Into the Record: How Mitra Kalita Created a New Media Model Centering Abundance and Inclusivity Out of the Twin Crises of Covid and Racial Injustice
Into the Record: How Mitra Kalita Created a New Media Model Centering Abundance and Inclusivity Out of the Twin Crises of Covid and Racial Injustice
Podcast Episode 3 with guest, S. Mitra Kalita
Episode Description
Veteran journalist, media executive, and Epicenter-NYC co-founder Mitra Kalita shares her story of how growing up between New York and Puerto Rico, punctuated by visits to India, led her to journalism as a tween, and the foundation of a community that’s supported her throughout life.
Then, she and Make Justice Normal co-founder and host Monique Aiken discuss being Black-centered and doing “the work” even if, or perhaps, especially when, someone isn’t Black. Learn about what it takes, to create media spaces to address the needs of the community, and what it means to truly uplift BIPOC voices.
If you'd like to learn more about Mitra, visit mitrakalita.com, and check out URL Media at url-media.com and Epicenter at epicenter-nyc.com.
To learn more about Make Justice Normal, visit us at makejusticenormal.org. Follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, Stitcher, Pandora and Amazon Music
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Episode Transcript
TRANSCRIPT:
MITRA KALITA, GUEST:
Everyone's telling you there's a culture of saying no, right? "Don't say yes to everything, say no, and set up boundaries," and I get that, especially for people of color, the need for those boundaries. I really do rely on lessons from my parents here, where we didn't have a lot, but there was always enough at the table so that if someone showed up, they would be fed. How can we operate our companies with that spirit as opposed to the scarcity mindset that pervades capitalism and white institutions, right? We have the better way of working. How do we make that the way of working?
(THEME MUSIC IN)
MONIQUE AIKEN, HOST:
What would the world be like if justice were normal? What would it look like if all workers, artists, creators, and makers’ contributions were acknowledged and compensated fairly? I'm Monique Aiken, your guide for Into the Record, a podcast from the co-founders of the Make Justice Normal collective on a mission to foster just relationships and collective action among people working to make justice normal. In this podcast, you'll hear from change-makers, who are interrogating history and the status quo. These path-breaking futurists are forging a new imagination of what's possible as we co-create new systems where justice is the default, and injustice, the stuff of history books. Our guest today is Mitra Kalita, co-founder of Epicenter and URL Media.
(THEME MUSIC OUT)
MITRA KALITA:
My parents are immigrants from India. I think that's important to note. When I was eight years old, we moved to Puerto Rico. We spent the next three and a half, four years there. I think of my father, he could have made sure I was a hyphenated American, but he didn't, and so the forces I grew up within my house, like James Baldwin was in every room, Richard Wright, and he made me read Native Son, but he also talked about Macbeth and Hamlet, and so I grew up in an intellectual household, and the diversity of forces and thought was built into my father's philosophy and lens on the world.
I took that for granted until very recently. I was in seventh grade, and I joined the school newspaper as a way to make friends. It's important to note that I thought for decades, that was my entry to journalism, but recently, when cleaning out my parents' house, I actually found on a bunch of construction paper, something I'd written when I was about 11 years old when my parents were threatening us to move back to the mainland, and so the official entry to journalism was joining the school newspaper in seventh grade, which is early enough, but even earlier than then, I had on construction paper made the Kalita Times and had pictures of my family looking really sad, and the headline was something like, "Kalita Family to Leave Beautiful Puerto Rico for New Jersey." Looking back at that, there was clearly something in little Mitra that knew if it's on a newspaper or in like a journalistic format, people might take you more seriously, right? Clearly, there was some subconscious that propelled me to know that my parents, and telling them, "I don't want to move, we have a great thing going here, we're finally comfortable, the hues in Puerto Rico are as light as light can be and as dark ... The same as India," and I didn't want to reenter the U.S..
And so I think that, in some ways, set the stage for the two things that I hope define me. One is community. "Who defines you? Who are you surrounded by? How do your neighbors interact with you?," which really, India and Puerto Rico are my foundation on that front. The second piece is journalistic. "How do you find a voice when nobody will listen?," and I think finding this protest paper, if you will, to me was like a sign.
