Speaker 1: I don't know if it's train wreck watching or pity
Speaker 1: watching or thank God I'm not out in the elements
Speaker 1: watching or Jess Anderson in a wet t shirt washing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I know that it's successful.
Speaker 2: It's successful.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hi, I'm Alison Camarata and you may know me
Speaker 1: from CNN, but you're about to hear my deepest secrets.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, thanks for joining me. Welcome to Off the
Speaker 2: Beat with Me your host Brian Baumgartner. We have a
Speaker 2: breaking news story today out of Westport, Connecticut. Renowned journalist
Speaker 2: and television personality, Allison Camarata is making waves once again,
Speaker 2: this time as a guest on this podcast. Yes, Alison
Speaker 2: is a stalwart figure in the world of broadcastournalism, a
Speaker 2: reporter who has seen pretty much everything. Her career has
Speaker 2: spanned multiple decades and ideologies. She worked for many years
Speaker 2: at Fox News and is now an anchor with CNN,
Speaker 2: not to mention a stint at America's most wanted and
Speaker 2: local channels in Boston and Washington, d C. But no
Speaker 2: matter where she's reporting from or for whom, she's always
Speaker 2: fair and reasoned. She has a real journalistic integrity and ethics,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what we need in the world of news. Today,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about how she bridged the gap,
Speaker 2: how she copes with the twenty four hour news cycle,
Speaker 2: and her early days in the downtown New York punk scene.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed this conversation with Alison. You can catch
Speaker 2: her on the Whole Story with Anderson Cooper these days,
Speaker 2: and you can also learn all about her fascinating life
Speaker 2: in her new book, Combat Life of a Jersey Girls
Speaker 2: Search for Home. Now over to you, Allison.
Speaker 3: Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna Bubble
Speaker 3: and Squeak could get every mo lift over from the nub.
Speaker 2: Hi Allison, Hey, Brian, what's up. How are you doing?
Speaker 4: I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: It's such an honor to be on with you. A
Speaker 1: national hero.
Speaker 2: Oh oh please, I'm serious. No, I'm not a head
Speaker 2: of state. I'm not I'm not an ambassador or a
Speaker 2: congressman or a president or a senator.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: But it's very very I've been a fan of your
Speaker 2: work for a long time and it's so nice nice
Speaker 2: to talk to you. Well like yours. Where are you?
Speaker 1: I'm in my home in Westport, Connecticut.
Speaker 2: Oh, Connecticut, Fancy, Martin Fancy, that's where that's where the well,
Speaker 2: I'm on the other coast, so, but that's where the
Speaker 2: New York fancy people live. I want to launch into
Speaker 2: your career and your life. But it feels like I
Speaker 2: have to say that we have an official I guess
Speaker 2: raised for the president coming up this year. Biden and Trump?
Speaker 2: Are you so excited about this?
Speaker 4: Beyond beyond?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you know who's excited about this? Therapists,
Speaker 1: That's who's excited about this. The amount of money that
Speaker 1: they'll make over the next couple of years, So psychiatrists
Speaker 1: and psychologists very excited.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, when you said the last next couple
Speaker 2: of years, that's a horrible, horrible thought. I mean, we
Speaker 2: have but we have six months until election day ish.
Speaker 1: And it does feel as though there'll be some like
Speaker 1: act of God or like force majure as they say,
Speaker 1: that will keep it from happening.
Speaker 4: I mean that's just election.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh God, feels like it, maybe like aliens will invade.
Speaker 1: It's just we don't have the imagination to actually I
Speaker 1: think imagine election day as is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it'll be interesting. I don't know if it'll
Speaker 2: be fun. I was I was listening to some sports
Speaker 2: radio yesterday who said, this is the place that you
Speaker 2: can come and not not hear about all of that,
Speaker 2: But then you would be out of a job. I guess, So,
Speaker 2: I mean, we gotta we gotta watch some.
Speaker 1: Sort well, I mean, I guess I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I really really bums me
Speaker 1: out is that there's a lot of news, and I
Speaker 1: think that we've gotten so heavy on political news and
Speaker 1: certainly partisan news, that there's all sorts of other human
Speaker 1: story worries to be told. And I'm grateful when I
Speaker 1: get assignments to tell those other stories, because it's only
Speaker 1: in the past, I don't know any more, fifteen years
Speaker 1: that you know, politics has become the sports of our era.
Speaker 1: But there used to be a time when polite society
Speaker 1: didn't talk politics, and I want to get back to that,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to get back to just human interest,
Speaker 1: other important stories to tell.
Speaker 2: Well, I know you've been doing a lot more of
Speaker 2: that recently, and I want to talk about that. But yes,
Speaker 2: that was the rule, right, no politics, religion at the
Speaker 2: dinner table, the rule. Yeah, I remember that. My grandmother
Speaker 2: taught me that you're now in lovely Connecticut. You grew
Speaker 2: up in the Jersey Shore there, Shrewsbury, New Jersey. What
Speaker 2: were you interested in as a youngster there in the
Speaker 2: Jersey Shore.
Speaker 1: I was interested in the beach, of course, because it's
Speaker 1: the Jersey Shore. I was an only child raised by,
Speaker 1: you know, born to two intellectuals. So there were books
Speaker 1: and a lot of music around my house when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, and I would say that music is
Speaker 1: the theme that kind of bond did my parents and
Speaker 1: me together, as well as a lot of people in
Speaker 1: Monmouth County, New Jersey, which are the short towns. Music
Speaker 1: was a big motif through our young lives. There were
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't exactly know what the special sauce
Speaker 1: was of Mommoth County and why music was so important.
Speaker 1: If it's because we were forty miles away from New
Speaker 1: York City and we would go in and hear live music.
Speaker 1: But there were just a lot of garage bands. My
Speaker 1: high school had a ton of bands. Bruce Springsteen is
Speaker 1: obviously from there, but I mean Bruce is just a product.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the reason we were into music. He's just
Speaker 1: another example of how Monmouth County breeds musicians, right, and
Speaker 1: so that was a big theme through my life and
Speaker 1: continues to be like music was a very powerful influence.
Speaker 2: Were your parents at interests in their in their musical
Speaker 2: choices or is this I mean you say intellectuals and
Speaker 2: so I think like they've got Beethoven rocking on the stereo.
Speaker 1: Well, they knew a lot about most Art and Beethoven.
Speaker 1: But I don't mean they were avant garde intellectuals. I
Speaker 1: mean that they just under They too understood music. And
Speaker 1: my mother, in fact, was the drama teacher at a
Speaker 1: local high school, so she put on the musicals every year,
Speaker 1: so it truly was in my dna. She was the
Speaker 1: first one she ever directed was West Side Story, and
Speaker 1: she was pregnant with me. So from in utero I
Speaker 1: understood musicals and had memorized all the lyrics to musicals.
Speaker 1: So that was on in my house a lot different.
Speaker 1: You know, Man of La Mancha and Cabaret and even now,
Speaker 1: I mean those are just they're spectacular, you know that kind.
Speaker 1: But anyway, my point is we weren't music snobs. We
Speaker 1: liked all different kinds of genres.
