Versha Sharma
Media TribeShaunagh talks to Versha Sharma
Versha Sharma is the Managing Editor and Senior Correspondent at NowThis. NowThis News is a progressive social media-focused news organisation. Versha started her career after university on the Obama campaign trail and quickly went on to work for the likes of MSNBC and Vocativ before joining NowThis.
Versha and I delve into millennials consuming news and the business models new media organisations are using to remain profitable. We chat about Mitesh Patel fighting for his dad's murderer's life to be spared while on death row in Texas and we also talk about Versha's time in Russia conducting a very surreal interview with Pussy Riot, the feminist protest punk rock, in the back of a taxi.
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Episode credits
Hosted and produced by Shaunagh Connaire and edited by Ryan Ferguson.
Episode transcript
Shaunagh Connaire
Welcome to Media Tribe, the podcast that's on a mission to restore faith in journalism. I'm Shaunagh Connaire, an award winning journalist with over 10 years of experience working for some of the biggest news outlets in the industry. Every week, I'm going to introduce you to some of the world's most respected journalists, filmmakers and media executives and you're going to hear the story behind the storyteller. You'll get a sense of the integrity and hired graft that's involved in journalism and hopefully you'll go away feeling that this craft is worth valuing.
Versha Sharma
I went down to San Antonio to do a short documentary on this guy named Mitesh Patel, who was advocating for the man who killed his father in an armed robbery to be taken off of death row. I've reported on the death penalty in the past, I've reported on the movement to abolish it, but I had never seen up close how the death penalty could actually be something that hurts the victim's families.
Shaunagh Connaire
My guest today is Versha Sharma, the managing editor and senior correspondent at NowThis, social media focused news organization.
Shaunagh Connaire
Versha, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Versha Sharma
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Shaunagh Connaire
Oh, well honestly, I've heard lots about you over the years from colleagues at NowThis and also other mutual Irish friends, but you've had a wonderful career. You're now senior correspondent and managing editor at NowThis?
Versha Sharma
Yes, that's right.
Shaunagh Connaire
And before that you were at MSNBC and Vocativ. Do you want to tell our audience how you got into journalism in the first instance?
Versha Sharma
Yeah, absolutely. I studied political science in college. I was that person who was also editor in chief of our college newspaper. I always knew that I wanted to be in either politics or journalism and I was able to combine the two of them and make it a career in political journalism, as well as branching out into culture reporting and all sorts of. I actually worked on the 2008 Obama campaign in Louisiana, which is where I'm from. And that was quite an experience working for that campaign in a deeply red southern state. Then I worked my way up through a couple of different campaigns. I went to Georgia for a Senate race. I came to DC thinking that's where I wanted to end up, but I actually was hired then for a city council race in New York. And then of course like many people do, I fell in love with New York. I decided I wanted to stay.
Versha Sharma
I also decided that I was not cut out for campaign work as a career and I very much wanted to switch to the journalism side of it, accountability being an important part of that I think. And so I managed through my campaign contacts to get an unpaid internship at a site called Talking Points Memo, which is all about US politics, digital media site, new journalism. It was a great place to kind of get my feet wet and learn all aspects of digital media and I was able to do that there. The internship went well. They ended up hiring me, paying me. I stayed for three years and I did everything from publishing, to writing, reporting and editing there.
Shaunagh Connaire
Wow. You really cut your teeth there. And from there you went to Vocativ, is that right? And that was obviously a social media brand and it's worth pointing out you are a digital native.
Versha Sharma
Yes, yes. Very much so. Yes. Got about 12 years now and God, 12, maybe 13. 12, 13 years in New York digital media especially, but I've gone all over. TPM, I actually went to MSNBC after that to cover the 2012 presidential election there. And then I went to Vocativ after that.
Shaunagh Connaire
Right. And now you're at NowThis. for anybody who doesn't know NowThis, you're a progressive social news focused media outlet with millions upon millions of young people tuning in every week.
