You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley
and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're thrilled to be joined today by Carol Costello,
journalist and true crime podcaster. Carol. Thank you for joining us today
on Mind or Murder. Oh I'm still getting used to the true crime pod
connector thing. Welcome to the I'm so thrilled to be on your show.
Thank you for inviting me. But we are so thrilled to have you.
Can you start just by telling anyone who's unfamiliar a little bit about yourself in
your professional background. Oh, man, I was a professional journalist for thirty
five years, which seems incredible to me. For twenty of those years I
spent at CN, where I was a national correspondent and anchor, and I
loved CN. And I know it's in a precarious state right now, but
a lot of good people over there. But I did enjoy my career there
and I learned a lot. I left in two eighteen and I teach journalism
at Loyal Marymount University and I also produce a true crime podcast. I also
have created a program for student journalists to cover the presidential election of twenty twenty
four with an emphasis on civil discourse. So they're out there work right now.
Bravo. I love that. That's fantastic. And I've read how many
presidents you have interviewed. It's a lot. You've really had a lot of
FaceTime with people who are holding the office of president or would like to hold
the office of president. So that's going to be an interesting program in and
of itself. Oh yeah, I covered what five or six presidential elections and
inaugurations, and I worked for the Will Flitzer Show for a while, so
I was a political reporter, which was very interesting. In twenty sixteen,
I covered politics quite extensively, which was really interesting. Yeah, but I
do. It's hard to say that you enjoy covering politics, because that's not
exactly the right word. But it's always fascinating because it really gives you a
sense of the state the country's in, and I find that to be amazing.
Let me ask a question, then, would you rather cover hard news
than political stuff? I consider politics hard news because it's just, you know,
it should be serious, it should have meaning. It shouldn't just be
about the insults the politicians trade. It should have a deeper meaning. So
I always tried to concentrate on that kind of political reporting. When I was
a young reporter coming up through local I always covered crime. I had the
court beat and the police beat. So I went down to the police department
every morning and I went through the police reports, and then if a big
crime would happen, I would cover the case from the investigation stage through the
trial. So I did that when I was a local reporter and I became
an investigative reporter when I hit Washington, DC, and I did all kinds
of stuff then, which was interesting. I know, I'm asking what is
probably going to a massively complex question to answer, but let's go ahead and
give it a shot here. Over the course of this amazing journalistic career that
you've had, you have covered a lot of stories. Are there any ones
that jump out at you immediately as being so compelling you feelolutely thrilled and privileged
to have covered them? Oh? So many. The one that's cne that
really stands out to me, oddly, there was a young reporter who was
shot to death while she was doing a live report on television. I remember
that, yes, Alison Parker, Yeah Parker. We covered that in real
time, which is very difficult as an anchor, it's really difficult. And
I could so relate to that because it reminded me of me back in the
day. And her father saw my reporting. Andy Parker, Yeah, yeah,
and we became acquaintances. He appeared on my show a lot, and
I'll always remember he approved of our coverage and of my coverage of the event.
I always appreciated that about him, And then he went through such a
rough time because people can be really cruel, and he became an applicant for
gun control and all that stuff. He's still active in that area. Fought
to get those images of his daughter off the internet, which wasn't easy.
That story really stands out in my mind for many reasons. And then the
other story that of course affected me was the subject of my podcast blind Rage,
which I covered as a young reporter, where this woman was carjacked,
rape repeatedly. Her attacker blinded her so she couldn't identify him. He tied
her up and put her in the car and set the car on fire,
and off he ran. And somehow this woman found the will to survive,
and not only that, but the will to become a part of the investigative
team investigating her case. And then she became an advocate for the victims of
sexual assault in the blind So that story stuck with me for thirty years,
and I kept in touch with Phillis cottell Off and on for all of those
years until she died. So, yeah, Phillis's story, which is unbelievably
dramatic, and even when you give us a capsule version of what happened to
her, we're both wincing because it's just such a difficult thing to listen too,
as well as for you to report. It seems like that one was
one that just stayed with you. And so when you decided I'm going to
do a true crime podcast, I want to tell Phillis's story. Yep,
it wasn't the other way around, though. It wasn't I need to start
a podcast in order to tell Phyllis's story. I've always wanted to tell Phillis's
story, and I started to write a book, and you just don't have
time because I was working, and it just so happened when I retired,
podcasting was it, And what a great way to share such an impactful story.
