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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (01:50)
Let's dive into this thing, shall we? I love that you added a comment on this, you're like, this is hard.
because it is hard. It's like a hard question. What three song playlist would you say defines your career?
Araceli (01:58)
It's hard.
I'm trying to figure out if I-
Okay, let me see if I wrote this down. Cause I actually, I was really thinking about it and it's not a song that I listen to, So do you know the song, do you know the show, Poker Face?
Tom Hootman (02:10)
prepared.
I know the show, I've never seen it.
Araceli (02:20)
Okay, so it's this concept of basically the main character dies and then comes back and relives the same day over and over again. Yes, exactly, exactly. So there's a song that plays every time she comes back and it's really like kind of like gearing you up and I need to find that I literally forgot I found the name of the song.
Tom Hootman (02:28)
I love those stories. The Groundhog Day story, right? It's my favorite.
Araceli (02:45)
And I'm like, this is the name of the song. This is the song because I feel like my day is like every day I'm waking up and it's like the news is happening and I have to get it done and I have a deadline and then I have to meet the deadline and then I forget about it. And then the next day it restarts all over again.
Tom Hootman (03:03)
It's interesting the way you framed it, because I have a follow up on that, because it mirrors a bit of a lot of jobs, but also my industry as well. Are you still looking for that song? I'm to keep going.
Araceli (03:13)
Yeah,
because I wrote it down somewhere and I'm like, where?
I don't know it. Okay here we go. So that song, the name of that song is called Gotta Get Up. It's by Harry Nilsson and it was a 1971 song. So way before my time.
Tom Hootman (03:28)
I love Harry Nilsson.
Fantastic song. That's fine.
Araceli (03:30)
That would have been funny. The other one would have been like
to, do the opposite of that. It would have been like, ⁓ Started from the Bottom Now We're Here, that song because, you know, I think in the media industry, it's just like, it's really hard to get in sometimes. And you really, a lot of the times, you know, people say like, you need to know someone. And, and, you know,
Networking is really important. And as someone who came from Northwest Indiana, which is like a small town in Whiting Indiana, 5,000 people, I didn't know anybody in media. So that one would be another one
Tom Hootman (04:04)
That's a good one. what I was gonna say earlier was it carries a theme that's topical with what's in the news or what's happening. there were guests, when Oasis did their reunion tour and Oasis got back together, they did a show in Chicago, they did shows everywhere. Everyone for like a month was picking an Oasis song or two. And then...
Araceli (04:18)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (04:21)
Taylor Swift's album comes out and like three, four, five guests in a row were picking Taylor Swift songs and then it fades away. And it's just funny to me, like whatever is like kind of like churned up in like the cultural moment people like grab onto, cause we all do that. We're like, this is the most amazing song or album ever. And then we listen to it so much, we kill it. And then we move on to something else. Interesting.
Araceli (04:24)
course.
Yes.
I am guilty of that. Very guilty
of that. Like if I like a song, I'm putting it on every time I get in the car, every time I have a moment, and then I get so sick of it.
Tom Hootman (04:52)
Yeah, we ruin it for ourselves, which is fine. We'll come back to it in a year and be like, wow, this really is a great song. You said something about deadlines and daily deadlines, which is a way of living in media. ⁓ One of the things that I started in, you know, I work in performance media marketing and I started on the new biz sales side and.
Araceli (04:59)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (05:11)
I was like, this is a great industry. I'm talking to someone new every day. You like you, you're engaging with different prospects. You either win or you lose. And then you move them over to the team and then you go to the next one. And then after about nine years, I moved on to the other side, to the client services side. And it, I got my first taste of, I call it delivering the mail. You wake up every, you're never, it's never over. You wake up every day and you have to deliver the mail every day. And it's.
Araceli (05:29)
No.
Tom Hootman (05:36)
it's the Sisyphus rolling the boulder uphill. Were you aware of this repetition, this groundhog day when you got into the industry? Or is it something that you're like, this really is, every day I got a deadline? I mean, does it loom or do you just get used to it?
Araceli (05:52)
You definitely get used to it. so it's a double edged sword for me because one thing that I love so much about working in news is that you're not doing the same thing every day, right? Like you're not, it's not like you're bored of it because it's a new topic potentially, or like you could be thinking, today I'm going to work on this police thing, but then some breaking news happens and then you have to shift. So for me, it's like, that's what intrigued me. I was like, I,
self-diagnosed ADHD, so I'm like, can't do the same thing over and over and over again. But then to find out that it's different every day because it's a different topic, but your routine is actually pretty similar. You get your assignment, you look for your sources, you do reporting, you call a thousand people, you write, you edit, you file, you go home. And that's every day. So it's interesting.
