December 8, 2020 • 45 mins
Jessica Yellin is the founder of #NewsNotNoise, a fresh voice in media that provides daily news reports on Instagram. You can find the account @jessicayellin.
She's the former chief White House correspondent for CNN and an Emmy and Gracie award-winning political journalist reporting for CNN, ABC News, and MSNBC. She has covered Capitol Hill, domestic politics, state and national elections, the culture wars, and issues facing women in the workplace. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Details, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and The Atlantic. A Harvard University graduate, Jessica released her first novel, Savage News, about reporting-while-female, in 2019.
On News Not Noise, she does the news via Instagram daily to an audience that includes Jennifer Aniston, Kerry Washington, Selena Gomez, Orlando Bloom, and Amy Schumer, nurses, teachers, and politicians. Jessica provides information that helps the people understand the issues and talk about them knowledgeably. The idea: she offers information, not a panic attack.
Jessica joins us to talk about how modern news sources compete for our anxiety, finding her voice, and the challenge of combating disinformation on the very social media platforms that espouse it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Jessica Yellen. Jessica is the founder of News Not Noise,
a fresh voice in media that provides daily news reports
on Instagram. You can find the account at Jessica Yellen.
She's a former Chief White House Correspondent for CNN and
Emmy and Gracie Award winning political journalists. Reporting for CNN,
(00:44):
ABC News and MSNBC. She has covered Capitol Hill, domestic politics,
state and national elections, the culture wars, and issues facing
women in the workplace. Her work has been published in
The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Entertainment Weekly, The
l Eight Times in The Atlantic. Harvard University graduate, Jessica
released her first novel, Savage News about reporting female in
(01:07):
two thousand nineteen on News Not Noise. She does the
news via Instagram daily to an audience that includes Jennifer Anniston,
Carrie Washington's, Lena Gomez, Orlando Bloom and Amy Schumer, nourishes teachers, politicians,
and more. Jessica provides information that helps people understand the
issues and talk about them knowledgeably. The idea she offers information,
(01:28):
not a panic attack. Jessica joins us to talk about
how modern news sources compete for our anxiety, finding her voice,
and the challenge of combating disinformation on the very social
media platforms that espouse it. Please enjoy my conversation with
Jessica yellin. Jessica, thank you for joining us, Thank you
for having me. This is a treat I hear. We're
(01:51):
across the city in Los Angeles today. Yes, and we're
told we can never leave our house again. That's right,
that's right. How how is the pan Ammick treating you
right now? How you doing? I'm okay at this moment.
It's actually been you know, I'm one of those people
who's been surprised by how much I'm enjoying the solitude.
Sure well, I've been a huge fan of yours for
(02:12):
a long time. I love news, not noise. Thank you,
and you know for the for the courtesy of the
listeners who aren't as familiar with it, Do you mind
giving us thet as we get into it. Sure. I
was a political reporter in Washington for a long time.
I was the chief White House correspondent at CNN during
the Obama presidency, and I always had this feeling that
(02:35):
we were missing a large part of the audience, that
there were people who wanted what we knew, but they
needed it told differently and fast forward. I tried explaining
this to a trillion people who didn't resonate, didn't resonate.
So I realized over time I just had to try
this on my own and prove that there's an audience.
And I do the news on Instagram to um an
(02:58):
audience that's over were untre of thousand people. And the
idea is I give you. I say it's information, not
a panic attack. I tell you what matters, Why, what crazy,
frothy news is out there that you can ignore? And
the whole mission is to say the information in a
way that anybody can understand it and get interested enough
(03:20):
to keep following the story, feel empowered by the knowledge,
and ultimately take action. And I love that and that
philosophy of you know how we do the news, and
it's certainly gotten more and more partisan, more and more
anxiety driven, and I imagine that that's sue to how
it affects the bottom line. I know that you have
(03:41):
a counter narrative to that. Correct. Yeah, I'd see the
news as it's another industry that is right for disruption,
And that might sound cliche, but it's true. It's any
It's one of those businesses where there is a single
conventional viewpoint, which is the way we get eyeballs, the
way we drive ratings, the way we grow revenue is
(04:01):
through telling stories that are high in conflict, and that
everything has to be framed um as sports competition, war. Um.
That's highly negative, anxiety inducing. It triggers your fear and panic.
And that's not that's not because the news is necessarily
has to be presented that way. Is that we choose
(04:23):
to frame things that way. And it's one way, for
sure to get people to pay attention, but it's not
the only way. And I actually think that, you know,
we need other alternatives because that can be destructive totally.
And and what was I mean, it's just such an
incredible thing, like not many people who are you know,
the senior White House correspondence for the leading news organizations
(04:46):
in the world go on such an entrepreneurial journey and
take such a huge jump like you did. Was there,
like were you thinking about this for a long time
that you have advisors that told you that this was
a horrible idea? Like take us back to the genesis
of starting this. I mean I literally almost no one
said do it. I had a few girlfriends and a
(05:07):
few people, but it started when I was still a
correspondent and I was covering political campaigns in the White House.
And that means in the every election cycle, I'm on
the road and I'm spending all my time talking to
undecided voters because at the end of an election, that's
who makes the difference, right, And overwhelmingly they were women.
(05:30):
And the conventional wisdom in Washington was like, they just
don't care about politics, and you can and that's why
they can't make up their minds because they're not paying attention.
And there's all sorts of data you can find to
bolster this, like when women pick up the newspaper, they
tend to read human interest stories rather than politics and
international relations stories, and so you could find all this
(05:51):
evidence to confirm that these women just don't care. But
I was out there talking to them, and they care
so much. They just wanted to know that person's policy.
How's it going to affect my bottom line? What does
that word mean you guys keep talking about? And why
is everybody screaming? I can't listen with the screaming. And
I'd go home and say, hey, can I try it differently?
(06:12):
Like I want to explain the policy. I want to
tell them what matters. I want to investigate big stories,
and everyone's like yelling, don't be difficult. Just do the news,
Like do the news the way we do it. And
I just had this persistent feeling like we're doing a
disservice to these people who want to know and we're
not giving it to them. And then, like the fast
(06:33):
forward of it is, there's all sorts of scientific studies
and social science that proves when you frame things with
negativity and appealing to people's outrage, it shuts down learning
in the brain for some people, especially women. But it
shuts down learning, and it also promotes feelings of fear
(06:53):
and alienation, which I think promotes polarization and all these things. Anyway,
so I had all this instinct, which I'm saying, the
science actually shows there's a there there, and I wanted
to do it differently, and I just couldn't do it
inside the system. I just couldn't, so I had to
find another way. Well, and I totally appreciate that perspective,
you know, I think about it from my own, you know,
(07:15):
personal experience. When you're in fight or flight, it's pretty
impossible to be creative. It's hard to like, you know,
think about things under a new prism, or really be
rational when you're being prodded to you know, have an
emotional reaction to whatever is being provided for you. And
you know, I think that the reason that the media
(07:36):
is the one industry that is truly protected by Congress
is because it was supposed to be a form of
public service. A thousand. Oh my god, I love you
because this is what my team laughs at me, because
I always there's this jfk Jr. Quote where he says,
there's a reason the free press is the only private
business explicitly protected by the U. S. Constitution, and that's
(07:57):
because we exist to ensure that we have informed electorate
in a democracy. And if we're not making you informed,
we're failing. And you know, you'll look at surveys, more
than half of the people you surveying this country say
that they feel less informed after watching TV news because
they have questions and they're more confused. So, like, how
(08:19):
do you reinvent that and how do you do it
in a way because you still have to appeal to
emotion to get people to engage, right, it can't be boring.
It's just that anxiety. Like, I think the news deliberately
competes for your anxiety, and I think we can compete
for other like stimulation centers in the brain. Well, it's
kind of incredible when you look at and I mean
(08:40):
your your coverage of the election and of the pandemic.
I know it reached nearly seventy million people in October,
which is tremendous, And you know, it's really interesting to
see this split for the first time in a long
time between people voting for a political party, for their
representative or their senator and not for president. And I
know that it's one of the things that our president
(09:01):
right now is saying is impossible because he's the lead dog.
But it does speak towards what you're talking about, where
people are informing themselves to a great degree. It's not
just like, well, I'm on the red team or I'm
on the blue team, and this is what we believe,
and you know, whatever the party line is is what
we'll do. It's it's a moment where it does seem
like we all are sort of recognizing the necessity for
(09:23):
us to participate more to create the country and the
democracy in the place that we actually want to live
in a thousand percent. One of the silver linings of
the last four years is that I think people have
started to pay attention to and care about government, and
they're asking questions. I mean, people ask what is why
(09:43):
do we have a pardon? Why is that allowed? That
seems undemocratic? And you know, just a blanket like people
you know, they know this exists, but they don't know
enough about it. And so it's fostered this curiosity that
I think will endure. Like I think once or awake,
you don't you might like need a respite, but I
don't think that sort of interest in learning is going
(10:06):
to stop. And did you always want to be in
the news. Is this something that has always been like
were you in high school, you know, doing local reports?
