Pod Insights 10% Happier with Dan Harris Alisyn Camerota On: Surviving the News, Surviving the Teenage Years, and the Concept of Home About this episode From punk rock to broadcast journalism. A veteran journalist shares her story.
Alisyn Camerota is an award-winning journalist and author. She recently wrote the memoir, Combat Love: A Story of Leaving, Longing, and Searching for Home https://www.amazon.com/Combat-Love-Leaving-Longing-Searching-ebook/dp/B0CVL3BDZN?ref_=ast_author_mpb.
In this episode we talk about:
Our mutual dislike of covering breaking news How her turbulent teenage years helped her prepare for life's chaos What "home" actually means How her childhood informed her own parenting style The delicate balance between giving your children too little or too much freedom What it means for a journalist to center themself in a story Surviving the news Coping with anxiety and media consumption And much more
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Additional Resources:
Alisyn Camerota on Substack https://substack.com/@acamerota?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Sanity Podcast https://alisyncamerota.substack.com/s/sanity
Transcript 13,466 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Dan Harris? It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:19 Dan Harris? Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing? Recently, right here on the show, in fact, I heard my wife, who is co-interviewing some guests with me, talk about how, over the course of our marriage, she has finally gotten comfortable with the fact that she represents home for me, her husband, which I thought was astute, not only because it's true, but also because it's something I had never articulated to myself. Anyway, I bring this up because the concept of home is a key part of today's conversation. My guest is Allison Camerota, who you might know from CNN, where she worked for many years. She recently wrote a very personal memoir called Combat Love, which is about her turbulent teenage years, her rocky relationship with her parents, her love of punk rock, and specifically
1:00 Dan Harris? one punk rock band, and how all of that actually helped prepare her, not only for a life in TV news, but also for a life as a parent. In this conversation, we talk about our mutual distaste for covering breaking news, how her turbulent teenage years helped her prepare for many aspects of the chaos of adulthood, what the concept of home actually means, how her childhood informed her own parenting style, the delicate balance between giving your children too little or too much freedom, what it means for a journalist to make themselves the center of a story, how to survive the news these days, how to cope with anxiety as it relates to media consumption, and much more.
1:42 Dan Harris? Just to say, before we dive in, we actually recorded this about a year ago, so there are some mentions of a future impending election. We all know the outcome. There are some mentions of the press tour for her book, which has now wound down. And I also referenced the 10th anniversary of my first book. All of those events are now behind us. I think you'll enjoy this. Anyway, we'll get started with Allison Camerota right after this.
2:05 Dan Harris? If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help.
2:46 Dan Harris? You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps.
3:29 Dan Harris? Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Allison Camerota, welcome to the show.
4:00 Speaker 01 Thank you, Dan. It's such a pleasure to be with you.
4:03 Dan Harris? Likewise. This is probably not the most germane place to start the interview, but I can't help it that you start the book by making this confession that you don't like breaking news, and I felt very seen in that moment. I, like you, well, you still are a broadcast journalist. I was for 30 years, and maybe there were times when I liked breaking news, but I'm not sure I ever did. And so I don't know if I've ever even admitted that publicly. So tell us, why do you not like breaking news?
4:34 Speaker 01 Well, it's funny that you've never admitted it publicly because I felt ashamed as well to admit it publicly. Like, for broadcast journalists, we're supposed to be news hounds. We're supposed to have this adrenaline rush and love breaking news and have our bag packed at all times. And I never felt that way. And I think it's anxiety, you know, if we're just gonna jump in there. It makes me anxious. And Dan, in listening to your, so many of your podcasts, and in knowing you a little bit, as I do, I think that it's funny how many anxious people choose broadcast journalism, because they're completely, you know, counterintuitive. Nobody who's anxious should ever become a TV anchor or reporter. I mean, it just is
5:18 Speaker 01 so anxiety provoking, you know, that, that breaking news, something horrible's happening somewhere, I have to grab a bag, I'm not going home, I'm running to the airport, I'm getting on a plane. It always made me feel like, maybe I'm not coming home, you know? There was always some horrible terror attack or something that I was flying off to, and that made me think about my own mortality. And I don't know why, you know, people who tend towards anxiety even were attracted to this business, but it's very strange that you and I, I listened to your conversation with Elizabeth Vargas, that we ended up, because it's made for people who know how to manage that level of anxiety.
5:58 Dan Harris? Do you have any theory about why so many anxious people do what we do?
6:03 Speaker 01 Well, my theory is that it has nothing to do with our anxiety. It has to do with that other void gaping hole that we're filling. I mean, I'll just speak for myself. I know that it was because I wanted to be seen and heard so much as a child. I so wanted validation. I so thought that being on TV would give me value, give me financial security, make people love me. So I wasn't calculating the anxiety that would come along with breaking news. I was just making that calculation.
6:36 Dan Harris? Hmm. It's also inconvenient. You're right about this. I mean, this is the stuff that people that, you know, who don't work in TV don't know. But, you know, you're not sleeping. You're at an earthquake or a mass shooting or whatever. And you are out in the cold often, or the heat, and there's no food. And you've packed in a hurry and probably forgotten a bunch of shit. So it's not just the anxiety and stress of it. It's the sort of indignity of it.
7:07 Speaker 01 You know, I read about how I often forget pants. I'm not joking. That's not a punchline. You know, I will get to where I'm supposed to be going and realize like, where are my pants? And I'm just ill-equipped for that level of breaking news and operating that many steps ahead and thinking that I'll need cliff bars and I'll need water and exactly what I'll need. However, that level of no creature comforts, I think I am equipped for. I don't love it. I don't love being out in the freezing cold and I don't love being in the sweltering heat all day long. But, you know, I do think that part of my turbulent teenagehood did equip me to. You know, know how to eat a bag of chips for the whole day.
7:51 Speaker 01 I mean, I I've joked about how there's nobody better at a at a stakeout for a criminal. I can hide in a car footwell for hours. You know, I know how to do that. And so I can do that all day long. But that's a little bit different than breaking news. Like, that's a stakeout where I know that I'm going there. I know I'm just gonna eat a bag of chips. I know I'm gonna be hiding in the van stairwell and then I'm gonna spring out when the criminal comes out. And that I'm good at, but the breaking news is always very trying emotionally for me.
8:22 Dan Harris? It's funny, because doing ambush interviews, I remember chasing the CEO of Philip Morris International down the street once. And a bunch of times I've done these, you know, where you you find somebody who's accused of something and who is unwilling to talk to you after many, many requests. And the lawyers say, fine, the networks lawyers say, fine, you can go surprise this person on the street or wherever. That's not breaking news. But like you, I loved that, especially when I felt righteous. You know, like, this is somebody who deserves to have their day ruined.
8:54 Speaker 01 Absolutely. I chased a telemarketer around, the kingpin of this telemarketing ring that had built all of these people out of their life savings by promising these, you know, incredibly too good to be true salaries if they would just first send $12,000 to save their place in line for these incredible jobs that they were going to get in a minute. God, he had a really great name. What was his name? It'll come to me. Anyway, he had a boiler room in South Florida, of course, as so many of them are. And I found his boiler room and went in with my camera and microphone. I was like, where is he? And there were all these doors.
