Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / How Would News Be Different If More Women Were Informing It with Jessica Yellin (PRETTY POLITICAL)

Transcript

How Would News Be Different If More Women Were Informing It with Jessica Yellin (PRETTY POLITICAL) · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:00
Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
0:03
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Deborah Messing and I am and Donna Diani.
0:06
Speaker 3: We decided to create a podcast to introduce you to
0:09
Speaker 3: the people who inspire us most. These are the dissenters,
0:13
Speaker 3: the people who just made a decision one day to
0:15
Speaker 3: break down the establishment and build a new one.
0:17
Speaker 2: In the greatest times of grief or even the most
0:19
Speaker 2: ordinary of circumstances, many heroes will rise. You just have
0:23
Speaker 2: to take that first step, So please tune in. We
0:26
Speaker 2: can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts.
0:29
Speaker 4: There are heroes everywhere. Discover them, become one.
0:46
Speaker 5: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:50
Speaker 5: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:54
Speaker 5: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:59
Speaker 5: This is pretty smart. Here's an old saying. If you
1:04
Speaker 5: want better answers, ask better questions. Jessica Yellen not only
1:08
Speaker 5: knows how to do this, she's an expert at it.
1:10
Speaker 1: My lane is informing people, which I think makes them
1:14
Speaker 1: feel confident and empowered and then they can act.
1:17
Speaker 5: As a former CNN White House correspondent, founder of the
1:20
Speaker 5: social media brand News Not Noise and author of Savage News,
1:24
Speaker 5: Jessica has made a career of asking the tough questions
1:27
Speaker 5: and tracking down the truthful answers. Jessica, I'm so happy
1:32
Speaker 5: you're here with us.
1:32
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I'm so flattered by that intro.
1:35
Speaker 1: Thank you.
1:35
Speaker 5: Oh no, it's almost embarrassing. I'm sort of a fan
1:38
Speaker 5: Jessica the album fan Girl. So I'm really excited. But
1:42
Speaker 5: it's about nine point thirty right now. Is this an
1:44
Speaker 5: early start or a late start for you? Oh?
1:46
Speaker 1: This is a late start.
1:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, Okay, So what's your morning? Usually?
1:48
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, I wake up and I look through
1:51
Speaker 1: all the news that I can possibly consume, right, and
1:54
Speaker 1: then there's a lot of emails, and there's a lot
1:56
Speaker 1: of asking other people what they think the story of
1:58
Speaker 1: the day is. Because I'm a news brand on my
2:01
Speaker 1: own interesting and so I need to create my own
2:04
Speaker 1: editorial meeting through personal relationships.
2:07
Speaker 5: Okay, So we have to back up because you've lived
2:09
Speaker 5: a few lives. So you were at Harvard. Take me
2:13
Speaker 5: back to your senior year. You're about to graduate.
2:15
Speaker 1: What do you wanhow college? I guess I was thinking
2:19
Speaker 1: what do I want for my life? And I grew
2:23
Speaker 1: up in a do well, do good family. It wasn't
2:25
Speaker 1: enough to just crush it professionally. You had to make
2:27
Speaker 1: a contribution. And I actually thought I'd go to New
2:30
Speaker 1: York and be a writer. But I got this opportunity
2:33
Speaker 1: to intern in the Clinton white House, and it was
2:36
Speaker 1: this drama and stress about whether I should do that
2:39
Speaker 1: or be a writer. And my family thought I should
2:43
Speaker 1: go to the White House and I wanted to do
2:46
Speaker 1: the writing thing. And the person I was going to
2:48
Speaker 1: work for as a writer said, no, you should go
2:50
Speaker 1: to the White House. That's once in a lifetime.
2:52
Speaker 5: So I did. Yeah, and that was a great experience.
2:54
Speaker 1: It was amazing. It actually drove me back to journalism though.
2:58
Speaker 5: Wow, well I explained.
3:00
Speaker 1: So I worked at the Clint White House as an
3:01
Speaker 1: intern and then as a whatever, an intern, then a staffer,
3:05
Speaker 1: and the one thing I observed was that there was
3:08
Speaker 1: always there were two things that could stop the room
3:10
Speaker 1: cold in the West Wing. One was the President walking
3:13
Speaker 1: in and the other was the one TV that hung
3:16
Speaker 1: in the corner of the room. Remember, back in those
3:18
Speaker 1: days was huge TV and there was only one twenty
3:21
Speaker 1: four hour cable channel, it was CNN, and whenever that
3:24
Speaker 1: TV was talking about the White House. Everyone would stop
3:26
Speaker 1: and listen, and I thought, they have a lot of
3:28
Speaker 1: influence over what happens inside, and they're chasing too much scandal.
3:33
Speaker 1: I want to do it differently. I want to focus
3:35
Speaker 1: on policy. So I thought, oh, I can be in
3:37
Speaker 1: there and do it and do it differently.
3:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, So you are an intern and then a staffer,
3:42
Speaker 5: and then how do you segue into journalism?
3:44
Speaker 1: So I had some like agency role there. I realized
3:48
Speaker 1: how much influence TV had and the journalists had, and
3:52
Speaker 1: I thought, I just it looked important and fun to
3:57
Speaker 1: be a reporter, and so I decided totally right minus Superman. Yeah,
4:03
Speaker 1: we're always waiting. So I decided to just give it
4:06
Speaker 1: a go. And I got a job as an editor
4:08
Speaker 1: at the front of the book for Los Angeles magazine.
