Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello Whips, Smarties,
Speaker 1: we have a smarty on the podcast today. I am
Speaker 1: joined by Alison Camarota. She is an American broadcast journalist
Speaker 1: and a political commentator for CNN. She formerly was an
Speaker 1: anchor of CNN's morning news show new Day, the co
Speaker 1: host of the afternoon edition of CNN Newsroom, and she
Speaker 1: served as host of CNN Tonight from twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty three. And Allison came from a history
Speaker 1: at Fox News. I have so many questions for her
Speaker 1: about what it was like to go and work for
Speaker 1: a competitor, and I'm really curious about her experiences during
Speaker 1: the me Too era at Fox. She has been an
Speaker 1: incredible voice, both about her own experiences and also as
Speaker 1: an anchor for a number of primetime specials on the topic,
Speaker 1: including Tipping Point, Sexual Harassment in America and The Hunting
Speaker 1: Ground Sexual Assault on Campus. She is really an incredible
Speaker 1: advocate and an incredible journalist, and today I'm really looking
Speaker 1: forward to hearing about her making the leap from anchor
Speaker 1: to author. She's just released her memoir called Combat Love,
Speaker 1: which is the story of two women mother and daughter
Speaker 1: trying to forge their own paths and independence and find
Speaker 1: their own happiness, success, and wholeness. I really am amazed
Speaker 1: at how vulnerable she chose to be in this book,
Speaker 1: and how she really brings us into her world of
Speaker 1: nurture and neglect, parenting and personal freedom and helps us
Speaker 1: ask the questions, what are we willing to sacrifice for
Speaker 1: self actualization and happiness? Let's dive in with Alison. Hi, Allison,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm great, How are you great? Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled to have you here today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I was doing a shoot earlier today, about
Speaker 2: an hour north of my home, and I got the
Speaker 2: time wrong, so I thought that I was talking to
Speaker 2: you at one my time. And so I was in
Speaker 2: the back office of a grocery store chain, which is
Speaker 2: like the least glamorous, grittiest place you've ever seen. It had,
Speaker 2: you know, like an old calendar, not from this year,
Speaker 2: and like yeah, things taped up and just like ratty bags.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Oh, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a glamorous shoot with Sophia. She's going to really get
Speaker 2: a gist of my job.
Speaker 1: I totally get it. It's so funny. I think, whether
Speaker 1: you know you're working in the news or in the
Speaker 1: sort of film and television side, Like, I am always
Speaker 1: wild when people come visit you on set and they go, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: this is not what I thought. And you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you see a produced news show or you see
Speaker 1: people like at the Golden Globes and you don't know,
Speaker 1: like how insane the place is where the media gets
Speaker 1: made to get it to that stage. You know, it's
Speaker 1: so totally.
Speaker 2: Totally People are like, this is your green room coffee.
Speaker 2: It's bile, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, I love it well, I you know, jokes aside. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I'm such just a lover of
Speaker 1: the news, and I think, you know, USC Annenberg School
Speaker 1: of Journalism student me would not believe that I get
Speaker 1: to be here and interview so many journalists that I
Speaker 1: love and admire. So thank you for coming to join
Speaker 1: me on the show today, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: And so you went to the school of communication or journalism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, journalism, I am. I went to you see to
Speaker 1: get a BFA in theater and for me just realize
Speaker 1: that the intensity of the program felt too narrow for me.
Speaker 1: I had so many other interests in you know, political
Speaker 1: science and the way the world works. And I found
Speaker 1: journalism and a theater combo to be the perfect sort
Speaker 1: of equation for me in school because I got to
Speaker 1: really lean into what makes real stories so special and
Speaker 1: how to communicate them well. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's influenced my work certainly as an activist, and I
Speaker 1: think certainly as an actor, because you've got to kind
Speaker 1: of find the truth and the thing you're doing if
Speaker 1: you're making a TV show or you know, writing an
Speaker 1: op ed about somebody. So I really loved it.
Speaker 2: That's very cool, and I really appreciate what you're saying,
Speaker 2: because storytelling is the bridge, you know. Storytelling is the
Speaker 2: link between Yes, so many of our careers, whether it's acting,
Speaker 2: whether it's a single or it's not just in the arts,
Speaker 2: I mean even public policy, lawmakers. It's all storytelling. And
Speaker 2: so really you realized that in particularly with the book
Speaker 2: and being an author, I feel like those telling our
Speaker 2: stories is what is the bridge between us. Yeah, regardless
Speaker 2: of what you do.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, And I love and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to dive into the book with you because to read
Speaker 1: such a personal story, you know, this kind of excavation
Speaker 1: work of family, and certainly I think what women inherit
Speaker 1: through their familial line is so inspiring to me. And
Speaker 1: I loved the way that you did this, and you're
Speaker 1: saying something that really makes me think, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's you as a journalist going and writing a memoir
Speaker 1: like this, or you know, what I have to figure
Speaker 1: out if I'm going to go make a new movie
Speaker 1: or something. I even think about it. My girlfriend Jessica
Speaker 1: Malatti Rivera, whose work I'm sure you saw a lot
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. You know, she's an incredible scientist and
Speaker 1: helped really lead the forefront of the COVID tracking project
Speaker 1: and so much advocacy for us. And she pointed out
Speaker 1: that in the science and medical community there has been
Speaker 1: such a lack of emphasis on the storytelling and that
Speaker 1: her job, you know, the way she thinks of science
Speaker 1: is science isn't finished until it's been clearly communicated, and
Speaker 1: in particular to non scientists. And so when I think
Speaker 1: about these ways that so many of us are realizing,
Speaker 1: if we can't tell our stories to each other and
Speaker 1: have them heard, we're failing the kind of human experiment
Speaker 1: in a way. And it I guess I wonder was
Speaker 1: kind of part of that craving to communicate what led
Speaker 1: you to say, Okay, I'm really going to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to work on this book, or or was
Speaker 1: it something else.
Speaker 2: No, it was exactly that. I mean, what prompted me
Speaker 2: is that we all wear masks. I mean, in your career,
Speaker 2: obviously you play a part, and we all wear these masks.