Versha Sharma
Yeah. It's still a young company, relatively speaking. We launched in 2012. I joined in 2014, which is when Facebook video really started to become a huge thing, if you remember. That's when they first changed the algorithm and you were seeing it all over your newsfeed. We got really lucky because we were already focused on publishing video natively to people's social feeds. That was the groundbreaking thing that we did that nobody else was doing that in retrospect seems completely logical, but that was our whole mission and it continues to be our mission is news for young people by young people.
Versha Sharma
They put me in a leadership position, a young woman of color. We had a very young, diverse newsroom. It's by far the most diverse newsroom I've ever worked in. And we've been able to grow into this kind of social juggernaut. We have 72 million followers across social. We've also expanded into written content and podcasts. That includes website, newsletter followers, podcast subscribers. It's been really exciting to see how it's grown from social video, which is still very much our bread and butter, but we do long form, we do full feature length documentaries. We're working with Showtime on some of these and it's been great to see how that's expanded.
Shaunagh Connaire
Those figures are extraordinary. You must be the envy of every publisher. You've captured a millennial audience and you've somehow created news in various formats and made people really interested in politics, is obviously your specialty. How did you do that? What's what's the secret recipe?
Versha Sharma
Well, it goes back to that mission statement of being new for young people by young people. I think we're able to speak very authentically to our audience because it's our peers, it's our friends. And that was always our motivation from the beginning. When we would talk to producers who were pitching stories and learning how to script and frame them, we would tell them, "How would you explain this to your friends at brunch? Or how would you explain this to your friends at a bar?" That's the tone that we're going for. That's the voice that we're going for. We care about all of these issues. We care about what's going on in Syria, in the Middle East, we care about the immigration crisis that's both in Europe and in the United States. And there's this misconception that young people aren't interested in hard news or politics, I think. We sought to disprove that and we said, "The way to disprove that is by delivering them news where they already are and where are they already are are social platforms. Facebook all day. At that point, it was Facebook all day, less so now.
Shaunagh Connaire
Yeah, Facebook is for old people now, it's that right?
Versha Sharma
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, all of these platforms. And so by publishing news video and content directly to these platforms so nobody has to type in a homepage or click away, they can see everything that they want to see in their actual feed, that just was able to help us grow our audience so exponentially over the years, because we just tapped into this market that nobody else was really delivering content to at the time.
Shaunagh Connaire
Exactly. And you are storytelling in a rather unique way. All of the videos that you guys produce, they're very consumable and easy to get through. It's very, very digestible stuff, but it's also worth noting for people, if you don't know NowThis, you guys, you get interviews, you in particular Versha, should I say, you've interviewed president or former president Obama twice, I believe. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, you get the big guys.
Versha Sharma
Yes. Yes. Again, going back to what we were saying about having this audience that everybody else wants, we're very proud of it. According to Nielsen ratings, we reach more than 60% of Americans aged 18 to 35, which is the market that advertisers want, which is great for us. It's also the market that politicians want. When President Obama and this was actually when he was still in office, wanted to speak to young people, they knew to come to us because they knew that we had this huge massively engaged audience. And that's another thing we're very proud of. It's not just that we have this young audience following us, they are incredibly engaged and passionate. They're the people who get out and make an impact in their communities and want to learn more about how to do that.
Versha Sharma
Our advantage with young people is certainly a reason why we've been able to get a lot of these major interviews over the years. And it didn't happen overnight. In 2014, when I first started, when I called people or called congressional offices, they'd never heard of us, understandably. And I had to explain who we were and what we did. And thankfully, because we were able to just build up that audience over time, we got to the point in 2016, where President Obama sat down with us at this incredibly important time in the election cycle. It was about a week before the election was over. And so, we were just so proud of being able to get that interview. We think it really spoke to how far we came in those two and a half years.
Shaunagh Connaire
It's a great interview. I recently watched it again. Did your time on the Obama campaign help in any way? Were you able to say, "Well, actually guys, I know you folks from Louisiana back in the day." Did that help?
