Transcript Season 3, Episode 6
Mal Meyer
Terri Trespicio:
What does it mean to make it big? Well, it depends on who you ask and we did. Welcome to Making It Big In 30 Minutes, a podcast for, by, and about the Emerson community. You're about to meet an Emersonian, who's making it, making a living, making a difference and sometimes making it up as they go. I'm your host and alum Terri Trespicio. And if you like what you hear, subscribe and share with your friends and meet me and other Emersonians over on Emerge, the only digital platform exclusive to the Emerson community, just go to emerge.emerson.edu for more. All right, let's get started.
Mal Meyer went on a tour of Emerson at the tail end of an exhausting visit to Boston area schools. None of which felt like a fit, but Emerson did this place is cool. He thought, and then on the campus tour, he met a guy who graduated from Emerson 20 years ago. And that guy was there simply because the school had had such a profound impact on him. And that was it. Mal was all in what he really loved was that the, a thing he wanted to learn how to do the news would start on day one of class. And that mattered.
Mal got his start as a journalist at Lakeland news in Bemidji, Minnesota. Today Mal is a reporter and multimedia journalist for WGME WPFO in Portland, Maine, and previously served as the investigation team lead, weekend anchor and multimedia journalist for WKBT in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Being a reporter is in Mal's blood, and while approaching strangers doesn't really ever get easier it's part of what's required in the ruthless search for the truth. I give you Mal Meyer on Making It As a Reporter. Mal Meyer, welcome.
Mal Meyer:
Hi.
Terri Trespicio:
So happy to see you and talk to you.
Mal Meyer:
Likewise.
Terri Trespicio:
Now tell me this, writing and reporting all the skills that a journalist requires in their toolbox, they can be taught and learned. But in my mind, people who are drawn to investigative journalism, they have it in their blood. I mean, usually people aren't like, should I be an investigative journalist or graphic designer? Tell me about that for you.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. So I really got into it I think after college. This is not what I-
Terri Trespicio:
Really?
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. It's not what I wanted to necessarily do in college. I just wanted to be a reporter, I wanted to tell the news. But I actually went to an investigative reporters and editors conference after a fellow Emersonian posted that she was going to go to it. And at the time I was doing PR in marketing, it was a turn of events, but that's something separate completely. And so, I was like I've been wanting to get back in, maybe this is my shot. Maybe I can make some good connections. And I went and my mind was just blown. Absolutely just really excited about journalism again. So I started putting together reel and I ended up applying to jobs and I ended up landing my first journalism job.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my God.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. But that really then sparked off this huge interest that I had in investigative reporting.
Terri Trespicio:
But can we go back to that the moment in your mind? Because the moment someone's mind is blown I want to hang there for a second.
Mal Meyer:
Right.
Terri Trespicio:
Do you remember what it was? Was it the energy of the place? Was it the people you met? Was it the idea or seeing yourself doing something like that? What was it?
Mal Meyer:
I think it was a culmination of all of that. Seeing people really passionate about digging deeper beyond just the day turns, which is so much of our job when you're in broadcast.
Terri Trespicio:
What do you mean?
Mal Meyer:
It's just getting through the story and moving on to the next thing. Sometimes you hear little murmurs and rumors, and then you say what's the truth in all that. And sometimes there is, there's much, much more of that. And I want to find that. And that's what I really enjoyed about the investigative side is not just letting it hang there and moving on. You're still searching deeper for answers for people.
Terri Trespicio:
Ah, so yes. And that's what I think what I mean, when I say in their blood. This kind of persistent or unceasing curiosity.
Mal Meyer:
Yes.
Terri Trespicio:
What kind of gets you the most excited? Is it about being able to explore something as you're learning it or ripping off the... Pulling away the curtain and revealing?
Mal Meyer:
I think more to me is like I get excited. That I'm the first person to know something. And then I get really excited about how am I going to tell other people this really exciting thing that I found. Something that other people are not able to find. I know my competitors aren't able to get what I got and that keeps me really going. And then telling the people about it, that's my favorite part.
