The World of Media is Changing Forever | Amanda Lamb | Ep 17

Amanda Lamb, one of the longest-serving reporters at WRAL, recently left her role in Jan 2024 to host a podcast Ageless: Opening Doors with Amanda Lamb which is about women redefining themselves after 50. In this episode, we talk about the art of media, podcasting, and reporting. The art of storytelling is essential in the fields of reporting and business alike - Amanda gives a guideline for how to tell a story whilst grabbing and maintaining attention. We also discuss the future landscape of the media with an increase in polarization and a rise in independent journalism with the continued use of social media and short-form content. Amanda shares her ideas for how to break through in a saturated landscape & how to break into the industry. During her time at WRAL Amanda specialised in crime reporting and Hurricanes. From 2019-2024 Amanda was a writer, host & producer for 4 podcasts. Notably "Follow the Truth" which was a 15-episode true crime series about the re-investigation of the 1993 murder of Michael Jordan's father. Amanda has written and published 12+ books. 

Personable is a podcast dedicated to helping listeners become the best they can be by learning from the world’s best in their respective fields. This mission is inspired by my mother, Louise, who encouraged me to become the best version of myself before she passed away from cancer in 2023.

Connect with Harvey:
Harvey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harveybracken-smith/ 
Harvey's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harveybsmith/
Personable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harveybsmithpodcast_/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7JOTYDER6m2FDrlhop4api

My dad's startup: https://www.thedraft.io/
Donate to the charity we have founded in memory of my mum: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/LouLouRacefoiundation?utm_term=PvByaxmdn

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to episode 17 of Personable. This is a podcast we hear from the world's best, enabling you to become the best that you can be. Today, I'm honored to be hearing from Amanda Lam. Amanda is the founder of a consulting company called StageMite Communications. She has been at WRAL TV for over 30 years, becoming a reporter, a podcast host and much more. She's written numerous books and has now become an independent podcaster, creating a podcast called Ageless Opening Doors with Amanda Lam. I feel hugely privileged to learn from Amanda today and feel like there are a lot of insights for everyone listening, so thank you so much, amanda, for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Harvey, great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:46

So, amanda, I wanted to get started by asking you to describe who you are, what you're doing, where you're headed and for anyone that's meeting you for the first time.

Speaker 2: 0:56

So I struggle sometimes when I'm trying to put my monikers on my social media because there are so many and it's hard for me to say exactly which one is number one. But, as you described, I've been a broadcast journalist for 35 years. I was at WRAL for 29. I just left that job in January of 2024.

Speaker 2: 1:19

And I started out as most young journalists do. I just I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to cover things that interested me, I wanted to travel, I was curious and I ended up becoming basically a crime reporter. That became my kind of focus. So I covered everything from the arrest or the crime to the arrest, to the investigation, to the case when it went to court, sometimes to the retrial and often to the person getting out of prison and what that looked like. I did a lot of other types of reporting because when you work for local television you are considered a general assignment reporter. You may have a concentration in something, but my concentration being in crime didn't mean I didn't have to cover other things, so I did cover just about every kind of story you can imagine. My other focus, or specialty, if you could call it, would be covering hurricanes. So I covered every hurricane in the Carolinas since 1989.

Speaker 2: 2:20

I started my first job was in South Carolina, my second was in Portland, maine. My third was here in Raleigh in 1994. And, as you can imagine, hurricanes are huge news, not just here in the Carolinas but all over the country. So I had the opportunity to go to other areas. I covered Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and I was actually, if you want to call it a tour. I did three tours in the Gulf States, in Mississippi and Louisiana, covering the storm and its aftermath and the rebuilding. I also covered Hurricane Harvey, which was in Houston, texas, and I covered Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast. And I covered again every major hurricane here in North Carolina and South Carolina. Along the way.

Speaker 2: 3:10

I was always a writer and I was really interested in writing from a young age and of course journalism is writing, but it's a different kind of writing. So I had a lot of stories and I joined a writing group, which is a great thing to do if you're interested in becoming an author, because you have people to bounce ideas off of. And so I started thinking well, I'll just write True Crime, because that's what I cover, that's what makes sense. But at the time I met a very famous author True Crime author at a library event named Jerry Blood so. And he said oh, there's so much True Crime out there, why don't you try something else? Do you have anything else in mind? And I mentioned that I had been doing a kind of a parenting memoir, kind of a funny book, and he goes oh yeah, that's what you should do. So I know we're gonna talk more about this, but in general I ended up starting with the parenting memoirs. I did several of those, I did several True Crimes, I did a couple of children's books and then I got into mysteries.

Speaker 2: 4:12

In the last few years I started podcasting and I really, to be honest with you, I didn't really know what podcasting was. I listened to a few here and there but I wasn't sold on it as a genre. And then I was asked by my company at the time to do a True Crime podcast. It was called Follow the Truth and it was a reinvestigation of the murder of James Jordan who was Michael Jordan of basketball fame, his father in 1993, which took place in North Carolina. I had a personal relationship with one of the defendants in the case. I had covered him over the years and he had always maintained his innocence. So that was kind of our jumping off point. Our company also did a documentary which I was in but I didn't produce. It's called Moment of Truth. And then my podcast was called Follow the Truth.

Speaker 2: 5:06

So from there I went on to do two more True Crime podcasts and a daily news podcast and I just loved it. I loved the depth and the breadth of doing a podcast, the intimacy of it, the ability to get people to be vulnerable in a different way, that they might not be in front of a TV camera, and really just kind of the idea that I was reaching a whole new audience, because I didn't feel like a lot of younger people were watching TV news, and so this was a way to kind of connect with a different audience. And being a writer, when you write a narrative True Crime podcast, you're basically writing eight documentaries. I mean there are 40 minutes to an hour apiece. So I got to write a lot more and to really challenge myself in a way I hadn't before.

