Editor’s Desk: One story, delivered in longform, shortform, text, audio, and more

By Theodore Ross

Yesterday was an important day for FERN, and if you connect with us on a regular basis on social media or our website, I hope you noticed. We published “Immigrants on the line,” a text feature by FERN senior editor Ted Genoways, in partnership with Mother Jones. At the same time, on REAP/SOW, FERN’s audio platform, we released “Trouble on the line,” a full podcast with our partners at Reveal, also reported by Ted. 

Teresa Cotsirilos, a FERN staff writer and the host of REAP/SOW (and of our podcast series Buzzkill!) has a nice description of this project:

This is a story about how a single TikTok video, taped in 2023 outside a meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado, would change the lives of hundreds of Haitian immigrants, and embroil JBS — the world’s largest meatpacking company — in a controversy over mistreating workers.

It’s a powerful feat of reporting, photography, audio production — and perhaps most important, empathy, for people ensnared by the failures of our immigration and food systems. (Hat tip to FERN contributor Mary Anne Andrei for her photos and audio production.) But it isn’t just the subject matter that I want to highlight. 

Regular readers of this newsletter may be aware that FERN is implementing an editorial impact strategy based on distribution in multiple media formats. We call it our “multiformat” strategy, which is a mouthful indeed, and I apologize for the jargon. It just means that we believe in getting our stories to as many people as we can, in the ways they choose to engage with those stories. 

So, in this case, a single investigation of the American reliance on refugee and immigrant labor in the food system is presented to a longform audio audience, a longform text audience, a shortform radio audience (in this radio feature for Harvest Public Media), and more. This project began with an article by Ted Genoways in the opinion pages of the The New York Times that chronicled the labor shift that played out with JBS in Greeley. More parts of it will be coming out next week and later this year.

The Greeley story is the largest example of the strategy so far, but it isn’t the only one. Our recent special series on ultraprocessed foods, in partnership with Inverse, included FERN’s first experiment with social media content creation, working with Cory Bradford, whose TikTok and Instagram videos are worth checking out. Cory took four of the stories from the series and translated them for an audience that looks to the social web for information and interpretation. I expect we’ll do more of this, too. There are audio and video components of the project coming up soon, and we’ll let you know when they’re ready.

All of this work is an investment by FERN in our mission to help build a better food system through powerful journalism and storytelling. Investment is an operative word, because these projects cost money. I hope you will consider making a donation to help us continue our work, particularly between now and Earth Day when all donations up to $15,000 will be doubled.

Finally — the term “multiformat strategy” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. If you’ve got a better one, write in and let me know.