Terri Trespicio:
So I wonder if someone like you is really good at keeping secrets are really bad at keeping secrets.
Mal Meyer:
Both. I get really excited when I know I've got a big investigation coming up because I just want to tell people, but then I also play the cards really close to my chest because I don't want anybody else looking into what I've been looking into. I don't want anybody else knowing about it. So usually on a day turn, a story that I have for the day, I... If I'm the only person on the scene or something like that, I get really close to airtime before I start tweeting it out. Because I don't want anybody else seeing my tweet and saying, "Hey, we got to go to Portland. We got to go to X, Y, and Z, because we need to start our newscast with whatever they've got.". I don't want anybody else to have that. So.
Terri Trespicio:
Yes, you don't want to tip off the competition.
Mal Meyer:
I know.
Terri Trespicio:
And so it's very suspenseful. I mean, the way you frame it has everything that you can imagine in exciting career. It has suspense, mystery, reveals, inside knowledge. I mean-
Mal Meyer:
It's all of that.
Terri Trespicio:
How did you survive PR is the question?
Mal Meyer:
Barely. I did it for one [crosstalk 00:06:25]-
Terri Trespicio:
PR is the opposite, right? PR is trying to manage the secrets from coming out.
Mal Meyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terri Trespicio:
Well, wait, tell me about that. Can we go back to that though? Because I want to be like, how were you in PR marketing? How are you doing that?
Mal Meyer:
So I graduated Emerson in the spring of 2015, and I graduated with a degree in journalism. I wanted to do that, but my girlfriend at the time she got a job offer in San Francisco. A lot of people that I knew from Emerson, a lot of my close friends were leaving to go to LA, and here there and everywhere. And I didn't want to be the last person stuck behind in Boston. So I was like, let's shake things up. I'm just getting out of college. I still have a lot of time ahead of me. If I'm going to do something fun, it's going to be now. Before other priorities take hold. So I got through another Emersonian a connection with a PR in marketing company. And I was able to work remote in San Francisco and it was great, but I hated working from home.
I hated it. I had no self control. I just missed all office culture too. And at first it was really great, but I was also working two other jobs at the time to keep afloat. I was a dog walker, I also worked at Starbucks-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my god.
Mal Meyer:
...To be able to just pay rent. It was terrible. So I had a lot of fun, but as time went on, I knew it was very clearly not sustainable. But also just that I really, really missed journalism. And so when I saw the fellow Emersonian post about this conference, I said, I just got my tax return. I am going to put my entire tax return on flying to this conference, my Airbnb, and all of that stuff. And I am so glad I did, because that was the turning point.
Terri Trespicio:
It changed your life.
Mal Meyer:
Yes.
Terri Trespicio:
You might have gone back to journalism, of course. And you might have found another path, but this is really something to say about investing in, not just education, but connection. Because conferences are popular for that reason. They give us a place where ideas are being shared around like-minded people. It's exciting to [inaudible 00:08:55] those things. But for you, it drew... It gave you a door back to what you really loved.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah.
Terri Trespicio:
And so you got excited, you created. You really were saying, you got your first job. Now, the first time you walk into your job, as now you're a journalist. That's a big day, just mentally wrapping. You're like, am I pretending to be a journalist today? And then eventually I'll become a real one. What was that like?
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. Sometimes I still feel like the intern.
Terri Trespicio:
You do?
Mal Meyer:
Yes. Oh yeah. And now this is... Right now I'm onto my third reporting job. I'm on my third station.
Terri Trespicio:
How many years is that now in the industry?
Mal Meyer:
I started in 2016, in August of 2016. So it's coming up on five years and that's-
Terri Trespicio:
Five years, three stations.
Mal Meyer:
A lot of moving. A lot of moving. And it's sometimes still hard. There are some days where it is really tough to keep going. You know, people won't give you a call back. You've tried every single possible angle. Even now I sometimes still feel like I'm still a college student. When I'm still approaching people being like, "Hey, can I ask you something for the news?".
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my God. I don't think that ever goes away.
Mal Meyer:
No.