Versha Sharma
It didn't actually in getting the interview. It helped once I got there because I told him at the beginning about that experience and he was very kind about it, but it was much more so about the work that we had done at NowThis specifically. We had actually done a video, an interview series with Joe Biden earlier that year in January 2016. That was a great kind of test run. They wanted to come to NowThis to talk about their initiatives for gun violence prevention, which is a huge issue for young people. Especially with all of the school shootings that we have in America that continue. That was us kind of proving our worth to them that we could cover this serious issue, this interview with a high profile politician, the city and vice president and deliver it in that digestible, consumable, shareable way that we always did. Really from January to November, we were working on getting that Obama interview. It took us almost all year long.
Shaunagh Connaire
Amazing. No, it really was amazing. And I also recently watched your Hillary Clinton interview. I think that was 2019, as far as I remember, which is a great interview and it's also done in such a nice way. It doesn't feel stiff. And it's very again, really accessible. It's you sitting right by Hillary Clinton, just having a chat, kind of, as you say. You're in the pub and you're finding out some gossip and you get to the point, Versha, which is brilliant.
Shaunagh Connaire
Now on the topic of millennials consuming journalism, one emerging trend as I'm sure all of you can relate to, is the rise of audio, specifically audio journalism. We've all been there, faced with an article we'd love to read, but just have no time. Recently I came across an exciting app called Noa who are leading the way in the audio journalism space. They produce spoken word versions of articles from top tier publishers, like The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post and many others. When I spoke to their CEO, Gareth Hickey, he shared some audience stats with me. And guess what? 70% of their audience is under the age of 44. In other words, they've created a way to engage millennials with quality journalism and to pay for it, importantly.
Shaunagh Connaire
I've been listening to Noa now for a few months and couldn't recommend it more. That's why I'm delighted to say that Noa is the official sponsor of the Media Tribe podcast, which means by supporting Noa, you're helping me bring you more great interviews like today's. The first 100 people to click the links in the show notes on thismediatribe.com, will get a seven day free trial and 50% off an annual subscription if you choose to subscribe. Plus in the run up to the holidays, you also have a $25 six month gift subscription available, which might be a very nice way to introduce a millennial in your life to the world of audio journalism. Right, back to Versha.
Shaunagh Connaire
Before I move onto my next kind of the big question of the interview, I wanted to talk to you about the financing models within journalism, just because you are sitting in one of, as we say, these digital platforms, which a lot of the bigger names have taken a hit this year in terms of job losses like Buzzfeed, Vox, Vice. How are you guys going?
Versha Sharma
We're doing okay. We're very lucky. I think we're well positioned in the industry because of our model and because of what we do. We haven't had to have mass layoffs like other companies have, both at NowThis the brand and we're actually now part of a larger company. Our parent company is called Group Nine Media. And that includes the Dodo, animal videos people have seen and love, I'm sure. Thrillist, which is culture, lifestyle. We recently acquired PopSugar as well, which was a huge addition to the company and Seeker, Seeker Network from Discovery, which is a science focused channel.
Versha Sharma
These five brands together just have huge audiences collectively and we have diversified revenue models, which I think has really helped us. In the early days, we were very dependent on monetizing our content on social. And a lot of the social platforms didn't know what they were doing, Facebook included. That was very much, we were learning together, basically. The social platforms and the news industry was learning together how to make money off of this and also discussing what the rev share should be. Because early studies that Google and Facebook just ate up all of their ad revenue from a lot of publishers. There's been a lot of learnings over the years and I think diversifying our business models to include partnerships, sponsorships, branded content, these podcasts, feature length documentaries, all of that has absolutely helped us be in the position we're in.
Shaunagh Connaire
You're not just relying on ad revenue, basically, which all publishers need to worry about because of Facebook and Google looming in the background. And I do believe that's a subject you're quite passionate about. I watched one of your talks, maybe at Online News Association. I think it's a subject we all need to start talking about more candidly because our industry is absolutely in dire straits.
Shaunagh Connaire
Versha, kind of the big question of the interview, is there a story or project that you are particularly proud of perhaps that had some impact?
Versha Sharma
Yeah, absolutely. One that I think one that comes to mind immediately for me is a short documentary that we did. I went down to San Antonio to do a short documentary on this guy named Mitesh Patel, who was advocating for the man who killed his father in an armed robbery to be taken off of death row.