Tom Hootman (06:45)
What time is your deadline? Do you have like the same deadline every day? Like you got to file by 10 o'clock or whatever?
Araceli (06:50)
Yeah, so if I'm
filing a story for today, my deadline would be three o'clock. And if I'm filing the story for the next day, it kind of depends on when your editor has to leave for the day so that they can edit you before they leave. So it depends. Like if it's a very newsy has to go out today story, it's three o'clock.
Tom Hootman (07:12)
Have you missed the deadline?
Araceli (07:13)
Thankfully, no, I would die. feel like, you know, it's one of those things where people who are maybe, you know, type A or very like, this is on my to do list, I have to do it. Like I, it would be like not turning in your homework. And I was one of those kids that would turn in their homework, you know, like if you didn't turn in an assignment, I would be like, no, I can't believe I didn't do it, I forgot. What really works is like,
To be a journalist, to be like a daily assignment kind of journalist, you really have to be good at workarounds and finding solutions to problems that you didn't anticipate. Like if someone's not calling you back and if you can't get somebody to go on the record about a story that you're doing, you have to figure it out. Like you can't just say, well, sorry, I tried. Like you have to really, really.
Do something, work it around, find someone who will talk or change the topic a little bit so that you have something to present. So yeah, it's tough.
Tom Hootman (08:09)
And there's similarities in that you own it, right? Like it's up to you. Like I have one of my favorite sayings is like the customer's not always right, but they're allowed to be wrong. Like it happens sometimes the client's wrong and it's like, just have to power through. It's okay that they're wrong. I used to, I have this thing where I have to like, I have this justice thing where I have to be right. And I always, like no matter what, and it has led me down some dark paths with clients where I just, in my head I'm like, don't say it.
Araceli (08:13)
Yeah.
Right.
You
Tom Hootman (08:37)
don't say, I just, couldn't resist. And I've learned, I just this week we had a client light us up and were they half right? Yeah. Is it shared? Yes. Also they have the same issues. I was like, don't do it, don't do it, Tom, don't do it. And I was like, I shut up. And then the downside of that is when I shut up, I'm like, the rest of the week I'm like, I should have said something. It's like, no, no, you shouldn't have, it's okay. ⁓
Araceli (08:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
⁓
I think we share
some of that because I think a lot of journalists, there is that injustice part of it where you like want to make sure that everything that you're saying is accurate and you have, you know, the whole side, all the sides of the story. Like for, for whenever you have that thought next time, it'd be like, you know, I'm going to be a true journalist here and say the other side of the story, you know, like make you feel better.
Tom Hootman (09:25)
That's good. I like that perspective. It gives you, it's a high EQ perspective because what's, I had a great coach who was said like, like it's about stepping out of yourself in the moment and seeing yourself as a third party, a third person of like, you have to realize I'm okay. I'm in that moment emotionally where I have to be right or I have to pursue this angle. And it's about stepping outside of that and seeing it from a different perspective and taking a different perspective, which is key. ⁓
Araceli (09:27)
Yeah.
I like that.
Tom Hootman (09:52)
You mentioned something and this has been near and dear to my heart. I want to back up for a second about like breaking into this industry, growing up in Northwest Indiana and Whiting Indiana, right? And I know Whiting Indiana was you're from the region. I'm from South Bend, which is not the region. Yeah, you can't say the region in South Bend because people yell at you and you're like, why are we? Why are we gatekeeping the region? You and I met at the career day for the Indiana University Media School.
Araceli (09:58)
Mm-hmm.
Widing Indiana.
Mm-hmm. From the region. Yeah.
and be like, no.
Tom Hootman (10:19)
And I routinely talk to students, and we have a new intern who I met that day who's phenomenal. And for every intern we hire, every new hire that comes straight out of school, there's probably goodness 10 that we just don't have space for that aren't the right fit. It's really tough out there right now. like, mean,
Araceli (10:33)
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (10:37)
moments of advice or moments of thoughts of how do you break into this industry? Because you mentioned like the networking thing, like, yeah, that's an easy, it feels like an easy answer, but like, how does someone who's 22 about to embark and wants to follow the career path you're on, how does someone go about it? Right? Like, how do you manufacture that serendipity?
