Speaker 1: Well, joining me now is a familiar face to many
Speaker 1: of you. It's Leland Vitter. He is a anchor at
Speaker 1: News Nation, long time before that, longtime correspondent and journalist
Speaker 1: for Fox News, and he's out with a new personal
Speaker 1: memoir of sorts. It's called Born Lucky, A dedicated Father,
Speaker 1: A grateful son, in my Journey with Autism. It's a
Speaker 1: very moving book. And if you're somebody, if you're a parent,
Speaker 1: if you have a child struggling with some of these issues,
Speaker 1: I think you're going to find this story in this
Speaker 1: book quite inspiring. And with this issue in the news,
Speaker 1: it is worth looking at how families deal with this,
Speaker 1: not how governed. We're going to look at this from
Speaker 1: a family perspective, not necessarily a government perspective. Leland, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Nice to see you.
Speaker 2: Great to be with you.
Speaker 3: I think we would say, is I've watched you for many,
Speaker 3: many years on radio. They would say, right, you know,
Speaker 3: longtime listener, first time call. So it's great, great to
Speaker 3: be with you.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had I found your book very
Speaker 1: compelling and it reminded me of my friend. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know this story because you're probably familiar with
Speaker 1: them with my friend Ron Fournier, longtime political journalists that
Speaker 1: the Associated Press, who wrote wrote a book about his
Speaker 1: journey with his son and the battle that they had
Speaker 1: and how and just your stories about how Principles were
Speaker 1: treating you and your parents and there, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's just such a reminder how little the public does
Speaker 1: understand autism, understand childhood development issues, and how little we
Speaker 1: understand is how you can overcome them, right, And I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that to me feels like the purpose
Speaker 1: of this book.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, Look you said it right, and I
Speaker 3: think you've picked up on it. Chuck when you said,
Speaker 3: for any parent, grandparent, aunt uncle, who has a kid
Speaker 3: who is struggling, because it goes way beyond autism to ADHD, anxiety,
Speaker 3: physical disabilities, just the general bullying that goes on now
Speaker 3: and is so aggressive and there's so many kids who
Speaker 3: are struggling having such a hard time. And when I
Speaker 3: was diagnosed, you know, when my parents and I write
Speaker 3: this in the book, right, they know there's something wrong
Speaker 3: with me. If a kid would touch me, I'd turn
Speaker 3: around and slug them. I was really repellent to kids.
Speaker 3: And they go into one of those little psychology testing centers,
Speaker 3: you know, linoleum floors, crummy chairs, We've all been there,
Speaker 3: stale coffee, old magazines. And they bring me back and
Speaker 3: take one to take me over to, you know, play
Speaker 3: with blocks or whatever.
Speaker 2: They talk to my parents and they look at my parents.
Speaker 3: They said, we really can't imagine what's going on inside
Speaker 3: his head.
Speaker 2: And my dad goes, is there anything we can do? Anything?
Speaker 3: You know, he's desperate, And she goes, generally, not, what
Speaker 3: year is this? This is the mid eighties, right, not
Speaker 3: just it wasn't understood.
Speaker 1: What it was. I was just gonna say, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's I was my under I felt like this is
Speaker 1: a classic story of the eighties. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the response the school gives you. If this is two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven or two thousand and eight, what do you.
Speaker 2: Think, Yeah, I think that's I think that's fair.
Speaker 3: I think those still to this point, there are so
Speaker 3: many parents who feel helpless because there is this idea,
Speaker 3: right in my dance, is there anything we can do?
Speaker 3: And she said generally not, but you know, if the
Speaker 3: kids smart me wants it, there are a few things,
Speaker 3: but there is now even more in our society, this
Speaker 3: desire to put kids who have any type of special
Speaker 3: need in bubble wrap, right, to give them medicine, and
Speaker 3: to say meet them where they're at, and you have
Speaker 3: to accept them is who you are, they are, and
Speaker 3: you have to tell them that this is the superpower
Speaker 3: and all of these things that if my dad had
Speaker 3: done to me, I would have had no chance to
Speaker 3: operate in the world that I operate in now, because
Speaker 3: his method was not about adapting the world to me.
Speaker 3: It was about adapting me to the world. And he
Speaker 3: was brutally honest about it, right, Chuck, And that's not
Speaker 3: something parents are told to do. You know, when I
Speaker 3: was in seventh grade, I wanted to play tennis. My
Speaker 3: dad was a phenomenally gifted athlete, still is, and I
Speaker 3: writing born lucky. How he took me to a couple
Speaker 3: of tennis lessons and after the third or fourth one,
Speaker 3: he looked at me and he said, I'm your father.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 3: I will come to every tennis lesson. I will drive you,
Speaker 3: I will cheer you on. You will never be able
Speaker 3: to play tennis.
Speaker 2: You just can't do it.
Speaker 3: You don't have the coordination, you don't have the hand,
Speaker 3: eye coordination, you don't have the depth perception, you don't
Speaker 3: have the motor skills, it's never going to work, which
Speaker 3: considering I really hope that tennis was my way into
Speaker 3: asking this girl out. I was heartbroken, but I knew
Speaker 3: then my dad would always tell me the truth. And
Speaker 3: then when he said you can do something, boy, that
Speaker 3: meant something all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what you just said about you felt. You
Speaker 1: said your dad wanted you to adapt to the world
Speaker 1: that you live in, not make the world adapt to you. Right, boy,
Speaker 1: if this is not sort of what I would argue.
Speaker 1: You know, we sit here and we have these these fights,
Speaker 1: sometimes through left right prisms, but I don't think we're
Speaker 1: having left These are because that's how in many ways,
Speaker 1: that's how I was raised where and now you know,
Speaker 1: especially if you're from a if you're if you're seen
Speaker 1: as from a group that isn't part of the majority,
Speaker 1: whether it's a religious minority, whether it's a gender minority,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, something else. Those that succeed are
Speaker 1: the ones that learn how to adapt to the world
Speaker 1: as it is and then slowly but surely fight for
Speaker 1: acceptance versus h trying to turn you know, three hundred
Speaker 1: and forty nine million people to your way right, right,
Speaker 1: which is which is something that you know, if everybody
Speaker 1: behaved that way, we'd never get anything done as a country.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's a perfect point.
Speaker 3: And I think it's one of those things, right, You've
Speaker 3: got to meet people where they're at, and the world
Speaker 3: is where it's at. Especially you know, when I was
Speaker 3: a little kid, and I think about this story for
Speaker 3: fifth grade about my dad really realizing there's a problem
Speaker 3: fifth grade going to a small private school. He comes
Speaker 3: over to check on me. I'm getting bullied every day.
