Journalism and The Jiffy

First: Welcome to all the new subscribers – I’m so glad you’re here! I want to reintroduce myself and this newsletter with some updates to this project as we wind down 2025 and head into the new year.

As you may know, I’m participating in a few creator-journalism events and cohorts this year: Project C’s inaugural creator cohort took us to the Online News Association’s (ONA) annual conference in New Orleans in September (where I saw how legacy media infrastructure, newsroom culture, and strategy are collectively reconsidering their relationship to the creator industry). And I was among 20 creators to be selected in the News Creator Corps’s first class in its Trusted Creators training fellowship. Trusted!!!

Since starting The Jiffy in 2023, it’s felt like nonstop experimentation: Who am I as a “storyteller”? What are the stories I feel equipped enough to share? How should they be shared, and what are the ethics of sharing them “as content”?

Then, learning video production; trying 8-minute Reels, then trying 90-second Reels; is Instagram the place; or should it be TikTok, or YouTube? And how do I produce a podcast??? I learned WordPress design, newsletter design, website branding, and merch…

And all the while, constantly asking: Is any of this working? And most existentially: Is it journalism? More on that later.

Being a part of these groups and among inventive, inspiring people who are also figuring it out, and figuring it out together, has helped me refine this project, and I’m excited to head into 2026 with a clearer vision and mission. So in this issue, I wanted to share a bit more about The Jiffy, what I’m learning about this indie-creator-journalist kaleidoscope, and to ask you what you might want from this project.

OK, on to this issue:

This is a question I’m asking myself and my poor wife probably two or three times a day. Is The Jiffy me, or is it its own thing? And I keep landing on a mix of both, but always negotiating that balance.

It started as the James Instagram Feed, thus “Jiffy,” but who is Front Of Camera James, and what is he like? In my 15-plus year career as an editor and journalist, I’ve never been an on-camera personality, like meteorologist and climate communicator Ali Van Fleet (also in the Trusted Creator fellowship with me), or New Orleans’s Kiran Chawla, who I met at ONA. Both are great examples of being slick on camera while also staying relatable and informative.

With practice, I feel less cringey, although I’m still trying to wrap my mind around witnessing myself age rapidly in real time and in HD mode.

In my ONA pitching workshops, co-working calls through Project C, and in hearing feedback from Blair Hickman, Liz Kelly Nelson, Lex Roman, and others, I’ve honed in on a mission statement: The Jiffy is a documentary project about rural life in the U.S., as seen through the lens of upstate New York and western New England. My hope is that I can share stories that inform, entertain, and connect my neighbor on the left about my neighbor on the right, and produce these stories in ways that resonate with a global audience and build a stronger sense of community here at home.

But who is James? I grew up in Texas, lived in Honolulu, New York City, and New Jersey, and now live in the Hudson Valley. Something that’s always interested me is: What makes a local a local? Where and when do we achieve that sense of belonging, especially as we grow older, or move? Jess, my wife, is a naturalized citizen of the U.S., immigrating from Guatemala when she was a teenager. One of the reasons I moved from Texas was that I no longer felt I belonged there. A theme to my life since moving has been trying to understand the question: Where do we live when we live in a place, and where are we from?

But since we don’t need another white guy telling you about the way the country is, it’s important that I’m not the person “telling you like it is.” I’m a bumbling Virgil, finding my way through my community and sharing it with you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so if anything comes to you, reply to this email and let me know.

I live in Columbia County, New York, down the road a bit from that house with the nanny who moved in and wouldn’t move out.

I say “The Jiffy is a podcast and newsletter project about upstate New York,” but admittedly it’s mostly been about the ~50 mile radius of the side of the Hudson River where I live. The Hudson Valley is so big (and gas is expensive 🫠), but I’m researching and planning out future episodes of the podcast that will learn about other communities across the region, maybe in the style of my recent “Guide To The Many Chathams” episode.

And through my ongoing or annual series – including This Old Vibe (about historic preservation and what we choose to preserve), Leaf Watch (my wall-to-wall coverage of fall foliage season), The Scoring Of The Gourds (an annual ranking of Hudson’s porch pumpkins), or The Hungry Eye’s food coverage – I hope to take The Jiffy all over the state.

Because I live where I live, I tend to come across stories local to me more frequently. If you ever see or hear about something interesting happening where you live, please email me and let me know. You can always reply to these emails and they’ll come directly to me.

This brings us to frequency, and I look to you for the answer!

The Jiffy is a newsletter, podcast, and social channel. I aim to publish a short audio documentary on the podcast feed every other weekend, and I’m experimenting with this newsletter moving from twice-monthly to weekly (as well as which day of the week I send it to you). As for the Instagram feed, I post there as much as possible without dying inside.

Would you like this newsletter weekly, or twice-monthly? Let me know!

As to the question of “Why The Jiffy” – aside from my mission statement earlier, I really hope this can become my full-time, paying job. It is one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever worked on, and it’s been an incredible way to get to know New York more deeply. It needs funding, and if you’d like to sponsor this project, I’ve set up a page where you can reach out and partner with me.

And finally, to answer the question: Is The Jiffy “Capital-J Journalism”? There are a lot of terms out there these days: newsfluencer, creator-journalist – I’ve heard that V Spehar of Under the Desk News consider themselves to be a “news communicator.” I’m just doing documentary work. And it’s a collaborative process, working directly with the folks who share their stories with me, and with you. I’m grateful for their stories, and I’m thankful that you’re here to hear them.

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