Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We talk with people interested in WordPress publishing. You'll hear interview with publishers who happen to be using WordPress, and also people in the WordPress space.
Hey. Welcome to the PublishPress podcast. I'm Steve Burge from PublishPress.
Dan Knauss:And I'm Dan Knauss from Multidots. And, Dan, who are we talking with this week? This week, we talked with Ray Morey. I'm an old fan of the repository. I'm I'm sure many people in the WordPress space are familiar with, kind of what's become our default newspaper of record these days in in WordPress.
Steve Burge:That's a great way to describe it. Every Friday, Ray sends out a newsletter with a wrap up of everything that's happened in WordPress in the last week or so, complete with the main story plus quotes from all sorts of different people across the WordPress community. It's really a great newsletter. It's at the repository dot email. Sign up now, and then listen to me and Dan talk with Ray.
Steve Burge:Hey, Ray. Welcome. Welcome to the published press podcast.
Rae Morey:Thanks, Steve, and, nice to see you both as well. You too, Dan.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. Great to catch up again, Ray.
Steve Burge:You you guys have been on at least one journalism podcast together before, right, talking about WordPress journalism?
Rae Morey:Yeah. Yeah. WordPress news a couple couple years ago with Post Status.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. Back when, Sarah Gooding was still at the tavern and, yeah, David Bissett organized a round table. And, yeah, we talked WordPress news and curation and journalism and the business of WordPress space.
Steve Burge:But that's kind of ironic because, Ray, you've almost taken over that WP tab and space that used to exist, putting out regular high quality news about WordPress. Right now, we're talking in early twenty twenty five and I think that maybe the one or one of the people who is putting out regular news or the tab and just left. And with the repository, you're now on nearly issue 250. Congratulations.
Dan Knauss:Thank you. I really was more. Yeah. It's great.
Rae Morey:It feels like more. Yeah. No. I'm really I was really sad to see Sarah leave WP Tavern. It was certainly wasn't my intention to to kind of almost dominate this space a little bit with with what I'm doing.
Rae Morey:But, yeah, with Gelsna leaving recently as well, it's it's sad to see that WP Tavern hasn't, continued the the legacy that Sarah Sarah built. So I'm hoping somebody can step back into into Sarah and Gelsna's shoes and take over there. But, yeah, at the, the repository is now at, issue 244. That'll be going out this Friday. And, yeah, it's it's, be been quite the journey.
Rae Morey:It's starting this almost five years ago. In November 2019, I've had a a few weeks here and there off over Christmas and just to take some time off. I, publish the newsletter weekly every Friday and, try to do it as consistently as possible, but make sure that take some time off because, yeah. Very conscious of setting out.
Steve Burge:If someone has not come across the repository before, what would they find? Or they get in their inbox every Friday?
Rae Morey:Yeah. So every Friday, the, the repository is a weekly email newsletter that features, a roundup of what's happening across the WordPress ecosystem. So, the the top of the newsletter features somewhere between two and six, top stories of the week, that are a bit more in-depth. And then, the bottom half, is some shout outs to sponsors and, some quick, hits, across what's what's happening in the space. So, yes, the aim is in around five to ten minutes to get a good run rundown of what's happening in WordPress.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. And if you I think you've consistently had, like, a little meet someone's personality from, from the WordPress community, too. I I really like those, and, I think that's a that's consistently in there. Right? Like, find out what people are reading, what they think, and
Rae Morey:where they want. Moment. Okay. That's Something that we introduced around issue 100 and Right. Went maybe a 50 issues, but, damn, finding people to actually fill it out is a lot of work.
Rae Morey:Yeah. Yeah. People are always excited to be asked. And then, I think, Topher at, HeroPres probably runs into the same issues. You know, people, take a lot of time to get back to me with their profiles or, yeah.
Rae Morey:It takes a lot of chasing. It was a lot of work. And and so with just me mostly doing the repository, I just kind of left it when, around October. Something I wanna bring back. But, I think
Dan Knauss:It was great. Yeah. Really like that. Yeah. Sign me up to spread the word.
Dan Knauss:I'll, send you Canadian, Slack, but well, you're in that one too. You're probably in all the news. I always if I'm sending you a source or an idea, I always feel like you're probably already there. You probably already saw it. So
Rae Morey:Try try to be everywhere. Yeah.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. And the little tips little links at the bottom are awesome too. Just, end of the newsletter. What's big and, little pieces of cool things people have done, new little just quick hits, and, it's a wonderful package altogether.