Araceli (10:44)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think it's really tough. And I think it was tough when I graduated college. It was hard to find a job because you look at your resume and you think, well, I've done all of the things that, you know, my career advisor told me to do, get internships and work in student media. And I did all those things. Why aren't people calling me and asking like, hey, like I, we'd be happy to have you at our newsroom. And it's really just that it's so competitive. And
It's networking is important, but I think that one of the one of the great things now in in the media world now is that you kind of don't need a newsroom to put news out. And I and I wish I would have like realized that sooner when I was out of college, like we I had I had Facebook and Instagram and whatever other app was popular at the moment. Like I could have just done it that way instead of, you know.
desperately ⁓ looked and sometimes got denial letters and sometimes didn't get any response at all. But I do think that what helped me was that I quickly got an internship. I did a little bit of networking during the internships, worked in student media, and so I had a lot of sample work that I could show. And it just happened to be one of those things where I was applying everywhere.
And when I finally applied at Fort Wayne, at the NPR station in Fort Wayne, they needed someone. I desperately needed a job and it just kind of, it was perfect and it worked. But a lot of the times people go a long time without getting that first job and I think it's tough.
Tom Hootman (12:30)
Yeah. Do you think there's too much of there's too much pressure to get a good paying job and a job versus just find a job and start building that portfolio?
Araceli (12:39)
Yeah, and it's really hard to give advice in that sense because you never know what people's backgrounds are. I will say, when I was in school, I was in journalism school, a lot of my peers were going into print journalism because at the time IU was a very traditional journalism school that was very print focused. And we kept hearing things like the journalism industry is dying, the newspaper industry is dying.
⁓ Make sure you have a backup. Make sure you understand that you're going to get laid off of your job. And at the same time, we were hearing things from some professors, not all, that were like, well, you're going to get paid nothing. You're going to be in some small town that you're going to probably be alone away from friends and family. And you're just going to have to do that and work your way up. That's the way that everybody does it. And so being set up for that, I think, is just kind of
Looking back, I'm like, okay, I just bought into it and I like believed that. And I wish that I would have pushed back a little bit. I'm like, does it have to be that way? You know, like, do we have to get paid nothing to do the career that we've worked so hard for to try and get? I would have probably tried to negotiate salaries more if I would have not just been so grateful to get a job. So it's tough. It's tough. then to tell students, what do you tell students in those situations? Right. It's like, you have to know what you're worth.
Make sure you do the right decision that's best for you. Like if you know you're gonna be miserable, if you're gonna be really far away from friends and family, is that the best thing for you? Or is it finding something local? You know, it's tough for everyone.
Tom Hootman (14:13)
That's really good advice. think that it's like knowing your worth knowing Like it's what fills your cup and whether what fills your cup ends up paying now versus paying later like do do what fills your cup because you I think there's an element of like and I was gonna ask you as well if you've you've been around Northwest, Indiana, Chicago the Midwest I think Fort Wayne had to feel like Siberia sometimes because because you're I
Araceli (14:19)
Yes.
Yeah.
yeah.
Tom Hootman (14:38)
I'm from South Bend and I've been to Fort Wayne like three times. It felt far away, let alone for someone who's in, like let's say the same region we're in now, the same school, the same area and their first job is in Plano, Texas, right? Like a completely different world. have to know that you're running to it versus just taking a job to try to get things. Like there's a balance there.
Araceli (14:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Yeah, and I knew I knew people who took those jobs that were in the honestly middle of nowhere just kind of you know far away from Indiana or wherever they were from and and I I think it's great if people are you know that there's people that just have personalities that are you know, they're gonna do great wherever they go and I think that's great and some people they're not it's it's not easy It's really hard to make new friends. It's hard to find a new community
So it really kind of just depends. And the most important thing is like your mental health. And if you're not okay, then how are you going to do a good job working? know, so things that you have to kind of balance.
Tom Hootman (15:37)
in
It's considerations to make, right? And I think that the key thing I've been telling people is that like build the portfolio. And you mentioned community radio and radio here in Bloomington. I have to tell you this really quick. My best friend listens to every episode. He is a podcast junkie. And last night, right before bed, he was texting me about an earlier episode and I had mentioned your name and he was like, WFHB. And like he listened to you on WFHB and he was super excited. Yeah.
