1
00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:06,040
Speaker 1: Do you think wife STEP's going to come after us

2
00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:06,880
Speaker 1: for this episode?

3
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:13,280
Speaker 2: I mean, god, I hope not. I'm Susie Bnacharum.

4
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:14,120
Speaker 3: And I'm Jessica Bennett.

5
00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:17,119
Speaker 4: This is in retrospect, where we delve into cultural moments

6
00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:17,920
Speaker 4: that shaped.

7
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,760
Speaker 3: Us and that we just can't stop thinking about.

8
00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,639
Speaker 4: Most of the time we talk about the past, and

9
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,000
Speaker 4: today we're going to do that also, but we wanted

10
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,000
Speaker 4: to give you a little more context about how we

11
00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:28,480
Speaker 4: got here.

12
00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 1: This show is devoted to looking back at news moments

13
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,560
Speaker 1: we consumed, often as teenagers but sometimes older.

14
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:39,800
Speaker 3: But we're also.

15
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,440
Speaker 1: Working journalists, so obviously we have our own in retrospect moments,

16
00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:46,199
Speaker 1: things that we wish we could have or would have

17
00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:47,240
Speaker 1: done differently.

18
00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:49,360
Speaker 3: Yes, I have a lot of those, okay, And.

19
00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,680
Speaker 1: So Susie, one of the things I love about hearing

20
00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:55,000
Speaker 1: stories from your career is that you will just like

21
00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:58,960
Speaker 1: bust out with these facts or little anecdotes about behind

22
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,360
Speaker 1: the scene things that happened. I mean, you worked for

23
00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:05,320
Speaker 1: Diane Sawyer, you worked for Katie Kirk, you worked for

24
00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,360
Speaker 1: George Stephanopolis like you have these war stories, often celebrity

25
00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:09,839
Speaker 1: based wars.

26
00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:12,399
Speaker 4: Sorry, I kicked around a long time, so I have

27
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:14,000
Speaker 4: a lot of crazy stories.

28
00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:17,800
Speaker 1: And you've produced, you know, interviews with presidents, You've interviewed

29
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,600
Speaker 1: Loretta Lynn, Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Dance, like all of these

30
00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:25,480
Speaker 1: very impressive things. But one thing I learned only recently

31
00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:30,759
Speaker 1: about you is that you actually worked at Wife Swap. Yes, yes,

32
00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:33,920
Speaker 1: my first the reality show where people swap wives.

33
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:37,319
Speaker 4: To be clear, well swap wives in the non sexual sense,

34
00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:39,880
Speaker 4: but yes, I did work on the first season of

35
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:42,399
Speaker 4: Wife Swap. It was a British show that had been

36
00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:45,200
Speaker 4: brought over to the States, so no one had seen it.

37
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:47,440
Speaker 3: This was like what early two thousands, early.

38
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:49,880
Speaker 4: Two thousands, two thousand and four, Okay, I think the

39
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,000
Speaker 4: thing is, you know, I had worked at NBC, and

40
00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:55,360
Speaker 4: while I was there, I had done like a little

41
00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:59,560
Speaker 4: tour at Dateline, which is like magazine show, and as

42
00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 4: part of that, we had done an hour on The Apprentice.

43
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:04,960
Speaker 2: And I was really intrigued by reality TV.

44
00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:05,840
Speaker 3: I always was.

45
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,320
Speaker 4: It wasn't like as huge, well it was huge, but

46
00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:10,520
Speaker 4: it wasn't as common as it is now, I would say.

47
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:12,600
Speaker 3: So I was kind of like, well.

48
00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:15,040
Speaker 4: If I'm gonna do news about these reality shows, what

49
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:16,680
Speaker 4: would it be like to go work on one.

50
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 3: I was kind of curious to cross over.

51
00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:22,440
Speaker 4: And interestingly, actually, by the way, is that when I

52
00:02:22,480 --> 00:02:25,160
Speaker 4: made the decision to leave NBC to go to wife's WAW,

53
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:28,800
Speaker 4: this woman, this executive who was like very senior to me,

54
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:31,000
Speaker 4: said to me, like, you'll never work in news again

55
00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:32,040
Speaker 4: if you take that job.

56
00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:33,920
Speaker 3: You know, they were trying to convince me to stay.

57
00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:35,360
Speaker 4: And they did it by being like mean to me,

58
00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:37,399
Speaker 4: Like someone else said to me, like you're too ambitious,

59
00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:38,560
Speaker 4: Like these are all the things they.

60
00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:38,760
Speaker 1: Said to me.

61
00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:40,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, I don't.

62
00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:43,080
Speaker 2: Like, way too ambitious.

63
00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:45,200
Speaker 3: Also, i've been paying much better.

64
00:02:45,320 --> 00:02:47,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were better, and they gave me a better title.

65
00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:49,560
Speaker 2: I was an associate producer on that show.

66
00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:52,160
Speaker 4: And that woman who told me I would never work

67
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:54,200
Speaker 4: in news again ended up going to Bravo and that's

68
00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:59,040
Speaker 4: where she spent the majority of her career. She okay, yeah,

69
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,280
Speaker 4: it's just funny because there was a real stigma to

70
00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:03,480
Speaker 4: reality TV at that time. I will say that, and

71
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:05,200
Speaker 4: I don't know why I did it. I just was

72
00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 4: like fuck it, you know, like I want to see

73
00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:08,840
Speaker 4: what this feels like.

74
00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:12,160
Speaker 3: It was a pretty terrible experience.

75
00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:14,560
Speaker 4: I'd say, like, I'm not sorry I did it because

76
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 4: it kind of felt like being in a war zone.

77
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,119
Speaker 4: So like, I learned a lot about how to think

78
00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:21,799
Speaker 4: on my feed and about how to produce in really

79
00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:26,400
Speaker 4: difficult situations. But it definitely wasn't use and that became

80
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:27,320
Speaker 4: clear really quickly.

81
00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:29,480
Speaker 3: Like your whole job was.

82
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,840
Speaker 4: To manipulate the people involved. Wow, and not just like

83
00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:35,800
Speaker 4: manipulate them in the moment, but to prepare to manipulate

84
00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 4: them the whole time.