Oh, I knew. So anyway, in seventh grade, I joined the school newspaper. That teacher, you just are grateful for the teachers that see something you don't, and she ended up moving on to the high school when I was in high school in ninth grade, and was also my journalism teacher, again, recommended me for a minorities journalism program. It started as a hobby, and then she gave it the shape, which is not only is it a profession, but by going through the lens of a minorities journalism workshop, that's what it was called back then, you also get to see storytelling and journalism through the lens of racial equity and social justice, and that is not the way journalism is practiced, and so I'm really grateful for that framework. I was wearing a Malcolm X hat in 11th grade because my father made me read the autobiography of Malcolm X, and I just thought, "These words are transcendental."
Like, "Everybody should read this in high school." Actually, I've gifted it to my daughter when she was in high school as like a must-read book before graduating. My daughter's in middle school, so she'll get it soon enough, but that, I suppose, would be pivotal, not to the journalism, but, "What's your worldview, and do you have a worldview?" I think a lot of immigrants come here, and we don't have a way to honor the civil rights movement that actually paved our path to get here in the first place. My father, unfortunately, has had two strokes, and so this realization on my part has come a little bit late.
I have tried to ask him, "Why this commitment to civil rights?" Right? We were so young, I did not see this in any other Indian American households. I've come up with a few things. One, Martin Luther King drew great inspiration from India.
Elements of the Black Panther Party drew great inspiration from anti-caste movements in South Asia. My father was a union organizer in the 1950's and '60 in India, which also, there was a global civil rights movement occurring at the same time, and so I wonder if some of that contributed to his worldview. He's a Buddhist, which I think also forces you to seek out philosophy and not just accept the philosophy of the religion that you're raised within, and so that idea of interrogating, which is so simpatico with journalism, I think that's what my father gave me. I learned a lot in those years in mainstream media, but I also saw the reality of how mainstream media see their mothers and fathers and sisters in the stories of white people, and will tell those stories in certain ways that were not necessarily reflective of how I saw the world, nor were they advancing what I think is this most critical issue of economic social justice and wealth creation and all of, really, wealth creation and social justice having to exist hand in hand. There came a moment in the spring of 2020, where we're in the pandemic, and then come the racial justice protests, and really, acutely, I see again, I see what organizations are getting out of me, but this is not necessarily the media that I want to leave for my children, or our children, and so I think one important part of the framework that my father left me with was also that it is possible to not be Black and be Black-centered in your consumption of media, your creation of media, your lens on the world, your advocacy for justice, right?
It is possible to not be Black and still be Black-centered. Now, you got to do that with a lot of permission and a lot of people who trust you, and it's not going to happen in the spring of 2020 when everyone is looking for a Black friend. For me, it felt like I have so much of my life has propelled me to this moment, right? Everyone talked about that moment, but for me, it felt like I've been doing this work, and then I'll tell you that there's a little bit of arrogance, maybe a lot of arrogance, you need to launch your own company, because you have to have conviction, you have to be confident. Sort of this question of, "What you stand for and how do you step up as a leader?," I don't think we talk about that arrogance enough, because in our communities, we're kind of supposed to keep our heads down and do the work and just really hope everything turns out okay, but I was seeing it's not going to turn out okay.
I know how this ends, because there's a little bit of a Groundhog Day to it in mainstream media. Being a professor, so much of our work, those of us who approach our careers, whether that's journalism or law, or education, through this lens of racial justice, I think we often think about diversifying our ranks, and for me, there was such a back-to-basics necessity, and also for me to understand, "Why do we do what we do? What is journalism?," and really, treating something as a blank canvas in the classroom. So that was one format, that I don't think I was quite prepared for it 'cause I thought I would give them my career trajectory, we'd talk about the who, what, when, where, why of a news story, and they'd all pass with flying colors. The reality is when I taught at St. John's, for example, I had a majority of my students who are first-generation college-goers, two students in the one year that I taught them were arrested, called me for help.