Araceli (15:50)
Yeah. Okay.
Okay.
Yeah!
Oh wow.
Tom Hootman (16:08)
So like, but that's part of your portfolio. It's fantastic.
Araceli (16:08)
Love WFHB. Yes, and I always make sure. I always make sure like to put all of that in in like my bios and when I tell people where where I started like WFHB gave me so much experience in Bloomington. They were so welcoming to to people who like wanted to learn about radio and one of the really cool things that I that I always tell students is you know you go to a big news station.
And they don't let you touch anything. They don't let you touch cameras. They don't let you touch equipment. They don't let you touch anything in master control. so it's like really hard to learn how the back, the different side of the industry works. At WFHB, I learned so much about audio engineering and about the equipment and what was needed and what sounded great. And I would have never had that experience if I went to another, you know, just a commercial radio station, say.
Tom Hootman (17:02)
That's fascinating because it's almost like it's out of necessity, right? Because they need you to know this because it's probably a small team. It's nimble and there's no process and it's chaos and you just need to know how to set something up, right? But it's valuable experience that you kind of have in your back pocket for the rest of your career, right?
Araceli (17:15)
Totally.
Yeah, loved it. Loved it there.
Tom Hootman (17:23)
⁓ along those lines you mentioned, mentioned, talked a lot about already about how it's like, what life is like the daily life. What's a part of the journalism industry? I love the asking like, what's the question you always get the assumption people make about your career. Like, my God, it's glamorous. The glamorous thing that people think about your career that outsiders never see, but that would completely change how they think about the work.
Araceli (17:48)
Hmm, yeah. I think a lot of the times it's maybe that people don't realize that journalists are just waiting to hear back from sources. Like you think that, you you call someone and they answer and they give you a quote or a soundbite and then you go on about your day. And a lot of the times it's you know, everyone is busy. There's
a lot of red tape depending on what story you're doing. I like to do a lot of health stories. So trying to get a hospital to respond to a media request isn't always the easiest thing. Obviously, politics, if you're covering local politics, you have to have a lot of relationships because it's not like just because you're a journalist and you ask the governor something, it's not like they're just going to respond, you have to really build those relationships.
I think what people don't realize is that a lot of the times we're working on stories and we're doing our own reporting and our own digging, but we are waiting for people to just call us back and just answer our questions. And that is so infuriating sometimes as someone who wants to get things done quickly. You're just sitting there waiting to see if they can call you back. And then if they don't call you back, you call them again. Hey, I'm still waiting.
Tom Hootman (18:55)
I, it's every industry, right? A lot of it, it's like that you don't know how much time we spend waiting, trying not to be a pest. And for me, it's like, if we pitch and they say they're the decisions on Friday, right? Like December 10th and it's the 16th and I've nudged once and I can see them posting stuff on LinkedIn or on Twitter. And I'm like, come on, respond, give me something to work with here. It's just infuriating.
Araceli (19:00)
waiting.
Yes!
Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (19:24)
Um, I've got to ask, it's, there's a, there's a clause if you have a podcast, you have to ask about AI, um, or they take away your podcast license these days. Um, and it's, but it is fascinating because I think about it. Um, everyone uses AI differently. Some people don't use AI at all. Um, contingent on your career. We use it a lot in our, in our industry in marketing, people think it's
Araceli (19:33)
Course.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (19:50)
it's going to steal all our jobs and it's all we do is hang out in GPT and LLMs. How are journalists actually using AI day to day? Like how does it help you or how do you see it help other people? How is it changing the practice and how does it look different?
Araceli (19:55)
Hehehehe
Yeah.
So this is, it's interesting. So I went ⁓ and I did a years-long fellowship. So it's the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship and I did it at Stanford. And when I got there, yeah, it was so jarring to just kind of, you people talk about, you know, Silicon Valley and how everyone's so techie there. Every conversation I had with anyone was about AI. I was like, whoa, people here are just,
completely overtaken by it. talk about it. They are discussing it. And so I'm coming in from a journalism perspective, trying to figure out how it could help journalists, really. And what I realized when I came back after six months of the fellowship and I came back to Chicago and I was visiting with friends, nobody here was talking about it like that. And it wasn't even like people were like, wait, what are you doing? What are you looking into? yeah, that AI stuff. Okay, yeah.