You know here in l A. What was the genesis
of you being interested in this field? It's so funny.
I did not want to be a reporter. I wanted
to I either wanted to be an essayist or a politician.
(10:26):
I thought that reporters were, you know, critics who never
did and only criticized and all those things. But my
first job out of college was as an intern in
the Clinton White House. Then I was on staff, and
I was really, you know, as young, and I didn't know,
and I was frustrated by how politics worked. I was
too idealistic, and I really thought that the journalists were
(10:50):
sort of the ones who were holding people's feet to
the fire and the ones who had like the cool,
interesting jobs and seemed to be really funny and fun
and I just thought like, I'd rather be hanging out
with those people. Sure. So I was an intern in
the Clinton White House and at the time, every room
had one TV, those big tube TVs right that were huge,
and it hung in the corner of every room. And
(11:12):
there were always two things that could stop a room cold.
In the West Wing. One was the President himself walking
into your office, and the other was that TV that
was always tuned to the only twenty four hour cable
channel that existed, CNN, reporting on the White House, and
those people on that TV could get the attention of
everyone in the building, and they had so much power
(11:32):
and influence, and I was always amazed that they were
even then covering Clinton's haircut or somebody stole a helicopter
to go golfing. And you know, we're working on the
crime bill, and we're working on welfare reform, and they're
still chasing the scandals. And I thought, if I can
get inside that TV doing that, I'm going to talk
about the other things totally. And I haven't read Savage News.
(11:57):
I bought it UM this morning, but I'm very excited too.
And it reminds me of this Hunter S. Thompson quote
that I love, where he's talking about the music business.
He says, the music business is a cool and shallow
money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps
run free, and good men dialect dogs. And there's also
a negative side. UM, honey, And I remember I worked
(12:17):
in Congress. I worked for the Rules Committee, UM, and
I think we overlapped at your at the end of
your tenure. UM. You know, two thousand seven ish, and uh,
I had you know, you had this reaction to what
you were exposed to your like, you know what like
influences everything, right, like how how are these decisions getting made?
And what are the factors that are leading to you know,
(12:37):
these people making the decisions they're making. Your experience was
that the media was having that huge influence. Mine was
really that, you know, whoever the biggest donor was to
the congressman that I was looking at often, you know,
is and the party line, Like I I ended up
there by a time where you like ercent of Democrats
or Republicans which just vote party line or a whip
(12:58):
would come and like crush your soul. I think Tom
Delay was the majority leader at the time, and uh
dropped his God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and
Steve Line on the house flow and I worked there, um,
And so I'm just curious, like you, you know, you
you ultimately became an entrepreneur um and started your own platform,
But did you think about that too? I mean, I
(13:18):
imagine you also saw the influence of business on politics
at that time. I mean I had this notion that
when you're an entrepreneur you live in a world of yes,
let's try it. And my frustration in Washington especially was
you'd always start with a no, Oh, that can't be done,
that's too hard, that won't get support, you can't change
(13:40):
before you ever, and then you have to persuade people
into having the possibilities conversation. Um. So I liked that
part of entrepreneurship. It appealed to me, and I always
found myself stimulated by those conversations with people who were entrepreneurial.
And my dad was an entrepreneur. Your dad was a
legend in this city. Oh it's so nice, that's level
(14:01):
and it's true. You know, as a developer out in
Utah with Powder Mountain, I know all about your dad
and Grand Central Market in downtown l A. And oh yeah,
that's awesome. Uh yeah, and he you know, I always
think one of the challenges of my dad and but
he started to develop, redeveloped the urban core of l
A before, like thirty years before it came back. He
(14:22):
always said, I'm a little too early, and I knew it. Yeah,
And so I always wonder, like do I have that
is it too early? Is it too soon? But I
guess we all have those things in our head. And
just the fact that it's getting an audience and that
people respond encourages me that it's not too early. We
need this. It works, But you know, you always have
(14:42):
those fears. Sure, and like, how did you break past that?
Because I imagine that you know, you worked in when
you work in the White House, when you work in
a place like CNN, you have a boss, and that
boss has a boss, and there's a hierarchical there's a
hierarchy of of the decision tree, and I imagine that
people want you to, you know, do what you're told
more than like, you know, come up with your own
(15:03):
ideas and execute them. Was there something that happened in
your life that allows you to kind of like drop
the fear and go for it. There were a bunch
of things, and I was super methodical about it, and
I was very considered, and I like, while I was
still there, I went to you know, a career coach,
a life coach, like talk to everybody, like just played
(15:24):
everything out, tried every single thing every way I could
think of to see if I could do this inside
the system, Like don't blow things up without knowing don't.
And at some point it just you know, there there's
this story about how somebody, uh was God told them
that don't worry, I'm going to save you. You have
You're going to be saved once and like he's drowning
(15:46):
in the ocean and uh just you know, cruise ship
comes by to save him. He says no thanks, and
a helicopter comes by and says no thanks, and someone
else and he's like, God's gonna save me. And then
he dies and he goes up there and God's like,
I sent you a helicopter, I sent you a cruise ship.
Like notice the things. And I kept thinking, like they're
all these signs telling me that like my mission and
my calling is this thing that I feel like I
(16:07):
need to do, and I cannot do it in the
space I'm in, And I didn't know how I'd make
it happen. I just knew that this wasn't going to
happen here. And I don't even though I've been critical
of the institutions of the news organizations, I don't actually
mean that as a criticism of the people where I worked.
(16:28):
You know, I think that there's remarkable journalism going on
right now in all those organizations, but I also wanted this.
The world needs other voices and and sort of framing
for for this audience. And I just realized I wasn't
getting able to do it where I was. I had
to find another way. We'll be back with more out
(16:51):
of the hustle after the break. Did you have your
voice like I wish? I knew the providence a little
better of news not noise, But like from when you
started it, was it clunky or was it like immediately
there was an audience that resonated with it, Oh my god,
for sure. Not it was clunky beyond like I was
(17:13):
like a newscaster at the beginning. And I even, you know,
until very recently, I scripted every thing I did on
camera and now I just talk live. Um. I had
a boss at CNN who said to me really early,
I want you to be a columnist. I want you
to just come on and give us a point of
view on what's happening, and I I wouldn't do it.
(17:36):
He and he's reminded me of it since he's like,
you said, it couldn't be done back then, So you know,
you get I don't know if it's false consciousness and
you get built into like I have to do these
things to succeed if I try something different, you know,
you you internalize values the place where you're working. But
ultimately it's kind of what I'm doing now, which is
(17:57):
I give you a point of view and a distillation
of what I actually matters and why. And so I
ended up in that place. But to answer your question
more directly, I was a disaster. Like people started saying
to me, you should do this around the time of
the first Women's March, when Trump was just elected, and
I didn't start it until so it took two years
(18:21):
and I had a ton of friends saying, just put
your face on camera and start talking. And I'm like,
what am I going to talk about? And the first
time I did, it was like, holy disaster. It was comical.
I struggled for a long time with you know, why
should I be you know, why are people going to
listen to me? What it was? This internal conflict? Um,
(18:41):
and my friends are like, you know so much, just like,
you know, just explain this thing you just told me,
and UM. It was really hard for me. And the
best part, the thing that made it easier is I
have really, really high engagement from the audience. So from
the beginning, even when only had like three thousand followers,
(19:02):
there was extreme engagement. So people were immediately dm ng
me and asking me to explain what did that word mean?
And what can Congress do and why is this happening?
And I found that so stimulating after all these years
of being on camera talking to like a lens and
having no idea if you're connecting or not, it's really
exciting to have feedback like that, which you can only
(19:25):
get a different medium. Wow, I never thought about that.
And do you do you think that we're going to
see more of the you know, senior journalists and personalities
that were used to on you know, our television screens
moving to new mediums like Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat.
Do you think that? I'm sure they You get phone
calls and you know people are asking you about that path.
(19:47):
I mean, that's part of what I'd like to build
and create a framework for people to be able to
more people to do what I'm doing, you know, as
experts and knowledgeable voices that you're not calling them info inserts.
So I do think that in the future we will
be following, will be more inclined to follow people we
trust rather than brands. So it's not the news institution,
(20:11):
it's this person. It's still very hard for people to
do what I did because you know, there's a weird tension.
Like as a reporter, you take huge risks in your work,
Like you go out to crazy places and you dig
through things, and you like take a flyer and invest
a ton of time on a story that might go nowhere,
or you cold call. But we're super risk averse in
(20:32):
our lifestyles. So you want the four O n K,
you want the health insurance. Like one of the things
you hear in the newsroom is like, well I got
to do this, I couldn't never do anything else. I'll
never get another job, which is so untrue, right, But
it's just a kind of mindset that's instilled. And so
I think it's hard for people to make this leap.