Rae Morey:Thank you.
Steve Burge:So, Rae, can you take us back? How did you get started in this? You have you been a journalist before?
Rae Morey:I have. Yes. So probably if I go way back to the beginning, when I was in high school, you know, you you come across careers, fairs, and things like that. When I was in high school, the school that I went to in a little remote mining town in Tasmania at the bottom of Australia, we had a cruise fair that featured quite a number of different, businesses and cruise. It was there was the defense force and local businesses.
Rae Morey:And and, the store that really peaked my interest was the local newspaper. And I was 13 years old and I thought, oh, okay. I never thought about this before. I was always into I was I was a massive nerd. I was always into stories and I thought, well, this just this just works for me.
Rae Morey:I love I love talking to people. I love writing. And so from then on, I just always wanted to be a journalist. I went to university and studied journalism, but the going back to being a nerd, I also loved computers. So I studied, computer science and journalism, and my lectures at the time thought I was a bit weird.
Rae Morey:Going back, I don't wanna reveal my age really, but, yeah, it was a long time ago when, you know, computers went the thing for women to be doing. And, yeah, I I followed the journalism path for my degree and went into news reporting. I worked for Fairfax here in Australia for a little while, took a break, lived overseas in Japan, where I do a jet program, and I understand you did that too, Steve. Then I I came back to live in Melbourne and worked for News Limited over years. Yeah.
Steve Burge:I had always assumed that you were from Sydney or Melbourne for some reason, but you're actually from there's, like, the Southern Tip of Tasmania, about as far south as it's possible to get?
Rae Morey:Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up down in Tassie in in really remote mining town, and, they went to university down in Hobart right at the bottom of Tasmania.
Rae Morey:But I live in Melbourne now.
Steve Burge:And then onto, Fairfax, which is kinda like the the biggest, sort of journalism media company in Australia.
Rae Morey:Yep. Yep. One of one of them. There's, there's Fairfax and also News Limited, the Rupert Murdoch one. I've worked for both.
Steve Burge:Yeah. They're two kind of big competing media outlets. I think maybe if you go to, like, Sydney, they have two competing newspapers, one owned by Fairfax owned by the Royal.
Rae Morey:In in Melbourne, we have, The Age, which is Fairfax owned, and, the Herald Sun, which is, Murdoch owned. Yes. It's limited owned. Yeah.
Steve Burge:So you had a journalism career and also, for a few years, a technology career as well. Right?
Rae Morey:Yeah. So after I left News Limited, I went to work for well, I decided I'd I'd you kinda get to a point as a journalist where you're not making much money because journalists don't get get paid a lot. And, I thought maybe it's time to use the computer science part of my degree, and I'd always enjoyed web development. I saw a job advertised at, James Farmer's WPMU Dev for a a writer. So I applied, and after jumping through lots of rings to get that job, James is pretty tough with hiring.
Rae Morey:I went to work with him. And, interestingly enough, that that was where Sarah Gooding was working at the time. And so we worked together for, oh, a few months actually before she started WP Tavern. Yeah. So I was with, WPEMU Dev for around, around five almost five years.
Rae Morey:Where I started as a writer. Sarah and I were both writers. And then after she left, continued writing, went on to be managing editor of of the blog there.
Steve Burge:So you got a a good journalism background and a good technology background. How did you end up combining the two to start a repository? What was the the the gem of the idea?
Rae Morey:I guess after a few few years at WP Me Dev, I was I'd always thought about working for myself, and I thought, well, I'm gonna take the jump and and go into working in marketing, consulting for myself. So I I took that leap. Did a lot of content work, but, one of my clients at the time was a male poet and I met, Kim Gerstard there. And, he's a he's a former journalist as well. I think he worked in The Congo of all places as a journalist.
Rae Morey:And, we just we just really hit it off as, I guess, idealists in wanting to see some kind of more objective journalism in the WordPress space. And, you know, he had a newsletter business. I was, I was writing, and so we just we always talked about wanting to start start some kind of newsletter. And one day, we're like, well, why don't we why don't we just do it? I pitched we we thought about lots of different formats, whether we should, you know, look at actual investigative journalism or long form journalism.