Speaker 2: And in the news you are playing a part. You're
Speaker 2: playing yourself, but you're playing a very polished version of
Speaker 2: your self. And so I started to think, because this
Speaker 2: is what I always connected with the viewers. I always
Speaker 2: connected with my interview subjects. But people would sometimes share
Speaker 2: with me the impression that, like, well, you must have
Speaker 2: had an easy life, Allison, or like you, you know,
Speaker 2: things have worked out so beautifully for you. Look at
Speaker 2: how great you look, you know, on me. And I realized, oh,
Speaker 2: the mask is too convincing, you know, Like it's when
Speaker 2: I have the fake eyelashes on in the perfectly poffed
Speaker 2: hair and the jewel tones, that that can give the
Speaker 2: impression that it's been easy, but of course it hasn't
Speaker 2: been easy, and that in that way, it was a
Speaker 2: divide the screen itself is a divider between us, and
Speaker 2: so I just felt like peeling off the mask might
Speaker 2: be a bridge and help people understand. Oh no, yes,
Speaker 2: I did get to achieve my dream, for which I'm very,
Speaker 2: very grateful, but it is a total survival story, and
Speaker 2: there were a lot of obstacles and you know, despair
Speaker 2: on the way to getting that dream.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think what happens when us three dimensional
Speaker 1: people get made into two dimensional you know, on screen
Speaker 1: avatars essentially, is we lose all of our three dimensional
Speaker 1: life and the dissonance between those things can be so jarring.
Speaker 2: I think that's such a good point because by definition,
Speaker 2: journalism requires you to be two dimensional, because really you're
Speaker 2: just a conduit. You're supposed to the way we were
Speaker 2: trained in you know, the eighties in journalism is don't
Speaker 2: make your self the story. You know, you are just
Speaker 2: the platform you're helping. You're the mouthpiece to help somebody
Speaker 2: who doesn't have a voice or who wants to amplify
Speaker 2: their voice. And I get it. I believe that. I
Speaker 2: think that's been great. But at some point, and it
Speaker 2: was somewhere around I think George Floyd's killing for me,
Speaker 2: that I started thinking you know, it would be really
Speaker 2: helpful if I could say to some of these folks
Speaker 2: on the screen, I've been there. You know, I know
Speaker 2: what it's like to be broke. I know what it's like.
Speaker 2: I I somehow became close right after George Floyd's killing
Speaker 2: because I interviewed his brother Forloness. I think we were
Speaker 2: the first national interview that he did, and his grief
Speaker 2: was so raw. It was the day after killing. His
Speaker 2: grief was so raw, but his voice was already so profound,
Speaker 2: and I was just struck by his strength. And somehow
Speaker 2: I've become friends with George Floyd's girlfriend, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to be when I interviewed her, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: be able to say I get it. You know, I
Speaker 2: have been in love with people who've struggled with substance
Speaker 2: abuse and people who've been broken. I've been broken. I
Speaker 2: know what it's like to be desperate, and I know
Speaker 2: what it's like to lose people. But that's not our job.
Speaker 2: So I felt like I had to keep people at
Speaker 2: an arm's length and not share what I knew to
Speaker 2: be true from my own story, And so that was
Speaker 2: kind of motivation to actually publish it.
Speaker 1: You know, that's really cool. How did you first get
Speaker 1: into journalism?
Speaker 2: So I was a teenager and I really really wanted
Speaker 2: to be seen and heard, you know. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be seen and heard my whole life. I mean from
Speaker 2: some of my memories and the book, I talk about
Speaker 2: how starting at about five years old, I had this
Speaker 2: invisible cameraman that started following me around everywhere. And I
Speaker 2: would talk to my invisible cameraman and be like, did
Speaker 2: you just see that? I hope you got a shot
Speaker 2: at that. That was crazy, you know. And so I've
Speaker 2: had to in writing the book analyze what was that
Speaker 2: phenomenon I was doing. And I think it was wanting
Speaker 2: to be validated, wanting to be seen and heard, and
Speaker 2: installing some like witness to my life. I was an
Speaker 2: only child, so I was lonely some of the time,
Speaker 2: and I think I wanted, like, I don't know, supervision
Speaker 2: or a witness or something. And so I always had
Speaker 2: that dream to be seen and heard, and then it
Speaker 2: crystallized when I was fifteen. I was watching Phil Donnie,
Speaker 2: who was who was like the quintessential talk show host
Speaker 2: of you know, the eighties, and he was running around
Speaker 2: his studio with a microphone, and he just looked so
Speaker 2: energetic and relevant and powerful, and I thought, what's that
Speaker 2: job called? And somebody told me it's called broadcast journalists
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, I want to be a
Speaker 2: broadcast journalist. That moment on, I just set my sights
Speaker 2: on that and looked for schools and majored in broadcast
Speaker 2: journalism and decided that.
Speaker 1: Was for me. That's so cool. Back in just a minute.
Speaker 1: But here's a word from our sponsors. Something I'm really
Speaker 1: curious about as a journalism fan is the the difference
Speaker 1: is between these big networks, and you've been at the biggest.
Speaker 1: You know, you worked at Fox for years prior to
Speaker 1: joining CNN in twenty fourteen. Was it, because again you
Speaker 1: said earlier, you know sometimes people will look at you
Speaker 1: up there as an anchor and think it's all easy.
Speaker 1: Was it totally bonkers to move from one news network
Speaker 1: to Arrival? What was that experience like for you? Behind
Speaker 1: the scenes?
Speaker 2: It was bonkers. I mean it was bonkers, not just
Speaker 2: because I've moved from one network two Arrival, because I
Speaker 2: think the people can go from ABC News to NBC
Speaker 2: News or NBC to CBS and it not being as
Speaker 2: much of a culture shock. Going from Box to CNN
Speaker 2: was a particularly you know, daring, hat trick or whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call that. You know, backbend, I felt
Speaker 2: personally that my journalism skills were portable, that I tried
Speaker 2: to do good journalism at Fox. I tried to always
Speaker 2: have the facts. I tried to come equipped with the
Speaker 2: evidence for whoever I was interviewing, and I just transferred
Speaker 2: my skills to CNN. So for me, it wasn't like
Speaker 2: I didn't feel I had to relearn anything. But I
Speaker 2: think it was total cognitive dissonance for the viewers because
Speaker 2: to them, Fox has trained people to think that you're
Speaker 2: on a team. You know, Fox is really a tribe,
Speaker 2: and they made news kind of tribal in a way
Speaker 2: that it had never been before. You know, people didn't
Speaker 2: it wasn't like you were making a life choice if
Speaker 2: you switched from CBS to NBC. But Fox really had
Speaker 2: hardcore followers. So it felt like, I think a betrayal
Speaker 2: to the viewers, and I had to kind of educate them.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of them have been so kind I
Speaker 2: must say to me, and have you know, reached out
Speaker 2: on social media or whatever saying they missed me and
Speaker 2: they loved me on there, and I've really appreciated that,
Speaker 2: and I had to kind of educate them and say, like,
Speaker 2: I'm doing the same thing I always did, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to be part of a team. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to help people tell their stories. And so you know,
Speaker 2: for me, it wasn't at shocking, but not many people
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's actually quite when I have
Speaker 1: examined my own thoughts about it, as I've observed the transition.
