The 25th Anniversary of 9/11
[0:00]Well, you know, I, Caroline have traveled in the same circles for a long time.
[0:10]This is not a very big business.
[0:13]Here among the people that Carol invited are two of my former on-air colleagues and two former
[0:21]baseline producers.
[0:23]So we, the Venn diagram of friends and colleagues that we share has a huge overlap.
[0:32]I actually knew Carol's husband Will, before I knew Carol, I met him when he worked in San
[0:38]Francisco through our mutual friend Mark Thompson, who would be here if he had not recently
[0:44]broke his ankle, which was incredibly clumsy.
[0:51]And so there was a lot of overlap.
[0:54]It wasn't long when I moved to Los Angeles in 91 to work for Channel 9.
[1:02]It was not long after that that I met you.
[1:04]Right.
[1:05]I was a local reporter here for Fox 11 and Will had also made the trip from San Francisco
[1:13]to LA.
[1:14]We'd be managing editor at KCBS.
[1:17]Right.
[1:18]And so the three of us spent plenty of time together back then.
[1:22]You bet.
[1:23]And the reason why it's so special, not only for all of you to be here because many
[1:29]of you are from different paths of my life, so special.
[1:35]It's just crazy to see you all in one room.
[1:37]Many of you I don't know.
[1:40]Some of you I've met for the first time.
[1:42]And that books can bring us together is just fabulous.
[1:47]And I wanted Josh, so you might know Josh as long time NBC Dateline Correspondent.
[1:55]I told Josh, hey, listen, if everybody actually really wants to talk to you and not
[1:59]really, I am so cool with that.
[2:02]No, but but Josh is this magical combination when it comes to when news breaks.
[2:09]And we'll talk a little bit about for those of you who haven't read the book.
[2:12]But Josh not only did he know will who I describe when I describe what when news breaks
[2:18]is about I say it's not the story of a guns or journalist.
[2:22]It is the story of a complicated love with an older newsman and the career that brought us
[2:27]together and pulled us apart.
[2:30]And because Josh texted me out of the blue, I'm not one of those people who texts people
[2:36]and say, oh, I wrote a book.
[2:37]Do you want to buy the book?
[2:38]I was very, very low key about all of it.
[2:41]And thinking that this book is like my child in a way, like it's going to find its way
[2:46]into the world.
[2:47]And I wanted to see what it would do.
[2:49]And somehow it landed in your head.
[2:51]Yeah, I got some email about it.
[2:52]And I was like, I was like, Carolyn wrote a book and we're going to find that.
[2:58]And I had it and I read it and it's great.
[3:01]And I know that you all enjoy it, you know, we're here.
[3:05]We're doing it today because Carol was the voice of CNN on the air 25 years ago and
[3:12]CNN was the first network to report that a plane had flown into the world.
[3:16]And I was looking at some of that video today during her appearance on the KTHLA Morning
[3:21]News.
[3:23]And the thing that struck me was how measured and careful and not hysterical Carol was in
[3:32]telling that story.
[3:33]Like the first thing out of her mouth was like, you know, obviously, you know, there's
[3:38]been some calamity there, but we don't really know exactly what happened.
[3:42]You know, I don't know if you, I don't know how many of you remember this, but the, you
[3:46]know, the president, George W. Bush was among the missing that day.
[3:51]He was in Florida when this thing happened.
[3:55]And they were clearly, I think the Secret Service was clearly worried that bringing him
[3:59]back to Washington would expose him to risk.
[4:01]So he flew around the country to various secure air bases, looking for one that would
[4:09]have a TV hook up that he could address the nation from.
[4:12]So there was a very long time on that day in which nobody in authority was saying anything
[4:20]except our TV anchors.
[4:21]And the first one who was doing that was Carol.
[4:25]And that's sort of why we're here today, but I also having read the book and knowing
[4:33]her and knowing well, like it's not just about that.
[4:36]It's about so much more.
[4:38]It's about it's about her life and the business that we both got into, in my case, 50
[4:47]years ago.
[4:48]No way.
[4:49]Yeah.
[4:50]It was like a child later.
[4:51]Wow.
[4:52]Oh my God.
[4:53]I knew.
[4:54]Can the school year all work at that work?
[4:56]Yeah.
[4:57]But yeah, it was weird.
[5:00]Yeah, and so for me, the book is also sort of a story
[5:06]of what's happened to TV news.
[5:09]And there have been a lot of changes.
[5:13]Some of them good.
[5:14]Some of them not good.
[5:17]And I was watching the replay of Carol this morning.
[5:22]I was struck by how precious voices like that are.
[5:30]in a confusing, difficult, crazy time
[5:33]when you don't know all the facts,
[5:35]and they don't know all the facts.
[5:37]And sometimes, the most valuable thing
[5:40]that a TV anchor can do is to tamp down speculation
[5:45]and not tell you the thing they just heard
[5:49]and wait for things to be confirmed.
[5:52]It to be right as opposed to being first.
[5:55]Which seems so quaint these days.
[5:58]And when I'm asked about that morning,
[6:00]one of the things that I often say in these interviews
[6:03]is it's not what I say on the air because really what I said
[6:07]was not profound.
[6:08]If you Google my name and you Google CNN and you Google 911,
[6:12]the clip comes up.
[6:13]And it is the iconic words this just in, which is why I think
[6:17]it's used in Hollywood films and documentaries
[6:20]because it is that iconic moment.
[6:23]But we didn't know anything.
[6:25]And the information, there was no social media.
[6:29]Really, there wasn't much of internet to speak of.
[6:33]And so when the teleprompter goes blank,
[6:36]when your producer gets in your ear and says,
[6:38]we're going into rolling coverage.
[6:40]And we bust out of commercial break.
[6:42]And up comes the full screen of the burning North Tower.
[6:47]And you're seeing it just as I'm seeing it.
[6:50]And what you don't know is what I'm hearing in my earpiece.
[6:54]So they're telling me we're trying to get,
[6:57]we may go to John King at the White House.
[6:59]We might do this standby for this.
[7:01]We're looking for what are called phoneers, beepers.
[7:04]Eyewitnesses on the ground to call in.
[7:07]And that is in fact how we confirmed that it was a passenger
[7:10]jet.
[7:10]It was a Turner executive in a conference
[7:13]from in New York City looking out a glass window,
[7:15]hearing the roar of the plane and seeing it four seconds
[7:19]later strike the tower.
[7:21]And he knew it was a passenger jet.
[7:23]And when that happened, when we first saw the video,
[7:28]the CNN newsroom where you could hear a pin drop
[7:32]when war breaks out, because the DNA of the news
[7:34]organization is to cover breaking news.
[7:37]That's nothing new to them.
[7:39]But the entire newsroom was on its feet.
[7:44]And there is a clip of this in a CNN documentary
[7:47]because we happen to have a videographer in the newsroom
[7:50]that day shooting what are called bump shots.
[7:52]Those are the wide shots of the newsroom
[7:54]that go to commercial break.
[7:56]So he was there to shoot that.
[7:57]And he starts rolling on the chaos.
[8:00]Everybody's standing there pointing.
[8:01]It looks like a Hollywood movie.
[8:04]They're shouting into the phone.
[8:07]Then we get that Turner executive.
[8:10]And we find out that it's a passenger plane.
