Here's 3 Ways The Series "Foretold" Could Change Journalism Practices At The LA Times, And Beyond

Faith Pinho and Jazmín Aguilera sit down with Bingeworthy to explain how writing about the Romani American community is different, and how this changed their approach to journalism

Aug 02, 2023

The job of journalism is to uncover stories of under-represented communities and share their stories with the world. But the other sordid truth of journalism is that it doesn’t always do that job well.

Faith Pinho was a greenhorn journalist in 2019, working as a reporter at The Daily Pilot, an LA Times-owned local paper that covers a host of communities in Orange County, when she got a call from a fast-talking, slightly distraught woman, claiming to have a hot tip for her about a story from her reclusive and slightly secretive culture: The Romani American community. Could they meet in a cafe?

Pinho would agree to meet this woman, Paulina Stevens. She was in the middle of a messy custody battle; married at 17, now just twenty with two young children. She had followed the traditional path of becoming a wife, a mother, and a fortune-teller.

But now she wanted out, and she wanted to meet in the cafe and explain to this young reporter how that process of “leaving” the only community she had ever known might work.

The call came in on a Monday. The pair met on a Wednesday, where Pinho recorded their first interaction on her phone. This “cafe tape” appears frequently throughout the series…listen for it…it’s interesting to consider that this session was recorded on a whim, not because Pinho already had a podcast project in mind. It reminds me of the audio adage: Always Be Recording. Even if it’s just with your phone…bad tape is sometimes the best tape.

Her week didn’t exactly go as planned…

On the Friday of that same week, Pinho was badly hit by a car and was forced to take months off to recuperate.

As she lay in bed, she circled back over and over to her meeting with Paulina. She had piqued her interest: a young woman who claimed to have all the keys to telling a juicy story about a secretive and insular community in Southern California, Romani Americans.

Here was a community that lived in some of the most densely urban populated regions in North America, the biggest concentration of Romani people in North America, and yet they lived under entirely different cultural rules. They pulled their girls out of school at 12; arranged marriages for them before they turned 20; they opted out of the judicial system and the education systems almost entirely. All of this happening within her own backyard, in the primary catchment of the LA Times.

But with the timing of her accident, Pinho was cut off from work for months, and it appeared that she had ghosted her new source. When weeks turned into months, Pinho worried she’d missed her chance at this story.

But she lay in bed, Pinho kept going over her meeting in her mind:

“I think it was over the period that I was recovering that I [realized] I really think this could be a podcast. I was remembering how she sounded when she was telling me about her life. That's why we included so much of that raw phone tape from the café; this is what gripped me. [Her] kind of this frantic state of mind…telling her story in a passionate and raw way,” remembers Pinho in our Zoom interview recently.

“But it didn't become a podcast, in practical terms, for over a year. Actually, it was about a year and a half later that the LA Times greenlit it.”

When the LA Times got behind this story, they put both their feet behind it

After Pinho had been working away on the story for a year or so, Sue Horton was the first to be brought on. Then the team slowly began to grow (ED: order of folks may not be accurate) Heba Elorbany, Asal Ehsanipour, Jazmín Aguilera, Alex Higgins, Avery Trufelman, Lauren Raab, Sound Engineer Mike Heflin. The LA Times also agreed to hire Romani cultural consultant Dr Ethel Brooks.

When it came time to publish the project, the LA Times also published a series of Op-Eds from prominent Romani American writers and thinkers; it commissioned original music from Romani American musicians; they hired photographers to do photoshoots and create video footage. The paper also ran a full story for each of the podcast episodes. It all added up to an impressive commitment.

I cannot think of another traditional newsroom, outside of perhaps the BBC or the New York Times (not fair comparisons) that has given this much support to a narrative podcast. Please jump into the Comments if you think I’m wrong here:

1. The story was turned inside out.

The story was flipped to make sure that the journalists looked at themselves, from all angles. They dug deep into their questions, they questioned everything.