Speaker 1: For you, I actually think it's hopeful because, as you said,
Speaker 1: Fox has made the news so tribal, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not everybody knows this, but those of us who
Speaker 1: are obsessed with the news do that. You know, they've
Speaker 1: been sued in court for lying to viewers, and their
Speaker 1: lawyers say, well, any any sober news viewer knows were
Speaker 1: not a news program. We're an opinion show. And I
Speaker 1: go like, oh my god, this is the legal defense
Speaker 1: in court. What is happening here? And I find it
Speaker 1: really refreshing that as a journalist you can say I'm
Speaker 1: doing journalism everywhere and anywhere. I'm not going to abide
Speaker 1: by this very strange development into tribal coverage. And you
Speaker 1: know you've talked about this, so I hope it's okay
Speaker 1: for me to ask. But you talked so inspiringly about
Speaker 1: what you faced at Fox. You were one of many
Speaker 1: women there who faced sexual harassment and abuse. And I've
Speaker 1: been so inspired by the way you all talked about that,
Speaker 1: because my coworkers on my first show and I and
Speaker 1: many of us on my next show had to talk
Speaker 1: about this stuff as well. Was that part of why
Speaker 1: you wanted to leave? Or was it that it was
Speaker 1: getting so tribal that you didn't want to be there anymore?
Speaker 1: Or was it sort of just a whole package of
Speaker 1: this is awful I got to go.
Speaker 2: I think it got worse. I think that it got
Speaker 2: worse as Bo's got more successful. I think that Roger
Speaker 2: ails that the boss for whom I worked, felt that
Speaker 2: he saw what the audience wanted, and what he started
Speaker 2: doing was giving the audience what they wanted at the
Speaker 2: expense of truth, at the expense of facts, because what
Speaker 2: to him, the best currency, the biggest currency, was winning
Speaker 2: and ratings. And sure, we all like ratings, I get it,
Speaker 2: that's the business model. However, at what cost? And so
Speaker 2: he started, you know, allowing different you know, presenters. I
Speaker 2: don't want to call them anchors because they they at Fox.
Speaker 2: They use this language as though they're a news network,
Speaker 2: but they don't follow the rules of newsporkers. Of course,
Speaker 2: the viewers don't know that because nobody is giving them
Speaker 2: a tutorial on journalism and one on one and exactly
Speaker 2: what the rules of journalism are. But they don't use
Speaker 2: solid sources or credible sources as we found out with
Speaker 2: the dominion lawsuit, as you just referenced, and they end
Speaker 2: up having to pay seven hundred and eighty seven million
Speaker 2: dollars as a result of not using credible sources. So
Speaker 2: that just isn't allowed at other networks because there are
Speaker 2: rules of journalism, for one. So the idea that just
Speaker 2: keep giving the audience what they want, keep giving the
Speaker 2: viewers what they want, it ends up hurting obviously the
Speaker 2: viewers because the viewers don't end up knowing the truth.
Speaker 2: And when lo and behold somebody like Donald Trump says
Speaker 2: that he actually won the election but he lost by
Speaker 2: seven million, they take up arms and show up at
Speaker 2: the capital. So I mean it has a real life,
Speaker 2: immediate clause and effect. It's bad for everybody. I mean,
Speaker 2: people are in prison right now because they believed those lawes.
Speaker 2: So I could say that Roger, you know, I would
Speaker 2: get in trouble there because he didn't like when I
Speaker 2: would point out, I don't know, positive benefits or how
Speaker 2: many people would benefit from Obamacare, he just stop talking
Speaker 2: about that. I was like, and he told me, like
Speaker 2: when I would say how many people were uninsured, he
Speaker 2: would be like, use a different no number, a lower number.
Speaker 2: I was like, what where you getting your numbers? You know?
Speaker 2: And so I didn't like that. It was totally untethered
Speaker 2: from reality. I wasn't comfortable with that ever. And to frankly,
Speaker 2: the sexual harassment stuff, which is gross, wasn't even half
Speaker 2: of it. I mean, I just didn't. I didn't buy
Speaker 2: into the mission statement anymore of kind of tricking the
Speaker 2: viewers to just to keep them coming back from more
Speaker 2: and keeping them outraged. I don't. I didn't think any
Speaker 2: of that was helpful. And I would say history has
Speaker 2: proven that I was right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. That has to feel nice, well except that, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a mess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a mess, I mean, but for you individually,
Speaker 2: I can't make that much joy in being vindicated because
Speaker 2: it's well it's gone to hell. I mean that the
Speaker 2: whole business model, as I said, has been so pernicious
Speaker 2: on so many levels that the fact that I was
Speaker 2: right doesn't feel that great, and which is why I try.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're asking me about it, because I
Speaker 2: do try to talk about it wherever I can, hoping
Speaker 2: that it can permeate the different silos. But I don't
Speaker 2: really know that I'm being that effective. It's just a
Speaker 2: sole voice about this.
Speaker 1: Well, it's an awfully hard golias to go up against,
Speaker 1: and you know what you're referencing. The sort of image
Speaker 1: I get is it's like they created this immensely toxic
Speaker 1: thing and the trains left the station. Like you can't
Speaker 1: really close Pandora's box once you open it. And I
Speaker 1: think we as a society will have a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do to reprioritize truth and we kind of
Speaker 1: have to build the plane while we're flying it, and
Speaker 1: that's a bit scary. But I'm so grateful that you know,
Speaker 1: you're talking about this every chance you get, because you're right.
Speaker 1: You know, people need to know and they do need
Speaker 1: to understand the difference and the legal loopholes that some
Speaker 1: folks like Roger Ayls have used for so long to
Speaker 1: try to trick people, to try to create this tribalism,
Speaker 1: which you know, we've seen these really detrimental side effects of.