Speaker 3: I'm coming home crying every day my sister.
Speaker 1: And this is that private school. Yeah, your parents are
Speaker 1: paying yea in theory extra right, well, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: or at least more personalized more. I mean, why did
Speaker 1: we move from public to private? It was for that
Speaker 1: right too.
Speaker 2: To be fair, though, you know, my parents didn't tell anybody.
Speaker 3: They didn't tell anybody that I was diagnosed with anything
Speaker 3: because my dad said, I didn't want you to be
Speaker 3: defined by it, and I didn't want you to all
Speaker 3: you have that. And I think people can say, you know,
Speaker 3: good things are bad things about that, but it certainly
Speaker 3: was a different way, and it now forced me to
Speaker 3: know that I could work through anything but fifth grade
Speaker 3: private school. He comes in to see the pe teacher.
Speaker 3: I'm in pe and my dad goes, hey, how's he
Speaker 3: doing in This guy who he knew, big big former
Speaker 3: football player knew my dad from football, said I think
Speaker 3: he's doing better today, you know better this week.
Speaker 2: He goes, great, let's go see him in pee.
Speaker 3: And the guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea,
Speaker 3: and they're looking down on all the fields and dad
Speaker 3: goes wise as well. He says, I've had to put
Speaker 3: him with the girls because I had to protect him
Speaker 3: from all the boys. So you think about that from
Speaker 3: a father's perspective, a fifth grade father hearing that the
Speaker 3: only way for the pe teacher to protect his kid
Speaker 3: is to put him with the girls.
Speaker 2: My dad said okay, thanks and walked off.
Speaker 3: But I think that sort of shows you where I
Speaker 3: was at in my social ability to interact with Some
Speaker 3: people are sort of magnetic in their attraction of friends
Speaker 3: and kids.
Speaker 2: I was repellent.
Speaker 1: So I remember my friend Ron describing the issue with
Speaker 1: his son, which was you know that you had to
Speaker 1: learn social cues right it sounds like that's what you,
Speaker 1: that's what you your father really helped you with, which
Speaker 1: is sure to how to read other In some ways
Speaker 1: we don't realize that we're We quickly learned how to
Speaker 1: read people, but not everybody can. And sometimes you, just
Speaker 1: like you might need extra help to learn nectually read words,
Speaker 1: some people need extra help to read social cues. Right,
Speaker 1: is that a fair description?
Speaker 2: Very fair?
Speaker 3: And I needed both, you know, two halves to an
Speaker 3: IQ test, twenty points spread between the two halves represents
Speaker 3: a learning disability.
Speaker 2: I was between genius and.
Speaker 3: Mentally retarded, so half the test I was genius, half
Speaker 3: the test test I was mentally target so seventy plus
Speaker 3: points spread. So I needed a lot of help learning
Speaker 3: how to read words and forcing through that. And then
Speaker 3: also you pointed out social skills. So one of the
Speaker 3: things my dad did was he would take me to
Speaker 3: lunch with mister Todd.
Speaker 2: Right. And it was easy because I didn't have any friends.
Speaker 2: I didn't have anything else to do with my life.
Speaker 2: My dad was my only friend.
Speaker 3: And I loved interacting with adults because I could talk
Speaker 3: to them about things that I talked to my dad about,
Speaker 3: about politics, about sports, about not so much sports, but politics, business,
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And we'd go to much with mister Todd.
Speaker 3: And this is a perfect example because I would just
Speaker 3: be badgering the hell out of you with questions, how
Speaker 3: do you book your guests, how do you decide what
Speaker 3: politicians telling the truth?
Speaker 2: How do you come up with your questions?
Speaker 3: On and on and on, and my dad, rather than
Speaker 3: sort of saying you know, okay, lucky, stop or enough,
Speaker 3: he would tap his watch, and that was my moment.
Speaker 1: To be that was a social cue. He was teaching you.
Speaker 2: That was a social queue.
Speaker 3: So to tap his watch, that's my method message to
Speaker 3: stop talking, but also to bookmarkt right, because then we
Speaker 3: would go back and he'd say, okay, mister Todd was
Speaker 3: talking about going on vacation with his kids or taking
Speaker 3: his wife out to dinner on Saturday night. Why did
Speaker 3: you think that was the right time to ask him
Speaker 3: about his show or politics or whatever it was. And
Speaker 3: it was teaching me how to understand and see the
Speaker 3: world through as you point out, the natural social skills
Speaker 3: that so many other people have. It's a small example,
Speaker 3: but it was a way to actually teach me in
Speaker 3: real time. What was happening rather than just say, look,
Speaker 3: you know he can't he can't come out with anybody,
Speaker 3: which at the time I really couldn't. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, if you say to a kid okay, stop, okay,
Speaker 3: not now, okay, whatever, it embarrasses the kid.
Speaker 2: And so that was the line he had to toe.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment for you where it was like
Speaker 1: you right, got it? Yeah? Or is this a gradual
Speaker 1: thing where all of a sudden your dad said, do
Speaker 1: you realize that you know, you're no different than anybody
Speaker 1: else out there in the world.
Speaker 2: Ook.
Speaker 3: He always made it clear to me that I was different,
Speaker 3: and what he would tell me, you know, through the
Speaker 3: bullying and isolation of high school.
Speaker 2: I have had a teacher in eighth grade.
Speaker 3: Who said to me in an art class, you know,
Speaker 3: tables and art around, you know, in front of the
Speaker 3: whole class. He said, you know, if my dog was
Speaker 3: as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make
Speaker 3: it walk backwards. And I came home that night he just, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: try that one on for size.
Speaker 1: Gosh, that's something you don't forget.
Speaker 3: I guess, no, no, you don't, And I don't forget
Speaker 3: his name either, But we didn't put it in the book.
Speaker 3: I walked across the street back home that afternoon. My
Speaker 3: dad was waiting for me, as he was every every
Speaker 3: time that I came home from school, every day twenty
Speaker 3: and I was just crying. I said, I was just
Speaker 3: humiliated today and told them what had happened. And he
Speaker 3: talked me through it and worked through it.
Speaker 2: And what was interesting at the end.
Speaker 3: Of the conversation every night he'd say to me, Look,
Speaker 3: the qualities that make you unpopular now and that you
Speaker 3: are picked on now and that make you humiliated now,
Speaker 3: is what's going to be your strength later on. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't ever about academics. It wasn't ever about being
Speaker 3: smart or successful. It was about character and hard work
Speaker 3: and self esteem was earned, not given right.
