The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can check out the original version on our podcast, Hard Reset, and donate now to help Big If True meet its goal for December.

MOLLIE BRYANT, founder and editor of Big If True: First off, our listeners may not be aware of this, but you are known as the podcast tastemaker. You’ve definitely introduced me to a lot of great shows like “In the Dark” and “Criminal.” What are you listening to right now?

JUSTIN SANDERS, Hard Reset co-host and member of Big If True’s Board of Directors: Right now, I really listen to a lot of comedy podcasts – maybe because it’s 2020, and there’s a lot of bad stuff out there, so it’s nice to have a podcast to take your mind off of it sometimes.

One of my favorite podcasts is a show called “Hollywood Handbook” that’s hosted by two comedians, Sean Clements and Hayes Davenport. They also have a basketball show called “The Flagrant Ones” on Patreon with Carl Tart – love both of those shows.

I listen to a podcast called “Your Kickstarter Sucks” that’s hosted by two guys who live in Nashville, Jesse Farrar and Michael Hale. That’s a great show, as well. If you’re looking for some new comedy podcasts to try out, I would definitely recommend those.

MOLLIE: This year, this has been my approach to listening to podcasts: I’ll go back into a show’s archive and listen to really old episodes from before this year or listen to shows like “Criminal” or “Decoder Ring” that aren’t focused on the pandemic. I’m curious if the way that you listen to podcasts or consume other media has changed this year?

JUSTIN: Yeah, definitely. The early shutdown, March through about May or so, things were just so bleak. I feel like at that time, I was really devoting a lot of energy every day to trying to keep up with the pandemic. I would go to those covid tracking sites and look at how cases were spreading, and I feel like that was what a lot of people were doing. It was really a singular focus in our societal consciousness, and I don’t think that was particularly healthy. I think it’s really easy to get burned out.

It can be so overwhelming that it’s almost like a lot of people wind up just shutting down and not wanting to stay current on a lot of things because they get news fatigue, and I feel like that definitely happened to me.

I would say in my life, the trend toward using podcasts as a little bit of escapism – a way to completely take my mind off of what’s going on at work or with stuff like the pandemic, more real problems – it’s definitely only gotten stronger this year.

MOLLIE: On Hard Reset, we talk a lot about news and media and misinformation and stuff like that. A lot of that stuff is pretty abstract, but I feel like what’s in the news also plays out in our lives in really personal ways. And I’m wondering, do you ever feel like that?

JUSTIN: Yeah, absolutely. The pandemic’s been a great example of that. My wife is a physician at Baylor College of Medicine here in Houston. She treated the first covid-positive patient in Harris County back in March, so that was crazy. She actually got the Pfizer vaccine just a few days ago in the first three or four days really of the vaccine going out around the country.

For us, the pandemic affected us on a very personal level back in May when we were supposed to have a really large wedding with hundreds of people coming from all over the country and our families. Angie, my wife, is from a really big family, and we had to make the decision to essentially cancel it and just get married with our parents and siblings there.

But as time has gone on, I’ve really seen covid affect everyone in such profound ways – obviously, the people that have lost their jobs, people that have been put in a situation where they can’t pay their rent, can’t pay their mortgages.

MOLLIE: You’re a founding member of Big If True’s Board of Directors. I wonder if any of that stuff – how the news is connected to your life and other people’s lives in the United States – is part of why you got involved with Big If True?

JUSTIN: Yeah, absolutely it is. And something that I think makes Big If True’s mission so important is that all of this is happening at a time when the news media as an industry is really, again, in uncharted territories, as far as newsrooms shutting down, consolidation by these giant media companies that buy up local papers, and then cut costs to try to maximize profitability.

And I think investigative journalism is always important, and factchecking and holding people in power accountable is important. But now more than ever, it seems like that’s the case.

I think there’s such a huge role to be played in this changing landscape by nonprofit journalism. And people like me, private citizens who work in other industries, we can still be a part of the solution to this public problem by getting involved with organizations like Big If True.

MOLLIE: This month, Big If True has a goal to raise $1,500 to support our in-depth reporting. Every dollar raised will go toward our freelancers. So I’d also like to say thank you to you, Justin, because you made a gift this month to support our journalism here at Big If True. Why are you a donor?

JUSTIN: So I think any time donating to Big If True is a great idea, but especially this campaign, because like you said, that money is going directly to reporters that are going to go out and do the work in their community. When you donate to this campaign, you’re directly contributing to a piece of really important reporting getting done. And I just like the fact that the money goes directly towards journalism in a way that – you know, I don’t think you can be any more direct than what this campaign is all about.

And also, when you donate to Big If True and you read the website, you’re going to see the stories that you helped make possible. Again, that speaks to why nonprofit journalism is so important. Because if you’re like me, you can’t go out and go to every city council meeting, and you don’t have the resources or the time to go figure out what problems are out there in your community that you need to help vulnerable populations be aware of. But when you donate to Big If True, that’s exactly what you’re doing, and you don’t have to do the work yourself. You get to support an organization that already has the framework and is ready to go out and do the important work.

So that’s why I donated to this campaign. I think that the mission is so important, and now’s a great time to give. You’re going to be directly helping these stories get told and get out there.

Join Justin and donate to Big If True now. We can only make in-depth, independent journalism with your help.