Terri Trespicio:
I mean what we are doing, it's not for this faint of heart. But I... To go back, you said, "I feel like sometimes it's really hard, the friction of the job.". For someone to be a dogged journalist, there are certain skills you need to be good at. But it's not just about being good at it's the wherewithal to keep doing that. The friction then is what, it's that every time you think you might have hit the end of a story and you're done, and is it like I can't do this job anymore? Or is it just an ongoing heartbreak of not being able to close the loop on certain things?
Mal Meyer:
There is some of that. Sometimes a story is pretty incomplete, or I feel especially since I've moved a lot now already... Not a lot, maybe in comparison to some other people's careers, but there were a lot of stories that I felt like I left on the table at my last job. And that is tough. But at some point you got to say, I need to either move on or I need to find a different way to approach this story. Your work is never complete as a journalist and you need to come to peace with that, which is tough.
Terri Trespicio:
When you say left a story on the table you mean, because you went to take another job or-
Mal Meyer:
Yes.
Terri Trespicio:
Okay, so-
Mal Meyer:
Yeah, because I was leaving the market. There was a lot of stories that I've wanted to tell. Yeah, I wanted to tell them.
Terri Trespicio:
You can live there your whole life and never tell all the stories. But every time you move, you're in a new place and you don't necessarily know the area. You don't have the history in your mind about that place. And I feel like there's probably a lot of catch up there. You're always the new person.
Mal Meyer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I mean, right now I'm eight months into my job, which seems wild to me. It seems like I just moved here the other day. I also moved at an incredibly difficult time just being in the pandemic. We were living an hour away because my partner couldn't get a job when we first moved here. So I felt especially like an outsider because I'm not even in a permanent place. So it was very difficult to feel like I'm telling these stories and I feel like an outsider still.
Terri Trespicio:
Ah, yes.
Mal Meyer:
So I'm starting to feel like... Because people are now starting to approach me with story ideas, they'll say, "Hey Mal, I want you to look into this.". I feel way more a part of the main community. I feel like I'm here now. And that's good. But it takes a lot of time to build, and to build trust with people for them to approach you that.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh for sure. Well, what do you mean when you say people approach you, can you explain that. It's not your boss approaching you, like, here go do this story. How does it work for those of us not in journalism? Is it like you wake up in the morning, you might be in the middle of a few stories or does someone go, "Hey, here's a new story, go chase this.". Or are you coming up with it?
Mal Meyer:
More often than not I'm coming up with the story.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh you are.
Mal Meyer:
So I'm looking around every single day, every single night on Facebook, on Twitter, on local newspapers to find some story ideas. How can we advance it? How can we do it differently? And then I'm pitching that to my news director and assistant news director to say, I think that there's something really compelling here. I think this is something newsworthy. I think this is something that we can get answers for people. We really want to be doing that kind of proactive journalism of saying, we can help you. This is what you need to know. This is how you prevent things from happening to you even if you're not in this situation right now, you might be. Those kinds of things. So that's kind of how we approach news in our newsroom.
Terri Trespicio:
So let's back up, zoom out a minute and to talk about just news in general. I feel like if one thing changes, not only does news obviously change day to day, but the way we consume it, the way we think about it has changed. Maybe even in just the past five years. Even when you were in school and how you learned about things or stayed on the cusp of the news. It not only changes now because you're a professional in the industry, but how we know news now changes. And what has your experience been? Even in that small window of time?
Mal Meyer:
Right, so I think back to my internship. So when I was in Emerson, I had two internships. I was with NECN and I was with WCVB in Boston. And so obviously as an intern, you're seeing it kind of from the inside, but also from the outside. You're not actually reporting the news, but you're maybe following around the reporters and seeing them do it. But you don't know what that time crunch feels like. You don't know what it's like when people won't get back to you and suddenly the news cast is quickly approaching.
Terri Trespicio:
What do you do? You're up against the world.
Mal Meyer:
You panic. You panic.
Terri Trespicio:
You panic.
Mal Meyer:
And you dig harder. You panic and you dig harder is what I like to think of. Because you have to have something. It is not okay not to have something.