Speaker 1: Was it? I understand, you know, I think anyway, I
Speaker 1: understand the immense pressure you must have felt at times,
Speaker 1: you know, when being told change the numbers. Don't talk
Speaker 1: about the benefits of healthcare. I'm sure they hated, you know,
Speaker 1: the simple data point that it actually costs us so
Speaker 1: much more money in the US to just not ensure everyone,
Speaker 1: but it would to have universal health care. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that wasn't a popular.
Speaker 2: I supposed to stifle that? Was it?
Speaker 1: How though? As because these are grand ideas, and these
Speaker 1: are big truths and they affect the nation, but you're
Speaker 1: still just a singular human. How did you navigate your
Speaker 1: personal experience of being in that rock and a hard
Speaker 1: place where you were told not to tell the truth
Speaker 1: on air, or or you were asked to say things
Speaker 1: that went against you know, what you know to be
Speaker 1: true and what you believe in. Was it? Was it
Speaker 1: just so immensely conflicting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was really hard. The way I
Speaker 2: did it was I would just try to be armed
Speaker 2: with facts every time before I went on the air.
Speaker 2: So I did a four hour weekend show, and I
Speaker 2: just really mean, and it started at six am, So
Speaker 2: I mean, from three am to six am, I would
Speaker 2: just be with my producer trying to research the hell
Speaker 2: out of every one of the topics that we would
Speaker 2: be covering, or any of you that i'd be doing,
Speaker 2: just so that I could you know, I knew that
Speaker 2: we didn't have yet, I knew we had guests that
Speaker 2: often fudged the facts. So I would try to be
Speaker 2: armed to be able to say, actually, what the Bureau
Speaker 2: of Labor Statistics says is this, you know? And I
Speaker 2: would try to do that the best I could. But
Speaker 2: I also felt badly for my producers because they knew
Speaker 2: the same marching orders. And there are a ton of
Speaker 2: I really liked the people at Fox. There are a
Speaker 2: ton of good people at Fox. There are a ton
Speaker 2: of people who are just trying to get a paycheck
Speaker 2: and feed their families and pay their mortgage, and they
Speaker 2: like they're willing to go along with the party line
Speaker 2: because they have bigger fish to fry and they're at
Speaker 2: lives and so I knew that they were having to
Speaker 2: take the heat. You know, Roger ails would call into
Speaker 2: the control room and say like, tell her to stop
Speaker 2: saying that, or tell her to say this, and then
Speaker 2: they would frantically get in my ear and tell me
Speaker 2: to say something. I'm like, show me the facts and
Speaker 2: I'm happy to say it. Bring me the facts and
Speaker 2: I'll say it, and they would be like, Roger's gonna
Speaker 2: call again. There was so much everybody was you know,
Speaker 2: Roger ruled with an iron fist, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of fear with that kind of leadership. It's not collaborative.
Speaker 2: So it was a challenge. It was definitely a challenge,
Speaker 2: and I didn't always I don't want to pretend that
Speaker 2: I always did it right. I didn't. There were definitely
Speaker 2: times that I too echoed the talking points when I
Speaker 2: didn't have all the facts buttoned up, or I just
Speaker 2: wanted it to be easier and not have to be
Speaker 2: called onto the carpet by Roger. So it's a challenge.
Speaker 2: I mean, basically, it's what happens when you have, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody with kind of tyrannical thinking and all the soldiers
Speaker 2: fall online. I mean, it's funny how quickly you can
Speaker 2: be co opted by that power structure.
Speaker 1: Well, and we've just seen it historically over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. So I think it is why it's
Speaker 1: so important for us to talk about ways that we
Speaker 1: figure out how to tell the truth. Has it been
Speaker 1: an immense relief once I guess the culture Chok were
Speaker 1: off move over to CNN? Is it a completely different ship?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that even last year there was
Speaker 1: some controversy about how it was supposedly moving more right
Speaker 1: because of you know, whomever bought it. I feel like
Speaker 1: I can't keep track of what corporations are you know,
Speaker 1: overtaking what conglomerates anymore. But you're there, so can you
Speaker 1: tell us what it's like?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean basically, the wonderful thing about STANN is
Speaker 2: that it's always fact based, so it doesn't matter which
Speaker 2: boss comes in or comes out. I mean, obviously we
Speaker 2: all have our favorites, and we all have the people
Speaker 2: that we work well with, but the mission statement has
Speaker 2: never changed. So you still follow the rules of journalism,
Speaker 2: you still have your facts all shown up, you still
Speaker 2: are fact checking. We have on staff fact checkers, we
Speaker 2: have standards and practices and actual office that make sure
Speaker 2: we're following the rules of journalism, which Box doesn't have,
Speaker 2: and so all of that that was still in play
Speaker 2: regardless of what whatever flucks you know, we're going through,
Speaker 2: And so that is comforting, I mean, just to be
Speaker 2: able to get back to the rules and never to
Speaker 2: have any boss. I've now had three different bosses at CNN.
Speaker 2: Ever have any boss call me and say like, no,
Speaker 2: I want you to say it this way.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is lovely to hear as a watcher of
Speaker 1: the news. We'll be back in just a minute after
Speaker 1: a few words from our favorite sponsors. What pressure do
Speaker 1: you feel or is it just sort of something you
Speaker 1: don't even notice anymore being the person who sits like
Speaker 1: this across from us and delivers the news into our
Speaker 1: homes every day. Does it uptick during an election year
Speaker 1: or is that when everybody puts their heads down and
Speaker 1: really cancels out the noise. I wonder what it's like
Speaker 1: on the inside.
Speaker 2: I think it's starting in about I got to see
Speaker 2: it in twenty fourteen, and in fifteen when Donald Trump
Speaker 2: started running, I really realized, like, oh good, my skills
Speaker 2: of having to research every morning and make sure that
Speaker 2: I'm totally spot on and have all the facts buttoned
Speaker 2: up are really going to come in handy here, because
Speaker 2: you know, he would say so many contradictory things, and
Speaker 2: so I already had the skill set to know if
Speaker 2: I was interviewing him or one of his surrogates or
Speaker 2: whoever was running. I mean, you know, I did the
Speaker 2: same practice whether it was Hillary Clinton, whether it was
Speaker 2: Ben Carson that I was interviewing, you know, And so
Speaker 2: I felt very equipped by then to interview them. And
Speaker 2: I certainly felt during COVID, I really felt my purpose.
Speaker 2: You know, I felt the purpose every morning of us
Speaker 2: as journalists being the first voice you hear, and I
Speaker 2: knew that everybody was waking up and going, okay, how
Speaker 2: many people have died, how many people are hospitalized? Hospitals
Speaker 2: run out of beds, How close are we to a vaccine?
