December 3, 2025 • 50 mins
We're back with Season 5 of Naked Sports with Cari Champion!
Today, Cari welcomes Audie Cornish, a respected journalist formerly of NPR and now with CNN. Cari expresses her admiration for Audie and invites her to share personal insights, including the origin of her name and her career journey. They discuss the challenges and rewards of their professions and reflect on the importance of curiosity in journalism. The conversation touches on the impact of ambition, the fear of failing to meet personal expectations, and the need to remain vulnerable and authentic. Audie shares her experiences growing up as an immigrant, the societal changes over the years, and her thoughts on the current political climate. The episode concludes with Cari reflecting on what she learned from Audie and her appreciation for genuine storytelling.
Audie Cornish is the host of CNN Podcasts’ The Assignment and the anchor of CNN This Morning, airing weekdays from 6-7 AM ET and streaming in the CNN app. Visit CNN.com/AllAccess for more.
Connect @CariChampion @AudieOffmic
Subscribe Cari Champion's YOUTUBE Channel
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Naked Sports, the podcast where we live at
the intersection of sports, politics, and culture. Our purpose reveal
the common threads that bind them all.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
So what's happening in women's basketball right now is what
we've been trying to.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Get to for almost thirty years. From the stadiums where
athlete to break barriers and set records.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Caitlin Quark broke the all time single game assist record.
This is crazy for rookies to be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms
and the community we create. Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm
your host, Carrie Champion. Hey everybody, I'm Kerrie Champion. Miss
jaw family, Welcome back to Naked Sports. So my next
guest was a very familiar voice on NPR Radio as
(00:48):
she hosted All Things Considered. Now she is a colleague
on CNN. She hosts CNN This Morning Without Eye Cornish.
She is someone that I have admired for years, years, years, years,
And you always have this situation where you don't necessarily
always want to meet your heroes just in case. Well,
she is definitely a journalistm hero for me, and I
(01:11):
am more than happy to say that I have met her,
I have gotten to know her, and she is absolutely amazing.
So today on Naked Sports, where we try to make
sports policy and culture intersect, I think we have the
perfect guess audy cornish howdi Welcome to Naked Sports, where
(01:31):
we try to make culture policy and I guess entertainment.
If you will all come together, there's sports included. Can
you do me a favor? Can you take off your earrings,
maybe your jacket, some shoes, something to make you feel
a little less tight, a little more.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I don't know why I'm wearing earrings when I'm wearing
my cans. It makes no sense. But I'm transitioning from
TV mode to radio mode, you know what I mean.
And it's like it is a taking off of things
that's right, basically.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And my hope is while you do that, you feel
a little less dressed, not so naked, but a little
less stressed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I always feel that with you, you are the most
like you're one of the most charismatic people I've ever met,
and every once in a while, like the word charisma
doesn't really mean much until you encounter it, and then
you're like, oh shoot, like wait, a second. This person
has a different way of interacting with the world, which
(02:34):
isn't physical. It's like, there's something about the way you're
able to put people at ease that I actually really admire.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Thank you. I will receive that because you will hear
in this intro how I was very effusive with my praise,
and I appreciate that. I think that when I do
these interviews, and especially starting season five, I want people
to know my guests the way that I know my guests.
I think that's something that I haven't been able to
really convey for me on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Isn't that the crazy part of podcasting or interviewing? It's
sometimes someone said to me the other day, the showrunner
was like, I don't know if you can communicate with
the audience the way you do in conversation in an interview,
and I think maybe there's something to that. All this
time I thought the interview was a medium of intimacy,
(03:25):
which it is, but I think as long as it's
a medium of inquiry, sometimes it can make it hard
to get to what you really want to do right.
And I've now come to realize that sometimes sharing an
inquiry aren't the same No matter how you make it sound.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, no matter, it's not the same. And that is
so profound of you to say. So I have I've
come up with different guests, different questions, but for you specifically,
and I think of when I do rapid fire, I
do it in this way, and so we'll start with
this question. My name is Carrie, and I was supposed
to be Gary after my father. My mom knew she
(04:03):
was going to have a boy. She did not have
a boy, and so at the last minute she was like, eh,
I'll put a C in front of her name, in
an I at the end, and it made it more feminine.
And here you have Carrie, which means caring if you
look it up. I would like to know the origin
story of Audi.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
That's interesting. So the origin story, well, first of all,
my mom also wanted to name me a different name,
and she went around giving all of the kids her
name that her choice of name is the middle name.
That was the compromise. So all of us joke that
our middle names are our alternate, our sliding doors, you know,
like there's a world where I am Natalie Oh, which
(04:43):
also kind of fits. You know, I have no problem
with that, but my dad went out and he went
with Audie and it was the name of a beauty
queen in Jamaica. Pageant culture, especially in the seventies, was
a very big deal in Jamaica, and if you look
(05:03):
back on that period, the biggest pop stars, prime ministers, whoever.