Terri Trespicio:
Yeah. There's no anchor that says we were going to have a story, but we just couldn't get anyone to call us back. It just doesn't... You have to report something.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. That might be a good little side note of saying, X, Y, and Z declined to comment or did not respond to our... But that can't be the basis of your story.
Terri Trespicio:
Right.
Mal Meyer:
You need way than that. So that's a challenge.
Terri Trespicio:
Has the way you use social media changed both how you do your job, but how you see news changing. I mean, I might just as much get news on a Twitter push than CNN obviously. And all these things are competing for attention. How does that affect how you see the news or how you do your job?
Mal Meyer:
Well, I think there's two big things. A, you want to be proactive on social media because you want people to tune into your story, or you want them to click on your web article. A lot of it is that now. It's not just about making people want to turn on the news at five o'clock because there's two very different audiences.
Terri Trespicio:
Right.
Mal Meyer:
Yes, my parents are on social media and they might see somebody posting on Facebook about a story at five and maybe they will tune in at five. But more often than not, it's getting people to then want to click on your web story later. Then in terms of a different way that people use social media. People use social media, a lot to air their grievances and to talk about things that they're hearing second and third hand. So they're not, A, getting the news right.
B, they're incorporating a lot of rumors and all the other tidbits they hear. And they conflate that to being the truth. So sometimes it's then hard to go out and report on an issue and say, they completely miss this part of the story. And it's because that part wasn't true. At the end of the day, I have to get down to what's the truth here. And that's sometimes very hard when you're butting up against the people who say I heard this or this or this or this. And we see that playing out a lot right now.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my gosh. I mean, unfortunately just in the past four years alone, right? The news journalism has taken a hit. Because the people who were running the country bad mouthed them and made seeded doubt in the one thing that as we know, keeps the country free. Is the freedom to report and to know right?
Mal Meyer:
Right.
Terri Trespicio:
And your job... Journalists are often now on, I don't know if they would say that they'd feel this way, but on their heels in a way. Because people don't even believe facts anymore. And so the job of the news used to be this nice neutral reporting. Here's what actually happened. Of course now we also know that the story teller always is going to have an impact on what the story is. That there's no such thing as just a pure event. We know that from every major news event that who reports it, how it first gets reported, changes how we actually believe that thing happened. So the fact is, is there a truth? Can you report truth? Even just you Mal, because you're a person with an opinion. Do you think the goal is always for news to strive to report without any bias? I mean, I don't even know how that's possible when you have humans reporting it.
Mal Meyer:
I think it's less of a bias and it's more of just a life perspective. Everybody has different events that shapes their lives and you can't just necessarily separate yourself from that. But at the same time, you have to be able to give a chance for people to share their perspectives. If they don't want to share their perspectives, that's not you trying to hide how other people are feeling. And I think that's what sometimes it gets conflated as. Of, I didn't hear this one perspective you must be biased, you're covering up how people feel. It's like, you didn't see me standing on the corner trying to ask 15 people who told me they hate X, Y, and Z. And all of them say, "No, I won't talk to you about that on camera.". And so there is a lot of misunderstanding of what we do. A lot of misunderstanding about how we report the news.
When we report the news, how we do it, all that kind of stuff. And that's difficult to overcome. And the hardest part is, once you lose credit ability, it is very hard to gain that back. Sometimes it's not... You're not the one who lost the credibility though and that's tough. A lot of people have these ideas about what the news is, who's doing it, et cetera. And they're just completely closed off by it. So you do one thing they don't like, even if you know it or not, and they don't want to turn to you. And it's incredibly difficult to be in news, especially right now.
Terri Trespicio:
So let's go back for a second though, back to your time at Emerson, because in my experience, every institution that we get intimately involved with, particularly school for a lot of us, it leaves a mark on us for good or ill. We have something about that school that we learned... Not about the school, but usually about ourselves there or whether we had a good experience of what we learned about what we loved. And you knew you were wanting to be a journalist then.
Mal Meyer:
Right.
Terri Trespicio:
Tell me about how that experience... How you found the experience there.