4:10
Speaker 1: You know, go home to your roots and from LA
4:12
Speaker 1: So I did that, and then somebody said to me, oh,
4:15
Speaker 1: TV's the future. So I made a fake tape and
4:20
Speaker 1: I do what you know people who want to be
4:22
Speaker 1: reporters do. I shopped it around to local channels and
4:25
Speaker 1: ultimately ended up in Orlando at Central Florida News thirteen,
4:29
Speaker 1: which is a twenty four hour cable channel and I
4:32
Speaker 1: was a one man band reporter. I carried my own camera.
4:34
Speaker 1: I did all, you know, report, edit, shoot, produce, do
4:39
Speaker 1: the stand up all.
4:40
Speaker 5: What was your least favorite part carrying the camera?
4:42
Speaker 1: Carrying the camera too, I mean, because cameras today are
4:44
Speaker 1: itty bitty. Back then they were like twenty five pounds.
4:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're little. They weigh as much as we did.
4:49
Speaker 1: Totally. I had the worst back problems as a result.
4:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, so you're in Orlando, and then where do
4:53
Speaker 5: you go?
4:54
Speaker 1: From Orlando? I went to Tampa, which was a huge market,
4:57
Speaker 1: leap right and camera person and edit and I learned
5:02
Speaker 1: so much there and I always said I want to
5:05
Speaker 1: be the political reporter. And I ended up covering democratic
5:09
Speaker 1: election in the year two thousand in Tallahassee, which is
5:11
Speaker 1: when the recount happened.
5:13
Speaker 5: That's fascinating.
5:14
Speaker 1: So I ended up covering the recount from Tallahassee in
5:17
Speaker 1: the year two thousand with all the major political reporters
5:20
Speaker 1: I'd admired my whole life who flew into Tallahassee. And
5:23
Speaker 1: for me, that was a really important experience because I
5:25
Speaker 1: realized I'm standing next to national political reporters and I
5:30
Speaker 1: can do this, like, I realized I can do this,
5:33
Speaker 1: and from there I went to MSNBC did the overnights.
5:38
Speaker 5: How do you make that leap, because that's a big
5:39
Speaker 5: jump from local to national.
5:41
Speaker 1: I had an agent who helped. His name is Rick Rammage.
5:44
Speaker 1: He's still in the business, and he really he helped
5:47
Speaker 1: me land that job. They auditioned me to be the
5:50
Speaker 1: overnight anchor was stressful. You know, you had to practice
5:53
Speaker 1: what if a teleprompter goes down and you have to
5:55
Speaker 1: go live. So I did the overnights at MS and
5:57
Speaker 1: then I moved to ABC News, where I did overnights
6:00
Speaker 1: on the weekend and Good Morning America during the week.
6:02
Speaker 1: And at every turn I would tell management I want
6:05
Speaker 1: to be White House correspondent in every place I worked,
6:07
Speaker 1: Tampa or Land or wherever, and they'd be like, Okay,
6:10
Speaker 1: that's cool, but go do this story on a hurricane
6:13
Speaker 1: or whatever. I think that's interesting.
6:14
Speaker 5: So you are of the camp of like let people
6:17
Speaker 5: know your ambitions. Yep, okay.
6:19
Speaker 1: My advice always is to let your management know what
6:23
Speaker 1: you want and then do what they ask, as long
6:25
Speaker 1: as it aligns with your integrity. I mean, if it's
6:27
Speaker 1: outside of your principles you have to make a different choice,
6:30
Speaker 1: but don't you haven't you have a goal, but you
6:33
Speaker 1: have to earn your way there. And so I would
6:36
Speaker 1: cover some you know, tabloid murder. Come back and they'd go,
6:39
Speaker 1: how did that go? You did a great job. I'd say,
6:41
Speaker 1: thank you. I still want to be White House correspondent, right,
6:43
Speaker 1: And eventually there is an opening at the White House
6:46
Speaker 1: and they're like, my assumption is they all thought, oh
6:48
Speaker 1: my god, Yellen will not stop about how she wants
6:51
Speaker 1: to go there, Like, don't get excited, this isn't your job,
6:54
Speaker 1: but we're going to put you there for a minute.
6:56
Speaker 1: Would you go to Washington? And so I went, and
6:58
Speaker 1: then a week became a month, the month became five,
7:01
Speaker 1: et cetera. Awesome and then what happened? So I ended
7:05
Speaker 1: up covering the Bush White House in the second term.
7:09
Speaker 1: And then from there I went to CNN and I
7:12
Speaker 1: was congressional correspondent and national political correspondent. They gave me,
7:17
Speaker 1: you know, I was brand new at CNN when I
7:20
Speaker 1: right before the two thousand and eight election, and they
7:22
Speaker 1: basically said, listen, we're going to give you a shot
7:25
Speaker 1: at covering the campaign, but your news you're not going
7:28
Speaker 1: to get one of the massive candidates. You're going to
7:30
Speaker 1: get a younger candidate who might not last that long,
7:33
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. It's such good luck, right, Yeah. So I
7:38
Speaker 1: ended up covering Obama from I guess December of two
7:41
Speaker 1: thousand and seven through the election and on, and it
7:43
Speaker 1: was amazing.