And they made the reporter a character in the story.

This worked for a few reasons, which I will briefly list here, and then I’ll share the transcript from the interview.

Faith became a character in her own story only after the evidence was questioned, and the story itself became a story.
Questions of truthfulness were raised: Faith needed to be the one to resolve them
It was a moment of honesty about the role of journalists and this community in the past; it was a reckoning of that historical fact.

Samantha Hodder: Episode 7, Prism, got kind of meta. It reminded me a little bit of the [journalist in the] Ana Delvey story, when you talked about how your struggle. At some point you weren't sure if she was being honest. You weren't sure if you were being played. You weren't sure if you were part of the story.
Tell me more about that. Was a big challenge for you to think about putting yourself in the story and in the way that you did?
Faith Pinho: Yeah, I love that you use the word “meta,” because we called that our meta episode internally.
For me personally, it was one of the hardest episodes to make, because it does get really personal. I think we all agreed it was an extremely necessary episode, because as we were reporting this story, the the legacy of the media covering Romani Americans, the role of the media was an unmistakable part of the story.
Every step of the way, there were people who didn't want to talk to us. I think every source that I reached out to mentioned the role of the media in the interview. You can't talk to a [source] without talking about how reporters have screwed over this community in the past.
And so we came to see it really as like the media was another character in the story. And so to be responsible, we had covered the media, and get kind of meta with it. And so like, obviously, I am the embodiment of the media in this particular story. And in the same way that every episode, kind of takes Paulina’s story, and takes like a nugget of truth from her story and kind of expands on the context of it. That's what we were doing with this part.
So the moment that you've reached out to a reporter, and I came into the story, we use that as like the nugget to talk about this much broader context of media coverage. And yeah, that was a really hard episode to make. I mean, we were really struggling and talking and discussing and you know, mulling over the role of the media and our role in covering the story, every step of the way.
And that was the episode that we kind of gave a peek into that.

Samantha Hodder: It was probably one of the more memorable episodes. And I liked it because it wasn't what I was expecting it…it sort [became] of a commentary [on everything to do with bad coverage by journalists].
But I think it also kind of helped me understand the nuance [of the] position you were in: This was your source, this was someone that you had worked with for a long time to gain the trust and understanding of.
But you hit a moment where you thought: I don't know if I believe her.
Could just talk about that moment? What what happened in in that moment? And how did you jump over that log?

Faith Pinho: Yeah, I don't think that this made it into the final version…this moment that you're describing….it came in an interview in 2021. I was kind of going back and revisiting a lot of the stuff she had told me from the cafe.
A couple years on, she had really started to evolve.
And I think that's the other part of the “Prism” episode is it's where we really start to show Paulina’s evolution from before when we were looking at her past. And now we're looking at how she's changed since I've met her—which is which is honestly kind of what the story is even more about.
We had just wrapped an interview that was mostly about fortune telling, which [had become] a really uncomfortable topic for her to talk about. We were sitting in her fortune telling shop, and I was revisiting all these questions that we had talked about from two to three years ago, when she said ‘I'm done with Fortune telling.’
I was kind of pushing on questions…and she was really holding back. She didn't want to say a lot.
After I left, I remember leaving the interview and getting in my car and driving up Pacific Coast Highway. And I called my editor at the time, Sue Horton. And I was said: ”I don't think Paulina was telling me the truth.”
I just had this feeling things were off….she didn't really answer the questions.
[When I got home], I wrote what I have come to call, like, “a love letter to her” where I was said [something like]:
“I think you have a really important story. I think we can do some really good work here. But I need you to tell me the truth. I'm going to ask uncomfortable questions. We have to tell a full story in order to do this. And it's going to be good and bad. But it's going to be just like human and complex.”
I sent it off and went to sleep. I didn't sleep all night, because I was worried. Maybe this is it; maybe this is over.
The next morning, she called me at 8:30 in the morning. She said; “No, I still want to do it. I definitely still want to do it..it's just kind of weird when we talk about this stuff.”
I went back, I think a couple days later, and we we did an interview again. It was really like a reestablishing trust moment, I think.
It was a pivotal moment [when I recognized] things were different now. She's no longer this kind of frantic woman coming with her story in the cafe; I'm no longer this really green reporter at a local paper.
Now I now work at the LA Times, and we have this whole team. And she's more established, [she] just opened up her new shop. So things had really shifted in that moment. And I think it was, it was for both of us a moment of recognition, like, okay, we're both in a different place now.

