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 Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. 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 Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we're thrilled to be joined today by Carol Cassello,
journalist and true crime podcaster. Carol, thank you for joining us today,
Murder. Oh. I'm still getting used to the true crime pod connect things.
I'm so thrilled to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me.
We are so thrilled to have you. Can you start just by telling
anyone who's unfamiliar. A little bit about yourself and 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 love 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 twoenty eighteen, and I teach journalism at Loyal and 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, Ravo. 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 kind 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 Wolf 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 of
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 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 feel thrilled and privileged to have covered
them? Oh? So many. The one that's the end 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. Oh yeah, it
was Roanoke. I remember that, Yes, Allison 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 net,
which wasn't easy, right. 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 our 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 Phyllis Coddle 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 the
capsule version of what happened to her, we're both wincing because it's just such
a difficult thing to listen to 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 Phyllis'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 Phyllis's story stuck with
me is I covered that case when I was twenty two years old. Wow.
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 State at that point, weren't you. I
was a senior in college. Wow, it was 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 Phyllis 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. Phyllis was amazing that way.
So I'm not sure she would tell me even if she felt that, because
she would say, oh, my young mind, that would be Phyllis.
How do you make 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
porpetrate 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 let 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 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 happen to you
in your own life effect 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, 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 Lang
course. And it's so nice to hear it affirmed from somebody that I'm not
just spouting teacher lybias. 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 the 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 establish 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 to just recort
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 of right, But there's a con and I'll ask you about
this, So there's a controversy about that. We've had an incredible number 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 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 on a few years ago in the Washington Post magazine about me
going to Crime Con, which is a conference that Kristin and I have attended
spoken at numerous times now. I think there's been five of them. Kristin.
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, in a sense, they're glorifying Ted
Bundy and all of these other sleeve balls who have done terrible things to people,
and we think that the focus is in the wrong place. Kristin,
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 stop.
The focus does need to be on the victims, for sure, Carolin,
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. 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 invention. 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 had 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 more survivors, which
is always really cool when you hear about someone that 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 third 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 and 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. It's like a
work of art. Was all the faces of all of these serial killers,
one after another, even like the mugshots of serial killers. And we were
like, really, we've spent who knows how many hours sewing 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 lineup to embarrass her or anything.
He's in a prison visiting a serial killer right now, asking him. We've
talked about that on mind. Honest, God, be kidding, there are
people. It's happening now with that moron Brian Kolberger in suspect from 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 was
that's the story that you want in anybody who's yes, we need another Ted
Bundy movie, we need another Ted Bundy documentary. May you don't you need
a Kathy Kleiner Rubin documentary. Yeah, 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 Phyllis'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 podcast, because that's really what people I don't know need
to realize. I think I didn't even watch the Jeffrey Dahmer doc. Like
no, we neither one of us have seen it. Eventually, at some
point I'll watch it, although my partner Pamela, I'm sure will 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 bad assary
of Philliscottle, which clearly does need to be recognized. What else would you
say your goals are for this? I actually think that bad assory is the
prime thing, because I think that there is a perception that women who are
victims of crime are weak. We're attacked because we are weak, or we
did something wrong and it's our fault and if only we had thought 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 Philis 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 and 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'm 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 Phyllis, 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 Phyllis and ultimately about
other survivors of crime. You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right
back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder.
The footage that you're using, if you will 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 just I recorded Phyllis
just on those old fashioned micro cassette recorders. Oh yeah, yah, 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 no. They all said yes, Oh
loved Phyllis Coddle. I can't tell you the charisma this one. So it
wasn't you. I was going to say, they must have really liked you.
It wasn't you. No, it was not me. It was definitely
Phyllis Phillips. 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. 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 has gone herself so she
can't speak. So that'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's 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 and ninety nine years, how in the heck is
he up for parole every ten It doesn't even do 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. Wow, how do you like the format of the podcast?
Do you feel liked 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 I
ever wrote was like three minutes. I did though very on, 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 and the mood, and you have to describe the
scene, and that I 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 continue 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 fill 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, you would have been a journalists.
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 that thing 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 to or call the people in the article, and
it just takes time to 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 now, 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 in 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 justice 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 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 demply get lost in
your nbs for sure. Those would be my biggest tips. And don't be
afraid to see 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, well, 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 Kristin 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 better
learn something about this case we're going to 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 be
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 Coddle 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 Allison Parker. Is that like on the document? Maybe that would
collaborate? That would be amazing, all right too, 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 and 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 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 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 that us. 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 sutorial angle and then actually trying it
from a human That one 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 don't 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 we had no writings 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 Lick 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 hap because the stories are mostly boring
and don't really reflect what's going on in the world. So I think that
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 Lin, 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. 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 Chris Lick 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 are based on other parts of the world. You have the
advertising space. There are just so many things when 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 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
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 want it 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 sat down the exercise session with the guy with the pajama
bottoms and the polka dot shirt, and he was like making chrislickx. That
was bizarre. Oh, giving a reporter that level of access for that long
isn't probably a great idea. Ew why would you even bring the reporter to
your exercise session? Yeah, you're absolutely right about that, But I think
that Chris lick. It seemed so anyway that he was I don't know.
He wanted to improve his public image, and maybe he thought that would if
his public image improve, 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 at the New York so I would anchor the
news. I could see Jeff Zucker's office from 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 time. 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 tactic works.
And I appreciated that because most times he was absolutely right. It is
difficult to be on the air for two hours in a live broadcast, especially
with the election of twenty sixteen, when you had to catch inaccuracies in real
time. That's really hard, Yeah, because for a brief moment, your
brain says, is that really true? And then you have to summon the
information, the true information like that right. Everybody was 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 Sorkins the news room and superimposing
your faith. That's happening because that sounds exactly like what they did on the
episodes where they covered the election. That's why only frame of reference for us
right at the moment, the stuff was so out there, You're like,
am I the crazy one? I know? So, I don't know.
Jeff Zucker 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 election coming up will be an election like no other. It
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.
It 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 than you
don't miss getting up at three o'clock in the morning or on the air.
I thought that forever more I would wake up at two thirty in the morning,
but that's not true because the day I left Sin, 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. 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.
Bill 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. And can I just say teachers are amazing,
thank you. I'm actually now when they're under at tech 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 and care about your students. That's amazing.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Carol. Tell our listeners where they can
tune in 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 phil Scottle 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 producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is
by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. Mind Over Murder
is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook,
Twitter, or Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial
Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter
at Bill Thomas. Five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.