Rae Morey:But in the end, we were both running businesses, and we didn't have a lot of time. So, I pitched this idea of something very similar to I don't know if you've heard of the Muck Rack Daily email, but they do a fantastic kind of daily roundup of, what's happening across the new space. It's very, American, and a little bit fun as well. What we wanted to do was highlight what was happening in WordPress, but from the, you know, the the idea of, you know, what's everybody saying about it. So that was our first kind of go.
Rae Morey:You can go back and look at issue one. It's very different from what the newsletter looks like now, but that was that was initial idea just to kind of give people an idea what was happening with space, drawing from what was already being published. And so we sent out the first issue on the 11/19/2019. And yeah. So that was that was kind of the start.
Rae Morey:I wasn't expecting I thought it would just be, like, a a bit of a weekly fun thing to do, and it's just it's just growing from there.
Steve Burge:Oh, so it started off almost on a just an as an experiment? And
Rae Morey:Yeah. Yeah. We've got an experiment.
Steve Burge:And you started off doing it as a newsletter rather than, say, a blog like WP Tavern because you're working with male poet at the time, and that's what they went to. They went to newsletters.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. Very interesting. About a year or two after Substack launches. So newsletters are kind of becoming a a thing for monetizing and and, doing journalism in that in that way. I I think there's a little burst at that time.
Dan Knauss:Was that on your radar, that that had been a trend with with Substack launching?
Rae Morey:Not really. I I guess it was more because I was working with MailPoet and Kim had this platform already, so we decided to make the most of it. We also wanted to, I I I guess, show off what MailPoet could do as well, I guess, because, you know, that was Kim's product. And, yeah, I I was already subscribed to so many email newsletters, knew how powerful it could be as far as, you know, having something that's short and sharp that could land in people's inboxes and provide some value in a very, you know, private space. Consider email to be somewhere that's very sacred to a lot of people and how it is to me.
Rae Morey:You know, you carefully curate who you want in your inbox. Whereas something that's, you know, blogs, and new sites, you know, WP Tavern was already in the space, and there were lots of other sites at the time. And we we just wanted something that we could do that was a bit of fun to start with and and just see where it went. And, we didn't have any grand plans for at the time. It was just a weekly experiment as we were both doing other work.
Steve Burge:What does your process look like? How how do you start from from Monday morning and end up on Friday with, like, five or six big stories and lots of comments and lots of extra small stories? What does your process look like to start with a blank page and five days later, end up with a big interesting newsletter?
Rae Morey:It's it kinda starts with, I use I use Apple Notes to, kinda duplicate last week's newsletter. And so I've got that kind of skeleton of what the newsletter's gonna look like. And I also have I also use Feedly, so I have a couple hundred different websites that I follow that I check what's what they're doing every day. I kind of check-in to see who's publishing what. And then I also keep an eye on lots of lots of Slack, channels and servers to see what's going on.
Rae Morey:Also, I look at what's happening across Twitter. I follow a lot of people on Twitter and have lists. And these days, Blue Sky, Mastodon. And so across all of those different channels, I can kinda get a good sense of what's happening. And yeah.
Rae Morey:So I just kind of pick kind of open open up everything and have a it's a lot of reading throughout and curation throughout the week just to see what's going on and keeping tabs on everything. By just getting an idea of what's happening, I can kind of because I've been doing this for so long and because I'm a trained journalist as well, I can kind of quickly pick up on what are the most important stories that are going on. What do I need to keep an eye on that's developing, and what's kind of the smaller news that I can put down the the bottom half of the newsletter. Amongst all of that, there are people who often give me tip-off across the community to let me know what I might need to keep an eye on. So I've developed sorry.
Steve Burge:Just people like Dan.
Rae Morey:Yeah. Well, Dan. Dan, I've spoken to Dan before.
Dan Knauss:You probably feel spammed, mate, although
Rae Morey:No. I appreciate I appreciate com messages from everybody. Because I've been doing this for a while, and I guess because especially since October, I've been, I moved to publishing news on on the repository website. A lot of people get in touch when they they think that something might be a developing story or something that I I should put my attention to, which is really helpful for me because I can't I I don't know everything. I don't pretend to know everything, I don't think.