Speaker 2: Has that carried forward for you in your time at
Speaker 2: Fox News and CNN just then like just a street battle. Now,
Speaker 2: every time I see you, I'm going to think that
Speaker 2: you're thinking that, by the way, Well, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, isn't it true that even the CNN and Fox
Speaker 1: battle plays into the Sharks and the Jets.
Speaker 2: I mean that's what I mean. That's yes, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who is who at this point. I'm
Speaker 2: going to stay away from that. But you talked about
Speaker 2: in your new book. You have a new book coming out,
Speaker 2: congratulations on that, Combat Love a Jersey Girls Search for Home.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk more about that a little bit later.
Speaker 2: But you talk about being free range or kind of
Speaker 2: unparented in your book. Does that mean you were given
Speaker 2: a lot of space as a child to explore and
Speaker 2: try things.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: And I think that this is a kind of universal
Speaker 1: feeling of gen xers. I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: us were semi parents or unparented. We were the free
Speaker 1: range generation. And it's strange, Brian, because there was never
Speaker 1: a generation before us, I think that was so unparented,
Speaker 1: and there certainly hasn't been one since. I mean, now
Speaker 1: we've the pendulum has swung to helicopter parenting, which is overkill,
Speaker 1: may I add, So we were this very strange blip
Speaker 1: in like the evolution of humans, where we were just
Speaker 1: turned loose for some reason, as like marauding teenagers and
Speaker 1: adolescents on the streets. I don't really know where parents
Speaker 1: were in the eighties. I've tried to figure it out.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If they were all a giant cocktail party somewhere, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but they weren't around even like stay home
Speaker 1: mothers were never hovering. And so yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: very free range time, and I look back on it
Speaker 1: fondly because I think that it instilled a lot of
Speaker 1: grit and you know, self reliance that our kids now
Speaker 1: don't have because we're helicopter parents. But as you'll read
Speaker 1: the book, there were also many dangerous, dicey situations that
Speaker 1: could have been avoided with a little supervision.
Speaker 2: I think, right, yeah, yeah, I certainly see that. But
Speaker 2: it's funny now, you know, I have younger kids. I
Speaker 2: started late, and we have to know where they are
Speaker 2: all the time now. And by the way, the phones
Speaker 2: don't help, not that they have phones yet. I'm going
Speaker 2: to hold off as long as I possibly can't do
Speaker 2: that and the watches and all this stuff. And I
Speaker 2: was just talking to somebody recently about like we would
Speaker 2: get home from school or on a Saturday, like we
Speaker 2: just checked out, Like we were just gone running through
Speaker 2: you know, I'm from Georgia. There's woods. We were just
Speaker 2: like running through the woods. And now it would be
Speaker 2: like even if it was quote unquote safe from other
Speaker 2: predators of one kind or another, it's like ticks or
Speaker 2: snakes or like all of those things. Now would be like,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, no, you need you need some tick
Speaker 2: repellent on and on this gauze mask or whatever like
Speaker 2: to protect you from I don't know, it's cract. I
Speaker 2: mean we killed a cotton head, yeah, that's what you
Speaker 2: call snake, like off our porch, and that the next
Speaker 2: day we were running through the woods like not paying
Speaker 2: any attention to anything. I just can't even imagine that
Speaker 2: these days.
Speaker 1: I'm me too. Our kids are totally bubble wrapped, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that it's doing them any favors to
Speaker 1: be bubble wrapped. I mean, I do think that there
Speaker 1: is a happy There must be a happy medium. I
Speaker 1: know we haven't found it yet because I don't think
Speaker 1: that kids should have been in as many cars with
Speaker 1: drunk drivers as I was. I don't think that's a
Speaker 1: good idea, but we've really overcorrected that said. You know
Speaker 1: my kids, I have two twins now who are in college,
Speaker 1: and they're like shot out of a cannon because they're
Speaker 1: having the experience in college for the first time, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, what is this you know
Speaker 1: that we had in high school. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe postponing it four or five years is for the best.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be really hard now. I mean, I
Speaker 2: assume it still happens, but to get away with like hey,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Johnny's house to spend the night. I'll
Speaker 2: see you tomorrow. Because there's no cell phones to text,
Speaker 2: there's no there's not even any parents if the phone.
Speaker 2: If Johnny's parents are out of town and they just
Speaker 2: don't answer the phone, they could just be not answering
Speaker 2: the phone. Now it would be like text call alert totally.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we did have sleepovers at people
Speaker 1: whose houses whose parents were out of town. My design
Speaker 1: that was the beauty parents were off and out of town.
Speaker 1: That was what we did.
Speaker 2: Well, as you said, they were not present as a teenager.
Speaker 2: I find this so interesting. You got into punk rock,
Speaker 2: you talked about music is going to be a theme,
Speaker 2: You started going into New York City to go to
Speaker 2: a lot of the clubs there. Do you look back
Speaker 2: fondly on those days, or do you look back and go, oh,
Speaker 2: my god, I can't believe that I was doing this,
Speaker 2: And yeah, I could have gotten myself into trouble.
Speaker 1: Well, I did routinely get myself into trouble.
Speaker 2: But well, but you're still here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is the dividing line.
Speaker 1: I agree. I did survive, you know is important. I mean,
Speaker 1: spoiler alert. I did survive, but I think back on
Speaker 1: it very fondly, and I wasn't really I want to
Speaker 1: be clear. I never was masquerading as a punk rocker.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a mohawk, I didn't have a safety
Speaker 1: pin through my cheek. Okay, I myself couldn't really pull
Speaker 1: off the punk rock aesthetic. But what happened was my
Speaker 1: gateway drug into punk was a local punk band from Shrewsbury,
Speaker 1: New Jersey called Shrapnel, and I loved Shrapnel so much,
Speaker 1: and I loved those guys in it. They were so
Speaker 1: charismatic and so cool and charming that that's who I loved,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I would follow them around. And
Speaker 1: I ended up in this milieu of going to see
Speaker 1: the Ramones and the Dead Boys and the Dictators and
Speaker 1: like all of these bands. But I was really just
Speaker 1: grinning and bearing it until I could get to Shrapnel
Speaker 1: like that. I was there for Shrapnel and so but yes,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm honored that I was at CBGB's in the
Speaker 1: heyday and that I was, you know, at all of
Speaker 1: those front row shows like that. I look back on
Speaker 1: it really fondly.
Speaker 2: Oh that's really cool. I mean that that experience of
Speaker 2: I think a perfect balance between like having a I mean,
Speaker 2: it sounds like it wasn't so much of a bubble,
Speaker 2: but having that smaller community where you could grow up,
Speaker 2: you could explore safely certain things there, but having the
Speaker 2: city so close to be able to have that as
Speaker 2: a as an outlet. That must have been must have
Speaker 2: been really fun. So this is it during high schoo
Speaker 2: you're doing this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was during high school restudents And to your point, Shrewsbury,
Speaker 1: New Jersey is basically one square mile maybe two square miles,
Speaker 1: and it would have been Maybury had it not been
Speaker 1: forty miles away from the city. But somehow because of
Speaker 1: that link, that fathers got on the train there in
Speaker 1: the morning and went off to work in Manhattan and
Speaker 1: then came home. And I don't know what planted the
Speaker 1: seed with all of us kids that we thought we
Speaker 1: could do that as well, but we did. And so
Speaker 1: Shrewsbury is this very strange little pocket or was in
Speaker 1: the eighties where we were tethered to the city in
Speaker 1: a way that small town suburbia isn't always And we
Speaker 1: did use the city, and we did go see live
Speaker 1: music in the city, and I did spend my prom
Speaker 1: night at the Limelight in the city. Like we just were.