Shaunagh Connaire
Whoa.
Versha Sharma
Yes. Heavy. It's very heavy story, but it was amazing to be able to have kind of this front row seat. Chris Young was the name of the inmate who was on death row in Texas. As you may know, the death penalty in the US continues to be a very sore and controversial topic. Texas is the worst offender by far, they execute hundreds of people and continue to do so. The story just being in Texas period was highlighting the injustices of that system.
Versha Sharma
Chris Young, he pled guilty. It was an armed robbery. His dad worked at and owned a convenience store and unfortunately Mr. Patel was killed in this incident. And what Mitesh, his son, who was an adult by that point with his own young two boys had come to learn, just through talking to Chris Young, who also had a daughter, talking to Young's family, the daughter, talking to other people, he made the decision that not only did he not want Young to be executed, he was going to advocate that he not be executed and really put himself out there.
Versha Sharma
This was just, it was an incredible story. Mitesh walked me through his dad's convenience store, told me how it happened, showed me where it happened, showed me the tributes that people in the community had put up to his late father. Talked about how having children of his own really deeply impacted his decision and then talked about how hard it is to get justice in the Texas criminal justice system. And this applies to the US at large, but it was really fascinating to me because I've reported on the death penalty in the past, I've reported on the movement to abolish it but I had never seen up close how the death penalty could actually be something that hurts the victim's families.
Versha Sharma
And that was where Mitesh was coming from. He's like, "This is not going to bring me peace. Two wrongs don't make a right. This is not what I think is justice." If the victim's family is pleading with you to not execute this man, why would you execute him? You're causing this family further harm. And so we went deep into rehabilitative justice. What is actually justice for the victims? How can the criminal justice system help them? It became this nationwide story we're very proud to say. We published what was a 10 minute short documentary. Because Mitesh is as compelling as he is, it became this national story where so many people got involved. Tens of thousands of people actually got involved campaigning for what Mitesh wanted, campaigning for clemency for Chris Young. They wrote the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons asking for clemency. Texas governor Greg Abbott, who is still the governor there, writing and calling his office as well.
Versha Sharma
It was activists across the country, but it was also, actors got involved, Alyssa Milano, Piper Perabo, artists like Common. It just really became a national story and a national point of discussion on the death penalty. Now there was a lot of activism. A lot of people got involved. A lot of people learned about this process. And unfortunately, Texas being the state that it is, Young was denied clemency. And I was actually with Mitesh when that decision came down and he just started crying immediately. Immediately started crying. And it was heartbreaking to see. And it was devastating, honestly. It was devastating that this happened and that Young was executed after all. But what I'm proud of is our storytelling. I'm proud of the fact that so many people came up to us and said that they had changed their minds about the death penalty, which I think is absolutely incredible.
Versha Sharma
I'm still very proud of how we broadened the conversation. We pushed it forward. We changed people's minds. We couldn't save this man's life, but I like to think that Mitesh got some peace from at least being able to tell his story and share his story so broadly and the memory of his dad, which of course it's dedicated to him. Mitesh felt like if his dad were still around and this were a similar situation that he wouldn't support the death penalty, whether it was him, a family member or somebody else.
Shaunagh Connaire
Well, that's extraordinary. And it takes a really strong person and character to be able to come to those conclusions that two wrongs, as you say, don't make a right. And this person should seek clemency. And it's kind of, it brings me to a point about filmmaking and storytelling and journalism. It's so effective I have found, Versha, and I don't know if you agree with me, but to tell big issues and big stories through people, through a particular set of lens. And that is the way you get your audience to care, to feel empathy and clearly it sounds like that's what you did with this story.
Versha Sharma
Yeah. I completely agree with that. And we refer to it in different ways in the newsroom, subject first storytelling or person first storytelling. And that is absolutely what we believe in is in building empathy through storytelling and still highlighting these major issues that we're dealing with. I think that was, I'm so proud of it just because it is an encapsulation of all of those things that we care about and the ways that we decide to tell them and Mitesh also ended up going to win a Courage Award from a human rights organization, which was amazing.