7:44
Speaker 5: What was your biggest takeaway in hindsight from that time
7:48
Speaker 5: covering Obama?
7:49
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just a fascinating like to sort
7:51
Speaker 1: of trust your instincts, you know, in Iowa. I watched
7:54
Speaker 1: what happened, which was this growing excitement around him, and
7:58
Speaker 1: there was a lot of belief in the political world like, oh,
8:01
Speaker 1: it's just a flash in the pan or people and
8:04
Speaker 1: I would get excited or don't attribute this doesn't mean much.
8:08
Speaker 1: We can't forget that.
8:08
Speaker 5: That's a good point. Okay. So CNN in two thousand
8:12
Speaker 5: and seven, you're the network senior political correspondent.
8:14
Speaker 1: I think I was congressional correspondent.
8:16
Speaker 5: The we're congressional Okay.
8:17
Speaker 1: After the two thousand and eight election, I was national
8:19
Speaker 1: political correspondent. Twenty eleven, I became chief White House.
8:22
Speaker 5: Correspondent, and then in twenty thirteen you're again promoted and
8:27
Speaker 5: you decide to leave two months later. Yes, that's fascinating
8:31
Speaker 5: to me. You have to expand I.
8:32
Speaker 1: Just felt like I'd had an opportunity to do the
8:35
Speaker 1: things I'd come to do. I wanted to cover the
8:37
Speaker 1: White House, and I had this instinct the whole time
8:40
Speaker 1: that there's another way to tell the news. You had
8:42
Speaker 1: that back then, Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm doing this,
8:45
Speaker 1: because I would leave the building and you'd go out
8:48
Speaker 1: in the field and you'd talk to voters and you'd
8:50
Speaker 1: talk to citizens, and they weren't asking like Congress did this,
8:55
Speaker 1: but the White House said that what do you make
8:56
Speaker 1: of it? They're asking does a ron have a bomb
8:59
Speaker 1: or not?
9:00
Speaker 5: Right, much more preliminary questions.
9:03
Speaker 1: It's both like break it down for me and what
9:05
Speaker 1: does this mean? And I felt like and a lot
9:09
Speaker 1: of people would say to me, oh, I can't listen
9:10
Speaker 1: to all the yelling, But that was in a different era.
9:13
Speaker 1: I had this instinct that there was too much outrage
9:16
Speaker 1: in the news then, and I mean that was before now.
9:20
Speaker 1: I think people are living in a state of such
9:21
Speaker 1: high anxiety in general, that all the yelling and the
9:24
Speaker 1: outrage that we get in some of the news really
9:26
Speaker 1: turns off a segment of the audience. Yeah, and so
9:29
Speaker 1: that segment of the audience is craving news told differently.
9:33
Speaker 5: Did you face burnout at all? Was that part of it? Yeah?
9:37
Speaker 1: I would say I had three blackberries in no life.
9:41
Speaker 5: That's horrible.
9:42
Speaker 1: And I would be on dates or dinners and you'd
9:44
Speaker 1: get a thing and you'd be like, oh, I'm so sorry,
9:46
Speaker 1: I just have to do this, And then the next
9:48
Speaker 1: thing you know, it's like fifteen minutes later and you're
9:50
Speaker 1: still messaging people and calling and stepping out, and you're
9:52
Speaker 1: just the person you're with is and doesn't want that right, right,
9:56
Speaker 1: And you become a shell too.
9:58
Speaker 5: You start to not recognize your soul.
10:00
Speaker 1: Well, you're always I just lived inside the machine, right,
10:04
Speaker 1: the BlackBerry, the thing, and you're on the story and
10:07
Speaker 1: it's exhilarating. But I also feel like there's a point
10:11
Speaker 1: in your life you have to make. Do I need
10:12
Speaker 1: to shift how I'm engaging?
10:15
Speaker 5: So you mentioned like dates and friends. How did you
10:18
Speaker 5: balance or did you balance having a personal life at all?
10:21
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things in DC is you
10:23
Speaker 1: For me at least, I lived in a circle of
10:25
Speaker 1: people who are also on the high speed train, right
10:29
Speaker 1: we're all in this bubble together, and so that universe
10:33
Speaker 1: of people understands that you got to go, but.
10:36
Speaker 5: You can't really date outside of that.
10:39
Speaker 1: It's very it's very challenging, and I never met I
10:43
Speaker 1: didn't really meet people outside that because for a million reasons,
10:47
Speaker 1: because you're always on and you know, you don't want
10:49
Speaker 1: to be too exposed, you don't take risks and meeting
10:51
Speaker 1: you people whatever. It's a very it's a specific lettle there.
10:57
Speaker 5: What was the most exciting part of that time of life?
11:00
Speaker 1: I mean, first, this sounds cliche, but it is such
11:03
Speaker 1: an honor to be able to engage with the White
11:06
Speaker 1: House in this way. And I always felt an obligation
11:10
Speaker 1: like I'm here to represent I mean, the voice of
11:13
Speaker 1: the people in a way, and that hills.
11:16
Speaker 5: It's not corny to me think there's a huge amount
11:18
Speaker 5: of integrity that goes with that.
11:20
Speaker 1: There should be, it's important that there is, And I mean,
11:23
Speaker 1: I think it was a different era then. I think.