Speaker 1: We did have that combination of small town Ocean Jersey
Speaker 1: Shore and then that escape to have adventures in the city.
Speaker 1: And so it was you know, if you survived it,
Speaker 1: it was measurable, right.
Speaker 2: I promise you you won't know that this is true.
Speaker 2: I don't relate every conversation, so I spend a lot
Speaker 2: of times not mentioning the office, but I do have
Speaker 2: to say, part of what you just talked about is
Speaker 2: something that our boss Greg Daniels talked about a lot
Speaker 2: which was interesting to me, which was in terms of
Speaker 2: like why Scranton, Pennsylvania, Like why choosing that? And what
Speaker 2: he was looking for was an insular community but that
Speaker 2: was close to the big city, and so what kept
Speaker 2: those people there as opposed to being in the city
Speaker 2: or you know, and part of it is distance and
Speaker 2: so forth, But how often did they utilize the big
Speaker 2: city or whatever and stayed where they were? So when
Speaker 2: he was coming up with where the office was going
Speaker 2: to take place, that was his requirements, Like he wanted
Speaker 2: it to be near something large, but still insular in
Speaker 2: its own way, with access to but not in that
Speaker 2: larger community. So I don't I always find that fascinating.
Speaker 1: I like that, Brian. And first of all, you can
Speaker 1: relate everything back to the office. I'm here for it,
Speaker 1: totally here for it. And I mean we can get
Speaker 1: into how much my kids loved the office.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so great. But I think that for me,
Speaker 1: there was something really powerful about that combination because I
Speaker 1: did like to have adventures, but mostly I was a provincial,
Speaker 1: small town girl, and I liked being able to drive
Speaker 1: down the street or walk down the street and know
Speaker 1: who lived in every house. I didn't have to like them,
Speaker 1: they'd never be my friend, but I knew their story
Speaker 1: and that was very cool to me. So there it
Speaker 1: was to me kind of a little nest, and you know,
Speaker 1: God knows, again, it wasn't Maybury. There was definitely bad
Speaker 1: behavior at times happening in Shrewsbury. But I liked that
Speaker 1: familiarity of that kind of provincial town.
Speaker 2: You eventually you went on to because you're a smarty
Speaker 2: pants American university there in d C. Now, were you
Speaker 2: into the punk scene there?
Speaker 1: No, But again because I was only into shratnel, no shrapnel,
Speaker 1: no punk. They're completely entwined, intertwined for me. So but
Speaker 1: I was always into music. I mean I did. I
Speaker 1: went to see the Remote, Like you know, I was
Speaker 1: definitely in the Ramones camp. I went to see the
Speaker 1: Ramones a few times and live in d C. But
Speaker 1: I always went to hear music always. But I did
Speaker 1: cross all genres when I got to d C. That's
Speaker 1: a kind of more Southern leaning city obviously than New York.
Speaker 1: So there was all like NRBQ, and there was Dave
Speaker 1: Matthews and all these other kind of sounds and bands
Speaker 1: that I was going to see live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Actually that's a lie. I do.
Speaker 2: I do know exactly how old you are, because I
Speaker 2: have papers right here that tell me, so we're roughly
Speaker 2: the same age. So yeah, that Dave Matthews band, you know,
Speaker 2: coming out of Virginia. You know, that was sort of
Speaker 2: you know, they were playing when I was in college.
Speaker 2: They were playing there at the University of Virginia. I
Speaker 2: had a friend there and that's how I got introduced
Speaker 2: to him, and that was a really really good time there.
Speaker 2: What's always curious that I like to talk to people
Speaker 2: about who end up focusing on something and having success
Speaker 2: and excellence in it. You know, you're in an intellectual family.
Speaker 2: You're interested in music culture clearly as well. When for
Speaker 2: you did you start on the path of you know,
Speaker 2: I know communications and broadcast journalism ended up being your focus.
Speaker 2: Did you go to American for that or at what
Speaker 2: point did you decide this was the direction you wanted
Speaker 2: to go in.
Speaker 1: So for me, there was an actual moment that there
Speaker 1: was an actual moment where the epiphany, like the light
Speaker 1: bulb went on. So it was I was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: it was after school. I was sitting on the sofa
Speaker 1: and I was watching Phil Donahue. Okay, and Phil Donahue
Speaker 1: had this daily afternoon talk show that was the bomb.
Speaker 1: I mean I loved the Field Donahue show as a teenager,
Speaker 1: and I was watching it, and truly I had one
Speaker 1: of those aha moments where I was like, what's that
Speaker 1: job called? What do you call that? Because it wasn't
Speaker 1: like TV star, it was something different. It wasn't an actor.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, what is that that he's doing? And
Speaker 1: I thought, what is that job called? And they pay
Speaker 1: him to do that? And I found out that that
Speaker 1: was called broadcast journalists. And from the moment I figured
Speaker 1: out that broadcast journalism was a profession, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm doing that. That's what I want to do. Like
Speaker 1: I saw him with his microphone like running around the studio,
Speaker 1: you know, like asking people questions. Caller is the caller there?
Speaker 1: Like it was all so fantastic. And so I only
Speaker 1: applied to colleges that had TV stations, which now they're
Speaker 1: like ubiquitous, but at the time there were truly only
Speaker 1: a handful of them. I mean I could take them
Speaker 1: off Syracuse, Ithaca, you know, American University, Northwestern and the
Speaker 1: day I got to American walked into the team, I
Speaker 1: was like, huh, I'd like to be a TV reporter
Speaker 1: and they were like, uh yeah, you and two hundred
Speaker 1: other freshmen you go back and get l so but
Speaker 1: that was my north star from that moment A fifteen
Speaker 1: that was it.
Speaker 2: That is so interesting. I mean I remember watching Phil
Speaker 2: Donahue as well, like with I don't know why, like
Speaker 2: that's like a grandparent's memory. I don't know, like they
Speaker 2: loved Phil Donahue. Yes, but in a way I would
Speaker 2: argue that Phil Donahue, as great as he was and
Speaker 2: as entertaining as that was, and he was legit, he
Speaker 2: is a little bit of the gateway drug into where
Speaker 2: we sit today. I don't know if any of these
Speaker 2: people are your friends. But and then you start going
Speaker 2: into like Heraldo or Maury Covid. Sure, yeah, word tu
Speaker 2: you I.
Speaker 1: Actually agree with you. Phil Donahue, I would say, was
Speaker 1: still on the you know better Angels side of that
Speaker 1: of that continuum. And I do love her although and
Speaker 1: he is a great in real life. He is a
Speaker 1: great guy in of total mention, and I do love
Speaker 1: him dearly. But yeah, Phil donaghu was the beginning of
Speaker 1: that continuum that leads right to like a chair being
Speaker 1: broken over somebody's head, right, or a paternity test on
Speaker 1: the Mari Povid show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, that's very interesting. I mean he was much
Speaker 2: more asking questions as opposed to telling you what the
Speaker 2: thing should be, which I think in a weird way
Speaker 2: that that's what we need more of.