Speaker 2: You know. I started as a kid doing two hundred push.
Speaker 3: Ups a day at six or seven years old, because
Speaker 3: Dad was like, I can teach you that hard work
Speaker 3: is rewarded and that goals matter. So that that was
Speaker 3: where he would He was very clear to me that
Speaker 3: I was different. I think you'll appreciate this, Chuck. Living
Speaker 3: where you and I both live now, I used to
Speaker 3: say I never liked anyone who liked high school, because
Speaker 3: the values of high school are so screwed up that
Speaker 3: if you like high school, there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 3: And there's a little bit to be said about that
Speaker 3: about Washington too, if you really like.
Speaker 1: One student council. I know, I have a friend of
Speaker 1: mine who grew up in Arlington, Leland. You'll appreciate this.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to interrupt your train of thought there,
Speaker 1: but she loves to remind like she's a native Arlingtonian,
Speaker 1: which means she's grown up in Washington, much different than
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the people that live in this community
Speaker 1: of the DMB. And she said, just remember, everybody who
Speaker 1: comes to Washington wanted to be student council president. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they ever became student council president, but they all
Speaker 1: want it.
Speaker 2: So you have.
Speaker 1: The point is it's a town of busybodies, right like
Speaker 1: it is. It is, it is, it is, It is
Speaker 1: that part of high school on steroids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, you know, the best training for a Washington
Speaker 3: newsroom may have been middle school.
Speaker 1: I think some people in Congress would say that as well.
Speaker 3: I think Congress is the only one who has a
Speaker 3: lower approval rating than the media right now.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting you say this about high school and
Speaker 1: about Let me ask this though, why'd you go public
Speaker 1: with the story? You know, I didn't I didn't know this,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have I would have never picked up
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I'd like to think, oh, so and
Speaker 1: so you know, you hear this phrase on the spectrum? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and at this point I don't love the phrase because
Speaker 1: aren't we all on the spectrum? It just depends, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we're all on the spectrum. So it's
Speaker 1: this weird shorthand that we've given to Hey, they're a
Speaker 1: little bit off center from whatever spectrum is and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But why'd you choose to share your story?
Speaker 1: Because in some ways it sounds like your dad's goal
Speaker 1: was to help you adapt so that you didn't have
Speaker 1: to constantly say I'm different, treat me different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, I mean you think about where my
Speaker 2: dad was.
Speaker 3: I think you have to sort of baseline this seventh
Speaker 3: grade start a new school. My parents are hoping for
Speaker 3: this change, sitting in they get called in two or
Speaker 3: three weeks into school, thinking like, hey, this is just
Speaker 3: a normal check in, right, you have kids, and you
Speaker 3: know what you know this is like and everybody sat
Speaker 3: in the principal's office, and the principal looks, starts the
Speaker 3: meeting off cold of my parents, you know, most.
Speaker 2: Of the school here.
Speaker 3: In fact, everybody here really thinks Lucky is quite weird.
Speaker 3: That's a seventh grade principaletize.
Speaker 1: You know. I saw that line, you know, and you're
Speaker 1: just sitting there going, yeah, how do you become a
Speaker 1: principal writing about a kid that way? Yeah? Like it
Speaker 1: really well, I'm not trying to like, you know, sound
Speaker 1: like you fire all these people, but my god, right.
Speaker 3: And then right, and then you know, so arrow number
Speaker 3: one through my parents' heart, and and look they know
Speaker 3: that in some ways it's true that I was really
Speaker 3: different and really odd. And then she follows up with
Speaker 3: and I think he and frankly, I think he's pretty
Speaker 3: weird too.
Speaker 2: So what told you is that people who were supposed.
Speaker 3: To protect me we're gonna weren't going to and thought
Speaker 3: it was my fault. Again, great training for a news
Speaker 3: but uh, the reason I went public with it is
Speaker 3: because I think we are in a reckoning about parenting
Speaker 3: in America, and I think parents need to know there
Speaker 3: is real hope. George Will wrote the forward to this
Speaker 3: and he said, this is the proof of the mountain
Speaker 3: moving power of printal love. And I think parents have
Speaker 3: been told for so long, you know, let the village
Speaker 3: raise your kid, you know, let let let your kid
Speaker 3: be them and and sort of the experts know better,
Speaker 3: and there's this new methodology and on and on and
Speaker 3: on and told parents basically not to take control.
Speaker 2: And mine did.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was a really important story for
Speaker 3: people to hear.
Speaker 1: I well, that is a that is a great way
Speaker 1: to frame it, because you know, the fact is this
Speaker 1: is true not just when it comes to parenting, which
Speaker 1: is the parents need to take more control, right, And
Speaker 1: there's there is this like perception that somehow you don't
Speaker 1: have the ability to change things. It's also true with
Speaker 1: the healthcare system, right if you don't take control of
Speaker 1: your own medical care. And by the way, remember that
Speaker 1: the doctors work for you. You don't work for the doctors.
Speaker 1: These people work for you. You don't work for that
Speaker 1: type of mindset. But you, the parent, have a lot
Speaker 1: more station here and that you also have a lot
Speaker 1: more responsibility when it comes to your kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: I look at when you when you it feels like
Speaker 1: we have a a lot of broken young men out
Speaker 1: there right who are susceptible to all sorts of violent
Speaker 1: ideologies or violent actions. Perhaps some of this is social
Speaker 1: media or you know, whatever we're doing here, but you know,
Speaker 1: there is a through line that I notice in some
Speaker 1: of these people, whether it's a school shoot and all
Speaker 1: that is, there is some sort of lack of parenting
Speaker 1: or a parent not in the picture, or a parent
Speaker 1: sort of not seeing things. What I find your story
Speaker 1: to be inspiring. It's a reminder that the parent needs
Speaker 1: to take control here, because nobody else is going to
Speaker 1: love this kid enough to do the kid right. Only
Speaker 1: the parent.
Speaker 2: One thousand percent. I mean, there's so many different ways
Speaker 2: to go with that.
Speaker 3: Right when I was diagnosed with autism, I said this,
Speaker 3: you know, in the book, they didn't really know what
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a spectrum.
Speaker 3: Was either you're profoundly autistic or you're nothing and a
Speaker 3: pervasive elemental dislay.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: Now it's one in thirty one kids boys, one in twelve.
Speaker 2: Do you think, by the way.
Speaker 1: What is what is your understanding of it? Are we
Speaker 1: learning to diagnose it better or is it increasing in
Speaker 1: the society.