You start to see journalism as we talk about, let's say the police record, which sets the news agenda, we turn to the police precinct, and we're like, "What came in overnight?," and that's going to set our news agenda. And so when you have students who are arrested, it really sets a whole different dimension of, "What does it mean to have interacted with criminal justice personally versus in this distant way?" And of course, journalism by virtue of trying to remain objective, keeps a distance from subject, and that, to me, was eye-opening that my students could not keep such distance from what they were covering. It's not enough to be represented, it's not enough to be included in narratives and new formats of storytelling, but we must change the systems around that excluded us to begin with. That, I think, journalism is incumbent upon because I really can't think of any other ways of exposing institutions than journalistic.
While I have a lot of feelings about mainstream media, this idea of the fourth estate and keeping an eye on, this is going to sound lofty, but our purpose is very lofty as this watchdog and also keeper of democracy, I think that's a very real role that we play in society.
MONIQUE AIKEN:
I think this is the time to get into, "How does Epicenter and URL Media express those goals that you just shared?" You mentioned founding both of these. They have very different ways of showing up in the world. Can you tell us the origin story of each, maybe starting with Epicenter?
MITRA KALITA:
In the spring of 2020, I was still at CNN, and organically, I mentioned my husband's an artist, so he'd been involved in a number of public art projects in our neighborhood, including a plaza, where he was working with some merchants and just beautifying the space, but beautifying it in ... This is an immigrant neighborhood, and so let's not let Pottery Barn dictate what is beautiful in our world because that's not what I gravitate towards in my home decor. It was the spring of 2020, and my neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens was truly decimated, literally was the epicenter of the Epicenter, according to The New York Times, ambulance sirens all the time, people turning to us saying, "Where can we get COVID tests?," "Where are their masks?," "I'm a restaurant owner, and I am about to lose everything," "How do I apply for these loans that the government has?," "Two out of three people in this studio apartment have COVID. What is social distancing and quarantine mean for this population?" Right?
So we were using ... I mean, even quarantine and social distancing, loaded terms don't relate to my immigrant neighborhood. So Epicenter was launched to answer these queries that we very much got organically, and I think that organic founding of a company is really important because it felt like the community was asking us for solutions. We were using email to triage, and then forwarding solutions to 50 people, forwarding please and asks to 50 people, and so my husband and I thought, "What if we were to put together an email newsletter just to make this more efficient?" Now, email newsletters, I oversaw at CNN, and it just felt like, "I'm doing this type of strategic work digitally. Can I apply this to my neighborhood?"
Epicenter took off with trusted, beloved, moves on from email newsletters to flyers, QR codes, people calling a hotline, vaccination work. All of the pandemic needs of New York City, we really pivoted at every turn to meet them. It was in the summer of 2020 that I decided, "Could this be a full-time gig? Is it time for me to leave CNN and really just throw myself into this?" As those seeds are being planted, what happens?
I'm looking at CNN's web traffic, and I'm looking at Epicenter's web traffic, and those two things could not be more different, because the same algorithms that are always going to favor CNN don't favor the person that's literally calling me, saying, "Mitra, you're my neighbor. I trust you. Can you tell me where I can find a place for my kid to just ride his bike today? I trust you. Can you just tell me where I can get a mask because one person in our home has COVID?"
And so that trust is what CNN didn't have, but that algorithm of being searchable and able to get resources is not what an Epicenter had. And so there's a woman named Sara Lomax, who runs WURD, the Black radio station in Philadelphia, Black talk radio, and I turned to her a lot, as I was launching this community media outlet in Epicenter just for guidance. "Hey, you helped eight people get jobs. How did that work?," like really basic questions. In the course of talking to her, it overlapped from the pandemic to the racial justice protests after George Floyd, and we kept talking and it became clear that maybe we had similar problems with the internet and the ecosystem that would keep us small and maybe keep us small and fragile forever, and so I said, "What if we banded together? Are there other outlets like us?"
In Sara's case, she's been doing this for decades. Epicenter was a Johnny-come-lately, I'll admit that. We were new. And so we started to reach out to other outlets, and we said, "Hey, what do you think of a multi-platform, multiracial coalition that shares content, and maybe we could figure out a revenue model somewhere in there, because that seems to be a real struggle?," and you can't count on philanthropy forever if you're a nonprofit, and if you're a small media outlet, it's very much hand to fist existence, right? URL Media, which stands for Uplift, Respect and Love was born out of this desire to be like all the other white guys on the internet, right?