I think the reason that Phillis's story stuck with me is I covered that
case when I was twenty two years old. Now I was doing like none,
like none, and I was tasked with trying to get an interview from
a victim of trauma, especially that kind of trauma. I was tasked with
covering that sort of crime that I didn't think was even possible for that kind
of evil to walk the earth, And then to figure out the investigative process
and how to get information and then the trial, I was learning in real
time, and I was dealing with people's emotions while learning in real time,
and I made mistakes. And I think that's part of the reason that story
stuck with me as well. You were pretty much fresh out of Kent's State
at that point, weren't you. I was a senior in college. Wow,
it's crazy. How old would Phillis have been at the time of her
attack. She was forty four, so it's like my mom, right,
Yeah, she must have picked up on immediately on the fact that you were
a CUB reporter. With all due respect, she never said that, and
that's I think Phillis was such an unusual person. She actually she probably secretly
welcomed that because she found a way to manipulate the media for her own ends.
Phillis was amazing that way. So I'm not sure she would tell me
even if she felt that, because she would say, oh, my,
my young mind, that would be Phillis. How do you tag your journalistic
objectivity when you're covering a story that is so personally affecting and personally moving.
I don't know that I'd be able to what's interesting because when and I'll go
back to that beginning with Phyllis, she was a very sympathetic victim. You
just rooting for her, right. The man who attacked her, Samuel Herring,
was a bad dude, really bad. It never occurred to me,
as a young reporter to try to figure out why what made him that way
is that's a really personal, unusual crime to perpetrate on a stranger because he
didn't know Phyllis. I asked myself today, why didn't I go back and
investigate his background? He committed his first crime at the age of eleven.
How does it happen that he gets no psychological help through all of those years?
How does it happen that he goes to prison again and again and has
led out early. I never did any of those stories. I only covered
it from the emotional aspect, which was Phyllis's story, because that's the story
that and I'm going to sound really crass, but that's the story that sells.
As I think back on that now, I was not objective, but
no one complained about it because it was a good story. So it's incredibly
hard to be objective. I don't believe any reporter is truly objective. I
think that's impossible. The things that happened to you in your own life affect
the way you tell stories. How you put things in order in the story
affects how the story is perceived. So you try your best. But it
took me a long time to learn that when you cover emotionally, it just
like nine to eleven. Was it possible to be truly objective during that?
No, it wasn't, and I wasn't, and by then I was really
experienced, So it's really difficult. Yeah. I love what you just said
about the way that you tell a story is affected by how you feel,
because that's exactly what I teach my kids in my ap laying course. And
it's so nice to hear it affirmed from somebody that I'm not just spouting teacherly
beya, It's actually true. It works in the real world. It is
actually true. Do you think your employers would have given you the real estate
to explore those other issues? The things that you're mentioning, Carol, are
really important. How does this guy start out his criminal behavior at age eleven
and end up going into jail, getting out early, reoffending over and over
again. It is a fascinating question about how that happens. Do you think
they would have said, oh, sure, go ahead, put in a
bunch of time on that, because isn't Phyllis really the sympathetic person that we
can all identify with. It's there but for the grace of God, go
I when you hear her story? Oh yeah, yeah. And I worked
for a very tiny TV station at the time, so they probably would not
have allowed the freedom for me to do that. They were concentrating on the
fear in the community. How do you keep this from happening to you?
So I did a lot of women defense stories and stuff like that, and
then you tried to find Phyllis's friends and her family to talk about it and
maybe get an interview with Phyllis. My concentration was all that way, and
the search for evidence to catch this guy go down to the police department and
established sources so that you can find out what's happening and beat everyone else to
the punch. So you're right, at that time, in that place,
in that station, they would have not said, oh yeah, go find
out about the perpetrator. By that time, I think it was such a
horrible crime that the entire city just wanted just for court us I don't really
care about this person. Don't tell me about this person. I just want
him to go away forever. In hindsight that I don't think that was the
right choice. As a journalist, we would do that now at a right
but there's a and I'll ask you about this, So there's a controversy about
that. We've had an incredible dumber of school shootings, and at one point
when I was at CNN, we decided never to use the alleged perpetrator,
the alleged shooter's name, right, yes, And we really wouldn't talk about
that person very much. And that always bothered me because to me, you
have to understand and you have to know, and you have to be transparent
about what happened in its entirety. And I don't know where the good line
is. So I'll ask you, guys that where do you think that is.