Speaker 2: 5:57

So I had an opportunity at the end of this past year to kind of go back to my old job reporting and I just decided that I had done that and I really love podcasting and wanted to kind of strike out on my own, which is really scary. It's a little thrilling and scary at the same time. Somebody described it to me like being on a boat, and it's really comfortable and you have three meals a day and you know exactly how the boat operates and you can see the shore in the distance. But instead of staying on the boat, you jump off and swim. That's what starting your own business is a little bit like, and I had started this several years ago, but I hadn't really focused on it until now, and so what I'm doing now is I'm basically doing what you're doing, harvey I'm a podcaster, but the difference is I'm setting up.

Speaker 2: 6:50

I've set up a booth in my home, so I'm trying to do a lot of these interviews in person Because, as a journalist over the years, I felt like the best interviews I did were in person. I know, during the pandemic, we all got used to Zoom. We got really comfortable with that, and I do do my remote interviews on a platform, like you do, because I want to be able to interview people from other parts of the country and other parts of the world, so that's a necessity. But I am doing a lot of them in person for this podcast called Ageless, and it's about women over 50 transforming their lives personally and professionally. And I've done well. I've done many episodes, but three have been posted so far and I'm truly inspired by the people I've been talking to and the stories, so I think that my listeners will be too.

Speaker 1: 7:44

Thank you for that incredible, incredible story, and there's a lot that I want to delve into throughout this podcast. But first of all, you've just mentioned that you've just made this shift, having worked at a place for and worked in journalism for over 35 years, so suddenly becoming independent in January this year. What has that transition been like and what do you see is the overall landscape of journalism going to be like moving forward, with people like yourself, who are experts in the industry, going off by themselves? Do you think that's going to be a sort of theme that we're going to see going forward? Do you think we're going to see a move away from traditional media to online forms like YouTube and other things, or how do you see that landscape playing out?

Speaker 2: 8:22

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. So I'll start with what it's been like for me to make the change, and I mentioned a little bit about it being exciting and also daunting at the same time. I'm type A, I'm kind of a workaholic, so it's hard for me to put boundaries on myself. When you're working for somebody else, you know, you know what you have to get done, you know the certain amount of time you have to do it in and you can kind of say at the end of the day, well, I'm done and I'll go back and do it again tomorrow. When you have your own business, the work is always there, it's always at your desk, it's always available, it's always on your laptop. So, trying to create some sense of balance I haven't figured that out yet. I've been working a lot in the last few weeks trying to get you know this stuff off the ground and I've had some really great success in terms of you know, people paying attention, a lot of good good media, people following me, a lot of good feedback. So that's exciting. But I also need to figure out you know a better flow and not be just constantly working all the time. I didn't mention I'm also a journalism professor, adjunct journalism professor at Meredith College, and so that actually plays into a lot of the second part of your question, which is the future of journalism.

Speaker 2: 9:36

I don't necessarily see that everybody's going to strike out on their own. I do believe there is an important place for traditional journalism. I was actually listening to a radio program this morning and it was a comedian and she was talking about do you want somebody who's not a doctor or a surgeon to operate on you? Do you want somebody who's not a doctor to diagnose you? Well, that's kind of the world that we have created with social media and so many things happening online, with people who say they are experts, maybe because they've experienced something, maybe because they have some technical skills, some writing skills, some communication skills. But at the end of the day, I do believe in a traditional journalism education and I believe that that's really key.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Right now, it's so hard to determine the credibility of a journalism source because we have so much coming at us all the time, and what I tell my students is I say you, you are the person who is going to have to decide what you read, what you watch and what you listen to. Is it credible? What's the source? Who is it coming from? That's not to say that there aren't people out there who aren't journalists, who have good information. Of course they do, but it becomes difficult the landscape is getting difficult to determine who is the person who is delivering that to us.

Speaker 2: 11:08

I don't think TV is going to last in terms of how we are absorbing it now. I don't think a lot of people sit down and watch a newscast. I think maybe over 55 people are still doing that, but I think younger generations are not doing that. Everybody's on the web. They're scrolling the news website and then, if they see a story they like, they click on it and then maybe they'll watch it. So I think media companies are going to have to come up with innovative ways to reach a lot of this population, who is getting their news from TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and all these other platforms and YouTube. I would like to be part of reaching that and that's why I really think podcasting is a great opportunity to do that.

Speaker 1: 11:57

On that point of sources and finding credible sources, I'm curious how you are doing the Follow the Truth podcast with Michael Jordan's father's unfortunate death. How did you go about finding credible sources you mentioned you had one of the defendants that you knew, but all of the rest and finding the actual story and then both getting those sources and putting it into a story that people like to listen to. How do you go about? What's the process like from start to finish?

Speaker 2: 12:24

Yeah, it was complicated, and I will add that our team won the Edward R Murrow regional award for excellence in journalism for that podcast, so we were really proud of it and I never could have done anything like that without my team. I had great producers, a great podcast director, editors everything that really helped make that come to fruition. You start in a concentric circle, I guess, is how I would describe it with any criminal investigation. So obviously we had a defendant that was speaking to us, so that was a big part of the story, but we wanted to speak with his attorneys. We tried to speak with his co-defendant, who wouldn't talk to us. We then, of course, want to speak to the prosecutor, and then we go out in a bigger circle and we want to talk to witnesses. Now, every single person involved in the case isn't necessarily going to share our theory, which we were saying, that we thought that the trial and the investigation, that there were some mistakes made and, as a result, we always believed that there was evidence, enough evidence that this defendant, daniel Green, should get a new hearing and a hearing could lead to a new trial. That didn't happen, but we have to get everybody involved in the case who has any stake in the case. We have to give them a chance to talk, and that's what we did.