What I think that the journalism industry is still trying to figure out is how to implement the use of AI in their workflows. But also the first step that I always tell people is like newsrooms have to have an AI policy. And to create that AI policy, you really have to talk about your own station, your own workflow and how to incorporate it. Understanding that journalists
Every day we encounter something like anonymous sources, people that don't want to be on the record, data that we're potentially trying to gather that is sensitive data. so immediately when people start talking about an AI policy in the newsroom, immediately there's just so many roadblocks that you have to think about. And so then I think it gets a little bit complicated. And so then the easy answer is like, let's just not use it.
Like, let's not use it. seems like there's too much risk. And I do find that a lot of people are like, well, we can't create it. We can't use AI to create content. So like to write anything. Maybe we can use it for data cleaning or to help us do some of those tasks that are time consuming. But in the end, ⁓ it's not going to affect any of our reporting and it's not going to affect any of our writing. So that's how I kind of feel that people are using it. At the same time, are there newsrooms that are very
Tom Hootman (22:08)
you
Araceli (22:19)
you know, small and are potentially using AI a lot more than others because they don't have the resources, I could see that happening too. But as a consumer, I think you would notice something that's written by AI or something that just does not have that human touch or that reporting that is needed that only a human reporter could do. And then is it even successful? I think that people are going to realize that it's not going to be.
Tom Hootman (22:44)
Yeah, it's still miles off in terms of the content. And there are people out there that just have, I mean, everyone does this. Like I like it as a, as it gives me a jogging start. I hate staring at a blank canvas. So if I feed AI, updates from the week and several emails and projects and say, give me five LinkedIn topics, it will give me five topics and it'll go ahead and write me five posts that are God awful. And, but what awful.
Araceli (22:57)
Hmm.
Yeah. Right? They're boring.
Tom Hootman (23:12)
They're boring, they're horrible. because
the company is Mixtape Digital, it does this thing where it tries to be like really cringy, hip, like, here's the remix kids. And I'm like, no, do not even say that to me again. it's so cringe. But I like it because I think, hey, that's a decent idea that I'm going to take the nugget of and actually go write my own thing. And then I'll go back to you and ask you to tighten up my language because I can be overly verbose, too many ellipses.
Araceli (23:25)
AI is always cringe.
Yes.
Tom Hootman (23:41)
too many things in too many all caps and too many things in parentheses, because I type like I talk, right? ⁓ I interviewed our co-panelist, Lisa Levey about this. We did a podcast. She's amazing. ⁓ Hi, Lisa. She's phenomenal. And she mentioned, I think she even mentioned it when we spoke about how that used to be a job, like someone going through like,
Araceli (23:47)
Mm-hmm.
Love, ⁓
Listen to the episode, it was great. It was great.
Tom Hootman (24:08)
production transcripts to find a scene. And that's a key piece of where AI has helped her is that like it, can search within a transcript immediately and find the clip you need. Same for us, AI note takers, which I'm guessing is something you probably, because of the data integrity piece is not something you can lean on or use as much in your industry, but like AI note takers for us for discovery calls and client calls and pitches creates a transcript
Araceli (24:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So helpful.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (24:37)
records the call and I can go back and be like, what did they say about this, this campaign again? Because I, I'm so used to years and years and years of legal pads with scratches on them where I'm trying to read what I wrote and I doesn't make any sense. Is it something that you can't use at all for like transcripts for interviews or anything like that? Or is it something you can use in your industry?
Araceli (24:42)
Yeah.
Yeah,
it depends on the on the subject and the source. so, you know, that is that is an interesting point. Like what Lisa is talking about. Transcription is so helpful to me in my everyday job because I am recording audio. And so what we used to do is obviously play the audio and then transcribe what was said. And I wouldn't do the whole thing. I would just like do the sound bites that I wanted to use. But then that meant that, you know, that audio stood in my in my computer and I
If I had to search something, it would be like, well, it's gone. It's just in a folder somewhere, where now it's a lot easier. But I wouldn't use it for a very sensitive topic, or if someone wanted to remain anonymous, or if someone was going to provide some detail that was going to be off the record, or data that was going to be off the record. So it
I will use it for press conferences or things like that. And it just makes it so much easier to go back and search a word. Like, when did they said this? And then it'll come up and that has been amazing. And one of the things that I always talk about with journalists in newsrooms is this idea of being transparent about the use of AI and disclosures.