Speaker 2: Is the FGG I get a fast track it? Like,
Speaker 2: I knew that everybody was counting on us for real
Speaker 2: important information every day. So even when I was tired,
Speaker 2: I just felt For the past many years, ten nine years,
Speaker 2: I have felt the you know, there were times in
Speaker 2: my career where we would do some happy talk and
Speaker 2: some you know, funny kickers and all this stuff and
Speaker 2: I love that stuff, but the news has gotten really
Speaker 2: serious in the past nine years, and I've definitely felt
Speaker 2: kind of the responsibility that i have to the viewers.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't say it's pressure. I would say it's purpose.
Speaker 2: And that has been a good feeling.
Speaker 1: That's so special. What what would you say, you know,
Speaker 1: as the expert, what would you say to voters who
Speaker 1: feel confused about what news outlets they can trust because
Speaker 1: we have seen such a proliferic of misinformation. There are
Speaker 1: you know, targeted disinformation campaigns that people are spending a
Speaker 1: whole lot of money on to try to confuse folks.
Speaker 1: And you know, it really seems like the untruth travel
Speaker 1: around the Internet very quickly, and it's very hard to
Speaker 1: clean them up. So, you know, somebody who really knows
Speaker 1: the inside baseball here, what would you say to folks
Speaker 1: who are feeling scared about where to turn for trusted information?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't blame them. It's really hard. It's a
Speaker 2: delugege of information. It's too much information. It's like the
Speaker 2: fire hose that people are drinking from every morning. And
Speaker 2: don't blame them for not understanding which ones are legitimate,
Speaker 2: which ones aren't. Legitimate I think is we're in a
Speaker 2: really tough time right now. I mean, I try to
Speaker 2: tell people you must go to a trusted news that
Speaker 2: has a track record of winning journalism awards, of winning
Speaker 2: Bulletzer Prize, of winning you know, the Edward R. Merrall Awards,
Speaker 2: like they have a track record, and they you must
Speaker 2: go to a place where if they get it wrong.
Speaker 2: Because we're all human, so obviously we do get it
Speaker 2: wrong sometimes. But one of the tenets of journalism is
Speaker 2: you disclose it when you get it wrong, and you
Speaker 2: apologize and you say responsibility. And Fox doesn't do that,
Speaker 2: but the viewers don't know that because Fox doesn't report
Speaker 2: that they had to pay the seven hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven million two dominion, so your viewers don't know that.
Speaker 2: So it's very, very hard to make inroads in those
Speaker 2: silos because people don't understand that. And so I mean,
Speaker 2: I in other words, it's not to me. It's not
Speaker 2: about a political spectrum. You know, there are obviously more conservative,
Speaker 2: excellent journalistic newspapers and places, and more progressive, but it's
Speaker 2: just about which ones are fact based. But it's really
Speaker 2: hard to feel I mean, we're living in a very
Speaker 2: kind of surreal time, and it's dangerous and I don't
Speaker 2: know how to get people to understand the difference in
Speaker 2: some you know, craft pot website that they're looking at
Speaker 2: versus real news right.
Speaker 1: Well, and this is such a layer on top of
Speaker 1: the already very draining experience of working in the media.
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about purpose and that sort of fulfillment,
Speaker 1: which is so beautiful, and it's tough. You know, when
Speaker 1: you have to be on the air at six am,
Speaker 1: so you're up at three, it shifts your whole life.
Speaker 1: You know, what you're available for, what things you get
Speaker 1: to participate in with your family or friends. It really
Speaker 1: does become the thing your world has to revolve around.
Speaker 1: So how do you recharge? How do you set boundaries?
Speaker 1: You know, for yourself? As Alison before, you have to
Speaker 1: then go up and be the person we turned to
Speaker 1: for coverage.
Speaker 2: When I was doing the morning show, which I did
Speaker 2: for almost seven years at CNN, and I did it
Speaker 2: for many many years before that at Fox, it was
Speaker 2: really energetically hard for me. There are some people who
Speaker 2: were mourning people. I'm not one of them.
Speaker 1: Oh me neither.
Speaker 2: It was really hard to be on my A game
Speaker 2: and to have that much energy. So but I would
Speaker 2: do it again because I do love my career and
Speaker 2: I did feel the purpose of it. So when the
Speaker 2: red light would go on at six in the morning,
Speaker 2: I was present. I was there. We had lots of
Speaker 2: I always looked for kind of the moment that broke
Speaker 2: through the screen, you know, the moment of spontaneity, the
Speaker 2: joke between my co anchor and me, the moment that
Speaker 2: a guest said something that was so profound or that
Speaker 2: was so news making or whatever. And there were each
Speaker 2: show was riddled with those things. So I got a
Speaker 2: lot of like sustenance, you know, from six am to
Speaker 2: nine am, and then at nine oh one, I would
Speaker 2: like stagger off the set and make it to my
Speaker 2: office and fall like face first onto the sofa and
Speaker 2: just sleep, like talk about the the underbelly, you know,
Speaker 2: the the unglamorous side of what you were thinking about,
Speaker 2: like movie making. If anybody came, I'm like sleeping, you know,
Speaker 2: like on something with like full face of makeup, like
Speaker 2: in my clothing, And that's how I would deal with it.
Speaker 2: I would just try to get the two hours of
Speaker 2: sleep that I hadn't gotten at night, and then I
Speaker 2: would be able to go home and be with my family,
Speaker 2: but I never felt fully present, like fully energetically present
Speaker 2: with my family. And so after you know, almost seven years,
Speaker 2: it's in and I had to I just physically wanted
Speaker 2: to stop, and I wanted to move to a different
Speaker 2: day part in the afternoon because it's just really hard
Speaker 2: for me. And so I don't know how, like you know,
Speaker 2: the Katie Kirks of the world did it for so long.
Speaker 2: It was it was It was a total ass kicker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are some of your favorite memories when you
Speaker 1: think back over the course of your career. What are
Speaker 1: the things that jump to mind, you know, stories or
Speaker 1: places you've traveled that still just make you feel excited.
Speaker 2: Well, I did love the chemistry with my co hosts.
Speaker 2: In general, I've really liked my co hosts and in general,
Speaker 2: they've really made me laugh and there have been special
Speaker 2: spontaneous moments and that you know, forges a real bond.