85
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:37,880
Speaker 3: Wait back up for a second.

86
00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:40,440
Speaker 1: So you're the people that you are bringing on to

87
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:41,360
Speaker 1: swap wives.

88
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:44,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, I should probably explain what the concept of the

89
00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:46,280
Speaker 4: show is, just for people who might not have watched.

90
00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:48,240
Speaker 3: This, so it includes me. Yeah.

91
00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:50,680
Speaker 4: So the premise of the show is that there are

92
00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:53,560
Speaker 4: two families who are diametrically opposed to each other, like

93
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 4: very different in different ways. So some of the episodes

94
00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:59,720
Speaker 4: I worked on was a lesbian couple and an interracial

95
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:03,200
Speaker 4: couple who didn't believe in gay marriage. I worked on

96
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:05,680
Speaker 4: a racist episode where it was a racist family and

97
00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:07,640
Speaker 4: a black family, which like now, you would not do

98
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:09,320
Speaker 4: because it's like putting someone in the.

99
00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:10,520
Speaker 3: Most toxic situation.

100
00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:13,840
Speaker 4: And oh god, the craziest one we did was a

101
00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:15,680
Speaker 4: family who lived on a bus.

102
00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:16,840
Speaker 2: The dad had lost.

103
00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:20,440
Speaker 4: His job, taken a greyhound bus and had turned it

104
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:23,200
Speaker 4: into like it was before, like you know, tiny homes.

105
00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:25,120
Speaker 3: Like it was not like it was not esthetic.

106
00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:28,240
Speaker 4: It was just like I know, hashtag fani Like it

107
00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:29,920
Speaker 4: was just like this weird situation where they were living

108
00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:31,840
Speaker 4: in this greyhound bus that he like I guess, tricked

109
00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 4: out with a woman who whose husband.

110
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:36,560
Speaker 2: Was a funeral director.

111
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:37,039
Speaker 4: You know.

112
00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:38,040
Speaker 3: So it was just like these like.

113
00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:40,440
Speaker 4: Very weird you were trying to find kind of quirky

114
00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:43,919
Speaker 4: weirdos who then would swap lives, okay, And the premises

115
00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:47,680
Speaker 4: is that the wives swap and for the first week

116
00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:49,960
Speaker 4: in the new home they live by the rules of

117
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,080
Speaker 4: the mom who is in that.

118
00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 3: Family, and then they get to change all the.

119
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:56,760
Speaker 4: Rules for the second week, and then at the end

120
00:04:56,760 --> 00:04:59,280
Speaker 4: they come together and they find like common ground, you know,

121
00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:02,080
Speaker 4: they like all meet together and they're like, there's some

122
00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:04,320
Speaker 4: benefit to what you do and some menafo what I

123
00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,920
Speaker 4: do and paid for this. Well, that's like an interesting

124
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:10,440
Speaker 4: thing about wife swap. So when I did the show,

125
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:13,720
Speaker 4: the families only got paid five thousand dollars for ten

126
00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,760
Speaker 4: days of shooting, so it wasn't really two weeks. That's

127
00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:18,480
Speaker 4: like the first thing because it's expensive to shoot a

128
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,479
Speaker 4: lot of days, and you know the point of the

129
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:26,719
Speaker 4: show was conflict, right, But because it hadn't aired in

130
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:29,680
Speaker 4: America before we were selling it to people. There was

131
00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,200
Speaker 4: a casting team, but as aps, we worked on casting

132
00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 4: as well. We were selling it to people as a

133
00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,280
Speaker 4: documentary and it had wan a bapta, which is the

134
00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:39,560
Speaker 4: British equivalent of an Emmy. So we were like, this

135
00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:44,920
Speaker 4: is like a serious documentary about people experimenting with other

136
00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:47,840
Speaker 4: ways to live, and there's so much this family can

137
00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:50,760
Speaker 4: learn from you, Like, you're so amazing. So your job

138
00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:53,640
Speaker 4: once we identified a family, like the casting team identified

139
00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,560
Speaker 4: a family, they would send out the AP, which would

140
00:05:56,560 --> 00:05:59,440
Speaker 4: be me in this case associate producer and the associate producer,

141
00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:02,320
Speaker 4: and my job was to basically better them up. Okay,

142
00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:05,880
Speaker 4: you know, these were women who for whatever reason, and

143
00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:08,560
Speaker 4: sometimes men sometimes we do dad swaps or in the

144
00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:10,159
Speaker 4: lesbian case, you know, obviously was a.

145
00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:12,279
Speaker 2: Woman and a man who swapped, or a woman and

146
00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:12,640
Speaker 2: a woman.

147
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,320
Speaker 4: But with the many these were people who didn't get

148
00:06:15,320 --> 00:06:17,800
Speaker 4: a lot of attention, were often sort of people who

149
00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:20,360
Speaker 4: were desperate to sort of feel seen right, which is

150
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:22,280
Speaker 4: why they wanted to be on this TV show. And

151
00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:25,280
Speaker 4: your job was to act like literally everything they did

152
00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:28,080
Speaker 4: was fascinating because as the ap your job was to

153
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,880
Speaker 4: write the rule book okay, right, because there was when

154
00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:32,279
Speaker 4: they showed up at the house, they would get this

155
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:34,120
Speaker 4: book and it would have all the rules they had

156
00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:35,320
Speaker 4: to live by before the.

157
00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:37,800
Speaker 3: Rule change, okay okay, and it was your job to

158
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:39,960
Speaker 3: write it. And so you'd literally be like, how do

159
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:40,760
Speaker 3: you make breakfast?

160
00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:43,960
Speaker 4: Like, tell me everything about how you clean the house,

161
00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:47,040
Speaker 4: just showering this person with attention that they weren't getting.

162
00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 4: And I think everyone would be really like seduced by

163
00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:51,800
Speaker 4: that on some level.

164
00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:53,160
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what you're describing.

165
00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:55,080
Speaker 1: Is not that different from what you do in an

166
00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:57,320
Speaker 1: interview when you want someone to open up.