Speaker 2: I think the answer to that is both. And what
Speaker 2: I find interesting is is that.
Speaker 3: There's lots of theories about what autism, what it's not.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh no, it's not rising, it's just we're
Speaker 3: diagnosing more. Oh no, it can't be vaccines.
Speaker 2: Don't know this.
Speaker 3: There's nobody who will tell you definitively this is what
Speaker 3: it is. This is why we're seeing this. And by
Speaker 3: the way, you Leland, who clearly was diagnosed with what
Speaker 3: we now know to be autism, just got married to
Speaker 3: this wonderful woman who you want to have kids with.
Speaker 3: Here's we know that it's a higher chance that I
Speaker 3: will have an autistic child, but we don't know why,
Speaker 3: and we don't know if there's anything that can be
Speaker 3: done either during pregnancy or.
Speaker 1: That means that implies it's genetic.
Speaker 2: There's some genetic component, right, But at.
Speaker 1: The same time we are having this debate about is
Speaker 1: it outside chemicals or something like that.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think the answer is we don't know,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, I think that intel science
Speaker 3: can tell us the answer to that. We need to
Speaker 3: keep looking. It should be you know, we've cured a
Speaker 3: not cured. You can live now with AIDS. Is no
Speaker 3: longer a dessence, dozens of cancers you can live with
Speaker 3: over the past forty years. That we're destined is we
Speaker 3: can replace your joints and have you become a bionic man.
Speaker 2: Diabetes, all this stuff and autis and you know it did.
Speaker 3: It's not vaccines, but he could, like, come on, guys.
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Speaker 1: interviewed Michael Osterholme. It was an expert on pandemics and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And he has a very good way
Speaker 1: that he describes science. He says, science isn't truth. Science
Speaker 1: is the pursuit of truth, right, And we also have
Speaker 1: to be humble about science, meaning it does change as
Speaker 1: we learn more, right, And that's it. And the fact is,
Speaker 1: like we thought AIDS was a death sentence, as you
Speaker 1: point out, we thought cancer itself was a death Now
Speaker 1: now all cancers aren't. You know, we're getting there. It's
Speaker 1: from my father died of hepatitis C in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: If he gets diagnosed with appetitis seed, today you take
Speaker 1: a pill and you're fine. But in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: by the way modern medicine we sort of you know,
Speaker 1: in the eighty eight, you know, you know, I would
Speaker 1: have said, oh, the eighties are and yet in hindsight, right,
Speaker 1: that's like, you know, it feels like the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and it compares.
Speaker 2: It's a great point.
Speaker 3: What is I think, you know I had I had
Speaker 3: doctor Jah and not doctor Jay Boticharia.
Speaker 2: I have doctor John tonight.
Speaker 3: It's amazing how TV works that way. But a Bouticharia
Speaker 3: ahead of the NIH that was his message. He goes,
Speaker 3: we have to be humble enough to say we don't know,
Speaker 3: and he said very few scientists are. But to pick
Speaker 3: up on what you were saying about fatherhood and everything else.
Speaker 3: This tells fathers you can make this enormous difference, and
Speaker 3: you should. And I again, over the past ten or
Speaker 3: fifteen years, fathers have been really sort of told to
Speaker 3: take a back seat and that, you know, not to
Speaker 3: sort of demand more of their sons and demand that
Speaker 3: there's stand up and take responsibility. And I don't, you know,
Speaker 3: doing two hundred push ups a day when you were
Speaker 3: five or six years old.
Speaker 2: Is not you know.
Speaker 3: I'm sure now he would be counseled against that because you're,
Speaker 3: you know, doing whatever.
Speaker 2: And it was a very different way.
Speaker 3: And I write in the book, you know and born
Speaker 3: lucky that how lucky I am also that I had
Speaker 3: two parents eighty you know, and a family say together,
Speaker 3: my parents have been married for fifty plus years. Tell
Speaker 3: the story about how they got engaged in a rip
Speaker 3: joint after three dates.
Speaker 2: But they you know, that's not discussed at all.
Speaker 3: Eighty percent of kids who have a disability of some type, right,
Speaker 3: especially autism, in these other issues, eighty percent of them
Speaker 3: their parents get divorced.
Speaker 1: It's hard.
Speaker 3: Look, you see, nobody talks to Nobody talks about how
Speaker 3: important that is.
Speaker 1: And you do a parent some parent, and look, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very hesitant to judge those decisions, right because
Speaker 1: none of us are in that bedroom. Okay, but you do.
Speaker 1: We see instances of this where one parent is willing
Speaker 1: to devote themselves and the other parent maybe isn't right,
Speaker 1: or the other parent feels overwhelmed or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and when they walk away, they think they're helping and
Speaker 1: they're making it worse. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like
Speaker 1: that's the message. I mean, I don't want to get
Speaker 1: into specific examples out of privacy concerns, but there's some
Speaker 1: there's a lot of examples that way, where I think
Speaker 1: when you have a single parent where the other parent
Speaker 1: walks away because it's just too hard, right in their heads, right,
Speaker 1: it is too disruptive, you know. The sad fact is
Speaker 1: this is the reminder that we don't give out drivers,
Speaker 1: We don't give out the equivalent of a driver's license
Speaker 1: to be a parent, right, And if we did, that
Speaker 1: person probably wouldn't have qualified to be a parent if
Speaker 1: they're willing to walk at the first sign of struggle.
Speaker 1: But that is it is. It's funny you say it
Speaker 1: that you were lucky to be born with two parents
Speaker 1: willing to throw themselves into you, and if you didn't,
Speaker 1: you might not be where you are today.
Speaker 2: One thousand percent.
Speaker 3: And look, you know, it's important to keep in mind
Speaker 3: this isn't a prescription, it's not a cure, it's not
Speaker 3: anything else, but it is it is a.
Speaker 1: Sure story, my story for you.
Speaker 2: It's my story.
Speaker 3: It worked for me, it worked for my Dad's a
Speaker 3: story of hope. And look, you know my dad wrote
Speaker 3: the afterword, which I think is.
Speaker 1: That was right. The first thing I thought of when
Speaker 1: I started reading, is I wonder how your dad feels
Speaker 1: about all this being public? And then of course you
Speaker 1: reward the reader with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the afterward from my dad and the forward from
Speaker 3: George will and I had to fill two hundred and
Speaker 3: forty pages in the middle. But he noted in the
Speaker 3: afterward that the real hero in this is my mother,
Speaker 3: right and because she held not only me but him together.