Speaker 2: So John Berman and I did the morning show together,
Speaker 2: and we you know, we still He'll he'll text me
Speaker 2: one word and we'll laugh as directly because I know
Speaker 2: exactly what he's talking about. Or I'll text him some
Speaker 2: memory and we you know, we laugh like that's it's
Speaker 2: because you're together, you know, so early in the morning.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty intimate bond that you have these guys.
Speaker 2: So I always enjoyed that. And then one of the
Speaker 2: things that I really liked is that I got to
Speaker 2: meet some of my childhood idols. You know, I had
Speaker 2: the privilege of being able to interview some of these
Speaker 2: guys who were on my wall in posters, you know,
Speaker 2: growing up. And like if I could have told ten
Speaker 2: year old Allison that she would be interviewing kiss you
Speaker 2: know who I had the poster of in my bedroom,
Speaker 2: I would have been so excited. And I was so excited,
Speaker 2: Like when any of those guys, any of the people
Speaker 2: that I admired from Afar as a child, came in,
Speaker 2: I was giddy, basically, like David Cassidy, who you're too
Speaker 2: young to know, but he was in the Partridge family
Speaker 2: and he was a heart throb and he I loved
Speaker 2: him so much. I was like skipping around him when
Speaker 2: he came in. And it had been a few decades
Speaker 2: since David Cassidy like a fangirl, like super fanning, and
Speaker 2: he was I believe scared at my.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is always a little hard when you have
Speaker 1: those moments and you're like, I'm supposed to be cool
Speaker 1: because I'm also on TV, but I can't be. No, Hello,
Speaker 1: and now for our sponsors. So I love hearing the
Speaker 1: personal anecdotes. It's so fun. How did you or maybe
Speaker 1: how do you think about the differences between Alice and
Speaker 1: the journalist and Alice and the author because you talk
Speaker 1: about you know, I've read so many articles and watched
Speaker 1: some interviews with you talking about what it was like
Speaker 1: to write this memoir and combat love is so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and you know you're not covering someone's story. This is
Speaker 1: your story and it's so vulnerable and it's it's so important.
Speaker 1: But how did you reconcile opening up like this? Do
Speaker 1: you feel like your training as a journalist made you
Speaker 1: ready for more of being exposed and sharing or is
Speaker 1: it totally terrifying and exciting and you're learning as you go.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for saying all that. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: that it was at first terrifying. At first, the concept
Speaker 2: of it was terrifying, So I knew I wanted to
Speaker 2: write it because I felt that I had to write
Speaker 2: it for my own closure, and I have a lot
Speaker 2: of different pieces rattling around in my head from my
Speaker 2: childhood and my teenage years that felt unfinished, and so
Speaker 2: I knew that I wanted to write it and put
Speaker 2: it in a timeline and have it chronologically make sense
Speaker 2: to me and understand my own personal arc. But that's
Speaker 2: a very different exercise than publishing it. So I write
Speaker 2: it and I did that, and I at first was like,
Speaker 2: you know, really scared that to publish it, because I thought,
Speaker 2: who wants to see the diary pages of their anchor?
Speaker 2: Like anchors in particular, I think are sort of neutered,
Speaker 2: no it all. And so I thought, like, it's gross
Speaker 2: if you peel back the curtain too far on your
Speaker 2: news anchor, because as we all learned with Matt Lauer,
Speaker 2: we don't want to know any sordid details of their
Speaker 2: life and if they're imperfect, because the present can look
Speaker 2: so seamless and as I said, polish. So I was
Speaker 2: thinking that it wouldn't be a good idea, and then
Speaker 2: I wrote it, and I just wrote, and I liked
Speaker 2: that exercise of writing it, and it was helpful to me.
Speaker 2: And as I said, with some news stories, some particularly intense,
Speaker 2: painful news stories. I was asking people to be so
Speaker 2: vulnerable with me, you know, and Vis Floyd was like
Speaker 2: so just incredibly profoundly vulnerable and raw, and like I'm
Speaker 2: asking out of people and I'm still keeping my mask
Speaker 2: on and my trustee neutral stance. Yeah. I just at
Speaker 2: some point thought, I think maybe the viewers can handle it.
Speaker 2: I think maybe they will be able to handle that
Speaker 2: their you know, polished anchor has a lot of blemishes
Speaker 2: and a lot of a messy a messy pass that
Speaker 2: has included some pain, and maybe it will even be
Speaker 2: helpful in these divided times. Maybe they'll that'll be a
Speaker 2: bridge somehow. And so I just I don't know. I
Speaker 2: came to just trust the process more and think that
Speaker 2: people would like it. And I'm really relieved at how
Speaker 2: well it's been received, because it turns out that it
Speaker 2: is a universal story, you know, to a survival story.
Speaker 2: I mean, everybody has some survival story. They look different,
Speaker 2: but everybody has one, and it turns out that it's universal,
Speaker 2: and that's been very comforting to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really beautiful way to put it,
Speaker 1: a survival story because, as you mentioned earlier, particularly when
Speaker 1: you become a public figure, nobody knows what it took
Speaker 1: you to get there, and you know, learning that you
Speaker 1: left home at sixteen, you'd have this really complicated relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, with your mother, and that in many ways,
Speaker 1: writing this book required you to to really sit down
Speaker 1: and communicate about your family history. What was that like?
Speaker 1: Because it sounds incredible and totally wild, what was what
Speaker 1: was it like for you to go, Okay, mom, we
Speaker 1: got to sit down and talk about this stuff.
Speaker 2: It was hard, I mean it was hard. She was resistant.
Speaker 2: My mother was born in nineteen forty. She's literally part
Speaker 2: of something called the Silent Generation. So I'm Gen X,
Speaker 2: she's the silent generation, and so now you know, we've
Speaker 2: the pendulumt has song so far to you know, millennials
Speaker 2: and gen Z that are quite open and confessional and everything.
Speaker 2: But it's been a long time coming, you know, to
Speaker 2: get there. The continuum was the other end for her.
Speaker 2: So she really didn't want she was she was happy to,
Speaker 2: not happy to. She was willing to talk to me
Speaker 2: about it, but she certainly didn't want a lot of
Speaker 2: it made public, and so it took us years to
Speaker 2: try to get comfortable with that and to reconcile it.