We've both talked about it on the air at Mind of a Murder,
because obviously we're coming at this from a victim, friend and family perspective,
and we try to be very victim focused. We don't usually identify the offender,
although sometimes once or twice. In other words, you have to be
clear who it is you're talking about, and these days, sadly, what
incident are you discussing, because there's been so many. But we both lean
away from any kind of glorification, which we think is a serious problem in
the true crime space. The Washington Post did a cover story a few years
ago in the Washington Post magazine about me going to Crime Con, which is
a conference that Kristen and I have attended and spoken at numerous times now.
I think there's been five of them. Kristen. Yeah. One of the
things that I found disturbing, and Kristen shares this point of view, and
I'll let her speak about it, is that there were people at crime Con.
There's five thousand plus fans there who are interested in true crime, consume
a lot of true crime media, as well as reporters and investigators and family
members. There's a lot of very interesting people there. The thing we found
disturbing was people walking around with T shirts with serial killers faces on them.
So they're, in a sense, they're glorifying Ted Bundy and all of these
other sleeves balls who have done terrible things to people, and we think that
the focus is in the wrong place. Kristen, what do you think we've
leaned away from too much focus on the offenders. Yeah, no, I
agree with that. I remember my very first day at Crime con Almost from
minute one, I was very disturbed and upset by the fact that I past
a woman who had ted Bundy's face tattooed on her inner forearm, and it
was like, that's definitely not the reason why we should be here. I
do think that we have reached a spot within the true crime space where definitely
there is glorification of killers that needs to be stopped. The focus does need
to be on the victims, for sure, Caroly, get your point absolutely
that, like you do have to explore both sides of the story, and
if it comes with something like school shooting, and of course that's something that's
on my mind a lot because I am a teacher. Every day of the
working year, I go into my school and wonder is this going to be
the day? And so I think it is important to be able to at
least acknowledge this was the impetus behind this. But do we need to say
their name. No, not after the first time. And if that person's
story or motivation or justification whatever they think it is, deserves discussion. Maybe
once, but certainly not over and over. I don't want to see books
written about school shooters. When you addressed crime con and told them shared these
feelings, what was the reception? Actually, crime con to be frank and
we're going back again in September in Orlando. Orlando, Yes, not my
favorite city, not our favorite. They've actually moved in our direction. As
the brother of a murder victim, this is before we did Mind over Murder,
I publicly criticized them and all of the true crime conferences for focus that
I thought was not appropriate. And I said, and others too, this
isn't a Bill Thomas inventioned far from it. I said. The focus of
these conferences needs to be more on the families and the survivors and the people
that we've lost. The focus of a true crime conference should also be on
the fact that there are two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides in the
United States. That's a quarter of a million people who have died, all
of whom add family, friends, schoolmates. So if you think about it,
millions of people have been directly touched by this level of violence. That's
where the focus needs to be. Over the next couple of years, amazing
people like Kim Goldman and Chris Darden and any number of other people that we
were just thrilled to just sit in an auditorium and listen to these people present
their point of view as the sister of a murder victim from a super high
profile case, obviously, as a prosecutor, as investigators, as forensic experts,
that is where the focus needs to be. And they invited a lot
more families of murder victims, a lot of more survivors, which is always
really cool when you hear about someone that's survived an attack of this sort.
And they shifted the focus. It was really noticeable from we didn't go to
the first time, but we went to the second one, and it was
a really noticeable shift from the second to the and then on forward. So
they did respond, and it wasn't like we were the only ones saying it.
We didn't have a podcast at that point, but I talked about it
on other people's podcasts. How disturbing we thought. It was the one example
that made the Washington Post that they liked in both of us disliked so intensely.
We saw a woman at Crime con who had made a beautiful handmade skirt.