Speaker 2: 13:47

And so we have so many voices in this story and we didn't just get into the actual story but we got into what was going on at that time in Robison County, north Carolina, which is Lumberton was the area that created kind of this perfect storm.

Speaker 2: 14:04

You have an African-American teenager, you have a Native American teenager in an area that is divided pretty equally between Caucasians, african-americans and Native Americans at the time. So about 30-some percent of each population still is today and they had a great deal of issues discrimination based on race and based on cultural heritage back in that time. In addition to that, there was documented corruption in law enforcement in that area, which later came to fruition as a very large-scale investigation called Operation Tarnished Badge, where many people in law enforcement there were actually indicted, charged, convicted or pled guilty. So there were so many things about that place at that time that played into the case. So we really delved deep into that as well, because we felt like you couldn't put this story in a vacuum, you couldn't just say, well, these two guys were found in the car of the guy who was killed and therefore they did it. It was a high-profile case. They had to solve it quickly, but there were all these other things at play and that's what the podcast really examines.

Speaker 1: 15:23

When you're getting, you're building up a story like podcasts, like that. It's very different to the type of podcast you're doing now, where you're probably producing podcasts a lot more regularly. How do you go about developing hype and how do you advertise the podcast, how do you get people to watch them and also, how do you monetize those platforms?

Speaker 2: 15:42

those podcasts. So I'm just learning how to monetize. Right now. It's kind of like the chicken and the egg you have to make the thing to get the advertisers. So if you can't afford time-wise or whatever, to make what you want to try to monetize, then you're probably not going to be able to do it. In other words, advertisers aren't just going to come out of the woodwork and say, oh, we've never heard your show, it hasn't been posted yet, you have no followers, but we'd love to support you. So that's a big challenge and I'm working on that now.

Speaker 2: 16:18

It was a big challenge for my company as well at the time. I'm getting people to pay for advertising. So I think, going forward, that should improve, as more people listen to podcasts but, of course, just like books, there are so many podcasts out there, so you have to constantly advertise your podcasts on social media. That's the only way that I know how to do it. You advertise in other podcasts is another good thing. So, in other words, if you're listening to one of mine and then I say, hey, why don't you listen to so-and-so and they do a swap with you where they say the same thing in theirs, why don't you listen to this podcast. If they align, if those topics align, then I think that's another great way to do it. But it's a challenge, there's absolutely no doubt, and if you want to start a business today and you're not interested in social media, you need to think of doing something else, because social media is the way to get your message out there.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Have you noticed a lot of transferable skills or knowledge and experience from trying to get those podcasts out there to also trying to get your books that you've written out there?

Speaker 2: 17:34

Yeah, I mean, it's really funny when I think about when I first started promoting books, the way to promote books was actually to have book signings. So I would literally go anywhere, any bookstore, tiny little bookstore in some tiny town in North Carolina. I mean there'd be like five little ladies on a Sunday afternoon and I would still bring my energy, because my belief is, if they showed up for me, I have to give them the same amount of enthusiasm and energy that I would give 500 people. I've had great book signings at libraries, especially in smaller towns, because the library, you know, is a hub of activity in a small town when they might not have as many other options. I've had great book signings at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh because they are, you know, really well-known, established bookstore.

Speaker 2: 18:30

But over the years that has waned because people are buying books on Amazon and so very few people are going to be like, wow, I'd love to see that author, unless you're super famous, I'm going to on a Tuesday night, I'm going to run out to the bookstore and listen to them. So that was a learning curve for me, realizing that. Okay, now I have to figure out other ways to promote my books as well, and it's challenging. There's a lot of books out there and not as many people are reading because there's so many other options to take in information.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Looking at the sort of landscape in the US, sort of being from the UK, I found it a lot to adjust to in terms of how people get their news local news, national news, etc. But one thing I found that's particularly strong is there's a high amount of political beliefs sort of intertwined alongside news. So when you've been reporting over 30 years, be sure to apply to the Boutique shirts. How do you balance impartiality and getting what the news is out there and what to report on, whilst also keeping the beliefs of news stations or news stories or other people involved? How does that balance work out?

Speaker 2: 19:44

Yeah, I mean it's really confusing, I think, to people today because so many of the networks seem to have a slant to them and I think it's hard to parse what is news and what is opinion. And again, this is perfect timing because I just started the semester with my students and that's the class we did on Tuesday. We talked about opinion versus fact and we actually did this quiz. Pew Research Online has a great quiz. It's called opinion versus fact and you can look at it and some of the questions. It takes you a minute to go. Wait a minute. Is that a fact or is that an opinion? Because we're so used to people sharing their opinions.

Speaker 2: 20:25

But what I tell everybody about local news is never, ever can you share your opinion. If you're reporting on something, you have to be incredibly careful to be impartial. I actually go to the links of if I know I have a bias on a certain story, I will bend over backwards to make sure I share the opposite point of view that I have and that when I leave both interviews, I've not left either person with any promises believing that I am on their side. I always joke that if both people are mad at you, let's say there's a very contentious story, then you've probably done your job because you didn't align yourself with one side or the other and you have to have an incredible amount of diplomacy and it's such a great training ground for that journalism is.

Speaker 2: 21:17

But it is so scary today for me. I know when I first started my class last year, the very first writing that a lot of my students did had a lot of opinions in it and I had to really explain to them that, like that's not journalism. And I know it's confusing because you're seeing these people on TV who should be called commentators or political pundits or you know there's so many other things they could be called, but they're calling themselves journalists and that's really not what we do as journalists. What we do as journalists is we give people platforms to share their opinions and we do it in a way that's fair and balanced, to the best of our ability.