11:26
Speaker 1: I'd say I used to get frustrated with how much
11:28
Speaker 1: spin and how withholding I thought the Bush and Obama
11:32
Speaker 1: white Houses were. That was a whole different universe where
11:35
Speaker 1: they respected what we do. You know, and we were
11:39
Speaker 1: just jousting.
11:40
Speaker 5: Your time as a political correspondent, is there a valuable
11:43
Speaker 5: lesson that you learned that transferred to your personal life?
11:46
Speaker 1: Speak up for what you want right, No, once like,
11:49
Speaker 1: spend time knowing what you want and once you know
11:51
Speaker 1: say it and then you know, accommodate people and do its.
11:54
Speaker 1: Ask The other I guess is to sort of have
11:58
Speaker 1: integrity and trust your instincts. I mean a lot of
12:00
Speaker 1: reporting is having an instinct and then testing that against reality,
12:05
Speaker 1: and that applies to your personal life too.
12:08
Speaker 5: I saw an interesting statistic it said that sixty percent
12:11
Speaker 5: of online news is written by men, and of course
12:13
Speaker 5: most major news network presidents are men. How do you
12:16
Speaker 5: think the news would be covered differently if more women
12:18
Speaker 5: were informing it?
12:20
Speaker 1: So this is an opinion. There's social science research on this,
12:24
Speaker 1: and the research shows that when women cover the news,
12:28
Speaker 1: when women are making senior participants in making editorial judgments,
12:33
Speaker 1: the focus shifts away from competition in rhetoric sort of
12:38
Speaker 1: broad jousting, to a human focus. So how does this
12:43
Speaker 1: impact an individual? And when you have women running newsrooms,
12:47
Speaker 1: you have a larger female audience. It's not like they're
12:51
Speaker 1: designing it to be Femi. It's just this shift to
12:56
Speaker 1: bringing the human piece in engages women more. Now I
12:59
Speaker 1: have a further insight, which isn't proven in the social science,
13:03
Speaker 1: which is that it's conventional wisdom in the news business
13:05
Speaker 1: that women readers aren't that interested in politics are international affairs.
13:09
Speaker 1: They like features, and they like human stories, which are lighter,
13:14
Speaker 1: and so there's this assumption women want light stories. My
13:17
Speaker 1: belief is that if we made politics and international relations
13:20
Speaker 1: were human centered, if we talk to you about how
13:23
Speaker 1: this thing happening in Washington impacts your life, that would
13:27
Speaker 1: engage more women.
13:28
Speaker 5: I thought that would engage more people in general.
13:30
Speaker 1: Right, Well, so this was such a good point. This
13:33
Speaker 1: was my theory. And actually, now that I'm doing it
13:35
Speaker 1: on Instagram, I'm learning and we've done surveys. It engages
13:39
Speaker 1: women who are adult over thirty five and millennials and
13:43
Speaker 1: below of both genders. Wow, so next generation, your generation,
13:48
Speaker 1: it's both genders who want stuff told that way.
13:50
Speaker 5: It's your online platform must give you such interesting insight
13:54
Speaker 5: because you have analytics to back it up.
13:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do have some access. I mean the best
13:58
Speaker 1: part of it is a report and I hear immediately
14:01
Speaker 1: from the audience because they DM me and say tell
14:04
Speaker 1: me more about this, or what did that mean? Or
14:06
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, So you know, I never had that before.
14:09
Speaker 5: It's a feedback loop.
14:10
Speaker 1: I love it. That's cool.
14:12
Speaker 5: So I'm so energized by your career metamorphosis because.
14:16
Speaker 1: It's so scary to leap.
14:18
Speaker 5: And it's interesting that you had those instincts back in
14:20
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen. What happened between twenty thirteen and your launch
14:24
Speaker 5: of News not Noise?
14:25
Speaker 1: So I always wanted to write a novel. Like if
14:27
Speaker 1: you were asked me when I was a little kid
14:29
Speaker 1: what I'll do when I grow up, I said I'd
14:30
Speaker 1: be a novelist, right, not a reporter? And so I
14:33
Speaker 1: wrote a novel. Can we show It's so?
14:35
Speaker 5: I love the cover read it's clearly yourself.
14:39
Speaker 1: Savage News and it's such a good name. Thank you.
14:42
Speaker 1: So it's about a reporter named Natalie Savage and she's
14:47
Speaker 1: always wanted to cover the White House because she thought
14:49
Speaker 1: she could make a difference, And she gets a shot
14:52
Speaker 1: at the job at her cable news channel just as
14:54
Speaker 1: the first Lady disappears, and so she gets to cover
14:58
Speaker 1: that story, but her management sets her up in a
15:00
Speaker 1: competition with another reporter to cover the story, and whoever
15:04
Speaker 1: gets the highest ratings wins the job. Wow, it's a satire.
15:08
Speaker 1: It's like over the top. It's based on some experiences.
15:11
Speaker 1: I had some experiences, my friends had some stories that
15:14
Speaker 1: we've all heard and then amplified. So there's no one
15:18
Speaker 1: to one, nobody's this person's that. It's just a picture,
15:22
Speaker 1: a snapshot.
15:23
Speaker 5: Jef Zucker doesn't have a character, no one to one.