9:35 Speaker 01 It was sort of a house of mirrors to go in and open doors to try to find him. And then at one point, I saw like a flash of somebody running out. And I chased him out to the parking lot and I chased him to his car. And I stuffed the microphone in his face and he got in his car and he peeled out. And we got the shot of him peeling out and that did feel righteous.
9:54 Dan Harris? Yeah.
9:54 Speaker 01 I totally agree. That was very satisfying.
9:57 Dan Harris? So there's something you and I both like about adrenaline. But there's a version of adrenaline that comes with breaking news that, for some reason, doesn't agree with us.
10:06 Speaker 01 Well, that one is not manageable to me. You know, again, with the stakeout, we know where we're going. We hope that we're gonna find the perp. Or whatever the recalcitrant politician. But with breaking news, it's just really, I find, out of your control. And I also don't like, there were some breaking news that I would do where I would fly. You know, the breaking news would happen. I'd grab my go bag, I'd race to the airport, I'd be on a flight and kind of off the grid, disconnected for seven hours and land and have a live shot to do a half an hour later or forty five minutes later. And I wouldn't know what I was going to say. I hadn't been there long enough yet. I wasn't steeped in the story and that really makes me anxious.
10:48 Dan Harris? Yeah.
10:48 Speaker 01 I really like to get my arms around a story first. I love the storytelling part of our jobs, you know?
10:55 Dan Harris? Yeah.
10:55 Speaker 01 Your former job, well, your current job, actually. I love the storytelling part of that, but I don't love when I don't know the story yet.
11:03 Dan Harris? Yeah, you said it better than I could have. It's interesting you say that you can't remember to put pants in the bag and all that stuff. That kind of processing comes hard for you. But I've sat next to you as you've anchored the news and I've been on there as like a panelist and watched you manage a variety of different guests in the studio and, and people on satellite and then the producers getting in your ear. That's pretty high level processing that would seem to be able to accommodate the packing of pants.
11:36 Speaker 01 Well, thank you for that. I consider it totally different. You know, that's a climate controlled studio. That's where I know you're going to be my guest. You didn't just parachute down next to me and somebody said like, talk to Dan. Like I have my notes in front of me that you probably saw when you were sitting next to me, I cling to, I have prepared for that interview. I have written out questions for you. I'm listening as you, the newsmaker or the guest or the analyst are talking to me and I know what subject matter we're going to talk about. It's just totally different for me. Whereas, look, okay, really, if you're asking me to analyze this, I think I forget pants and a laptop charger because I don't like breaking news.
12:17 Dan Harris? Yeah, exactly.
12:18 Speaker 01 I mean, I think that this truly is me applying the brakes. I think I'm just being resistant to breaking news. And I think if I don't bring pants to work, there won't be breaking news. And then invariably there is breaking news and I just have to fly off.
12:35 Dan Harris? Okay, so you mentioned your tumultuous teenagehood, which is really the subject of, or much of, of what you cover in your new book Combat Love. And, you know, that kind of picks up on this theme that you've already established, which is that you, one of the reasons you became a TV reporter, notwithstanding your aversion to breaking news, is this desire to be seen and not heard. So
12:56 Speaker 01 Seen and heard.
12:58 Dan Harris? Did I say seen but not heard? No, that's what I want for my child, not for you.
13:05 Dan Harris? That was a Freudian slip. Seen and heard.
13:07 Speaker 01 I see. That's some old school parenting you're doing. I like that.
13:10 Dan Harris? Yes, lots of old school parenting. No, actually, I do the opposite. I'm way too cuddling and throttling all of these old school impulses I might have. But anyway.
13:19 Speaker 01 All right. Well, we're gonna talk about that, Dan. We're gonna talk about that later because I'm not in favor of that.
13:24 Dan Harris? We should talk about that. But let's start with your parents. Do some character sketches. Do some storytelling. Who are these people?
13:31 Speaker 01 My parents were both intellectual stars. My father could speak fluently six or seven languages. He went for high school to a all-boys school in Philadelphia that you had to be invited into. It was invitation only. He was first in his class at the Army Language School. My mother was first in her class in a huge Philadelphia public school. She thereby earned a full scholarship to University of Pennsylvania. They were both attractive. They were both magnetic. They were both charismatic. People really liked my parents. And I was very proud to be the daughter of my parents. I was always proud to be seen with them. I could see the kind of magnetism that they had and other people who wanted to be around them. And
14:14 Speaker 01 that was a nice position of stature for me. I was an only child of these two parents who, you know, I think at times had some narcissistic tendencies. And for the time that I was there, a projection of them, it was great. And they had nothing but sort of adulation and adoration for me. And then when I, as a teenager, wanted to go in my own direction, I think it was harder for them to sort of recognize what path might be best for me.
14:49 Dan Harris? So what happened in your teenage years?
14:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, my parents got separated when I was seven. They got divorced when I was eight. And I was one of these kids, I don't hear about kids like this very often, but I was relieved. I wasn't devastated by my parents divorce. I was relieved that my father had sort of become a heavy presence in our house. He was drinking heavily, but not ever to the point of any drunken episode or anger management issues. He was sort of just disappearing into the furniture. And he was clearly self medicating, but that wasn't a word I knew at seven and eight years old. So I was relieved when my parents got separated and there felt like there was
15:38 Speaker 01 a lightness in the house and my mother sort of felt untethered. And this happened to be at the time in the seventies of women's liberation and out came the Carole King albums and my mother and I would, you know, belt out, you know, what independent women we were in the living room every night. And so there was a, there was a lightness after my father left. And that said, I think that things, what I've learned in writing the book from interviewing my mother is that things did not though get easier for her. So they got easier at first because my dad and whatever albatross he was on the sofa was gone, but financially they
16:20 Speaker 01 got more challenging for her. And finding her way got more challenging for her. And she, I would say, lost her way at some point or got confused about what the best way was. And when I was 15, before that, I was sort of unparented. I was one of the Gen X generation. I think this is a universal commonality among so many of us. We were semi-parented or unparented, even people who had nuclear families that were not children of divorce. I don't know where the parents were in the eighties. They just, they weren't around. So we were a real free range bunch in my town, doing whatever we wanted, basically. And I was particularly unparented because my mom was going back to school to get her
17:04 Speaker 01 PhD and she was involved in a really intense romance.
17:09 Speaker 01 And I would say that I was sort of third priority after those two things. So I got hyper attached to my friends and to my friends' families. They became a surrogate family for me. And at the same time, at 13, I fell in love with this local punk rock band from Truesberry, New Jersey called Straternal. Over the next two years, I would follow them into various dicey and dangerous situations. And then when I was 15, my mother, on a whim, really, decided to move us 3,000 miles away from the only home I'd ever known in Truesberry, New Jersey, which is a really small town, to a place we knew virtually no one, Washington State.