167
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:00,480
Speaker 4: Yes, although I will say that the difference is we

168
00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:02,760
Speaker 4: were sort of told like, do whatever it takes, say

169
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:06,240
Speaker 4: whatever it takes, you know, like, as journalists, we have ethics, right,

170
00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:08,080
Speaker 4: So there's some things I'll say in some things I won't.

171
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:10,000
Speaker 4: I won't ask someone to do something I think is

172
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 4: on ethical. We were just told to come back with

173
00:07:11,920 --> 00:07:15,720
Speaker 4: a signed contract, okay, no holds barred, so we would

174
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:19,080
Speaker 4: go out with these really thick contracts. And actually, you know,

175
00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:21,400
Speaker 4: I kept some of my files from that first season

176
00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:23,680
Speaker 4: just because I thought, you know, it was an interesting

177
00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:27,040
Speaker 4: time in my life. And I found one of these contracts.

178
00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 4: I went looking and it's twenty three pages long, and

179
00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:32,880
Speaker 4: one of the craziest things in it is that if

180
00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 4: the families violate the contract in any way, so if

181
00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:39,520
Speaker 4: they refuse to participate in a scene or they quit

182
00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:42,960
Speaker 4: the show at any time for any reason, it says

183
00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:46,160
Speaker 4: that they would owe the production company, which was RDF

184
00:07:46,200 --> 00:07:49,440
Speaker 4: Media or the network five million.

185
00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:51,640
Speaker 3: Dollars for the five thousand dollars they were getting.

186
00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's just crazy because they were basically

187
00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,239
Speaker 4: saying the damage to them was worth five million dollars, which,

188
00:07:57,600 --> 00:07:59,760
Speaker 4: by the way, is way beyond what it would have

189
00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 4: caught to make the episode. But the actual language is

190
00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:07,520
Speaker 4: that it would result in substantial damages and injury to

191
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,160
Speaker 4: the producer and or the network, the precise amount of

192
00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:16,200
Speaker 4: which would be extremely difficult or impracticable to determine. And

193
00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:18,720
Speaker 4: so I guess even though it's difficult, they came up

194
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:23,679
Speaker 4: with five million dollars as an estimate for fair compensation, which,

195
00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:28,040
Speaker 4: like is insane and also, you know unlikely that they

196
00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:30,480
Speaker 4: would have tried to enforce this, but you know, these

197
00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:31,920
Speaker 4: people had no way of knowing that.

198
00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:34,480
Speaker 3: Do you think Webstop's going to come after us for

199
00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:35,280
Speaker 3: this episode?

200
00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:37,560
Speaker 4: I mean, god, I hope not. First of all, wepstop

201
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,280
Speaker 4: isn't around anymore. I think the most recent version of

202
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:43,360
Speaker 4: it was in twenty twenty on Paramount Network. But also

203
00:08:43,440 --> 00:08:45,960
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean I feel like things were different.

204
00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:47,960
Speaker 4: I mean, that's sort of what this show is about, right,

205
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:51,760
Speaker 4: Like the world was different. Reality TV was much more manipulated.

206
00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:53,400
Speaker 4: Like I think there are some things you just wouldn't

207
00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:56,280
Speaker 4: get away with in the same way today. This was

208
00:08:56,840 --> 00:08:58,920
Speaker 4: one of my only two jobs in reality TV and

209
00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:01,040
Speaker 4: then I went back to news. You know the other

210
00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:03,640
Speaker 4: thing you can do in these shows, yeah, is you

211
00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:07,959
Speaker 4: can literally splice answers, like we would change word by

212
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:09,840
Speaker 4: word someone's answer if we needed to, Like, you.

213
00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:12,520
Speaker 3: Can do whatever you want. You can manipulate it completely.

214
00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,439
Speaker 4: So there's no when you work as a producer in

215
00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:17,800
Speaker 4: TV news, if you're out on a shoot, you can't

216
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:19,920
Speaker 4: ask someone to do something they don't do naturally. You

217
00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:21,520
Speaker 4: can't feel like I want you to get out of

218
00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:23,920
Speaker 4: this car, walk to this place and go there. On

219
00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:25,880
Speaker 4: reality TV, that's all you're doing, and like you're making

220
00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,280
Speaker 4: them do it over and over again. Actually a really

221
00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:31,480
Speaker 4: good show about this, if people are interested. Is this

222
00:09:31,559 --> 00:09:34,840
Speaker 4: show Unreal that was on Lifetime that was written by

223
00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:39,040
Speaker 4: a former Bachelor producer, Okay, and watching it was wild

224
00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:40,760
Speaker 4: because I was like, oh, this is exactly what it's like,

225
00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:42,520
Speaker 4: except for the murders, because there's like some.

226
00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:43,480
Speaker 3: Murders in the jow.

227
00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:46,480
Speaker 4: But other than the murdering, it really did feel like

228
00:09:46,520 --> 00:10:08,720
Speaker 4: a documentary about producing reality TV. And so I worked

229
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,760
Speaker 4: on this show. It was a really brutal experience. You'd

230
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:14,560
Speaker 4: go out with these contracts and your job was basically

231
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 4: to get them to sign it without reading it.

232
00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:17,520
Speaker 3: Okay, you're literally like.

233
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:19,559
Speaker 2: Just page through that just initial here.

234
00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:20,520
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't none of that.

235
00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:22,120
Speaker 2: It's just ill legally. It's like, don't worry.

236
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:24,960
Speaker 1: And so do you remember any of the people that

237
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 1: you had signed that? Like, do you think about these people?

238
00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:27,320
Speaker 4: Oh?

239
00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:29,200
Speaker 3: God, yes, yeah, well one of them.

240
00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:32,560
Speaker 4: I kept in touch with the lesbian mom who switched

241
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:34,559
Speaker 4: into the family I was with in Texas. She was

242
00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:36,839
Speaker 4: a lovely person. We stayed friendly for years. I think

243
00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:38,560
Speaker 4: we're still Facebook friends. I don't know, I'd have to

244
00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:41,880
Speaker 4: look her up. But you know, you did feel at

245
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:44,160
Speaker 4: least I felt really terrible.