It's just like, "Wait a second, we're stronger together, and we don't have the trust issue." A lot of conversations in mainstream media are like, "Why don't they love us? We're not trusted, disinformation, polarization of democracy." A lot of it is, it's a blame game. It's not willing to take a lens and look at itself critically on, "How have you all operated?"
And for me, the diversity of our people is connected to the diversity of our business model, so meaning, our people are pivoting constantly to meet the needs of a marketplace. Why? Because we're in service to communities. So where do I think journalism failed? I think journalism, mainstream media failed to create something of value to discrete audiences, and where was I seeing such promise in this coalition was, "Hey, each of our entities has a direct audience and is really, not just beloved in their communities, but needed."
We've created something that's needed. And so that set the table for URL Media, what stands for Uplift, Respect, and Love. We launched the day after Joe Biden's inauguration with this framework of the next four years can't look like the last four, nor the last 400. Meaning, the way things have been covered, not from our perspective, is something we're ready to change. Three years in, really happy to report that both experiments have been wildly successful.
MONIQUE AIKEN:
So URL Media, sharing content revenue, that's what you just talked about, and it seems like a live action exercise in collaboration and solidarity, but can you just dig in a little bit more onto the structure and how it's responding differently, who it's serving differently, and really, what is the model?
MITRA KALITA:
Sure. I'll talk about Epicenter first just 'cause the coverage, I think, intentionally is disruptive. And so what was the goal of ours during the pandemic? It was to keep our people alive, full stop. And so from a strategic perspective, you can't talk about valuing Black and Brown audiences, or Black and Brown customers, as a lot of people do, if you don't value Black and Brown life.
I think by centering Black and Brown life and saying, "You need a COVID test, you need a mask," it's the most fundamental action to, "We value your life," and journalism somehow skips over to the, "We're going to give you information. Good luck. Good luck in figuring it out, and good luck in connecting to the resources and services ultimately that will save your life." And so I think that, coming out of crisis, made it okay for us to then go on and help people navigate vaccines. It made it okay for us to go on and say, "Oh, gosh, monkeypox is not talked about in gay immigrant communities."
Has anyone gone to these underground bars on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, and maybe that's where we should be doing outreach? And so then, we get a city contract to do exactly that. And has anyone worked with the hair salons in Astoria in Jackson Heights that actually have really deep relationships with gay immigrant populations that we should be targeting? And so that idea of going to our community on their terms defines us, but also is so different from how mainstream media work, even on stories like Drag Story Hour, which are under attack. The Proud Boys are in Jackson Heights now. They're in my neighborhood.
I could do a story saying, "Proud Boys are in my neighborhood," but if you're a mother of two girls, as I am, and your kids are walking by the Proud Boys, you don't really care that they exist. You just want to keep your kids safe. And so I think that lens of, "We live here too. We're operating from a place of safety and the preservation of our lives," which again, Monique, it's so basic. It's so basic, but that's why it's revolutionary, because I can't think of any other media outlet that just comes out and says it that way.
And so what happens when you put that collectively together? You start to see overlaps. You also start to feel bigger than you are, right? I don't need to tell you, but our outlets are defined by scrappiness and a lack of resources, and at CNN, I had a whole team looking at Facebook every day, right? I don't have that at Epicenter. I don't have that at URL, and our partners don't have that.
The benefit of that is that you can pivot very quickly to the marketplace, and we also operate from ... So to your brass tacks question of like, "How does it actually work?," URL enables the network to sell the power of collective audiences, whereas once upon a time, an Epicenter in the tens of thousands is a drop in the bucket. As a part of a collective, we contribute to an audience size of about 24 million Black and Brown users. Suddenly, we're not so small. Suddenly, those deals become possible, and the fact that I have such a direct relationship with my users makes me more valuable.
