Editor’s Desk: Say hello to FORKED!

By Theodore Ross

A lot of excitement at FERN’s virtual HQ this week when we released the trailer for “FORKED: Food politics in the MAHA age.” The premiere episode will drop July 1, with new episodes every two weeks. Forked is cohosted by me and Helena Bottemiller Evich, founder and editor of the Food Fix newsletter, which is my go-to source for smart, incisive, unbiased news on America’s food system.

This is a show for anyone who cares about what they eat and where their food comes from. Helena and I dive into the politics and policy that are turning the American food system on its head. Check it out: We do get into the details, but in a way that’s accessible and fun, and hopefully, won’t leave you feeling too … forked.

Forked is really important to us at FERN, and in ways that are bigger than a single new project. There’s a lot of concern lately that the popularity of newer forms of media mean people are less interested in the kind of rigorous, fact-based journalism that we make at FERN. 

That isn’t the case. There’s still plenty of demand out there for reliable information, great reporting, and storytelling. What has changed dramatically is the ways in which news is found and consumed. For a mission-driven, nonprofit news organization such as FERN, it is crucial that we understand those changes and adapt to them. At FERN, our goal is to bring journalism on food and the environment to people where and how they want it. We can’t afford to assume they will come to us.

The release of Forked as its own podcast (we piloted three episodes on REAP/SOW, the home of all FERN audio) is a good example of how we do that. You can subscribe to Forked and listen wherever you get your podcasts, although it would be great if you came to our website. We tape the show for audio and video, so you can also watch it on YouTube at FERN News. The episodes are also available on our REAP/SOW podcast feed. Video versions of everything we do in audio are, again, also available at FERN’s YouTube channel, along with REAP/SOW Extra, a series of interviews with the reporters from our podcasts about their work. Clips from all this stuff make their way onto Instagram as video reels, and we tell everyone about everything in our newsletter.

Got all that? I hope so. There will be a test and FERN does not grade on a curve. 

But seriously, why do we do this? Because we understand that there is no single audience for news — there are many, and they don’t reliably overlap. The dude who listens to podcasts at the gym may not be the same as the gal who watches them on YouTube, and they both might be different than the person who reads our longform text journalism on their phone or watches our social media video on TikTok or Instagram. 

If we limit our journalism to one form, we are giving away the chance for other people to encounter this work that we think is so vital. We put together a nice little video explaining it all. Check it out.

But greater ambitions bring greater costs. We’re at the end of our fiscal year and we need to raise $15,000 by the end of the month. I hope our new efforts like Forked inspire you to join FERN’s community of donors. Please consider a gift at any level to ensure we can keep bringing these essential information to audiences across the country.