Start Here / Never Stop Podcast: Kat Downs Mulder '06

This is the Start Here Never Stop podcast with Dean Susan King of the UNC School of Media and Journalism.

00:00:17 Dean Susan King: Hello, this is Susan King, the Dean of the School of Media and Journalism here at UNC-Chapel Hill. And with us, our '06 graduate Kat Downs Mulder. Welcome, Kat.

00:00:27 Kat Downs Mulder: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

00:00:29 King: We're very excited because you have had quite a career and you have a new promotion at The Washington Post, which is perhaps the most exciting place in newspaper world in 2017. So congratulations on the promotion. And you're called the director of product. So what's a newspaper doing with the director of product?

00:00:54 Downs Mulder: Well, The Washington Post has made a huge transition and expansion into digital, and we have a really fantastic and large engineering team. So my role now is to coordinate, run – we envision the direction of our products, which includes things like our website. How does it look and feel? What's the customer experience? What are the features that we have? That's things that our readers encounter, like our homepage or article page, our apps, our video, email, as well as tools that the newsroom can use. So that's building, you know, different avenues for reporters to create things for their readers themselves.

00:01:40 King: Well, I want to take that right from one point, because a lot of people who say, "A newspaper – why do they have to think about, you know, user facility and all these products?" But it is central to how people really consume the information, right?

00:01:54 Downs Mulder: Absolutely yes. So, I mean, you know, you're differentiating yourself with your content, but you're also differentiating yourself with the experience. And that's everything from how fast the pages load to an uncluttered reading experience to how easy is it to find the stories you want or the stories that are meaningful to you. And so it's really about the whole package of great content plus great experience.

00:02:19 King: You've been at The Washington Post 10 years. You started kind of as a web producer, that thing at Baltimore Sun. You've seen this transformation happen at the Washington Post. Share it with us.

00:02:30 Downs Mulder: I mean, it has been absolutely amazing. I started working at WashingtonPost.com in 2008. And at that time, you know, The Washington Post newspaper and The Washington Post website were two completely different entities and different, you know, the website was in Arlington, the newspaper was in downtown D.C. You had to take a train and cross a river to get from one to the other. And everything was very separate. And then in 2009, you know, we merged, we came together, like many mergers, you know, in companies. It was a difficult time, you know, where people are really trying to figure out how to realign and how to create a huge culture change. And we just pushed and pushed and pushed through that and really invested a lot in technology. And then, you know, in 2013, Marty Baron came, and that was a huge pivot point in the leadership of the newsroom. He started a bunch of new initiatives. And then, you know, Jeff Bezos bought the company, and our strategy, you know, changed to, you know, grow, grow, grow. You know, let's tackle, you know, national, international. Let's expand our audience. Let's, you know, be the best newspaper in the world. So, it's been an enormous, you know, enormous change culture shift inside the room to really focus on digital expansion, to really focus on, you know, increasing the breadth of topics we cover, the depth which we cover them, growing in all kinds of new content areas, but also exploring a lot of different opportunities with technologies that we use. You know, building a faster site, building new apps, partnerships with other, you know, distributed companies – Facebook, you know, Google, Snapchat, you name it. And so it's been really exciting. It's been a rollercoaster, but, I mean, it's such a wonderful place to be. I've been so lucky to be part of really just an astounding evolution and completely unexpected from where we were in 2008 when, you know, people were, you know, we were shrinking or getting smaller. So it's really a great place to work.

00:04:48 King: Astounding evolution – that is an understatement because there were some of us who thought it might fail. You know, my clothes, and Donnie Graham may have been one of the leaders of it. He was worried about that newspaper, and handed it over away, negotiated with Bezos. So he felt if there was anyone who would have a digital strategy, he would have it.

00:05:08 Downs Mulder: Yes, yes. Oh, he found a very good steward. And you know, it's been really exciting to see the change happen.

00:05:16 King: But what I also want to emphasize is people will talk about digital dimes. So it's just, you know, the old dollars. You're hiring people, reporters. You've gone international. So this digital strategy seems to also bring financial success. Give us some insight into that because many other news organizations haven't been as successful.

00:05:40 Downs Mulder: Well, I mean, I think what we've been able to do is find ways to, you know, increase the amount of reporting that we've been able to do across a bunch of different topics and through that new reporting, you know, find new audiences. For example, one of the initiatives that Marty started when he, you know, when he really first took this job was this morning mix, which is this overnight news desk. It was a market opening. And you know, that team produces a great volume of content. You know, interesting stories that are happening while other people aren't up and reporting them, captures this overnight wave from overseas as well as people early in the morning. It's just really smart, spotting the openings in the market, not just for content, but for timing and delivery method and all those things. And when you get more readers, you know, we sort of have a philosophy of reach more people. And then, you know, once you reach them, give them a great quality experience, great stories, you know, easy to use, easy to find what you want. That's sort of the engagement level that get them attached, create loyalty, and then ultimately, you know, the goal is for people to subscribe and become paying customers of the Post. So that strategy has really worked, and that's what creates the financial emphasis and the financial reward to keep it all moving.

