Roshan Bliss: Conflict sells. And so, so much of our media is oriented toward dealing with conflict and disagreement in this super unproductive way, and we are learning from that.

Sam Fuqua: That's Roshan Bliss, and this is, Well, That Went Sideways! A podcast that serves as a resource to help people have healthy, respectful communication. We present a diversity of ideas, tools, and techniques to help you transform conflict in relationships of all kinds. In this episode, we talk with Roshan Bliss and Jen Sarche about the role media plays in our understanding of conflict and conflict resolution, and we'll hear about their plan to use reality TV to depolarize the country and help people find common ground. Jen Sarche is a media and research consultant. Roshan Bliss directs the Democracy Innovations Program at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. They provide resources, facilitation, and training for people involved in public engagement and conflict resolution work.

I'm Sam Fuqua, co-host of the program with Alexis Miles. Hello Alexis.

Alexis Miles: Hi, Sam.

Sam Fuqua: So pleased to have with us for this edition of Well, That Went Sideways! Jen Sarche and Roshan Bliss. Welcome to you both.

Roshan Bliss: Thanks so much for having us.

Sam Fuqua: Since we scheduled this interview, I've been thinking a lot about how the media portrays conflict, and it's such a rich area. Going to my earliest experiences of watching, you know, Saturday morning cartoons and things like that, I hadn't really thought about though how much I learned about conflict from those early media experiences. What do we know, kind of, about how that shapes our view of conflict?

Roshan Bliss: What prompted me, um, to start thinking about media and conflict is thinking about how people learn after they've left their formal education. So, for the majority of their lives. I went to grad school to study conflict resolution here in Denver, and I was in a class on what we call intractable conflict. The kinds of conflicts that just linger and are so tied up with people's identities and, and deep difficult issues that, they are really difficult to solve. And, I was learning about theories of how conflict gets deescalated in such situations. And, one piece was just that people have to learn more about the other side, whatever sides or divide is, is, uh, splitting them. When folks from one side meet and connect with people from the other side in some very basically positive ways, basically, as long as it's not competitive and is supported by some neutral third party, those people often end up having less prejudice against the other side and more empathy for the other side, and, sort of, humanize each other, uh, in both directions. And, that's the, the, sort of, summary of what, what's called intergroup contact theory, or just contact theory, for short.

And, the fundamental part of contact theory that, um, really made me start thinking about media is that this is a learning exercise that you have to actually meet some of these people and get to, like, learn things about folks you didn't know before. And, that's something that we can scale up if only we have a way to help people meet each other, and to teach folks new things, um, enmasse in these, sort of, high conflict and tension situations like Palestine and Israel or pre- or post-civil war situations in a whole nation, and that the only way to do that was either through the Internet, which is so fractured and, you know, sort of, siloed these days that you're never gonna reach the, a huge portion of any one population. But the, the only way I was, so I thought during my, uh, grad school classes that I was learning about this during, one of the only ways you could actually ensure that that many people learn a new thing is from mass media. Entertainment. Because that is one of the only places where that many eyeballs from a single society, community, country, go at once or in a short amount of time, and we learn so much. I learned so much from media that we could learn really positive things there too. That's, that's how I started thinking about it.

Jen Sarche: I just wanted to build a little bit on the end of that, that piece about social norms and learning from media what's normal and, kind of, this, this default thought or monkey mind gives us that, well, here's what everybody does and here's what everybody knows and here's what's normal. But, a lot, especially in, younger people have a lot of, sort of, 'Am I normal?' question driving their behavior, um, and what is normal. And so, what they see on media is, is what they perceive to be normal. And we know from research that's coming out now and most recently in social media is that what is most attractive and what attracts the most eyeballs and the most clicks is drama. Conflict. Um, they brought her down or, you know, watch this person get blasted on the floor of Congress. And so, wouldn't it be lovely if there was an alternative, a really wonderful way where the drama is inherent. The idea that we're thinking of with this program, the drama is inherent. The conflict exists in part because of all of that. And, wouldn't it be incredible to have those eyeballs and those, those thoughts about what's normal to be a constructive way to manage that. Or, even seeing the conflict itself as constructive and a place to start from, to build solutions or ideas or compromise.