Speaker 1: 21:57

I think there's a negative trend here. I mean we were talking about from the capitalist, like the capitalist sort of view, in terms of making money, and you were talking about the importance of social media in a business sort of view. But the trends I'm sort of seeing seems like you are as well, in terms of the new stations going towards a certain political belief. The same people are likely to listen to the same new stations which are going to drive them further away from other people in their beliefs, and then social media is literally an echo chamber of what you like and what you watch, and then they're more likely to show you that sort of thing. So what do you think can be done, moving forward with those sort of two key trends, to sort of navigate the society in the US and beyond away from this catastrophe that's driving people further and further apart?

Speaker 2: 22:41

And you're absolutely right. We're so polarized. What I encourage my students to do, and even people in my life who I feel like are so one sided they haven't really been. They haven't taken the time to understand what people think, that don't think the same way they do, and what I would say is it's really important to understand all angles. And so take the time to look at different news sources. I mean, without revealing myself, I listened to one morning news podcast a day. I read a national news website every day and I look at WRL because I'm partial for local news every day, and then if I'm missing something, if I think, well, I'm not sure that this is exactly right or I don't feel comfortable with that angle, I will then go seek another news source out.

Speaker 2: 23:34

Now, I know that sounds like it takes a lot of time. I will tell you, in our house we watch a lot of BBC, and part of the reason that we do that is we don't see that same bias from that network that we have from others. But again, pop into different news sources, check out different news sources. I don't know, it may be too late for your generation. I feel like the train has left the station. You just have to be thoughtful about what you take in and you have to really think about it. What are your beliefs? How do you feel? Don't have somebody else tell you how to feel and how to think.

Speaker 1: 24:16

Yeah, I still struggle with the concept because I think for a lot of people the impartiality in terms of that's more of an active thing. But I think a lot of people and what's so great about social media is that you don't have to think, you can just keep scrolling or you can just keep listening to a news station. But I am genuinely worried about everyone, including myself, because you know it used to be just flick on the news, what's going on. Today you wouldn't even think about the political ideas, whereas sort of these days it's sort of you're just so deep in this hole so I wonder how that plays out. Hopefully someone fixes that going forward.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Yeah, I mean it used to crack me up when people would say, oh, you guys have an agenda, and I'm like we can't even figure out what to put in the first block of our newscasts and local news. Believe me, we are filling 11 and a half hours of news a day. We are not there. I mean, the agenda is to create stories that people are interested in. That's the agenda. It's a business. So that's the agenda from the top. That's not necessarily the agenda from the journalists, but the reality is is that in local news, I can promise you it is all about putting on stories that people will pay attention to and that will drive people to your newscast. So whatever you're putting on social media is in an effort to get people to watch your newscasts.

Speaker 1: 25:40

What did you find that? The sort of demographics of people that listen to the news? Is it sort of an older crowd or is it sort of distrubes? Quite evenly.

Speaker 2: 25:48

And I don't know specifically. I mean TV stations follow that very closely. I don't have those numbers off the top of my head, but I can tell you absolutely because I've again, pew Research is a great place to look for journalism facts and you can find that online and they say that it's like something like 60 to 70 percent it might that, and that was a couple of years ago, so I think it's probably higher of people get their first news that they are getting every single day and most of it is coming from social media. So for online I shouldn't say social media, so it's coming from online I do ask my students that at the beginning of the school year, you know where, where do you get your news? And when I say TikTok, more people raise their hand than just about anything else. So TikTok, twitter they're not on Facebook as much as my generation is, but Instagram, and I'm sure there's many other platforms that I'm missing, you know, in that list, but most people are getting their news online and then the younger you are, the more likely you are to get it from social media, the people who are sitting and watching the news. I think. I think, like I said before, I think we're looking at a 50 to 55 and up demographic.

Speaker 2: 27:04

So people I mean, I grew up in the 70s sitting on my dad's lap at night watching the news. You know I was so excited to just be able to stay up late and watch the news with my dad and he would sit there I think again this is the 70s with a beer and a cigar. He's going to love that I'm sharing this and three Oreos, and if I was lucky I've gotten an Oreo. But you know so, watching the news is something that you know back when we had three channels I mean, that was, that was all we had. We didn't have the Internet, you know. So people from my generation, but more specifically from my parents' generation, I think they still really like the news. So I think there's still a large portion of people who watch the news, but I think it's it's waning.

Speaker 1: 27:55

What advice would you have for people wanting to get into journalism these days, and do you think that if you were my age, you would pursue the same career path?

Speaker 2: 28:07

Gosh. That's. Those are two really tough questions. Well, I'll start with the advice. So the advice that I would have is it's very exciting, it's very interesting, but the most important thing that you have to have to be a journalist is curiosity, and specifically curiosity about people. So if you are really interested in people and their stories, then it's a really incredible career. You will be on the bandwagon of so many people's triumphs and tragedies and if you are an empathetic person and a good communicator, you will be able to share those in a way that can touch so many people and it's very exciting. I mean, I'm not going to lie, I had a very exciting run as a journalist for 35 years. It's not every single day, maybe not even every other day, but you lived for those moments when it was exciting and your adrenaline is running.

Speaker 2: 29:09

But I would say that if you are not a person that really enjoys people and you have trouble with diplomacy, that probably it's not for you, because it's a challenge today more than ever, and you also have to have a thick skin. You have to have a really thick skin, and this was just when Facebook was just kind of coming into its own. I remember and this over 10 years ago, people would say oh, did you see the Facebook comments on your story? No, because I didn't read them. I just got to a point where I stopped. Now all my feedback is positive. I have great followers on my WRL, facebook as well as my company's page, and they're enthusiastic and they're interested, and my rule of thumb was always if you have constructive criticism, buy all me and share it with me, but if you're going to personally attack me or anybody in my stories, I'm just not going to respond because it's too much negative energy. Okay, what was the second part of the question? Now I've lost it, lost the thread.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Of course, the second part was if you're my age. So I'm 19.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Okay, what would I do? Well, I'm not going to lie, I didn't go into journalism with a lot of thought. So, again, dating myself back in the 80s, there were very linear career paths Again, because we didn't have online, we didn't have so many different types of jobs. It was teacher, doctor, lawyer, business person, journalist. I majored in creative writing at the school that you're currently at, at Duke University, and I thought I was just going to go write books and my parents were like no, you've been in college for four years and we pay for that, so it's time for you to get a job.