Speaker 1: Well totally. I mean that's what journalism at its best is,
Speaker 1: which is you're a conduit. You know, you're a conduit
Speaker 1: and a platform for other people's stories, and so you
Speaker 1: have the microphone and I've never not realized what a
Speaker 1: powerful platform and position that is. But you're supposed to
Speaker 1: just be a conduit. But then you know, a cable
Speaker 1: news comes along, and then we it turns out in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. When you have twenty four hour news,
Speaker 1: you can squeeze in some opinions, and you can squeeze
Speaker 1: in some of your own analysis and everything, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it does bleed into those other things.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 2: Was it tough for you? I mean, you know, you
Speaker 2: keep talking about shrapnel. You didn't have the mohawk, but
Speaker 2: you know, so you're moving from at least being a
Speaker 2: fan of that into sort of what is perceived as
Speaker 2: sort of an ultra clean cut kind of identity in
Speaker 2: broadcast journalism. Was that a difficult change for you or no,
Speaker 2: did you just jump right into that.
Speaker 1: Well, I think there's something out wearing the mask of
Speaker 1: an anchor person. You know, anchor people are so kind
Speaker 1: of well cooffed, and there's so much makeup that there's
Speaker 1: a veneer, you know, by again by design, because we're
Speaker 1: just supposed to be the messengers, you know, the conduits.
Speaker 1: And so I think that for a long time, there
Speaker 1: was something comforting for me about being able to get
Speaker 1: behind the mask, the anchor mask, and not have to
Speaker 1: reveal too much vulnerability, you know, you like cake on
Speaker 1: that makeup, and then I'm ready for the day, Like
Speaker 1: I can ask anybody that's my armor, you know, and
Speaker 1: then I can go to battle and ask anybody tough
Speaker 1: questions because I'm kind of behind that mask, the anchor mask.
Speaker 1: And then what started to happen for me personally was
Speaker 1: I started to feel that the mask was a little
Speaker 1: off putting and a bit of a distance from the
Speaker 1: people that I was interviewing. And because I had a childhood,
Speaker 1: well a teenagehood filled with some struggle and challenges, and
Speaker 1: there were times I was broken, there were times I
Speaker 1: had nowhere to live, and there were times that I
Speaker 1: struggled with mental health. I started being tempted to say
Speaker 1: to people, I feel you, I've been there, you know,
Speaker 1: but I can't say that. That's not what news people
Speaker 1: are supposed to be doing. I mean, part of my uh,
Speaker 1: I guess impulse for writing the book was peeling off
Speaker 1: that mask and showing that even your you know well
Speaker 1: quaft Anchor has a story of survival and of challenges
Speaker 1: and obstacles and everything. Because I think that we often
Speaker 1: people can project onto us all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: we are tabula rasa that people project onto And what
Speaker 1: they project onto me often is I've never had a
Speaker 1: hard day in my life. You know, I've never had
Speaker 1: a struggle, and you know that's just not the truth
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like that should be different or do
Speaker 2: you feel like that if people knew more about you,
Speaker 2: or if you projected yourself more through that mask, that
Speaker 2: makes you part of the story. I'm trying to figure
Speaker 2: out like the danger of that for you or why
Speaker 2: you don't do that.
Speaker 1: I think people have always been able to smell something
Speaker 1: on me, and I think it's CBGB's no. I think
Speaker 1: I think that people get a whiff of something, that
Speaker 1: there is an untold story or that I am relatable,
Speaker 1: but they can't put their finger on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: people do think that I am relatable in a way,
Speaker 1: so I hope that it's coming through the mask. But
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, we're taught, we are taught in journalism
Speaker 1: school don't make yourself the story. You know, that's just
Speaker 1: not what you're there for. You're there for other people's stories,
Speaker 1: in the service of other people's voices. So we're really
Speaker 1: taught not to do that. That's part of the discomfort.
Speaker 1: But for everybody, it's individual. Not everybody is comfortable opening
Speaker 1: the pages of their diaries and letting the world read it,
Speaker 1: of course. But for me, I just believe it's time
Speaker 1: to build bridges. I mean, because of where we are
Speaker 1: right now, because I've seen so much discord in the
Speaker 1: cable news world and in news and everybody in their silos.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just doing my own little part to
Speaker 1: build a bridge and show that we're all, you know,
Speaker 1: more similar than we are different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me about some of your earliest jobs either
Speaker 2: your first how you got that or what kind of
Speaker 2: stories were you covering?
Speaker 1: Oh, my early you mean my earliest TV jobs. I
Speaker 1: was about to tell you about Friendlies. I was about
Speaker 1: to tell you about making Jim dandies at Friendlies. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So so I was a waitress before I was a reporter,
Speaker 1: and that restaurant work. Did you ever do restaurant work?
Speaker 3: Run?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they didn't trust me with much. I was
Speaker 2: a host. I think when I signed up for it,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how much less money you make than
Speaker 2: everybody else.
Speaker 1: Because you don't get tipps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I I was a host. I was a
Speaker 2: host of a very popular busy place. I wasn't doing nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think I had the patience for be a waiter.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I see, all right, Well, maybe from your
Speaker 1: even brief stint in restaurant work, you know that it's
Speaker 1: just such a character building experience, you know. And so
Speaker 1: at Friendli's was my childhood haunt as a child in Shrewsbury,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and then as a teenager if we had
Speaker 1: the munchies or something, and then I ended up working there.
Speaker 1: As my mother called it, might come up and and
Speaker 1: so you know, like scooping ice cream and everything. I
Speaker 1: think very fondly back to that and how it was
Speaker 1: character building. But if you're talking about my first reporter jobs,
Speaker 1: those are also character building.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean I made so many mistakes and they were
Speaker 1: so mortifying. I started at American University.
Speaker 2: On that on the TV station that was there, so
Speaker 2: you did.
Speaker 1: Eventually I elbowed my way, and yes, I elbowed eventually
Speaker 1: my way. And after they'd given up on everybody else,
Speaker 1: like I had to audition along with like two hundred
Speaker 1: other more talented kids, and then like those kids, you
Speaker 1: know what happens. There's like this weeding out process, and
Speaker 1: some kids realized like ooh, I don't want to stand
Speaker 1: in a snowstorm or like outside of the rain or
Speaker 1: cover some crappy story. But I'm like, I do you know?
Speaker 1: So I sucked. That's here's the upshot. I sucked. This
Speaker 1: was not a natural fit for me. I did you know.
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to do a stand up
Speaker 1: where you talk into the microphone and don't look petrified.
Speaker 1: And I was like white knuckling it. I would be
Speaker 1: somebody like there are one take wonders. I was like
Speaker 1: a forty eight take one, like to the point where
Speaker 1: my cameraman would be like, they all suck, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to stick with one of them, you know,
Speaker 1: like I can't take another second of this. So it
Speaker 1: was really through just repetition that I ended up getting better.
Speaker 1: And then and then one of my first jobs was
Speaker 1: for the crime show America's Most Wanted, and I loved
Speaker 1: every second of that. I loved I love crime reporting.
Speaker 1: I love the criminal mind, you know, trying to crack it.
