@standupkid conversations

The pandemic has impacted everyone, but new research by NBC News shows our kids are under heightened stress, and it’s taking the pleasure out of school—and for some kids, creating serious mental anguish and pain.

For NBC’s weeklong series “Kids Under Pressure,” correspondent Kate Snow talked to kids about how they’re coping, and in our conversation, we discussed the series and why Snow decided last year to write about the stress she felt when her husband fell ill with Covid, leading her to seek treatment with a therapist.

Here’s Kate’s story, 'I am seeing a therapist': Kate Snow discusses teletherapy, stress of COVID-19

And here’s my story, ‘Screw Stigma: I’m coming out’

Recent Stories:

In Episode 9 of the podcast, I interviewed David Katz, whose new book, Barack Before Obama, is filled with hundreds of rarely or never-before-seen photos of a then-little-known state legislator named Barack Obama. Katz, who joined Obama’s 2004 campaign for the U. S. Senate, became the candidate’s photographer and captured previously unseen images of the man who would become president. In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.

In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.

In his new book, Barack Before Obama, David Katz takes us back to a time when Barack Obama could walk on a crowded New York City sidewalk just like any other guy, talking on his phone, without a single person rushing up to him to shake his hand or try and grab a selfie:

The book—filled with hundreds of rarely or never-before-seen photos (like the one above, which shows Obama having his hair cut by his longtime barber, James Zariff Smith, who would open his shop after hours to cut the candidate’s hair after long days campaigning)—documents the time from Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate right up to his election to the presidency in 2008.

In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.

[Thanks to David Katz and Ecco for sharing these photos, which are all copyright David Katz, from Barack Before Obama, and excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers]

Recent Stories:

In Episode 8 of the podcast, I talked to Jon Sternfeld, whose new book, Unprepared, documents the coronavirus’ spread from Wuhan, China to the U.S., and how public health officials and the nation’s elected leaders responded—some with great empathy and a commitment to science, and others with a stubborn refusal to take the virus seriously.

In our conversation, we talked about some of the most striking moments from those early months of fear and lockdown—and what we may be facing now as the spread of Covid-19 reaches peaks unseen at any time since the coronavirus first appeared in the U.S.

At Forbes:

On NBC’s ‘Today,’ Dr. Fauci Says Covid-19 Trend ‘As Bad As I Feared’

MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki To Swap Election Map For Playoff Picture On NBC’s ‘Sunday Night Football’

News Networks See Record Ratings In November; Fox News, CNN Split Victories

In First Interview Since Losing Election, Trump Calls Result ‘Greatest Fraud’ In U.S. History

Author Says Trump Shifted Covid-19 Response From Science To Politics, And ‘That’s Why We Got Decimated’

As Americans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, many families are feeling the tension: wanting to follow the traditions of the holiday and gather with family and friends—versus the realities of the pandemic, which is accelerating in virtually every part of the country.

In his new book, Unprepared, Jon Sternfeld documents the coronavirus’ spread from Wuhan, China to the U.S., and how public health officials and the nation’s elected leaders responded—some with great empathy and a commitment to science, and others with a stubborn refusal to take the virus seriously.

In our conversation, we talked about some of the most striking moments from those early months of fear and lockdown—and what we may be facing now as the spread of Covid-19 reaches peaks unseen at any time since the coronavirus first appeared in the U.S.

STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:

In Episode 7 of the podcast, I talked to Neil Cavuto of Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. On Election Night, Cavuto returned to work at Fox News headquarters in New York after working from home for seven months—but he says he remains vigilant about Covid-19 and considers himself at high risk for complications should he contract the coronavirus. “I have a scary and healthy respect for this thing,” he told me.

At Forbes:

Fox News Wins Prime Time Ratings, But CNN Leads In Key Demo

Neil Cavuto on Covering Covid-19 And The Election

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto says he doesn’t see stories in red or blue, but green—he tends to look at the news as it impacts business. But even as he steers clear of the partisanship that makes up much of the cable news world, he still hears from viewers who think he’s either way too tough—or not tough enough—on figures like President Trump. “My job isn’t to do that,” he says of viewers who wish Cavuto would be more loyal to Trump.

We talked after the election, which brought Cavuto back to the Fox News studios for the first time in seven months—a move that brings elevated risk as Cavuto lives with multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable and disabling disease. But he says for every difficulty and struggle, he knows others are hurting even worse—particularly those impacted by Covid-19. “I have a scary and healthy respect for this thing,” he told me.

STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:

In Episode 6 of the podcast, I talked to Kal Penn, the actor and activist who this year launched his own political series, Kal Penn Approves This Message. We talked about taking on big issues without resorting to the sort of partisan coverage commonly found on cable news, and why he’s excited about the activism of young people who don’t watch cable news—but do tend to talk to each other, even across the partisan divide.

