Brandon Pope is a reporter for The Jam, a morning show on Chicago's CW station that's about having fun while also taking a deeper look and contextualizing important issues facing the city.

We talk about how he never left the theater when he covered a 59-hour, 22-movie Marvel marathon, what celebrities like JB Smoove and Kel Mitchell are really like, and where the best stories came from during the 2012 Olympics.

Jon "Boog" Sciambi is a baseball play-by-play announcer for ESPN.

We talk about how being a "sneaky a**hole" helps one of the game's best hitters, if the sport of baseball has a problem, and dispel some of the common misconceptions about calling a game.

Natasha Verma is the morning anchor at the legacy station in Denver, NBC 9News. She graduated high school at 15, completed her Master's degree at 18, and has been a working journalist ever since.

Natasha is a cancer survivor too, so we talk about her decision to share her diagnosis with viewers and how she turned that experience into a charitable one. We also discuss her feature-length documentary about a female boxer and how she mastered the highly-chaotic job of covering morning traffic in Boston.

Josh Hinkle is the award-winning director of investigations at NBC Austin, as well as the host of the weekly political show State of Texas.

We talk about his documentary looking at deadly police shootings and the mental health training officers receive, exposing corruption inside Texas's powerful oil and gas regulatory body, and how showing viewers the behind-the-scenes process of investigative journalism has taken on crucial importance.

Jane Wells has worked for CNBC covering business news and specialty features since 1996. She's also reported in major markets like Los Angeles and Miami.

The podcast lives up to its name this week - Jane risked her job to be in the Seinfeld finale, she got an exclusive interview with the pilot who flew OJ Simpson to Chicago the night of the murders, she's posed as a prostitute on the streets of Miami, and she's visited a leper colony in India.

Jane also has two podcasts of her own, very different but both fascinating.
-Strange Success chronicles rags-to-riches stories with a twist
-Top Story Tonight! re-imagines history as if social media and our 24/7 news cycle existed at the time

Ray Zate was the chief photographer at Fox Las Vegas before becoming a manager in the promotions department. He's worked in El Paso, Nashville and Atlanta, where he also had the opportunity to report as a one-man band.

Ray and I talk about how Fox 5 in Vegas approaches promos as real storytelling opportunities, why the 1-October tragedy changed his outlook on his career and how camping along the Mexican border with vigilantes became the work he's most proud of.

In Part 2 of my conversation with Phil Lipof, he talks about the series of stories he did after 9/11 about terrorism in Israel, including how he landed an interview with the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs thanks to some persistence and luck.

Phil also shares his two experiences interviewing Donald Trump before he became president, and how he snuck in some time with the Dalai Lama when he probably wasn't supposed to.

Phil Lipof is a veteran journalist who currently anchors for NBC Boston. His previous reporting and anchoring stops include New York City and Miami.

He shares the story of when he was nervous about sending his wife to be alone with OJ Simpson, when he had a gun pointed at his head during Hurricane Katrina and how personal it was to cover the Boston Marathon bombing.

Baxter Holmes is a senior NBA writer for ESPN who's focused on in-depth feature reporting. He's also worked as a beat reporter for the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.

We talk about his stories that dig into the human and personal side of NBA life, including the league's obsession with PB&J sandwiches, a coaching legend's use of wine to forge a winning culture and how youth basketball may be dooming our players.

Baxter also reveals a side of Kobe Bryant you may not know and how an LA food writer became so influential to him.

Lauren Magiera is the host of the new Destination: Outdoors adventure show on WGN Chicago, in addition to her responsibilities as a sports anchor and reporter.

We talk about the rock climbing, fishing and archery she does on the show, and how putting those activities on television is a much different beast than simply doing them on your own. Lauren also shares how crazy it gets hosting outdoors segments when you're "one-man banding" without a photographer, and she tells about the time she thought she might die on a bear hunt.

For a sneak 'PEAK' of Lauren's show, click here.