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âAsk Me Anythingâ - Second installment of âWomen in Cannabisâ series with Snowden Bishop @TheCannabisReporter from The Cannabis Reporter.
Who: Snowden Bishop - The Cannabis Reporter What: Why cannabis in media making front page news is positive. Where: Right Here When: Wednesday, January 9th at 11 AM PST
Awareness is key to acceptance.
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Is the first and only all-cannabis talk radio show to achieve nationwide radio syndication, we are able to facilitate change in the perception of cannabis, enabling the growth of new markets and uses by providing powerful educational interviews and compelling storytelling.
The Cannabis Reporter Radio Show
The Cannabis Reporter Radio Show is the first all-cannabis program syndicated for broadcast on commercial and community radio network stations nationwide! Listen in as host Snowden Bishop explores the potential for cannabis to transform the field of medicine, improve human health and benefit our economy, environment and society at large. Each episode begins with a topical introduction followed by a âMedical Marijuana Minuteâ and engaging interviews featuring some of the industryâs most notable medical experts, lawmakers, celebrity advocates and other compelling guests.
Itâs an honor to take part in this Women in Cannabis series on Ask Me Anything! Iâm looking forward to taking questions and, of course, chatting with everyone on this amazing forum at the Growers Network!
Snowden, itâs an honor to have you here! You are a groundbreaking member of the media who has a shared interest in changing the landscape of the cannabis industry! Thanks for taking the time to be here with us today and for all the important work that you do.
Sure â I started out in broadcast journalism working in FM radio as a DJ and news reporter before transitioning into TV working for NBC affiliates in San Diego and a mid market affiliate in Missouri. I started out as an assignment reporter and worked my way up to anchor of the morning news. I wound up back in California to do a national daytime talk show at CBS, but the show was a victim of budget cuts to stave off a hostile takeover by Ted Turner at the time. So⌠I wound up working in the movie business in a myriad of positions from production coordinator to producer. Eventually, I became obsessed with environmental issues and went back to my roots in Journalism. In 2010, I was editor of AZGreen Magazine, I was writing about unsustainable practices prevalent in big ag and stumbled upon information about hemp and changed direction. That wound up being my first article about hemp and thus began my interest in cannabis as a sustainable alternative to all that ails us. In 2014, my partners and I decided to launch The Cannabis Reporter and the podcast began a year later. We took it to radio where we werenât preaching to the choir. Here we are 100+ episodes later and now on 400+ stations⌠Who knew? A lot has changed since then!
Wow! Thatâs an extensive media background! What an interesting and inspirational journey you have had! What was the biggest hurdle you had to overcome along the way?
Thank you! I guess the biggest challenge was overcoming â or working through â the small amount of consternation from those around me. Itâs easy to forget that, in 2010, few people really understood how important the movement was. There was some âYouâre doing what???â Itâs funny to think about it now because thatâs no longer an issue at all. The next challenge was getting radio to buy into the topic. We had to pay to play the show on our first radio station here in Phoenix. At that time, ours was the first of its kind. We were on the air for several months before we were picked up by a network of community stations in California and Nevada and another year before the show started going out on satellite network feeds. It was also challenging to find underwriting â itâs illegal to advertise cannabis on FCC-licensed stations! So weâre still working through that. We are grateful for our sponsors who know and understand the challenges of radio!
Your show is featured on some right leaning talk radio stations. Cannabis is not often considered a very conservative issue. Tell us about your process towards syndication⌠What was it like trying to get on conservative stations? How did you manage to convince over 400 broadcast stations to feature your show about cannabis? How did you mitigate the FCC guidelines?