But I think as more frameworks are set up to
(20:55):
reduce the friction or maybe have like economies of scale,
we're mores can join. It'll be a different story. And
I hear you on the risk profile of the stories
that you choose, and you know, being a public figure
is not a piece of cake. But when I think
about having the flag of a news organization, it's a
(21:16):
lot less accountability than a personal relationship with the person
that is, you know, following you on Instagram for instance. Right, Like,
I would imagine that you have a greater sense of
responsibility now that you know it's your name on the masthead.
Do you feel like there's a difference where that's concerned.
That's so interesting. I um, I felt a weirder tension
(21:39):
before because I was there as a representative of this
institution that was much more than me, and it stood
for certain things, and I often felt like I had
to be it rather than myself, and so like, there
were things that if I were in the White House
Press briefing room asking questions as Jess Huh, I would
(22:01):
ask differently. But because I was there as a representative
of one of the news organs I worked for, I
had to frame it a certain way. I had to
present I had to do these certain things that are conventional.
One of the things about my job now is it's
awesome because I get to decide the story every day.
It's up to me, And it's awful because I have
to decide the story every day. It's up to me.
(22:23):
And it's this tension, right, so I do miss You know,
first of all, when you call up and you're from
X and such mega news org, your call gets responded
to in a different way. But you also have like
the burden of all of that. And and here I
can just be more me sure, like so, for instance,
how when you interviewed Dr Faucci, for instance, like what
(22:45):
is different about the way that you conducted that interview
on news not noise? And it would have been with
say a CNN. It's much less sort of what's going
to make news? You know, when you're in these organizations,
you what how how do I frame a question to
get them to make news? And so you lead with
whatever is like percolating in the story in the news today,
(23:07):
and you ask for like them to say something that's
you think you frame it a way. There have to
say something buzzy or sexy or combative or like announced
an incremental development. Whereas as me now I can say, okay,
the audience is obsessed with the following thing. They don't
understand it. Will you back up and explain it? And
in the course of unfolding that conversation you end up
(23:30):
with discoveries and news developments and the rest. But it's
more of a sort of organic experience. You're not front loading.
What did your friends say to you? Like you don't
have to score points. Yeah, well, it's so funny hearing
you break that down. It's I hate to use the language,
but it's a little manipulative, right, like for the interviewee
(23:50):
and for the audience, because you're finding increminal news and
you know, and you're sort of subtly coaching the interview
to create news versus to educate the listener. But that
is how it's done. After the conversation, go back and
watch TV news interviews and how they're done, and it
(24:10):
is like, whatever's breaking that day, like react to it?
Respond you said this thing? What did you mean? Because
this other person criticized you for it? Can you advance
that it's these incremental I call it fire bomb reporting
where there's like, oh, there's a fire over there, Oh
there's a fire, oh oh, and your eyes going here
and there and here and there, but you don't have
any sense of the big picture and you don't feel
(24:32):
like and that leaves you anxious, fearful, not understanding, sometimes
less informed, feeling confused, and that's what I'm trying to
reverse engineer or correct for. To your point on traveling
the country and talking to undecided voters, where do you
think we go in t Do you think that we're
going to continue to see this increasing exponential polarization or
(24:56):
do you think that, you know, America is ready to
start setting aside some of its differences and looking for
those moments where we can you know, compromise. I think
that we're in for more tension right now. I know
the Biden administration will want to do what they can
to create you know, healing and civility. And I'm super
engaged right now by this concept of like what does
(25:17):
reconciliation look like and how do you pair that with justice?
And I think that's going to be a big tension
going forward. How much justice, how much you know reconciliation. Sadly,
I think we are in a period of extreme political
polarization that or political I should say, volatility. And I
think that we in the media harp on the polarization
(25:40):
and then amplify and accelerate the polarization in the way
we tell the news, right always pairing an extreme person
on this side with an extreme person on that side
and having them fight rather than ever showing you where
the area of consensus is. And so we're accelerating that.
But we are living in the era of change, and
(26:01):
as you're going through change, some people are really leaning
into it hard and some people are really resisting it hard.
And as we grind our way through this awkward phase,
it's going to be rocky. Add to that disinformation and
how social media is irresponsible and all the other things,
and it's going to be a bumpy ride for a while,
I think sure. And there's there's like fascism on both
(26:24):
sides of the political spectrum. Right, there's a liberal and
conservative dogma in a sense that is very difficult to
take any positions that are not defined as like core
to the party line, whether it's say, you know, gay
marriage historically on the right or you know, not supporting
(26:45):
defund police on the left right. So perhaps we're going
to continue to see this stress between the camps. Do
you think that we're going to see that continue to
accelerate inside of our in groups or do you think
that we'll be able to find some common ground where
that's concerned. Well, I do think that on the right
they contended with this earlier than the left, where the
(27:07):
Tea Party you know, rose and sort of took over
the Republican Party at least the institutional Republican Party and
has moved it right. And now a similar tension is
happening in the left. I think it's an interesting conversation
we're having right now. Barack Obama, you know, has said
that defund the police is language that isn't constructive to
(27:27):
you know, policy progress, and that activists should try to
come up with more constructive language, right. And then the
activists are saying, basically, if we weren't out here on
the left, you wouldn't have a place to compromise from.
It's true, let us use our language. We don't have to,
you know, adopt centrist language from the start. We're gonna
be who we are right now. And so I do
(27:49):
think that the left, the left of the left, the
progressive flank of the left, hasn't had the power and
the oxygen to date that you know, you sort of
knee to balance out how far the right has moved.
And it almost creates a more balanced sort of polarity
to allow us to find a center over time. But
(28:11):
it means it's really going to be you know, there'll
be some challenging fights. Sure. I learned so much from
the William F. Buckley Gore Vidal debates from the sixties.
And you know, YouTube so incredible because like you can
find these like unbelievable debates that these guys would host,
and Buckley had the conversation with James Baldwin and there's
(28:35):
you know others that you know, you can still see
these these people that vehemently disagree with one another in
terms of their perspective, but because they kind of agree
to common facts and reason and rationality, there there is
an amazing learning um on on both perspectives. I'm curious
for you, like, is that something that you've ever considered
bringing to news not noise or is that is that
(28:57):
a format that you appreciate or do you think that
it's going to be more of the talking heads screaming
at one another. Well, I know I'm against talking head
screaming at one another. I like the model of Frontline
from the BBC in England, where instead of setting everything
up as combat and debate to allow in depth conversation
(29:19):
in a direction that allows you to see the find
areas where you can agree, tease out what is challenging.
I think that this debate format that we've locked into
has wrongly settled in people's minds as what politics always
has to be in the US, two people arguing right
and left, and there's a multiplicity of views. We need
(29:42):
to get into the nooks and crannies more and so
I really I would love to see something that actually
starts with consensus. If you're doing a debate, like where
do we agree and then let's talk about where we
disagree or something like that. I do think that you know,
you commented that both sides have fascism. I think that
right now, Um, the fascism on the right is fascism
(30:02):
like Michael Flynn wants martial law to suspend the election.
The fascism on the left is language fascism, like use
our language, not yours. I don't think they're comparable, and
I think that account for that. I mean, Mitch McConnell
is saying he won't negotiate off his position to create
an economic relief package when Democrats have more than half
(30:25):
their position. So we're not operating in universes where both
sides are equally pulled like equally extreme art of the
hustle will be right back after this short break. It's
(30:45):
just such an amazing time for you to be doing
what you're doing right Like, it's this this these new
platforms like Instagram, and I think about how compromise if
you're talking about where we agree compromises, now this like
dirty word, whereas in you know, society. What I think
about it, it seems like the highest form of humanity, right,
Like we disagree with one another, and yet we can
(31:06):
come to a conclusion that's mutually acceptable so we can
move on and continue to grow. Do you think that
part of that is the platform? Like it sounds like
it's a it's hugely important to what you're doing. The
fact that you have, you know, such a direct relationship
with the people who are consuming your news. That is
the best part of what I'm doing right now is
just how when I interview somebody, I put up I'm
(31:28):
interviewing so and so about such and such. What are
your questions? And so I save a certain amount of
the interview to ask the audiences questions every time, and
sometimes they come up with better questions than I would have.
You know, it's just they're so clear. So I love that,
and I love the fact that when I started on Instagram,
there was no one doing news on Instagram and it
(31:49):
was much more civil and calm than the other possible
social platforms I could be on. It wasn't didn't have
that fake news taint that ignosed. It's been a great place.
Like Amy Schumer announced her pregnancy on my Instagram feed
early on and that made it explode, and then I
got all these celebrities to follow it. So that's made
it so it's fun for those reasons that you know.
(32:09):
Challenge now is my audience is aware of the algorithm
issues and some of them really want to get away
from social media. And that's an internal tension I deal with,
Like I'm trying to report on disinformation and the social
media companies while I'm on a social media platform that's
engaged in this stuff. Right, So I do you know, like,
(32:30):
what are the alternative ways to reach an audience. That's
something I'm thinking about now, like newsletters or what other
kind of stuff are you thinking of? I mean newsletters, podcast?
My big question is there a way to do video
to reach an audience through video that's in visual, that's not.
There isn't like a sub stack for video yet you know,
there isn't like a podcast network for doing what I'm doing.