And there's a lot of conversation. have a lot of conversations with people that are like, well, if I used a transcription service, an AI transcription service, do I need to cite that as, you know, in a disclosure saying I used AI for this, you know? And a lot of people think that, no, like it's just a tool. We use tools all the time. No. And then other people are on the boat of, yes, we should be used, you know, we should be telling our audience how we're using these AI tools in our reporting.
because we want to be transparent. those conversations are definitely happening.
Tom Hootman (26:45)
Yeah, you and I, the discourse, it's a it's a weird time in our world. And it's it's the first thing I think of when disclosures is that when you do disclose that, or if you do disclose that the way that discourse is so acidic today that like, immediately think of people online, if you disclose that we used AI tools for this immediately go, they don't understand. And they go, AI wrote this AI wrote this, this is fake news, whatever, right? Like,
Araceli (26:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yep. Yes.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (27:10)
It's a
fine line of journalistic integrity, also leveraging the tools and technology that are out there to be able to deliver news faster and more accurately than previous.
Araceli (27:23)
Yeah, because the I think the people who don't understand the tools, there's just like an assumption, you know, and then there's a lot of rhetoric that like AI is bad and we can't trust AI. so yeah, it's definitely I think people are having those and then is it going to take away from the story?
Tom Hootman (27:39)
The human element, the story, right? And because you talked earlier, human interest stories, you're huge on community stories. You can't fake that. That's not something AI can replicate and may never be able to replicate accurately, which is think part of, I think what's great about what you do. And the stories you're drawn to are almost...
Araceli (27:41)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (28:05)
I don't want to say AI, AI resistant, but they are I think people can tell fairly quickly that the passion and creative creativity and the thoughtfulness that you put into those stories versus something that's like a press release, right? Some of these like some, someone does like some of the times people treat those stories like a press release and you're like, this doesn't have any feeling to it. There's no authenticity.
Araceli (28:19)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and it'll
be boring. It'll be boring to people. It won't be interesting.
Tom Hootman (28:29)
And there's a place
for that, right? Like sometimes I do open an article and I don't have time and I'm like, I love the AI bullets at the top of like, what are the four takeaways of what's happening? Cause I have three minutes till a meeting and there's some new breaking news. Great. I'll come back to this later. But other times I really want to, I really want to immerse myself in the story versus just reading facts.
Araceli (28:40)
Yep.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (28:49)
⁓ through your career, and this is another one that's kind of, I'm thinking about interviewing. have two new hires who are, ⁓ who graduated from IU (Go Hoosiers!) in May. And I think I'm to interview them together as like a, like the three of us to talk about trying to break into like media today and like what it's like and what they're seeing from friends. so this is in that theme. Like I'd love to know what is a belief that
Araceli (28:58)
Cool. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (29:15)
You held earlier in your career about success or performance or what you thought success would look like that you kind of think is bullshit now that you're like, what was I thinking?
Araceli (29:23)
⁓
Yeah, yeah, I think for some people it might be, you when you're a student you, you know, you're like, okay, I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna get experience and internships, I'm gonna get good grades, and then I'm gonna go, I think it was so prescriptive, you know, people were like, get a small job somewhere, a small market, and then move your way up and get experience that way, and
It was all very much like a timeline. And I think what I used to think is that there was a timeline where by this age, I want to be able to say that I did this and right. And by this age, I want to be an anchor. And by this age, like I should have, I should be at a top market. And that is wrong. think that that ⁓ hinders a lot of, you know, creativity and it's just not what people should should believe. Like everyone
also comparing yourself to others, right? So, well, that person already made it there, like I'm still here. That is just not going to lead you anywhere. I think that's going to make you happy. And what I would, what I think now is that everyone is in their own timeline. You know, experiences, every opportunity and job and experience you get, it's going to add to your toolbox and your skill set and
Give it time and don't compare yourselves to others timeline. Everybody's on their own timeline. Everybody has their own priorities. And so I feel like that's something that I would tell students. It's like, just give it time. You know, I think me, especially when I was out of college, I'm like running, like I wanted a sprint, right? Like you feel like you don't have enough time to do all of the things that you want to do. But luckily, luckily I have had time. And even if it doesn't look the way that you wrote it down and you're
vision board or whatever, like it'll it'll happen.
Tom Hootman (31:12)
Comparison is the thief of joy as they say and it's true and it's very much advice that it's like I love giving advice that it's like I none of us follow like we all battle that so it's like I none of us have it figured out but like you should know like everyone's on their own timeline and then later today I'll be on LinkedIn looking at another agency I'll be like how are they that many look at how many employees how do they do that and then you're like stop it stop that
Araceli (31:15)
Exactly!