Alexis Miles: So, if I'm hearing you correctly, we have unwittingly learned about conflict, how to deal with conflict, et cetera, from, a lot of that learning has come from media, and you're proposing that we can use media to teach a new way of engaging in conflict that's more positive and that has more positive outcomes. Is that correct?

Roshan Bliss: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, I think that there's, not only we can, but we should. Because, you know, if you think about our media landscape these days, you've got certainly, you know, movies and TV where so often there's a really clear villain, a really clear good guy, and the solution is, in so many ways, from children's cartoons to, you know, action dramas, it's to beat the bad guy up or vanquish them in something, some way that's, that often looks like a fight or a straight up violence. And, in our, you know, sort of, press and news and, you know, what, what passes for, kind of, social commentary these days, it is a series of talking heads, um, who are increasingly on our, you know, increasingly polarized news networks, very clearly from one side of a political or cultural or social divide talking about the other side, either in their absence or when they bring one person from whatever the other side is into a room full or a panel full of people who agree with the other side, and they fight. And they, you know, just, sort of, shout and, shout at each other, talk over each other, you know, score points, sort of, rhetorically, but go nowhere near understanding each other, learning more about their, the perspective of the other that they didn't, that maybe surprises them or they didn't know. And almost certainly never, you know, feeling like they're moving toward addressing a problem or finding common ground. That's what gets eyeballs. Um, because as Jen said, you know, the sort of, the saying in, in newspapers is, "If it bleeds, it leads," and, you know, conflict sells.

And so, so much of our media is oriented toward dealing with conflict and disagreement in this super unproductive way, and we are learning from that. Whether we mean to or not, it's, just becomes the, kind of, background of our whole culture. Uh, and there's a saying in, in, in some spaces that when we think about young people growing up to, you know, what, what they wanna be, that if you can't see it, you can't be it. And so, that if, you know, if little black girls never see black women scientists, then they would never imagine themselves to be scientists. And so, they don't ever aspire to do that. And, I think the same is very true about the ways that we address political and social divisions. Um, that, like, if we never had any examples that lots of people see and learn from, uh, how would we find, how would we figure out ways to do that in our daily lives, and let alone in our politics, et cetera.

Alexis Miles: And, I think that you and, and your colleagues have proposed an experiment to see what, what it would look like if you engaged in conflict in a different way. And so, can you tell us about the, I believe it's a reality TV show called, um, A House Divided.

Roshan Bliss: The idea really started in that conflict resolution class that I was in 15 years ago at this point. But, NCDD, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation has been, um, helping foster this project. It's, sort of, our moonshot that really is asking the question if we created a space where people actually are given expert professional facilitation and conflict resolution, um, support to deliberate on a real problem in their real community, toward a solution that they actually want to, you know, solve this problem, if we caught all that on camera, and made it entertaining in the way that reality TV does, could that make a difference? And, the more that we have conceptualized and designed this show, and the more that we have sought the research to back this, uh, back up the theory of its, of its potential impact, the clearer it's been that yes, we, we actually could leverage things like contact theory, uh, and several other dynamics that we know from research on reality TV, happen when people watch tv, uh, reality TV specifically, that if we had a successful reality TV show that featured these types of interactions, we might actually be able to lower, measurably, lower the level of polarization that the whole country has across cultural and political lines, and help people learn how to do conflict better in their lives, and, sort of, give them an alternative and culturally understood touchpoint, uh, for a better way to engage with folks we disagree with that actually gets us somewhere instead of just, you know, the infinite point scoring and jockeying for position in the horse race that never ends.