246
00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:45,160
Speaker 2: A lot of the time.

247
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:47,480
Speaker 4: You were there to get them to say things you

248
00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:49,440
Speaker 4: knew were going to be embarrassing for them to say,

249
00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:51,559
Speaker 4: and you went out with a script, but they didn't

250
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,400
Speaker 4: know that. So you have story points you had to hit,

251
00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:56,680
Speaker 4: and you had to convince them that those story points

252
00:10:56,720 --> 00:10:59,079
Speaker 4: were happening naturally. I mean that's what a good producer did.

253
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:00,600
Speaker 4: Like a bad producer were just be like, I need

254
00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:02,280
Speaker 4: you to say this, and just like bully them into

255
00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:04,680
Speaker 4: saying it. But you know, our job was to be like, God,

256
00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:08,800
Speaker 4: wouldn't it be nice if like these kids had a horse?

257
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,200
Speaker 4: That seems like something you'd like, right, And then like

258
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:13,960
Speaker 4: two days later you'd be like, didn't you say that

259
00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:17,080
Speaker 4: the kids should get a horse to learn responsibility? And

260
00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:18,920
Speaker 4: then suddenly that would be in the rule changes.

261
00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:20,319
Speaker 2: It was this like really.

262
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 4: Weird way in which you were like pulling strings all

263
00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:26,160
Speaker 4: the time. So what happens is a lot of the times,

264
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:27,720
Speaker 4: as the ap you're responsible for the.

265
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:30,880
Speaker 3: Children, and that's the heart for me. That was the

266
00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:31,439
Speaker 3: hardest part.

267
00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:35,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, their parents sign up for better

268
00:11:35,040 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 4: or for worse.

269
00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:37,160
Speaker 3: Like do they always have children?

270
00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:40,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, it just wouldn't have worked as well, okay for

271
00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:42,520
Speaker 4: two people who didn't have kids, right, because you needed

272
00:11:42,559 --> 00:11:46,160
Speaker 4: the extra dynamics of a family, and those kids have

273
00:11:46,280 --> 00:11:48,480
Speaker 4: no I mean they're sometimes they were really young, like yeah,

274
00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:51,160
Speaker 4: six or whatever, but all the way up into teenagers

275
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:53,800
Speaker 4: and they didn't get a vote. You know, this was

276
00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:55,720
Speaker 4: like often done by their you know, sort of like

277
00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:57,880
Speaker 4: parents who wanted the attention or thought it would make

278
00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,160
Speaker 4: them famous or whatever they thought. And so a lot

279
00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:04,440
Speaker 4: of the storylines required you to manipulate the children into

280
00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,200
Speaker 4: saying something. And so the one I think about the

281
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,960
Speaker 4: most was this mom who had a really difficult relationship

282
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,600
Speaker 4: with her teenage daughter, and we knew from the pre

283
00:12:14,679 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 4: interviews that she had told her daughter she hated her,

284
00:12:18,559 --> 00:12:20,120
Speaker 4: which is just you know, as like a mother, I'm

285
00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:22,360
Speaker 4: sure this's like a really terrible moment, like a moment

286
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,160
Speaker 4: of weakness, like you regret, but not something you want

287
00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,199
Speaker 4: broadcast on national television. And it was my job to

288
00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:30,760
Speaker 4: get the daughter to tell me that on camera. Wow,

289
00:12:30,800 --> 00:12:33,920
Speaker 4: And I did, and it didn't I mean, it didn't

290
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:35,800
Speaker 4: feel good like I would come back from those shoots

291
00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:39,480
Speaker 4: and just shower and like to sit in my apartment

292
00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:41,319
Speaker 4: because I was just like, this is so awful. What

293
00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:43,640
Speaker 4: would take days for me to like detoxify from that.

294
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,640
Speaker 4: And it was a really toxic environment in general. Our

295
00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:49,680
Speaker 4: executive producer was kind of awful to us. On top

296
00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:51,880
Speaker 4: of that, we were working twenty hour days. You know,

297
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:54,560
Speaker 4: we were also being manipulated.

298
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:54,800
Speaker 2: And sort of tortured.

299
00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:57,640
Speaker 4: Right, So you were doing this thing that you felt

300
00:12:57,679 --> 00:13:00,120
Speaker 4: was terrible, and then you would go home and you

301
00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:02,080
Speaker 4: would try and recover before you got sent out again

302
00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:04,120
Speaker 4: in like three weeks or whatever the turnaround was.

303
00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,000
Speaker 1: You were telling me recently that there was something on

304
00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:10,160
Speaker 1: TikTok with a woman who was one.

305
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:10,840
Speaker 3: Of these kids.

306
00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:13,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I recently came across this TikTok and it's

307
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:15,560
Speaker 4: why I've been thinking about this a lot lately, is

308
00:13:15,559 --> 00:13:19,640
Speaker 4: there's this woman, Heidi May, who is a TikTok content creator,

309
00:13:20,040 --> 00:13:22,400
Speaker 4: and she was a kid on Wife Swap. She was

310
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 4: a different season for me. So I only worked on

311
00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:26,040
Speaker 4: the show one season and then I got out of there.

312
00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:27,880
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the worst experience.

313
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:27,960
Speaker 3: Of my life.

314
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:32,960
Speaker 4: And this girl was featured in season six, she was

315
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,560
Speaker 4: in a family like a traveling show. They had like

316
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:39,120
Speaker 4: a family show, and they lived in an RV, and

317
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:41,880
Speaker 4: she talked about what a horrible experience it was for

318
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:44,920
Speaker 4: her and how traumatic it's been for her to sort

319
00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:47,560
Speaker 4: of like deal with the things that came up in

320
00:13:47,559 --> 00:13:51,360
Speaker 4: that show and how she felt really tricked by it.