Yes.
How did they do that? Yeah, I want that award.
Tom Hootman (31:38)
Right, exactly.
And it's like you can't chase, you just have to like get into your own little cocoon and do your thing every day. After all this time in the industry now, what's what still energizes you about the work? I mean, it's I'm sure you get asked a lot. it's tenuous out there. It's a it's a it's a strange, strange environment. It's easy to get down like what?
after everything that's gone on and everything that continues to go on, I mean, it's morning, who knows what's gonna happen this afternoon, what still energizes you about the work?
Araceli (32:03)
Right.
It is tough. sometimes when people tell me sometimes, like, I don't read the news because it's so sad. And it's just bad news everywhere. sometimes when you're reporting, it does feel like that. It's just horrible thing after horrible thing after horrible thing.
and people are suffering and people are having a hard time, whether it's like economical, mental health, like people are losing their jobs and everything's more expensive, like things can seem very bad and overwhelming. And I think what keeps me going is that at the same time, people are looking for information, they're looking for something that they can read and understand and, you know, that can help them build
on their community and help them be better people to understand what's happening. And so what keeps me going is just hopefully the stories that I'm putting out there are meeting the people that need them the most. And so whether it's like, you know, like these are the things that you need to know today, helping people just get that information. I do feel that a lot of people maybe are not reading as much. You know, I worry constantly. Like this is, I'm going to be honest here. This is
this is something that I worry about. I worry that people are not reading not only the news, but they're not reading books that, that our literacy rate is, is not improving in this country, that our critical thinking is not improving in this country. And so I, I lay, I lay asleep waiting or I lay in bed, like very worried about all of that. And so I get up in the morning and I think like, what can I do today to make sure that someone reads my story? It's easy to understand.
It gets to the person that needs it the most and hopefully it'll make their life better. So that's what keeps me going.
Tom Hootman (33:45)
I love that. Keep fighting the good fight, right? And you're absolutely, think we're all scared of attention spans and 30 second media clips and hyperbole and AI's impact on hyperbole and AI generated videos and images that are completely fake, that are viral before the truth comes out. Things of that nature. it just, you're right, no one reads books. It's kind of scary. ⁓
Araceli (34:09)
scary.
You know, and one thing that I, the good thing, the way I view things is I do find that I'm gravitated more towards local stories, stories that like, the community is going to be interested in that they can't get anywhere else, right? They're like, a big national news organization is not going to be reporting on this thing that I'm interested in. But the other thing is, I do think we need to meet people where they are. And so
⁓ One of the cool things that I've been doing currently at the station is just doing more vertical video more videos on social media on Tik Tok and I put myself in someone's shoes like I also want to go home and just kind of not think about anything as I'm scrolling as I'm just like doom scrolling on my phone But I think about like if someone were to come up on this video that I'm about to do What's the one thing that they need to know?
and I can deliver the news in a way that's like very like quick and here this this thing is happening in your area and then they could swipe and be like okay cool I didn't know that now I know and that also is kind of motivating me to like find a way where maybe they're not going to a website to look at an article but maybe they'll watch a video about it so we have to try new things we have to evolve
Tom Hootman (35:21)
There's something great about that and I'll give you, I want to give you huge props here because, I want you to consider this because I do this because I have hyper-focus, right? I'm a bit neurodivergent and I will find a topic and I'll hear a snippet about it and then I'll shift over. Someone will see that story and hop out of TikTok and go to Wikipedia and from Wikipedia, they click a link and then they're on a news source and then they're doing a deep dive and then they, right.
Araceli (35:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Tom Hootman (35:49)
And an hour later, they've learned everything about the topic that you and your story in 32 seconds helped kind of like, like shake them out of that doom scrolling, like auto-generated algorithmic feed. and actually, I we see it, say people don't read books. If you can get someone to do a deep dive on a topic that they never knew anything about or didn't understand the gravity of that's amazing. And I think that you have to take into account that you're, you're, you're helping. That's a win. It's a big win. ⁓
Araceli (36:00)
Yeah.
That's a win.
Tom Hootman (36:17)
Last question, off the cuff question. Speaking of big wins, I think I want to start asking the same question at the end of every episode. I don't know if this is the question. You're my first run at this one. ⁓
Araceli (36:27)
Okay.