Sam Fuqua: I would like to talk about what that show is gonna look like. But first of all, can you define contact theory for us?

Jen Sarche: Sure. I mean, in simple language, contact theory is that we are afraid of what we don't know. And so, when we know something or get, have the opportunity to get to know someone, um, that will bring that fear down and open new opportunities. So, it's about relationship building with someone or something, or an idea or a concept or a religion or a race or an ethnicity, whatever the divide might be. When you have contact with a person who holds that identity that we've been segregated from or taught to fear, uh, we become less afraid of that person and that identity that they hold. I previously was a co-executive director of a nonprofit organization called Building Bridges that brought Israeli and Palestinian teenagers to the United States, to Denver, um, and the surrounding areas to meet each other for the first time and build relationships with one another and build leadership and conflict transformation skills. And, we also included Americans from diverse backgrounds, uh, across race and class and ethnic divides. And so, part of the reason that that program in terms of contact theory was so powerful is when we look at Israel and Palestine, we can see utterly segregated society, literally across borders, where in many cases, Israelis only thought of Palestinians as terrorists. And, of course, that's a whole other issue we don't wanna talk about today, but the, that profound segregation leads in part to the continued conflict. Um, and when those, those young people come together for the first time and realize, wow, she also sleeps on her side and her parents don't like her music and we all love falafel, that really, sort of, transforms the idea of "the other" and humanizes the idea of "the other" in a way that creates opportunity for transforming conflict. So that is contact theory, in a nutshell, is going from this profound segregation to, if not full integration, then at least contact, and under, and beginning to understand what the other's humanity means.

Roshan Bliss: One of the brilliant things about contact theory is that we know that when these two individuals from whichever groups in, in, in Jen's work, in that case, Palestinian, Israelis, when they meet one person from the other group and have this positive contact, the humanization and, sort of, increase of empathy, decrease of prejudice, applies to the whole group. So, you only have to meet one person. If you're an Israeli, you only have to meet one pass, Palestinian. And if you're a Palestinian, you only have to meet one Israeli to change your feeling about all Israelis. If you've never met any before, we get this kind of outsized impact of just one conversation or one relationship that applies to this whole group, and if lots of people have that, you get the, kind of, many to many conflict is suddenly, you're shifting the terrain on which it's happening and making it much more amenable to something positive happening, or at least deescalating the chance that something really negative, um, or, you know, the outbreak of violence or something like that is gonna happen.

Alexis Miles: So, is this any contact or does it need to be facilitated contact?

Jen Sarche: Yes. You know, when I think about that program, all of the participants, Americans and Israelis and Palestinians who come, came with a curiosity, um, and came, their only requirement was have, having a willingness to talk to the other person. And so, that willingness, I think, is key. That consent to open yourself, um, to the other way, even though maybe you hope that the result of the conversation is something really different than I hope it is, or the result of that relationship is different, just the willingness to enter into relationship I think is critical to that contact.

Roshan Bliss: What the research studies that you can find show is that in some very, again, very basically positive, um, settings, there are some factors you can use to make sure that it's a positive contact and it's basically don't compete and have some third party or institution or government or soccer club or whatever supporting and, sort of, encouraging that the two sides meet and talk, that it'll be a positive contact. But, you know, concept theory also works in the other direction too, where if the only, you know, to make it, like, something more neutral, you know. We're, we're in Denver, so if you're a Broncos fan and you've only ever met one Raiders fan, and they were a real jerk, and, you know, said something mean to you, you will, kind of, develop a negative view of all Raiders fans. It works both ways. This is just, uh, sort of elucidation of some pretty basic human relationship stuff.

Sam Fuqua: So, for our listeners who have limited knowledge of what reality TV even is, can you define that? Maybe give some examples, and then we could talk about how your project is going to work in that world.