Speaker 3: And you know, I didn't know this until I wrote
Speaker 3: the book. Okay, So I decided to write the book
Speaker 3: and tell this story, and I think, you know, try
Speaker 3: to inspire and give people a lot of hope. And
Speaker 3: I told you about all the times that you know,
Speaker 3: I would come home humiliated, bullied, pushed around, isolated.
Speaker 2: At school, and I would take it out on my dad.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We'd go to my bedroom and he'd sit there and
Speaker 3: listen to me, just hammer away about how angry I
Speaker 3: was and how upset I was and how hard this
Speaker 3: was and why am I having to do this and
Speaker 3: why am I having to go through it?
Speaker 2: And he'd put me.
Speaker 3: To bed or leave and I'd read or whatever. And
Speaker 3: I found this out now twenty five thirty years later.
Speaker 3: He'd go downstairs, be ten eleven at night. My mom
Speaker 3: would have been asleep or watching TV whatever goes to sleep,
Speaker 3: and she'd come out and find him in the living
Speaker 3: room all dark, just sitting on the couch crying himself,
Speaker 3: having internalized everything that I had been through.
Speaker 1: She was his counselor yeah, and then you know.
Speaker 2: He would then talk to her. I mean, it really is.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, the the amount of the role
Speaker 3: that my mother played in what we talked about, that
Speaker 3: I had two parents and that they.
Speaker 1: Changed your Has this changed your relationship with your mom today?
Speaker 2: The more you learn, you know, it's a great question.
Speaker 3: I never went to therapy right now, now every kid
Speaker 3: has a therapist, and on.
Speaker 1: The look, I that's you know, and to me, if
Speaker 1: you have somebody to talk to, you have a therapist. Yep. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's what therapy need is for us. For those
Speaker 1: that don't have somebody to talk.
Speaker 3: No, I don't either, But it was just it was
Speaker 3: just funny, you know, the typically in these situations, and
Speaker 3: even I think kids who have great parents they have
Speaker 3: a therapist. And but anyway, I never ad anything. So
Speaker 3: this has been like going to therapy on national television.
Speaker 2: Right But my.
Speaker 3: Dad and I still talk three or four times a day.
Speaker 3: I still call him every night to say good night.
Speaker 3: He is still my best friend, and that's.
Speaker 2: Just him and I.
Speaker 3: I don't know how else to say it is our
Speaker 3: relationship changed because of it. No, I think certainly in
Speaker 3: the course of writing this book and I talk about
Speaker 3: and tell the story of Rachel and I meeting and
Speaker 3: her sort of realizing.
Speaker 2: That as we got to know each other better that
Speaker 2: there were clearly.
Speaker 3: Moments that I would revert back and there still are,
Speaker 3: right to sort of my old tendencies when I'm less
Speaker 3: disciplined than I should be, and her learning to accept that. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I've gained through hearing the stories
Speaker 3: and experiencing the emotion, not as a kid living in it,
Speaker 3: but reliving it as an adult.
Speaker 2: I've gained an.
Speaker 3: Enormous more amount of respect and gratitude for my parents
Speaker 3: than I already had, which was significant.
Speaker 1: So you offer it up, So I would love for
Speaker 1: you to share. How did, yeah, how did you decide
Speaker 1: how to share your your autism with your now wife?
Speaker 2: I think it just sort of came up, right.
Speaker 3: My parents didn't tell me until I was like twenty four,
Speaker 3: twenty five that I had been diagnosed with what we
Speaker 3: now know to be autism. Right, and Rachel and I
Speaker 3: met and got set up on a blind date. Somebody
Speaker 3: said I'm going to find you your wife. The next
Speaker 3: day that person sent me a picture of Rachel and said,
Speaker 3: I found your wife.
Speaker 2: And there you go. I don't remember, like a Okay,
Speaker 2: we need to talk, you know.
Speaker 3: Turns out that I have whatever it was, I think
Speaker 3: probably just came up in conversation. But she has an
Speaker 3: e Q that's off the charts. Mine was near freezing.
Speaker 1: Probably did she pick up on it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think she picked up on that. There
Speaker 2: was you know, sort of a peculiar you know. So
Speaker 2: there were.
Speaker 3: Different can and sees, and I've gotten pretty good at
Speaker 3: hiding them. It still comes out sometimes, and there's times
Speaker 3: that she'll say, Okay, like you know, you're not seeing
Speaker 3: this right, or hey, you need to be more thoughtful
Speaker 3: about whatever, that kind of stuff. And you know, I
Speaker 3: tell for people who watch this and are interesting. I
Speaker 3: tell the story in the Book of the Faithful interview
Speaker 3: on Fox News after the twenty twenty election, when I
Speaker 3: went at it with Aaron Prainey, who was a Trump
Speaker 3: spokesperson over the Trump claims that he had won and
Speaker 3: was just going after her and look, I think probably
Speaker 3: in the moment, did I know that that wasn't really
Speaker 3: what Fox wanted me to do. Probably, But I think
Speaker 3: there's part of condition personality, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 3: that I kind of didn't care.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd always been taught to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: My dad always said, do the right thing, no matter
Speaker 3: the consequences, and I, you know, it's sort of all
Speaker 3: social graces and social stop points in your brain were lost.
Speaker 2: Can I blame that on autism?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it certainly goes to there's times
Speaker 3: that sort of there there are miss social cues.
Speaker 1: So you thought you missed a social cue in that moment.
Speaker 3: I think if you go back and watch the tape,
Speaker 3: it's pretty clear that all of a sudden the guardrails
Speaker 3: came off.
Speaker 1: And so you do you attribute it to your autism?
Speaker 1: Do you attribute it to here's a piece of information
Speaker 1: you know to be true and you can't believe someone
Speaker 1: is denying it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 3: I think that there's a there's an indignity to that
Speaker 3: that comes over me and sort of and I find it.
Speaker 3: And maybe it was because my dad taught me for
Speaker 3: so long how important telling the truth was and standing.
Speaker 1: Up aunt truth that you got from your father, right,
Speaker 1: And so in some ways that's going to get passed on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I found it sort offensive that she kept
Speaker 3: saying something that was just objectively untrue.
Speaker 2: And there you go.
Speaker 3: I don't ever like to blame you know, I blame
Speaker 3: my autism. But I mean, I'll give you another example
Speaker 3: that you know, people say, you know, well are you
Speaker 3: you know, how did you get over autism?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: You never over it, you know.
Speaker 3: Two or three weeks ago, I was with my father
Speaker 3: in law at his golf club and I was putting
Speaker 3: my golf clubs in my travel bag, and I was late,
Speaker 3: and I was focused on something else, and this older
Speaker 3: gentleman come over and wanted to talk.