And then there is the follow-through on journalism ethics.

2. Insert a Legal Prompt that won’t make you wince each time it’s repeated.

The role of the journalist is to tell the story from all angles. It’s part of 101 Journalism to reach out for comments from all sides. People should get a chance to respond, or refute, or disagree with the part of the story they are featured in.

Quite often, people are not willing to do this…or they don’t take the time (or see the importance of it). But it’s sloppy journalism to omit the “declined to comment,” or the “did not respond to my requests for an interview.”

In this story, Bobby, the ex-husband of Paulina, does not appear by himself. His lawyer does speak on his behalf, through court documents. But not the man himself.

I was curious about this from a fact-checking angle, and also how the newsroom dealt with it, from the angle of ethics and professionalism.

Samantha Hodder: JazmÍn, from your [position] as executive producer, and regarding journalism ethics, how did you approach the fact-checking part of this series?
Did it take some convincing of the upper [management] to do this without the other side of the story, because they wouldn't return your call—which you were very diligent about reminding people over and over again? How did that conversation go?

Jazmín Aguilera: Well, that's a multi-part answer. That was something that was [also] on Faith’s mind, even before the bigger team got [invovled]. [It’s] very basic journalism 101 kind of thing.
I'll start with that specific example; repeatedly saying we ‘couldn't get the other side.’
We internally would say, our favorite lawyer, Jeff Glasser, who's the LA Times Council. He was very much: There's a standard [here for] vetting. And if you don't get comment, or whatever, you have to remind people that that's the case.
That’s an omission that you have, rather than, putting it out there, because you “know” this thing to be true.
So that's why we repeated this thing saying: “this is what this person told us, we reached out for this did not get it back for every single fact, that was presented.”
And that's why it was repeated so much, because that is the journalism standard.
In the paper, you would say: “This is this this could not corroborated.” But since this was such a deeply familial thing, this [story Foretold] happened inside [a] family home…those kinds of things are always difficult to corroborate.
We applied the same ethics and standards of vetting what people had said, in fact checking and several people do a couple rounds on on every fact that was stipulated.
That was something that I think is unique to podcasting as well, versus print, where you can establish something once and say: “This is what we learned in this specific sit down.”
Whereas in podcasts, you might break that apart for structure of a story. [If you’re] using interview tape from this day, versus that day, which might come out in different articles [or episodes]…because this whole thing took four years to make.
I think also in the “meta episode,” [Episode 7, Prism] was built on a wider scale. Another reason why we had to remind people that this [was] someone's story; just because somebody said something that also gets corroborated, even statements of fact, they can be strung together to make a narrative [which might not be true].Media has been doing that to the Romani community forever.
So is it true Karen's story, for example, (in Episode 7), a woman who got scammed out of 1000s and 1000s of dollars. Did that happen? Yes, there's court documents to corroborate those things.
But also like those statements of facts, the ones that are filtered through a story that may not be accurate. That was also part of the reason to repeatedly said: “this is a personal story….These are the things we know. And these are the things we don't know.”
And it's important to remember that a blank space does not mean that the things that rose above that blank space are the only things that are true.
You can hear in the credits; we had so many people on fact checking. Each episode [had] multiple rounds. Every fact was examined. Jeff Glasser, who is our hero lawyer, did a lot of help at making sure we covered our bases.
There was a lot that we left out, really precious darlings, that we had to cut because they just like we couldn't get corroboration for it.