[8:14]And what I'm also hearing in my ear that I'm not reporting
[8:17]is that Mayor Giuliani is sending 10,000 body bags down
[8:22]to ground 0, 10,000, which I was hearing
[8:27]that there was a car bomb outside the State Department.
[8:29]I was hearing that they were evacuating the White House,
[8:32]which they haven't at that point.
[8:34]We were hearing all kinds of things like that,
[8:36]but we were not reporting it.
[8:39]And we're caught between a rock and a hard place,
[8:42]because on the one hand, that clip that you're talking about
[8:45]is we have unconfirmed reports of a plane
[8:47]into the World Trade Center.
[8:49]OK, unconfirmed.
[8:51]Why am I going to air?
[8:52]Well, because that visual needed context.
[8:57]You can see it.
[8:57]You can see it.
[8:58]Something has happened.
[8:59]Catastrophic.
[9:00]Yes.
[9:00]That wasn't just a bomb.
[9:02]It wasn't just a, it was something catastrophic.
[9:06]But beyond that, the reporting required more verification.
[9:09]And the public had more patience, Josh.
[9:12]I think they were willing to wait.
[9:14]Well, they also had nowhere else to go.
[9:16]You weren't in a race against Twitter.
[9:20]I mean, I mean, the speed with which information spreads now
[9:27]is not necessarily an advantage in all circumstances.
[9:32]Some of it is.
[9:33]But some of it isn't, because I mean, when there is any mass
[9:40]shooting, when there's any sort of major disaster,
[9:44]the bullshit and the river of that that emerges right away.
[9:51]I mean, there will be, when there's a mass shooting,
[9:54]there will be a photograph on social media within five minutes.
[9:58]And it will say this.
[10:00]This is the gunman, his name is earned.
[10:02]He's a registered Democrat or Republican.
[10:05]He gave money to this campaign and here's something he wrote yesterday and it'll all
[10:12]be wrong.
[10:13]Yeah.
[10:14]That happens all the time and different news organizations which aren't as careful as she
[10:20]was and is others certainly try to be.
[10:23]We'll end up reporting that.
[10:27]It's a it happens every time there is there there is sort of a a dearth of confirmed
[10:34]information.
[10:35]Right.
[10:36]And you know there's also the push pull between correspondence out in the field and
[10:40]editors on the desk when you're fighting for your story out in the field when you are
[10:44]so certain of your sources and what you're seeing I witness on the ground and the push
[10:49]back that you're getting from your management and that's just the natural discourse
[10:53]in a healthy newsroom.
[10:55]But now it's you know shoot first ask questions later and what I'm seeing as a viewer.
[11:00]In 1981 I was a reporter in Washington D.C. at the ABC affiliate and I walked in to work.
[11:06]I was the I was telling what was coming in.
[11:10]I came in like early afternoon and and as I walked in to the station there was a TV in
[11:18]the lobby that like guests could look at while they were waiting and on the TV should have
[11:23]been a soap opera but instead it was Frank Reynolds it was then the main anchor of ABC news
[11:28]and he was on TV and he had the phone to his ear and I was like okay we're a war like
[11:33]this is huge you don't see things like that on television in the middle of the day and
[11:37]it turned out somebody had shot the president and all kinds of things were reported incorrectly
[11:45]that day within just a couple of hours including famously that White House Press Secretary
[11:51]Jim Brady had been shot and killed and in fact he had been shot but not killed he looked
[11:55]for a really long time after that and in any story like that there's going to be stuff
[12:04]that shouldn't be reported and it's the job of the professionals at the anchor desk and
[12:09]some of the people behind them to make sure that that doesn't happen and a lot of times
[12:14]that's sort of the most valuable thing they do is not tell you the wrong thing because
[12:19]you can see what's happening you know something hit the World Trade Center and then why
[12:25]you're watching something else it's the other building so you can deduce from that what's
[12:30]going on but when that happens against a backdrop of crazy unconfirmed rumors that are getting
[12:39]reported it's a whole other world yeah and there are consequences that are unseen but let me
[12:46]give you an example so I've been asked how did journalism change after 9-11 you know how did
[12:53]the world change after 9-11 but I distinctly remember when Geraldo Rivera had gone from ABC news
[13:00]to Fox and we were all being dispersed out into the field going to central Asia Pakistan Afghanistan
[13:07]if you could get inside and Geraldo Rivera did a live shot that put all of us out in the field
[13:13]after 9-11 in jeopardy he did a live shot where the anchor said whoa you're an Afghanistan
[13:20]surrounded by the Taliban aren't you scared and he said well I've got something waiting for
[13:27]them or something like that and he pulled out a handgun remember that yeah god and I remember
[13:33]I remember a life study in which he said on camera we're here the US troops are here right we
[13:40]think the tail lights over here and the army was like you're out of there
[13:44]yeah give away troop movements so the consequence of that live shot for every journalist traveling
[13:51]through Pakistan and Afghanistan put our lives in danger why because there is this unwritten code of
[13:59]conduct in the fields that journalists are non-combatants and because we are non-combatants
[14:05]that we are there to tell your story you want us alive where are the ones who are going to tell
[14:12]your story this was before social media so so now Geraldo Rivera whips out a handgun in
[14:20]Afghanistan and every single one of us I remember that gasp because we had to think twice now
[14:26]about how we we had to just because it it changed the way people saw us um what an idiot
[14:37]what an idiot I mean we could in local news feel pretty comfortable going through
[14:43]known gang territory after you know a mass shooting because they're not coming for us yeah although
[14:50]you know what's changed in the last 25 years like TV crews do get assaulted because you know
[14:57]they make journalists right I mean
[15:00]We used to be the good guys.
[15:01]People are political leaders tell their crowds,
[15:09]journalists, to the enemy.
[15:14]It crews that go out to cover the news.
[15:18]Any news, not a political rally.
[15:21]They're getting assaulted.
[15:22]They're getting their equipment taken.
[15:24]It's a different world now.
[15:26]I never ever had security with me when I was in local news.
[15:30]And now reporters do all the time.
[15:33]All the time.
[15:33]So we would go through war zone training.
[15:36]Some of that training at CNN involved.
[15:39]Usually it involved something more planned.
[15:41]They would send you to London, actually.
[15:44]And the former British special forces
[15:48]would run a training camp.
[15:49]So you would have a briefing room, a lesson.
[15:54]And then at some point, they would literally
[15:56]set you out into the woods and hunt you down.
[15:59]Just to see how your training really took.
[16:04]But we didn't have that time when it came to 9-11.
[16:08]When I was covering the Middle East in 1983,
[16:12]I was at ABC then.
[16:16]I felt like we had any training at all.
[16:18]Like I got off the plane and went to work.
[16:20]There were no bulletproof vests or no helmets.
[16:23]We wrote TV in Gaffers tape on the windshield of the truck.
[16:32]And that probably did work too.
[16:38]I brought, I remember driving up from Israel to Beirut
[16:44]to work in the Beirut Bureau.
[16:46]I was at during the siege in 82.
[16:49]And I had 100 grand in a paper bag
[16:53]so that they were going to use for bribes.
[16:56]Yeah.
[16:57]And I brought it in.
[16:59]I put it down on the beer and she said,
[17:01]he's like, great.
[17:01]And then immediately, they were like, personally,
[17:03]and out the beer bowl.
[17:04]Yeah, to keep us safe.
[17:05]I mean, that actually sort of worked better than that.
[17:08]All right.
[17:09]We'll see where we're going to have them.