Speaker 2: But what my book also includes as a lot of
Speaker 2: family secrets. You know, both my parents had family secrets
Speaker 2: that they kept quiet about and so that it turns out,
Speaker 2: did not help in parenting me. And it turns out
Speaker 2: that you think you're keeping a secret, and you might
Speaker 2: think that you've stuffed it down and it's all within you,
Speaker 2: but it ends up having this, you know, these repercussions
Speaker 2: on your children, whether you stated or not, something unconscious
Speaker 2: happens generationally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they.
Speaker 2: Passed along these kind of confusing puzzle pieces to me
Speaker 2: where there were pieces missing and I sensed as a
Speaker 2: child something isn't quite right around here, but I don't
Speaker 2: know what it is. There are puzzle pieces missing, and
Speaker 2: I really didn't. I mean I didn't find out about
Speaker 2: them until I was an adult, you know, until later
Speaker 2: in life. And it would have been really helpful to
Speaker 2: communicate actually about some of these things instead of having
Speaker 2: family secrets.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So how do you learn to do that in
Speaker 1: real time while you're writing a book. Did you have
Speaker 1: like a great therapist. Did you have an editor who
Speaker 1: was helping who helped you knew this?
Speaker 2: Well, I've had a therapist. I mean, I have relied
Speaker 2: on therapy, not all the time throughout my life, but
Speaker 2: definitely at different hard times. And so I know enough
Speaker 2: about therapy to know that it's helpful. And so when
Speaker 2: I was going to be talking to my mom about this,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to find a therapist for us
Speaker 2: to talk this therapy.
Speaker 1: That's great, because I.
Speaker 2: Knew that there would be it would be better to
Speaker 2: have a neutral third voice, you know, because mothers and
Speaker 2: daughters have you know, can have fraught relationships regardless of
Speaker 2: how close they are. My mother and I are close,
Speaker 2: but I knew that that would help, and that did
Speaker 2: really help. But I also just think that, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't write it until I had enough distance and
Speaker 2: enough maturity and had my own kids and my teenagers,
Speaker 2: and that helped too. You know, I couldn't obviously have
Speaker 2: written this book at twenty and I didn't know these
Speaker 2: twenty But in going back and excavating my life and
Speaker 2: finding out about the secrets that my mother held and
Speaker 2: my father held, it's actually given me, you know, tons
Speaker 2: of closure. I mean, finding missing puzzle pieces is very healing.
Speaker 2: And what I've been saying on book tour when I
Speaker 2: go around to people is like, if there's a way
Speaker 2: that you can find closure. I don't think you have
Speaker 2: to write a memoir, but if you can find closure
Speaker 2: with people, do it, because unfinished business will not at you.
Speaker 2: You know, whether it's your parents, whether it's a sibling,
Speaker 2: whether it's a past love, whether it's a friendship.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm just a big believer in tying up loose ends.
Speaker 2: I think that that is a much more emotionally and
Speaker 2: mentally healthier space.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's really really good advice. And I imagine
Speaker 1: these are things you learned in real time while writing
Speaker 1: this was Was it a cathartic experience?
Speaker 2: Yeah, very It was very cathartic. It was very cathartic
Speaker 2: to go back and put everything into some order for
Speaker 2: me rather just floating around my head. And it was
Speaker 2: cathartic to understand. Now as an adult woman, I have
Speaker 2: a different perspective on my mother's choices. So my mother
Speaker 2: moved me from you know what I considered the epicenter
Speaker 2: of my universe Shrewsbury, New Jersey, to Bellingham, Washington, three
Speaker 2: thousand miles away, where I knew no one and basically
Speaker 2: on a whim. And I was very devastated and resentful
Speaker 2: and you know now talking about it. So she was
Speaker 2: forty one, she was looking for a new life. I
Speaker 2: was fifteen, not looking for a new life at all,
Speaker 2: very much to put down roots in my hometown. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, I lived that with her, so I knew
Speaker 2: the story basically, but going back as an adult woman
Speaker 2: and talking to her about it, about the despair that
Speaker 2: she was feeling and how trapped she was feeling, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously it gave me a whole new perspective and that
Speaker 2: has really help and her hearing you know why it
Speaker 2: was so devastating to me, all of that has really
Speaker 2: helped our relationship. And I'm very glad. I mean you've
Speaker 2: probably heard me say this because I've said it a
Speaker 2: lot on the book too, But my mother's one, you know,
Speaker 2: request was can't you wait te Lo, I'm dead? That's
Speaker 2: what she kept saying. Well, I was writing it, can't
Speaker 2: you wage long dead? And I'm so glad I did
Speaker 2: not wait till she was dead, because she ended up
Speaker 2: being really helpful in putting the pieces together.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. You talk a lot in the book
Speaker 1: about the power of music in your life, and you know,
Speaker 1: you just were mentioning being the ten year old with
Speaker 1: the kiss poster on your wall. How how did music
Speaker 1: influence you as you were writing this. Were there certain
Speaker 1: artists you listened to or were you going back and
Speaker 1: like listening to every artist from the time period of
Speaker 1: the stories you were working on? What was that part
Speaker 1: of the journey.
Speaker 2: Music is so transportative to me that I had to
Speaker 2: be very careful with what I listened to while I
Speaker 2: was writing it, because it's so evocative that if I
Speaker 2: put on a song from a different era, like if
Speaker 2: I played something from the nineties while I was writing
Speaker 2: about nineteen eighty one, it wouldn't help. And if I
Speaker 2: played something from the summer in New Jersey of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, but I was writing about the winter of Bellingham,
Speaker 2: it would like, you know, scramble my central nervous system.
Speaker 2: And so I and furthermore, I didn't want to dilute.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes if you hear a song over and
Speaker 2: over and over again, the evocativeness gets a little diluted.
Speaker 2: And so with Shrapnel. So Shrapnel is the band that
Speaker 2: I fell in love when I was thirteen. They were
Speaker 2: a local punk rock band. There were just the coolest
Speaker 2: guys in the world. And it's very hard to hear
Speaker 2: a Shrapnel song because they you know, we didn't have
Speaker 2: the internet then and they don't on Spotify, and it's
Speaker 2: very hard to hear it. But I found on Facebook
Speaker 2: some cassette tapes from live shows of theirs, and I
Speaker 2: kept it. I knew it would be Panderdora's box if
Speaker 2: I played it, so I kept it in my cabinet
Speaker 2: for four or five years until I was ready to
Speaker 2: write about it, because I knew that it would be
Speaker 2: like an instant time machine for me. And it's so funny.