321
00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:55,000
Speaker 4: And so the story was they did this very family friendly,

322
00:13:55,679 --> 00:13:59,199
Speaker 4: wholesome conservative show and then they traded places with this

323
00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:02,200
Speaker 4: family who was obsessed with low riding, which just like

324
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:05,000
Speaker 4: a car culture I don't know anything about, but so,

325
00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:09,040
Speaker 4: and they were really into like dressing. I mean, this

326
00:14:09,160 --> 00:14:11,240
Speaker 4: is not my but like the way it was described

327
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:13,960
Speaker 4: was like dressing like sluts basically, like like she was like,

328
00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,280
Speaker 4: I don't let my daughters wear shirts that like have

329
00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:17,880
Speaker 4: anything revealing, and the other mom was.

330
00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:20,360
Speaker 3: Like, my tatas are going to be out the hall time.

331
00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:22,720
Speaker 3: Like it was just just like really yeah, And it's like,

332
00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:23,080
Speaker 3: those are.

333
00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:25,040
Speaker 4: The families you wanted, right on a show that's all

334
00:14:25,080 --> 00:14:27,800
Speaker 4: about conflict, obviously, the people you want are people who

335
00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:29,800
Speaker 4: are a little unhinged.

336
00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:31,480
Speaker 3: Ideally, I'm not saying they were all like that.

337
00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:34,480
Speaker 4: Some of them were lovely, but you know, so She

338
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:36,880
Speaker 4: tells this story about how she had shared at some

339
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:39,960
Speaker 4: point during pre production that one of her triggers was

340
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:42,200
Speaker 4: feeling lonely because her family's on the road all the

341
00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 4: time and she doesn't have a lot of friends. And then,

342
00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:48,360
Speaker 4: in her very first fight with the other mom, the

343
00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:50,920
Speaker 4: mom brings this up, you know, sort of out of nowhere.

344
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,400
Speaker 4: She says, do you really think having a friend is

345
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:56,840
Speaker 4: seeing someone for thirty minutes once a year or whatever?

346
00:14:57,360 --> 00:15:01,360
Speaker 4: And then Heidi may the girls said, well, I think

347
00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:03,360
Speaker 4: you know, having friends or people who care about you,

348
00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:06,040
Speaker 4: And then the other mom turns to her and says,

349
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:08,760
Speaker 4: they don't care about you, which is just like a

350
00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:12,320
Speaker 4: really mean thing to say to a teenage girl. And

351
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:16,560
Speaker 4: also they've used something that she thought she was telling producers.

352
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:21,280
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so they're feeding this information to the other mom.

353
00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:22,640
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, that's the job.

354
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:24,480
Speaker 4: When you work on a show like this, your job

355
00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:27,600
Speaker 4: is to direct the story. They think it's happening organically,

356
00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:31,080
Speaker 4: but you have story points you have to hit. So

357
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 4: in this case, they're feeding this information to get the

358
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:34,880
Speaker 4: conflicts they need.

359
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:37,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I knew that happened on reality TV,

360
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:40,320
Speaker 1: but when you describe it that way, it's so overt.

361
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:41,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

362
00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:44,600
Speaker 4: And I think the other thing is the first season

363
00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 4: where I work, they hadn't seen the show. But as

364
00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 4: the season started to air, it got a little easier

365
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:51,000
Speaker 4: to produce.

366
00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:53,520
Speaker 3: On some level because they.

367
00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:55,680
Speaker 4: Knew they were supposed to fight, so at least there

368
00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:57,840
Speaker 4: was like a little bit more understanding of what they'd

369
00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:01,040
Speaker 4: gotten themselves into. But for the initial set of families,

370
00:16:01,080 --> 00:16:02,840
Speaker 4: I felt so bad for them because they thought they

371
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 4: were like going to be on a PDS show, right,

372
00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:07,480
Speaker 4: and then they get there and they're like, what is

373
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:11,920
Speaker 4: happening here? You know? There were times where people got violent.

374
00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:14,840
Speaker 4: There were like there were definitely like physical altercations, we

375
00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:19,040
Speaker 4: had to break up. It was a really traumatic experience

376
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,720
Speaker 4: for those families, and I kind of I'm surprised more

377
00:16:21,720 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 4: people haven't come forward. There is another case.

378
00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:26,960
Speaker 1: Well, maybe they're afraid of still being suited. I mean,

379
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,200
Speaker 1: did they have to sign NDAs or.

380
00:16:29,240 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the NBA was part of this contract that

381
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:33,560
Speaker 4: said that they couldn't talk about it or they'd get sued.

382
00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:37,000
Speaker 4: And you know, Heidi, this girl who did these tiktoks,

383
00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:40,200
Speaker 4: did mention that NDA and how afraid she was to

384
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:42,160
Speaker 4: come forward. But now she's been talking about it for

385
00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,000
Speaker 4: a few years and nobody's.

386
00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:44,520
Speaker 3: Come after her.

387
00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 4: Because even at the time, I remember sort of being like,

388
00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:50,880
Speaker 4: I wonder why none of these families realize that ABC's

389
00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 4: not going to come after them if they quit the show,

390
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 4: because what are they going to do, like make this

391
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:55,680
Speaker 4: family go bankrupt?

392
00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:58,359
Speaker 3: It was never a real threat or enforceable.

393
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:01,600
Speaker 4: But you were picking peopleeople who often didn't have a

394
00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:04,399
Speaker 4: lot of money or who didn't have a lot of resources.

395
00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:05,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you didn't know how to read a

396
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:08,280
Speaker 1: twenty page content. Many people don't.

397
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,160
Speaker 4: Write, and so you were picking someone who wasn't going

398
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:12,520
Speaker 4: to feel like they could fight back.

399
00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 3: Right.

400
00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 4: The other thing she mentioned is that this basically destroyed

401
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:18,119
Speaker 4: their family business. This family business that they went on

402
00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:22,439
Speaker 4: the show to promote was somewhat picked apart by this experience. Okay,

403
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:24,760
Speaker 4: and so yeah, that would be my biggest regret. I

404
00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 4: think I was working on it at all, Listen.

405
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:27,760
Speaker 3: I was really young.