[17:10]Make sure you have your lunch sack, which, by the way,
[17:13]is the bag, man.
[17:14]So you've got to write your book.
[17:16]No, no, no.
[17:16]You're going to have them.
[17:17]It's like, oh, yeah.
[17:18]No, no, no.
[17:20]The great thing about this, if we're
[17:22]going to listen to her story today, not mine.
[17:23]So I'm looking at a couple of things.
[17:29]First of all, I spoke to your mom earlier today.
[17:33]There's still time for you to be a doctor.
[17:38]So Josh is talking about Joanne, a breakout character.
[17:41]Central character in this book.
[17:43]Her Chinese name is Shichuan Lin, but she
[17:46]Anglicanized her name.
[17:47]And she had a dual identity.
[17:49]Really, she wanted to be Americanized and live
[17:52]in Silver Lake, which is now a hip Hollywood enclave.
[17:56]But back then, not so much here in Los Angeles.
[17:59]And she wanted her son to carry on the Chinese legacy.
[18:04]And so he went to Chinese school,
[18:06]language school, to keep the language.
[18:09]But they let me sleep in on Saturday mornings,
[18:11]which was just fine with me.
[18:12]She wanted me to be as American as apple pie.
[18:15]They didn't want me, even though I'm first-generation
[18:17]born American, they wanted me to speak English
[18:20]without a trace of an accent.
[18:23]And they wanted me to have two names.
[18:26]So my Chinese name is Lo San, but my American name is Carol.
[18:30]Because my father said he wanted me
[18:33]to be as memorable as a song.
[18:36]And so throughout my childhood,
[18:38]and I write a little bit about this in the book,
[18:40]that there's this duality of, do I whitewash myself
[18:44]because my mother wants, it was,
[18:47]I think her idea of keeping her daughter safe.
[18:49]But my father pressing me to understand
[18:53]that I could hold all the knowledge in the world.
[18:55]And that was the story of the encyclopedias
[18:58]that he bought me when I was 10, 11 years old.
[19:00]And remember they came in a box and they were leather bound
[19:03]and you could smell the fresh pages.
[19:06]And truly you had all the knowledge in the world.
[19:09]And that is what he impressed upon me.
[19:11]So recently I was interviewed by Governor John Casich
[19:16]who has a podcast because it doesn't everybody.
[19:19]And he asked me, what was your first foray into journalism?
[19:22]And it was really my father's love of the written word.
[19:26]And but Joanne, she just wanted me
[19:31]to walk the walk of a good Chinese girl, right?
[19:34]Get married, get enough education
[19:37]so you can get a job that's very stable,
[19:39]maybe nursing, engineering, if you're really ambitious.
[19:43]And when I told her that I wanted to be a journalist,
[19:45]she practically spat like I wrote in the book
[19:49]when news breaks I wrote that it's as if I said
[19:52]I wanted to be a prostitute because she's like,
[19:54]what is this journalism?
[19:56]And a line in the book that is repeated back to me frequently.
[20:00]is that my mother would say that words would never love you back and that words
[20:06]can be misunderstood and that was her greatest fear for me to go out in a
[20:10]public way and present myself and be misunderstood and by being misunderstood
[20:15]I would be attacked but there are there are consequences to that and when if
[20:20]any of you are any of you interested in writing are you guys doing I know one
[20:24]person is she's working on hers it's gonna be a good one and another one
[20:29]chapter one is absolutely essential your agent or editors will say that
[20:36]your first 10 pages and then your next 50 pages but really your first 10
[20:41]pages have to tell the audience what your book is about so the scene you pick
[20:47]the people you talk about are absolutely essential and just as you said
[20:53]Josh you know yes there's a chapter about 9-11 but and yes it's the story
[20:58]of a journalist or two journalists but that was what I had to wrestle with to
[21:03]what was I gonna communicate to you about what this book was about and
[21:08]one of the things that occurred to me is that your mom was right in some ways that
[21:12]words would never love us back well this business that we love doesn't love us
[21:15]individually it loves us collectively it loves our labor but you know it is a
[21:22]mercenary business and I mean I have been in it for 50 years there are a lot of people
[21:31]many of them significantly more talented than I who are not working anymore for a variety of
[21:37]reasons this is not a uh this is not I hear all the time now particularly in local news
[21:44]about people who are leaving different stations around the country because it's simply
[21:49]making out money and then obviously their families and the reward isn't there the way it
[21:55]used to be so there was something correct in what your mom said that said you know and I know
[22:02]this business isn't iconic and and if you are and I grew up in the 1960s watching
[22:11]Vietnam and civil rights movement in that Watergate and I was hooked very early on so
[22:18]I'm incredibly lucky to still be in it but it is you know it if you're expecting a lot of
[22:25]from from this industry you're you're gonna be disappointed yeah yeah yeah and but and it's
[22:31]wrecked countless marriages yeah we had it we had a few moments ourselves in the book um
[22:40]which slides me into the reading yes okay so um in thinking about what I wanted to share
[22:46]with you especially for those who haven't read the book um I wanted to share exactly how do you
[22:51]get that point across but in a in a storytelling way to engage you so that you know in memoir
[22:59]you really have to be rooting for the author you have to be vested in her story
[23:05]and I'm gonna present myself humbly to you if you want to read a gonzo female journalist story
[23:10]there are plenty written out there Clarissa Ward has an awesome one she's the chief international
[23:15]correspondent for CNN but the story that I set out to write um was really about how we love
[23:25]and who we love and when if ever is the right time to let go of the things that no longer
[23:30]serve you and so in thinking about the pages I wanted to read to you it kind of encompasses a lot
[23:36]of what we're talking about and it's it's from chapter one which page we are um I'm gonna start
[23:41]on page 12 so the scene is chapter one I take you to the border of Afghanistan and I'm in the
[23:50]crosshairs of a Taliban fighter if you're gonna pick up a book about a journalist I gotta give you
[23:56]something so I'm gonna take you there it's four weeks after 9-11 and my crew and I are literally
[24:03]in the crosshairs of the Taliban fighter on the Pakistan Afghan border which is a joke it's a ditch
[24:09]there's nothing there to protect us so as I'm assessing the situation I say that I rationalize
[24:16]that the Taliban fighter might spare Doug my photographer a man but I was just a woman a piece
[24:23]of property according to Taliban law perhaps to him I wasn't even human just easy prey caught
[24:30]lingering too long in the lush feeding ground of an exclusive post 9-11 story the rest of our team
[24:37]was in the satellite truck too far away to make a run for it not gonna lie I was an experienced
[24:42]field reporter but no guns a war correspondent by that point I had reported overseas for CNN just once
[24:49]covering the aftermath of the cause of the war the shooting was over by the time I got to
[24:54]Christina suddenly my cell phone buzz twice it was my mother calling
[25:00]Again, I sent her to voicemail for the third time.
[25:03]I had warned her not to call today, but telling her not to call only meant she'd go to great
[25:08]lengths to reach me. She was the only person I knew who expected cell phone service at Afghanistan's
[25:14]border. My mom had begged me not to go on this assignment. Why this place? Why not stay anchoring
[25:20]the news of the 9-11 aftermath from the safety of CNN's Atlanta studios? Wasn't that enough?
