@standupkid conversations

As Fox News marks its 25th anniversary this week, the network sits as the unrivaled ratings king of cable news, finishing the third quarter with an average prime time audience of 2.372 million viewers—more than CNN and MSNBC combined—a win that marks Fox’s 79th consecutive quarter as the most-watched cable news network.

“We’ve made huge strides over 25 years,” Fox anchor Bret Baier told me. “When Fox started it was this niche market. It turned out the niche was literally half the country.”

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In Episode 19 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, whose new prime time show is American Built with Stuart Varney, which focuses on architects, engineers and historians and the iconic projects they created, like the Hoover Dam and the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Stuart Varney is a busy man—and he’s about to get even busier. Varney anchors host of Fox Business Network’s market opening program, Varney & Company, a fixture of the network’s programming that’s often the highest-rated financial program on cable. But starting today, Varney takes on part of FBN’s prime time lineup as well, with the debut of American Built with Stuart Varney, which focuses on architects, engineers and historians and the iconic projects they created, like the Hoover Dam and the Hubble Space Telescope.

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In Episode 18 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, about America’s exit from Afghanistan. Griffin’s been reporting in and about the Middle East for 30 years, and is today one of the best-sourced journalists covering the Pentagon. In our conversation, Griffin talked about the first Saturday she’d had off from work in 30 days of nonstop reporting on Afghanistan, and how stepping away from the story brought up a flood of emotions. She was attending the convocation at Georgetown University, where her two daughters are attending classes.

“I sat there listening, feeling extremely emotional at the idea that they made the announcement that 60% of the Georgetown class were women this year,” Griffin told me, the pain and sadness catching in her throat. “And I just thought of those Afghan university students in Kabul, and how those girls are not going to be getting educated. It is too much. This is 20, 30 years of scar tissue.”

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For Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, it was in a quiet moment, exhausted after a nonstop month of work that the emotional impact of America’s exit from Afghanistan caught up with her. It was her first Saturday off in weeks, and she attended convocation at Georgetown, where her daughters had just started college.

“I sat there listening, feeling extremely emotional at the idea that they made the announcement that 60% of the Georgetown class were women this year,” Griffin told me, the pain and sadness catching in her throat. “And I just thought of those Afghan university students in Kabul, and how those girls are not going to be getting educated. It is too much. This is 20, 30 years of scar tissue.”

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In Episode 17, I spoke with ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, who has covered the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Thernos extensively in her podcast, The Drop Out, which returns for a new season focused on the trial.

“For me, part of the joy of doing the work with The Drop Out: Elizabeth Holmes on Trialwas both the investigative side, but also this creativity where I was in this entirely new format...it was like painting with a paintbrush and getting to test things.”

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This week, Elizabeth Holmes, once described as America’s first self-made female billionaire, goes on trial for fraud. She’s accused of defrauding investors, doctors and patients who believed in the promise of her company, Theranos, which promised to test for hundreds of diseases—all from a single drop of blood.

ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis has covered Holmes and Thernos extensively, and this week her podcast, The Drop Out, returns for a new season focused on the trial.

“For me, part of the joy of doing the work with The Drop Out: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial was both the investigative side, but also this creativity where I was in this entirely new format...it was like painting with a paintbrush and getting to test things.”

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In Episode 16 of the podcast, I talked to Dateline NBC supervising producer Dan Slepian about his podcast, 13 Alibis, which told the story of a man convicted of murder despite having thirteen people willing to testify he was in another state when the crime was committed.

“I think that we would be stunned as a country to get a real understanding of how many people have been taken from their families, and put in prison for crimes they didn't commit.”

“This isn’t an aberration. It’s how the system works,” he told me.

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After spending nearly 30 years on death row, Ogrod was released from prison after an investigation uncovered misconduct by police and prosecutors. In his first national interview, set to air Friday night on Dateline NBC, Ogrod tells NBC’s Lester Holt how he was pressured to sign a confession filled with details he knew nothing about.

“I think that we would be stunned as a country to get a real understanding of how many people have been taken from their families, and put in prison for crimes they didn't commit,” says Dateline supervising producer Dan Slepian, who worked on the story, digging into what Slepian describes as “a thirty year old case with thousands and thousands of pages of documents.”

In our conversation, we talked about the details of this case—and his podcast, 13 Alibis, which also featured a man wrongfully convicted of murder. “This isn’t an aberration. It’s how the system works,” he told me.

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In Episode 15 of the podcast, I talk to Bill Kurtis, veteran anchorman and one of broadcasting’s most identifiable voices, familiar to viewers in Chicago, where he anchored newscasts at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV for decades alongside Walter Jacobson. Today, he can be heard on true crime shows like American Justice, Cold Case Files and American Justice. He was also the narrator of the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. If you don’t watch movies or television, you can catch Kurtis as the announcer and scorekeeper of NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com

Veteran anchorman Bill Kurtis has one of broadcasting’s most identifiable voices, familiar to viewers in Chicago, where he anchored newscasts at CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV for decades alongside Walter Jacobson. Today, he can be heard on true crime shows like American Justice, Cold Case Files and American Justice. He was also the narrator of the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. If you don’t watch movies or television, you can catch Kurtis as the announcer and scorekeeper of NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Now Kurtis is adding a podcast to his credits, hosting We Interrupt This Broadcast alongside MSNBC’s Brian Williams. Each episode focuses on a major news event—the 9/11 attacks, the shooting of President Ronald Reagan, the death of Princess Diana—as seen through the voices of the reporters, anchors, producers and crew who covered the stories in real time.