15:27
Speaker 5: So when you say the person who gets the highest
15:31
Speaker 5: ratings wins, I think that's interesting, especially in a twenty
15:33
Speaker 5: four hour news cycle. If we segue back to real life,
15:36
Speaker 5: was there a time where you ever felt like you
15:38
Speaker 5: had to trade in on your integrity for ratings?
15:41
Speaker 1: Is that something you dealt with, I mean all the
15:43
Speaker 1: time every day. I think that's what everybody deals with
15:45
Speaker 1: at work, Like what do I do that feels right?
15:48
Speaker 1: But what do I have to do to satisfy the
15:50
Speaker 1: demands of the job and the environment and making that
15:53
Speaker 1: compromise right? And so you make choices all the time
15:57
Speaker 1: about how do I tell this story in a way
16:00
Speaker 1: that will maximize viewership or at least I mean, there's
16:05
Speaker 1: these assumptions in the business about what gets eyeballs, and
16:08
Speaker 1: so you make the stories in that way, which is conflict, drama, intensity,
16:13
Speaker 1: all of that.
16:14
Speaker 5: I'm always wondering lately if like, who decided that that
16:17
Speaker 5: gets eyeballs?
16:18
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it goes back to what worked early,
16:21
Speaker 1: and then people walk onto that and assume it's the
16:23
Speaker 1: way it is. There's a scene in the book where
16:26
Speaker 1: the whole Washington DC bureau freaks out because the breaking
16:29
Speaker 1: news banner has crashed, and they're like, how could we
16:31
Speaker 1: be live on air without the words breaking news on screen?
16:35
Speaker 1: So they all rush into the control rooms to try
16:36
Speaker 1: to summon the words like that never really happened, but
16:41
Speaker 1: it's a story about the pressures and the expectations and
16:45
Speaker 1: what goes on. There's also a scene where she's at
16:49
Speaker 1: the White House and her boss calls her in angry
16:52
Speaker 1: and she thinks, Oh, I'm in trouble for the question
16:54
Speaker 1: I asked, And actually she's in trouble for the way
16:57
Speaker 1: her hair looked on air, and management wants to talk
17:00
Speaker 1: to her about her hair. That for sure is a
17:01
Speaker 1: one to one, right that the story? Those are real stories.
17:05
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it's such a big thing in news. It's
17:07
Speaker 5: so frustrating for women.
17:09
Speaker 1: Yes, I said, you cannot exaggerate the importance of hair
17:13
Speaker 1: to white house coverage in somebody's places.
17:16
Speaker 5: If there was an actress that was going to play
17:18
Speaker 5: the main character in a movie of your book.
17:20
Speaker 1: Who would it be, Oh my gosh, I don't know.
17:22
Speaker 1: There's so many. It has to be someone smart, but
17:25
Speaker 1: who's cute, and so they underrate her intelligence kind of like.
17:29
Speaker 5: A Natalie Portman.
17:30
Speaker 1: That'd be amazing. Yeah, Natalie Portman, Marco Roby hath Away.
17:35
Speaker 5: Oh, that'd be a good one.
17:36
Speaker 1: Anna Kendrick. Yeah, I don't want it, like I don't
17:39
Speaker 1: want to eliminate options. Yeah, any actress who's interested.
17:43
Speaker 5: Okay, cool, Are we thinking of optioning this?
17:46
Speaker 1: Oh for sure?
17:46
Speaker 5: Awesome. What were some of the alternate titles?
17:49
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good question. Okay, this was the title.
17:52
Speaker 1: But it's too depressing inside I die a little. Oh wow,
17:56
Speaker 1: that was super polarizing. Some people loved it. I love it,
17:59
Speaker 1: and some people like people injured. This is one of
18:01
Speaker 1: the things I found is that journalists who read the
18:04
Speaker 1: book are like, oh my god, it's so real, and
18:07
Speaker 1: then not journalists who read the book think, oh my god,
18:10
Speaker 1: that's so over the top really. Oh yeah, the stories,
18:14
Speaker 1: Like in the process of it getting edited and writing it,
18:18
Speaker 1: outside readers who gave me feedback would circle things and
18:21
Speaker 1: be like this seems over the top or implausible, And
18:25
Speaker 1: those are the things that happen all the time.
18:27
Speaker 5: You're like, this actually happened.
18:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I get notes and messages now from reporters
18:32
Speaker 1: who are reading it like, oh my god, this happened
18:34
Speaker 1: to me, that's fantastic. But outside the circle of journalists
18:38
Speaker 1: it just seems absurd.
18:40
Speaker 5: You are now an influencer. That's so weird.
18:42
Speaker 1: It's true.
18:43
Speaker 5: You have over four hundred and eighty two thousand followers
18:46
Speaker 5: on Instagram.
18:47
Speaker 1: I know, it's weird. It's a lot of pressure, right,
18:50
Speaker 1: I don't know. It feels exciting, Like to me, the
18:54
Speaker 1: content stuff is so fun. The audience stuff is so fun.
18:57
Speaker 1: And to try to evaluate like, oh look, this works
19:00
Speaker 1: the audience why. I mean, one of the learnings I've
19:03
Speaker 1: had is people actually want the more the more you're
19:07
Speaker 1: giving real information the stuff we talk. The more you
19:09
Speaker 1: give real information that impacts their lives, and more people engage.
19:12
Speaker 5: Yep, it's true. You're also I didn't this was cool.