It's no longer just, "Oh, you're going to post it on Facebook, and good luck to you." So three years in, I think we look ... Again, this is the arrogance and the cocky part of me, but I think we look like geniuses because what's happened? Facebook and Twitter are not trusted places. And what do we have with our audience?
We have a direct relationship with our audiences. That's what advertisers are buying.
MONIQUE AIKEN:
And so you mentioned the Proud Boys coming into Jackson Heights, but they're not the only form of resistance out here. We see what's happening at the Supreme Court, and these lawsuits attacking racial equity and other kinds of equity initiatives at every turn. So in your personal journey, as you've taken the reins of your own destiny narrative, creation of these companies, where has the resistance come from, if you indeed, you have had and have seen some, and both in your personal life and really, at these organization levels, because once people's turf is being encroached upon, they don't like it?
MITRA KALITA:
Yeah. I'll be honest, when we came up with this idea, Sara and I went out, and we talked to investors, and we talked to funders, and it felt like those conversations were totally built around poking holes in our idea. I said, "Sara, we could spend the whole year raising money, or we could just try this." I'm just feeling really deflated though, because every meeting we have, it's like you open your mouth and people just want to tell you what's wrong with you. I just want to be clear, this is the moment right after the murder of George Floyd's death where a Black-owned company, Sara has the majority stake, and that's the reception we're getting, right?
And so the other thing, for me, is that the reality check came so early on in, there's a lot of talk, but the talk and the walk are not meeting, and so I think that's one early lesson. The other comes in, "What happens when you're successful?" So now, a few years in, more people want in. It's great. I think we've been transformative to the partners, we've been transformative to people's careers.
Like we're setting up a, "What does a BIPOC business look like?" We value health and wellness, so we're going to pay 100% of health insurance, right? So there's an assertion of values as a company that people start to look at and say, "Oh, that's different. That's different from other people. What's happening over there?"
And so they want to get on board, and that's fine. I operate from this spirit of abundance and the spirit of inclusivity, but it's not lost on me that two women of color set out, and it's not until, not only was the model proven, but profitable that people decided to support us. There are a lot of meetings I did in that first year when I would talk about this and just cry, and it was kind of embarrassing, 'cause I was like, "Why am I so emotional over this?" But it hurt like hell, because again, in the arrogance, and the ego, and the confidence, and the conviction that you have to rely upon to launch a company, I was a senior vice president at CNN. I proved myself, and so that, I think continues to be something.
I don't dwell on it a lot, but since you're asking me, I would be dishonest if I wasn't telling you that I still play over those early conversations, and now, there's another part of it, which it propels you to show them even more.
MONIQUE AIKEN:
So you talked about getting investors and other ways that you are working on building this and turbocharging this effort, but who else do you need to come alongside you now, now that you're proven, now that you have to go forward faster? I would love to see you all live all your dreams. So who do you need, and how can I be part of it?
MITRA KALITA:
Partnerships are really important, and I do wear our values in how we operate on our sleeve. I just had a meeting with a potential partner. It's a fairly well-known arts institution in New York City, and I said, "Look, the first event we did with you, y'all comped for us. The second, we paid money because we wanted to support the BIPOC creators, but you can't work with an organization like us that's bringing all the diversity, all the creativity, and all the asses in the seats," forgive my language, "And not make us whole in the process." Right?
So I think that willingness to partner, but understand what that looks like is something that we don't talk about enough in the marketplace, because don't forget, those institutions think they're doing me a favor, and I know that when our members and our communities and our audiences come, they've never seen that level of diversity, nor creativity in their institutions, right? So we're bringing the party. So I think real partnership, in talking about what that looks like in the terms of that. The second area that I really upfront about needing entire education campaign is advertisers and clients. Advertisers in the wake of George Floyd's murder pledged literally billions of dollars.
I've seen very little of that, and they continue to pawn us off to middlemen, agencies, often white-led agencies that are taking their big cut and leaving BIPOC media with crumbs. We have to talk about that equation, and so advertisers, I feel like are a big part of this conversation and open to suggestions on having those conversations, but also bringing them along and a little bit of the education there. The last I'll just mention is technology. Our partners have direct relationships with their audiences, but it can be hard to quantify. Because I have trust with my community, they might call me once, twice, three times.