Mal Meyer:
I really enjoyed Emerson a lot. Before going to Emerson, I had looked at I think, eight other schools. And just none of them were right. We did so many college visits. My dad and I went to Boston because there was quite a few in the area that I was looking at. I was looking at BU I was looking at Boston college. I was looking at UMass Amherst. And I went there to each of these campuses. I even went to Suffolk and I was just like, this is not right. This is not right for me.
Terri Trespicio:
This didn't feel like a fit.
Mal Meyer:
No. And I was so heartbroken. Emerson wasn't on my radar. And my dad was like, "I found this one other school. We're going to go look at it. We're already here. You're going to go check it out.". And I was just like, "Dad, I do not want to look at another school. I want to go home and cry about this. I don't know where I'm going. And everybody else has made up their decision and I haven't.".
So we went on this tour. I was like, this place is cool. These people seem cool. And then we went on this tour and everybody else was my age, except this guy in maybe his forties, I don't know. And we went around and said, like what we were interested in. And I said I'm interested in journalism. And the guy goes, I'm actually not looking to come here. I went here 20 years ago or whatever. And it just had such a profound impact on me. I ended up doing this, this and this. And I was just like, whoa, this is awesome. So we ended up ditching the tour after that, because I was like, this is it, this seems awesome. I think I have everything I need to know about this school. And I find, and I mean [crosstalk 00:23:06]-
Terri Trespicio:
An alumni taking the tour?
Mal Meyer:
Yeah.
Terri Trespicio:
I mean, who's that guy let's get him on the podcast.
Mal Meyer:
I have no idea what his name was, I'm sorry. I think he was in film. I think he was in film, but-
Terri Trespicio:
I mean, was that what it was though? Because that's a... I've never heard anyone tell a story like that. Yes, you liked this school, you liked the feel. And I want to hear what that was. But for a person to have gone there and said, I just wanted to come back and see it because it had such a profound effect. I mean, to me, that's what we would call testimonial.
Mal Meyer:
I know.
Terri Trespicio:
You had one right there. Was he a plant? How did that happen?
Mal Meyer:
No, I highly doubt it. But it was it was so refreshing. And then also just learning too about all the stuff that we wouldn't have to do. I wouldn't have to do math, I wouldn't have to do this. And I was like, I just want to get to the reporting. I want to get to that. And they're like, you're doing that the first semester. And I was like-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh wow.
Mal Meyer:
...Great. Perfect. Awesome. And it was. It is Really incredible to go into that JR 101 class and it was like-
Terri Trespicio:
You're there.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah. It was within that first, I want to say the first week or maybe two weeks that they were. They were like here, use this little camcorder thing and you're going to go ask people. And a lot of people dropped after that class realizing they probably were not fit to do that. And I was like, this stinks, but I'm keeping with it because I really like it. And I knew it was-
Terri Trespicio:
So you didn't want to do it either, right?
Mal Meyer:
No.
Terri Trespicio:
That is scary. You would go out there and talk to people. And... But then what made you stick with it? You said, I want to do it because I want the information. Because you're right, that is enough of a wall.
Mal Meyer:
You know, being a reporter has always been my dream. I watched the news with my dad growing up. I loved it. I watched Meet the Press, which was really before, when I probably would even be watching, Meet the Press. But it was that drive to say, I want to keep going. I like video editing and getting to those parts that I really enjoyed was the best. So once you get over the nervousness of approaching random strangers on the Boston common. Once you get past that, everything else is great. It really is.
Terri Trespicio:
And you still do it.
Mal Meyer:
And I still do it.
Terri Trespicio:
You still [crosstalk 00:25:26]-
Mal Meyer:
[crosstalk 00:25:26] random people on the street.
Terri Trespicio:
Was there anything else that you want to share about your experience there?