[25:27]She was anxious that I took risks when after three years at CNN. I was not the highest profile
[25:34]anchor on the network. Yet I saw myself as an ambitious comment flying alongside a constellation
[25:40]of CNN stars instantly recognizable by their first names, Wolf, Christian, and the up-and-coming
[25:47]Anderson. As the child of immigrants, I intuitively sought who had the power and learned to
[25:53]bask in their adjacent light. It was a survival skill for people like my parents who had arrived
[25:59]in America as students with no long-term safety net. A simulation begins with be nice. My mainland
[26:07]Chinese parents had ingrained in me how important it was to be pleasing. How others viewed us,
[26:12]they said, shaped our destiny. Educated by Christian missionaries, they credited their prayers
[26:19]and my steady stream of pleas and thank you for my teachers as the divine difference between
[26:25]earning A's or settling for B pluses. But that's not how it works in television. You never quite
[26:31]graduate from the real-time feedback loop of agents, consultants, and of course the audience.
[26:39]So I wanted to share with you a very specific point of view of what it was like to be a woman.
[26:49]In that job, taking risks and why. Why would I do this? Why wouldn't I stay in that nice cushy studio?
[26:59]Because it's a narcotic, it is a drug. You want to write that first chapter history.
[27:05]But I do think, and I give all credit for at least one, but many more girl dads in this room,
[27:12]maybe two. But as a woman, we are told that you can have it all, and I believe that you can,
[27:21]but not all at once. And when you go into a profession that shapes you in the crosshairs, when you
[27:28]live a life and being judged, whether it's your Chinese mother wanting you to go this way,
[27:35]or your Chinese father wanting to go that way, or all those people that I had just mentioned,
[27:40]the push and pull of your own identity becomes very, it becomes tested, is what it becomes.
[27:47]And then what happens is you fall in love someday if you're so lucky, big love, and Will was
[27:53]big love. He was that guy, is how I describe him when we met in Iowa, and you know him,
[28:00]and I had to do him justice. You did. All my memories of Will are of him laughing.
[28:07]And with a drink in his hand, get out the good stuff, right? When you would show up at his house,
[28:15]throwing his head back and laughing, and nothing seemed to make him more happy than being around people
[28:25]with a drink in his hand and having a laugh and telling a story. And I'm lucky that that's how I always
[28:33]remember him. I didn't have any of the terrible memories of him being sick that you did have to
[28:39]live with. I did see him. The last time I saw him, your daughter had just been born. And and I saw Will
[28:50]together with your daughter who was, you know, tiny at the time. And I remember thinking she
[28:57]won't remember. So it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book. You know, many people have asked me,
[29:06]why did you write this? Because it's a very intimate story. It's an arc of a marriage
[29:12]through this business. And where is 9-11 in all of this? You know, sometimes it takes
[29:19]that moment, that moment when you go from 8.45 a.m. Eastern to 8.46 to 8.49 when I first hit the air.
[29:30]And the chapter where Will, I find out that Will is diagnosed with a cancer that we were going to
[29:40]have to fight. I was six months pregnant. And I remember every moment, just the same as each of us
[29:47]remembers every detail of what we were doing right before we learned about the attacks.
[29:54]And in talking with my editor in this process, she said, wow, you really write a lot about
[30:00]time in your book. And I didn't even realize this, but time is a character in the book.
[30:05]And I pause that scene for a moment, and I mean, he tells me that I have cancer.
[30:13]And I say, there it is, the moment that so many of us journalists know in that edit bay,
[30:20]when you can toggle video back and forth, when you're trying to find that end point for that
[30:25]perfect edit. And you literally can manipulate time. And what happens on that screen.
[30:33]And I talked about toggling the, you know, you toggle it back a couple of seconds, and everyone's still
[30:37]alive. And then you toggle it forward. And the plane is gone. And so many people who've read this book,
[30:46]I think the magic, if there is magic in these pages, it's because you see yourself in the pages,
[30:52]because when I hear from people, they tell me about their 9, 11 day, or they tell me about
[31:01]their diagnosis, or their caregiving experience, or their marriage.
[31:08]You know, there are, there are scenes in this book that nobody knew about because I kept them
[31:13]to myself, because, you know, you talk about an image driven industry. I think Will and I were
[31:20]all that. I think we were great love, but it didn't mean that we were perfect love. And it meant
[31:27]that we were in a business that was going to constantly test our relationship, constantly test our
[31:32]relationship. It's like twice above putting the meal out of him. Oh, yes. But when I set out to write
[31:38]this, it wasn't to sit here before you and say, please buy my book. It was really with Chloe
[31:45]in mind, our daughter. Because when I first started writing these pages back in 2008, when I left
[31:51]CNN, completely, and people were urging me for all the reasons that people urged somebody who
[31:57]just left a network, you know, write your book. And I started the pages, but then I met Mike.
[32:06]And though this is not a hallmark story, and it ends in a way that people say, oh no, what happened
[32:13]to Mike? I didn't want it to be about finding the guy. The best thing about this story is it has
[32:19]happening. Yes. But the ending is written very specifically so that it's not about the hallmark moment
[32:27]that is ephemeral, right? You can get that on cable. The ending is written so because the message is
[32:35]clear that it's about someone being seen for who they really are. What is it like as a woman to be
[32:42]seen without really anything to give anymore? No swag, no airtime. There's no press release that
[32:48]I'm going to include your name in. There's nothing I can give you except myself. And how do you
[32:54]get there when you've lived an entire life, an entire career, trying to get from one contract to
[33:00]the next, trying to be tough, but soft, you know, sensitive, but warm, yeah, obviously. I'm trying
[33:09]to make the men who own this business think about you as a combination of sexy, smart,
[33:20]committed, high mileage, low maintenance, you know, and meanwhile we're going to fix your hair.
[33:28]Right. Which is every discussion. Every discussion, right? So,
[33:34]it's written. And my editor noticed that. Like, what is with the hair? Like, hair mirrors come up.
[33:41]It's really interesting when you devote yourself to the writing process, what your consciousness
[33:46]delivers on the page. And it's really, you know, there's a certain point where your book teaches you.
[33:54]You know, so it can take, it took me two years. I set aside the pages in 2008 and I picked them up
[34:00]again. And it took me two years to finish the manuscript with a really good writing program.
[34:07]And then it took me another six months to find a publisher and to go through those revisions.
[34:14]But the book teaches you it's such a fascinating process. But I wanted, I think, you know, you talk
[34:22]about, wow, the question of what you leave in and what you leave out. So, I want to Chloe to have
[34:28]all on the page. And I knew I always had the choice not to publish, right? I didn't have to put it out.
[34:34]This is such a, I mean, it's not just a Valentine for her, right? Which it is. But it's also just
[34:42]a huge gift for her. Because like, you know, you're going to be gone someday. And but you're
[34:47]always going to live on for your daughter and these pages, which is great. And I hope what she
[34:53]sees when, especially when Will is sick is what that love looks like. What does it look like when
[34:59]you're sick?
[35:00]for the life of the man you love.
[35:02]And what does it look like when you live,
[35:04]when you've existed in a career
[35:06]that comes with privileges, right?
[35:08]And you think, I remember when you first got diagnosed,
[35:12]I'm like, well, we're just gonna attack this.
[35:14]I'm gonna call Sanjay Gupta.
[35:16]And Sanjay Gupta is gonna get me to the right doctor.
[35:18]And then when I get the right doctor,
[35:20]you know, it's like tick, tick, tick.
[35:21]It's like a show rundown, it's just gonna flow.