Speaker 2: 31:01

I had done an internship at the local TV station in Durham, wtvd, and I really liked it and I thought, you know, this combines a lot of the things that I love. I'm really interested in people, I'm really curious, I'd like to travel, I'd love to write let's give this a go. And I had already grown up in theater, so I kind of had that performance aspect in me. I literally just said let's just try this out. I wasn't, you know, all gung-ho about journalism. So I went to graduate school at Northwestern in Chicago and it was a one-year master's program.

Speaker 2: 31:36

And once I got there and started doing the thing and doing it for myself. You know, I was doing everything shooting, writing, editing I just I just knew, I knew right away that that's what I would do. Would I do it today? So I think it's really hard to answer that because I'm so different right now than I was. You know, when I started in journalism at 22, 23 years old, I think I would, I think I would. I think it combines so many things that I loved and still love, and so you know, it's a great experience in terms of life lessons and, you know, just learning about people in the world around you, learning about yourself. I can't think of many other jobs that feed you as much as being a journalist does in terms of life experience.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Have you got any lessons for listeners, both in terms of like public speaking or in storytelling, for how to dramaticize or make or develop hooks to make listeners more likely to want to listen to a story or learn from you, or how you summarize things in a good manner?

Speaker 2: 32:48

Well, I would say that every good story starts with a person, and that's what I told my class today. If you can find a person that exemplifies whatever it is you're talking about, we use the example we were talking about contaminated water at a water plant. So find a parent whose child has cancer and the parent believes that it was caused by the contaminated water, you tell that story. And in telling that story then you can spread out and tell the larger picture with more details and more facts. Every story has a beginning, middle and end. You have to draw people in. So it doesn't matter how good your facts are, how good your research is, if you don't draw somebody in in the first sentence, in the first paragraph or in the first frame of video, you've lost them, and so you have to figure out what the universal truth is. So in that story, the universal truth would be we all care about having safe water, right, and the story is Joan Smith believes her daughter got cancer because this water was contaminated. You immediately have to draw somebody in. So I think those would be the biggest things that I would say are important in storytelling. But even beyond that, just whether you are writing a story, podcasting, whether you're on TV or whether you're in front of a podium.

Speaker 2: 34:12

I do a lot of public speaking. People can smell in authenticity so easily, in sincerity, and when I was young, a young reporter, I thought I had to sound and act like other reporters I'd seen on TV. So you've probably seen the TV news and you've heard people speak in what I call a cadence Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Back to you. And we all did that when we were young journalists, because that's we grew up, watching traditional network news and that's how they spoke, and so we wanted to be just like them.

Speaker 2: 34:53

But what I learned and I don't know exactly when it happened, when the transformation happened I learned at some point in my career that I just needed to talk to people. I just needed to talk to them to say, hey, here's what's going on. There was a car wreck. You can see all the flashing lights behind me. It's blocked I-40 West. So if you're going to be traveling this way home from work or somewhere else tonight, you really need to avoid this area and then you tell people what you know. This is what we know a tractor, trailer, a car pulled in front of a tractor trailer and then you tell people what you don't know and what you're trying to figure out. We don't know who the driver is, we don't know what their condition is we saw an ambulance at the scene Again, you just tell people the truth and if you are authentic and you are real and you're honest about your reporting, you'll go a very long way. I think that the most important thing is not try to be something you're not.

Speaker 1: 35:52

I mean, even I wanted to know what happened next in that story. But when you're actually doing the job as a reporter, how do you balance finding a good story whilst also producing enough stories on a regular basis? How does that sort of timeline work?

Speaker 2: 36:09

Well, I can tell you how it works in local TV. So I would come in the door at like 9 o'clock 8.30, and I would either have a story idea that I wanted to pursue or, more often, I would be assigned something on my beat. So there's a crime in this town or this neighborhood or whatever. We need you to follow that. Anytime during the day you can be pulled from whatever that is to go to a breaking news story, which happens often. You're almost always on the new news and then you're on it four and then you're on it five and then you may be on it six or seven. So your news hole is three and a half hours. It's the time you have to knock on doors to make to research, to get information is from 12.30 to four o'clock, but really it's smaller because you have to put the story together. So really let's say 12.30 to 2.30. You have two hours.

Speaker 2: 37:08

It's an impossible task and yet reporters do it every single day and they make it look easy and that's the goal. But it's also kind of terrifying because you don't have all the information and you haven't done the research or the investigation. I mean, a lot of times you're going on TV at 12, and you've just been assigned a story at 10.30 in the morning. So it's a lot of turn and burn. And I think by the time I actually came off the street which would have been June of 2022, when I went into podcasting full time I was producing, you know, eight minutes of news a day. So that's everything. I'm getting the story, I'm reporting it, I'm doing the interviews, I'm writing it, I'm putting it together, deciding where the sound goes and everything. My photographer is actually shooting it and editing it. So we're a team, and then I'm reporting it live three to four times a day, every day. So it's an incredible amount of responsibility and incredible amount of work.

Speaker 1: 38:13

I mean, I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like, how I feel, like I get burned out, burnt out very quickly. How do you even begin to deal with the stress, the anxiety and getting stuff done, finding stories?