Roshan Bliss: For sure. Uh, yeah. Reality TV, it's a kind of misnomer sometimes because there's so much soft-scripting, manipul, and manipulation in some of the, the kind of most well known examples, but it is a way that they talk about it in the industry is, is they call it unscripted TV. Uh, as opposed to scripted narratives. You've got Bridgerton, or, you know, movies that, you know have actors where there are lines they're reading from a script. Unscripted TV or reality TV does not have that. So, some examples are, you know, the classic one, the one that, sort of, started it all is Real World, um, and the Survivor competition show. You've got The Bachelor, Love is Blind, um, all these different spaces and stories, um, that are bringing real people together who are not playing some role, um, that they're given by a script, and they don't have lines that they're saying. There's maybe, you know, a sequence of events we're gonna carry them through. In Survivor, there was always a series of competitions, you know, and they had teams, uh, and they had a, sort of, gold, they were all, uh, pointed toward, of survival inside a real world. Um, variously they were starting a business together, or, you know, launching some organization, um, while they had to live in this house together. There are many different ways that reality TV takes shape. Um, but it's usually bringing together people who are not playing some role for effect, um, that they're given anyway by a script, and giving them some interesting task that they all then are working on or some way that they have to relate to each other. Um, and just rolling cameras while they do that.

And, I think a critical part of reality TV that makes it, sort of, feel like reality TV is that you also get quite often the, the people, the characters, the participants in the shows are pulled aside periodically and just given what's called a confessional interview, where it's just them by themselves in front of a camera, talking about what was going on for them during some competition, performance, act piece of the show that they just finished, so that they, you often get the kind of x-ray into what they were thinking, how they were feeling, um, what was going on for them in whatever scene, and then cutting that confessional interview, you know, if somebody just threw a glass across the room and some argument cutting straight to their confessional that was recorded, they were interviewed, you know, three hours later they'd calmed down, and asked to say, like, what was going on with them. Cutting those two pieces together is just such an amazing, as part of the com, like what makes reality TV compelling, it's such an amazing way to see inside of people's heads in a way that we don't get to in regular life, and where we get to see what they did, but also how they were thinking and feeling. And that's also a critical part to what would make our show successful, is that it's not just you see the conversation, but you get to understand what's going on inside of the head or inside of the heart of that person who you just never would've met, um, and can't seem, can't understand without more content.

Sam Fuqua: Thanks. That's really helpful. So, what is A House Divided gonna look like?

Roshan Bliss: So, the basics of the show are that we would have nine people, nine regular Americans from a real town in a swing district community. Three from the left, three from the right, three from the center, politically. They would be, in fact, locked in a house together for seven days. And, they would be given the task of deliberating through a process that's called a citizen jury. Um, a structured deliberative decision making process with professional help from facilitators and deliberative experts and, um, conflict resolution experts, mediators, if they, if they need them. So, they'd be locked in the house for seven days, given the task of using the citizen jury process to come to a decision on a real life hot button issue that is causing a stir or even tearing apart the real life community that they come from. So, for example, if, if we can find a, you know, middle-sized town that's having a real big debate about trans kids in the school bathrooms, um, and whether they should have gender neutral bathrooms. If, if they're having that debate, we would bring three people each, um, from the left, right, and center into this house. Um, and the house would, of course, be filled with cameras and microphones, et cetera, and these people would have to start by getting to know one, one another.

They would start by, you know, building some relationship. There would be some empathy challenges, kind of, game type activities that they engage in that would help the participants get to know each other, but also help the viewer get to understand where they're all coming from, um, and start to, you know, set the stage. And, the show would be, sort of, broken into a few different sections in the way that a trial is, because most people don't know what a, a deliberative citizen's jury is, but they know how a trial works. So, you've got the kind of pretrial where you select the jury. You've got the opening arguments, and the, sort of, the time when the jury gets informed for sometimes, you know, hours and days on end about all the salient issues to the, the case that's in front of them. And then, you've got the jury going into deliberations where they fight it out and discuss and de, decide. They literally deliberate about what they should recommend the judge do, and they have to come to consensus. That, that's the key, sort of, conceit of the show, is that they have to all agree, the same way that a jury does, or else they fail. But, if they come to consensus, they then, the jury, a, a trial jury gets to, you know, give its verdict to the court, and the court executes, um, on the trial, on the verdict.