Speaker 1: I loved finding fugitives. I loved jailhouse interviews with mass murderers.
Speaker 1: They would send me in to interview them, and I
Speaker 1: just it was a great training ground.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1: It was really cool.
Speaker 2: I like that. Yeah, I did something you said before
Speaker 2: though I had a conversation. I've become friends with Dylan
Speaker 2: Dreyer and the whole standing outside in the middle of
Speaker 2: a hurricane thing is the dumbest thing.
Speaker 1: Awful.
Speaker 2: It's awful.
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I mean, when I was eighteen
Speaker 1: and nineteen twenty, I would have done anything, and I
Speaker 1: would have been like, put me in coach. But now
Speaker 1: when there's a hurricane, I like, hide under my desk
Speaker 1: so they think I'm gone.
Speaker 2: Well, it's even just like your pal Anderson Cooper does
Speaker 2: it all the time. I mean, obviously they don't want
Speaker 2: me producing these shows, but I want them to know
Speaker 2: that the consumer at home who are watching and Anderson's like, hey,
Speaker 2: the entire area has been evacuated. No one is here.
Speaker 2: We're here on the beach in North Carolina, and you're like,
Speaker 2: get out of what are you doing? Why are you there?
Speaker 1: It's so frustrating, stressful. It is stressful. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I must tell you viewership does go up.
Speaker 2: It probably doesn't, but is that like watching a reality
Speaker 2: television show that's terrible that you're watching to make fun
Speaker 2: of it, Like that's the thing. Is the viewership high
Speaker 2: or it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's train wrap watching or pity
Speaker 1: watching or thank God I'm not out in the elements watching,
Speaker 1: or just Anderson in a wet T shirt washing. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I know that it's successful.
Speaker 2: It's successful. Okay. You in nineteen ninety eight, you started
Speaker 2: Fox News in Boston. How did you get that job?
Speaker 1: So? Interestingly, my co anchor from American University I worked
Speaker 1: my way up from reporter outside in the freezing range
Speaker 1: to anchoring at American University. And my co anchor, who
Speaker 1: was a really talented guy. He had all of the
Speaker 1: natural skill that I did not possess. He did. He
Speaker 1: was a correspondent at Fox and Fox had just started.
Speaker 1: Fox was going to be this new national cable news network.
Speaker 1: He was telling me about it and the great perks,
Speaker 1: and he had his own designated producer, and he had
Speaker 1: his own cameraman and they would, you know, travel the
Speaker 1: country and tell these stories. And he was like, you
Speaker 1: need to send a tape there, and I said, that
Speaker 1: does sound good, you know the show and his last words.
Speaker 1: And so the show that I had been on in
Speaker 1: Boston and National NBC Morning Show had just been canceled.
Speaker 1: So I was freelancing at all sorts of different crazy
Speaker 1: shows and looking for a steady gig. And the way
Speaker 1: my friend Rick described it sounded fantastic. I sent a
Speaker 1: resume tape to the vice president in charge of programming,
Speaker 1: and I was hired, not sight unseen because they'd seen
Speaker 1: my tape, but voice unspoken to I mean, there was
Speaker 1: never an interview, no interview, no interview, no phone call.
Speaker 1: My agent called and said, like, they want to hire you,
Speaker 1: and I said, fantastic. And it was a great salary
Speaker 1: and there were great perks, and I was going to
Speaker 1: live in Boston, which is a town that I love
Speaker 1: and always felt was home. And so it was all great,
Speaker 1: and it was just as my friend promised. It was
Speaker 1: great for a couple of years, and I was traveling
Speaker 1: around New England and doing all sorts of cool stories
Speaker 1: on Harvard medical breakthroughs or fall foliage or whatever. And
Speaker 1: then slowly it started morphing into something different. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what happened is that Roger Els sort of
Speaker 1: realized that there was this large chunk of the viewing
Speaker 1: population that felt that their voice wasn't being echoed or
Speaker 1: heard on other networks, and that there was like this
Speaker 1: beachhead that he could kind of corner. And slowly, after
Speaker 1: about two years, all of my stories started. I started
Speaker 1: being assigned stories with a conservative slant, and some of
Speaker 1: my scripts started being changed. They wanted me to change
Speaker 1: some wording, They wanted the guests that I interviewed to
Speaker 1: be different. And it became, you know, it morphed into
Speaker 1: something like what it is today.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. I mean, this is such a long
Speaker 2: time ago. Now obviously in your mind doesn't remember things
Speaker 2: as they were or whatever. So Fox News you believe changed,
Speaker 2: which I trust you, by the way, that's not a challenge.
Speaker 2: But around two thousand or so it became different than
Speaker 2: what it was before, like that specific voice that is
Speaker 2: now that's famous for whatever. That actually changed. While you
Speaker 2: were there, you palpably felt that the people you were
Speaker 2: talking to and the stories that you were telling had
Speaker 2: a different slant. Sure before interesting.
Speaker 1: Sure, and maybe that was always Roger's grand plan, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. Or maybe he started to see where their
Speaker 1: bread was buttered and that it really the times that
Speaker 1: we did stories with a more conservative angle started really
Speaker 1: resonating in the ratings you can see. As executives, you
Speaker 1: get minute by minute ratings, so you can see exactly
Speaker 1: what stories are resonating and where viewership falls off. But
Speaker 1: at some point I know that Roger, and I know
Speaker 1: this because he told me this explicitly. Roger started playing
Speaker 1: to the crowd, you know, I mean, all of Fox
Speaker 1: started playing to the crowd. And once they figured it
Speaker 1: out that it was winning and that they were resonating
Speaker 1: with this conservative, more right wing audience. They just gunned
Speaker 1: it for that viewership. And then that's those were the
Speaker 1: stories that we started doing to the point where, you know,
Speaker 1: there were times that I was, let's say, hosting the
Speaker 1: morning show, and every single story was from a conservative angle.
Speaker 1: There was no other Like it would be just how
Speaker 1: many different ways can you slice and dice Barack Obama
Speaker 1: in one hour? And I fought it to the best
Speaker 1: that I could. It's hard to fight city Hall. I
Speaker 1: would say to Roger Els, don't you think that gets
Speaker 1: a little redundant. Don't you think it's a little monotonous
Speaker 1: to have the same angle every hour? Like maybe I
Speaker 1: could try to be a voice for a different angle
Speaker 1: or a monarch. He was like, you know, he thundered
Speaker 1: at me, you will, I will not have you lose
Speaker 1: the audience. You are not to do that. And so
Speaker 1: that just told me that they were all in for
Speaker 1: the audience. And as we now know, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you fast forward ten years or fifteen years from that,
Speaker 1: and you know from the dominion lawsuit, they ended up saying,
Speaker 1: did you hear Tucker Carlson and you hear people in
Speaker 1: the paper, I mean, in the documents of that lawsuit, say,
Speaker 1: got to think about the viewers. You got to give
Speaker 1: the viewers what they want. We're here for the audience, don't.