Rae Morey:And it's, I I can only be as informed as everybody else in the community. So it's really helpful when people get in touch. And I do I should mention, I do have a news tip-off page on my website for anybody who does wanna reach out with tip-off, and I'm on signal as well. So, there have been instances where, people have approached me with with stories, and people have spoken to me anonymously. And, yeah, I treat that with, yeah, enormous sensitivity because people who come forward and and give tip offs do deserve a lot of credit.
Steve Burge:So now the the repository has grown, you find a lot of the news is coming to you rather than you having to go and seek it out. I I know maybe a few years ago when I I was launching a product, the first place I would go would be the WP Tavern contact form. But now it feels like it might be the repository instead. You you find it a little bit easier to get stories nowadays?
Rae Morey:That's an interesting question. Yes and no. The I think the the the expectations are certainly higher around what I should be publishing. I mean, five five years ago when I was putting out the newsletter, it was just me kind of gathering links and and writing what I thought was was the news. It was very much me.
Rae Morey:But now that I have a bigger audience and the WP, WP Tavern isn't dominating the space so much, and also because I've published some some kind of big stories in the last few months, there's definitely an expectation that people who subscribe or read the repository are gonna get high quality news. As much as me going out and looking for stories, I think I think it's a bit of maybe fifty fifty almost. People coming don't know if maybe it's fifty fifty, but yeah. There's there's a lot of people coming to me with stories as well as me kind of like with journalism, it's it's, not just people approaching you, but but nurturing contacts and gathering people's trust is is a big part of that. People need to know that they can trust you with their stories.
Rae Morey:So there is there is a lot of reach out on my end because I'm still I wouldn't say I'm super established in this space yet. There are a lot of people who haven't come across the repository before, who are still learning that I'm or discovering that the repository is here. And so there there is still a lot of work on my end. And I and I imagine there there will be for forever. Yeah.
Steve Burge:You've you've done some substantial journalism in the WordPress space, broken some big stories about, about things happening around automatic, for example. Over the last four or five years you've been doing this, have any of those stories been inflection points for the repository, where after you've broken a story or written about a particular topic, have you seen your subscribers take a big leap and you've said, okay, that's that's added another 300, four hundred people to my list.
Rae Morey:Yeah. I guess, especially in recent months with, you know, all of the drama that's been going on with, WP Engine and and automatic meltdowns and wigg, there's there's definitely been and also because since October, I decided to, start publishing longer form news after it was just funny timing really because I wasn't planning to, my plan in August, September was to start planning longer form news on the the repository website, not just be a newsletter. And so I went off to off to Germany and and France for a family holiday for four weeks. And my plan at the September, October was to jump into into reporting. And it was the last week of my overseas holiday when I saw what had happened at WordCamp US.
Rae Morey:And I thought, oh, God, next week's gonna be interesting getting back into work. And, yeah. So I guess in October, my my first story back after holidays when I was trying to catch up on everything that was going on was was an interview that I had had with Matt Mullenweg. I asked him, you know, where where is this going? How do you see this ending?
Rae Morey:And and he made the comment about taking over WP, WP Engine, and that that blew up as a big story and has been, included in WP engines, court filings as, as, yeah, as, as evidence, I guess, in November and December, also stories about, core committees and core contributors anonymously, signing, a letter, you know, the open letter asking for, for Matt to work with the community. And that was, that was a pretty big story that blew up as well. And interestingly, the, I published a story when was that start of the year about the sustainability team being shut down. And that was, that was actually the most read story ever published on the repository website.
Dan Knauss:Joan of
Rae Morey:So I was quite heartened by, that people that that people are really interested in sustainability and were just shocked by what had happened. Yeah. That was that was more than double the traffic of any other story I've had by a long shot. So, yeah. It's Do you
Steve Burge:mind me asking you about the the the business side of this? That you've you've had some big successful stories. You've been slowly nurturing this, and you sounds if you've made a decision to kick start some areas of the business by publishing longer form, publishing online. Is this something that is a business you're building that could be a full time job for you? Do you mind talking a little bit about the business side of the repository?
Rae Morey:Yeah. For sure. It it's it is my full time job at the moment. When I, I was working in local government up until June, and I kind of had to make a make a decision about I was offered a ongoing permanent full time job for local government. And, at the time, I wasn't loving it.
Rae Morey:And I was also spending with w WP Tavern, essentially shutting down after Sarah left. I was finding myself running longer and longer stories to try and fill in the the context of what was happening. So the newsletter was getting long and people weren't loving it, and, I had nothing to link to because Sarah wasn't around. So, I kind of had to make a decision. Do I just not publish the repository anymore, or do I go all in and just see where that goes and grow it as a business?
