What does the freedom of independent reporting provide that traditional news outlets do not, and how is it sustainable?
I’m seven weeks in. I’d love to say that I have all the answers, but if we’re talking numbers, you have the same questions my mom did on Father’s Day. This was when I was a week into this. It was Father’s Day, and I was at Piedmont Park pool with my kids. I was looking at my Substack and saw I had $300. My mom’s asking me, “How are you going to do this? You got shot at by the police. You were nearly trampled by horses. You’ve got two kids at home.” At the time, I had something like 4 million views. It’s somewhere towards like 10 million views now across my social media. That night, I refreshed my Substack, and I had something like $1,500, and that’s in a matter of 12 hours. If I were using that pragmatic approach, “How was I going to pay for this?” Well then, Substack, my readers, and the viewers I have would have paid for that L.A. trip. That was technically viewer-funded. I just received the funding afterwards. So, how is it sustainable? What I’ve seen is that by putting out good content and flooding the zone with great content, we can go deep on issues where broadcast and cable news typically have only three minutes for a segment.
I have been able to launch shows where I have 45-minute discussions and conversations. My first guest on Nick Valencia Live, which I air on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. ET—so my mom can watch it at noon at lunch in L.A.—was a Latino Trump voter. The idea that I can have a 45-minute conversation with somebody whom I could bring to my audience, and a perspective where these are uncomfortable and awkward conversations … I can apply all of the great lessons that I learned as a correspondent at CNN, the framework that they gave me, the education that they gave me, and apply it now to where the audience is. So, I’m learning how this is all sustainable.
Your initial focus has been on covering the immigration raids in Southern California. Was that by choice?
It’s a happy coincidence. I believe in God. I’m a recovered alcoholic. Four and a half years ago, I stopped drinking, and I’m not blaming journalism at all, but the stuff I saw certainly didn’t help. I come from a line of recovered alcoholics. My dad was one, my grandpa, my uncle literally died with a bottle in his hands on the streets of L.A.. In the four and a half years that I stopped drinking, man, I’ve learned to not just believe in God, but rely on God. It just really was sincerely a coincidence that the History Channel job and the filming lined up that week. I was watching from my bedroom a local journalist whom I follow and mentor, named Ryan Mena. She was in Paramount (California) in the middle of the clash between police and as the locals were standing up to ICE, she was shot with a rubber bullet. I said, “Oh my God, this is crazy!” I need to go do what I can to help. I knew I was going to L.A. in a couple of days.