A ton of work had gone into this her skirt from top to bottom,
which was clearly handmade and quite lovely, like a work of art.
Was all the faces of all of these serial killers, one after another,
the mug shots of serial killers, and we were like, really, you've
spent who knows how many hours this beautiful skirt. That was just an example.
And I don't know this woman's name, and I didn't pick her out
of a line app to embarrass her or anything. He's in a prison visiting
a serial killer right now, asking him to her. We've talked about that
online. Honestly, God to be kidding, there are people. It's happening
now with that moron, Brian Kolberger in suspect in the Idaho four case.
He's getting love letters from women around the country. Are you serious? You
couldn't find another semi good looking guy with a square head that isn't in prison.
Come on, and honestly, steering it back just one second to the
example that Bill was using earlier. I would defy anybody who finds Ted Bundy
to be more interesting than hearing the story of Kathy Kleiner Rubin one of the
women who survived the attack by him. The room. You could have heard
a pin drop in that room when she was very bravely and for the first
time publicly telling what had happened to her. That that's the story that you
want. And anybody who's yes, we need another Ted Bundy movie, we
need another Ted Bundy documentary. Now you don't you need a Kathy Kleiner Rubin
documentary. She's a rock star in our world. Actually, when I started,
when I sat down to write Phyllis's story, I really wanted it to
be Phyllis's story, and I wanted her to be present in every episode,
right. I wanted her name in there and her actions because to me,
you're right, the heroes of these crimes are actually the survivors, and not
only the fact that they survived this violent thing, this horrible thing that happened
to them, but that they're living their lives. In Phillis's case, she
found a way to go on, be productive, be happy. To me,
that is truly heroic in the face of that kind of intense trauma,
To rise from the ashes like a phoenix, like that's unbelievable, and then
give back and not be bitter right. I don't know that I could do
that. That to me, it's amazing. So I'm so happy to hear
you both say that, and I'm so happy that you do your podcasts,
because that's really what people I don't know need to realize. I think I
didn't even watch the Jeffrey dahm Er doc. Like, no, we have,
neither one of us now. Eventually, at some point I'll watch it,
although my partner Pamela, I'm sure we'll insist that I watch it on
my own. She wouldn't see that stuff. It's repugnant, iterate for us.
What your goals are for your podcast? What do you want people to
get out of it? Other than recognizing the total badassery of Phillis Coddle,
which clearly does need to be recognized. What else would you say your goals
are for this? I actually think the badassery is the prime thing, because
I think that there is a perception that women who are victims of crime are
weak. We're attach because we are weak, or we did something wrong and
it's our fault and if only we had fought back or kicked him in the
nuts, and it would have been fine. But that's really not the way
the world works. So I really wanted the takeaway to be Phillis Cottle was
a badass. Even though she was carjacked and assaulted in every way possible and
blinded, she never acted as a quote unquote stereotypical victim. She didn't sit
in the corner and cry. She became an active, participated participant in solving
her case. In fact, the detectives told me that she was a member
of the team. And if you just imagine a person reliving their attack over
and over again in their brain to remember these tiny details so she could take
them to investigators so that they could solve the case. That in itself is
an amazing expression of strength. Like I wanted to really show that victims of
crimes are strong. I love that, and it's not their fault. And
back in the eighties, a lot of women didn't report rape, just as
a lot of women don't report rape today. Somehow, Phyllis was a pioneer
in that area because she was one of the few women at that time that
decided to go on television and tell everybody what happened to her in graphic terms.
She didn't hold back, and she came to the conclusion like, this
is not my fault I blame. It was his problem, not my problem.
And I want all of you to understand what rape is. I want
you to understand what he did and why he has to go away forever.
I wanted to I don't know. I just wanted to demonstrate to listeners that
Phillis, as a victim of these horrible crimes, was always strong and never
weak, and she blamed herself for a time, but then she came to
the conclusion that this is bullshit too is an expression of strength. I just
wanted people to realize that about Phillis and ultimately about other survivors of crime.
You're listening to Mind Over Murder. Will be right back after this word from
our sponsors. We're back here at Mind Over Murder. The footage that you're
using, if you will the audio, It comes from a variety of sources.