Rae Morey:So I I made the after going to WordCamp Asia, especially last year, and just the feedback I was getting from people, I decided, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give this a shot and see how it goes. So in July and August, I kind of did some did the freelance work to kind of, tie up loose ends. And then went on my holiday in Europe, and the plan was to jump all in in October and see how how, you know, grow the business. But October ended up being a pretty crazy month with everything going on and and also trying to have conversations with sponsors at the same time. So, yeah, the the idea was that, yeah, I'm I'm working on this full time at the moment, and so trying trying to work on the business side of things.
Steve Burge:And, Dan, you got a couple of questions in this area too. Right?
Dan Knauss:Yeah. Yeah. And I I think the yeah. The bit on the business side, it is it so there's one sponsor per issue, generally, and you have, like, a dedicated patron then for each issue. Is is that a a good model that, has worked so far?
Dan Knauss:Or have you experimented with other other things?
Rae Morey:Yeah. It's definitely something. So definitely work in progress. Since the newsletter started, it's it's been I've had a, a major sponsor for the newsletter. Initially, it was MailPoet who was backing it financially.
Rae Morey:Then over time, GoDaddy stepped in for a couple of years in the early years to to sponsor. So I'm very grateful. They really helped helped with the the early foundation building of of the newsletter. So we've so I've continued that model with having one major newsletter sponsor. And in the past few months, since October, I've introduced community sponsors to try and build more revenue and also to fund the news reporting on the the website.
Rae Morey:So there's one newsletter sponsor. I'm aiming for up to 10 community sponsors at the moment. I'm a bit I'm halfway there, right now. So looking for more sponsors if anyone's interested. And on the, on the repository website, I have display advertising as well.
Rae Morey:That's that's the revenue model at the moment. As far as sponsorship goes, I also have, funjournalism.org, account set up. So if any individual support, supporters want to support what I'm doing with independent journalism, they can certainly do that. And I do I do have, several, individual supporters at the moment. So I'm very grateful for for their support.
Rae Morey:Supporters can contribute monthly or annually with a subscription. So so there are there are a couple of those are a couple of different revenue models I'm I'm working with at the moment. And just kind of seeing how that goes, it's it's it's definitely experiment trying to figure out how people want to support journalism in the WordPress space. As far as, you know, a lot a lot of people want it and appreciate it. But, I spent a lot of time on trying to find sponsorship, and I'd rather I'd rather be writing and and not doing that.
Rae Morey:So it can be quite it's it's a challenge trying to to fund this kind of model because, you know, as we've seen in the the wider just general space, journalism is is is really hard to get funding for.
Steve Burge:Have you been kicking around any potential other ideas, such as a a private community or a podcast that people could sponsor or or YouTube videos? Have you kick around. Any other alternatives beyond sponsorship?
Rae Morey:Yeah. I've entertained other ideas, but it's really, at the moment, what I have time for. Because I'd, it's hard to keep up, like, the the level of of quality in the newsletter and in the the newsletter and also the reporting during the week, as well as, you know, looking at other kinds of things, content to create that I don't really have the time to do at the moment. So I'm looking at how I'm I'm also looking into a sponsored editorial at the moment where companies can publish advertorials on the repository website. When I did the repository annual survey last year, feedback from people who who took part in that survey was that, if, if there was advertising in a repository, they would like to see how tos and educational content provided by sponsors.
Rae Morey:And that was the top option ahead of sponsored content written by me or videos or podcasts or, yeah, social media and other kinds of things. So I found that really interesting that people just wanna see straight up content from from companies, but, I I I get it. You know, you you see a lot of reviews on websites. People just wanna see content that shows them or shows them how to do something or answers a question for them, that's high quality. So that's something that I'm exploring at the moment as well.
Rae Morey:But also keeping in mind that I don't wanna dilute the news content that's on the website.
Dan Knauss:It's like that.
Steve Burge:It sounds as if oh, yeah.
Dan Knauss:I don't know if we could see that where it's an interesting model. I was going to ask if, if you've had much interest from potential advertisers, sponsors kind of adjacent to the WordPress space, other web tech or other other areas that aren't traditionally thought of as, all WordPress brands. It's kind of a bubble we're in. So does that does going outside that seem like a possibility with with advertisers?
