97. Shifting our Perspective: How Storytelling Exposes Inequalities, Challenges Systemic Racism and Builds Community For Good - Niven McCall-Mazza

Niven McCall-Mazza / theSkimm / We Are For Good Podcast

This episode is part of our 5-episode Women of Impact Week. Explore all the episodes and find additional resources here.

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Overview

Meet Niven. As a passionate voice for female empowerment and Vice President of the News Platforms at theSkimm, she wakes up everyday with a goal to make it easier for a generation of women to live their smartest lives. Niven cut her teeth learning the essentials of journalism and ethics at NBC News, and now channels her passion and expertise into fostering good around the world. Tune in for a moving conversation about connecting, informing, activating and empowering women around the most important social causes facing us today.

Today’s Guest

Niven McCall-Mazza, VP News Platforms, theSkimm

“This is a journey, and everyone is on a different stage of that journey. Make sure that you are providing everyone, no matter what stage they are on, a certain level of resources for how they can take action.”

— Niven McCall-Mazza, VP News Platforms, theSkimm

Episode Transcript

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Episode Highlights

Niven’s story and journey to where she is today (3:44)
Media in today’s world and theSkimm’s values (7:42)
Utilizing platforms to advance good personally and professionally (11:00)
You don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room, and you don’t have to threaten or try to elicit fear to gain respect (12:00)
An overview of theSkimm and how they’re serving, informing, and empowering 7+ million women worldwide (17:40)
The importance of having a voice digitally (23:00)
145,000 women lost or left their jobs in December 2020 (25:00)
The pandemic has shone a light on that we are far from equality (25:58)
The power of storytelling: how it can expose inequalities, challenge systemic issues, and build communities for good (29:00)
Building advocacy within community (34:00)
A woman who has shaped Niven into who she is today: her mom (38:00)
A moment of philanthropy that shaped Niven’s life and desire to do good (41:00)
Niven’s One Good Thing: ask others how you can help and pause and listen to their response. (44:00)

Powerful Quotes:

“Media is not perfect, but I think they as a whole have gotten a bad rap these past couple of years.” -Niven

“Everyone that I know that works in journalism takes their job so seriously. It is our responsibility to try to inform the public as best that we can.” -Niven

“A lot of media really did have to reflect and think about, what’s the path forward? How are we making sure that we are sharing voices and opinions outside of just the coastal cities?” -Niven

“theSkimm really prides itself on how much care we put into our fact checking process, sourcing process, and making sure we are providing a non-partisan view of what’s going on in the world today.” -Niven

“It’s about respecting our readers and listeners and subscribers enough to let them make a decision about how they want to feel about a policy or an event, and that we have given them as much information to allow them to make an informed decision.” -Niven

“We've all been entrusted knowledge or facts. And it's up to us to decide what we are going to do with that, in our personal platforms, platforms of our nonprofits, and more.” -Jon

“You don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room, and you don’t have to threaten or try to elicit fear to gain respect.” -Niven

“theSkimm is a place that wants everyone to have a voice not only internally, but empowering them to have a voice in their own life, and speak up and make decisions that are good for their wallet or good for their health.” -Niven

“We curate information, but we also curate a team that is so incredible.” -Niven

“theSkimm, to me, was one of the first media outlets that seemed like a person. They help take the fear and imposter syndrome out of these conversations. It feels like you’re having coffee with a girlfriend and she’s telling you what’s going on.” -Becky

“Our society is not equipped to support working moms.” -Niven

“This pandemic has shone a spotlight on how we are far from equality.” -Niven

“When it comes to protecting women, we could talk about domestic violence, women feeling safe walking home from from work, but also, are they protected in the workplace? How are we thinking about having two parents that work? Have we changed our system of work since, let's just say the 1940s and the 1950s?” -Niven

“Storytelling comes with a lot of responsibility.” -Niven

“We all have a responsibility as storytellers to be thinking about what stories we are sharing.” -Niven

“We have the responsibility to also make sure that we are laying bare the inequalities and inequities that they still face, and are really trying to make everyone aware that we as citizens of the US are responsible ourselves for correcting a lot of these issues.” -Niven

“theSkimm is really trying to make sure that we are equipping our audience in the best way that we can to be aware and active in their daily lives. How to stand up and be antiracist.” -Niven

“This is a journey, and everyone is on a different stage of that journey. Make sure that you are providing everyone, no matter what stage they are on, a certain level of resources for how they can take action.” -Niven

“This all started very young. It started with my mom, bringing me to these panels showing me how women can rise. It was an invaluable thing to have understood at such a young age that I can do anything.” -Niven

“We have a tendency to go through our lives, we're all super busy, and think we understand what other people are going through. We are going through a time where we are all dealing with this pandemic, stress, and everything that's being asked of us in very different ways. And we don't know how everyone is dealing with it.” -Niven