Did you have difficulty getting the clearances that you wanted to tell the story,
because obviously this happened a number of years ago. How did you go
about putting it together using new recordings as well as some recordings from back in
the day. Yeah, when I was thinking of writing a book about it,
which was two thousand and four. I I recorded Phyllis just on those
old fashioned micro cassette recorders. Oh yeah, but I never really planned to
use them professionally. I just wanted to have them for my notes. So
for whatever reason, I kept those all of those years, which was amazing.
Some of them had degraded and I couldn't use them. Some of them
survived, so the ones Phyllis's recordings are from two thousand and four, but
the rest. I had a friend who's an attorney in Acrid, and he
helped me contact all of these people associated with the case. And none of
them said now. They all said, yes, loved Phyllis Coddell. I
can't tell you the charisma that this woman. So it wasn't you. I
was going to say, they must have really liked you. It wasn't you
know, it was not me. It was definitely Phyllis pH And they want
to keep the man who was convicted of the crime in prison. They don't
want him to get out on parole. That's another reason. Everybody stepped forward,
but nobody said no. No one said no. It was amazing.
Is he up for parole at any point soon? I think in nine years,
he will be again. Okay, I can picture you speaking out nine
years from now along with others, but obviously some people will pass on,
so it is important. And Phyllis is gone herself, so she can't speak.
So it's a big reason why her family decided to participate. They want
to keep their mother's memory alive because she was truly amazing. And number two,
they want to keep her wish to keep this guy behind bars, and
this is one way they can do that. Where is he incarcerated now?
In the Ohio Penitentiary. He's been there for thirty nine years. Every ten
years he comes up. He was sentenced to two hundred and ninety nine years,
and he was twenty seven when he was convicted, so he's in his
sixties now. I still don't get the math here. If this guy is
sentenced to two hundred ninety nine years, how in the heck is he up
for parole every ten It doesn't even doe to make any sense. That's what
Phyllis's family would say. But yes, every ten years he comes up,
and it's been denied every ten years because they've gathered thousands of letters from people,
and wow, how do you like the format of the podcast. Do
you feel like the ability to stretch out your storytelling muscles. Does that feel
good? Or is that a challenge? That was so challenging because as a
reporter, you're used to writing succinct stories, Like the longest story ever wrote
was like three minutes. I didn't thought very much, but mostly I wrote
three minute stories. So doing an episode thirteen minutes was really and I really
had to expand Let's see, how do I explain this? You have to
set the tone in the mood, and you have to describe the scene and
that it went through so many documents so that I wouldn't like very too much
from what the truth actually was. So that took a lot of time.
And then the crime itself is so brutal, you have to determine how much
of it to tell and when and how. That was very difficult. That
was really difficult, I can imagine. So as a professional, what would
you say are some of the most important journalistic issues that we need to be
focusing on within the true crime space? Now you're here, You're one of
us now, and that means our issues are now your issues. What do
we need to be focusing on doing differently? Or doing better, or what
do we need to con you're doing that we're doing well already. There are
many excellent true crime podcasts out there, including yours, but there are many
not so great true crime podcasts out there that either the hosts read a bunch
of newspaper accounts of the crime, read them carefully, and just write a
bunch of stuff that's not quite true, or they embellish. It's just wrong.
That's not doing your listeners any kind of service. That's just exploiting these
victims of crime. To me, I think that podcasters should be very careful
in doing their due diligence because right now, and I teach journalism, and
I know young people trust podcasters the most for accurate information, for authenticity,
and if you want to keep that, we need to do our due diligence.