Speaker 2: And one of the sort of very.
Speaker 3: You know, classic tendencies of autism is that you just
Speaker 3: sort of focus on a task and you just everything
Speaker 3: else gets blocked out and you kind of become obsessive.
Speaker 3: And I was obsessive by getting my golf backpacked, and
Speaker 3: I was horrifically rude to him.
Speaker 1: To the point that even he disrupted your routine and
Speaker 1: that moment, you were like, I can't be disrupted, and
Speaker 1: I just was.
Speaker 2: Focused on I have to get the backpacked.
Speaker 3: And I was really rude, and I afterwards thought, you
Speaker 3: almost in the moment, I knew I should have just
Speaker 3: stopped what I was doing, and if I was five
Speaker 3: minutes late, fine, and I just didn't And it was
Speaker 3: just and I thought to me, you know, boy, you're
Speaker 3: better than this. You know your dad really taught and
Speaker 3: so it's still there very.
Speaker 1: Much so, but you knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the moment, I almost couldn't help myself.
Speaker 1: But not not, but not. All folks that have autism
Speaker 1: know that this is happening to them in a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think it's very true. And again,
Speaker 2: born unlucky, not a cure, not a prescription. My story
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
Speaker 3: I it's autism society autism speaks, but says, you know,
Speaker 3: if you've met a kid with autism, you've met one
Speaker 3: kid with autism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that you have to meet. You have to
Speaker 2: understand where people are.
Speaker 1: So when you are, where is it? What do you
Speaker 1: feel like you? Where has it showcased itself as this
Speaker 1: superpower for you?
Speaker 2: I don't know, because I don't know what it's like
Speaker 2: to live without it. I'm always me. I give that.
Speaker 1: I give that same answer when somebody says, when I
Speaker 1: tell people that my dad died when I was sixteen?
Speaker 1: Oh what was that like? I'm like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I don't know any other way.
Speaker 2: Well, you right, you just.
Speaker 1: Don't know, right, you don't know it the other way.
Speaker 1: You just go right, And that's what you're saying is yeah.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the second I answered the question, you
Speaker 1: answered that way, I almost That's why I just knocked
Speaker 1: myself for it, because I know exactly you don't know
Speaker 1: any different because you're living your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, you know you you right. You just
Speaker 3: talked about your dad dying when sixteen. That was really
Speaker 3: the defining moment in my dad's life.
Speaker 1: It's the fork in the road for me. Everything goes
Speaker 1: back to that moment. For me. It's now I'm fifty three,
Speaker 1: and I still like that. It's a yesterday moment. I haven't.
Speaker 1: You know. The weirdest thing that I'm going through now
Speaker 1: is my son is now older than I was, and
Speaker 1: so now I'm having experienced father son experiences with my
Speaker 1: son as a freshman in college that I have nothing
Speaker 1: to compare it to with my relationship with my father
Speaker 1: because he wasn't there. So now they're all new to me.
Speaker 1: I think about this all the time because I wonder,
Speaker 1: am I screwing something up? What if I do it?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have any role model anymore, right, I,
Speaker 1: in my head always had a role model up to
Speaker 1: a point.
Speaker 2: I hear you, I'm not a father.
Speaker 3: I think this is the first parenting book ever written
Speaker 3: not by a father but by the kid, and.
Speaker 1: Which I think makes it more compelling because we do
Speaker 1: a lot of these parenting books are written from the
Speaker 1: parent's perspective, and you don't know whether it really worked
Speaker 1: or not for the child, And I think this book
Speaker 1: is in some ways more powerful because it's written from
Speaker 1: your perspective rather than and you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things I'd love to someday ask your father how
Speaker 1: he would have you know, now that he saw your
Speaker 1: version of this, does it change how he may describe
Speaker 1: what he did? If that makes sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does. Good luck getting to talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: I imagine if you were willing to talk, the two of
Speaker 1: you would be to hear together. But he's this is
Speaker 1: your story to tell that.
Speaker 3: That's what he said, And he really objects to me
Speaker 3: calling him a hero, which I think is interesting. You know,
Speaker 3: he lost his dad at sixteen. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 3: it speaks exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: We got about five or so minutes here. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about our industry, the media industry. I'm really rooting hard
Speaker 1: for News Nation, thank you. And it's because what made
Speaker 1: you know there is no one answer to our media problem. Right,
Speaker 1: we need more voice and right it's a yes and situation.
Speaker 1: And yet what you guys are trying to do, what
Speaker 1: i'd like to think I'm trying to do, and what
Speaker 1: I tried to do before, and the and the media
Speaker 1: industry fights against us, which is, hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a person who looks at at politics through the
Speaker 1: prism of cremnalism, meaning when you're trying to govern three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million people who are pretty evenly divided,
Speaker 1: you can't do anything rashly. Right, if you want to
Speaker 1: turn an aircraft carrier, you do it slowly, and you
Speaker 1: do it sort of a little bit at a time,
Speaker 1: because you want to bring everybody along. If you do
Speaker 1: it too fast, you will do one step forward two
Speaker 1: steps back. And yet we know in news or and
Speaker 1: information is I always say the people most interested have
Speaker 1: strong opinions, the people least interested, are watching sports or
Speaker 1: are watching something else, right, and yet I get the
Speaker 1: sense you're trying to appeal to that person somewhere between
Speaker 1: the thirty five yard lines. It's center left, center right.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I'm doing the same thing, and
Speaker 1: yet we know the business is driven by those between
Speaker 1: the goal line and the thirty yard lines.
Speaker 2: Right now, I think it's an excellent analysis.
Speaker 1: What's what do you think works and what do you
Speaker 1: think has been a struggle in this idea of trying
Speaker 1: to create something that's a bit more I don't know
Speaker 1: if you want to call it centrist, moderate, everybody's got
Speaker 1: their own description of it, but sort of somewhere broader
Speaker 1: than what we've seen on traditional cable.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say a few things.
Speaker 3: Number one, I think your analysis is right, yes, And
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 2: Add to it that.
Speaker 3: The economic incentives have changed in media, right, because when
Speaker 3: there were three television networks, broadcasters and broadsheet newspapers one
Speaker 3: per town.
Speaker 2: In order to make money, they had to appeal to everybody.
Speaker 1: You wanted to big up audience as possible.