(32:52):
That's for sure. I could go out and build it,
but I really want to do the news. So totally dilemma.
I'm curious. So you're talking about platforming the platform, right, like,
you know, you have an audience that that is cognizant
of that being something that they might want to get
less of. You know, I think about the New Yorker
Festival last year and all the backlash they got was
(33:14):
last year, I don't know, times all blending together, but
when they were going to have Steve Bannon talk and
you know, they of course removed him, and you know,
Malcolm Gladwell said, I thought this was, you know, an
ideas festival, a conversation where everybody agrees with one another
as a dinner party. And I'm curious, from your perspective,
do you where do you where do you net out
on that with platforming people whose ideas you disagree with
(33:37):
or that can be you know, destructive. However, I imagine
you also want to, you know, have this really rounded
debate because it's news not noise. To your point, you're
not trying to just like take one side or be rhetorical.
You're looking to, you know, unearth what's happening. It's an
interesting dilemma. It's such a good question, and it's a
dilemma because I want, like, for me, I'm committed to
(34:01):
information and facts, and so it is a value to
provide information and facts from across the spectrum, but not
from people who are providing non facts, who are like
spreading disinformation. I don't think it's constructive to offer a
platform in my space to that person. They can go
(34:22):
out and have their own channel, and they do, and
there are tons of them, and that's cool, But I
don't want to be propagating in any way this stuff.
And so I'll represent that this is out there. Like yesterday,
I posted something from news Max talking about how, you know,
Georgia Republicans think that they shouldn't vote because President Trump's
(34:43):
is the voting systems are broken and rigged. So I
posted from news Max and I said, this is not
a reliable news source, This is not a news source,
But I want you to know what is getting out
part of our country or too part of this democracy.
And for me, it's about text and framing, and so
you can share information in a frame, and then people
(35:05):
can say, well, who are you to decide what is
truth and facts? And I meet, this is the job
I do. And if you don't believe in my filter,
you don't have to follow me. That's kind of where
I am in our environment right now. You have to
hold firm because otherwise you're in this universe of relativism.
And the people spreading disinformation aren't playing that game. They're
(35:25):
just getting it out there. Totally. That's a really, really
great way to look at it and I and I
totally appreciate that. And it's to your point. I read
today that more than half of Republicans now believe that
the election was rigged, I know. And the crazy, you know,
backlash of it is maybe Republicans aren't going to vote
in their own run off election in Georgia because of it. Yeah,
(35:49):
that's what we really have to address. I think the
disinformation problem really is a huge problem going forward that
we have to find some solutions for. And this is
another but it's not just tech. You need trusted voices,
you need people, credible people that you know, or sort
of tent poles. Otherwise we're in no man's land. Well
(36:09):
that's kind of my point about you know, And it's
funny hearing your perspective because you're like when I was,
you know, wearing a CNN hat, I felt, you know,
sort of additional pressure to walk the CNN party line.
Whereas in my head, you know, I feel like your
you live and die by your reputation now, and if
you were to do something that was antithetical or like
out of character, uh, to to the to to your
(36:32):
public persona, you would lose all of your credibilities. So
to your point, like I love the quote, you know,
it takes a lifetime, Like we we build credibility and
drops and we lose it in buckets. Yes, one of
the things that I think I've managed to do it
with my audience is too I do. I'm human in
the way I tell things, and I don't reveal things
(36:54):
about myself, like I don't talk about what I wear
or my beauty products. But I will say like, this
was a hard story from me to report for the
following reason, so I let people in on the process
a little or like how I got to this conclusion.
And because of that, and because I think I have
some leeway to say a little bit like, hey, I
(37:14):
thought something a few months ago was this way, but actually,
having learned more, I see it differently, or I think
it's different or I was wrong, and they'll come with me.
And that is part of like the joy of having
the style of communication. But sure, if I were to
do something, yeah, I could get canceled, like anybody can
get canceled at any time these days. But I think
(37:35):
I haven't because I do try to be upfront with
the audience about like I don't know all the things.
Here's what I do know and what I can deduce
from it. Can I say one other thing? Which is
you mentioned party line? And I just want to say,
because I get this question all the time inside these
news organizations, I have never once experienced anything close to
(37:56):
a political agenda or any at work executive wanting to
promote a candidate or specific policy. When I talk about
the confining qualities that I sometimes experienced, it was much
more in terms of like framing and tone and how
we approach stories and even what stories to tell. But
(38:17):
not with a political specific political agenda. Yeah. Well, I
imagine most people that go into journalism do it out
of a sense of public service, at least historically. And
you know, I feel the same way about you know,
people that serve in the military and frankly police, like
you know, the vast, vast majority of police got into
it out of a sense of service. So I imagine
(38:39):
that in the same way that you know, fake news
and like journalists are you know now persona and on
grata and so many narratives, I imagine it has like
a double painful effect for those that have chosen that
path because they did it in order to educate the public,
not for some personal or political gain. Totally, I really think.
(39:01):
I mean, I'm gonna sound so California right now, but
you'll appreciate it. I do think that there's a lot
of trauma, emotional trauma that's happened in the last few years,
and being under attack like that is requires a level
of vigilance every day in addition to how hard your
job is. For reporters covering the White House, it's exhausting
(39:21):
and so you know, people really need a break and
some relief from this, and it does take a toll.
And you know, I know how stressed out my former
colleagues are, and you know, there are even fears of
physical violence. Yeah, it's been an incredibly hard stretch and
I want to just say, like it didn't just start now.
I was at rallies, Sarah Palin rallies where they were
(39:44):
due in the whole you're the enemy of you know,
the press is the enemy. You're destroying America. Like this
predated Trump, he just accelerated it. Sure well. I mean
I'll say two things on that. One, Trump, if you recall,
was on the WWF and it's a total WWF move
where it's like boo the media and the back of
the room, good guy, bad guy, like that whole dynamic.
(40:08):
And then you know, through our mutual friend Isaac Lee,
I got exposed to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which
works around the world. And you know, while we are
talking about the trauma of being a journalist, you know
in the Trump there in the United States, the mortal
danger of journalists around the world. I believe there are
more dictatorships than democracies right now in globally, and so
(40:30):
you you have it still is this incredibly high risk
position that is informing the public and you know, educating
us on the malfeasance of our leadership, which is inherently dangerous,
you know, Like I'm I'm frankly like, I was pretty
terrified at the Trump administration. I didn't want to, like,
you know, put my name on a C four something
along those lines in this last cycle, for fear of retribution,
(40:54):
you know, and like and and I I hate to
say that, but like that's just you know, self preservation.
So I I am not brave to the point that
many of our journalists are who are willing to put
themselves on the line to cover these things. Yeah, I
have so much respect for correspondence around the globe, especially
in dictatorships. I interviewed Clarissa Ward recently, who goes in
(41:16):
and out of Syria for CNN, and I mean, it's
unbelievable what she does. But I think it's sort of
you know, when you do it, you can't not do it,
Like if that's your passion, it's just in you and
you're called to it. You know, we need those people,
and it's important that we have these groups like Committee
to Protect Journalists. I mean, I had this crazy experience.
You know, reporters in the public are never allowed in
(41:38):
the situation room in the White House, and the situation
room It's hard to explain, but it's it's actually a
suite of offices that include multiple things that you think
of as a situation room. But um one when I
was covering the White House at one point they renovated
the Situation Room and I got to go on a
tour of it while after the renovation, and you know,
(41:58):
this is where they monitor world event and decide if
we're going to war and have the most high and
there's this one like observation deck in the situation room
where they have the people who monitor what's happening around
the globe seven eyes on and they're these massive TV
monitors And I was like, do you have like eyes
from army rangers in Afghanistan on these things or battleship
(42:22):
you know, x ray, I don't know what are you
guys watching. And they're like CNN, the BBC, Sky News.
We hear it from the press first, and so we're
not just educating the public. It is eyes and ears
for everyone in the world. Our government is relying on
this now and it's that's why it is so important
(42:43):
and foundational to democracy and our survival that we have
a diverse press with a multiplicity of voices that that
really connects with the audience and really, you know, can
thrive and can help us thrive, beautifully said. And you
know you're I can't agree more with the the name
(43:06):
of the show news not noise. And you're such a
pioneer in the space to step out and do this
and build this. And you know, with more and more noise,
we need better curation, we need more sense making. Um,
you know, the level of group rational sense making seems
to be at a lifetime low for me. You know,
(43:27):
granted I'm thirty six, so I haven't seen that much,
but um, you know, I really greatly appreciate you know,
what you do and what you've done, and I do
hope that inspires you know, dozens and hundreds and thousands
of other journalists to start, you know, taking the medium
into their own hands and communicating directly with the audience.