Rae Morey:Yeah. It's definitely a possibility. Something that I haven't really explored yet because the repository in its current form with the news on the website is still fairly new. It's not hasn't even hit six months yet. So, definitely something I'm open to because I know that it's also an interesting space at the moment because the instability that's happening in in WordPress as far as the, you know, the court case.
Rae Morey:In October, when I was launching all this, I wasn't sure what was gonna happen. I wasn't sure. Should I should I just continue doing this? Is this business model gonna work? Is anyone gonna wanna fund it?
Rae Morey:Because I think initially, a lot of companies, when I approached to talk about sponsorship, were all just holding on to their wallets really tightly because they're waiting to see what was what was gonna happen. And I was emerging as a as a news business that was, you know, people were really hesitant about picking sides, you know. And I'm not trying to pick sides. I'm just trying to report on what's happening. And I think, companies have loosened up a little bit now that they know that, okay, this isn't something that's gonna be resolved overnight.
Rae Morey:We just need to get on with what we're doing. And so I've I've had some I've been able to to lock in sponsorships. But as far as companies that are outside WordPress, I'm not I'm still kind of figuring out where they're at at the moment. Because, you know, in in past years, we've seen companies, when it comes to mind is Omnisend, you know, that's that's come more into this space and is being willing to advertise. But I haven't seen maybe it's just not what I'm seeing, but a lot of other companies, like, willingly trying to come into the WordPress ecosystem the way that they have.
Rae Morey:So, yeah, it's it's definitely something I'm kind of keeping an eye on and and, it'd be interesting to see what companies are willing to step into this space at the moment.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. I was noticing on on, w three text data that some some hosting companies have far more of a WordPress in investment in or a stake that than I realized, and they don't always act act that way. Like DigitalOcean, I knew I assumed a large portion was was WordPress, but it's, I think, really very large. But, they're they're they're going through some changes in their content marketing as well, but, yeah, maybe there's some opportunities like that with some of some of those who haven't really traditionally focused on on them their marketing or their brand as a WordPress company.
Rae Morey:Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve Burge:Another way to look at it is the repository is not a WordPress specific brand name. If if you're successful enough, there could be a repository newsletter for different topics as well.
Rae Morey:Yeah. That's definitely something I've had in mind. As far as covering other I'd really love to move into covering opens you know, other open source communities. At the moment, it's WordPress, but covering other open source would probably require more than just me. So I can't keep an eye on everything.
Rae Morey:So I think, you know, if I'm able to to build a a small team, that's definitely something that I would be looking into. Because there's there's lots going on with Drupal at the moment, and and other communities. And I think I think it's it would be really healthy for the WordPress community to just see what's happening in other spaces, and to get outside the bubble because they're, you know, other communities work in different ways. A lot of people in the WordPress community aren't aware of, of, of how they operate. And I think that would be, just a good thing.
Rae Morey:But for now, it's it's not something that I'm kind of have the capabilities to do.
Steve Burge:It it sounds as if
Rae Morey:as I should say.
Steve Burge:It it certainly sounds as if writing the newsletter and doing sponsorships is at least a four time job in itself right now.
Rae Morey:It is. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Burge:The mat and the automatic story seems to have been both a, a boon for the newsletter, but also perhaps a a challenge as well? Have you had to be very careful? Are these the kinds of stories that you proofread, like, four or five times before you finally hit publish?
Rae Morey:Yeah. Okay. I guess, I I think a lot of the people who did the, you know, the so called Hunger Games for WP Tavern would have understood, what it was like to hit publish on a story that a lot of people are gonna read. I think I've had the I've had the experience in the past of having front page stories in newspapers, so I'm not so and and I I used to I used to report on politics when I lived down in Tasmania. And I'd I'd get, you know, if if there was a particular politician who didn't like a story I'd written, their media adviser would be on the phone yelling at me.
Rae Morey:So I guess I'm I've got a hard skin, a thick skin from from those experiences. They were very formative in my twenties. And and I think because I've been writing and and reporting for a long time, and I use a lot of tools, you know, like Grammarly. I've I've hired a proof reader. And, so I've I've got these kinds of mechanisms in place to to, make sure that I'm not not writing anything that's and just having that that, you know, that the journalism training to know that I'm not writing anything that's gonna be, you know, defaming.
