This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast more What You Here
weekday afternoons on the Drive. She's the former host of twenty twenty and ABC
World News Tonight, co hosting on Good Morning America as well also an author
of a memoir Between the Breaths. Elizabeth vargas As new project is Elizabeth Vargas
Reports. It's on News Nation and Elizabeth what are we going to see?
On Elizabeth Vargas Reports? Aren't you proud of how original we are with the
title of my show? Week long and hard myself many times? Yeah,
whe should we name the show? How about just your name? And every
day? It's going to be an hour long, really in depth look at
the biggest stories of the day. I think by six pm Eastern is that
I think is at four pm in Oklahoma? Five Yeah, five good five
team in Oklahoma. Most people have seen the headlines already, so they don't
need another headline show. We're going to go very in depth on the handful
of the biggest stories of the day, provide context to nuance and interview the
newsmakers as well as smart analysts. What you were not going to see is
a lot of shouting, talking head shouting at each other. I don't know
about you, but when people start shouting, I turn off the TV.
I don't want to hear people shouting at each other. And we're also not
going to be We're really going to be eighty percent of Americans who are center
right or center left. I think that the people who are far right and
far left are already served by cable news networks out there catering to those audiences,
and the sort of largely ignored majority of Americans who are somewhere in the
middle needed a broadcast to give them thoughtful information. And we're hoping to do
that each and every night. Elizabeth Vargas reports weeknights at five on News Nation.
That's something that's really taken off lately. News Nation. What do you
attribute that to? Yeah, we're the only growing cable news channel, you
know, the only one heading in the right direction growing our audience. Now
we're small because we're brand spanking new. So you know, I have no
illusions about you know, the runway in front of us. But you know,
all I have to do is go back and look at the news articles.
In the first couple of years after CNN was launched, or Fox News
was launched, and you know the headline, little watched Fox News. Well,
Fox News turned out to be a behemnus in today day. So we're
patient. We'll grow our audience and I think if we put a good show
on every night, they will come. You touched on at a moment ago,
how the state of journalism in our modern modern era. I talk on
this program quite often about it's no longer about reporting the news, it's about
marketing content. Of the of your experiences in journalism, what's the biggest change
you've experienced you think in the last twenty years. Oh, well, hack
zillion things from just the you know, explosion of places that you know people
can get information. I mean, I think that now in our schools we
need to be teaching our kids courses in information literacy because if I had a
dollar for every time I told my kids just because you read it on the
Internet doesn't make it true, I could put them through college. So that's
the biggest thing. We now have people on social media, which is just
exploded in the last twenty years, getting quote unquote news there which is nothing
anybody can get online and on YouTube or Facebook and write something and people will
believe it. So it's used to be very, very careful, and I
think that the key to is explaining that to our audience. You know,
this is what we've done. You know, this is who these people are.
When you're watching our show, you'll see me, do you know,
conduct in depth interviews with newsmakers. Our reporters will be on the scene.
You know. One of the great things about our new news network is that
the owner of our network is also one of the biggest owner of local television
stations across the country. I've got my start in local TV, and we
were able to be on the ground before anybody else, for example, in
the trained derailment in East Palestine, because we had a local station and a
reporter there. That's really crucial and really important. The other thing I think
you've seen in the last twenty years, as we've seen cable news grow,
is there's been more and more of this movement toward opinion television. People are
giving their opinions. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I do
think it should be more obviously labeled as opinion. And I can tell you
my show will not be opinion. I have never in my career told people
what I think. My job is to conduct tough interviews, pointed interviews,
to get newsmakers and analysts to explain their thinking, their points of view.
And I think and it's important that we get all sides represented because, as
I said, eighty percent of America's center right, center left. They're not
the far right the far left, and I think they're reasonable, smart people
who want to hear what's happening without having political talking points sort of shoved down
the throat. You remember her from twenty twenty ABC, which World News,
to Night, Good Morning America, and many others. Elizabeth Vargas is now
on Elizabeth Vargas Reports, an hour long weekday news program on News Nation at
five pm Central Time. You just now kind of touched on this as well.
In your memoir, you speak of having guilt about not finding balance between
motherhood and your career. But it sounds to me like you have found that
balance. Oh no, it's always a struggle a teenager. Teenagers are you
don't have to be it's not quite as hands on. He doesn't need me
to do quite as much as for him as I did when he was seven.
But you know, as sixteen year old and a freshman in college.
You still have to keep your eye on what's going on, especially raising a
son in New York City. I did not grow up and I'm an army
brad. I grew up an army basis all over the world and lived in
the Midwest, went to college in the Midwest. So it's tough, you
know what I mean. You talk to any working mom and they'll tell you
the same thing. It's tough, and a lot of it is self imposed.
I think we need to give ourselves, you know, a little bit
of permission to not have to be at every event and you know, trust
that whatever it's quality, not quantity. In other words, when you're working
a demanding, full time job. But it's it's a hard thing. And
I think maybe a lot of dads. Working dads saw this during the pandemic
when we were all home and you know, sort of kept into our own
houses and apartments and you could see what was happening. But it's it's a
very hard thing to be a working parent. I don't it's you know,
I really hats off to everybody who tries it. It's it's difficult to balance.
Elizabeth Vargas of Elizabeth Vargas Reports, an hour long weekday news program on
News Nation that will be at five o'clock our time. We'll be watching and
thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, good to be with
you. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven
and Ihearts Media presentation