17:49 Speaker 01 And she moved there because a man who had been in her life kind of lured her out there. She was looking for some sort of stability and financial stability and emotional stability. But it was completely ill advised, did she follow him out there? But she did. And that falls apart immediately and our relationship soon kind of unravels as well. And I end up leaving. We end up going our separate ways when I'm 16.
18:20 Dan Harris? Well, how do you go your separate ways from your mom as a minor?
18:25 Speaker 01 It immediately falls apart with the first man, whom I call Walter, in the book. She immediately meets another man, whom I call Mac, in the book. So for nine months, we lived with Mac in a town called Bellingham, Washington, which is, you know, just one of the most beautiful towns in the country. But I can't really see its beauty because I'm so uprooted and so... I miss my home so much and I'm so disoriented. So 10 months later, Mac gets offered a job in Pittsburgh. And my mother has never been able to find a job while we've been in Bellingham. She's tried and has not found a job because Bellingham doesn't have jobs for women with PhDs in creative arts education. And he gets offered a job in Pittsburgh.
19:09 Speaker 01 She knows that there will be more jobs for her in Pittsburgh. And they sit me down and say, we need to move to Pittsburgh. And I say, I'm out. I'm gonna go my separate way. I'm not gonna move again. And so my mother says, what will you do? And I said, I don't know. Give me a couple of hours. Let me have the car keys. And I took the car and I went to my friend's parents who owned real estate in the town, who owned a big real estate company. And I pleaded my case to them and said, do you know of anybody who will take in a border? Do you know of any room to rent anywhere? And they were a really established family in town and had all sorts of fun toys for teenagers,
19:54 Speaker 01 like sports cars, and they had a plane, and they had a beautiful boat, and they had a beautiful house on the lake. And I was sort of secretly crossing my fingers that maybe they would want a daughter. And they called me a few hours later and said, we'd love for you to live with us.
20:11 Dan Harris? So instead of going back to New Jersey, you stayed in Bellingham with these fancy people?
20:16 Speaker 01 I would have gone back to New Jersey, I think, but I didn't know who would take me in, in New Jersey. I didn't have a home there anymore. I didn't have, my father had moved away from that town, so I didn't have a home there. And I just hadn't thought the plan through enough. So I just, the first thing I could think was to go to this family's home, and they solved my problem.
20:41 Dan Harris? I guess the question is, did they? Because you've used the word home twice in the preceding paragraph. And this book, as you've said, is all about, and this is a quote from you, it's a story about the elusive place called home. So maybe, maybe say a little bit more about that concept for you and its importance.
21:04 Speaker 01 So when my mother moved when I was 15, that was the last time that I had a home, that I truly felt that I had a home for another two decades. So for the two decades, or maybe 15 years, I felt, I understood what home was back in Shrewsbury. I knew, I had very close friends, I knew the rules, we all had the same New Jersey accent, I knew the music, I had a tremendous sense of belonging. And so at fifteen, when I lost that sense of belonging and landed in this foreign land called
21:45 Speaker 01 Bellingham, Washington, where I also had friends, by the way, I also made friends and I ended up having a very intense love relationship there that was very special to me, still is. So it wasn't that I was lonely, it's that I was disoriented and that I knew all along it wasn't my home. I didn't understand evergreens and mountains. I understood the beach. And I didn't understand skiing. I had never skied. That's what everybody did there all day long, all weekend long, whenever they could. So I guess, I mean, there's so much to this, but I I think other people are more adaptable than I am, but I didn't ever embrace it really as
22:25 Speaker 01 home. And so I crawled my way back. So I lived with this wonderful family for that year. I was a junior in high school. So I lived with them for my junior year of high school. And then I wrote a letter back to my old school and pleaded my case in New Jersey, my old school in New Jersey, and pleaded my case and said, I really miss home and I want to come back for my senior year. I miss everything about New Jersey. And does anybody know of, again, a spare room or anybody who would take in a boarder? And a family wrote back to me and said, we'd be happy to take you in. So I went back for senior year and I think of that senior year when I was seventeen as one of the best years of my life, really. And I've had a lot of great years. I mean, I've
23:08 Speaker 01 had a very lucky life and I'm, I have a very happy life. But I think of that as a victorious year of coming back on my own and of making my way back. You know, I think of it as, I mean, in the book, I equate myself to like Odysseus, you know, because I knew the struggle of crawling your way back home and the sort of hero's return that I was met with. And it was really glorious. And then I went to college and I left New Jersey and went to Washington DC. And it took me many, many, many years to find that sense of home again.
23:42 Dan Harris? How did you finally find it?
23:45 Speaker 01 Well, interestingly, and here's where you come in. Boston, I did have a sense of that in Boston. So after living in Washington DC where I never felt at home, I never felt like that was really my place. I had had sort of some peak experiences as a teenager in Boston. And I had it in my head that I wanted to live in Boston and I wanted to move to Boston. And in the book I write about this psychic predicts that I'm going to get this great job offer someplace cold and snowy. And I hadn't applied to any job in Boston. And a week after the psychic tells me this, I get a phone call from a guy who's starting a national morning show. Well, Joel Sheetwood, whose name you'll know.
24:28 Speaker 01 So Joel Sheetwood was a big TV producer in our day. And he was starting a national TV show, but nobody knew that yet and it was going to be based in Boston. And I truly felt as though like serendipity and fate had found me and like the heavens had bestowed their goodness, you know, their pixie dust on me. And so I moved to Boston and I was already primed to love Boston because I believed I would love it. And I loved it. I loved every second of Boston. So I just have a natural affinity. There are some places that maybe we all have a natural affinity for, and maybe there's some places that we have a natural antipathy for. I certainly do, but I do think most people are more adaptable than I am.
25:10 Speaker 01 So that was when I was 29 and I really felt at home in Boston also. I loved my apartment. I made close friends. It was an intense experience and I stayed in Boston for many years and I did feel a sense of home there.
25:24 Dan Harris? I want to get back to home and what it means, but just to say about Boston, you brought me into it. So I have a memory, and I've said this story to you before, but I've told this story to you before. I had spent my early, early twenties in Bangor and then Portland, Maine. And then I got a job in Boston at like a, not even one of the big stations, at a cable station. So it was called New England Cable News. And I was 25 at the time and my first story they sent me to, you were covering it. And I remember you were, to me, like the apex of sophistication. In my mind, you were wearing leather pants. You were definitely more senior to me.
26:06 Speaker 01 That's awesome.
26:07 Dan Harris? You, you had been on the ground in Boston for a while and were a more experienced reporter. I did not have the courage to talk to you at all, but I remember that experience very clearly.
26:21 Speaker 01 This makes me so happy on so many levels, Dan. First of all, I like that I'm leather Tuscanero in your memory. That makes me so happy that I'm just out like I was like smoking a cigarette. That's how I'd like to be seen also. Like, I hope I had on like spiky stiletto boots, leather pants. I hope I was like smoking a cigarette in some sort of like wisecracking, you know, ace reporter way. I assure you, that's not what I was wearing. And I love that I tricked you. I love that I tricked you into thinking that I had the whole thing wired and set. But, I mean, it is true that I did feel comfortable in Boston and I did like reporting in Boston and my job there. And it was a really good chapter.