19:15
Speaker 5: One of the most influential women in Washington. You were boys,
19:18
Speaker 5: so you've been an influencer for a while in different arenas.
19:21
Speaker 5: So I feel like at the beginning you mentioned do
19:24
Speaker 5: well and do good. Was purpose always infused in you
19:28
Speaker 5: or did you find it through work?
19:31
Speaker 1: Oh? I mean I grew up in a household where
19:33
Speaker 1: purpose was the purpose, like you had to make a difference.
19:38
Speaker 1: My family was super involved in community service. My parents
19:42
Speaker 1: had events at the house all the time. My dad
19:45
Speaker 1: helped found Public Counsel, which is a pro bono law
19:49
Speaker 1: firm that serves indigent people. He was super involved in,
19:54
Speaker 1: you know, civil rights issues. My mom was super involved
19:58
Speaker 1: in like women's rights issues. I just it was there
20:01
Speaker 1: is no other way. It's sort of a blessing and occurs.
20:04
Speaker 5: Sometimes it comes with a lot of angst because you're
20:08
Speaker 5: always pushing forward.
20:09
Speaker 1: You feel that. Yeah, I mean it's hard and large
20:13
Speaker 1: institutions because you're supposed to do what you're supposed to do,
20:17
Speaker 1: and if you feel a calling, you have to decide
20:18
Speaker 1: does it match and where's the where's your lane? Yeah?
20:23
Speaker 1: And for me, like my lane is informing people. I
20:27
Speaker 1: want to help people feel informed, which I think makes
20:30
Speaker 1: them feel confident and empowered, and then they can act,
20:34
Speaker 1: and they can act how they choose. I'm not saying
20:37
Speaker 1: right or left for this person, or vote for that person.
20:40
Speaker 1: I just want people to feel like they have the
20:42
Speaker 1: information so that they know that they're smart enough to
20:45
Speaker 1: make choices.
20:46
Speaker 5: I wrote this down. I thought this applied so much
20:49
Speaker 5: to what you just said. In twenty twelve, a former
20:51
Speaker 5: Supreme Court justice spoke at UNH Law School and he
20:55
Speaker 5: basically predicted the twenty sixteen election. He used a Benjamin
20:58
Speaker 5: Franklin quote and said, an ignorant people can never remain
21:01
Speaker 5: a free people. And he noticed that in schools, in
21:05
Speaker 5: education and growing up, people do not know how the
21:08
Speaker 5: political process works. They don't know anything about government is
21:12
Speaker 5: it seems like that's the essence of what you're.
21:14
Speaker 1: Trying to correct. How do you so get it? I
21:16
Speaker 1: feel so in line with what you're doing. I so
21:19
Speaker 1: it's two things. One is I want to give people
21:21
Speaker 1: the basic information on all sorts of stories, environment, teachers, healthcare.
21:26
Speaker 1: I also want to help them understand how government works.
21:29
Speaker 1: Because it's so distant and it seems so impenetrable. People
21:35
Speaker 1: feel as though you have to have, you know, like
21:38
Speaker 1: a physicist, mental capacity or like knowledge in order to
21:41
Speaker 1: penetrate it. No, somebody just needs to explain it to
21:44
Speaker 1: you clearly. And so sometimes one of the most frequent
21:48
Speaker 1: questions I get is during some of the latest constitutional
21:51
Speaker 1: crisis stuff, is isn't this typical Washington? Or does this
21:56
Speaker 1: happen always in Washington? That means that there's such cynicism
22:00
Speaker 1: about politics, there's so much jaded perspective on what goes
22:05
Speaker 1: on in our government.
22:06
Speaker 5: Is there a moment with news not noise that you
22:08
Speaker 5: felt really just took it to another level?
22:11
Speaker 1: Was there a story that did it? Yeah? So I
22:15
Speaker 1: just did a post on the measles and I was
22:18
Speaker 1: really nervous because when you talk about vaccination and anti vaccination,
22:22
Speaker 1: people get crazily passionate and angry, and I thought I
22:27
Speaker 1: could lose a lot of followers from that. But I
22:30
Speaker 1: thought about it and I was like, it's the news
22:32
Speaker 1: I have to post, and I was so gratified by
22:35
Speaker 1: what came out of it, which is this incredible conversation
22:38
Speaker 1: between medical professionals and parents explaining why they are for
22:44
Speaker 1: it in detail, referring to four vaccines in detail, referring
22:48
Speaker 1: to studies, and why other side is against it and
22:50
Speaker 1: referring to their experiences and saying, this is a space,
22:54
Speaker 1: this Instagram page is a space for respect and calm.
22:57
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to be mean to you. And
23:00
Speaker 1: somebody would write a nasty thing, and somebody else would
23:02
Speaker 1: write back at Jessica Yellen's page, we don't do that.
23:04
Speaker 5: Wow, So your followers are sticking up for you.
23:06
Speaker 1: It was awesome, and so they just sort of moderated
23:10
Speaker 1: their own discussion. And what it showed me is there
23:12
Speaker 1: is a craving, even on the most polarized issues, there's
23:16
Speaker 1: a craving for places where people can engage without hostility,
23:21
Speaker 1: without cruelty, and just have a conversation. Yeah.
23:24
Speaker 5: So, what do you feel has been the biggest risk
23:27
Speaker 5: that you've taken.