Tom Hootman (36:27)
Tell me about your biggest win or your best day in your business.
Araceli (36:30)
gonna be hard.
Tom Hootman (36:31)
And it's off the cuff, right? So it's like, what is the big one?
Araceli (36:33)
Yeah.
I think just a win is being able to just find those stories that make people feel good, that should be told that maybe we don't think about as important. I had the chance to work with a print reporter.
because the Sun Times and WBECA have joined forces. And we went out and we did a deep dive on this album. It was like a 70s record album that was created by Chicago Public Schools. And so we, know, the reporter I worked with, Lauren Fitzpatrick, she was like, how did these CPS kids record ⁓ a record? Like that, you know, that's strange.
We did a deep dive. found these amazing stories of them, about their choir director, about how they were so good. They were in acapella choir. They got to go to Germany. They were these students from Chicago public schools that got to travel around the country, around the world performing. And nobody knew that story. And a big win is that we were able to tell that story. it's...
And it was like really well received because people were like, I didn't know this. And that's some part of history that maybe would have never been told. And now it is. So that's a big win
Tom Hootman (37:55)
That's wonderful. I love that. There's a sub Reddit called found media. I think that's they find archived media like that or like a television show or something that triggers us nostalgia that we watched or we were exposed to when we were kids and they find a recording of it and they digitize it and throw it up and like, hey, do you remember this? It's very much like that. I love that.
Araceli (38:16)
I love that. Yeah.
Yeah. And it was so, it was just one of those things that just happens. Like she was thrift shopping and she saw the record for like $5 or something. And she's like, what? And it went from there and it was great. I got to do, I got to record the audio and she did the print story and it was awesome. It was awesome.
Tom Hootman (38:37)
You don't have to answer this question, but anyone off the top of your head? Is there one person you you got to interview you came home at night and you're like, I can't believe I just interviewed that person. This is crazy. I can't believe this.
Araceli (38:48)
You know what's so funny Tom? Like sometimes I will go back and I'll read stories that I wrote that I'm like, I interviewed that person? I don't remember. Especially, I'll tell you, like especially after the pandemic, I'm like, time is so strange. I don't understand what time is, if it was five years ago, if it was two, you know, like it's just like, it's so strange. I forget.
Like who I've interviewed. I really do. It's weird. I don't know.
Tom Hootman (39:16)
There's a beauty in that, in
that you're wiping the slate clean every day. See, you've got to put a positive spin on it. Like you don't carry that weight of those interviews. It's onto the next. You're focused on your timeline, my friend, see? Comparison's the thief of joy. You're not comparing yourself to yourself, I guess.
Araceli (39:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, gosh, yeah, and.
I guess. And it really is. mean, I like to treat everyone just every every source is a source. So like, yeah, sometimes it's the mayor of a city or the governor. But then other times it's, you know, I've been interviewing a lot of people that are just like, know, for example, that are being affected by immigration operations. And it's like, their stories are just as important. And a source is a source. So like, yeah, sometimes I forget when you're in a room full of people that are
quote unquote noteworthy and I'm like, I'm just here to do my job and I get to go and I need it. I need the story now before I so I can go home.
Tom Hootman (40:09)
Yeah, because it's 3 p.m. You got a deadline. Araceli, thank you so much for making time. I really appreciate it. I love this conversation. And it was wonderful to meet you at Career Day at the media school. We'd be remiss if we didn't say Go Hoosiers. Big game Monday. ⁓
Araceli (40:11)
Like I gotta go.
Go Hoosiers! gosh.
I will say I'm visualizing a win. I'm visualizing being on campus and just running down the streets and celebrating because we have to celebrate the wins.
Tom Hootman (40:40)
You know that you have to celebrate the wins. It's the positives, right? Find the silver linings and the good things. And you know that it's gotten to critical mass when my best one of my best friends oldest friend who went to Purdue who hates IU is coming down Monday to watch this game with us because he's that he's like, I'm officially excited. It has it has blurred the borders of like Purdue fans are saying like, OK, this is a pretty great story at this point.
Araceli (40:58)
That's right.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
It's a beautiful story and it's, mean, if you're in Indiana, you got, you have to support Indiana. I mean, come on.
Tom Hootman (41:14)
have to. You have to. Thank you so much for your time. All right. Take care.
Araceli (41:18)
Thank you, Tom.
Anytime. Call me back.
Tom Hootman (41:20)
I appreciate you.