406
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 4: It was my first job in anything other than like

407
00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:33,679
Speaker 4: a straight news jop. I didn't really understand what I

408
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:36,040
Speaker 4: was getting myself into, and I certainly didn't have the

409
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:38,320
Speaker 4: power to fight back. And when I tried occasionally to

410
00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:39,840
Speaker 4: be like we shouldn't be doing this or we shouldn't

411
00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:42,760
Speaker 4: be They were like, shot the fuck up. They were

412
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 4: not interested in my having like an opinion.

413
00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 3: Or a voice. Yeah, you were there to do this.

414
00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:50,399
Speaker 4: I was there to do the job. And you know,

415
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:52,159
Speaker 4: eventually I was just like this job isn't for me.

416
00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 4: And then I went on to work on a show

417
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:56,960
Speaker 4: called Trailer Fabulous, which sounds terrible but was actually the

418
00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:58,399
Speaker 4: best job I ever had.

419
00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:01,359
Speaker 3: Like to this day, maybe, yeah, it was really fun.

420
00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:02,800
Speaker 2: And so it was an MTV show.

421
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:06,359
Speaker 4: It was when Extreme Home Makeover was starting to become

422
00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 4: like a big thing, and so MTV had this idea

423
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:10,520
Speaker 4: that they would trick.

424
00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:13,280
Speaker 3: Out kids trailers, like people who lived in trailer parks.

425
00:18:13,320 --> 00:18:15,119
Speaker 4: But like we'd basically go do an Extreme home makeover

426
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:18,240
Speaker 4: but on a trailer. And I didn't really know anything.

427
00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:18,520
Speaker 3: Joy.

428
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:21,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was bringing joy to people's lives. And my

429
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:24,359
Speaker 4: job was just to like drive to trailer parks on

430
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,960
Speaker 4: the East Coast with a camera and just like go

431
00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:30,240
Speaker 4: find kids who lived in these trailers. Like we'd set

432
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:34,359
Speaker 4: up little auditions and just like talk to them on camera.

433
00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:35,840
Speaker 4: I mean it was really fun for me, you know,

434
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,480
Speaker 4: it was like, I just learned about this like entire subculture.

435
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:41,119
Speaker 4: I knew nothing about how trailer parks worked. They're like

436
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 4: a really interesting little ecosystem. And while I was working

437
00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:46,960
Speaker 4: on that show, I got a call about going to

438
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:50,760
Speaker 4: work at World News Okay, And a really funny story

439
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,560
Speaker 4: about that is that I interviewed with Peter Jennings for

440
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:57,120
Speaker 4: that job. Okay, So somebody connected me to the executive

441
00:18:57,119 --> 00:19:00,399
Speaker 4: producer of World News tonight, and I assumed I had

442
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:01,879
Speaker 4: worked at Wife Swap, that he was going to be

443
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:03,560
Speaker 4: like here's someone you can talk to it like the

444
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 4: Today Ship.

445
00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 2: Like I didn't think they were going to take me seriously.

446
00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:08,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I met with him and he was like,

447
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:11,680
Speaker 4: I think you should meet with Peter. And I was like, Jennings, Like,

448
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:15,119
Speaker 4: it doesn't occur to me that Peter Jennings, who's you know,

449
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:17,080
Speaker 4: some people might not know, but who was a really

450
00:19:17,119 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 4: famous news anchor at that time. My family watched him

451
00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:22,120
Speaker 4: when I was growing up, Like I revered him. Would

452
00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:24,359
Speaker 4: be interviewing an associate producer right Like, so I was

453
00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:25,720
Speaker 4: just like so confused.

454
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:27,639
Speaker 3: But it was a he would come from Wi Swap.

455
00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:30,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I go in for this interview freaking out,

456
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:32,600
Speaker 4: Like I remember, I was sweating through my suit like

457
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:33,400
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god.

458
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:36,399
Speaker 3: And I thought he was going to give me.

459
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,200
Speaker 4: A really hard time about wife swap, but he was like, yeah, no,

460
00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:39,880
Speaker 4: that's just fine my wife and I've watched a couple

461
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:40,680
Speaker 4: episodes whatever.

462
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:42,840
Speaker 2: He was like, but what I really don't understand is

463
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:43,399
Speaker 2: why you went to.

464
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:46,560
Speaker 4: Journalism school, because you know, he famously didn't go to college.

465
00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:48,280
Speaker 4: So he was like, the thing he gave me a

466
00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:50,240
Speaker 4: hard time about is why I thought I needed to

467
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:52,760
Speaker 4: go to journalism school to be a journalist, which I

468
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:56,639
Speaker 4: just love that story. So that is my wife swap

469
00:19:56,680 --> 00:20:15,280
Speaker 4: story and all its glory. Let's talk about you, because

470
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:18,320
Speaker 4: I feel like I've been talking a lot on this episode.

471
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:22,240
Speaker 4: You have hilarious stories too, about getting like snowed in

472
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:26,040
Speaker 4: with Pam Anderson and being in Jennifer Anderson's bathroom. I

473
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,360
Speaker 4: think you told me something interesting about her toilet role hold.

474
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:31,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is an emmy that holds her toilet at all.

475
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,440
Speaker 3: It's kind of that is a boss move.

476
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:34,119
Speaker 2: I do like that.

477
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 4: And getting propositioned covering a polyamory.

478
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 1: Convention that happened, it did happen, I decline obviously.

479
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:46,000
Speaker 4: I mean obviously to who. So, yeah, you've done a

480
00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:46,920
Speaker 4: lot of these sort of like.

481
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 2: Very fun things.

482
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:51,560
Speaker 4: You earned an honorary degree from the nation's first pot school.

483
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,720
Speaker 1: Which you know, I love, said Oaksterdam University.

484
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:58,679
Speaker 4: I wish I had an honorary degree from Amsterdam University.

485
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 1: Oaksterdam is combined with the Amsterdam back then. You know

486
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:05,919
Speaker 1: that the Amsterdam was where it was legal and it

487
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 1: wasn't legal here.

488
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that, but I think you wanted to

489
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:10,920
Speaker 4: talk about something a little more serious for your regret,

490
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:12,520
Speaker 4: which you know probably makes sense.