And in the show, if the participants come to consensus on what should be done about trans bathroom issues in their small town or whatever, they get a chance to go pitch the recommendation that they come up with to local leaders in their town who can do something about it. The mayor, the head of the school board, the superintendent, hopefully, their governor wants to be on TV and will come be part of the panel. Um, and we'll, we'll also bring funders and some people in the business community who've got money, and the participants in the citizen jury will then have the chance in this kind of high stakes pitch session to tell these decision makers, here's what we think you should do. And budget's willing, if, uh, their decision makers, uh, accept the proposal from the citizen jury, they get a million dollars for their community to start implementing that process and the solution right then. And hopefully, we'll have a follow up episode about, like, how did it go, later. Um, but if they fail, you know, they've gotta go back to their communities empty-handed to, sort of, see, come what may, how is this problem gonna work out, um, and we'll follow them then too. Talk to 'em in a few months about, like, how are they feeling about this, this conflict that's maybe continuing to divide their community even further.

So, that's the basics of how the show would work. It's clear to us that what problem we take on in what town is one of the biggest questions of making the show work, and making it really exciting and engaging for people. And, we just, kind of, can't decide that problem or town ahead of time, um, because it just depends on when this is airing, what's most salient in the news cycles and social media, et cetera. But we promise it'll be on something, sort of, cultural, so politically divisive, uh, sort of culture war types of issues. And, we think that (a) this is gonna be super entertaining because people tune in night after night to their various politicized news networks to see and hear more about the latest on whatever culture war issues are going on, and (b) that real people actually trying to figure out what we're gonna do about these sorts of things in a real conversation, is novel. We almost never see it on TV or on our streaming devices. So, it is actually going to be a new and interesting sort of setup we think that people want to see, and will be really interested to watch.

Jen Sarche: I just wanna pipe in with one piece there that, that is really implicit, but I think it's helpful in the context at least of this podcast to make explicit, and that is skills building. That we don't think of communication and conflict generally. We don't learn about it in school as something that you can build skills about to do better. Um, and really, the viewership of the show is going to be building skills in communication and conflict to do it better. And it's going to, they're gonna see the results of that in the, in the arc of the show.

Roshan Bliss: Absolutely. Thank you for adding that, Jen. 'Cause yeah, it's a huge, hugely important piece that the facilitators and conflict professionals will be characters on the show. Um, they won't be trapped in the house, um, with the, the nine participants, but they'll do their own confessionals, you know, as they're facilitating, and may, there is a blow up about something. We'll hear from the two participants from the house who, the jury who blew up, but we'll also get a, a confessional interview from the facilitator or the mediator who was, you know, trying to help them figure this situation out or deescalate, and the viewers are gonna be learning from those participants, from the, the facilitators and mediators too. There's also lots of ways for us, um, to build in moments where the participants and the jury are, and the, the house residents, are basically having to compete to do the best at understanding the other side, or rephrasing their, you know, argument to their satisfaction and get ranked by other participants so that some of the core skills of handling conflict better become, sort of, gamified versions of the show's, kind of, challenges, um, in a given episode. And, there's so much opportunity for us to, again, help people learn, uh, and be taught by media, some new skills that we know they can get from watching others do it, but also make it really entertaining and engaging.

Alexis Miles: In your experience, what's a common or popular deescalation tool that you have found useful in, in day-to-day life? And one of the tools that might be used on the show?