Speaker 3: Then as technology has changed, we've gone from broadcasting to cable,
Speaker 3: to narrow casting to YouTube everything else. So now nobody
Speaker 3: has to watch anything that questions their worldview or makes
Speaker 3: them uncomfortable or whatever it is, because of social media algorithms,
Speaker 3: is actually sort of tailored to you personally. So what
Speaker 3: has been under served is the center because people mistook
Speaker 3: the Center for being bored and uninvolved and uncaring and
Speaker 3: watching sports and just sort of uninterested. And I think
Speaker 3: what we've found is that there is a radical center.
Speaker 3: There are people who are upset with both sides, and
Speaker 3: that sleeping giant of the of most of America that's
Speaker 3: between the thirty five yard lines, as you point out,
Speaker 3: that's in a bell shaped curve.
Speaker 2: That's where most people live.
Speaker 3: They've been awoken, and they don't they do care about sports,
Speaker 3: but now they're scared. They're scared of the extreme left
Speaker 3: and they're scared of the extreme right. So where at
Speaker 3: NewsNation we try to be is in the middle, calling
Speaker 3: out both sides. Both sides get a hard get a
Speaker 3: hard time, And I think, what's different about my show?
Speaker 3: And you know I say this, I got asked or
Speaker 3: invited not to return to Fox News because I've went
Speaker 3: after Donald Trump and I have had Trump send down
Speaker 3: the White House, doubt stories and commentaries I've done and said, look,
Speaker 3: see how great of a job we're doing. Leland says,
Speaker 3: we're doing a great job. So to me, that's what
Speaker 3: a journalist should be. And I think people are yearning
Speaker 3: for and that radical center for for somebody to call
Speaker 3: balls and strikes in a sense on both sides. So
Speaker 3: that's what we're trying to do. And look so far
Speaker 3: it's working two ways. One, ratings are up significantly. We
Speaker 3: beat MSNBC and CNN across the board last weekend.
Speaker 2: And two, I think when.
Speaker 3: I meet people and see them, it used to be
Speaker 3: when I left Fox, like what happened to you?
Speaker 2: Oh, I went to News Nation, News whatever.
Speaker 3: And now I have people coming up to me saying,
Speaker 3: I see you on NewsNation, and I love that you
Speaker 3: give both sides a hard time, and I love that
Speaker 3: I don't agree with you all the time. And it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: so it must be working.
Speaker 1: That's a that's that second part. I mean, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like frankly, I experienced a brief period
Speaker 1: of that, like you know, for a while too, where
Speaker 1: have you gone? And then now just recently, people are saying, boy,
Speaker 1: you're in my feeds all the time. I now see it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm this this thing is is working.
Speaker 1: It is, but it is a it does feel like
Speaker 1: one of my favorite expressions is peeing and a hurricane. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels I'm a look, I grew up so
Speaker 1: far south. It's north. You know, Miami is the sixth
Speaker 1: borough of New York. Right in Florida. You know, I joke,
Speaker 1: we're so backwards in Florida. To go you have to
Speaker 1: go north, to go south, because culturally, the farther north
Speaker 1: you go the But I love me a good Southern
Speaker 1: expression like that, and I cleaned it up a little bit,
Speaker 1: but that is the sense sometimes, Right, you sit here
Speaker 1: and I'll watch I'll watch a story go Haywire on cable,
Speaker 1: and I'll sit there and say, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other bigger stories happening that are much more consequential,
Speaker 1: and yet we're obsessing over a vote. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to be dismissive of the Epstein story. I'm not
Speaker 1: dismissive of it. I'm not dismissive of what happened to
Speaker 1: the victims. I think they deserve their say. But because
Speaker 1: of the way the incentive structure works in media. There
Speaker 1: was this obsession over covering it, and it was across
Speaker 1: the board. It didn't matter whether it was on sort
Speaker 1: of the legacy cable channels or on this and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there going, you know, these tariffs are a much
Speaker 1: bigger story. What's happening with the Venezuela, whether or not
Speaker 1: the president has authority to bomb a boat in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: whether or not you know, there are much more consequential stories,
Speaker 1: but they're not as entertaining as Epstein, like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you fight that? I've got the luxury
Speaker 1: where I don't have to have a boss these days,
Speaker 1: but I, if I look, I remember those days where
Speaker 1: all right, I want to do this and if I
Speaker 1: want to do this story, I got to sort of
Speaker 1: do this story so that I can do this story.
Speaker 2: Look, I totally hear you. And that's the challenge in
Speaker 2: the newsroom every day.
Speaker 3: And I and I think, to a certain extent, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the challenge for all of us of what is important,
Speaker 3: right because there is a curators.
Speaker 1: I look at it this way, in some ways we're
Speaker 1: all the same, and that we're all trying to curate
Speaker 1: what we think people should be focusing on Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, and and now there's a lot of curators
Speaker 1: out there. We used to have three. As you point out,
Speaker 1: it was Walter, it was mister Brinkley, right, and it
Speaker 1: was whatever combination of unknown people. ABC would come up with,
Speaker 1: well said right, well, yeah till Jennings really right. NBC
Speaker 1: and ABC had had some NBC and CBS had real stability,
Speaker 1: ABC less. So because they were always the number three, right,
Speaker 1: they were always try to catch Walter or mister Brinkley.
Speaker 1: I always call him mister Brinkley. I used his desk
Speaker 1: at NBC, so I have a very fond I Brinkley
Speaker 1: at Russer type of mindset there. But but it is
Speaker 1: a Now there's a thousand of US curators or more.
Speaker 3: Look, I think it goes back to all news is biased, right,
Speaker 3: because it's done by humans, and it's also.
Speaker 1: You know what I like to do. I checked my
Speaker 1: pulse and people ask me about bias, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all born with original bias.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You just talked about you had two parents. Not everybody's
Speaker 1: born to two parents. Not everybody's born right, like you know,
Speaker 1: not everybody's born in a situation that can survive, a
Speaker 1: challenge that's in health or whatever, and it shapes you.
Speaker 1: I would call that a bias right the fact.
Speaker 3: Look, I was always told bias isn't having an opinion,
Speaker 3: it's excluding opinions. That's how That's how I was taught,
Speaker 3: and I keep that in mind actually sort of as
Speaker 3: a north star. And look, bias isn't so much how
Speaker 3: you cover the news, it's what you cover. Is you
Speaker 3: just pointed out because of all your cover is Epstein,
Speaker 3: There's a lot of other stories out there that have.
Speaker 1: Different you've made a decision not to cover, right.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it is. It's huge in
Speaker 3: terms of what is decided to be covered. What I
Speaker 3: think I try to think about, and you know, I
Speaker 3: grew up in Missouri. I come from you know, middle class,
Speaker 3: upper middle class family in the city or Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, but I spent a lot of time outside
Speaker 3: of Saint Louis and I and I kind of try
Speaker 3: to go back, and I spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: in local news and small markets, and I spend a
Speaker 3: lot of time you know, in Colorado in small markets.