491
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I have this story that I still think

492
00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:18,120
Speaker 1: about all the time.

493
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,880
Speaker 3: It was a sexual assault story. So I'll take you back.

494
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:24,240
Speaker 1: This was I guess this was when we were working

495
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 1: together because it was Newspeace, Newsweekdaily Peace. And at some

496
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:31,919
Speaker 1: point this young woman, she was a college student. She

497
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 1: reached out to me and she told me the story

498
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:40,199
Speaker 1: of being sexually harassed repeatedly by her professor and I

499
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: think her advisor and her mentor.

500
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:43,399
Speaker 3: She was a philosophy student.

501
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:45,400
Speaker 2: And where was she a student? I'm just Yale.

502
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:49,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe she was getting her PhD. I'm trying

503
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:53,439
Speaker 1: to remember now. Anyway, we spent months talking, you know,

504
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: like getting someone to open up about harassment or assault

505
00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: is really delicate. It takes a lot of sensitivity. And

506
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 1: so we spent months and months talking, and then when

507
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,200
Speaker 1: I thought that there was enough there for a story,

508
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 1: I started doing the legwork to find out more about

509
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:15,639
Speaker 1: this professor, more about showing a pattern of abuse.

510
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:18,159
Speaker 3: There have been other people who had also reported him.

511
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: Looking at in general, the way that her institution and

512
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:27,240
Speaker 1: her college dealt with complaints interesting and cases like this, I.

513
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 4: Mean, there have been plenty of cases since a Yale

514
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 4: that show that they did not handle them well.

515
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:37,720
Speaker 1: And more broadly, in the field of philosophy, which you know,

516
00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: the more I dug and the more I uncovered, turned

517
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 1: out this seemed to be a really big problem.

518
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 3: And I think the other thing.

519
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: About philosophy has a field is that like you're constantly

520
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 1: asking questions about moral inquiry, and like you're getting really

521
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: close and you can ask like crazy things about a

522
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 1: person's life or intimacy or you know, family.

523
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,120
Speaker 3: That could have to do with the field of study

524
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 3: or not.

525
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 4: Kind of reminds me of do you remember that New

526
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:06,240
Speaker 4: Yorker article that came out not that long about the

527
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,520
Speaker 4: marriage which is like the philosophy professor who ended up

528
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 4: creating her graduate students, Like, yeah, her graduate student even

529
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 4: though she's married, Like, I do feel.

530
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:14,680
Speaker 2: Like something's going on in philosophy.

531
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:17,400
Speaker 1: So what happened was this was at the time that

532
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 1: NEWSWEEKND the Daily Beast had merged, and it was pretty chaotic,

533
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,359
Speaker 1: and like was the magazine gonna still print and was

534
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:25,959
Speaker 1: it not? And I don't think I even really had

535
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 1: an editor at the time. So I started working on

536
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: this and no one was really interested in it, and

537
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: so I ended up taking it to another outlet. I

538
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 1: think I got permission to do. So I took it

539
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,880
Speaker 1: to l magazine, and so I found this editor there

540
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: and we worked together in this story. And this is

541
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 1: one of those cases. And I didn't at the time.

542
00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 1: I hadn't covered a lot of cases like this where

543
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: you had to find corroboration. So of course she hadn't

544
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: really told a lot of people, but she had told

545
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: her boyfriend at the time, and I spoke with him

546
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 1: and he verified it. She had filed multiple complaints with

547
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 1: the institution, so there was a paper train.

548
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 2: Of all of that.

549
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 4: Honestly, for people who don't do this kind of coverage,

550
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 4: like contemporaneous accounts of what happened are considered very valid

551
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,199
Speaker 4: ways to figure out if a story really happened.

552
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you know this is years before I would

553
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 1: then go on to work at the New York Times,

554
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: right in the midst of me too, and years later

555
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: I would learn how you actually do report these cases.

556
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 1: And you know, there are probably some things I didn't do,

557
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: but a lot of it is really going and finding

558
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 1: a paper trail, talking and corroborating with anyone that the

559
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 1: person told at the time. I think at the Times

560
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: we did something like three plus corroborations was a very

561
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: strong case, and you would look at things like diaries,

562
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: anything from that time period to verify that this thing

563
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 1: had happened. And of course you would then go to

564
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 1: the person and give them a chance to respond. But

565
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 1: I didn't really know all of those things then, and

566
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of framework or guidance on how

567
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: to report on sexual assault cases. So I did what

568
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: I thought was the right thing, which was looking at, yeah,

569
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: the paper trolls, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

570
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: of pages of documents.

571
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like you did actually do the

572
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 2: right thing.

573
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 3: I think that I did.

574
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: But what ended up happening was I wrote, you know,

575
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: I spent months and months writing this draft and working

576
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: closely with her, and you know, you spend so much

577
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: time talking to someone and you build this real intimacy.

578
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: We were close, like we were talking constantly, and.

579
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 4: Also they're being really vulnerable with you, and that does

580
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 4: create like a bond that's hard to explain if you've

581
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 4: never done that.

582
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: With someone, definitely, And so I turned in the story

583
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: to L and you know, I was waiting to hear

584
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: back from the editor, and at this point we hadn't

585
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,320
Speaker 1: gone to the person she was accusing yet. We want

586
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: I wanted to wait for the first edit, and then

587
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: typically what you do is you prepare all of your

588
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: questions in advance, and you go to that person and

589
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: you say, we have this story. We want to give

590
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: you a chance to respond, and maybe they bring a lawyer,

591
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: maybe someone.

592
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 4: Else's, and you give them a deadline, because otherwise what

593
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 4: they'll do is they'll try and drag it out forever

594
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:01,880
Speaker 4: so that you don't publish.

595
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: And they'll spend that time trying to get that story killed.

596
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 1: If they are a person in power, which this person

597
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: was so you know, we're waiting for all of that.

598
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: And then basically what happened was the editor came back

599
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: to me. I didn't know him well, he was a

600
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: senior editor there at the time, and he.

601
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 3: Basically said, I think it was in an email.

602
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 2: Oh good.