“It show us how chasing the truth is hard—finding it is even harder,” Kurtis told me. “It gives us a whole new perspective on the story.”

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In Episode 14 of the podcast, I talked to Bill Kurtis’ podcast partner Brian Williams, the anchor of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour and a confessed geek about the history of broadcast news. We talked about We Interrupt This Broadcast and some of what Williams hopes to cover when the podcast returns for its second season.

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As the anchor of MSNBC’s nightly The 11th Hour, Brian Williams is no stranger to live coverage of major breaking news, and now he’s narrating a new podcast about broadcast news, We Interrupt This Broadcast, which tells each story through the voices of the broadcast journalists, producers, photographers and others who covered the story on that day.

Based on the book of the same name by writer Joe Garner, We Interrupt This Broadcast tells each story as it unfolded through the eyes of reporters, news anchors and the photographers, producers and technical crews that drop everything to cover major news. “You know, I was there for some of these,” Williams told me. “And I’ve delved into all the audio, and I’ve sat in the studio and narrated them, and they still make my pulse race. They still make me emotional.”

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In episode 13 of the podcast, I spoke with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace on the 25th anniversary of the Fox News Sunday public affairs show.

“When I came on [in 2003], I wanted to put Fox News Sunday at the forefront of the conversation, that it would be taken as seriously and make as much if not more news than any of the other Sunday shows,” Wallace told me. “And I think we’ve succeeded at that.”

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This weekend will mark the 25th anniversary of Fox News Sunday, the public affairs program which debuted April 28, 1996 with the late Tony Snow as host. Chris Wallace took over as host in 2003 and will mark the anniversary with a special edition of FNS, which airs Sunday mornings on Fox Broadcasting stations and later in the day on Fox News Channel.

“When I came on [in 2003], I wanted to put Fox News Sunday at the forefront of the conversation, that it would be taken as seriously and make as much if not more news than any of the other Sunday shows,” Wallace told me this week. “And I think we’ve succeeded at that.”

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“Until the world is vaccinated, no one is vaccinated,” said NBC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden. “The virus will continue to spread. This pandemic could go on for another 7 years if we don’t succeed in distributing the vaccine around the world.”

In Episode 12 of the podcast, I talked to McFadden, who recently traveled to Uganda, where she had exclusive access to the international teams working to bring Covid-19 vaccines to some of the most vulnerable—and remote—communities on Earth. “We got to see a small part of a very big puzzle,” McFadden said.

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“Until the world is vaccinated, no one is vaccinated,” said NBC News correspondent Cynthia McFadden. “The virus will continue to spread. This pandemic could go on for another 7 years if we don’t succeed in distributing the vaccine around the world.”

McFadden recently traveled to Copenhagen and Uganda, where she had exclusive access to the international teams working to bring Covid-19 vaccines to some of the most vulnerable—and remote—communities on Earth. “We got to see a small part of a very big puzzle,” McFadden said.

McFadden took two international flights, a soaking boat ride and then a three-hour drive alongside UNICEF teams carrying a small ice chest packed hope—40 vials of vaccine destined for health care workers in the Buvuma Islands of Uganda. It’s the first time a broadcast news crew has seen the global distribution effort first hand, showing viewers of NBC Nightly News and Today exactly how difficult it is, both to access the vaccine and then to get it to remote communities in the world’s poorest countries.

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In Episode 11 of the podcast, I talked to Politico’s Eugene Daniels about race, journalism and covering the Biden-Harris Administration.

“When I go into the White House it’s not lost on me the reason that I’m there is because of the hard work of my family members, the hard work of Black people in general, and the fact that slaves built that building.”

In our conversation, we talked about covering DC, being a Black man and a gay man working the White House beat, and about his experience in local news in Colorado, when a news executive told him his “voice was too Black to be a full time reporter in Colorado Springs.”

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Politico reporter Eugene Daniels says his grandmother, who was active in politics and the civil rights movement, instilled in him both a love of history and politics. She died in 2012, but he knows she would have loved seeing him step into his new role: covering Vice President Kamala Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden as part of Politico’s White House team. He’d also be one of the new writers producing Politico’s iconic Playbook.

“When I go into the White House it’s not lost on me the reason that I’m there is because of the hard work of my family members, the hard work of Black people in general, and the fact that slaves built that building.”

In our conversation, we talked about covering DC, being a Black man and a gay man working the White House beat, and about his experience in local news in Colorado, when a news executive told him his “voice was too Black to be a full time reporter in Colorado Springs.”

Recent Stories:

In Episode 10 of the podcast, I talked to NBC News correspondent Kate Snow, who recently talked to kids across the country about how they’re coping after a year in pandemic lockdown. The kids told her: they’re struggling. Stress around isolation and grappling with remote and hybrid learning has kids feeling disconnected—and for some, feeling profound pain.

Snow wrote last year about the stress she felt when her husband fell ill with Covid, leading her to seek treatment with a therapist.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit standupkid.substack.com