At Forbes:

CNN Leads Cable News Ratings For Week Including Election, Aftermath

CNN’s Brianna Keilar: When Does The Media Call Elections? ‘Since Always’

Broadcast Networks All Cut Away From President’s Election Remarks

Fox News Has Highest-Rated Election Night Coverage Ever

NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Interrupts To Fact-Check President Trump: “Just Frankly Not True”

Fox News Dominates Ratings In Week Leading Up To Election Day

Martha MacCallum Prepares For An Election Night Like No Other

Kal Penn’s new show, Kal Penn Approves This Message, takes on the same divisive political issues often debated on cable news—but his approach is totally different. “Cable news is not a place where you’re going to get these nuanced conversations and young people don’t watch cable news anyway,” Penn told me.

The series, which debuted with a six-episode season on Freeform in September, has just dropped the season finale (on Freeform last night, and streaming on Hulu beginning today), focuses on young viewers—Millennials and Gen Z—and Penn says he finds them far less entrenched in the partisan divide than their parents. “Younger audiences are so good at coming up with creative solutions to things and we can't expect that things will be changed if we only continue yelling at each other. So we wanted to provide with our show an opportunity for people to come together and focus on the complex nature of specific issues.”

In this standupkid conversation, I talked to Penn from Toronto, where he’s shooting a new series for CBS and living in a “monitored quarantine, because they believe in science up here.”

STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:

In Episode 5 of the podcast, I talked to Arnon Mishkin, director of the Fox News Decision Desk, about the new tool Fox News will use this Election Day to determine how the race between Trump and Biden will break—a tool that Mishkin believes gives Fox much more insight into early voters and voters who used absentee ballots, which may be critical in being able to make a call in the 2020 presidential the race.

At Forbes:

Tucker Carlson Leads Fox News To Highest-Rated Month In Prime Time Ever

55 Million Viewers Watch Final Trump-Biden Presidential Debate

Why Fox News May Have The Edge In Calling The 2020 Presidential Race

On Election Night, viewers watching Fox News won’t see much of Arnon Mishkin, but as Director of the Fox News Decision Desk, he will play a crucial role in how the top-rated news network covers the results of the 2020 election—and, if he can, it’s Mishkin who will make the call on projecting a winner. “If the margin between the candidates is significant, there’s a chance of a call on Election Night,” he says, but don’t count on it. “When you’re in my position, you’re looking at various different scenarios, and we want to make sure we’re prepared for any of them.”

This will be the first presidential election since Fox News broke away from the other news networks to create its very own tool to determine voter sentiment, after Mishkin and his team decided the traditional exit polling done by a consortium of networks just wasn’t providing an accurate view into what different groups of voters were thinking in the days up to Election Day. “We think voters will be better served by having two tools, but we think our tool is better.”

In our conversation, we talk about how the tool—the Fox News Voter Analysis—was built, and why it may be well-suited to understanding what’s happening in an election where millions have already voted, some by mail, and others through early voting. And I asked him what it’s like to make a critical call—as he did in 2012, projecting that President Obama would win the state of Ohio, pushing him to re-election—only to have commentators on his own network questioning whether it was a mistake. “My first thought was ‘ooooh, that’s scary’ but then I looked at the data.”

And he will be looking at that data nearly non-stop until a winner is determined. Then, he hopes to take a little time off.

STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:

In Episode 4 of the podcast, I talked to Seyward Darby, author of the book Sisters in Hate, about the rise of white nationalism in America, and how women play an often overlooked role in the leadership of hate groups. She says the news media often suggests that hate is something associated with men, when the truly dangerous members of these groups don’t seek out the cameras, and use a softer sell to reach out to potential recruits.

At Forbes:

President Trump Says ‘Deck Is Stacked’ Against Him For Final Debate

Trump Calls CNN ‘Dumb B******s’ For Covering ‘Covid, Covid, Covid’

Biden Beats Trump In Broadcast Ratings For Head-To-Head Town Halls

President Trump On Tonight’s NBC Town Hall: ‘I’m Being Set Up’

Fox News’ Chris Wallace: ‘Facts Are Clearly Under Attack’

In her new book, Sisters in Hate, Seyward Darby turns our focus away from the image that often springs to mind when we think of white nationalism—that of angry, often armed white men. As she writes of the men who marched with burning torches in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, the “iconic images…show illuminated male faces—grimacing, grinning, threatening.”

But in a video posted online from that night, Darby was struck by a woman who stepped from the crowd to confront a counter-protester—using a racial slur to accuse the person of being a race traitor by failing to join the marchers. “She seemed disgusted that someone would debase themselves instead of standing with their own kind.” That moment helped propel Darby to begin reporting deeply on the women leaders in America’s hate groups—the women who, unlike many of the men, do their work quietly and away from the cameras. “The people who are most frightening are always the people who don’t want to talk to the mainstream media.”

In our conversation, we talk about how these women sell their own unique brand of hatred, wrapped tightly in homespun American values—and distributed via YouTube, social media and other channels. “They have always been savvy about communicating with each other and potential recruits outside the eyes of the mainstream media.”

STORIES FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS:

In Episode 3 of the podcast, I talked to Liar’s Circus author Carl Hoffman, who spent months traveling across the country attending MAGA rallies in an effort to understand the people who stick with Donald Trump, no matter what.