27:03 Dan Harris? You seemed utterly in command, and I felt like an impostor. So that's my, that's my memory. Leather pants notwithstanding.
27:10 Speaker 01 Fantastic.
27:11 Dan Harris? So, back to home. Like, what do you mean by home? What does that concept mean to you?
27:18 Speaker 01 Well, it means a place where you feel that you belong. It means a deep sense of cellular belonging. It means that you understand the language and the music. And home is twofold for me. So it's a place, it's a place that looks and smells a certain way. And often, in my head, that is Shrewsbury, New Jersey, or Monmouth County, New Jersey. But when I go back to Shrewsbury, which I did many times to write the book, to research the book,
27:50 Speaker 01 if my friends aren't around me from that time, if I'm not surrounded by my friends, it's missing a little something. And if my friends are around me, but we're in a different place, like I go to a bachelorette party with them, and we're in New Orleans, or we go to, heaven help us, Las Vegas, that's not home either. So it's not just my circle of friends that I'm with, and it's not just the location. It's the melding of those where I get my full home hit. So that's what I mean by home, basically, more than the physical structure over my head. Because when I moved back, when I was a senior, when I clawed my way back, when I was 17, I didn't really have my own home, but I still considered myself home.
28:34 Dan Harris? So it's people and place.
28:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:37 Dan Harris? The combination. Do you have it now? And if so, where? Is it your home, the physical structure in Connecticut? Is it your workplace CNN? Is it both? Is it neither?
28:48 Speaker 01 It is the physical structure where I live in Connecticut with my family. So here, I love the town that I live in and it's very beautiful. And when I drive through the streets, I'm often struck by its beauty and how lucky I am to live here. But there's a beach here in the town that I live in. And it's when I go to the beach and I smell the saltwater and I hear the seagulls and I have my feet in the sand that I go, oh, this is what I mean by home. It's a sensation of the childhood and teenagehood beach. That's a big home trigger for me. But now it's my physical structure of home where my family and I live. Because I didn't have that for so long.
29:31 Speaker 01 You know, I didn't have my own home from the time I was 15 to the time I bought a place in Boston at 33. So I really like having my dishes stacked where they belong, in the cabinet where they belong, and being able to find the shirt that I'm looking for. Like, things being in their place means a lot to me. And I see the significance of that for home.
29:58 Dan Harris? Yeah, I mean, that can sound superficial, but it has significance, doesn't it?
30:02 Speaker 01 For me, it does. Because I was moving around. I was always moving around because I was always looking for like, where's the next place that I'll be living? Where am I going to be paying rent? Who's going to take me in? You know, I was sort of always relying on the kindness of acquaintances and their families or friends and their families. And just having my own structure, my own place, my own bed with my stuff around me is just very powerful to me. I don't, I don't really take that for granted.
30:32 Dan Harris? And maybe that's the groundlessness that neither of us likes about breaking news.
30:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that that's a good point. I don't know what even to visualize when we're heading off for breaking news, particularly if it's in a foreign land of some kind. I can't even visualize where we'll be or where we'll be staying or what we'll need, that kind of thing.
30:56 Dan Harris? Coming up, Allison talks about how her childhood informed her own parenting style, the delicate balance between giving your kids too little or too much freedom, and whether it's okay for a journalist to make themselves the center of a story.
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32:18 Dan Harris? Let me just go back in time to your teenage years. One question that came up in my mind as you were recounting going your separate ways from your mom is like, what was your mom thinking? Why did she agree to that? And were you consulting her as you then wrote the letter to New Jersey and then went and lived there? And how was she okay with that? I can't imagine allowing my son to do something like that.
32:44 Speaker 01 Well, here again, you're not a parent of the 80s, so... In the eighties, I knew some kids who didn't live with their parents. It wasn't as foreign a notion as it is today in our helicopter world. So that's first. But second, and more importantly, my parents always gave me tremendous freedom. I had a lot of freedom. For an only child, I probably had the most freedom any only child has ever had. I made my own decisions. They treated me as though I was smart enough and grown up enough to make my own decisions. I decided halfway through fifth grade that I didn't like my public school anymore. My mother took me around to see some other schools. There was one that I liked best. They told me, it's your decision.
33:29 Speaker 01 It was really hard for me because I was terrified to leave my friends. And they said, it's up to you. We're not going to make this decision for you. And I decided to go. And they just always kind of imbued me with a lot of independence. So by the time I say at 16, give me the car keys. I'm going to go figure this out. My mother knows that I am going to figure it out. I was already resourceful. I was already working. I was already just really self-sufficient. And she knew because she had made these kind of foolhardy decisions for us of moving across the country and how devastated I was to do that, that she had lost the authority to make me go. She just knew that that was over.
34:13 Speaker 01 And last, by then I'd been to three high schools. She didn't think that by going to a fourth high school in October of my junior year that that was going to be great for my mental health. That was going to be great for my transcript, for my college prospects. So she just knew I was right. I was right that I was supposed to stay there. And she couldn't have stayed. We could never have afforded it. If she had stayed with me without a job, that didn't work. That equation didn't work. So it was really the only choice. And it was the choice at that point that I wanted.
34:47 Dan Harris? That all makes sense, I guess, but you did reference earlier, and I think this is a bit earlier in the chronology, you know, you're hanging around this punk band, Shrapnel, whose song Combat Love you named the book after. And you, you use the words dicey and dangerous to describe some of the situations in which you found yourself. So this independence, which I want to come back to because I think we can make a real case for it, and the lack of independence being, you know, part of one of the points of origination for the anxiety we're seeing among children these days. But this independence has, it's a double edged sword and you, you found yourself in, in places you probably shouldn't have been.
35:25 Speaker 01 Yeah. So I had more confidence than I should have. I had more confidence and I had more independence and less supervision than I think any of us would be comfortable with our kids having. So I had a lot of confidence in my own ability to talk myself in or out of a dicey situation, my own ability to just kind of get what I wanted as a teenager. So I did that a lot, you know, I did that a lot. I didn't have a lot of money or resources, but I had a lot of moxie and I just didn't want to be told no. So I would go off to CBGB's or I would go off to see Shrapnel wherever without any money,
36:09 Speaker 01 without really a plan. Sometimes all sorts of shit would go down. Like there's one scene I talk about in the book where there's a night where the two guys that I rode with were notoriously the hardest drug doing, most dangerous, truly leather wearing guys in my town. And I hitched a ride with them to see Shrapnel. And from the second I got into the Dodge Dart and it was speeding up the New Jersey Parkway, I just had that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach like, oh God, oh God, oh God, this was a mistake. And I prayed.
36:51 Speaker 01 Don't let me have to go home in this car. Please, God, please do not let me have to make this return home in the car because they were already drinking. There was already whatever kind of drug use and I was petrified. But when I got there, it kind of all seemed worth it because I was excited to see Shretnal. And then lo and behold, my prayers, God intervened and my prayers were answered by making the driver pass out from the drugs he had done and be unrevivable. And I was like, thank God. And so then I was very happy that he was not going to be able to drive us home.