So I would say that's the most important factor to me is really knowing
your stuff, really doing it in a responsible way, interviewing guests that have
credibility and know what they're talking about. Trying to feel content because you know
it's the last minute, you're going to throw a bunch of crap together and
get it. That's just not cool, because that's how you lose viewers,
and that's how you lose trust. So for those of us who and I
wanted once upon a time, back in the dark ages, I actually wanted
to be a journalist and it never turned out that way, although funnily enough,
look where I am right now. It's for those of us who haven't
been trained though in journalism. What are some tips that you have for podcasters
and writers who are doing their own research and reporting. What should we be
doing better and what should we not be doing. I think that it's important
to know what a credible source is, Okay, I need I think is
really important. Like just because you read it in some newspaper or some random
newspapers somewhere, at least you should find another article to cross or call the
people in the article, and it just takes time. Take your time because
those things are really important to cross check credible sources. What else do I
tell my students? I was going to say, this is crash course in
journalism. Right. We're getting a semester's worth of good tips here in less
than an hour, which is why I'm sitting here taking notes too. The
cool thing about podcasting is you can do long form, so you can really
get into it. You can really educate people in an entertaining kind of way,
which is amazing. It's something you really can't do in television news because
it's just short pieces. I don't know a lot of it's so bad now
on local news. I find it difficult to talk about. But I think
that I tell my students get to know a detective or two. If you're
writing about crime, get to know someone like I don't know, even a
professor who specializes in some facet of criminal junk. This would be good.
Somebody you can bounce things off. Am I going down the right road?
Am I thinking about this the right way? Because you get so invol avolved
in telling your own story and you fall in love with what you've written,
and that's really dangerous. You need that person where you can step back and
say, Carol, I don't know if you're going down the right road.
I think that's really important to be a really good storyteller, especially when you're
telling true stories, because you do get lost in your own crap. Right,
Yes, you can definitely get lost in your NBS for sure. Those
would be my biggest tips, And don't be afraid to say that you don't
know something, don't be afraid. Don't pretend you know when you don't,
because you can't know it all. That's impossible. And we've found too that
its real important to develop off air sources and understand that, for instance,
some of those experts that you might talk to, they might not be in
a position to comment on the air about a particular incident or a case they're
working. But if you say, look, can we have a conversation that's
on background or off the record, can you tell me are we on the
right track here? Are we asking the right questions? Or who should we
talk to? And keep it all on background and learn to respect those boundaries.
I know Kristen gets on her students about this because she's talked about it
on the podcast. We WinCE when we hear things where we think this is
just a rip and read from Wikipedia as if Wikipedia is some unassailable source.
Like you said, do your research. It isn't a matter of five minutes
before air thinking oh yeah, I guess i'd better learned something about this case
we're gonna be talking about at four o'clock. The other thing is you're writing
about real people who've suffered trauma and pain. Don't diss them. You're writing
about a real person and something that really happened, and you don't get the
luxury of making stuff up about that or doing shoddy work about that. You're
doing a disservice to those people. I think that sometimes storytellers forget the human
angle, especially when you're working on a true story. So Wikipedia is not
it. Definitely agree. So, now that you have covered the Phyllis Caudle
case, what other stories do you see yourself telling? Now that you've mentioned
the Alison Parker case, that would be awesome because I remember that I went
to college in Roanoke, and so I remember I was very familiar with that
affiliate, and I remember just how absolutely horrified I was when that happened.
And I feel like there hasn't been nearly enough coverage of what happened in the
aftermath. I'd love to see you do something about Alison Parker. Is that
like on the document? Maybe that would collaborate. That would be amazing,
all right, you two, It sounds great to me. I got a
whole summer coming up here, let's do something. I would love that.
That would be so exciting, all right, what other stories would you like
to tell. We'll work that out, But what else would you like to
would you like to tell your listeners. The woman one of the prosecutors that
helped me tell Phyllis's story was named Emily Pelfrey, and she used to be
a prosecutor in Ohio and she has so many interesting cases. So I'm mining
her brain at the moment, and I'm thinking about telling the story from a
prosecutor's angle, because you don't hear that often, especially if a prosecutor.
She was prosecuting a case that involved a serial killer, and she said she
was pregnant at the time and she didn't want her pregnancy to show because that
would project vulnerability in the courtroom and she needed to be strong. This is
one just one story that intrigued me, And she said, I decided to
distract from my baby bump. I would wear the most amazing shoes I could
find that when the jury looked at me, they would just notice my shoes.