I'm so flattered by that. And we would be following
(43:48):
in your footsteps because that is what you do. You
generate dialogue, you bring people together, and that is what
you've modeled. We need to do more of that in
the public discourse and in our media. So thank you
as well well, thanks for being on the podcast, Jessica,
I really appreciate it. And uh and in terms of
you know, finding more of Jessica's work, Um, you know,
News not Noise is on it just at News not Noise. Correct,
(44:13):
it's yelling on Instagram. I know it's confusing, you have
to apologies. It's at Jessica Yellen. I know I probably
need a branding expert to come help solve that dilemma.
Or let's just do has news dot Noise. Let's hit
him up. Uh, I know I don't know how to
do that. Well, well, well we'll catch up offline. Okay,
thanks again for coming on the podcast, Thanks for having me.
(44:55):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Jessica Yellen. Jessica is the founder of News Not Noise,
a fresh voice in media that provides daily news reports
on Instagram. You can find the account at Jessica Yellen.
She's a former Chief White House Correspondent for CNN and
Emmy and Gracie Award winning political journalists. Reporting for CNN,
(00:44):
ABC News and MSNBC. She has covered Capitol Hill, domestic politics,
state and national elections, the culture wars, and issues facing
women in the workplace. Her work has been published in
The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Entertainment Weekly, The
l Eight Times in The Atlantic. Harvard University graduate, Jessica
released her first novel, Savage News about reporting female in
(01:07):
two thousand nineteen on News Not Noise. She does the
news via Instagram daily to an audience that includes Jennifer Anniston,
Carrie Washington's, Lena Gomez, Orlando Bloom and Amy Schumer, nourishes teachers, politicians,
and more. Jessica provides information that helps people understand the
issues and talk about them knowledgeably. The idea she offers information,
(01:28):
not a panic attack. Jessica joins us to talk about
how modern news sources compete for our anxiety, finding her voice,
and the challenge of combating disinformation on the very social
media platforms that espouse it. Please enjoy my conversation with
Jessica yellin. Jessica, thank you for joining us, Thank you
for having me. This is a treat I hear. We're
(01:51):
across the city in Los Angeles today. Yes, and we're
told we can never leave our house again. That's right,
that's right. How how is the pan Ammick treating you
right now? How you doing? I'm okay at this moment.
It's actually been you know, I'm one of those people
who's been surprised by how much I'm enjoying the solitude.
Sure well, I've been a huge fan of yours for
(02:12):
a long time. I love news, not noise. Thank you,
and you know for the for the courtesy of the
listeners who aren't as familiar with it, Do you mind
giving us thet as we get into it. Sure. I
was a political reporter in Washington for a long time.
I was the chief White House correspondent at CNN during
the Obama presidency, and I always had this feeling that
(02:35):
we were missing a large part of the audience, that
there were people who wanted what we knew, but they
needed it told differently and fast forward. I tried explaining
this to a trillion people who didn't resonate, didn't resonate.
So I realized over time I just had to try
this on my own and prove that there's an audience.
And I do the news on Instagram to um an
(02:58):
audience that's over were untre of thousand people. And the
idea is I give you. I say it's information, not
a panic attack. I tell you what matters, Why, what crazy,
frothy news is out there that you can ignore? And
the whole mission is to say the information in a
way that anybody can understand it and get interested enough
(03:20):
to keep following the story, feel empowered by the knowledge,
and ultimately take action. And I love that and that
philosophy of you know how we do the news, and
it's certainly gotten more and more partisan, more and more
anxiety driven, and I imagine that that's sue to how
it affects the bottom line. I know that you have
(03:41):
a counter narrative to that. Correct. Yeah, I'd see the
news as it's another industry that is right for disruption,
And that might sound cliche, but it's true. It's any
It's one of those businesses where there is a single
conventional viewpoint, which is the way we get eyeballs, the
way we drive ratings, the way we grow revenue is
(04:01):
through telling stories that are high in conflict, and that
everything has to be framed um as sports competition, war. Um.
That's highly negative, anxiety inducing. It triggers your fear and panic.
And that's not that's not because the news is necessarily
has to be presented that way. Is that we choose
(04:23):
to frame things that way. And it's one way, for
sure to get people to pay attention, but it's not
the only way. And I actually think that, you know,
we need other alternatives because that can be destructive totally.
And and what was I mean, it's just such an
incredible thing, like not many people who are you know,
the senior White House correspondence for the leading news organizations
(04:46):
in the world go on such an entrepreneurial journey and
take such a huge jump like you did. Was there,
like were you thinking about this for a long time
that you have advisors that told you that this was
a horrible idea? Like take us back to the genesis
of starting this. I mean I literally almost no one
said do it. I had a few girlfriends and a
(05:07):
few people, but it started when I was still a
correspondent and I was covering political campaigns in the White House.
And that means in the every election cycle, I'm on
the road and I'm spending all my time talking to
undecided voters because at the end of an election, that's
who makes the difference, right, And overwhelmingly they were women.
(05:30):
And the conventional wisdom in Washington was like, they just
don't care about politics, and you can and that's why
they can't make up their minds because they're not paying attention.
And there's all sorts of data you can find to
bolster this, like when women pick up the newspaper, they
tend to read human interest stories rather than politics and
international relations stories, and so you could find all this
(05:51):
evidence to confirm that these women just don't care. But
I was out there talking to them, and they care
so much. They just wanted to know that person's policy.
How's it going to affect my bottom line? What does
that word mean you guys keep talking about? And why
is everybody screaming? I can't listen with the screaming. And
I'd go home and say, hey, can I try it differently?
(06:12):
Like I want to explain the policy. I want to
tell them what matters. I want to investigate big stories,
and everyone's like yelling, don't be difficult. Just do the news,
Like do the news the way we do it. And
I just had this persistent feeling like we're doing a
disservice to these people who want to know and we're
not giving it to them. And then, like the fast
(06:33):
forward of it is, there's all sorts of scientific studies
and social science that proves when you frame things with
negativity and appealing to people's outrage, it shuts down learning
in the brain for some people, especially women. But it
shuts down learning, and it also promotes feelings of fear
(06:53):
and alienation, which I think promotes polarization and all these things. Anyway,
so I had all this instinct, which I'm saying, the
science actually shows there's a there there, and I wanted
to do it differently, and I just couldn't do it
inside the system. I just couldn't, so I had to
find another way. Well, and I totally appreciate that perspective,
you know, I think about it from my own, you know,
(07:15):
personal experience. When you're in fight or flight, it's pretty
impossible to be creative. It's hard to like, you know,
think about things under a new prism, or really be
rational when you're being prodded to you know, have an
emotional reaction to whatever is being provided for you. And
you know, I think that the reason that the media
(07:36):
is the one industry that is truly protected by Congress
is because it was supposed to be a form of
public service. A thousand. Oh my god, I love you
because this is what my team laughs at me, because
I always there's this jfk Jr. Quote where he says,
there's a reason the free press is the only private
business explicitly protected by the U. S. Constitution, and that's
(07:57):
because we exist to ensure that we have informed electorate
in a democracy. And if we're not making you informed,
we're failing. And you know, you'll look at surveys, more
than half of the people you surveying this country say
that they feel less informed after watching TV news because
they have questions and they're more confused. So, like, how
(08:19):
do you reinvent that and how do you do it
in a way because you still have to appeal to
emotion to get people to engage, right, it can't be boring.
It's just that anxiety. Like, I think the news deliberately
competes for your anxiety, and I think we can compete
for other like stimulation centers in the brain. Well, it's
kind of incredible when you look at and I mean
(08:40):
your your coverage of the election and of the pandemic.
I know it reached nearly seventy million people in October,
which is tremendous, And you know, it's really interesting to
see this split for the first time in a long
time between people voting for a political party, for their
representative or their senator and not for president. And I
know that it's one of the things that our president
(09:01):
right now is saying is impossible because he's the lead dog.
But it does speak towards what you're talking about, where
people are informing themselves to a great degree. It's not
just like, well, I'm on the red team or I'm
on the blue team, and this is what we believe,
and you know, whatever the party line is is what
we'll do. It's it's a moment where it does seem
like we all are sort of recognizing the necessity for
(09:23):
us to participate more to create the country and the
democracy in the place that we actually want to live
in a thousand percent. One of the silver linings of
the last four years is that I think people have
started to pay attention to and care about government, and
they're asking questions. I mean, people ask what is why
(09:43):
do we have a pardon? Why is that allowed? That
seems undemocratic? And you know, just a blanket like people
you know, they know this exists, but they don't know
enough about it. And so it's fostered this curiosity that
I think will endure. Like I think once or awake,
you don't you might like need a respite, but I
don't think that sort of interest in learning is going
(10:06):
to stop. And did you always want to be in
the news. Is this something that has always been like
were you in high school, you know, doing local reports?
You know here in l A. What was the genesis
of you being interested in this field? It's so funny.
I did not want to be a reporter. I wanted
to I either wanted to be an essayist or a politician.
