Julia Waldow is a retail reporter at Modern Retail where she provides analysis and coverage of the latest news and trends in the apparel and footwear industries (you might also hear her on the Modern Retail Podcast from time to time). Covering everything from tariffs to Labubus, she’s a seasoned retail journalist with time also spent at CNN, KCET, Mic and Emmy Magazine.
The retail media landscape is crowded and only continues to grow as journalists, influencers and industry experts alike embrace Substack, podcasts and other emerging mediums to report on the most important issues facing the industry.
To get the perspective of someone experiencing this firsthand, I spoke to Julia about how her role as a journalist has evolved, how non-traditional media is influencing her work and what it takes to be a good partner and resource to journalists today.
How has your work in journalism evolved in response to the changing media environment, especially with the rise of AI, increased publishing demands and newsroom layoffs?
At the risk of sounding cheesy, having really unique and engaging content right now is more important than ever. There’s no shortage of places where people can get information – everything from social media to print material to digital mediums like Substack and streaming – and with so many places where people can get information, the news landscape has become really saturated.
I think it’s so important to make sure that we’re doing valuable work that actually adds something to the conversation – that people want to read and share. People’s attention spans are hard to compete for, and over my time in journalism, I’ve really tried to create content that is valuable and introduces something that people maybe haven’t thought about or is a new point of view – all while staying factual.
Sometimes I think with that comes a spirit of experimentation, too. For example, at Modern Retail, we’ve started doing things like LinkedIn Live, and I’ve also taken up more podcasting duties for our team. I’m trying to make sure we get the information to where people are, which is important with so much competition for people’s time and attention.
What’s your take on the rising influence of non-traditional media like Substacks, independent newsletters and podcasts? How do you think these platforms influence decision-making at traditional news outlets? Do these niche voices affect how you tailor your stories or approach topics that may otherwise be considered too specialized?
I am a huge fan of Substack and other independent non-traditional media. Over the past few months especially, I’ve really started using it as a go-to source because there’s a lot of really good journalists on there who specialize in certain topics. I cover retail, but I am also trying to keep tabs on what’s going on in tech, what’s going on in media and what’s going on in entertainment and various types of other businesses, so some of the Substacks that are more niche or really specialized give me a really good understanding of some of those other industries, and that helps me have a better, holistic idea of topics that could relate to mine.
I think with Substacks, independent newsletters and podcasts, however you can reach people is valuable, and non-traditional media is a good place for experimentation. Some people, and even brands I’ve talked to, have exclusive events for Substack subscribers, so I feel like engagement is really high on some of these platforms and I really appreciate that. It’s been fun to see this rise of non-traditional media, and I definitely don’t feel like we are in competition. I think it’s been helpful to have more reporting, more insights and more analysis out there in general.
Are there any you follow or particularly like?
Yes, there are a lot that I really like: After School by Casey Lewis – I really like that one – Feed Me by Emily Sundberg, ICYMI by Lia Haberman, Embedded, Inside The Collective, The Kicks You Wear, Snobette News, Snaxshot… I’ll stop there, but those are ones I really like.
Can you walk me through how you discover and validate story ideas today? How have those methods evolved compared to earlier in your career, and what role, if any, does AI play in your work?
In terms of story development, it’s a multi-pronged approach. One of the ways that I come up with a story idea is through conversations with sources. Since we’re covering the retail industry, a lot of that tends to be conversations with analysts who are covering particular companies. I cover mostly apparel and footwear, so I’ll check in with folks who cover companies like Nike or Crocs, for instance, but we also try to have regular conversations with founders, CEOs, investors – anybody who is in the retail world because it allows us to get an understanding of what challenges people are dealing with or the problems they’re trying to solve.
If a particular topic comes up a lot in different conversations that I’m having with different sources, then it tells me maybe this is a trend story and that something larger is going on here that I should look into. With company news in terms of bankruptcies, if they’ve opened new stores, or if they made a really significant hire, I tend to chase those from an analysis perspective and follow major headlines. I go through earnings reports a lot. Sometimes I keep an eye on job postings with companies – for instance, if they start posting a lot of job openings in their brand marketing department, that signals to me they’re interested in boosting up this part of their company and that maybe I should reach out to them and ask why this is a priority for them.
In terms of AI, I honestly don’t use AI too much – which I know is probably not the most fun answer. I do use it with transcriptions since we interview and chat with so many people on a weekly basis, so having a transcription service really, really helps and saves time. I always have to go through and check to make sure that quotes [from the transcription service] are accurate because sometimes they’re not! I don’t really tend to use ChatGPT or Google Gemini that much because I find that some of the results generated are not up to date. As [we are] a fact-based publication, that’s not good. For instance, there was one time where I was trying to see how many stores a brand had by checking Google Gemini, and when I double checked it in the brand’s most recent earnings report, the numbers were totally different. I’m kind of cautious about taking information straight from AI tools, but I do talk a lot to brands and companies that are using them in really interesting ways as an additive – not as a substitute – to the other work that they’re trying to do.