37:33 Speaker 01 But I didn't calculate that I was stranded. And I was stranded at, you know, one thirty in the morning on a burned out corner in Queens. Then there was more divine intervention in that story. So when people read the book, there was another stroke of divine intervention that saved me. But yeah, like that's not a fifteen year old using great judgment because maybe fifteen year olds and their frontal lobe doesn't actually have great judgment.
38:02 Dan Harris? Yes, I think that's, that's inarguable. So how does all of this inform your parenting style now? And how, how old are your kids?
38:12 Speaker 01 Nineteen, nineteen and seventeen. It informs my parenting style in the way that I wish that my kids could have a little bit more of the freedom and self-sufficiency and electricity that I felt as a teenager. I don't think we're doing them any favors by constantly monitoring them and helicopter parenting them and bubble wrapping them before they ever leave the house. I am happy that they're not stranded on a burned out corner in Queens at one thirty in the morning with no money and no way home for sure, but. I wish that they had a little bit more of an opportunity to have to fend for themselves
38:56 Speaker 01 and figure stuff out. So in my own way, I've tried to do that. I mean, feebly, I guess I would say, because I think that our entire culture right now is set up for the helicoptering from, you know, the GPS systems and the constant monitoring on our phones and being so connected via our phones. So I see that I'm tilting at windmills, but in my own way, try with their papers, with their school decisions, to just back off, you know, to back off. And I try to be as unhovering as possible in this current climate.
39:31 Dan Harris? Yeah, I think personally, that that sounds like the right strategy. And you earlier indicated that you had some things to say about my stifling my old school parenting urges. And I think I've probably stifled them too much at times. I mean, I don't want to be snapping at the kid, but I think I I hover and I because seeing him in distress or confusion or anxiety causes me, it's selfish in some ways. I'm unwilling to be able to countenance his discomfort.
40:03 Speaker 01 Because it is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to see your kid in distress, for sure. And I'm not, you know, advocating old school like corporal punishment, by the way. I think we've made some very good adjustments from the 60s, 70s and 80s. But I was objecting to you saying that you're coddling your son because I just don't think any good comes from that. I know there's a happy medium somewhere, but I know we haven't achieved it yet. I think we were too unparented in the 80s and definitely idle hands for the devil's workshop. And I think that we got into a lot of trouble and we definitely could have used more supervision, but the pendulum has swung too far. I'm sure of it. So if there's any way for you to just leave the room when your son is in distress and just give it, I don't know, set a timer,
40:48 Speaker 01 set a timer for a half an hour and see if he can figure it out himself. I think that that would be the most helpful thing you could do.
40:56 Dan Harris? Yeah, I mean, I I'm with you. I had an intact family in the 80s and 70s and 80s, but they basically gave up at, you know, age 15 or something like that. And I was totally free range and.
41:08 Speaker 01 And do you think of it as fondly as I do? I mean, did you like that style?
41:13 Dan Harris? I loved it. Those were some of the happiest years of my life. And looking back at it, you know, I have very similar feelings, I think, to what you've described, where I'm surprised that I and my friends survived. Because we did some toweringly stupid and risky things. And yeah, my wife sometimes will joke that like every once in a while she'll hear some news story and she cannot believe what she's hearing. And it was very similar. I mean, it was suburban. I grew up in suburban Boston. You grew up in suburban New Jersey. It was out of control. So I was great and it really prepared me for journalism in some ways.
41:52 Dan Harris? You know, I'm reasonably good in chaos and I'm crafty and resourceful and all of that stuff. And you know, this is what I hear in your story. And there's no fucking way I'd let my kid do that. But, or another and, I think there's a happy medium and we have not struck it.
42:12 Speaker 01 I totally agree. For instance, I'm very glad that we moved away from the rampant drunk driving of the eighties. Good. That's been a good update. There was constant drunk driving until, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other things decided to pass legislation and decided to lobby. And that has been absolutely an improvement on every level, for sure. And I think that the fact that we're more sophisticated emotionally and we talk to our kids and don't, I think, suppress their feelings and our feelings as much. Great. Huge improvement to have more communication. And I definitely think we've evolved since the eighties.
42:55 Speaker 01 And if we could just have done those two things, you know, stop the drunk driving and been more evolved parents with more communication. I think we'd have kind of an uber generation, but you know, we took it too far.
43:12 Dan Harris? So you've written this book. It's very personal. All the things we've talked about are in there. You also talk about panic attacks and your time at Fox News. And there's a lot of, lot of stuff in there. And I guess I'm asking this question as somebody who's also been a journalist and then wrote a memoir. And do you have any feelings, tricky feelings about making yourself the story? Because our training really is to not do that.
43:39 Speaker 01 Right. I mean, that's what we were always told. Don't make yourself the story. Check your bias at the door. It's actually the opposite, Dan. What I started to feel fairly recently in the past few years was by insisting on that tabula rasa anchor mask that we were trained to wear at all times, I started to feel that it was actually a not a disservice so much as a barrier. It was a barrier to a real human connection. And there is definitely a place for that. I mean, I think that it's journalism is very valuable. I'm very happy that I was a conduit to be able to tell other people's stories. That's what I've done for the past
44:22 Speaker 01 30 years. I've been a conduit to telling other people's stories. But I just remember, I mean, the story that comes to mind is the George Floyd killing. The next day, I think I got the first national interview with Felonius Floyd, who was his brother. And it was a long interview. It was one of these interviews where, where the minute he came on via satellite, we realized that he was just sort of operating at a different level. He was already saying deeply profound and sort of poetic things, even in his most raw grief. He was crying during some of the interview. And he just already seemed like a really special person looking
45:04 Speaker 01 for justice for his brother. I think the live interview was about 15 minutes long, which, as you know, is an eternity in TV news. And we hadn't planned to go that long, but he just was so compelling. Okay, so then the interview ends. And I know you've had this experience. My phone lights up like a Christmas tree. Fantastic interview, Allison. Oh, my gosh, that was so wonderful. You're the best. You're so wonderful. You're so fantastic. And I usually like those accolades, for sure. But in that one, I felt a little bit like, ugh.
45:35 Speaker 01 I just had somebody at his most raw grief. I asked him to be really vulnerable. I was straight faced and I'm getting accolades. Like, we ask a lot of the people that we interview. We ask a lot. We ask them to pull off their mask. And I'm not going to pull off my mask. The satellite was also, like, if he had been there in person, I don't think I would have felt as disconnected or whatever as I did. I would have been able to reach out to him or hug him or hold his hand or say something in person during a commercial break or whatever. But because, like, satellite ends, he says goodbye, I get the accolades, on to the next thing, that I started to feel like maybe just peeling back the curtain
46:17 Speaker 01 a little bit on my own life might help people connect. And, you know, and Dan, actually, now that I think about it, when you and I went to lunch years ago, and I told you that I was considering doing this and I wondered if it had ruined your life by being so candid and honest. And we went with our good pal, John Berman. And I was, you know, just wondering how you had dealt with all of that. And you did it too. I mean, you did it first. You pulled back the curtain and showed that you had struggled with something that is a fairly common issue of anxiety attacks and drug abuse. And you were in a much more straight news job at the time. And so, I don't know, that gave me a little bit of courage
46:58 Speaker 01 to think that I think people will be able to connect with my story too.