00:07:07 King: Well, I was a longtime subscriber of the Post, and I have to say last week, I did another digital subscription because I only get it digitally. So I'm paid up, but I now want to talk about Kat Downs Mulder, the person. So you got out of school in '06 when everything was changing, really in the area of visual communication. Did we prepare you for this rollercoaster you've been on?

00:07:30 Downs Mulder: Yes, absolutely. I mean, really, I just think about like how lucky, you know, I got going to UNC and, you know, I knew I wanted to major in journalism, you know, when I came to college, but I didn't realize before I went that UNC had this amazing visual, you know, visual communication program, which is, I mean, really the No. 1 reason that I am where I am. I sort of stumbled upon it in school by being in the J-school and just being exposed to some of the classes, and what I learned in school was, you know, photo journalism and then what at that time was called multimedia. But it was basically, you know, video, audio, programming, some interactive design. And me and the cohort that I graduated from with, like we're in all of the biggest news organizations in the world, you know, New York Times, The Guardian, you name it. There's probably an UNC multimedia grad there. And I learned, you know, I learned great storytelling, I learned interactive media, I learned user interface design. I've used, you know, video editing, I've used photo editing. It's actually pretty cool, you know, when people ask me what I went to college for, I'm like, "I went to college for basically exactly what I do now," which is fantastic. I mean, not many people can say that. So I'm really grateful for everything that I learned at UNC, and I still think about some of the lessons that I learned in school.

00:09:04 King: And when you grow up in Franklin, North Carolina, did you know then you wanted to be a journalist? I know you didn't know you wanted to be an interactive product developer because it wasn't even there then. But was there a curiosity about telling the story of your time and your world to people?

00:09:18 Downs Mulder: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was interested in storytelling. I've always been like a great big reader. And really interested in people, places, and things and what's happening, and I loved writing and I love, you know, arts and crafts and drawing. And when I was in high school, I, you know, did the school newspaper and I had a lot of fun with that. I edited some sections for my school paper. And so it just felt like something that was a fun thing that you could do for a job and you could also help the world while doing it. And it continues to be. I mean, this job is amazing. It's fun and rewarding. It's something where you get to learn every day. And that's one of the things that definitely attracted me into the, you know, into the digital, and now into the product side is just like sort of that – so dynamic. I mean, you're learning all the time, not just about the individual stories or now business areas and things like that. But just, you know, you're growing all the time. You have to because this environment is just incredibly fast-moving and fast-paced. And that's awesome, because you never just feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again.

00:10:37 King: And of course, you're a mom of two in a 24/7 ever-evolving world. How do you balance it all? Juggle?

00:10:45 Downs Mulder: Oh, man. Well, I mean, I'm lucky I have a great job that I love and it's not too crazy, you know. And then I go home and I get to be with my kids, and it's a full life, but I feel like it all fits somehow. And luckily, you know, the Post is a really flexible place to work. And, you know, it's nice to be in a role where, you know, I think my kids will really be interested in what I do when they grow up. And it's important work that's really meaningful. So it all fits.

00:11:18 King: That's great. And so the last question is really to the students who are graduating now and studying with us right now. What guidance can you tell them? Because it's going to change in the next 10 years, for sure.

00:11:33 Downs Mulder: Yeah, I mean, the main thing is keep learning. You know, keep growing, chase your curiosities, talk to the people that you meet, reach out to the people that you want to meet, ask them questions about what they do, ask for their advice, ask for their feedback on your work. And just, you know, stay curious and keep growing. And then, you know, if you get an opportunity, seize it, take it, run at it. Like I mean, I think starting, you know, I had a job at The Baltimore Sun, which is a great, you know, which is a great paper. And I got really lucky to do that, but I was working a shift that was like 6 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. You know, basically like taking stuff from the newspaper and sticking it on the internet – it was not glamorous. But those are the opportunities, you know. It took, you know, two days a week to do the type of work that I loved. And the rest of the time did the grunt work. And I think you can't expect to start at the top. And so you just need to really kind of figure out how to get where you want to go, and that's, you know, just by being willing to get in there and do the work and keep learning and prove your value. And, you know, I think if you do that, you'll succeed.

00:12:44 King: And you certainly have, and we're very proud of you. And I am personally proud of how wellTthe Washington Post, a paper I love, has done. So Kat Downs Mulder, '06, thank you for all you've done and for the students that you've mentored since you left us, and you even hired some at The Washington Post. Thank you.

00:13:04 Downs Mulder: Thank you so much.