Jen Sarche: I think the first one, and, and, and really just wanna touch back on what Roshan was saying, that this will be entertaining. So, when we start getting down and talking about tools, I don't want people's eyes to be glazing over, right? Because the, the drama here, the conflict here will be inherent, right? We're gonna choose a topic that people have really deeply held feelings about. So, this is going to be interesting. They're going to be interesting people having interesting conversations. And so, even as we're describing the tools with the editing and with this format, it does feel really productive and feel really fun. Um, and the first one that would come to my mind is slowing down the conversation is before you respond to another person, making sure that you understand what they say. Um, and that can take a lot of different forms. There are different ways to do it in different types of dialogue, in different types of interaction. You can do anything from rephrasing, do you mean, blah, blah, blah, to, um, really, really explicitly slowing it down to verbatim, have to repeat back what you just heard, word for word, what the other person said. And that can be at the discretion of a facilitator, what kind of result you get from what kind of different conflict. But, on a day-to-day basis, for me talking to my sons, my teenage sons, um, if they say something that really takes me back or that I feel my, my feathers ruffling, the first thing I'll do is repeat back what I heard. Usually, not word for word, but just to make sure that I'm really understanding what I just heard from them. Um, and if it's really surprising or shocking to me to ask them to clarify or get deeper about it.

Roshan Bliss: Yeah. You reflect those things back and say, did I get that right? Am I understanding you correctly? Is that what you said? And give them a genuine opportunity to clarify if, if it's not, because that is one of the core parts of how we do conflict better is ensure that the communication is conveying what it was intended and not, you know, what we read onto it. Jen's right that, you know, when you start to break down the skills, it sounds a little more boring, and, like, the inside baseball is not as exciting. Uh, but still we won't slow it down that much, uh, you know, in the show. And, the right TV editors and, and producers can make paint drying seem really exciting. Uh, so there's a lot that the magic of television can make less boring.

Sam Fuqua: This sounds interesting to me and probably to many in our audience on a conflict and conflict resolution podcast, but how is this gonna work with mass TV and streaming audience?

Roshan Bliss: I mean, I'm really glad you asked that question, Sam, because there's a couple things that we know about reality TV. One is that, you know, the production really, really matters and even though there's a lot of people talking, you can edit in ways that make things way more interesting. The drama. The music. Much of the Bachelor's, a bunch of people standing around in a podium while one guy talks. Like, but it's still, it's gripping, you know? Um, so, that's one reason. But, there's two things about social science research on reality TV that I think are really important for us to understand. One, is the, uh, sort of, avatar effect that people who are watching quite often pick someone that they identify with the most closely as a character on the show, and they start to experience the show with them. Almost on a like emotional level, that they're, that character's wins are, are the viewer's wins. That character's loss is the viewer's loss. And, they develop this identity, identification with one character more than the others. And, that makes it really important for us to have a diverse cast that's genuinely, sort of, looks like the, the country or at least the viewership of the show. Um, and we're intentionally going to, you know, in casting out of regular people, um, make sure that we have a broad diversity genuinely beyond just politics, so that we can develop that, that avatar effect so that, number two, the other thing we know from reality TV research is that when there is a performative aspect, whether it's a song and dance, a, sort of, obstacle competition course, whatever, um, that viewers reliably, this is, like, a majority of viewers, not all, but the research shows that a majority of viewers of reality TV show, look at that, sort of, performative activity, whatever it is, and say, I could do that. I could probably do it better than them.

And, the part that we haven't talked about is that this show is designed to have an impact campaign ready to go from the airing of the first episode that basically seizes on that impulse that we know reliably happens in reality TV viewers to say, oh, do you think you could do it better? Well, on Tuesday of next week, 'cause we know what day this show is gonna air in, you know, these 20 major cities across the country, our friends, you know, NCDD and Blueshift and, uh, Building Bridges types organizations, our network is already planning a national campaign in co, uh, in correspondence with the America250, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and lots of other efforts, uh, at depolarization, we're going to be having in-person chances for people to come show up and meet someone they disagree with, and either be invited to join some broader civic effort to improve their community, or to just have an interesting conversation with someone about a hot topic that they disagree with and get support to, you know, have these kinds of dialogues. We will be inviting people from the screen. It might just look as simple as saying, like, go to housedivided tv.com and, you know, you can learn more about it there or sign up, uh, you know, scan this QR code. But that's, that's why we think it's gonna be, have a, a real chance at making an impact in our culture is not only, is the contact theory going to be working, uh, vicariously, which we know from lots and lots of research that you don't have to be the one who experiences the contact. It could be your mom who just tells you, "I met someone today from the other side," et cetera.