Our community manager is always after me to put that into Airtable and quantify these relationships. And I'll do it, but I just think we've begun to scratch the surface on quantifying those relationships and what it means, and there's a tech solution somewhere out there. Our model right now is very complicated. Now, Sara will often say, "It's a very complicated problem we're trying to solve," kind of in the VC vernacular where they're telling you to do one thing and do it really well, and that doesn't really work for us because media is complex, race is complex, racial coalitions are complex, and communicating with our communities, on and offline, is complex. So I think there are some tech solutions, and I invite anyone who's listening and might have ideas on that to reach out.
I also do feel like I, again, reflecting on our earlier part of the conversation, I feel like I stand testament to you don't have to belong to a certain ethnic group to do the work. I've learned Spanish. My children go on vacations and seek out Black tourism opportunities, and the books on my bookshelves are an array of authors. You too can live this way. There's no secret to it, and sometimes it feels over and over.
We look for that in times of crisis, which is when the community most needs to retreat into itself versus do that work, and so I think just the awareness of this being lifelong work for those of us who are not Black, but want to be a part of the solution is just something that, I'll tell you honestly, I used to do a little bit more in secret, but I feel like it's precisely non-Black people who need to talk about that, otherwise, we're still leaving the work for Black people to talk about what they want others to do. I have gotten more upfront about that framework, both from a business and personal perspective. I assume good intent on the part of others, but also being the bigger person continues to serve us very well as a business practice, and if I'm being really candid about it, it's also a bit of a powerflex move, because you can only operate that way if you have the safety net, the comfort with ambiguity, the backup plan, the reputational support to operate from that spirit. I'm aware that it comes with privilege, and yet, if you look at career advice, given right now, everyone's telling you, "There's a culture of saying no." Right?
"Don't say yes to everything, say no, and set up boundaries," and I get that, especially for people of color, the need for those boundaries, but if all of us are operating from a culture of saying no versus saying yes, and, "How can I help you, and how can I be inclusive?," then I don't really think coalition building works. I don't think that you can establish trust. I don't think that you can be an honest broker in a collaborative business approach. I really do rely on lessons from my parents here, where we didn't have a lot, but there was always enough at the table so that if someone showed up, they would be fed. How can we operate our companies with that spirit as opposed to the scarcity mindset that pervades capitalism and white institutions? Right?
We have the better way of working. How do we make that the way of working?
MONIQUE AIKEN:
Well, it's been a joy for me to speak with you. I so admire you and all you've done and all you do, and I feel we are a kindred spirit in so many ways, and I really appreciate you sharing your journey with us.
MITRA KALITA:
Thank you, Monique. I feel the same way. It's been great.
(THEME MUSIC IN)
MONIQUE AIKEN:
And to our listeners, we're grateful for your time. If you'd like to learn more about Mitra, visit mitrakalita.com, and check out URL Media at url-media.com and Epicenter at epicenter-nyc.com.
Into the Record is produced by Make Justice Normal in partnership with Pod People. We’d like to thank everyone in the MJN core team - Anjali Deshmukh, Cari Hanson, Erika Seth Davies, and Charney Robinson-Wiliams.
A special thanks to Kristen Engberg and the Racial Equity Asset Lab for their generous support.
And at Pod People Alex Vikmanis, Matt Sav, Aimee Machado, Ashton Carter, Shai Wottitz, Kinsey Clarke, and Morgane Fouse.
I’m Monique Aiken, cofounder of Make Justice Normal, cofounder of the ReStarter Fund, Contributing Editor at ImpactAlpha and Managing Director at TIIP, The Investment Integration Project.
To learn more about Make Justice Normal, visit us at makejusticenormal.org or subscribe to our substack at the same name. Follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram at @ MJNnow.
The MJN collective has additional programs and products that we are resourcing. We welcome ideas for aligned philanthropic donors and/or sponsors. Reach out to learn more about the research we’re leading, tools we’re testing and models we’re prototyping. Send ideas or feedback to me at monique@makejusticenormal.org
Thanks for listening and helping us write justice into the record.
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