(10:26):
I thought that reporters were, you know, critics who never
did and only criticized and all those things. But my
first job out of college was as an intern in
the Clinton White House. Then I was on staff, and
I was really, you know, as young, and I didn't know,
and I was frustrated by how politics worked. I was
too idealistic, and I really thought that the journalists were
(10:50):
sort of the ones who were holding people's feet to
the fire and the ones who had like the cool,
interesting jobs and seemed to be really funny and fun
and I just thought like, I'd rather be hanging out
with those people. Sure. So I was an intern in
the Clinton White House and at the time, every room
had one TV, those big tube TVs right that were huge,
and it hung in the corner of every room. And
(11:12):
there were always two things that could stop a room cold.
In the West Wing. One was the President himself walking
into your office, and the other was that TV that
was always tuned to the only twenty four hour cable
channel that existed, CNN, reporting on the White House, and
those people on that TV could get the attention of
everyone in the building, and they had so much power
(11:32):
and influence, and I was always amazed that they were
even then covering Clinton's haircut or somebody stole a helicopter
to go golfing. And you know, we're working on the
crime bill, and we're working on welfare reform, and they're
still chasing the scandals. And I thought, if I can
get inside that TV doing that, I'm going to talk
about the other things totally. And I haven't read Savage News.
(11:57):
I bought it UM this morning, but I'm very excited too.
And it reminds me of this Hunter S. Thompson quote
that I love, where he's talking about the music business.
He says, the music business is a cool and shallow
money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps
run free, and good men dialect dogs. And there's also
a negative side. UM, honey, And I remember I worked
(12:17):
in Congress. I worked for the Rules Committee, UM, and
I think we overlapped at your at the end of
your tenure. UM. You know, two thousand seven ish, and uh,
I had you know, you had this reaction to what
you were exposed to your like, you know what like
influences everything, right, like how how are these decisions getting made?
And what are the factors that are leading to you know,
(12:37):
these people making the decisions they're making. Your experience was
that the media was having that huge influence. Mine was
really that, you know, whoever the biggest donor was to
the congressman that I was looking at often, you know,
is and the party line, Like I I ended up
there by a time where you like ercent of Democrats
or Republicans which just vote party line or a whip
(12:58):
would come and like crush your soul. I think Tom
Delay was the majority leader at the time, and uh
dropped his God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and
Steve Line on the house flow and I worked there, um,
And so I'm just curious, like you, you know, you
you ultimately became an entrepreneur um and started your own platform,
But did you think about that too? I mean, I
(13:18):
imagine you also saw the influence of business on politics
at that time. I mean I had this notion that
when you're an entrepreneur you live in a world of yes,
let's try it. And my frustration in Washington especially was
you'd always start with a no, Oh, that can't be done,
that's too hard, that won't get support, you can't change
(13:40):
before you ever, and then you have to persuade people
into having the possibilities conversation. Um. So I liked that
part of entrepreneurship. It appealed to me, and I always
found myself stimulated by those conversations with people who were entrepreneurial.
And my dad was an entrepreneur. Your dad was a
legend in this city. Oh it's so nice, that's level
(14:01):
and it's true. You know, as a developer out in
Utah with Powder Mountain, I know all about your dad
and Grand Central Market in downtown l A. And oh yeah,
that's awesome. Uh yeah, and he you know, I always
think one of the challenges of my dad and but
he started to develop, redeveloped the urban core of l
A before, like thirty years before it came back. He
(14:22):
always said, I'm a little too early, and I knew it. Yeah,
And so I always wonder, like do I have that
is it too early? Is it too soon? But I
guess we all have those things in our head. And
just the fact that it's getting an audience and that
people respond encourages me that it's not too early. We
need this. It works, But you know, you always have
(14:42):
those fears. Sure, and like, how did you break past that?
Because I imagine that you know, you worked in when
you work in the White House, when you work in
a place like CNN, you have a boss, and that
boss has a boss, and there's a hierarchical there's a
hierarchy of of the decision tree, and I imagine that
people want you to, you know, do what you're told
more than like, you know, come up with your own
(15:03):
ideas and execute them. Was there something that happened in
your life that allows you to kind of like drop
the fear and go for it. There were a bunch
of things, and I was super methodical about it, and
I was very considered, and I like, while I was
still there, I went to you know, a career coach,
a life coach, like talk to everybody, like just played
(15:24):
everything out, tried every single thing every way I could
think of to see if I could do this inside
the system, Like don't blow things up without knowing don't.
And at some point it just you know, there there's
this story about how somebody, uh was God told them
that don't worry, I'm going to save you. You have
You're going to be saved once and like he's drowning
(15:46):
in the ocean and uh just you know, cruise ship
comes by to save him. He says no thanks, and
a helicopter comes by and says no thanks, and someone
else and he's like, God's gonna save me. And then
he dies and he goes up there and God's like,
I sent you a helicopter, I sent you a cruise ship.
Like notice the things. And I kept thinking, like they're
all these signs telling me that like my mission and
my calling is this thing that I feel like I
(16:07):
need to do, and I cannot do it in the
space I'm in, And I didn't know how I'd make
it happen. I just knew that this wasn't going to
happen here. And I don't even though I've been critical
of the institutions of the news organizations, I don't actually
mean that as a criticism of the people where I worked.
(16:28):
You know, I think that there's remarkable journalism going on
right now in all those organizations, but I also wanted this.
The world needs other voices and and sort of framing
for for this audience. And I just realized I wasn't
getting able to do it where I was. I had
to find another way. We'll be back with more out
(16:51):
of the hustle after the break. Did you have your
voice like I wish? I knew the providence a little
better of news not noise, But like from when you
started it, was it clunky or was it like immediately
there was an audience that resonated with it, Oh my god,
for sure. Not it was clunky beyond like I was
(17:13):
like a newscaster at the beginning. And I even, you know,
until very recently, I scripted every thing I did on
camera and now I just talk live. Um. I had
a boss at CNN who said to me really early,
I want you to be a columnist. I want you
to just come on and give us a point of
view on what's happening, and I I wouldn't do it.
(17:36):
He and he's reminded me of it since he's like,
you said, it couldn't be done back then, So you know,
you get I don't know if it's false consciousness and
you get built into like I have to do these
things to succeed if I try something different, you know,
you you internalize values the place where you're working. But
ultimately it's kind of what I'm doing now, which is
(17:57):
I give you a point of view and a distillation
of what I actually matters and why. And so I
ended up in that place. But to answer your question
more directly, I was a disaster. Like people started saying
to me, you should do this around the time of
the first Women's March, when Trump was just elected, and
I didn't start it until so it took two years
(18:21):
and I had a ton of friends saying, just put
your face on camera and start talking. And I'm like,
what am I going to talk about? And the first
time I did, it was like, holy disaster. It was comical.
I struggled for a long time with you know, why
should I be you know, why are people going to
listen to me? What it was? This internal conflict? Um,
(18:41):
and my friends are like, you know so much, just like,
you know, just explain this thing you just told me,
and UM. It was really hard for me. And the
best part, the thing that made it easier is I
have really, really high engagement from the audience. So from
the beginning, even when only had like three thousand followers,
(19:02):
there was extreme engagement. So people were immediately dm ng
me and asking me to explain what did that word mean?
And what can Congress do and why is this happening?
And I found that so stimulating after all these years
of being on camera talking to like a lens and
having no idea if you're connecting or not, it's really
exciting to have feedback like that, which you can only
(19:25):
get a different medium. Wow, I never thought about that.
And do you do you think that we're going to
see more of the you know, senior journalists and personalities
that were used to on you know, our television screens
moving to new mediums like Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat.
Do you think that? I'm sure they You get phone
calls and you know people are asking you about that path.
(19:47):
I mean, that's part of what I'd like to build
and create a framework for people to be able to
more people to do what I'm doing, you know, as
experts and knowledgeable voices that you're not calling them info inserts.
So I do think that in the future we will
be following, will be more inclined to follow people we
trust rather than brands. So it's not the news institution,
(20:11):
it's this person. It's still very hard for people to
do what I did because you know, there's a weird tension.
Like as a reporter, you take huge risks in your work,
Like you go out to crazy places and you dig
through things, and you like take a flyer and invest
a ton of time on a story that might go nowhere,
or you cold call. But we're super risk averse in
(20:32):
our lifestyles. So you want the four O n K,
you want the health insurance. Like one of the things
you hear in the newsroom is like, well I got
to do this, I couldn't never do anything else. I'll
never get another job, which is so untrue, right, But
it's just a kind of mindset that's instilled. And so
I think it's hard for people to make this leap.
But I think as more frameworks are set up to
(20:55):
reduce the friction or maybe have like economies of scale,
we're mores can join. It'll be a different story. And
I hear you on the risk profile of the stories
that you choose, and you know, being a public figure
is not a piece of cake. But when I think
about having the flag of a news organization, it's a
(21:16):
lot less accountability than a personal relationship with the person
that is, you know, following you on Instagram for instance. Right, Like,
I would imagine that you have a greater sense of
responsibility now that you know it's your name on the masthead.
Do you feel like there's a difference where that's concerned.