Speaker 1: You can't say that the audience won't like it. You
Speaker 1: can't say that that's what they do.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. I mean you truly, truly, you have
Speaker 2: enlightened me because I think that I don't know where
Speaker 2: it's been put in my consciousness or who taught me
Speaker 2: this or whatever, but that it was Murdoch was conservative,
Speaker 2: so Fox is conservative, and maybe that's true as well,
Speaker 2: but they were able to keep more of a you know,
Speaker 2: not be not as biased for a while. But that's
Speaker 2: so interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in my in my experience, like ratings
Speaker 1: were their religion, and so you know, I really think
Speaker 1: that if Roger it did dovetail with their ideology. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it all works out because Roger and Rubert Murdock
Speaker 1: are conservative, so it ends up dovetailing, so they it
Speaker 1: works for them. However, I mean, Roger also really liked
Speaker 1: the whatever that whatever that dog show is, you know
Speaker 1: that like that fancy dog show every year where poodle's
Speaker 1: trot around.
Speaker 2: Like the Westminster Dog Show.
Speaker 1: Like if the ratings had shown that every single segment
Speaker 1: could have been a trotting around poodle. That's what Fox
Speaker 1: would be today. But the ratings just happened to show
Speaker 1: that the viewers really liked conservative talking points.
Speaker 2: Fascinating? Is that in part why you moved on?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, I felt like I mean, I got in
Speaker 1: trouble all the time. It's not fun at work to
Speaker 1: be constantly called to the woodshed and in trouble. So
Speaker 1: Roger for.
Speaker 2: Saying things on the air, you mad, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, ye're saying things on the air. But sometimes
Speaker 1: Roger would call me to his office and be very
Speaker 1: disgruntled about the way I was sitting. He told me
Speaker 1: he could tell I was uncomfortable with whatever conservative talking
Speaker 1: point that we happened to be doing that day because
Speaker 1: of the way I was sitting. He told me that
Speaker 1: it looked like my body had been botoxed. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, Roger, I said, it's very cold
Speaker 1: in that studio. I'm freezing. He was like, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: that wasn't it. It's because you were uncomfortable. And I
Speaker 1: was like, hm, I guess he can read minds because
Speaker 1: I was uncomfortable and so it's not good to be
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with what you're having to report on. And I stopped.
Speaker 1: I started realizing it wasn't really news. I started not
Speaker 1: thinking that it was serving the viewers to be fed
Speaker 1: this all the time. I mean, I think it is
Speaker 1: interesting to hear conservative viewpoints, for sure, and I think
Speaker 1: that smart conservative voices are really important for the democracy.
Speaker 1: But we weren't always doing smart conservative voices. We were
Speaker 1: doing just fear mongering, you know, fear mongering about a
Speaker 1: new mosque that was going to be built somewhere. And
Speaker 1: I didn't think that that was helpful for anybody. So
Speaker 1: I was uncomfortable. Roger could see that I was uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: We fought a lot about it, or basically I listened
Speaker 1: to him yelling that's not sustainable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you moved to CNN in twenty fourteen, did
Speaker 2: you feel like you saw opportunities there that you were
Speaker 2: not able to do at Fox News.
Speaker 1: Definitely? Definitely. I mean when I got to CNN, it
Speaker 1: was just a garden of opportunity. To this day, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to explain it. Jeff Zucker was our
Speaker 1: president at that time, and I have asked him about this,
Speaker 1: and he can't explain. I mean, he's never taken a
Speaker 1: time to explain it to me, but a lot of
Speaker 1: us have talked to each other about this. Somehow, there
Speaker 1: was enough of the pie to go around for everyone.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of us, but I got to
Speaker 1: sit down with Hillary Clinton and do a big one
Speaker 1: on one. Somehow, Dana Bash got a very cool interview
Speaker 1: with whoever she was going after, Anderson Cooper got to
Speaker 1: go stand in a hurricane, you know, John Berman was
Speaker 1: going to cover you know, a terrorist attack in Paris.
Speaker 1: Like there was so much news happening, and all of
Speaker 1: us got to have these special moments. And when I
Speaker 1: got there, it was just like my career opened up
Speaker 1: and I got to do all of these super cool things,
Speaker 1: including you know, a host of the morning show there
Speaker 1: for seven years on it's you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: very very successful run of it. So I was I
Speaker 1: was really delighted because I did feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: a bit of a put on the shelf at Fox,
Speaker 1: Like Roger stopped giving me opportunities and everything because he didn't,
Speaker 1: as he said, trust me.
Speaker 2: Interesting. You know where Jeff Zucker was before he was CNN, NBC.
Speaker 2: He was he was in charge when the Office came
Speaker 2: on the air, he was.
Speaker 1: So it was did he decide that like that would
Speaker 1: give it the green light or was there somebody else?
Speaker 2: You know, you know, I should have done some research
Speaker 2: on this, because I'm not sure to what degree. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've told the story. He was not a fan of
Speaker 2: the show. He was not a fan of the show.
Speaker 2: He didn't get it.
Speaker 1: He didn't get it, but yet he green lit it
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Well, he had someone that was under him who really
Speaker 2: championed for it, but he did. He did it. He
Speaker 2: had a few people that he trusted outside that were
Speaker 2: big fans of it, and a lot of the younger
Speaker 2: people at the network, like interns and assistants, were big
Speaker 2: fans of it. But it's always interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I think that that's I mean, to me, that's the
Speaker 1: mark of a great executive, which is like I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily get it, but all these guys in the demo do,
Speaker 1: Let's try it that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: So this is sort of the lead up kind of
Speaker 2: the now time for the twenty sixteen presidential campaigns. Did
Speaker 2: you feel like, because of your time at Fox you
Speaker 2: had sort of a unique perspective on coverage that you
Speaker 2: had done previously, or what kind of coverage they were
Speaker 2: going to have, and what CNN was doing, Like how
Speaker 2: did you fit in there to that very specific time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely felt that I had a bigger, a
Speaker 1: wider lens than other people because I had been at Fox.
Speaker 1: And I still feel that way. I still feel that
Speaker 1: my years at Fox were really valuable and really helped
Speaker 1: inform a worldview that I now try to carry into
Speaker 1: all of my stories because I think that I can
Speaker 1: pretty easily channel you know, that Roger Ayles worldview and
Speaker 1: the viewers of Fox who were always you know, really
Speaker 1: kind to me and I got to talk to and
Speaker 1: you know, interview a lot, and so I still feel
Speaker 1: that way. I tap into that all the time, and
Speaker 1: when I got to CNN, I think it was super
Speaker 1: helpful because you know, we are all in our bubbles,
Speaker 1: not by design. I mean, it's not like everybody tries
Speaker 1: to be myopic or in their own bubble, but you
Speaker 1: are a product of your surroundings and your geography, and
Speaker 1: so you know, by that time, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of crossover between CNN and Fox, and there weren't a
Speaker 1: lot of people going back and forth who had worked
Speaker 1: in different places, so I was very glad that I
Speaker 1: could bring I think, like a kind of a bit
Speaker 1: of a wider aperture to my reporting at CNN.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very cool. You mentioned it before the twenty
Speaker 2: four hour news cycle, which is intense, and I think, Look,
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of us consumers of news
Speaker 2: get fatigued because the news is NonStop and it's not
Speaker 2: always great. And I know for myself I will put
Speaker 2: the phone on silent or to turn the notifications off.
Speaker 2: This is something in your job you can't really do.