Speaker 3: So I I think that I tend to go back
Speaker 3: to when people are drinking with their buddies on Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 3: when they're watching college football, when they're playing golf.
Speaker 2: What are people talking about? How is it?
Speaker 3: How are their lives being changed and affected? And in
Speaker 3: trying to cover it through that prism, you know why
Speaker 3: this matters.
Speaker 1: You came up through the business, through local markets.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Most people younger than you have not. I know, it's terrible,
Speaker 1: I and I didn't. I came in a different way.
Speaker 1: I was. I worked on a trade publication about campaign politics.
Speaker 1: I remember there was a moment in the house.
Speaker 3: Well I'm going to give you one quick thing, But
Speaker 3: you were out in the field. Sure know what it's
Speaker 3: like to hustle the stories, not in Washington, not you
Speaker 3: know what it's like to be on the trail.
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring up local is that I
Speaker 1: really believe the loss of local is why they don't
Speaker 1: trust us as much as they usual. Because local was
Speaker 1: our character reference for the national right. People knew who
Speaker 1: the local journalists were. People's families knew, oh, yeah, my
Speaker 1: son goes to school with his daughter or whatever it is, right,
Speaker 1: They knew they were members of the community, and that
Speaker 1: created a level of trust locally that could never be
Speaker 1: matched nationally because the national didn't live there, right, the
Speaker 1: local lived there. And I also view that local journalism
Speaker 1: is different from national journalism in that on the local level,
Speaker 1: you're there to help people live their lives. Ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the stories local news does is to help people
Speaker 1: live navigate their life in that community. National news is different, right,
Speaker 1: it's about telling you what you need to know in civics,
Speaker 1: like what you need to know about the country as
Speaker 1: a whole, which of course in and of itself, is
Speaker 1: more divisive. Local news much less divisive. But I think
Speaker 1: the loss of local news, as I joke, a man
Speaker 1: named Craig came along and said, you know, classified ads
Speaker 1: ought to be free. YadA, YadA, YadA. We destroyed the
Speaker 1: entire local news ecosystem, right. We didn't fully appreciate how
Speaker 1: much that revenue stream kept so many local publications together.
Speaker 1: And yet I look at our media problem today and
Speaker 1: I think the loss of local is what is the biggest.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a house can stand up, but
Speaker 1: there's always one pillar that it is keeping the whole
Speaker 1: thing up together. And it turned out local news was
Speaker 1: that pillar, and when we wiped it out, it collapsed
Speaker 1: the entire information ecosystem as far as I'm concerned, which,
Speaker 1: given your experience coming through local, how would you revitalize it? O.
Speaker 3: Look, I got taught in one of the best parts
Speaker 3: of writing Born Lucky is having been able to say
Speaker 3: really nice things about people who helped me, who understood
Speaker 3: that I was a weird kid and socially awkward and
Speaker 3: therefore was a target and protected me or took a
Speaker 3: chance on me in one way or another. So we
Speaker 3: use the names of all the really nice people, And
Speaker 3: I didn't use the names of anybody who was mean
Speaker 3: to me because it wasn't about settling scores, and I
Speaker 3: thought that was important.
Speaker 1: Some people would have done it the exact opposite way.
Speaker 3: Well, I am my father's son, but a guy named
Speaker 3: Brad Remington, who is my first news director in Saint Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 3: when I was an intern at KTBI and then hired
Speaker 3: me as an anchor at KTVR and Denver.
Speaker 2: Content drives viewership.
Speaker 3: If you put out good content, they will come because
Speaker 3: people are the viewer, and people are smart. They are
Speaker 3: extraordinarily interested in their own city, town, state, country, and
Speaker 3: that if you fill that void with good, meaningful news
Speaker 3: and information, people will respond to it. And I think
Speaker 3: that that is the lesson that good journalism is rewarded
Speaker 3: because it's something that people crave and always have.
Speaker 2: People always want to.
Speaker 3: Know what the news is, and I so, yes, it's
Speaker 3: become commoditized. The flip side of that is, I think
Speaker 3: that if you if you offer something special, if you
Speaker 3: if you really offer people compelling, must read, must know information.
Speaker 3: I remember there was research done in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 3: about why people watch local news.
Speaker 2: The number one reason was the weather.
Speaker 3: The number two reason was so they didn't sound stupid
Speaker 3: at the water cooler. So if you can provide them
Speaker 3: that information and that context, well.
Speaker 1: That's a thing that's always a reminder that what we
Speaker 1: really are as educators, we just never call ourselves that.
Speaker 1: I like that because ultimately we're helping. We're giving people
Speaker 1: information they didn't know. Hopefully, if we're a good teacher,
Speaker 1: we're putting it in context. If we're a great teacher,
Speaker 1: we're explaining you know, the origin of it and all
Speaker 1: those things. But ultimately we're educators and are you are
Speaker 1: we good at Are you a good educator? Are you
Speaker 1: a bad educator, but you're educating no matter what you're
Speaker 1: doing when you're in the news and information business. Hey, Leland,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you it's good to get to
Speaker 1: know you because reading the book, I find it, I
Speaker 1: find it weirdly unfair in a situation like this. Suddenly
Speaker 1: I feel like I know a lot about you right
Speaker 1: in this situation, and it almost feels upside down. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've put yourself out here well and so people and
Speaker 1: I admire it, but it's you gave up a little privacy.
Speaker 3: Well, if it helps people, and if it helps parents
Speaker 3: and family members of kids who are struggling, whatever it was,
Speaker 3: to be more supportive, to show up more for those kids,
Speaker 3: to know that they're really making a difference, it's worth it.
Speaker 1: Look the number, you know. The simplest way I've described
Speaker 1: it is that this is a reminder that parenting is.
Speaker 3: Everything well, and I hope that there's enough parents who
Speaker 3: gained something from it that it makes it so that
Speaker 3: there's some lives that have been changed, and then it'll
Speaker 3: be worth it. So, I mean, you know, Born Lucky
Speaker 3: is my story. I always say, you know, it is
Speaker 3: my book. It's about me, but it's not for me.
Speaker 3: It's for parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who
Speaker 3: who have a kid, and what parent doesn't want to help.
Speaker 1: Their kid one that's a reminder what we all have
Speaker 1: in common. Hey, Leland, congratulations, Thanks Chuck,