Speaker 2: The book is called Combat Love. That was Shrapnel's first single,
Speaker 2: and when I hear it, I just I just heard it.
Speaker 2: They played it last night at a book event and
Speaker 2: I I mean, I hear it once, you know, every
Speaker 2: ten years, and I just heard it. And this is
Speaker 2: how they started the book event. I was at like
Speaker 2: a book talk and I was like, excuse me, I
Speaker 2: need to compose myself again like they played it. I couldn't.
Speaker 2: Like I became like undone, you know, hearing the song again.
Speaker 2: So I had to be very careful with music because
Speaker 2: it's a real like pure signal for me, and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to screw around with it. While I was writing,
Speaker 2: I could only listen to specific things.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, does music serve as that sort of
Speaker 1: transportational device for you when you're reporting as well?
Speaker 2: I mean yes, Like when I was doing the morning
Speaker 2: show at CNN. Every morning I would come out and
Speaker 2: the guys the crew would be playing a song that
Speaker 2: they either knew really bummed me out because we had
Speaker 2: a joke. They love Rush, and I no girl likes rush.
Speaker 2: Rush is like it's like what a dog whistle is
Speaker 2: to a dog. Like you can't play girls don't understand rush.
Speaker 2: It doesn't it's our ears aren't made for it. So
Speaker 2: they would play that because they knew that it like
Speaker 2: got my goat and they thought it was hilarious. So
Speaker 2: they would either play that or they would play one
Speaker 2: of my old like Kiss. Sometimes, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the camera guys would play Kiss for me, or he'd
Speaker 2: play the Scorpions because he knew that that was one
Speaker 2: of the songs from Bellingham that I listened to, And
Speaker 2: so I would have to say to them, like, guys,
Speaker 2: I have to focus, yeah, making time travel right now,
Speaker 2: Like I can't be in high school mindset to like
Speaker 2: turn it off for a second, and so that was
Speaker 2: yes for sure, Like I yeah, I'm I'm susceptible to music,
Speaker 2: very susceptible.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Well, you know you're traveling obviously and
Speaker 1: talking about the book. How are the book events going?
Speaker 1: Are you enjoying it so much?
Speaker 2: So much there, It's just it's really fun to be
Speaker 2: able to go out in the world and to talk
Speaker 2: about this. And what's really funny is that you know
Speaker 2: some publishers who who didn't want the book, you know
Speaker 2: who read the book. They liked my writing, they liked me,
Speaker 2: but they weren't willing to take a risk on the
Speaker 2: book because they said, we don't think. We don't believe
Speaker 2: that like your news fans, your viewers will follow you
Speaker 2: for like a punk rock teenage story. We don't see
Speaker 2: the connection and what has And I believe them. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I understand, it's off brand. I get it. This is
Speaker 2: not the typical journalism story. And then what's happened is
Speaker 2: that I in traveling around the country. I was just
Speaker 2: in California for a couple of days, in San Francisco
Speaker 2: and in Los Angeles with women primarily my age. What
Speaker 2: they could they are they connect with it because it's
Speaker 2: not really about a punk rock band. It's about a
Speaker 2: coming of age story and when you are going to
Speaker 2: decide that you're going to go your own way, regardless
Speaker 2: of what your parents had set up for you, and
Speaker 2: how you're going to survive by going your own way.
Speaker 2: And like I said, you know, it's a story of
Speaker 2: obstacles and survival. And I've just realized everybody has that,
Speaker 2: So everybody is taking some piece of the book and
Speaker 2: being able to relate to it. So I'm very heartened that,
Speaker 2: you know, it ends up being a universal story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I often think about how it's the specific that
Speaker 1: is universal. It's the way we see ourselves and things,
Speaker 1: not because the details match, but because the feelings line up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I didn't really understand that until now.
Speaker 2: You know. Like, for instance, I recently read Janet McCurdy's
Speaker 2: you know, best selling So Good, and I didn't have
Speaker 2: I never had an eating disorder. I don't relate to that.
Speaker 2: Do I relate to her wanting to always please her
Speaker 2: mother and perform for her mother, and her mother being
Speaker 2: this larger than life magnetic character. Yes, I do. So
Speaker 2: the book spoke to me, you know, yeah, so I
Speaker 2: now I get that the specifics are just the authenticity
Speaker 2: of the book, but there are larger themes that we
Speaker 2: all relate to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so special. So when you sit from this point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's such a big thing to put a
Speaker 1: book out in the world, and you look at the
Speaker 1: year ahead and it's it's a big moment for you personally,
Speaker 1: and we are in an election year. There's just there's
Speaker 1: an awful lot going on for us, you know, from
Speaker 1: the micro to the macro. What feels like your work
Speaker 1: in progress for.
Speaker 2: Well, that's really interesting. I think that what happens when
Speaker 2: you put out a book, you never know where it's
Speaker 2: going to go. You never know. A book takes on
Speaker 2: its own trajectory and its own life, and books open
Speaker 2: doors that you couldn't have imagined. There are calling card
Speaker 2: in some way to just get you into you know,
Speaker 2: like being able to talk to you like, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: That's a calling card that I wouldn't have known a
Speaker 2: month ago, and that's wonderful and so delightful. And so
Speaker 2: the work in progress for me is like I don't
Speaker 2: feel I've ridden that out, you know, like I'm still
Speaker 2: on the cusp of this wave of seeing where it leads,
Speaker 2: and I'm really enjoying that process. And in terms of
Speaker 2: the news, you know, I've lived this movie before of
Speaker 2: this election, and I don't want to repeat the lessons
Speaker 2: that we learned the last time. I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like this calls for a new way of thinking, a
Speaker 2: new way of framing. I haven't fastened upon that yet,
Speaker 2: but I just know that we've learned a lot, so
Speaker 2: I don't want to have to. I don't want to
Speaker 2: repeat old mistakes or old patterns with how I report
Speaker 2: the news. I want to really talk about the stakes,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to talk about I think that
Speaker 2: sometimes in an election year, we get focused on the
Speaker 2: horse race, we get focused on the excitement of it.
Speaker 2: But this time around, I really want us to mostly
Speaker 2: talk about the stakes. And so that's what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to focus on.
Speaker 1: That's really great. That feels like a good place for
Speaker 1: us all to meet, I hope, so I mean too,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much us And this has just been
Speaker 1: so cool.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sophia, It's so great to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for understanding the book and reading the book and
Speaker 2: just you know, being so relatable. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing it
Speaker 1: with us.