47:04 Dan Harris? Yeah, I mean, I, I think everything you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. And I think there's probably a way to do it wrong and a way to do it right. Some part of me has some sort of feelings about all these news anchors who are writing personal stories. And I don't know why. And maybe it's because I still have this. It's totally hypocritical because I did it. I was among the first to do it. And I went real, I went hard at the, at the personal revelations. So, but I still have this sense that, well, you know, in our job, it is, you know, at its highest form, a public service, and it shouldn't be all about us. And, but then I can make the counter argument that it is a public service to be honest about yourself
47:48 Dan Harris? because that normalizes these experiences for people and makes them, give them permission. Yeah, so I guess what you're hearing is some inner conflict.
47:58 Speaker 01 Well, I do hear your ambivalence, and I guess I would say to you that it can be both and. It can. I think we have done great service for helping amplify the voices of others and the stories of others. And I really like doing that, and I'm not trading that in for this. But I also think that by being on TV, you give off an image of being a little perfect. You know, because we're at our most perfect when we're on that screen. We're well-coiffed, I have a mask of makeup on, I'm in my jewel tones, you know, we're well-lit. And there can be a feeling that, you know, we've never had a hard day in our life.
48:42 Speaker 01 And, okay, that's, that's cool. I liked that image for a while. But I do think that when you peel off the mask, as you did in yours, I don't know. I think that at some point, you end up helping an entirely different audience of people. As you say, you normalize these problems. If even your perfect anchorman has these issues, well, then I guess it's okay for other people to talk about having these issues.
49:06 Dan Harris? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's when it goes right. And the question is, are there times when it's just self-centered and self-aggrandizing? I don't think that's the case with you. I just, I worry about it a little bit with myself. There was a hilarious article in the Daily Mail after my, my book came out 10 years ago. Something like balding, self-obsessed anchorman. Something that was like something in the headline, and I love it. I mean, it's hilarious. But part of it stung a little bit.
49:33 Speaker 01 You're not balding. I'm taking umbrage at this for you. I don't like a reference to a receding hairline if it's just not true.
49:42 Dan Harris? Well, they were picking up on the fact that in the book, I did a lot of whinging about fearing that I would lose my hair. So in their defense.
49:53 Speaker 01 No, I don't think that's journalism. I'm sorry. I don't like that.
49:58 Dan Harris? You say, or at least intimate in your book, that one of your hopes is that, and I think, maybe I'm reading between the lines, you'll tell me, that, you know, we live in such polarized times, you work for a network that has just become, I guess, along with the New York Times, that the sort of avatar or shorthand for what people on the right might call like libtards or whatever, you know, that's what they call us, you know, it's become the shorthand for liberal bias in the media, CNN has, and I believe you kind of intimate or even say outright that maybe something about humanizing yourself can turn down the volume on this polarization a little bit. Am I, am I picking that up correctly?
50:39 Speaker 01 Yes, you're picking it up correctly because I, that is my ardent hope every day. And it's not just by sharing my story. I just think that it's sort of, again, build a bridge. It's building a bridge rather than creating a divide. So however I can build that bridge, I try to do it on the air all the time. I'm always happy to talk to any side. And I think that regular humans are not as polarized as campaigns would have you believe, or as some cable news outlets would have you believe, or some partisans would have you believe. I just don't think that's true. Well, I know it's not true. The numbers suggest that the vast majority of Americans are in the middle. And so there
51:22 Speaker 01 are definitely loud fringes, but they're not the majority. So I've always felt that having worked at Fox and CNN, and before that, ABC and NBC, has given me, I think, a helpful worldview and viewpoint. And I don't like when, I don't like putting people in boxes. I don't like when somebody puts me in a box. So I don't like when people are considered straight up partisan. I don't know that that is really how most people are. And so, part and parcel of all of that political talk, or whatever cable news talk, I do think that what is really more of a bridge than our politics is our life stories.
52:06 Speaker 01 And so our stories of survival, our stories of struggle, anxiety attacks don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, drug problems don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. So to me, talking about those things, build more bridges.
52:23 Dan Harris? Yeah, I think you're on to something.
52:26 Dan Harris? Coming up, Allison talks about how to survive the news, coping with anxiety and your levels of media consumption and much more.
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53:41 Dan Harris? We're talking about polarization. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how we can survive the news cycle. You know, it's pretty tough right now. We've got war, we've got a presidential campaign that's already nasty and likely to get even nastier. What techniques do you use to stay sane in the midst of all of this? And what would you recommend to news consumers?
54:08 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, if you want to get into self, I mean, I guess it is a little selfish on my part to have been able to bow out of this news cycle right now to be on this book tour. That has been kind of self-sustaining. I've been so much happier to talk about anything in the book, you know, to be able to talk about the search for home, to be able to talk about abandonment issues, to be able to talk about drug addiction, to be able to talk about being broke, being, you know, wrestling with depression or despair, any of that stuff. Again, to me, being able to be out in the world and talk about that stuff, which I think... Is more important to humans and to all of us than how you vote has been a really
54:53 Speaker 01 nice, in some ways, respite for me. I mean, I know those are hard issues, but I just think they're more meaningful right now. In terms of how we're going to get through the political cycle, I wish that we were talking more about the stakes, less about the horse race. I think we're past the horse race. I think this is a really important election, and I wish that we just talked about the stakes a lot, and maybe we'll do that as we move forward. And I think that all we can do is just remind ourselves that most people are not as partisan. When a true partisan comes up to me and really wants to engage, I sometimes say, like, please stop spewing your politics onto me. I'm not that interested in how you vote. I don't find that to be the most interesting thing about you. I'm happy to talk about
55:38 Speaker 01 the first concert you went to, or what music you're listening to now, or how, like, you know, like you just said, like, what you do for, you know, self-help. But I don't care about, it's not I don't care about people's politics, it's that no good can come, I feel, from engaging or trying to talk sense into somebody. So I just try to avoid that. To your, the second part of your question about what I do for my own kind of wellness, I know it's blasphemy, Dan, to tell you this, but I don't meditate because-
56:08 Dan Harris? I thought you were gonna say, I don't watch the news.
56:10 Speaker 01 No, I don't meditate because I know, I mean, obviously, I know that's totally off message, but here's what I'm gonna, I was gonna bounce off of you, and you can tell me if I'm full of shit. I think that I can achieve an alpha state, like an alpha brainwave, pretty easily. Like, I think that I'm always kind of close to a meditative state, or possibly comatose. Like, I sleep very well. I sleep many hours a night. I've never had a problem with that. And when I'm feeling overwhelmed by the news cycle, or just my job, the hours of the job, I lie on my bed and stare out of the window and stare
56:51 Speaker 01 at like, a leaf gently blowing in the breeze. And that's very therapeutic to me, and that's it. I don't consider that meditating. Your thoughts?