[35:24]It's just we're just gonna get this done.
[35:26]And the thing about cancer or any chronic situation
[35:32]that you find yourself in,
[35:34]when all your entire day is about getting to yes,
[35:38]you can't have anyone in breaking news,
[35:41]tell you no, you gotta meet your deadline.
[35:43]You gotta get to yes.
[35:45]The cancer tells you no.
[35:47]And that's when you are tested.
[35:49]That's when your love is tested, your resilience.
[35:51]And I am really glad that people,
[35:54]that readers have told me,
[35:55]I'm glad to see that privilege was not the path out.
[36:00]You know, that it wasn't gonna be
[36:01]whatever tricks Sanjay can pull up its sleeve
[36:05]to find you a cure.
[36:06]I wish they could have, but it doesn't work that way.
[36:11]No, but they did a lot for me.
[36:13]You know, they did, they clearly did.
[36:15]And I thought good for them because you never know
[36:19]how any organization is gonna react in that situation.
[36:24]So I saved this question for this moment, right?
[36:28]A public private moment.
[36:32]So you're here because I love you dearly and you knew well.
[36:36]Yes.
[36:37]And you read the book.
[36:38]No.
[36:39]Was there anything about us that surprised you?
[36:42]Well, I didn't know what,
[36:44]I didn't know what the pain he caused you.
[36:47]I didn't know about that.
[36:49]So what Josh is talking about?
[36:52]And it's the pain he caused me.
[36:56]I didn't know about the pain that he caused Carol.
[36:58]And the pain that I caused him.
[37:01]So...
[37:02]Not your beautician.
[37:03]Yeah.
[37:05]That always works, but it's kind of a girl girl thing.
[37:10]There's a scene in the book where,
[37:12]and I did warn my daughter about this,
[37:16]but there's a scene in the book where
[37:18]will feels like the business has left him.
[37:21]And I think not for the wonder of your career,
[37:24]but for most of us, there's a point
[37:26]where I think you feel like journalism
[37:28]has left the building, right?
[37:30]And what am I doing in this life?
[37:33]What is it costing me?
[37:35]Will felt that way as the managing editor
[37:37]of a local news station where he went from,
[37:40]you know, award-winning documentary work
[37:42]to working up a sweep series on online dating
[37:46]for the anchor, the new anchor.
[37:48]And so he decided to quit his job
[37:50]and join the America's Cup.
[37:51]And it was the same time I was interviewing at ABC News
[37:55]and long story shorts.
[37:58]It was a night, his night,
[38:01]sex with a stranger,
[38:04]drunken and debauchery, you know,
[38:06]life of a bunch of sailors and with too much money
[38:09]and a trophy at stake.
[38:11]And I just interviewed,
[38:14]did my last interview for ABC News,
[38:15]and I was pretty sure they were gonna offer me a contract.
[38:17]And when you go to the network,
[38:19]that's like, that's Mecca.
[38:22]That is, you know, make it to the network
[38:24]and that is where you wanna be.
[38:26]So I'm so excited and I drive down to San Diego
[38:29]to give him this news, but he has news of his own.
[38:32]And he not only tells me about this drunken night
[38:37]with this young woman,
[38:39]but he tells me that it's probably going to be featured
[38:43]on a new magazine show airing on ABC News.
[38:48]I'm like, what?
[38:52]Details in the book, but so, you know, in the,
[38:56]which is why I think which is why you fell here at the venue.
[39:01]We only told me because there was a real chance
[39:04]it was gonna make it into a story
[39:06]because Will was the first cousin of Bill Koch
[39:10]who was the billionaire funding the America's Cup race.
[39:14]He won one time and he funded an all female team
[39:18]the second time around.
[39:19]And Will was his communications director,
[39:21]but also his first cousin.
[39:23]So that's why the network was interested in him.
[39:25]It was Brian Ross, the chief investigative correspondent
[39:29]at ABC News and his crew sneaking around
[39:32]because they wanted to do something
[39:33]about the lifestyles of the rich and the debauched
[39:35]in the sailing world.
[39:37]And they were actually more focused on the spying
[39:41]on different boat holes,
[39:43]paying divers to go down and get surpitious video
[39:46]of boat holes to give the competition the edge.
[39:49]And Will can a keel that have a huge advantage for can be?
[39:54]So, and then they stumbled upon this woman's story.
[39:57]So, she felt that she.
[40:00]had a story to tell.
[40:02]I am someone, especially in the Me Too world,
[40:05]I believe the woman.
[40:06]But she wasn't making an allegation of rape.
[40:08]She was just saying, here's what it's like,
[40:10]and this is what happened.
[40:12]And so they had the iconic shot of Will running up the driveway,
[40:17]no comment, that sort of thing.
[40:19]I didn't know about any of this.
[40:20]All of our conversations had been normal.
[40:23]I was working at Fox 11 in Los Angeles.
[40:25]He was down there in San Diego.
[40:27]And so when he told me,
[40:29]there was this, I mean, there's the wife who's devastated.
[40:36]We had been married for, I think, just a couple months.
[40:39]I mean, we had just gotten married.
[40:42]So there's the wife, and then there's the reporter.
[40:46]So reporter, dream job, wife, broken hearted, devastated.
[40:51]And in writing this book, the thing is,
[40:55]you have to, what I knew is that you
[40:57]had to know how beloved Will was.
[41:03]I felt like I had friends because Will had friends,
[41:07]made the friends.
[41:09]He's one of those people in this business
[41:11]that you never heard a bad thing from or a bad thing about.
[41:16]Periodically, I'm not one of those people.
[41:19]And so, good guy.
[41:26]So when news breaks, is that double entendre?
[41:30]It is the arc of this relationship
[41:33]against the backdrop of stories that many of you
[41:35]will recognize.
[41:36]It's the choices made along the way.
[41:39]It's how we love who we love.
[41:41]By the time you get to that scene in the book,
[41:44]you understand the relationship.
[41:46]It's a triad.
[41:47]It's my mother, it's Will, and it's me.
[41:49]And I got to experience my mother through him.
[41:54]She just adored him.
[41:56]Like, I could lean in for the hug, and she'd brush me off,
[41:59]and, but he could just hook her under his arm,
[42:02]and she was enthralled.
[42:04]And he was that kind of guy.
[42:06]And when Chloe read the manuscript
[42:09]before it went to publish, first of all,
[42:14]she was just thunderstruck,
[42:17]because so much of this was new to her.
[42:19]But second of all, then daughter of two journalists,
[42:22]she starts giving me notes.
[42:24]And she tells me that I did not write Will
[42:28]with as much love as I did other people.
[42:32]And I'm like, I was shocked because by then,
[42:34]I had worked on this for like two years.
[42:37]But I had heard that feedback before,
[42:39]and I wondered whether it was because someone suggested
[42:43]that maybe it's because you just don't want to go there.
[42:46]You're still withholding something.
[42:48]But in writing, you have to reward the reader,
[42:52]not solaciously, but with honesty.
[42:54]I will say that I totally got from this book,
[42:56]I'm crazy you were about it,
[42:58]and it had a heartbroken you were.
[43:00]And then I'll sort of, the cancer as awful as it was,
[43:04]ended up sort of, I don't think healing that one,
[43:08]but making it less significant,
[43:11]as you just sort of have to go on.
[43:14]Yeah, and then I think that's what love is.
[43:17]You fight for it.