AI shopping agents have been getting a lot of attention recently, but among the brands and the retailers you’re talking to, do you see anything else that companies in the retail sector are investing in as far as AI?
Yeah, I would say chatbots is one that comes up a lot in terms of the customer service experience. Some brands that I talk to are using AI solutions to navigate tariffs and adjust sourcing or pricing, and others are using them to generate copy and make sure that product pages are optimized for selling online.
In your view, how are broader influences like consumer behavior, labor issues, the economy, supply chains, etc. shaping your work? What about retail journalism more broadly?
There’s no shortage of matters to cover, from the labor market to tariffs, manufacturing, brand marketing, ChatGPT and more. It can sometimes be a little overwhelming as the person covering it, but staying on top of everything and seeing what these things look like in practice has been really helpful.
Tariffs, for example, have been such a huge topic of discussion, and one thing we try to do at our publication is home in on what that looks like in a practical sense. What does that mean for shoppers and the decisions they’re making and the products they’re buying? What does that mean for brands? Are they having to completely change production? Are they having to raise prices? Are they having to hold off on product development? Are they halting hiring, or hiring in different areas? The more specific we can get about some of these huge topics, it helps us see what conversations people are having, what changes they’re making and how this affects multiple groups of people including shoppers, people at the brand level and investors.
It’s hard sometimes to juggle everything that’s coming out of the news cycle, but looking for real-world cases and examples has been really grounding for me, and I think that has been helpful in communicating to our readers what this stuff actually looks like and what it actually means.
Is data helpful for you to make sense of some of these more niche topics in the retail space?
One-hundred percent, yes. Hard numbers, studies and stats are always super helpful because it shows us trends and shows us that people are talking about these topics and making decisions or not making decisions based on what’s happening in the world.
We may not use them [the reports] all the time in stories, in terms of sourcing them, but I keep a lot of reports on hand, and if I’m writing about other topics that are related to some of those reports, I’ll go back and compare different versions of reports about certain topics. If I’m writing about the holidays, for instance, and I’m given different monthly reports on holiday sentiment, I can see if things have changed or shifted in some way, so data is always welcome.
There’s an ever-changing statistic out there on how the ratio of people working in PR is far higher than the number of people working in journalism. How do you cultivate genuine, trusting relationships with sources when you’re getting so many emails offering new people to talk to? What, in your opinion, is most helpful for folks in PR who want to meaningfully engage with you or other journalists?
An understanding of the work that I do and the work that I don’t do is really important, including the types of companies and stories I cover – and that goes for [all of] Modern Retail. There’s content that we don’t publish, like gift guides, so when I get a pitch in that realm, that immediately tells me, ‘This person hasn’t really looked at what we publish.’ Sometimes I’ll get a pitch that’s very similar to a story I just did, and I don’t really want to write the same story twice, so that tells me that [they] haven’t really looked at the work that I’ve done recently or read it.
Exclusives go a long way for us, and access to executives is key. We don’t publish pre-written quotes; we have to talk to an executive if we’re writing about a company and get them on the phone because that allows for a more authentic, free-flowing conversation. And then what we just talked about with hard data, revenue numbers, year over year growth – something like that is really helpful because it gives me an idea of how the business has been doing.
Quick response times, a willingness to share images or special statistics and being flexible with an embargo if that’s possible is really helpful. Being respectful of each other’s processes goes a long way. We all have a job to do and we’re all trying to make things work, so [we] need to be respectful, courteous and understanding that we’re all regular people. Being upfront and transparent with what you need and what you can do is really important. A lot of my emails in my inbox every day that I do read are from people who I haven’t worked with before and I’m totally open to that. I want to cultivate relationships with people, and I’m eager to do that.
Looking forward, how do you envision the role of retail journalism evolving – in terms of platforms, formats or audience expectations – and how are you or Modern Retail preparing for those changes?
It’s a good question. It’s really hard to predict what’s going on in retail because so much changes: companies rising or going bankrupt, consumer preferences changing, sales changing – all of that influences it.
I think making sure we stay on top of the major challenges, obstacles and opportunities that are in the space is important – looking at how brands and retailers are adapting and safeguarding against some of these challenges and obstacles.
In terms of [the role of] journalism, there is unfortunately a lot of misinformation out there. It’s something that has proliferated a lot, and I think will unfortunately continue to be a big problem. For us, making sure that we’re delivering accurate, factual coverage is so important. I think that making sure that we have that content and that it can be easily accessed, whether that’s on print, social or elsewhere, is so important.
We’re trying to tell the stories that people are having conversations about every day – things that people are discussing around the dinner table, things people are discussing in the boardroom – all of that is stuff that we want to be able to cover.
Thank you, Julia, for a great conversation about the state of today’s noisy and changing retail media landscape. For the latest on what’s happening in retail, check out Julia’s reporting at Modern Retail here.