57:04 Dan Harris? First, just to say, I'm not the arbiter or referee here. I often go back to something that my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, says, which is like, whatever works. You know, I'm not very prescriptive and I don't like judge other people's mental health. The fact that you're sleeping well says a lot. And the fact that you seem, if your subjective experience is that your default mode is reasonably serene, notwithstanding the fact that we discussed, you know, plenty of tumult in your inner life over the course of your life. But if what you're saying right now is that generally speaking, you're, it's not hard for you to generate these alpha waves. I take you at your word. And I would
57:44 Dan Harris? say that the lying on the bed and staring out the window, if you're not in rumination or fretful projection, but you're actually watching the undulation of a leaf or something like that, that is meditation. Meditation is just like being awake to whatever's happening right now. So I don't want to be approving or disapproving of people's inner lives, but it is kind of an approval.
58:09 Speaker 01 Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate how you framed it because I really didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I didn't know, I never have thought of that as meditation until I was listening to many of your podcasts. And I thought, is that what I'm doing? So I appreciate you framing it that way. I do feel that a lot of this is hard won, because I definitely don't know that I was always built this way. I have achieved it now, but it's after years of, you know, wrestling with depression. I mean, my depression was situational. So I didn't wrestle with it for years. Over the years, I had a few bouts of depression and despair. And as we've talked about, I had
58:53 Speaker 01 some anxiety attacks. So I am in a serene place now, definitely. But I don't know that that was always my nature. I just learned through having to live through it, how to come out the other side of it.
59:10 Dan Harris? That makes a lot of sense. You said before you made the joke, this is going to be blasphemy. I'm going to say I don't meditate. And I rudely interrupted you to say, I thought you were going to say you don't watch the news. But as a recommendation for people with regard to how to survive this difficult news cycle, which again, has, you know, like war, climate, presidential politics, all rolled up into a dumpster fire. One thing that I would say, maybe this is blasphemous for you, and less so for me, given that I'm not being paid by any major media organization right now. But I do think titrating how much news you consume
59:50 Dan Harris? on your phone, or on your TV, or wherever, is important, because the news is like mainlining the human capacity for negativity bias. We definitionally are focused on, you know, the planes that don't land safely. And so, yeah, I think you get a skewed view if all you're doing is watching or reading the news.
1:00:14 Speaker 01 It's interesting, during the 2016 presidential race, and during the Trump presidency, I found that people who came up to me in the grocery store, or the airport, were highly engaged. They were highly engaged. This was sort of knew what was happening. They wanted to wake up and find out what was happening. They felt it felt very urgent and immediate. And I heard from people all the time, I can't turn it off. I have it on all the time. It's crazy. I can't live without CNN. And people were very grateful to me. Thank you for getting us through it. Thank you for being there. And I felt my purpose very strongly during
1:00:55 Speaker 01 those years between the Trump presidency and COVID. I felt my purpose every day. At that time, I was anchoring the morning show on CNN. Now, what I hear people say is, I had to take a break. I can't watch it anymore.
1:01:11 Dan Harris? Yeah.
1:01:11 Speaker 01 I just can't watch anymore. And they're almost apologetic to me because they think that they should be or that it's some sort of public service to watch the news. And I know what they mean. But I forgive them and I give them permission to turn it off because it's like what you're saying. Our central nervous system can only handle so much. And we've reached our saturation point. We really reached it. Again, this is just based upon what I witnessed from viewers during these years. At the end of the Trump presidency, when every single day during those four years felt like there was breaking news and you would wake up and something new and extreme would have happened. I think people took a deep breath at the end of that, the viewers, at least who have spoken to me,
1:01:55 Speaker 01 and they wanted a break. And now I think they're still experiencing some of that hangover and some of the saturation level. And it's confusing because we have to be engaged again. You know, the stakes are obviously very high. They're important. People have to be engaged, but I don't try to talk people into watching cable news and having it on all the time as they did during those years. You know, you can also read your news for a slower metabolism of it. But you do need to be engaged.
1:02:29 Dan Harris? I agree. We need to be engaged. It's a dosage question.
1:02:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:33 Dan Harris? Back to your story, after having written this book. I guess it's a two-part question. What has the impact for you been of writing this book? And how's your relationship with your mom now? I know your dad has passed.
1:02:46 Speaker 01 My dad passed away. So for me, it's been wonderful. It's been really very, very gratifying. I'm really happy I did it. It was a real labor of love and I'm so happy on so many different levels that I did it. One of the first ones, and I don't talk about this one, I haven't talked about this much on the book tour, but several other people in the book have passed away. And Two people died suddenly and unexpectedly who are were close friends of mine and are in the book. And so part of me feels like this was an important time piece. I'll cherish having these stories because they helped me with it. And I feel like I got the truest
1:03:28 Speaker 01 version of what all of our story was as teenagers and in our youth. And I'm glad to have that time piece, that time capsule. For myself personally, I'm very glad I did it because it used to these stories used to kind of haunt me and bang around in my head. And by writing them down, I've gotten a lot more bandwidth mentally. It's gotten out of my head and onto the paper. And that has liberated me in many ways from not having to think about it all the time, as I did for years. Back to my mother, my mother really, really didn't want me to write it. And I heard you say that your mother really didn't want you to write your memoir either. Mothers don't like this, you know? So my mother really
1:04:12 Speaker 01 didn't want me to do it. I've told the joke, but it's not a joke. She repeatedly said, can't you wait until I'm dead? And I tried. For a while, I thought, okay, I'll do that. And then she just to spite me kept getting healthier, I think. And so by the time she was 84, I was like, that's it. You know, no loss. Like, we're doing this. And she was really nervous about what her friends would say. She feels guilt about how everything played out. She has friends who didn't know her then. And she was very, I guess, embarrassed about how they would think of her. And lo and behold, they still love her. And they feel for her. And it's probably only going to strengthen their friendships. And it's
1:04:57 Speaker 01 all actually worked out.
1:05:01 Dan Harris? That's great. I have one last question, which is totally random. And it just, I made a note of this earlier in the conversation. You were talking about being back with your friends in Jersey and hearing their accents. And what happened to your accent?
1:05:16 Speaker 01 It was beaten out of me. When I moved to Bellingham, so I'm 15 and I moved to Bellingham. And people would come from miles around, okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, from other hallways in the high school. People would kind of be like, let us hear you talk. We hear you, you have an accent. Talk for us. And what they loved when I said, there were some words that they loved that I said, store? So when they say store, they, it's not two syllables. Like in Bellingham, they say it with one syllable. But from New Jersey, you say store. Like I'm gonna go to the store, store.
1:05:52 Dan Harris? Yeah.