And she also said she was overly emotional, so that when the family,
the victim's family members took the stand, she would find herself starting to
tear up, and she didn't want people to see that either, So there
was all these interesting human elements that went into her preparing that case and how
she tried the case. So I'm thinking of telling a story from that angle
from one of them, and telling the story of her investigating the case from
across a tutorial angle and then actually trying it from a human That would be
an amazing story. And I'll throw in I want to watch that television series
and I want to see that movie because man, what an incredible intersection of
story elements and this is her real life. Yeah, I think that would
be really cool, So I'm working on that. I'm also working on a
partnership with the Project for the Innocent at Loyal and Marymount University. They do
great work in our law school and they have amazing stories to tell because I
think that the story normally ends when the person gets out of prison after they've
been in there for thirty years, but like what happens then, So I'd
like to tell that story as well. And there are just so many great
stories down there. So those are the things I'm thinking of to do next.
We shouldn't let this opportunity pass without talking a little bit about your former
home CNN. You mentioned at the top of the podcast, they've been in
the news just a little lately. And I asked you off the air and
I said, I assume you still have friends there, and you said,
yes, a lot of friends, including folks that have been there for a
number of years. Can they move forward? And what would you do if
they hired you as the CEO? I think they should, right, I
don't know who you want that job. Oh, I don't know either.
I worked at sand for almost twenty years, and I experienced lots of ups
and downs. And there were times when he had no ratings at all,
and I lived through those times. And then there were times when we had
great ratings and those were the heydays. Those were fun. So I don't
think CNN is dead and gone by any stretch of the imagination. I think
that people like to talk about CN a lot because it's just become this hot
button issue when it comes to all things journalism that I think is unfair.
So Chris Luck did not do a good job, which is why he was
eventually fired. I hope they bring in somebody who is better suited to run
a large organization like CNN in the times we live in today, which are
so different from when I started at CN to twenty years ago. I'm not
sure that viewers are interested in seeing a centrist product. I hope I'm wrong,
but I don't see it right now. We live in a world that's
so complicated that I'm not sure that you can present a story that makes everybody
happy, because the stories are mostly boring and don't really reflect what's going on
in the world. So I think that CNN is going to have to do
some deep soul searching and decide what it wants to be, really wants to
be, what its audience wants it to be. And we have a very
fraught election coming up, and it's got to figure out how to cover that
election more effectively than its first. Foray under Chris LT, I'd have to
agree they're going to have challenges, And as I said at the beginning,
when we were just chatting before we started, I'm not sure I would have
announced, oh, we're tacking to the center. I might have just tried
it. The other thing is I think trying to be all things to all
people is completely impossible. Yeah, I do think adherence to the truth is
really important, and I think they should be challenging all of the political figures
that they cover, and they don't just cover politics. Of course, that's
actually something they seem to have forgotten about. One of CNN's great strengths was
these incredible reporters and producers across the country and around the world. Remember CN
was a go to place whenever there was something really important happening, particularly at
an international location, but nationally as well. They seem to have lost sight
of all of that. I don't think Chrislick was a good choice. The
skill set, though, of someone that can run an organization of that scale
and be effective. That's not a long list of people that have that kind
of resume. True, you have four thousand people, many of them were
based on other parts of the world. You have the advertising space. There
are just so many things that you're running a network to take into account besides
journalism and the way we do news. So you have all of that,
but I think that journalism is in a precarious state right now. You also
have that, so you're dealing with all these issues all at once when everybody
complains about you, and everybody has an opinion about how journalism should be done.
Everybody does, even if they've never done it in their entire lives.
So you have to be the kind of manager that can block out the noise
and have a concrete direction, and you have to communicate that to your staff
journalists or not pushovers. Don't just take the boss's word and you say,
oh, yeah, I'll go do that unless we really respect them and they
prove to us that they have the wherewithal to handle the job. Otherwise they're
going to go do what they want, or the product's going to be like
not what you wanted to be, because they're not going to be putting in
their best effort because they're going to be confused. That was one of the
takeaways from the Atlantic article, which was amazing. I literally couldn't put it
down. I kept reading and reading and thinking, gosh, this is great,
and it's really long, and I didn't realize it was fifteen thousand words
when I said the exercise session with the guy with the pajama bottoms and the
polka dot shirt and he was like making chrislicked. That was bizarre. Giving
a reporter that level of access for that long isn't probably a great idea.
It's too Why would you even bring the reporter to your exercise session. Yeah,
you're absolutely right about that. But I think that Chrislick, it seemed
so anyway that he was I don't know, he wanted to improve his public
image, and maybe he thought that wouldn't if his public image improved, that
would improve things with the staff. But that's really not the way it works.