I know right? Out of the gate we decided weâd need to avoid âFree the weedâ topics catering exclusively to the recreational enthusiasts if we wanted to grow radio distribution. Instead, we focused on G rated educational topics with guests who could appeal to diverse, cross-generational, conservative-leaning rural audiences â which we knew would also appeal to the program directors. We try very hard not to focus on the partisan disparity â which we all know existed for some time. But since cannabis offers solutions to problems conservatives care about, it wasnât as tough to sell to conservative media as it might have been had we talked about getting the best âhighâ smoking joints on the couch⌠We went broad on the topics from medical miracles to economic upsides of agricultural hemp to get our feet wet. A year later, we were able to get away with putting focus more on left leaning issues such as potential for cannabis regulation to solve social justice problems like racial profiling in drug policing and potential for hemp to mitigate environmental damage and decelerate climate change.
Early on, we realized it was making an impact. An example that stands out: I received a call from our network director, who received a call from a station manager saying that our show actually influenced a city council decision to allow Californiaâs first outdoor grow. The Council was terribly divided and couldnât come to consensus until one member asked them to listen to the show and delay the vote. When they returned, they voted unanimously to pass the measure. That felt good!
And to answer the question about how we convinced that many stations â the truth is, we didnât. The show has been organically picked up by law of attraction. Our first network actually supplies some content to other networks and a satellite programming feeds that rural stations subscribe to. Many of these stations service mid size to small markets, so they donât have the same FCC content restrictions as do the 100,000 watt stations in major markets. It took two years before we were approved for those giant stations, but those still require we supply our own underwriting, but we still canât advertise marijuana so that is on the back burner for now. If we found a non-cannabis underwriter or angel sponsor who just wants to see the show get out there in the major stations, then weâd jump on that in a heart beat!
Wow! Thatâs an incredibly powerful impact! You have every right to be very proud of that accomplishment! So very cool. There is no question that you are an influencer in the cannabis industry. What key piece of guidance might you offer a young woman considering a similar career path as yours or just wanting to break into the cannabis industry?
Todayâs AMA is off to a great start! Itâs time for our @memberdirectory to get in on the action. What are some of your questions for our esteemed guest, Snowden Bishop from The Cannabis Reporter?
Do you see any upward trends with regard to the number of women entering the cannabis space? Also, what kind of specific challenges do women face trying to enter the industry? Thank you!
Sorry I added to that last response while you replied!!
But to any woman starting a new career, my advice is to be fearless. I waited nearly 4 years from the time I decided to write about cannabis before launching The Cannabis Reporter. The only thing that held me back was fear of repercussions due to the negative stigma at the time. We were concerned about clients dropping out of our media projects if we immersed ourselves publicly too much. Trailblazers always go out on a limb. Every new endeavor is a risk â some more than others â but the more we normalize cannabis, the less risky it is. It takes people plowing through the stigma to shed light on the darkness of prohibition.
Also, Iâll try to find an article I was featured in and asks that very question. Give me a moment and Iâll add the link.
I have been impressed that this industry has a lot of female trailblazers. We are a media partner for our regional Women Grow and itâs amazing how well suited this industry is for the nurturing nature of our gender! Weâve done a lot of shows about this. Here are a few:
You recently interviewed me for the show and I found your interview style to be incredibly warm and friendly. You are easy to talk to and it made the process feel less like an interview than a conversation with an old friend. This is a very powerful skill and a great way to elicit information from your interviewee. How did you hone your interview abilities? Are their any journalists that you emulate or who influenced your career and interview style?
But like so many other industries that outgrow the cottage industry status, it is still a male-dominated world. Pay inequality, investor trust issues and, of course, the fear of exercising that sense of entitlement men seem to have more readily in their DNA. We have to keep reminding ourselves we are worth the money, have power to change the world and deserve success!! The cannabis industry is more gender neutral than most, though. And women have taken the lead when it comes to ending the stigma of medical marijuana in particular.
Thanks for this AMA @TheCannabisReporter! There seems to be a generational dichotomy in opinion about cannabis use.Thereâs a piece of conventional wisdom that says that big cultural changes donât happen because people change their minds, but simply because the older generation dies off. You seem well positioned to comment on the accuracy of this conventional wisdom. In your experience, are a lot of people changing their minds as they get more informed, or is the cannabis paradigm shift largely due to the contrarians dying off?