Speaker 2: 38:29

I haven't written this book yet, but it's going to. When I do write it, it's going to be called Hair on Fire. So basically, you're operating in this heightened sense of chaos all the time. Everything's an emergency. It's really hard to triage. Well, I have to go to a press conference, oh and there's a fire. I mean, clearly the fire is the bigger story, but then you have a producer going. Well, I need that press conference in my show. So you're going to have to do the press conference and do it really quick and then go to the fire.

Speaker 2: 38:58

You know there were always tradeoffs, there were always crises, and you know it starts at. I mean, news is 24-7. I mean it starts early in the morning, it goes to late at night, no matter what your schedule is. You can be called in at night, you can be called in on the weekends. If you have an expertise in an area, you're called constantly to help. Well, I know you're not working, but can you help so and so? Can you connect them with so and so?

Speaker 2: 39:23

I would say it's really not sustainable for a long period of time. It wasn't like that when I first started in the business. I mean when I first started, we just had the six o'clock news and I would just go out and at a quarter of six I'd call my producer, you know, on a landline and say, okay, this is, I'll be on at six and here's what I got. Obviously, it's not like that anymore. It's a lot of communication, constantly, all day long, trying to break news on the web, trying to break news on the air, break into programming if it's a big story. So it's a lot. And you know, I think when I left RAL they were pretty sure I was definitely the longest serving female reporter ever in the history of the company, in terms of somebody who was just a reporter, you know not an anchor, but like a street reporter.

Speaker 2: 40:15

I would venture to say I was the longest reporter serving the company. I don't know of anybody else. I did look back through the archives to try to see and there's a reason for that People just they don't do it for 30 years or 35.

Speaker 1: 40:30

It sounds very inefficient. I mean I haven't worked in it. What sort of changes if you were running it, what sort of changes would you make to make it more sustainable, to make the workflow better, to get the better stories?

Speaker 2: 40:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:45

Is there anything that comes to mind?

Speaker 2: 40:46

Well, I think, ultimately, what's going to happen is maybe more and I, you know I don't have anything to support this, but my own opinion I think we'll move away from shows because I don't know that shows are sustainable. I think we'll move into a format where a crew is out in the field and they are responsible for, you know, on this day, covering breaking news. We already have moved in that direction. We have like an overnight breaking news person and then we have like an afternoon and evening breaking news person and they do all of their own shooting, editing, writing, producing everything. I think we're going to move closer to that when you just literally have roaming news crews and they are popping up on the air when something happens or popping up on the web, because so much of what we do now is stream.

Speaker 2: 41:36

So how do you make that better? I mean, you're never going to have in-depth journalism in local news unless you give space and time for people to do that. We do have, or REL does have, an investigative team, a consumer team, and they do a really nice job of doing some investigative pieces. But in terms of the daily news, it just doesn't exist. It's impossible to fill that much time and really do it with a lot of depth. You just can't, you know. So I don't know what I would change. I mean, I would definitely take off some of the workload because I don't think you want to burn really bright young journalists out too early. You want them to succeed and be able to grow into seasoned journalists. Because if you don't have seasoned journalists in your news organization, you don't have people who have institutional knowledge. You can go back and say, well, when that hurricane came through or when that crime happened or when that law changed, I don't know. I think that takes away from some of your depth.

Speaker 1: 42:45

We touched on this before in terms of the importance of having strong sources. I'd be curious if you've generated any insights or thoughts or tips you've found in how to get the best information out of your sources. Are people usually willing to help? Do people usually want to have their side of the story to get in the news? How does that work? How do you get these sources to give the information that you want to hear to build the best story?

Speaker 2: 43:09

First of all, you have to vet your sources right. You kind of going back to the credibility of a news organization. You don't want to put somebody on TV or in a news story if you don't trust where they're coming from. In other words, if you feel like they're lying for sure if you feel like they're taking a stance that is really over the top. You have to be careful about how you put people in a news story. You want to find somebody that's thoughtful about their point of view, even if you disagree with their point of view. I always tell my students again sorry to keep going back to that, but it's fresh in my mind I always tell my students that everything in business and journalism is about relationships. Right Back in the day when I first started in TV, I could walk into the police station, into the detective division and walk around. I could walk into the backside of the jail where they kept all the mugshots and the fingerprints and I could chat with people and have them search people for me on the computer and look things up. I could walk into the Wake County District Attorney's office and chat with people. Okay, now that's not allowed anymore. Everything is behind lock and key. You have to have an appointment. Everybody's worried about liability.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Your sources are. It's a little bit different to cultivate them. In addition to that, people don't stay in local news markets like they used to, like I did. While I've cultivated sources for decades, a lot of people are here for maybe two, three years. It's hard to cultivate sources in that period of time. But I will say, once somebody's burned, once they feel like, wow, I did this story with so-and-so and it really didn't turn out well. They didn't use the part that I felt like was important. They won't talk to you again. So it's really important to maintain good relationships. When somebody says I'm going to tell you this but you can't report it yet, you have to stick with that. You really have to. Again, it goes back to that sincerity and authenticity. You have to have real honest relationships with people to the point where they feel like they can share stuff with you.

Speaker 1: 45:29

Do you find that most people do want to share stuff with you?

Speaker 2: 45:31

Yes For me. I got to a point in my career having sources of many, many years for people. Did I still have people that will call me or text me or email me and say, hey, I've got a great story or I've got an insight tip. I'm partial. I still share that with WRL and the people that are there that I know.

Speaker 2: 45:58

So, yes, but I do think over the years that waned a little bit because of the fear of how it would be used, because it used to be that if you told me something 15 years ago, it was just going on the news, but if you tell me something now, I mean it could be on the web in five minutes, right, and so I think online and on social media it's exponential. Sharing information now is exponential, and so I think people are much more buttoned up about sharing information. And I would also say the flip side is when somebody's too generous with information and kind of chew over the top, you need to vet that and think about what does that really mean? And is this information that I have good sources on and should I share this, or is it responsible to share? I mean, really we have a responsibility to know that our information is accurate and not just to say, well, that's interesting, let's put it out there.