Shaunagh Connaire
Yeah. Oh, that is so great. Well, I think we'll most definitely link to that story whenever we publish your episode, Versha, for sure. And it's again, it's just testament to what you're doing there at NowThis, covering big, big, tough issues and showing that a young audience really give a damn about stuff like this and get behind them. Out of curiosity, how many millions and gazillions of times was that video viewed?
Versha Sharma
That is a great question. I feel like it's at least 10 million. I don't have a final number. Whenever we publish this and link to it, we can verify what that is, but it was at least 10 million views.
Shaunagh Connaire
Wow. You guys honestly, my jaw always drops, even though I know you've tens of millions of followers, my jaw drops when I look at NowThis on Twitter, and it's your videos and you've been retweeted millions of times. It's extraordinary. And actually how we know each other, Versha, I should mention our mutual friend, John Laurence, who was the head of digital at Channel Four News, who also ended up at NowThis. But John also was really talented in terms of pushing these videos out to a younger audience at Channel Four as well. It is the future. It's what we all should be doing, at least trying to copy and mirror exactly what you guys are doing, Versha.
Shaunagh Connaire
I wanted to ask you, linking activism and journalism, it feels like we shouldn't do that because, we must remain objective and just deliver the story we hear and what we see, but in these days it feels like activism and impact and should potentially be part of our jobs as well. What do you think?
Versha Sharma
Yeah. I think this is another reason why NowThis has been so successful is because none of us believe in the old model of both sides journalism when it leads to false equivalencies and we feel very strongly about that. And I think being a political journalist in America during this time, but also over the last 15 to 20 years, we have increasingly seen how one party is divorced from reality and often lies at an unprecedented pace compared to other politicians or other parties. These are just, I use this word way too much, but these are truly unprecedented times that we're living in. And our journalism has to meet that. Our journalism has to meet that moment. And I think what we've sadly seen from some legacy publications is a failure to meet that moment. Our job, you described us as progressive earlier and a lot of our views and our newsroom of course is certainly progressive, but we still feel, regardless of what those political or societal views are, our job is still to tell the truth, to deliver the truth and the facts to our audience.
Versha Sharma
Of course, there is always a little bit of activism, I think even if people don't want to use that word historically, in what stories we're choosing to tell and who we're choosing to amplify. That's been the case for as long as news has existed. And so I think we just looked at that responsibility differently. We do our best to also hold everybody accountable, no matter what party they're from. And I think, we actually did that with President Obama when we had that interview, we had pressed him on the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest. We were actually the first news organization to get comment from him about how they were seeking to stop that because of all the activism that happened and a White House staffer told me years later that I made his life hell for three weeks, because I got Obama on the record about that question.
Versha Sharma
I do want to say, people, people have their opinions about our storytelling and our content, but when we have the opportunity, we do our best to press everybody. And going back to the idea of doing it for young people specifically, if you look at Pew Research data, young people feel passionately about the climate crisis, about criminal justice, about immigration, about equality. That's not breaking down necessarily along partisan or political lines. These are the issues that young people care about. That's what we wanted to highlight, issues, solutions, who's trying to make the world a better place. That's all we care about.
Shaunagh Connaire
Exactly. And you're delivering facts and that's all that matters. I think hard lessons have been learned, let's say, particularly in the UK, during Brexit coverage. This idea of balance in inverted commas and giving 50/50 time to both sides. When as you say, one side in particular, wasn't telling the truth or in a polite way was misinterpreting the truth. I think what you said is exactly true.
Shaunagh Connaire
My next question, always a little bit lighter, well sometimes a bit lighter, I should say, but is there a moment in your career that's been rather crazy? Something that nobody really knows about, none of your colleagues in particular and certainty not your audience, Versha, that you'd like to dip into? And I always encourage guests to throw people under the bus as much as you like.