23:30
Speaker 1: Moving to Orlando when I was twenty eight to start
23:33
Speaker 1: in TV news and then leaving TV news after putting
23:37
Speaker 1: so many years into it.
23:39
Speaker 5: I can't I feel nauseous thinking about you making that move.
23:43
Speaker 5: It's so gutsy.
23:45
Speaker 1: One of my colleagues and somebody I look up to
23:48
Speaker 1: said to me at the time, leap and the net
23:51
Speaker 1: will appear.
23:52
Speaker 5: I love that. What's been the lesson that has taken
23:55
Speaker 5: you the longest to learn.
23:57
Speaker 1: Do you know I'm still learning. I'm still learning to
24:01
Speaker 1: advocate for myself. Like around the book tour, I've had
24:03
Speaker 1: to ask people for favors. I've had to ask people
24:06
Speaker 1: will you have me on or interview like whatever. It's
24:09
Speaker 1: still so hard for me. It's such a girl thing, right.
24:12
Speaker 5: Thank you for admitting that, because to me on the outside,
24:15
Speaker 5: it's like you are so practiced at using your voice,
24:18
Speaker 5: and so to know that you still struggle with it.
24:20
Speaker 1: Is It's easy when I'm talking about an issue like
24:23
Speaker 1: I think the news is the news, I'm not the news.
24:25
Speaker 1: And when you're doing a book tour, even Instagram, there's
24:28
Speaker 1: a piece of it that's about making yourself part of
24:31
Speaker 1: the story. And for me that I'm embarrassed and uncomfortable
24:35
Speaker 1: with it, and so I sometimes don't push hard enough
24:38
Speaker 1: and I need to learn to do that and I'm learning.
24:41
Speaker 5: Okay, I must follow Instagram account.
24:43
Speaker 1: I can't pick just one. I have to say Amy
24:45
Speaker 1: Schumer because she is the reason that News Not Noise
24:48
Speaker 1: took off. She announced her pregnancy on News Not Noise
24:51
Speaker 1: and she's an amazing support of other women. Jessica Seinfeld the same.
24:55
Speaker 1: I also follow for mental peace because I think that's
24:58
Speaker 1: so important. I follow National to You graphic because it
25:01
Speaker 1: just gives you pictures of nature and it calms me down.
25:05
Speaker 1: And then for fun Gary Jeannetty good to Us, Narky
25:08
Speaker 1: is all get out but so fun, so fun. Those
25:11
Speaker 1: are all good ones.
25:12
Speaker 5: A book that everyone should read besides your book Savage
25:16
Speaker 5: News first, which Savage News?
25:19
Speaker 1: Gosh, what is a book everyone should read? I mean,
25:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that it's really important to
25:25
Speaker 1: feel inspired and to learn about what some of the
25:30
Speaker 1: challenges are. There's a book Shirley Chisholm wrote. She's the
25:33
Speaker 1: first black woman who ran for president, and she wrote
25:35
Speaker 1: about what it was like to do that and what
25:37
Speaker 1: she was up against. And she had these amazing sayings
25:41
Speaker 1: back in the seventies like if there's no chair at
25:43
Speaker 1: the table for you, pull it up, pull up a chair.
25:46
Speaker 1: If there's no room at the table, pull up your
25:48
Speaker 1: own chair. Wow. In the seventies, and she wrote a
25:51
Speaker 1: book about her experience, and anything by Shirley Chisholm is inspiring.
25:54
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm going to have to read Who's doing it best?
25:57
Speaker 5: Like when you look at somebody at the anchor desk,
25:59
Speaker 5: who are you they nailed it.
26:01
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. I think there are a lot of
26:03
Speaker 1: people who are doing great work. I think that, I
26:06
Speaker 1: mean honestly everything. I'd listen to NPR all the time.
26:11
Speaker 1: I love the Daily from the New York Times. I
26:14
Speaker 1: also think that everyone from Sarah Kenzador on the left
26:18
Speaker 1: to folks of the National Review do smart analytical work
26:22
Speaker 1: from different perspectives. But I have to say, I am
26:25
Speaker 1: still a cable news junkie. So I watch Anderson, I
26:28
Speaker 1: watch Don Lemon, I watch all of you know shows
26:33
Speaker 1: my former colleagues Dana Bash and Gloria Borger. I think
26:36
Speaker 1: crush it. I think a lot of the women who
26:37
Speaker 1: are doing politics on CNN are kicking butt.
26:41
Speaker 5: I think they're leading the charge right now.
26:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have to say, I'm really inspired that
26:45
Speaker 1: Nora O'Donnell is going to become a woman in the
26:48
Speaker 1: anchor chair in the evening news CBS. It's awesome. We
26:51
Speaker 1: are seeing women take the president's chairs at network news organizations.
26:56
Speaker 5: Good progress, it's happening. Twenty five year old Jessica, what
26:59
Speaker 5: would you want to tell her?
27:00
Speaker 1: Hmm, listen to your instincts even more and speak up,
27:05
Speaker 1: speak up earlier.
27:06
Speaker 5: Speak up sooner, guilty pleasure, junk food, Oh my.
27:09
Speaker 1: God, tortilla chips, it's hard, tortilla chips and cereal. Anything
27:13
Speaker 1: that's starchy is so on a movie you could rewatch
27:17
Speaker 1: over and over. Oh, I mean, I don't want to
27:20
Speaker 1: say what I really think. Tell me you had to.