At Forbes:

Fauci Tells CNN: President Trump ‘Asking For Trouble’ With Florida Rally

Trump: I’m Not Going to ‘Waste My Time’ With Virtual Debate

Vice Presidential Debate Draws 50 Million Viewers

Carl Hoffman is a very brave man—and one hell of a reporter. In 2019, he set out on one of the most audacious reporting gigs ever: driving thousands of miles across the country attending President Trump’s MAGA rallies. He had no Trump supporters among his friends, and really didn’t know any of the president’s die-hard supporters personally. Why did they stick with him through every scandal, every outrage, and lie after lie after lie?

By embedding himself in the rallies—lining up outside huge arenas in the cold the night before the event to spend the night in a folding chair alongside the devoted rallygoers who fight for their spot at the very front of the line—he began to get a sense of who these people are, and why they idolize Trump. “They’re not freaks, they’re not foreign aliens, they are us, they are just like us in so many ways and they’re funny and they made me laugh.”

But, there is a dark side to the president’s supporters, both in their vilification of journalists and in their unquestioning belief in the most extreme conspiracy theories.

In our conversation, Hoffman talks about taking on this assignment—and about the people he blames for allowing the MAGA movement to take root in America.

BIG UPDATE: The podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts! If you get podcasts via Apple, please subscribe—and if you like the conversation, please consider giving the show a review and a 5-star rating. Reviews and ratings are the most important metric in convincing Apple’s algorithms to put @standupkid conversations in front of more people who might like it.

STORIES FROM THE LAST WEEK:

PODCAST: Episode 2: Jean Guerrero, “Hatemonger”

Shep Smith on Leaving Fox News: ‘It Was Time For a Change’

Trump Biden Debate Draws 22.8 Million Viewers On Broadcast Networks

Has Chris Wallace Watched The Debate Again? ‘Oh, God No’

Chris Wallace Tells Fox News Viewers: ‘Wear The Damn Mask’

CNN’s Jake Tapper: Trump Has Become Symbol Of His Own Failures

Chris Wallace Tests Negative For Covid-19

Last night, during the chaotic and discouraging debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the president refused to condemn white nationalism—and even appeared to send a message directly to the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist group, saying “stand back and stand by.” The group heard the message—and celebrated it.

How did we get here? How could an American president be so comfortable engaging with hate groups? Journalist Jean Guerrero points to Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser to the president—and the man she says has “radicalized” Donald Trump. Her new book, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda, details Miller’s own radicalization as a young man growing up in California—a process fueled by right-wing talk radio, and later some of the darkest corners of the far-right web. It’s not easy reading, but it is brilliantly reported and exceptionally well written. Guerrero describes Miller as “a true fanatic,” and “probably the most ideological person in the White House today.”

In the podcast, we talk about her work covering immigration stories along the U.S. border with Mexico, and how being one of the first journalists to expose the Trump Administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents led her to begin focusing on Miller, the architect of the child separation policy, which she reveals was designed from the very beginning to intentionally cause the most excruciating pain possible to migrant families.

Have a listen, let me know what you think, and if you enjoy the conversation please share it with your friends. It’s exceptionally difficult to get new podcasts in front of people, so sharing and recommending is vital.

And if you haven’t already listened to Episode 1, the link is right below. I had a fantastic conversation with NBC’s Keith Morrison, perhaps the most distinctive reporter in all of TV News—that voice!

Stories from the last 7 days:

PODCAST EPISODE 1: Keith Morrison, ‘Dateline NBC’

How NBC’s ‘Dateline’ Delivered a New Season Despite Covid-19

55 Million Viewers Watch Trump’s Supreme Court Announcement

Kamala Harris On Trump’s Taxes: ‘Tell Us Who Do You Owe The Money To?’

‘Hannity’ Has Highest-Rated Quarter In History As Fox News Beats Broadcast Networks, A TV First

CNN’s Jake Tapper: ‘The President Thinks He Is Going To Lose And He Wants To Bring Us Down With Him’

On Thursday night, Keith Morrison kicks off the 29th season of NBC’s Dateline, which is now the network’s longest-running show in prime time. The story, a true crime mystery which plays out across two hours, focuses on the survivor of a horrific attack who believes police have the wrong suspect. Or, as Morrison put it when I asked him about the story, “oh my…”

Indeed. Few reporters have as distinctive a style as Morrison, whose delivery led Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader to make Morrison into a popcorn-munching and mayhem-loving recurring character. In the first episode of the podcast, we talked about where Morrison’s unique style came from, and how he—and the rest of the Dateline team—produced the new season’s stories despite the harsh restrictions put in place because of Covid-19.

Have a listen—and let me know what you think. I hope you’ll enjoy the conversation enough to sign up for the newsletter—and soon find yourself looking forward to Hump Day when another @standupkid conversation arrives in your in box.

Stories you might have missed:

Trump Describes Journalist Hit By Rubber Bullet As ‘A Beautiful Sight’

Hillary Clinton: ‘McConnell Cares Only About One Thing, And That’s Power’

On CNN, Bob Woodward Questions Whether Trump Knows ‘What Is Real And What Is Unreal’