Rae Morey:Those kinds of things, like, you you learn a lot when you when you work as a journalist and when you study journalism to to know that what's what's right to report and what's not. It's really hard it's really hard to put it to words. You just kinda know because you trained. Yeah.
Steve Burge:So this is far from your first time of writing content, breaking stories that are getting in front of powerful people. You've had front page stories. You've had stories that have got the attention of of politicians before. This is far from your first radio?
Rae Morey:Yeah. Yeah. I I it's where I'm from in Tasmania, forestry is a is a a pretty big thing. Tasmania is a home of where the Greens party started in in the world. So, a lot of the the stories I was writing down there regarding politics, had a had a lot to do with forestry.
Rae Morey:It was happening politically at the time. So, yeah, I've had experience dealing with contentious issues. And so I've learned pretty early on as a young journalist, how to navigate, you know, big personalities. And I think at the end of the day, you know, we're all just people. It's it's easy to kinda get a bit kind of starstruck dealing with some some people.
Rae Morey:But I think those kind of formative experiences, just having lunch with politicians or just seeing the very day to day, very human things that they do, kind of stuck with me. And so I think it's important just to to remember that when you're reporting that, yeah, we're all we're all humans.
Steve Burge:So I got a couple of closing questions if I can. What is a pitch for you? What are what are ways in which people can support the repository if they if the if they're listening to this, they can go and sign up for the newsletter. What else they can they do to help you out?
Dan Knauss:Yeah. Especially
Steve Burge:yeah. Like, I I would
Dan Knauss:add to that too. The readers are, like, people who really like what you're doing, but they're maybe not in a position to be advertisers. Yeah. What can what can your fans do to to support the news?
Steve Burge:Well, I guess they can be like Dan and send you send you story tips.
Rae Morey:Yeah. I guess, sign up to the newsletter. I do a little happy dance every time I see somebody sign up. It's it's it's really good to it helps me with approaching sponsors to have a large number of subscribers, obviously. And, people support in all kinds of different ways from subscribing to just reading the stories, sharing sharing links, and sharing newsletter to other people, is is really helpful.
Rae Morey:And, yeah, I I just love feedback from people as well. I can be reached anyone can reach out to me. I'm on if you if you go to the repository website, it's the repository dot email. You can reach me via the contact form or email via the site. I'm also on I'm kind of everywhere.
Rae Morey:WordPress, Slack, Post Status, Slack, Blue Sky, Mastodon, X. Yeah. Tip offs are great. Subscribe. Yeah.
Rae Morey:There's lots of different ways to support what I'm doing.
Steve Burge:Cool. So, basically, sponsor if you can, sign up and get other people to sign up, and send you some tips as well.
Rae Morey:Yep. And also individual supporters if they wanna help fund journalism as well.
Steve Burge:Cool. At the end of every podcast, we ask the publishers that we're talking to if they've seen one publisher lately that is really interesting to them. What's one publisher that has really been putting out good work lately that you've bookmarked or whose newsletter you always read?
Rae Morey:Someone someone I've been following lately that I think is doing some great content is Brian Kortz. I hope I'm saying his name right. I haven't I haven't met him, but I follow him quite a lot. He's doing a fantastic podcast with, webmasters.fm. And just his his articles and and blog content are just, you know, really thoughtful.
Rae Morey:I like the perspective he has on things. He's, you know, he's not trying to be inflammatory or scandalous, but he has a considered way of approaching topics in the WordPress space, and I think he's he's a good one to follow.
Steve Burge:Oh, there. Brian is a, specifically, WordPress writer, I believe. Mhmm.
Dan Knauss:Yeah. And when, did quite a lot, and did some great interviews with Matt Mullenweg and others when he was, he was writing for, MasterWP, but definitely has strong journalist and writing abilities, humanities background, and a great developer. So he always seems to go right to the the heart of what he he thinks is something important others aren't talking about or getting quite right maybe, and, he's really good at that. Always worth reading. I totally agree.
Steve Burge:Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ray. I wish you all the best for the next five years of of the repository.
Rae Morey:And Another five years sounds like a long time. Thank you so much, Steve, and thanks, Dan.
Steve Burge:Well, I I wish you good luck this year, and I hope your growth continues. And, if if you're listening and you haven't signed up yet, head over to the repository dot
Dan Knauss:email.