That's so interesting. I um, I felt a weirder tension
(21:39):
before because I was there as a representative of this
institution that was much more than me, and it stood
for certain things, and I often felt like I had
to be it rather than myself, and so like, there
were things that if I were in the White House
Press briefing room asking questions as Jess Huh, I would
(22:01):
ask differently. But because I was there as a representative
of one of the news organs I worked for, I
had to frame it a certain way. I had to
present I had to do these certain things that are conventional.
One of the things about my job now is it's
awesome because I get to decide the story every day.
It's up to me, And it's awful because I have
to decide the story every day. It's up to me.
(22:23):
And it's this tension, right, so I do miss You know,
first of all, when you call up and you're from
X and such mega news org, your call gets responded
to in a different way. But you also have like
the burden of all of that. And and here I
can just be more me sure, like so, for instance,
how when you interviewed Dr Faucci, for instance, like what
(22:45):
is different about the way that you conducted that interview
on news not noise? And it would have been with
say a CNN. It's much less sort of what's going
to make news? You know, when you're in these organizations,
you what how how do I frame a question to
get them to make news? And so you lead with
whatever is like percolating in the story in the news today,
(23:07):
and you ask for like them to say something that's
you think you frame it a way. There have to
say something buzzy or sexy or combative or like announced
an incremental development. Whereas as me now I can say, okay,
the audience is obsessed with the following thing. They don't
understand it. Will you back up and explain it? And
in the course of unfolding that conversation you end up
(23:30):
with discoveries and news developments and the rest. But it's
more of a sort of organic experience. You're not front loading.
What did your friends say to you? Like you don't
have to score points. Yeah, well, it's so funny hearing
you break that down. It's I hate to use the language,
but it's a little manipulative, right, like for the interviewee
(23:50):
and for the audience, because you're finding increminal news and
you know, and you're sort of subtly coaching the interview
to create news versus to educate the listener. But that
is how it's done. After the conversation, go back and
watch TV news interviews and how they're done, and it
(24:10):
is like, whatever's breaking that day, like react to it?
Respond you said this thing? What did you mean? Because
this other person criticized you for it? Can you advance
that it's these incremental I call it fire bomb reporting
where there's like, oh, there's a fire over there, Oh
there's a fire, oh oh, and your eyes going here
and there and here and there, but you don't have
any sense of the big picture and you don't feel
(24:32):
like and that leaves you anxious, fearful, not understanding, sometimes
less informed, feeling confused, and that's what I'm trying to
reverse engineer or correct for. To your point on traveling
the country and talking to undecided voters, where do you
think we go in t Do you think that we're
going to continue to see this increasing exponential polarization or
(24:56):
do you think that, you know, America is ready to
start setting aside some of its differences and looking for
those moments where we can you know, compromise. I think
that we're in for more tension right now. I know
the Biden administration will want to do what they can
to create you know, healing and civility. And I'm super
engaged right now by this concept of like what does
(25:17):
reconciliation look like and how do you pair that with justice?
And I think that's going to be a big tension
going forward. How much justice, how much you know reconciliation. Sadly,
I think we are in a period of extreme political
polarization that or political I should say, volatility. And I
think that we in the media harp on the polarization
(25:40):
and then amplify and accelerate the polarization in the way
we tell the news, right always pairing an extreme person
on this side with an extreme person on that side
and having them fight rather than ever showing you where
the area of consensus is. And so we're accelerating that.
But we are living in the era of change, and
(26:01):
as you're going through change, some people are really leaning
into it hard and some people are really resisting it hard.
And as we grind our way through this awkward phase,
it's going to be rocky. Add to that disinformation and
how social media is irresponsible and all the other things,
and it's going to be a bumpy ride for a while,
I think sure. And there's there's like fascism on both
(26:24):
sides of the political spectrum. Right, there's a liberal and
conservative dogma in a sense that is very difficult to
take any positions that are not defined as like core
to the party line, whether it's say, you know, gay
marriage historically on the right or you know, not supporting
(26:45):
defund police on the left right. So perhaps we're going
to continue to see this stress between the camps. Do
you think that we're going to see that continue to
accelerate inside of our in groups or do you think
that we'll be able to find some common ground where
that's concerned. Well, I do think that on the right
they contended with this earlier than the left, where the
(27:07):
Tea Party you know, rose and sort of took over
the Republican Party at least the institutional Republican Party and
has moved it right. And now a similar tension is
happening in the left. I think it's an interesting conversation
we're having right now. Barack Obama, you know, has said
that defund the police is language that isn't constructive to
(27:27):
you know, policy progress, and that activists should try to
come up with more constructive language, right. And then the
activists are saying, basically, if we weren't out here on
the left, you wouldn't have a place to compromise from.
It's true, let us use our language. We don't have to,
you know, adopt centrist language from the start. We're gonna
be who we are right now. And so I do
(27:49):
think that the left, the left of the left, the
progressive flank of the left, hasn't had the power and
the oxygen to date that you know, you sort of
knee to balance out how far the right has moved.
And it almost creates a more balanced sort of polarity
to allow us to find a center over time. But
(28:11):
it means it's really going to be you know, there'll
be some challenging fights. Sure. I learned so much from
the William F. Buckley Gore Vidal debates from the sixties.
And you know, YouTube so incredible because like you can
find these like unbelievable debates that these guys would host,
and Buckley had the conversation with James Baldwin and there's
(28:35):
you know others that you know, you can still see
these these people that vehemently disagree with one another in
terms of their perspective, but because they kind of agree
to common facts and reason and rationality, there there is
an amazing learning um on on both perspectives. I'm curious
for you, like, is that something that you've ever considered
bringing to news not noise or is that is that
(28:57):
a format that you appreciate or do you think that
it's going to be more of the talking heads screaming
at one another. Well, I know I'm against talking head
screaming at one another. I like the model of Frontline
from the BBC in England, where instead of setting everything
up as combat and debate to allow in depth conversation
(29:19):
in a direction that allows you to see the find
areas where you can agree, tease out what is challenging.
I think that this debate format that we've locked into
has wrongly settled in people's minds as what politics always
has to be in the US, two people arguing right
and left, and there's a multiplicity of views. We need
(29:42):
to get into the nooks and crannies more and so
I really I would love to see something that actually
starts with consensus. If you're doing a debate, like where
do we agree and then let's talk about where we
disagree or something like that. I do think that you know,
you commented that both sides have fascism. I think that
right now, Um, the fascism on the right is fascism
(30:02):
like Michael Flynn wants martial law to suspend the election.
The fascism on the left is language fascism, like use
our language, not yours. I don't think they're comparable, and
I think that account for that. I mean, Mitch McConnell
is saying he won't negotiate off his position to create
an economic relief package when Democrats have more than half
(30:25):
their position. So we're not operating in universes where both
sides are equally pulled like equally extreme art of the
hustle will be right back after this short break. It's
(30:45):
just such an amazing time for you to be doing
what you're doing right Like, it's this this these new
platforms like Instagram, and I think about how compromise if
you're talking about where we agree compromises, now this like
dirty word, whereas in you know, society. What I think
about it, it seems like the highest form of humanity, right,
Like we disagree with one another, and yet we can
(31:06):
come to a conclusion that's mutually acceptable so we can
move on and continue to grow. Do you think that
part of that is the platform? Like it sounds like
it's a it's hugely important to what you're doing. The
fact that you have, you know, such a direct relationship
with the people who are consuming your news. That is
the best part of what I'm doing right now is
just how when I interview somebody, I put up I'm
(31:28):
interviewing so and so about such and such. What are
your questions? And so I save a certain amount of
the interview to ask the audiences questions every time, and
sometimes they come up with better questions than I would have.
You know, it's just they're so clear. So I love that,
and I love the fact that when I started on Instagram,
there was no one doing news on Instagram and it
(31:49):
was much more civil and calm than the other possible
social platforms I could be on. It wasn't didn't have
that fake news taint that ignosed. It's been a great place.
Like Amy Schumer announced her pregnancy on my Instagram feed
early on and that made it explode, and then I
got all these celebrities to follow it. So that's made
it so it's fun for those reasons that you know.
(32:09):
Challenge now is my audience is aware of the algorithm
issues and some of them really want to get away
from social media. And that's an internal tension I deal with,
Like I'm trying to report on disinformation and the social
media companies while I'm on a social media platform that's
engaged in this stuff. Right, So I do you know, like,
(32:30):
what are the alternative ways to reach an audience. That's
something I'm thinking about now, like newsletters or what other
kind of stuff are you thinking of? I mean newsletters, podcast?
My big question is there a way to do video
to reach an audience through video that's in visual, that's not.
There isn't like a sub stack for video yet you know,
there isn't like a podcast network for doing what I'm doing.
(32:52):
That's for sure. I could go out and build it,
but I really want to do the news. So totally dilemma.
I'm curious. So you're talking about platforming the platform, right, like,
you know, you have an audience that that is cognizant
of that being something that they might want to get
less of. You know, I think about the New Yorker
Festival last year and all the backlash they got was
(33:14):
last year, I don't know, times all blending together, but
when they were going to have Steve Bannon talk and
you know, they of course removed him, and you know,
Malcolm Gladwell said, I thought this was, you know, an
ideas festival, a conversation where everybody agrees with one another
as a dinner party. And I'm curious, from your perspective,
do you where do you where do you net out
on that with platforming people whose ideas you disagree with
(33:37):
or that can be you know, destructive. However, I imagine
you also want to, you know, have this really rounded
debate because it's news not noise. To your point, you're
not trying to just like take one side or be rhetorical.