27:24
Speaker 5: I'll tell you mine, which is so Embarrassing's First Wives Club?
27:27
Speaker 1: Oh really?
27:27
Speaker 5: My mom was like, don't ever tell anyone that on
27:29
Speaker 5: a date.
27:30
Speaker 1: That's what. No, it's fine, it's weird. I mean my
27:33
Speaker 1: always favorite officer and a gentleman. Anything richer gear, that's
27:38
Speaker 1: not embarrassing, that's true.
27:39
Speaker 5: I'm with you on that favorite song to sing in
27:42
Speaker 5: the shower.
27:43
Speaker 1: Oh what do I sing? I mean my karaoke song
27:46
Speaker 1: is I A the Tiger, which is so cheesy and
27:49
Speaker 1: hard to sing. I cannot sing, so it's a tragedy.
27:52
Speaker 1: So I never do what I do it in my head.
27:54
Speaker 1: But it's a pump you up song.
27:55
Speaker 5: You need a few tequila shouts before that one. Yeah,
27:58
Speaker 5: craziest DM you've ever received?
28:00
Speaker 1: Oh that's I'll tell you the craziest letter I've ever gotten.
28:05
Speaker 1: When I was at CNN, I got a letter from
28:08
Speaker 1: a prison inmate, which happens all the time, but it's
28:11
Speaker 1: carefully handwritten on lined paper. That started off by saying,
28:15
Speaker 1: dear Jessica, I really enjoy watching you on CNN. Would
28:18
Speaker 1: you mind sending me a picture? Would you mind making
28:20
Speaker 1: it a full body shot? Would you mind making sure
28:23
Speaker 1: that your feet are in the shot? Actually? Would you
28:25
Speaker 1: mind taking off your shoes and socks in the shot? Actually?
28:28
Speaker 1: Would you mind if you just sent me a picture
28:30
Speaker 1: of your feet? So quickly I had that on my
28:36
Speaker 1: wall in the office. That's so unbelievable.
28:38
Speaker 5: I love that you thought that was funny.
28:40
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you not like you have to
28:42
Speaker 1: take the stuff as humor? Actually actually just like just
28:46
Speaker 1: foot fetish. Send me your toes.
28:49
Speaker 5: But to compliment must I didn't do it.
28:52
Speaker 1: I couldn't really get over that hump. So thank you
28:54
Speaker 1: for very much.
28:57
Speaker 5: Okay, what's one thing you've learned from the older generation
28:59
Speaker 5: of women.
29:00
Speaker 1: I've learned from the ones who do it right to
29:03
Speaker 1: support other women, and that in supporting other women, you
29:07
Speaker 1: help everybody. There are many people who don't. But I
29:11
Speaker 1: had one woman who Glory Borger, who made it her
29:16
Speaker 1: mission to engage other women and younger women and create
29:20
Speaker 1: a conversation and offer advice. And her example is the
29:24
Speaker 1: example I want to emulate.
29:26
Speaker 5: It's fantastic.
29:27
Speaker 1: I want to say, I don't always do it well,
29:29
Speaker 1: like I catch myself right. We all make mistakes, and
29:32
Speaker 1: so I don't want to present as if I'm perfect,
29:35
Speaker 1: because we should all acknowledge that even when you're imperfect,
29:37
Speaker 1: it's okay to try to correct it and do the
29:40
Speaker 1: right thing.
29:40
Speaker 5: But at least have the intention.
29:41
Speaker 1: Always have the intention.
29:43
Speaker 5: How about from the younger generation of women?
29:45
Speaker 1: Oh, confidence, like just like, sure, I'm going to do this.
29:49
Speaker 1: Sure I'm going to crush it. Sure, that is what
29:51
Speaker 1: I should do. I also think sometimes I feel like
29:55
Speaker 1: I was meant to be a millennial because I'm so
29:57
Speaker 1: mission driven and that's so much equality of life millennial
30:00
Speaker 1: generation and I'm Gen X, which is not that, and
30:04
Speaker 1: so I feel super aligned to the mission purpose aspect
30:08
Speaker 1: of your generation.
30:09
Speaker 5: It's probably why news not noise is resonating.
30:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, my audience is mostly millennial, so really important.
30:15
Speaker 5: Last question, a beauty product we would have to rip
30:17
Speaker 5: out of your cold dead hands.
30:20
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so hard to choose one. I use this
30:23
Speaker 1: Lara Mercier like moisturizer. That has tint, and what I
30:27
Speaker 1: like about it is that you can squeeze it onto
30:29
Speaker 1: your hand and put it on with your hands, because
30:31
Speaker 1: I do not have the patience to blot or brush.
30:34
Speaker 1: When they do that, I start to get an anxiety attack, like,
30:36
Speaker 1: hurry it up. I'm in the rush, and you.
30:39
Speaker 5: Have a beautiful skin. I'm sure you can tell on cameras,
30:40
Speaker 5: so we all should go get it.
30:42
Speaker 1: Lara Mercia, believe me.
30:43
Speaker 5: Jessica, thank you. You are informative and kind and smart
30:47
Speaker 5: and just everything I wanted you to be. So thank you.
30:51
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.
31:10
Speaker 5: All right. Today is a good day. To have a
31:12
Speaker 5: good day. I'll see you next h