[43:19]And I understood why, over time,
[43:22]I was able to understand what happened to Will.
[43:26]And I was able to, we, I included a therapy session
[43:32]that we went to for marital counseling.
[43:34]And it was like, don't go to your corporate guide
[43:39]to find the therapist.
[43:41]I was just like trying to find somebody close to us,
[43:43]and she was really crazy.
[43:45]Yeah, she was really crazy.
[43:49]But the thing about writing memoir too
[43:53]is you get your people back.
[43:54]And my mother has passed on, Will has passed on,
[43:58]and my father too.
[43:59]And so I just had the chance to be with these people again.
[44:03]And it was so wonderful.
[44:06]And to, I feel so privileged to be sitting here,
[44:11]because it's a book.
[44:13]And I'm in a bookstore.
[44:15]And you come to hear a little bit about it
[44:18]and really see Josh.
[44:19]I think we want to take some questions at some point here.
[44:24]But you know, young women who probably ask you questions
[44:31]about being in journalism, whether it's worth it,
[44:35]or whether they should do it.
[44:36]What do you say?
[44:38]Because it's so funny, because marriage came to mind too.
[44:41]Like when a girl comes to me and says,
[44:43]do you think I should marry this guy?
[44:46]What's your answer there?
[44:47]It's the same.
[44:48]It's like you just got away, you know,
[44:50]what you give and what you get
[44:52]and what are you willing to give.
[44:54]And, you know, I think it's a partnership.
[44:56]I think that,
[45:00]There are going to be moments where you're just going to be drunk on love and savor it,
[45:07]but you're in it for the foxhole.
[45:10]With a job, we were in it because I think we wanted to write the first chapter of history.
[45:18]We just wanted to write the first chapter of history.
[45:21]I couldn't wait to tell you what I just saw, you know, standing at the gun sites of
[45:27]a Taliban fighter, whether the border was actually secure, he's lying, they're lying
[45:33]to you.
[45:34]I'm here.
[45:35]I am an eyewitness to history and so what do you tell, you know what I actually tell
[45:41]young women.
[45:42]I say be financially secure by the time you're 40 because you're going to want to have
[45:46]choices by that age.
[45:49]That's what I tell young women.
[45:52]Let's, let's, questions.
[45:54]Hi.
[45:55]Yes.
[45:56]Oh gosh.
[45:58]Yeah.
[45:59]Did you come because they promoted the event?
[46:05]Oh my gosh.
[46:06]About that.
[46:07]Thank you.
[46:08]I don't know what she does work.
[46:09]Yes.
[46:10]Yes.
[46:11]Yes.
[46:12]So I tell Mike, Mike used to be the first chapter meeting him and then it would back
[46:31]into the story.
[46:32]But Mike became the last chapter and not even so much like I had met him and some
[46:38]readers are like, hey, wait a minute.
[46:40]What happened?
[46:42]But I was really stuck on this idea of, no, it's not about the guy.
[46:48]But he's been so great because what man is going to sit in the next room for two years
[46:54]while his wife writes about her first love, the big love, right?
[47:00]And I've asked him if this answers your question, but I've asked him how do you really
[47:05]feel about this book being out in the world?
[47:09]And he's, he's just very unbothered, which is what I love about him.
[47:12]You know, no drama, completely unbothered, very secure in himself, very secure in our family.
[47:17]He raised Chloe, met her when she was three.
[47:21]And she calls him daddy and we call Will, Will in our family.
[47:28]So yeah.
[47:29]She is now 23 and a lot of people said, why did you write this book sooner?
[47:38]And I'm so glad I didn't.
[47:39]I think it takes a level of hindsight and maturity.
[47:42]She graduated from UC Berkeley and the high demand field of media studies.
[47:47]I thought the girl was going to have to live at home for the rest of her life.
[47:51]Never get a job.
[47:52]But she, she graduated early and it was good timing.
[47:55]She applied for and got an art and photo assistant job at Time Magazine in New York.
[48:02]And she just got promoted to associate photo editor.
[48:05]So she's doing okay.
[48:06]She's 23 in New York, five time zones away because I'm usually in Hawaii.
[48:12]That's where they all live.
[48:13]Good Lord.
[48:14]Everyone's south of 22nd Street.
[48:16]Yeah.
[48:17]Yeah.
[48:18]Why did you keep the journalism industry and what have you been doing since that,
[48:22]without the 2008?
[48:23]Yeah.
[48:25]I left and that's part of the heart of the book that by the time, by the time I had
[48:32]Chloe, I had beat, I was, I was a particular kind of woman.
[48:37]I was a particular kind of woman that CNN producers actually told me that people feared
[48:42]in the newsroom for my unborn child.
[48:45]I mean, they were kind of half joking, but I think they knew me as this very tough as nails,
[48:51]get it done person.
[48:53]My best friend who was a senior executive producer was telling me, well, I guess you're
[48:57]not going to go on these six week rotations overseas anymore.
[49:00]And I'm like, why?
[49:01]I don't understand because I didn't know anything about children.
[49:04]I'd never held a baby, never changed a diaper, you know, not maternal in any way.
[49:10]They wanted to send me to Northern Iraq when I was three and a half months pregnant.
[49:13]They didn't know I was three and a half months pregnant.
[49:15]And when I told a female executive who had just adopted a baby girl, I thought she was
[49:21]going to be an ally that, by the way, you might want to know.
[49:26]She said, you're not going.
[49:29]And it broke my heart.
[49:31]I thought, oh my God, this baby's going to kill me.
[49:33]It's going to kill my career.
[49:37]And then I just am stewing about this and then the DC sniper story broke.
[49:42]So it's a domestic story.
[49:43]You remember that story where random people were getting murdered and we're getting shot
[49:47]outside of a Home Depot or pumping gas, gas gets horrible.
[49:52]But I said, send me, I'm going.
[49:55]I want to cover this story, which meant sitting under bright lights outside.
[50:00]outside live shop position, outside the command post,
[50:03]wearing a bright red coat
[50:04]because I wanted to make a point to my network.
[50:08]So that was me at six months pregnant, stubborn.
[50:13]And when Will died,
[50:15]because Will was supposed to be the stay-at-home dad,
[50:16]he was gonna leave and raise the baby, you know,
[50:19]logical mind, I was just, my life is,
[50:21]I'm gonna just stayed, I'll give you the baby
[50:23]and then I will just go do my job.
[50:25]It's what I really, I was very convinced of that.
[50:28]And then he became sick and we were in this battle.
[50:32]And then when he died, I had to learn how to be a mother.
[50:36]I mean, that was the woman I was.
[50:38]You had, you, but I had to write it in a way
[50:40]where you really understood that.
[50:42]And one of the most fun chapters to write
[50:44]was my first visit to mommy and me.
[50:48]Do you guys know what mommy and me is?
[50:50]Circle of you moms and babies.
[50:54]And the icebreaker question was,
[50:57]what's the hardest thing you've had to deal with
[50:59]since the birth of your child?
[51:02]And you know, I described this nuclear clock
[51:04]ticking down as it was getting to me and my debate
[51:08]whether I was gonna tell the truth,
[51:09]because the truth when you live your life out of sequence
[51:14]is too hard.
[51:16]You know, it's like that Jack Nicholson moment,
[51:18]you know, you can't tell that truth.
[51:20]And whenever I told people that Chloe's dad had died,
[51:25]it was, it was a devastating moment at the sandbox.