You're looking to, you know, unearth what's happening. It's an
interesting dilemma. It's such a good question, and it's a
dilemma because I want, like, for me, I'm committed to
(34:01):
information and facts, and so it is a value to
provide information and facts from across the spectrum, but not
from people who are providing non facts, who are like
spreading disinformation. I don't think it's constructive to offer a
platform in my space to that person. They can go
(34:22):
out and have their own channel, and they do, and
there are tons of them, and that's cool, But I
don't want to be propagating in any way this stuff.
And so I'll represent that this is out there. Like yesterday,
I posted something from news Max talking about how, you know,
Georgia Republicans think that they shouldn't vote because President Trump's
(34:43):
is the voting systems are broken and rigged. So I
posted from news Max and I said, this is not
a reliable news source, This is not a news source,
But I want you to know what is getting out
part of our country or too part of this democracy.
And for me, it's about text and framing, and so
you can share information in a frame, and then people
(35:05):
can say, well, who are you to decide what is
truth and facts? And I meet, this is the job
I do. And if you don't believe in my filter,
you don't have to follow me. That's kind of where
I am in our environment right now. You have to
hold firm because otherwise you're in this universe of relativism.
And the people spreading disinformation aren't playing that game. They're
(35:25):
just getting it out there. Totally. That's a really, really
great way to look at it and I and I
totally appreciate that. And it's to your point. I read
today that more than half of Republicans now believe that
the election was rigged, I know. And the crazy, you know,
backlash of it is maybe Republicans aren't going to vote
in their own run off election in Georgia because of it. Yeah,
(35:49):
that's what we really have to address. I think the
disinformation problem really is a huge problem going forward that
we have to find some solutions for. And this is
another but it's not just tech. You need trusted voices,
you need people, credible people that you know, or sort
of tent poles. Otherwise we're in no man's land. Well
(36:09):
that's kind of my point about you know, And it's
funny hearing your perspective because you're like when I was,
you know, wearing a CNN hat, I felt, you know,
sort of additional pressure to walk the CNN party line.
Whereas in my head, you know, I feel like your
you live and die by your reputation now, and if
you were to do something that was antithetical or like
out of character, uh, to to the to to your
(36:32):
public persona, you would lose all of your credibilities. So
to your point, like I love the quote, you know,
it takes a lifetime, Like we we build credibility and
drops and we lose it in buckets. Yes, one of
the things that I think I've managed to do it
with my audience is too I do. I'm human in
the way I tell things, and I don't reveal things
(36:54):
about myself, like I don't talk about what I wear
or my beauty products. But I will say like, this
was a hard story from me to report for the
following reason, so I let people in on the process
a little or like how I got to this conclusion.
And because of that, and because I think I have
some leeway to say a little bit like, hey, I
(37:14):
thought something a few months ago was this way, but actually,
having learned more, I see it differently, or I think
it's different or I was wrong, and they'll come with me.
And that is part of like the joy of having
the style of communication. But sure, if I were to
do something, yeah, I could get canceled, like anybody can
get canceled at any time these days. But I think
(37:35):
I haven't because I do try to be upfront with
the audience about like I don't know all the things.
Here's what I do know and what I can deduce
from it. Can I say one other thing? Which is
you mentioned party line? And I just want to say,
because I get this question all the time inside these
news organizations, I have never once experienced anything close to
(37:56):
a political agenda or any at work executive wanting to
promote a candidate or specific policy. When I talk about
the confining qualities that I sometimes experienced, it was much
more in terms of like framing and tone and how
we approach stories and even what stories to tell. But
(38:17):
not with a political specific political agenda. Yeah. Well, I
imagine most people that go into journalism do it out
of a sense of public service, at least historically. And
you know, I feel the same way about you know,
people that serve in the military and frankly police, like
you know, the vast, vast majority of police got into
it out of a sense of service. So I imagine
(38:39):
that in the same way that you know, fake news
and like journalists are you know now persona and on
grata and so many narratives, I imagine it has like
a double painful effect for those that have chosen that
path because they did it in order to educate the public,
not for some personal or political gain. Totally, I really think.
(39:01):
I mean, I'm gonna sound so California right now, but
you'll appreciate it. I do think that there's a lot
of trauma, emotional trauma that's happened in the last few years,
and being under attack like that is requires a level
of vigilance every day in addition to how hard your
job is. For reporters covering the White House, it's exhausting
(39:21):
and so you know, people really need a break and
some relief from this, and it does take a toll.
And you know, I know how stressed out my former
colleagues are, and you know, there are even fears of
physical violence. Yeah, it's been an incredibly hard stretch and
I want to just say, like it didn't just start now.
I was at rallies, Sarah Palin rallies where they were
(39:44):
due in the whole you're the enemy of you know,
the press is the enemy. You're destroying America. Like this
predated Trump, he just accelerated it. Sure well. I mean
I'll say two things on that. One, Trump, if you recall,
was on the WWF and it's a total WWF move
where it's like boo the media and the back of
the room, good guy, bad guy, like that whole dynamic.
(40:08):
And then you know, through our mutual friend Isaac Lee,
I got exposed to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which
works around the world. And you know, while we are
talking about the trauma of being a journalist, you know
in the Trump there in the United States, the mortal
danger of journalists around the world. I believe there are
more dictatorships than democracies right now in globally, and so
(40:30):
you you have it still is this incredibly high risk
position that is informing the public and you know, educating
us on the malfeasance of our leadership, which is inherently dangerous,
you know, Like I'm I'm frankly like, I was pretty
terrified at the Trump administration. I didn't want to, like,
you know, put my name on a C four something
along those lines in this last cycle, for fear of retribution,
(40:54):
you know, and like and and I I hate to
say that, but like that's just you know, self preservation.
So I I am not brave to the point that
many of our journalists are who are willing to put
themselves on the line to cover these things. Yeah, I
have so much respect for correspondence around the globe, especially
in dictatorships. I interviewed Clarissa Ward recently, who goes in
(41:16):
and out of Syria for CNN, and I mean, it's
unbelievable what she does. But I think it's sort of
you know, when you do it, you can't not do it,
Like if that's your passion, it's just in you and
you're called to it. You know, we need those people,
and it's important that we have these groups like Committee
to Protect Journalists. I mean, I had this crazy experience.
You know, reporters in the public are never allowed in
(41:38):
the situation room in the White House, and the situation
room It's hard to explain, but it's it's actually a
suite of offices that include multiple things that you think
of as a situation room. But um one when I
was covering the White House at one point they renovated
the Situation Room and I got to go on a
tour of it while after the renovation, and you know,
(41:58):
this is where they monitor world event and decide if
we're going to war and have the most high and
there's this one like observation deck in the situation room
where they have the people who monitor what's happening around
the globe seven eyes on and they're these massive TV
monitors And I was like, do you have like eyes
from army rangers in Afghanistan on these things or battleship
(42:22):
you know, x ray, I don't know what are you
guys watching. And they're like CNN, the BBC, Sky News.
We hear it from the press first, and so we're
not just educating the public. It is eyes and ears
for everyone in the world. Our government is relying on
this now and it's that's why it is so important
(42:43):
and foundational to democracy and our survival that we have
a diverse press with a multiplicity of voices that that
really connects with the audience and really, you know, can
thrive and can help us thrive, beautifully said. And you
know you're I can't agree more with the the name
(43:06):
of the show news not noise. And you're such a
pioneer in the space to step out and do this
and build this. And you know, with more and more noise,
we need better curation, we need more sense making. Um,
you know, the level of group rational sense making seems
to be at a lifetime low for me. You know,
(43:27):
granted I'm thirty six, so I haven't seen that much,
but um, you know, I really greatly appreciate you know,
what you do and what you've done, and I do
hope that inspires you know, dozens and hundreds and thousands
of other journalists to start, you know, taking the medium
into their own hands and communicating directly with the audience.
I'm so flattered by that. And we would be following
(43:48):
in your footsteps because that is what you do. You
generate dialogue, you bring people together, and that is what
you've modeled. We need to do more of that in
the public discourse and in our media. So thank you
as well well, thanks for being on the podcast, Jessica,
I really appreciate it. And uh and in terms of
you know, finding more of Jessica's work, Um, you know,
News not Noise is on it just at News not Noise. Correct,
(44:13):
it's yelling on Instagram. I know it's confusing, you have
to apologies. It's at Jessica Yellen. I know I probably
need a branding expert to come help solve that dilemma.
Or let's just do has news dot Noise. Let's hit
him up. Uh, I know I don't know how to
do that. Well, well, well we'll catch up offline. Okay,
thanks again for coming on the podcast, Thanks for having me.
(44:55):
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