Speaker 1: 47:04

Yeah, sort of on this point. This sounds like a ludicrous question and I'm not a conspiracy theorist whatsoever I don't even know if this is a word, but a term that I'm going to use is news fogging, Sort of when there's an article being put out or someone's just found something out, when that's suddenly clouded by lots of other stories and information. Have you ever found that when you've had a story, or someone else had a story that you deemed to be really important about a certain issue, about a government organization or something or other, that that quickly they're like you've got to take that down or we would put something else and change the topic to something else? Have you ever noticed anything like that at your station or nearby throughout the time? Or is that not really a thing?

Speaker 2: 47:44

I mean I don't know if that's a thing or not. I can say that we never took a story down unless it was wrong. We didn't take a story down because people disagreed with it. We didn't take a story down because it upset people. If it was accurate, we decided to do the story because we felt like it was an important story. We never took a story down. We won't take a story down. Now you could call and say, well, five years ago you put the story up and now I'm, I have this new life and that story is messing with my life. I mean, if it's accurate, we're not going to take it down.

Speaker 2: 48:21

I did a lot of a lot of trials, so a lot of what feedback I got had to do with, you know, armchair sleuths, if you will, disagreeing with the evidence or, you know, not liking the way a trial was going.

Speaker 2: 48:38

So a lot of discussion about that and then, in more recent years, obviously a lot of conversations about interactions between the community and police and what that looked like. We got so many videos of people being arrested and people saying, well, that arrest wasn't handled properly, and yet we didn't have the context. We didn't know what happened before. You know, we didn't know what the situation was and we would have to quickly try to go through that and you're never going to win on those stories. I mean, there's always a lot of negative feedback on those stories from both sides, so it got more contentious. It got more contentious but we did not back down if we stood by a story, if we put the story out there. I can't think of very many situations, if any, not with my stories, but even just in general where we had taken a story down.

Speaker 1: 49:31

That's a very positive thing to have heard. Not that I was like, not that I've gone down any rabbit holes towards that sort of idea anyways, but now, having having left that world, you've got your own podcast. I've also. This is now my 17th episode. I think I heard a stat Thank you. I think I heard a stat that's something like only like, I'm going to make up a number, something like 15%. It might be a bit higher, but less get past the 20th episode. So that's my threshold, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 50:00

Well, let me, I can tell you, because my board, my white board, is right there. So I have three episodes out, and then I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. I have 12 taped.

Speaker 1: 50:11

So I'm on the way. I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. Watch out.

Speaker 2: 50:16

Watch your back.

Speaker 1: 50:18

My question and sort of thought on that process is there's a few podcasts I've done recently with people that have built multi million, if not billion dollar businesses in saturated industries. For example, a guy who I've referenced multiple times it's called Nick Wheeler built a shirt company called Charles Tirrett. It's done hundreds of millions in sales across the planet. Obviously, shirts are very easy to sort of get and I want to compare that to podcasting, in that there are a lot of podcasts across the world. The likelihood of someone changing to a new podcast, even listening to something like that, is extremely low. So what's your game plan? Why do you think a podcast is a good idea? How are you going to attract new listeners? Is it something worth doing more just for yourself or do you think there is a market for this? Is it expanding market or just getting existing customers?

Speaker 2: 51:07

I have so many thoughts on this, okay, so I'll try to keep it. I'll try to keep it to just a handful. First of all, you are in chapter You're still in chapter one of your life, so you're in the you know, growing up, figuring out who you are phase. Chapter two is like the building your career, maybe building a family phase. And then chapter three is kind of the sweet spot, right when you stop worrying about what everybody else thinks you should do or be and you start thinking about what do I want, what fulfills me and, more importantly, what is my purpose? You know, I'm a mom. My daughters are 20 and 24. So I'm still a mom, obviously, but I've done the heavy lifting, you know, to raise them and they're off on their own, doing their own thing. And so you know I'm now having time to reflect on what brings me joy and what brings me purpose. So doing this show is just a natural extension of that, and I've never done anything for money and everything's always worked out. I know that sounds silly, but, like when I wrote my first book, I literally didn't go oh, I'm going to write a book and make money on it. I just said I just want to write a book. I've always wanted to write books and, to be honest with you, some books I've made money on and some I've made pennies on, so I certainly never did that for money. But I just believe and this is like sounding like something from like a greeting card I believe that if you do what you love and you follow your dreams and your passion in your heart, I just think it's going to work out. So you know, call me, you know hopeless romantic about podcasts.

Speaker 2: 52:51

I really enjoy it, and you know it's what? January. My dog just came in, so it's January 18. And I've already got 15 in the can. So I'm like on the way. If I do one a week, 52 a year, I feel really good about. You know what I'm doing. I'm enjoying it. I'm still doing other things. I'm teaching, I've got a book that I hope to publish soon, another thriller and keeping my eyes open for a true crime as well, because I still think that's something that I enjoy and would love to jump back into.

Speaker 2: 53:30

So I think that you just have to do what you're called to do. Now, when you're younger, you have to be more practical, obviously, because you have to, you know, pay your bills and do all that and then put food on the table and if you have a family, you have to support them. So I understand you can't just be totally Pollyanna, but I do think that when you get to a certain point in life you have more options to really fulfill yourself and follow your passions and not just not worry about what everybody thinks you should be doing. I mean, if I did what everybody thought I should do, I would have been a lawyer. My parents are both lawyers. My dad was a district attorney, which is how I got into crime reporting, because I grew up watching him.