Um, and, we know from, again, experiments have shown that it could just be that you watch someone from your ingroup on whatever kind of screen do it, and you get 70 percent or so is, less of the, the, the sort of effect, but it's still there and substantive. We know that people will, just from their couches, start to be depolarized and have less prejudice against the other side, whichever side they're on, politically or culturally. But also, we're going to invite them, and, sort of, get that, get our, hopefully, get our hooks in them at that exact moment when they're saying, I could do that. Like, we know they will, and invite them to try it out themselves. And, that's really why we think this is a super unique and exciting opportunity, um, for us to take the best of both worlds of social science research and effective good entertainment, um, and use them for the benefit of the country. That's really, in so many ways, teetering on the edge of something really bad based on how deeply polarized we are, how hard it is to find, let alone even speak to someone from the other side of whatever political or cultural divides we're on these days in a civil way. We think that it's gonna be a fun, entertaining show, but that it also could ultimately help us step back from the brink of some really bad directions that our culture could go.

Sam Fuqua: So, what's the timeline here? When are we gonna see this on our TVs and streaming devices?

Jen Sarche: Well, uh, right now we are in the process of seeking funding, um, to help us show people what this is gonna look like. We can talk about it till the cows come home. You heard my reticence to get into the nut, nuts and bolts of conflict management, um, and conflict transformation. Uh, 'cause when you see this on your screen, even for five minutes in introduction, then you will be excited to watch it and become a viewer. So, we are in a fundraising round to develop what we call a sizzle reel. It's gonna be five or six minutes, an introduction to really give people a feel, um, what this is going to be like. Um, as soon as we get that funding met, we hope to be able to record that fairly quickly within a day, and then a couple weeks worth of editing post-production. We, we are working with an Emmy award winning studio called Stage two Studios, um, who is located in Golden, Colorado, uh, to produce that, and then take that to look for distribution partners. So, these would be where your eyeballs are gonna be able to see it on TV. Is, is it a streamer? Is it a network channel? Is it, um, where is it going to go and where is it gonna live? Um, and hopefully we are, we believe that it'll be so fun to watch, and so exciting with the potential for transformation and impact and change, um, that it could be within a year.

Sam Fuqua: Jen Sarche and Roshan Bliss, thank you for joining us on Well, That Went Sideways! and, and good luck with the project. I look forward to watching.

Roshan Bliss: Well, thanks so much.

Jen Sarche: Thanks so much.

Sam Fuqua: You can find out more about the reality TV project, A House Divided, and connect with Jen Sarche and Roshan Bliss at the website, housedividedtv.com. That's housedividedtv.com.

Thanks for listening to Well, That Went Sideways! We produce new episodes twice a month. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts, and on our website, sidewayspod.org. Our site has information on our guests, interview transcripts, and links to more conflict resolution resources. And, we encourage you to sign up for our newsletter. That's at sidewayspod.org. Our production team is Mary Zinn, Jes Rau, Norma Johnson, Alexis Miles, Alia Thobani, and me, Sam Fuqua. Our theme music is by Mike Stewart. We produce these programs in Colorado on the traditional lands of the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations. To learn more about the importance of land acknowledgement, visit our website sidewayspod.org. And this podcast is a partnership with The Conflict Center, a Denver based nonprofit that provides practical skills and training for addressing everyday conflicts. Find out more at conflictcenter.org.