Samantha Hodder: I think it's interesting to peek under the hood of an organization like the LA Times, who [have published] these very populous stories [Dirty John, Room 20, etc] , that there is actually a ton of journalism that goes in that’s kind of invisible.
And that's important because you want them to be kind of connecting and fun. But there is also rigor under there. Is there some kind of rule, or something, to guide this?

Jazmín Aguilera: I would say that there's a standard that's very basic, that everyone needs and every publication that’s worth its salt: If somebody says something, you try to get as many people as you can to corroborate it. That's a very baseline thing.
But in terms of this specific [project], there was also there was a lot of case by case. And I think we're going see that in the future more as storytelling becomes enmeshed more with journalism and straight back reporting.
So in this particular project, I would say that there was a standard that was met. Sue Horton, she's a print editor, was very much in that line of [thinking]. But I would say that we were a lot more particular and detailed about every single fact.
So yes, there is a standard. But then beyond that, there's also an extra standard, for this podcast that I think rises even higher than certain things. In terms of making sure [that] you know: this person said that remember, reminder, a reminder!
Faith Pinho: There's not a rubric [that I’m aware of]. And it certainly would not have applied to this podcast, because it just kind of surpassed all typical journalistic practices (at least that I've experienced).
There was just a lot of extra work that had to be done because of because of the legacy of media reporting and the trust.

This project took over four years to make

During that time, I realized this very personal story would undergo changes, adaptations. People would come and go. The characters, and the producers, never mind the world, changed a lot during this time.

I wondered how you keep track of the production of a story, over this long period of time. And then how the team managed to track that, and where it ended up in the final edits.

3. Assgin Listening Buckets.

As the edits progressed, producers were brought on. “Fresh ears,” are an elusive quality that’s important to build into your production team; they are the ears who don’t go into the listening with a lot of baggage or knowledge. They hear things that are “dead ears,” the ones who have been listening over and over to the same thing.

Those ears stop hearing important things.

But to ensure that these ears heard the right things, they had assignments.

Samantha Hodder: How did you actually keep the pressure up [about listening?] Was there a rule [about who] could listen to the edits?
Who could hear the tape? I've heard different stories about how different people do this, but how did you do it? How did you keep them fresh?

Faith Pinho: Well, it depended on what we were asking. In the beginning, when we were just literally informing someone; [We’d say] here's what the story is about. And we'd give them pretty much the same like 10 minute kind of lowdown…and here's what we want to go, here's how we're thinking rolling it out…

Jazmín Aguilera: And then also, towards the end, certain people got drafts. Some people were in the tape, some people weren't.
We also had massive group listens where every single person had a different perspective assigned, a lens to review.
So for one person was going for plotholes; so they would pay attention to what is what's up misstep here?
Somebody else [would look at] decolonization; what assumptions are we making from a mainstream point of view?
[Another would look at] what themes like what universal themes?
Each person had their assigned task for every single episode. Then we would discuss all together, have general notes. There were many rounds of this.
So it was almost like overproduced in that way; where we were just trying so hard to make sure that we covered as many as many bases as we could. And not just with producers and people that were in the media, also Dr Ethel Brooks, who was our cultural consultant, a feminist studies professor.
Even down to the theme song…we hired a Romani composer specifically so that it would be authentic, and not something that we just kind of guessed at.

Faith Pinho : I would just underscore, going back to the very beginning, that no mainstream American news organization has ever done a deep dive on the Romani American community, in the way that we did with Foretold, along with the broader newsroom initiative, with Romani contributors [who wrote] for Op Ed Section, etc.
And I think it speaks, first of all, to Paulina’s bravery, to share her story, given all of the legacies that we've talked a lot about today.
But I think it's [also] an opportunity for other journalistic organizations; an opportunity to platform voices that haven't been heard; to reexamine our own biases as media, as journalists, in creating these stories, and how they impact the [different] communities.
And ideally, inviting members of the community to join and be part of the process to have a say in how these stories are shaped.