’s a contact button and they’re putting in some information over there. Some are still just reaching out to us with email [email protected] and we really prefer when there’s a story. If you can tag us in a Facebook or Instagram post, that gives us a little bit of a connection to the story so we can do a research and makes it easier to reach out and set something up here. But this is a show to uncover hidden
Tom Heath
gems and we encourage you to help us find those hidden gems. We’re rolling right along here. Also, I want to have a huge shout out and thank you to the team over at the Cowboy Up podcast. You can listen to that on spotify and apple and a few other places, I’m sure. Cowboy up features a lot of Arizona stories, as you might imagine, from the title western in nature that’s recorded down at the white stallion ranch with Alan day and Russell true. They invited me on. We had a fun time talking about the urban core in that urban I’m sorry, in that rural setting, but that’s called cowboy up. And over the latest episodes, you can find that on itunes or on the spotify is where I found it. And we’re going to leave you with music today from Linda Ronstadt who celebrated 77 years yesterday and given the temperatures outside, we thought this song might be appropriate. It’s from 1975 off an album called prisoner disguise. You’re listening to heat wave. I hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar.