603
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: But I was so traumatized by the whole thing that

604
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: I just wanted to push it out of my mind,

605
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: and so I hadn't thought.

606
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 3: Much about it since then.

607
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: But he said, like, this is not a publishable draft.

608
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 3: This is a case. If he said, she said, we

609
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 3: can't possibly publish.

610
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 4: This, I mean that would really mean that no cases

611
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 4: could get published in a lot of I mean, it's

612
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 4: very rare in a case of harassment or assault where

613
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,360
Speaker 4: there is literally like corroborating evidence that is tangible, right, videotape.

614
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: I mean, or it's like, what is the one thing

615
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: that is considered enough well, a police report, and we

616
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: know all of the reasons why women don't go to

617
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: police and in many cases why police botch these cases.

618
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,639
Speaker 1: So that's what the editor said, and I was like

619
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: so ashamed because I thought I had screwed this up journalistically.

620
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 3: That of course you took it on your set.

621
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: I just was like, oh my god, this is so embarrassing.

622
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell anyone.

623
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 3: That you felt humiliated by it.

624
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: I was just crazy, like I had done something terrible.

625
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:18,959
Speaker 1: First of all, I had to tell the woman that

626
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: this wasn't going to be published, and you know, then it.

627
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 3: Was like, okay, well could we take it to another occasion?

628
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 3: Can we try this? Can we try that?

629
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: And at this point I was just like so exhausted

630
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: and kind of humiliated. I mean, you know, I'm like

631
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: in my twenties. I've been at Newsweek for a number

632
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: of years. That was my only job up until that point,

633
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: so I'm like not inexperienced, but don't have much power.

634
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: And this is the first freelance piece that I had

635
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: ever done, and it was the first time I was

636
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: supposedly going to write for al magazine. So anyway, I

637
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: just took it completely personally, and I was so ashamed,

638
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:54,760
Speaker 1: and then I felt so terrible for this woman, and

639
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, I basically explained it and that was the

640
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,640
Speaker 1: end of that, and I never didn't thing about it.

641
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 2: Did you keep in touch with her? Has she ever

642
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 2: come forward?

643
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 4: Here?

644
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: You're in there over the years, And I think ultimately,

645
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: what happened is somebody did tell her story, and I

646
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: think that this professor.

647
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 3: Was exposed in one way or another, perhaps.

648
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: During Me Too, but essentially ten years later or whatever,

649
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: when Me Too is happening and I am now the

650
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: gender editor at the New York Times, a person who

651
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: both has power has more of an understanding of how

652
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,719
Speaker 1: this type of reporting works. I thought back to this

653
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: case and I was like, God, damn it, Like I

654
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: should have pushed back, because I didn't push back at all.

655
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: I didn't say, Okay, well you need more verification, we'll

656
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: go get it, Like what do you need to make

657
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 1: this publishable?

658
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 3: Like what is the issue here?

659
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: And I had hardly met this editor before, so but

660
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: like what I would do now is I would be

661
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: like storming into that office being like, Okay, if there's

662
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: something that's missing, we will get it.

663
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 3: That is my jav So we would.

664
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 4: Take it elsewhere because you have the confidence to know

665
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 4: it's not you who's made the mistake. It's not like

666
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 4: you did bad reporting or you didn't do a good job.

667
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 4: But it's kind of interesting how you sort of took

668
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 4: it to me and you weren't doing a good job

669
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 4: at the time, but also now you look back on

670
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 4: it and feel like it's something you did wrong, like

671
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 4: you could have done something differently, But maybe there really

672
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 4: wasn't in that environment something you could do differently.

673
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 3: That is interesting.

674
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: Maybe so, but I could have at least tried, like

675
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: I typically.

676
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 4: But that does come with experience and confidence to know,

677
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 4: and I.

678
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 3: Think that you know ultimately.

679
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: What I think are in retrospect stories have in common

680
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: is that we didn't have a lot of power at

681
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: the time, and so to push back on something like that,

682
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: And this was less a story of like being embarrassed

683
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: because I had done something quote unquote problematic, yeah, as

684
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 1: I've discussed, and more like I wish I.

685
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 3: Had fought for this thing.

686
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: But once you gain a little bit of power, you

687
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: can push back, You can push these stories through. And

688
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,239
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason that we see so

689
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: many more of these types of stories now, of looking

690
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: back on cases in the past, or looking back on

691
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: news events or characters people or celebrities and saying, hey,

692
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: like how we treated them back then wasn't really fair,

693
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: is in part because people like us have grown up.

694
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 4: Yes, and actually been given positions where we can green

695
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 4: light those kinds of stories.

696
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 3: Or make sure they get told.

697
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, although I will say, the funny thing

698
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 4: about this is that my regret is something where I

699
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 4: behave terribly and your regret is something where you actually

700
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 4: were totally in the right.

701
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 3: So I don't know.

702
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: I thought I could have fought harder for it, and

703
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: I still feel.

704
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: Bad about that.

705
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 2: No, I know, but it's just a funny.

706
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 3: It's like classics.

707
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 4: I'm like, actually, I was a monster, and you're like, no,

708
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 4: I was just like naive and sweet, which really, I

709
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 4: mean fair, to be honest, this is in Retrospect. Thanks

710
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 4: for listening. Is there a cultural moment you can't stop

711
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 4: thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode.

712
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 4: Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find

713
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 4: us on Instagram at in retropod.

714
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,719
Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us

715
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you

716
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,

717
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: which we may or may not delete.

718
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 4: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett

719
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 4: and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books,

720
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 4: Feminist Fight Club and This.

721
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 3: Is eighteen In Retrospect.

722
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: Is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Media. Lauren

723
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our engineer

724
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: and sound designer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

725
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,719
Speaker 4: Our executive producer from the Media is Cindy Levy. Our

726
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 4: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.

727
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 2: Our artwork is from Pentagram.

728
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 4: Additional editing help from Mary Doo and Mike Cosperelli, sound

729
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 4: correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith.

730
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 3: We are your hosts Susie Beannaccarum.

731
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers. Even more check

732
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: out in retropod dot com. See you next week.

733
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 3: H