Speaker 2: So how do you deal with that, that sort of
Speaker 2: constant barrage of information and news that's coming to you,
Speaker 2: which oftentimes is not good or at least positive, uplifting.
Speaker 2: We don't have a lot of those stories. How do
Speaker 2: you deal with that day in and day out.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I commend you for turning off
Speaker 1: the notifications and the phone sometimes, and everybody has to
Speaker 1: do that, because I do think that we are in
Speaker 1: such a deluge of information and there's so many different
Speaker 1: delivery systems that it is affecting people's mental health for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the research shows that. So you used
Speaker 1: to be able to just turn on the TV and
Speaker 1: turn it off at your when you'd had enough. And
Speaker 1: now I just think that the drinking from a fire
Speaker 1: hose is way too much for a lot of our
Speaker 1: nervous systems. So I'm very good at compartmentalizing. I always
Speaker 1: have been good at compartmentalizing. I'm able to kind of
Speaker 1: see a story for a story and recognize that I'm
Speaker 1: here as the again conduit to tell that story or
Speaker 1: the platform, and I don't really take it home with me.
Speaker 1: I mean, there have been times that I've had to
Speaker 1: tell very tragic, awful stories and they sick with me
Speaker 1: a little bit longer. But I really try not to
Speaker 1: internalize those because then I would be useless at my job.
Speaker 1: So I'm very good at being present, you know, for
Speaker 1: however many hours the red light is on being there
Speaker 1: telling the story, trying to get the facts, and then
Speaker 1: after that it is very easy for me to come
Speaker 1: home and turn on the office or some I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: TV has always been like a real companion of mine,
Speaker 1: right and I have often used it as an escape,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can do that.
Speaker 2: You're now reporting on the whole story with Anderson Cooper.
Speaker 2: These stories are relevant and important, but a little bit
Speaker 2: of a different kind of journalism than sort of that
Speaker 2: daily news cycle. Are you enjoying that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I enjoyed a lot. That's how that was my first
Speaker 1: I first started with long form, as we call it,
Speaker 1: which is not the kind of breaking news or the
Speaker 1: minute and a half news package that you see on
Speaker 1: local news. So America's Most Wanted, for instance, would tell
Speaker 1: these long yarns about these crime stories. So that was
Speaker 1: how I first was true. Well, actually my first job
Speaker 1: was for Ted Copple. He had a production company and
Speaker 1: he did these documentaries, so those were hour long deep
Speaker 1: doves into a particular topic. So this is a return
Speaker 1: for me to that, which is an hour long and
Speaker 1: we dive into one topic. And I really like that
Speaker 1: kind of storytelling because obviously you can't tell everything in
Speaker 1: a minute and a half, and breaking news is just
Speaker 1: a different skill set. I like breaking news also, but
Speaker 1: it's a different muscle. This what I'm doing now requires
Speaker 1: more research and writing, and I do really like love
Speaker 1: the aspect of script writing and book writing or any
Speaker 1: kind of writing. So it's very nice to step off
Speaker 1: the gerbil wheel of that kind of grind, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly when you talk about gearing up for the next
Speaker 1: presidential election. I'm very happy right now to have stepped
Speaker 1: off that breathless merry go round, you know, and anybody
Speaker 1: who has the energy to do it, I applaud you.
Speaker 1: But I'm getting a little respite right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I watch that show. I also like
Speaker 2: on ESPN Outside the Lines, which does the same thing.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, for how many years I have
Speaker 2: been a DVR do you would still say that of
Speaker 2: sixty minutes? It is that longer form stories that it's
Speaker 2: often not telling you exactly what's happening right now. But
Speaker 2: when people like you and your producers and all of
Speaker 2: these shows are choosing these stories, they do shine a
Speaker 2: light and illuminate in greater detail, a story that does
Speaker 2: resonate with what's happening in the world today.
Speaker 1: And I like that me too. I'm a DVR. Also,
Speaker 1: you've just coined that phrase for all eternity.
Speaker 2: Well, let's just say I tvoed it. I know that's wrong.
Speaker 2: I know TVO is done stream Maybe it's just streaming now.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can watch it on streaming.
Speaker 1: But I do DVR it, I do TV are it?
Speaker 1: So I just don't know how to turn that into
Speaker 1: a verb. But I guess we are turning that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So sixteen minutes CBS Sunday Morning, same thing. Like I
Speaker 1: love that storytelling. It's so pleasant, you know, CBS Sunday Morning.
Speaker 1: And I think that I feel smarter after those shows
Speaker 1: and I've learned something and breaking news serves its purpose.
Speaker 1: But you know, I often feel like my brain has
Speaker 1: been fried after breaking news or you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it does something different to your cells than just sitting
Speaker 1: back and like learning about something new.
Speaker 2: You talked about doing research and doing writing. We talked
Speaker 2: about a little earlier, your new memoir that is breaking
Speaker 2: as we speak, Combat Love a Jersey Girls, Search for Home.
Speaker 2: How deep did you have to go into your own
Speaker 2: remembrances or recollections for these stories or was this the
Speaker 2: kind of book that you have been gradually writing sections
Speaker 2: in your brain as you thought of things for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: Both, I mean, Brian, both these are stories that were
Speaker 1: rattling around in my brain since they happened. I tend
Speaker 1: to write episodes. First. I write just a story, an episode,
Speaker 1: and then I later try to glue it together and
Speaker 1: figure out what the theme is. That's presenting itself. But
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who's a great literary agent, told
Speaker 1: me years ago, you know, if you're going to write
Speaker 1: a memoir, you kind of have to go there. You
Speaker 1: kind of have to leave it all on the table.
Speaker 1: And you know you should if you really want to
Speaker 1: do that, you should just be prepared to do that.
Speaker 1: And so that was a longer process. I can write
Speaker 1: a story about a funny night where I snuck backstage
Speaker 1: at the Ramones concert and the hilarity that ensued back there.
Speaker 1: I can write that, But what were the feelings underneath,
Speaker 1: and what was the motivation underneath doing that? And what
Speaker 1: is the kind of if there's a darker shadow of
Speaker 1: all of these what seemingly might be fun stories, what
Speaker 1: is that? So that took more years to on earth
Speaker 1: and excavate you know what it really like. There is
Speaker 1: a part of this book it's like gen X Misadventures
Speaker 1: of Music and as we said, you know, free range time.
Speaker 1: And then there's the story of searching for home, you know,
Speaker 1: and searching for stability and feeling lonely and feeling deep
Speaker 1: depression at times. And it took me many years to
Speaker 1: weave those two stories together.
Speaker 2: You talked earlier about wanting to give people an idea
Speaker 2: of some of your struggles because of how you at
Speaker 2: least perceive that you are viewed as a conduit and
Speaker 2: as a blank canvas. I guess for delivering the news,
Speaker 2: is that why you wanted to write this story, to
Speaker 2: give people an idea of really who you are and
Speaker 2: different things that you have gone through.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a difference between writing your memoir and publishing
Speaker 1: your memoir.