[51:30]So I learned to lie, you know, it was just easier
[51:32]to just navigate the baby world in this fugue state
[51:35]of he's traveling.
[51:38]And so to answer your question,
[51:40]that's, that's largely the reason why I left.
[51:44]It's because I was never gonna become the woman,
[51:49]the mother that I needed to be, unless I focused,
[51:51]unless I situated myself in a way
[51:53]that I could grow into that role, you know,
[51:57]that I could, I could, it's because it's not her fault.
[52:00]That's what I kept telling myself.
[52:01]It's not her fault that he died.
[52:04]But I, but I was starting from zero.
[52:07]I was in YouTube.
[52:09]Well, I did wack a doodle stuff.
[52:12]I was involved in a startup for cancer patients
[52:15]in their families.
[52:17]I was working with the former Stanford Research Institute
[52:19]on a piece of social media AI
[52:22]and its very early stages to, they used it
[52:26]in real-time battlefield conditions,
[52:28]social networking information,
[52:29]and they thought there were health applications.
[52:32]And in fact, there are people in this room,
[52:34]like I know Roger here,
[52:36]Holesburg, because of that endeavor, which is so crazy,
[52:39]something.
[52:40]And I think you and I met too,
[52:41]because part of the secret sauce of what I was doing
[52:45]was video storytelling, you know,
[52:46]whether that had a role in connecting people to information.
[52:50]And teaching, and then eventually working for the county
[52:55]of LA, which is a whole other wack a doodle.
[52:58]It's a cray cray, that's a pug of its own.
[53:01]Anybales?
[53:03]Yep.
[53:04]Roger.
[53:05]Where did the adrenaline jumping target come from?
[53:09]So reading about your dad and your mom doesn't add up
[53:14]in my mind to the person who leaves self-central
[53:17]and just been fired upon, is checking for the life.
[53:21]The LA riots.
[53:22]And that was early on.
[53:23]That was very early in your reporting career.
[53:27]Where did being, the adrenaline jumping
[53:30]need to risk your life to be the first person there
[53:34]and news come from?
[53:35]And how did it resolve and go away so that you
[53:38]can normalize it?
[53:39]Oh, where did it come from?
[53:43]I think it came from my mother pulling me back constantly
[53:47]pulling me back and leaning forward.
[53:52]I just wanted her to be wrong because she just really
[53:55]believed that bad things happen all the time.
[53:58]I mean, look at her life.
[54:00]You learn a little bit about her.
[54:02]Her life blows up when she's just a teenager.
[54:05]Well, 11, when her father dies and then
[54:08]when she's 16 and promised to an older man, my dad,
[54:13]and then he leaves to get an education
[54:15]and then China falls to the communist.
[54:17]And she has to leave.
[54:19]She has to say goodbye to her mother at the Garden Gate.
[54:23]But I think it's that leaning forward
[54:25]away from my mother's cautionary tale,
[54:27]that life is dangerous.
[54:29]And it's like, OK, let's go see.
[54:31]And she just wanted something very dull.
[54:35]And I wanted something more.
[54:36]I knew there was something more.
[54:38]And also that I had a tremendous fear of failure.
[54:41]So I think I just liked, I was living in that duality
[54:45]of my mom and my dad.
[54:47]Still doesn't add up.
[54:49]You look skeptical.
[54:51]Yeah, I just hate being bored.
[54:54]And now, I'm still that way.
[54:56]But it is like an addiction.
[54:59]I know how I can be.
[55:00]Yeah, I know how I can be I like moving every two years. I like I married a man
[55:05]His decor he placed it 12 years ago, and it's exactly the way, you know
[55:10]Like every pillow every he's never moved anything and when I when I started dating Mike
[55:15]I said I just want you to know I moved furniture all the time like he'd come home in the middle of the night and like
[55:20]Crashing the things because I move things around because I love change
[55:23]I mean, it's my nature and I think just like an addiction
[55:27]I'm very aware of it, and I understand where it leads me
[55:32]It doesn't always lead me to where I want to be actually
[55:37]Nope Sylvia
[55:39]Yeah, you had the most amazing community of friends that carry you and what do you love to drink?
[55:56]Yeah, I am
[55:58]And I don't think I do them justice in book because I think I was writing it from this
[56:04]Internalized point of view of grief where I felt that I felt like grief was contagious
[56:09]You know, so I was reading other people's reactions to me even my friends
[56:15]We didn't have social media or texting at the time
[56:17]So it was harder to you had to pick up the phone if you wanted to talk to people and I just didn't have that in me
[56:24]But yes, they were extraordinary
[56:26]And I and I hope I get into it in the acknowledgements my publisher was like enough with the acknowledgements
[56:32]But I feel like it was almost like an apology tour to say let me let me share with you
[56:39]What was going on inside of me this battlefield inside of me to find myself in this new world
[56:46]But yeah, we are nothing without our community and I definitely learned that
[56:50]Which is why it's so extraordinary to see you guys here
[57:03]You're going to you're going to find it a little wackadoodle as many things are behind the scenes
[57:14]So I to get there you have to go through a bunch of vaccinations in paperwork
[57:18]We had to go through the michigos of applying to the Taliban to get a
[57:23]To get inside Afghanistan because that's where you want to be and then get rejected
[57:26]And then CNN had set up bureaus in Islamabad to the north in Pakistan
[57:31]and kweta in the south which is where I ended up being based
[57:35]so I fly fly fly fly fly I get to Islamabad and
[57:39]You know when there's not much when you're waiting for news to actually develop or you're working on your stories
[57:46]There's nothing more dangerous than a board correspondent
[57:49]And so I got there in the more senior international correspondence were there smoking drinking waiting
[57:55]rug shopping so then
[57:58]Well, Walter what was welcome?
[58:00]Well, Walter Walt Rogers took me rug shopping
[58:04]So I was kind of I was the junior domestic correspondent. I worked for CNN US and
[58:09]So Walt Rogers being the veteran international correspondent decided to show me a few tricks out in the field
[58:14]So he took me rug shopping
[58:17]And I'm just like this is horrific the way
[58:19]And this is this is really just I don't want to see any of this
[58:23]So there was that and then
[58:25]Getting me ready to go to southern Pakistan, which is very
[58:29]Traditional it's more traditional than Islamabad
[58:31]So the first thing they did is they took me from the plane
[58:34]To get clothes so that I could get the not a burqa necessarily
[58:38]But pretty close to so I had large head scarves and the shawas canes and sandals and
[58:45]Looking very local
[58:46]But then I discovered on a story like when the UNHCR
[58:50]Head of the UNHCR was coming to look at the refugee camps that they were developing and
[58:56]It was so disorganized that we had to run after him from location to location
[59:00]You were running and I couldn't see and when you lose your peripheral vision
[59:04]So I realized now why maybe you know why the Taliban is so set on these burkas because when you when you take a woman's peripheral vision or her
[59:14]You know, you filter her site. She you lose that sensorial
[59:18]You feel very vulnerable there as well
[59:20]So I just I couldn't see anything so finally
[59:22]I just I remember taking this thing off and just throwing it away because I could not do my job and
[59:29]Things actually worked better for me dressed as a western woman in jeans and a shamberry shirt
[59:34]Because by then a lot of the locals were getting used to foreign journalists coming in
[59:39]But they just never they never knew what to do with me like they
[59:42]Because I had short hair and I was dressed the way I was dressed
[59:46]But I was a western woman
[59:47]But I was Asian
[59:48]So I looked like a certain ethnicity that they had in
[59:51]Pakistan
[59:52]So they were just very confused by me and that was really more to my advantage
[59:56]But yeah, so that was that was the first thing was to get
[60:00]dressed. Yeah. Any other questions? In the back? The people. Today, being 9-11, there's so many of
[60:16]us who were texting first thing in the morning and we do every year. And when text I got, I
[60:23]talked about it on TV today. My senior executive producer, Jody, who's in the book, she
[60:28]texted me and she goes, here we go, you know, because reliving it from a journalist standpoint
[60:36]and she was running the control room the day of 9-11 is different. I mean, it's just different
[60:43]because you approach the story like that with a certain set of biases and expectations that
[60:50]have sort of served you and the way you've approached other challenging stories, but this was a
[60:55]story like no other. And Jody, many people in our control room had family in New York who
[61:02]worked in the financial district. So they worked through their grief, like they couldn't get through
[61:07]either. I mean, our phones at the CNN Center were no more proficient than any of your phones at the time,
[61:13]so she couldn't get through. She for a good, you know, 20-hour period, she didn't know what
[61:19]her brother was the library dad. He was supposed to be at the World Trade Center that day.