Speaker 2: 54:09

And actually my podcast that I just did my dad is featured prominently in it because he was the district attorney. The show is called the Killing Month, august 1978. So not only did I get to work with my 83-year-old dad on that, but he introduced me to all of the other people involved in the case and they were, you know, willing to talk to me because I was his daughter. So that was a really cool project. But anyway, I just and that just came about they asked me do you have another idea for a podcast? I had a million ideas and that one I said well, this is kind of an interesting one and it turned out to be a great show. So I don't know. I just think you have to really just follow your gut and do what you want to do, and sometimes you throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks.

Speaker 1: 54:56

Would you I'd be curious, with you having daughters sort of similar in age to me, one being a year old and one being five years older than me the advice you'd have for your kids or other young people in that you just mentioned you're now in the third stage of your life and that you don't care about what others think and you're pursuing this podcast out of passion and everything else has sort of worked out. But for people my age and your daughter's age, would you recommend they fully just follow their passions, do that podcast, write that book, do the things you were told not to do? Or is still getting a stable career path, still the path that you think they and I and others should take?

Speaker 2: 55:31

You got to balance it right. So I think that if you can find a job that pays the bills and still also have your passion on the side, I think that's probably the perfect balance for a young person. You know, I see so much pressure, especially on my daughter who's in college. I mean, it's a lot of pressure. She's constantly doing this career networking thing where she's online having, you know, zoom interviews with alumni from her school and I think it's great.

Speaker 2: 56:01

But I also worry about the fact that you guys you all sorry, you guys, as a Philadelphia term are so career focused.

Speaker 2: 56:14

You really should enjoy the journey of college, because college isn't just about getting a job, it's not just about getting a degree, it's not just about learning you know something in a classroom. It's about learning out, learning about who you are and who you want to be in the world and who you're going to be. And so I just I don't want to see college students be so career focused. I know there's always this you've got to get an internship and then that's the internship that's going to lead to the job and all of this, you know. I just think, again, there is there has to be some balance of you know passion and work and kind of knowing yourself Enough and trusting in yourself to believe that it will work out, that if you do follow the thing that you really want to do, it will work out. And you may for a while have to do that thing on the side of another job to be able to pay the bills but you know, if you're really lucky, that passion will take you in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 57:17

It seems that you saw you found your passion pretty early on. How would you recommend that most people go about finding their passions, or is it something you more fall into?

Speaker 2: 57:27

Well, I would say try a lot of things. I mean, even if it's something you don't think you would like, try it. You know one of the things I do a lot I do a lot of fitness, I'm very into yoga, I'm very into running, do some cycling, some hiking, and I'm not particularly good at any of it. But what I've learned in life is that if you are only doing things that you're really good at, then you're probably going to miss some opportunities. And so I didn't do yoga forever, because I said I'm not going to be good at that. I'm not good at balance, I'm an inpatient person, I'm intense, I'm an adrenaline junkie.

Speaker 2: 58:07

Well, I started it about a year ago and actually this week I'm going to get my 250th class. So I just really found that it centered me and gave me peace and space in a way that no other exercise ever had, and so I think that it's important to try a lot of things. So if you don't, if you aren't sure what your passion is, I would say take the job. Take the job. Nothing's forever, you know. Take the job, try it. If it's not for you, stay a respectable amount of time and then move on to something else. But try things on for size and you will eventually find something that you really enjoy and care about.

Speaker 1: 58:51

What's one thing that you want a listener to take away from this podcast, whether about you, something you did or didn't say, and they can take that forward into their lives.

Speaker 2: 59:02

Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of similar to what we just talked about, which is that everybody has the ability to make a change. So, whether that's change your job, change your location, you can move. Change your group of friends, change you know your fitness level. Let's say you're like I've always wanted to climb a mountain. You know you can do that. I've done a lot of half marathons and only one whole marathon, and I ask people sometimes when I do speeches, I say what is your marathon? Another word is you don't have to be a runner, you don't have to be a mountain climber, you don't have to jump out of a plane. I mean, you can find the thing that stokes your fire and I would just encourage people to do that.

Speaker 2: 59:56

I was a caregiver to my mother in 2012. She had a malignant brain tumor and the further away from it. Sometimes I forget the lessons, but the lessons that I did learn was that you know no guarantees, so don't wait, Don't do it tomorrow. If there's something that you really want to do, figure out a way to do it. You know, figure out a way to do it because you can change, you can transform. Human beings are incredibly flexible and sometimes we get so stuck, you know, we get so mired, and well, this is the linear path, this is what I should be doing, this is what everybody thinks I should do, instead of just saying you know what I'm going to try this. So that's what I would encourage people to be open to change and to look for opportunities for change.

Speaker 1: 1:00:45

Wow, thank you for that incredible advice. It's been hugely fascinating to learn from you today and I knew, when I initially was putting to contact you with you, that I knew you'd be an amazing guest, because I think there's lots of different news reporters around the world, but I think you've got a very unique perspective in not only reporting in a great manner, but also in writing not one, not two, not three, but a huge number of books in the podcasting world, generating incredible stories that have won awards, and now also becoming an independent podcaster and truly following your gut. Yeah, I'm curious on a lot of things moving forward the shape of the news. I hope that there's more verification and fact checks. Not sure how that's going to play out in the social media realm, but we shall see, and I'm excited for both your and my podcast to see if anything. Hopefully something does come off of the both of them. But thank you again. I hope we can stay in contact. Moving forward.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

Absolutely Thank you, and I think what you're doing is fantastic. Just the fact that you're doing it at your age is going to open you up to so many new ideas, so many opportunities, and at the same time, you're sharing those with the whole audience of, hopefully, a lot of young people who will also learn from it, and I think that goes to you for what you're doing. I think it's awesome.