Speaker 2: Oh so you wrote it for you and now you're
Speaker 2: publishing it for other people.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I wrote it for me, and let's
Speaker 1: be honest, I'm publishing it for me. But you can
Speaker 1: write a memo. I mean I wrote it truly to
Speaker 1: put the pieces back together. There were there was a
Speaker 1: lot of unfinished business from my teenage years. I moved
Speaker 1: a lot against my will. I lived in lots of
Speaker 1: different towns and houses during a two year period. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do any of that, and so sometimes
Speaker 1: all of it was happening so fast that I never
Speaker 1: I never adequately wrapped up one chapter, so to speak,
Speaker 1: before moving on to the next. So there were all
Speaker 1: of these stories rattling around in my head, and it
Speaker 1: was very helpful and cathartic for me to write them down,
Speaker 1: put them in a real order, go back and interview
Speaker 1: the main players in these different episodes and check my
Speaker 1: memory and make sure that it was all as intense
Speaker 1: and technicolor as I thought it was. And so that
Speaker 1: was a healing exercise for me. Now in terms of
Speaker 1: publishing it, once I have Once I had the whole
Speaker 1: story down in the book, then I had to make
Speaker 1: a decision of do I really want to publish this thing?
Speaker 1: And I feel like I don't know. I kind of
Speaker 1: waited long enough that we are in a moment of
Speaker 1: time with social media and with gen Z that you know,
Speaker 1: they really peel back the curtain all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: they're always sharing their feelings and everything, and so it
Speaker 1: was kind of like I thought, why keep it a
Speaker 1: secret at this point, you know, why keep it behind
Speaker 1: the mask? Well, maybe it will help if I if
Speaker 1: I let people know that there were some rock bottom
Speaker 1: moments in my life too that I crawled through to
Speaker 1: get to achieving my dream.
Speaker 2: I think that's awesome. I mean, it's not even a
Speaker 2: humble brag. It's a brag coming you know, I've written
Speaker 2: a book myself so I know that there's an answer,
Speaker 2: so you can't say you don't know because I had it.
Speaker 2: You go back and you do these interviews, what moment
Speaker 2: for you? And it may be your favorite because it's
Speaker 2: the most painful. It might be your favorite because it
Speaker 2: made you laugh. It might be your favorite because it
Speaker 2: made you look really good. What moment for you is
Speaker 2: your favorite in terms of having something illuminated based on
Speaker 2: talking to other people that sort of went against your
Speaker 2: own memory. But feel like, hmm, you know what, that's
Speaker 2: something I hadn't thought about before. But it's probably really true.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. And Brian, you could only have
Speaker 1: asked it because you went back, and I mean, I
Speaker 1: know enough about your book and I have read and
Speaker 1: I listened to one of your interviews where you talked
Speaker 1: about trying to solve the mystery, you know, and that
Speaker 1: really resonates with me. You were trying to solve the
Speaker 1: mystery of what was the magic pixie dust? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the office and why has it had this renaissance?
Speaker 1: What was the magic? Because like, how can we bottle it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: I mean, like what how did lightning strike at that moment?
Speaker 1: And mine was also a mystery quest, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to solve the mystery of why these teenage years were
Speaker 1: so incandescent for me and why they were so vivid
Speaker 1: and stuck around, stuck with me so much. And I
Speaker 1: mean it was it was really fun for me to
Speaker 1: go back and interview the main players. It got. It
Speaker 1: gave me a chance to relive some of these moments and,
Speaker 1: as you say, to test my memory. And what I
Speaker 1: found is that my memory is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I have a really good memory, because when I went
Speaker 1: back and I would be like, tell me, sometimes memories
Speaker 1: get diluted from telling the story too much or writing
Speaker 1: the story. It morphs. However, some of these memories were
Speaker 1: pristine because I had never spoken to the other person
Speaker 1: in this intense moment. Let's say, you know, there was
Speaker 1: a night I got stranded on a corner in Queens
Speaker 1: at like two in the morning, on some shitty, burned
Speaker 1: out corner, and the guy who stranded me we had
Speaker 1: never spoken of it again. Okay, so it had been
Speaker 1: you know, thirty five years, and I called him and said,
Speaker 1: can I take you to lunch and ask you a
Speaker 1: few questions? And I said, do you remember what happened
Speaker 1: on that night that we went d see shrapnel in
Speaker 1: Queens And he goes and like, again, we've never sun.
Speaker 1: He looks up and he goes, Oh, something fed up
Speaker 1: happened that that night, didn't it. I was like, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: yeah it did. Like he remembered, ooh that was a bad,
Speaker 1: intense night, but he couldn't quite put his finger on
Speaker 1: exactly what had happened. Then I clued him in and
Speaker 1: then we took it from there and like we're able
Speaker 1: to piece it together. And so I guess the most
Speaker 1: surprising thing that happened is that I had a best
Speaker 1: friend during that time. In the book, she's called Vivian.
Speaker 1: She was wild, she was dangerous. She was an incredibly
Speaker 1: magnetic person, and I loved her and I loved going
Speaker 1: back and thinking about all the adventures that we had.
Speaker 1: And she said to me at some point, so she
Speaker 1: was she was an addicts when we were teenager. She
Speaker 1: was an alcoholic and then became a hard drug addict.
Speaker 1: And I was like, ohhe remember that time that we
Speaker 1: did this, and I'd be like writing it down. She said,
Speaker 1: you know, Allison, it's not as fun for me to
Speaker 1: remember these times as it is for you, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh right, and she said I really wasn't well,
Speaker 1: and like she had to just kind of take me
Speaker 1: by the shoulders and be like this is all nostalgic
Speaker 1: and fun and games for you, but like I lived it,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was really that allowed a different
Speaker 1: layer of the book again, just the deeper layer. You know.
Speaker 1: There's the stories and then there's the what was really happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fascinating. Everybody. Check it out. Combat Love a Jersey Girls,
Speaker 2: Search for Home. Alison, You're awesome.
Speaker 1: You're awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to have one met you and two
Speaker 2: gotten a chance for you to be so candid and
Speaker 2: open about your life and career. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: read the book.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ron. I can't wait for you to read
Speaker 1: the book. I look forward to hearing what you think
Speaker 1: of it, and I really look forward to our paths crossing.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll find you on my l a book tour
Speaker 1: and come find the little the little fancy town that
Speaker 1: you live in.
Speaker 2: Out the Connecticut of southern California. By the way, that
Speaker 2: is now going to be my answer, Like I have,
Speaker 2: I have finally figured it out where I live in
Speaker 2: the Connecticut of Southern California. Allison, thank you so much,
Speaker 2: and good luck with the book, and listen, take care
Speaker 2: of yourself this year. You know it's going to be
Speaker 2: a struggle. Take care of yourself. And yes, our paths
Speaker 2: will cross soon for sure, I hope. So thanks for everything, Allison,
Speaker 2: thank you so much. That was fascinating. I really enjoyed
Speaker 2: our conversation. It was great getting know you. I learned
Speaker 2: so much today about you and also how the news
Speaker 2: industry works. But most of all, I learned about apparently
Speaker 2: the greatest band of all time. And I'm going to
Speaker 2: go right now listen to Shrapnel to see what all
Speaker 2: the fuss is about. Listeners, you stay tuned as we
Speaker 2: will continue to bring you breaking news, but for now,
Speaker 2: have a great week. Off The Beat is hosted and
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer
Speaker 2: Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers
Speaker 2: are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent
Speaker 2: producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is Ali
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Speaker 2: the one and Only Creed Bratton,