1:05:52 Speaker 01 It's hard for me to say it now, but it has two syllables. Hawke, H A W K, hawk is how I used to say it. Now I say it a little bit more like hawk. They say hawk without the W, which makes no sense. Sarah, I say the, I say the name Sarah, they say Sarah. And, oh, hot dog. I used to say hot dog when I moved there. And they would be like, what? They thought that was the funniest word that they'd ever heard anybody say that a dog had a W in it. So because they would, you know, they just made me say it so many times that I lost some of it. So by the time I moved back, I didn't have as thick of an accent. And TV news has a way of also beating the hot dog out of you.
1:06:36 Dan Harris? Yes, yes, it does. Is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't get to?
1:06:42 Speaker 01 Well, you know, I had a bond about our anxiety attacks. Shouldn't we talk about that?
1:06:45 Dan Harris? Sure. When was the last time you had one?
1:06:49 Speaker 01 Last time I had one was senior year in college. So I guess I was.
1:06:54 Dan Harris? You're you're an amateur.
1:06:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's true. Well, or was I a shorter member? I mean, so I was, you know, probably 21 when I last had one. And I learned just how on my own. Once I, you know, as Mr. Rogers says, what you can mention can be managed. And so once I had a name for it, oh, this is an anxiety attack. I'm not actually dying or having a heart attack. That helped me. And, you know, I just on my own knew that taking deep breaths would help me and slowing down whatever I was doing. But again, to your experience, I am amazed, Dan, that as somebody who had anxiety attacks, that you could be on the air.
1:07:42 Speaker 01 I can't think of anything more anxiety provoking than being live on the air. Like, that's really quite a high wire act that you were doing, that you were on the air while having anxiety attacks.
1:07:54 Dan Harris? It was really hard. I have to say, speaking of you, I was joking when I called you an amateur. I mean, meaning more like it's still a big part of my life, you know, panic.
1:08:02 Speaker 01 It is, but I mean, in other words, you still feel one coming on. You have to manage it.
1:08:07 Dan Harris? Yeah. And so for me, a big variable is exposure. After I got over the panic attacks I had in 2004, 2005, I had some coping mechanisms and I stopped doing cocaine, which really helped. But I was on TV so consistently that, you know, the brain just kind of acclimates. But now that I've retired from TV news, when I go back on, it's very hard. And actually, some of my first experiences of going back on TV after having retired were with you. There was a period of time, I don't know, maybe a year or two ago, where you were anchoring the 10 o'clock show on CNN and it was a panel show. And
1:08:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, a year ago.
1:08:44 Dan Harris? There were a couple of months where I was being invited to be on the panel. But there were times when I would come on the show where I had been off the air for a year. I was panicky and I remember times where you would ask me a question and I would say things and I would I would dissociate. Because I it felt so surreal and I thought the panic was going to come and I was bracing for it and words were coming out of my mouth. And it all felt very surreal and in a bad way.
1:09:11 Speaker 01 Well, I'm really sorry to hear that because you fake it really well. You fake, you're such a professional and you're so articulate and you know your stuff. And so you fake it really well. I mean, obviously you come ready to play and you know, that helps a lot. I know what you mean. Being on TV is a muscle that you have to use, I find. So even, I'm not doing a daily show right now. And when I go back on TV, on somebody else's show, because I'm not using that muscle every day. I know what you mean. It's a, I, I have a little bit of a disassociative situation that happens. So I hear myself talking, I see myself looking at the camera, but I don't ever think it's going to spiral into a panic attack anymore. But I know, I know what you mean about how they feel sort of the same.
1:09:56 Speaker 01 There are definitely body sensations that feel the same in that moment.
1:10:02 Dan Harris? Yes. And for me, and because my brain is very good at panicking, and I still do have panic attacks. That it really is, it is a clear and present danger. So I have to, there's a lot of things I have to do. I just did a little bit of press around the 10th anniversary of my book. And one of the things I did was have my wife come and stand behind the camera on Good Morning America and The View. And so I could just see her and it just made me comfortable.
1:10:26 Speaker 01 That's so nice, Dan. I mean, that's so nice. That's beautiful that she, you know, speaking of home.
1:10:31 Dan Harris? Yeah.
1:10:31 Speaker 01 I mean, obviously she gives you some sort of feeling of safety and comfort and home. And that's so nice that your panic can be resolved, you know, with her image.
1:10:44 Dan Harris? Yes. Yes.
1:10:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's really nice.
1:10:47 Dan Harris? My son travels with me a lot. He's nine and one of the things we do is travel together when I'm giving talks. Cause I do give a lot of talks and people ask him what his job is and he says he's my emotional support animal.
1:11:04 Speaker 01 That is so cute.
1:11:05 Dan Harris? It's very cute.
1:11:07 Speaker 01 That's really nice. I mean, that's, I think that, my gosh, what a beautiful silver lining, you know, to having anxiety. But I'm sorry, I wish I had known that that was so complicated, you coming on. I remember that you kindly, and you can cut this, but you kindly offered Jay Michaelson to us, who was so great. I mean, I was, that was, he was a delight to have on, but I was like, God, man, Dan is so involved. He doesn't even care about FaceTime on TV. He's giving it away.
1:11:36 Dan Harris? Yeah, I mean, part of that is true. I mean, somewhat evolved. I definitely don't have competitive feelings as much as I used to. Jay Michaelson, just for the uninitiated, he's been on this show many times. He's an incredible person, meditation teacher, rabbi, journalist, LGBTQ activist. He's got a great Substack right now, and he goes on CNN and lots of other places to opine on the news. Yeah, and Alison put him on a lot. Before I let you go, Alison, just can you remind everybody of the name of the book and anything else you want them to know about from you?
1:12:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, so my memoir is called Combat Love. It's a story of searching for belonging and home. And it just came out. You can find it anywhere that you buy books, or you can always follow me on Instagram. Yeah, that's how you can keep up with me.
1:12:25 Dan Harris? And there was a novel several years prior, I believe it was Amanda Wakes Up?
1:12:30 Speaker 01 Amanda Wakes Up, which was the story of an ambitious young journalist, broadcast journalist, wannabe anchor, working her way up at a kind of pseudo cable news network that was pretending to represent both sides, but really just cared about ratings.
1:12:52 Dan Harris? Basically, that was a memoir, too.
1:12:54 Speaker 01 Yes. That was a memoir, too, because I write what I know, as all early writers do.
1:13:02 Dan Harris? Such a pleasure. Thank you for your time. It was great to have you on.
1:13:05 Speaker 01 Thanks, Dan. Such a pleasure to talk to you.
1:13:11 Dan Harris? Thanks again to Alison. Great to talk to her. Just to say, Alison experienced two major life changes in the year since we recorded this interview. First, and I'm very sad to report this, her husband of 23 years died after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. So I'm sending my best to her and her family. Also, in December of 2024, she left CNN, ending a 30-plus-year career in national news. She's since moved on to Substack, where she hosts a video podcast called Sanity, and I'll drop a link in the show notes for that. I'm also on Substack, as you know. If you're a paid subscriber, you can get ad-free
1:13:53 Dan Harris? versions of this very podcast. You can also get live guided meditations with me and much more. And finally, let me just thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Kara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
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