Plus, I work for Jeff Zucker. Yeah, I loved him.
I was going to say Zucker had an understanding with the people that worked for
him. I'm not saying everybody loved the guy, but they felt like he
was in their corner and that he really understood how to work with talent and
not a word I care much for, but all of these talented producers and
writers and most importantly the on air reporters. I'll tell you how close he
was. So I had the newsdesk is in the middle of the newsroom.
It's thea New York so I would anchor the news. I could see Jeff
Zucker's office. The news desk was just right across the way, and in
commercial breaks if he noticed and he was watching me, So that told me
like he cared about what I was doing. Yeah, exactly. It meant
a lot. So in breaks, he would sometimes come out of his office
and say, you know what, when this other person comes up, you
probably should ask this see if this like tactic works. And I appreciated that
because most times he was absolutely right. It is difficult to be on the
air for two hours and a live broadcast, especially with the election of twenty
sixteen, when you had to catch inaccuracies in real time. That's really hard
because for a brief moment, your brain says it's quite true, and then
you have to summon the information, the true information like that right, everybody
thinks the producer like feeds us info, but they can't even keep up.
So it was comforting to have Jeff Zucker right there. I'm picturing Aaron Sorkin's
the news room and super imposing your face that's happening, because that sounds exactly
like what they did on the episodes where they covered the election. That's my
only frame of reference. That's right. At the moment, Stuck was so
out there, You're like, am I the crazy one? I know?
So I don't know. Jeff Sucker was very connected to the staff and not
just talent, but you're right, the producers. He had a game plan
every morning you understood what direction the network was going that particular day. We
were all on board because it was brilliant most times. I know that CEN
did a lot of things wrong with the election of twenty sixteen, but it
did try to write itself. And I think that people forget that was an
election like no other, and this selection coming up will be an election like
no other. It'll just be weird in many respects and disturbing in many respects.
So you're figuring out as a news manager how to cover it in real
time. It's not like you get a bunch of time to sit around with
your pals and say, huh, how should we cover this weird shit.
It's happening. She happens in real time, and you want to get it
right, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't because news managers are human
too. But you want a news manager who gets it right most of the
time in the moment, and that was not Chris linked. No, it's
going to be a big shoes to fill, it really is. So I
gather then you don't miss getting up at three o'clock in the morning or what
the air. I thought that forevermore I would wake up at two thirty in
the morning. But that's not true because the day I left CN, I
slept until ten. My body snapped right back to normal. Yeah. I
wake up at four thirty every morning so that I can get ready and then
I've got a half hour drive to school. And as soon as I don't
have to set that alarm for the summer, I will do exactly the same
thing ten o'clock in the morning. Don't call me before then. Do funny
how you can like actually function with brain fog, right, because I'm sure
you have brain fog waking up at four thirty in the morning. Yes,
And honestly, for the first time ever this morning, and this is I'm
uber organized, but will tell you that, for the first time ever,
I actually managed to walk out of my house without my lunch this morning.
And it wasn't until I got to school thirty minutes later and I realized,
oh my god, I don't have anything to eat for today. I've never
had that happen before. But the end of year teacher tired brain fog is
so real, and it's like we're on it. Can I just say teachers
are amazing, thank you? Now when they're under attack from so many different
places. I think that it's difficult enough to teach, but to deal with
all the other stuff that's going on right now, and you're hanging in there
and continuing to do it in care about your students. That's amazing. Thank
you. I appreciate that. Carol. Tell our listeners where they can tune
into your podcast. You can catch Carol Costello Presents blind Rage wherever you get
your podcasts. I had just started a new Facebook page, Facebook dot com
slash Carol Lmu. We can start a conversation there that would be terrific or
Instagram, and I think it's just it at Carol Costello blind Rage. You
can get it wherever you get your podcasts, and please listen because I want
to do the greatest service I can to Philli Scoddle because she was chewing an
amazing woman and her story has to be shared, and we will put links
to all of that in our show notes. Carol, thank you so much
for joining us today, thank you for having me, and thank you for
doing what you do that's going to do it for this episode of mind Over
Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time mind
Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive
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Five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.