[61:23]So, yeah, the people are extraordinary.
[61:27]All right, one more, you know, we talked about 9-11 just made me think. I also, I was in San Diego
[61:35]at Channel 5 when 9-11 happened and of course everybody remembers where they were when, you know,
[61:42]you got the call or you saw the TV and you were like, what's happening? Is that real, you know?
[61:47]And then I remember our TV station brought in counselors and said, you're all work in the
[61:54]story. You're in the front lines. I mean, for us, the front lines has yet to look a lot different
[62:01]than yours, but ours was like everything was shut down, but we still didn't work. But I was telling
[62:07]the counselor that I felt like that actually helped me because so many of you were at home
[62:12]watching a TV screen. What do I do? What can I do? First we have stories of people who
[62:18]like just drove for hours and just went to the, you know, side to see what they can do to help.
[62:24]And like the president. Yeah. Like the president. He was pulled out of the rubble.
[62:32]Yeah, by the fireman. Yeah. Incredible.
[62:35]How do you feel that being a journalist on 9-11?
[62:42]Changed your view as compared to most other Americans due to the nature of our job.
[62:53]I don't know that I do. I don't know that I do because I think that the the the the whole
[63:02]experience of having a career where you are to create this intimacy with a story for a period of
[63:09]time. You're to create intimacy with the people, the circumstance, the facts, the authorities,
[63:15]and you are responsible for translating someone else's worst moment in their life to the public.
[63:24]I think that process is in years you to some degree. You know, I don't think it was,
[63:32]I don't think being being that fill in the blank because see the thing is, so I'm the first,
[63:38]I'm best known as the first national journalist to report in 9-11 attacks. But that is not
[63:43]something that I chose. It's not something I saw. It wasn't something I wanted to put on my resume.
[63:48]It's something that somebody else has gifted me or given me or labeled me. And so, so that's why I
[63:57]don't think of it that way. Like, like, oh, I'm going to go work. You know, I felt like, um,
[64:05]I felt a lot less helpless. Oh, I see purposeful. Yeah. And therefore, it impacted me in a very
[64:12]different way than I think a lot of other people saw 9-11 who maybe felt very helpless. Okay.
[64:19]I don't know. And then you and Josh, I don't know if you were doing day-to-day news.
[64:24]Yeah. Well, I was a day line. I was a day line. And we were, you know,
[64:29]they were only four times a week then in 2001. So it was almost like a nightly newscast.
[64:36]So I was doing, I was here in L.I. And I was doing a story with Joe Ferula who was in the
[64:41]back there. He and I were doing a story, you know, four or five, six minutes every single night.
[64:47]Yeah. Well, I think to answer your question, maybe a different way.
[64:52]Um, it's combining answers here. You know, I was incredibly proud-
[65:00]to be a journalist more so than ever because there was such a need for
[65:06]information and I felt that because we had sources we had we could be on the
[65:11]front line be first and on the front lines of real-time information that we
[65:16]could provide comfort and knowledge you know like help people understand
[65:26]what's going on so when I when I go overseas I'm not always the big
[65:32]breaking news person sometimes they reserve those stories for the CNN
[65:36]international correspondent they belong to CNN international that network I
[65:40]always like to search out the interesting sidebar stories like you know in
[65:47]Pakistan it was a lot of truth-telling you know like well Pakistan's president
[65:53]says that they outlawed guns in the country how is that possible so we
[65:58]went and went on a gun by like can you buy guns in Pakistan so yeah the
[66:02]international desk really had a heart attack over that story but it was a good
[66:05]one because we showed that you know literally that the government can say one
[66:09]thing but really there's no way to control the theme of my reporting in
[66:14]Pakistan is that Pakistan did not have control of its people because it's a
[66:18]tribal society it doesn't have control of its borders because the tribes that
[66:22]have lived there since the 7th century control those it's a not semi-autonomous
[66:26]area but Americans don't know that so whose truth is telling you know it's
[66:31]that kind of reporting that is so addicting because when you can tell the
[66:37]audience you care about that the leadership is lying or you need to ask more
[66:42]questions or how secure are we or what kind of dealer we striking the
[66:45]Pakistan and you can show people it's it's very satisfying thank you all so
[66:53]much thank you I have I want to make I want to make an acknowledgement to
[67:02]Zibi's bookshop and Zibi Owens herself if you don't know anything about Zibi
[67:07]she's an extraordinary supporter of debut writers as well as all the books that
[67:12]you look for it's especially meaningful to be here at her bookshop because
[67:17]Zibi lost her best friend on 911 and it's the kind of friendship Stacey it's the
[67:24]kind of friendship that we all dream of in our lifetime this was the girl this
[67:29]was the go-to girl in Zibi's life and I just want to toast Stacey and Zibi's
[67:36]friendship because when Zibi wrote that essay which she resurfaced on her
[67:40]Instagram this week it just it's just another sweet reminder of what it is to
[67:47]love someone and when you lose them that's just part of what it is to love
[67:52]someone and so Zibi has a love of books she has a love of Stacey she has a
[67:58]reverence for 911 because she understands what loss feels like and she gives
[68:03]us the joy of coming together these guys do all the hard work all this set up
[68:10]you know and and they they don't ask anything of me except to show up at 545
[68:16]so thank you Margaret and team yes Zibi's in here also is there someone from the Asian
[68:23]American Journal Association here are you Samantha oh so I made a quiet pledge when I
[68:31]wrote this book that if I were to make any pennies together but I got my first we call it royalty
[68:38]check and so I said okay I'm going to with the first check I'm going to find causes that I
[68:47]really want to support and Asian American Journal Association of Los Angeles is one of those
[68:51]causes and I really appreciate you coming out on your Friday night but I just wanted to present
[68:55]this donation for Sarah thank you thank you for advertising support yeah you got the future
[69:11]you got the future raise them right oh gosh we're working on that
[69:25]but yes both of you here thank you for your work and your contributions
[69:32]if you haven't bought the book please buy it I'm sure you'll be happy to sign
[69:38]thank you all for coming out tonight I really appreciate it there are some swag
[70:00]You
[70:30]You