Versha Sharma
That's great. Gosh, again, so many options. I don't know that I have anybody to throw under the bus right now, but I think one of my crazier moments and also reporting trips was I went to Moscow in May 2017. I was hosting a show called the Russia Desk that I also wrote and produced. And this is great about NowThis, everybody does a little bit of everything for all of these series. And I had the opportunity to travel to Moscow, which was incredible. I connected with local fixers. I wanted a local videographer. I needed a fixer who spoke fluent Russian and could help translate for me. Only know very basic words. I'm by no means, I wouldn't even say I'm proficient, but I was able to connect with somebody who came recommended from a lot of different news outlets. She'd actually worked for the BBC and a couple of different international news outlets. I thought that she seems perfect. She seems great.
Shaunagh Connaire
I bet you, I know her.
Versha Sharma
You probably do.
Shaunagh Connaire
No names mentioned. I nearly know where this story is going but continue.
Versha Sharma
We were working together for a couple of days. It was great. For whatever reason, she didn't tell me until three days in that she's actually quite close with the members of Pussy Riot and would I be interested in an interview? And I'm like, "Yes, absolutely. Absolutely I would be interested in that." And so it turns out that not only are they activists together, she's quite close with them personally. And so we actually ended up at Masha from Pussy Riot's apartment while she's packing to go on a trip and I'm meeting her for the first time, but I'm inside her apartment. She's there with her child. She's packing. We're trying to figure out, do we have enough time to tape this interview? And I don't know if you've ever been to Moscow, but traffic there is absolutely insane. And there was just a seven lane traffic jam on the way that the airport.
Versha Sharma
They knew that they were running late and they knew that it was going to take a really long time to get there. Masha's like, "Can we just do this in the car? Can we do the interview in the car?" And I'm like, "Look, I really want this interview so I'll make it happen." And we recorded this interview with three of us were in the backseat, but the camera's just on me and Masha with my videographer, Victor, filming it from the passenger seat in the front. And it was just absolutely wild doing this interview on this hectic car ride to the airport. Also, it was a taxi so the taxi driver had no idea what was going on. We explained it to him and thankfully he was very cool about it, but there was a little bit of concern, talking about the topics that we were talking about, of course. Their protests against Putin, amongst other things.
Versha Sharma
The taxi driver ended up being totally cool, which was great. Of course, when we're almost to the airport, he runs out of gas. And so we're stopped for a while and Masha is just so stressed out, understandably. But we got through it. We got to the airport, she made it just in time. I got the interview. It was great. And I was very happy with how it all went down and that was in May 2017. And then about a year later during the World Cup in Russia in Summer of 2018, I don't know if you remember four members of Pussy Riot ran onto the field.
Shaunagh Connaire
I do remember. I certainly do. Of course.
Versha Sharma
Yeah. They ran onto the field to protest and Olga who was my fixer, was one of the members. I was just like, "Oh my God, I know her." Just watching her on TV, running onto the field, had no idea she was doing this. We stayed in touch, but she kept her secrets. She's just amazing. I absolutely adore her and admire her, but she played it close to the vest.
Shaunagh Connaire
I love it. I love it. Well, it's amazing the things one will do to get an interview. I was just thinking in that instance though, Versha, it's quite lucky that you're one of the boss ladies so when you've been back to the edit suite, it's not like you had an exec down your neck wondering why it wasn't beautifully shot and why it was shot in a taxi and why your interviewee left rather sweaty and stressed.
Versha Sharma
Exactly, exactly. And the sound wasn't great. It was far from ideal, but we do, we lean into that kind of raw, authentic storytelling for sure so we're completely okay with that.
Shaunagh Connaire
Yeah. And I'm sure your audience were completely okay with that as well. I've noticed over the years, people give less of a damn about what it looks like. Well, listen, Versha, thank you very much for your time. You're a star for coming on the podcast. We really appreciate it. Everybody should go and follow NowThis and follow you in particular, but thank you so much, Versha.
Versha Sharma
Thank you so much for having me.
Shaunagh Connaire
If you liked what you heard on this episode of Media Tribe, tune in next week as I'll be dropping new shows every week with all sorts of legendary folk from the industry. And if you could leave me a review and rating, that would be really appreciated. Also, get in touch on social media @Shaunagh on Twitter or @shaunaghconnaire on Instagram and feel free to suggest new guests. Right, that's it. Until next week, see you then.
Shaunagh Connaire
This episode is edited by Ryan Ferguson.