Mal Meyer:
I loved Emerson and I feel like I got really a good understanding of what would be expected of me. I think having the internships on top of that was really critical though. Of seeing how it all comes together in time, day to day. And that's something that they can't teach you at any school. It's not just Emerson. They can't teach you that at any school. They also can't teach you a lot of stuff about just what it's truly like to make some of these tough decisions. It was really challenging to take that first job. I went to middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere, Minnesota. I went to Bemidji, Minnesota, which is four hours north of the twin cities in between Fargo and Duluth. If people are familiar with those cities. So I called it little Canada. It was two-
Terri Trespicio:
Little Canada?
Mal Meyer:
It was two hours, south-
Terri Trespicio:
Minnesota.
Mal Meyer:
...In a city that has about less than 20,000 people I think. And we were the big city. That and nobody-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my God.
Mal Meyer:
Nobody can prepare you for how nerve-wracking it is to take that first job. Nobody can prepare you for what it's like to, to have to make that jump. But the best advice that I got at Emerson was that you might only get one shot for that first station and you should take it. And they were right. I applied to over 100 stations. They were the only place that gave me an interview and gave me an offer. Nobody else called after that. It was a hard thing to come to terms with. I thought I would accept this job and then maybe somebody else would email me or call me. They never did. I'm so glad people told me to take the job.
Terri Trespicio:
Take the job. This is great advice, Mal. You're helping people with their careers right now
Mal Meyer:
It was tough. Not a lot of people would take that job, but I did. I knew I needed to get some experience under my belt. What I said to myself was, "I'm going to work there for a year. I'm going to put together a stellar reel and I am going to get somewhere where I want to be.". And I did. I moved up in [market 00:28:00] size, which was great. I landed at a station that was about three and a half hours from my family. I got to be closer to them than I had been in years. And it was absolutely the right fit for me.
And the thing that really helped was that once I landed at that next job. I got there and I was like, this is it. I knew it, I knew it. I got such a good feeling, the people were great. The job was exactly what I was looking for. I ended up moving up through the ranks. I ended up becoming the weekend anchor. I ended up becoming the investigative team lead. It was exactly what I needed. So those types of experiences, people can't teach you at Emmerson. They can't, but they can tell you to take that first job. And I'm so glad that they did.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my God. We're all glad that you did.
Mal Meyer:
Yeah.
Terri Trespicio:
And that's what I love about Emersonians. They're never like, I don't want to do that. It's like, where do I start? Because this is not where I end. What, in your opinion, does it take, or does it mean rather to make it as a journalist? And how will you know, when you get there?
Mal Meyer:
I'll say something that my mentor, Steve Aveson, I met him when I was actually an intern at NECN. And I've stayed in contact with him over the years. And when I was getting that job offer in Bemidji, he was actually at the time in San Francisco. And so I met up with him before I was set to leave. I already signed the contract, but I was incredibly nervous about going. And he said, "This is your decision. This is your life.". And he called it the university of you. You have your own path, you have your own way. Nobody else can make those decisions. You have to make the decision that's right for you with what you know. And that's how you got to approach things. So over time my university has been great. My university of me has been exactly all that I could have imagined and more. So that's how you got to approach it.
And now I'm so grateful that I took that first job in Bemidji. I'm so grateful for where I ended up landing after that. And now I'm really excited about where I'm at now. I'm closer to friends. I ended up staying with the girlfriend that I moved out to San Francisco with.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my gosh.
Mal Meyer:
We just celebrated-
Terri Trespicio:
Still the same partner.
Mal Meyer:
Yes. We just celebrated six years together.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh, congratulations.
Mal Meyer:
She stayed with me through the move to Bemidji, even though she couldn't-
Terri Trespicio:
Wow.
Mal Meyer:
...Get out there. She ended up moving to Wisconsin afterwards once I got my second job. All the things worked out how they were meant to be. So you got to have some faith in that as sometimes there are some low points. Let me tell you when I had applied to more than a hundred jobs and only got the call back for one that felt really low. That felt like a low point, but it ended up being the start of something great. And you only see that sometimes way after the storm has cleared. So, just know that there are no right or wrong decisions. You got to make the best one that's right for you.
Terri Trespicio:
And you did that. Mal Meyer, thank you so much.
Mal Meyer:
Absolutely. Thank you.
Terri Trespicio:
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