It was kind of this, you know, a little bit
of a cultural thing to have like a Miss Universe
contestant on your arm, and many, many beautiful Jamaican women
advance in those international competitions, but it means there are
lots and lots of local competitions, right, little parish pageants
(05:24):
and things like that. And I was named after a
woman that my dad saw on and he did one
of those like if I ever had a daughter, and
I thought he made it up, and then I later
on as an adult journalist, you can't help it. I
went and kind of looked her up, and I think
I was able to find her on Facebook and she
had passed by then. But it's a crazy name to
(05:44):
have because it's unisex. The most famous audi in the
States is you said this was rapid fire. This is
not rapid fire. I'm so sorry. I'm like looking off
in the middle distance. The original rabid fire. If the
rabbid fire answer is my dad gave it to me
and he named me after a woman he saw in
(06:06):
a beauty pageant.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Done, and you are a beauty for sure? Oh what
about this? So I ran track. My event was hurdles.
I was not great, But if in fact I wanted
to be a track star, I knew that I could
not be. What sport did you play and love?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
But it didn't transition into a professional athlete?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh, needless to say, I did everything. I played basketball,
I was like a little what is it power forward?
What's left right? If you're like, can't really shoot? And
I played center fields and softball and I was a catcher,
which I really enjoyed. H Yeah, that was it. Then
(06:49):
I was in the marching band, which is sports adjacent. Sure,
sports adjacent.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
OHO knew we had an athlete, a beauty queen and
an athlete. All I mean, there wasn't athlete if we
found that out in the first three minutes of God.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Parents thought playing American sports would make us more American.
So it was very much of like me being you know,
at first out in left field, like this blows whose
idea was this? And then being like, well, in America, yeah,
he played baseball, you know, and so that's what you
had to do, like get beamed in the face with
a softball a couple of times. So, as it turns
(07:25):
out now that citizenship is questioned in such a manner,
it would get only more difficult as time went on.
But I would not call myself an athlete. I would
just call myself Jamaican, like there was some requirements. I
would call you an athlete. You've played it, you did it,
You're an athlete. Respect for sports. I would say that
(07:46):
Jamaican raised in Boston. It's like your passport is just
like athletic mascot stamps.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
There you go, there you go. Okay, So I did
just binge watch Nobody Wants This season two on Netflix.
It is Guilty Pleasure, And I know that you love
reality shows.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I do.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Which one has you basically enthralled at this moment?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Are we ever really enthralled by show? Or are we
just sort of like succumbing to it? For me, it's
Love is Blind also Netflix, because it's the first season
was so wild and I think it has all the
things you want in a reality show, which is just
like it's on the verge of exploitation and probably is,
(08:35):
and that's what makes it a guilty pleasure. But also
it just plunges people into like a cold bath of
emotions in front of the world. And like all reality shows,
it gets worse every year. But yeah, I watch it
each and every.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Time, like Queven, though, I know it a quick follow
up if and these are big ifs. If you weren't married,
if you weren't on CNN, would you ever do you.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Love is Blind? Oh no, but I would definitely host
Love Is Blind, because girl, I have questions. I have
questions for everyone involved. I have questions for their lawyers.
Sorry nick y'all do your best because they're they're actually,
you know, into selling the propaganda of it. But honestly,
(09:22):
I think it should be called Love is Therapy. Every
single person on it I had real issues they could
have worked out prior to this point.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, well when now they say relationships are your
most the biggest mirror for you in terms of who
you are and what you are not, So I don't know,
maybe that's.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
What right I know, I know, but you know what,
my I had a pastor who once said, you know,
you may you may have a partner who like, hits
your trigger button, but they didn't install it. And that's
what it's like watching this show. It's people who like
they have other triggers, they have other issues, and the
situation brings it out like someone's hitting the button, but
(10:04):
they didn't install it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yallation exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think that's the thing. When they suddenly are like, oh, yeah,
I guess my dad is a lot, then they maybe
wouldn't have noticed unless they saw yeah, as you said,
they saw it in the mirror.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, and they're like, WHOA. If I if I had
a hidden talent one if I, if I could ask
for any hidden talent, it would be to sing and
or dance. I think my life would be completely different,
My career, my trajectory would be different if, in fact,
I had that talent. I don't know if I'd be
on Broadway. I don't necessarily know if I'd be an actress,
(10:42):
but I know that it would. It would create something
different in my spirit. If you had another talent, because
you have many, actually.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I can actually ask you question, is a great being curious?
Is a beautiful talent? People aren't cure anymore. That's what
you don't say about the cat. It's a little rum
and being curious as a woman is not great. Not great.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
They judge all the time, They judgress all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I heard somebody listening. But I had an ex boyfriend.
I remember, he's my favorite ex boyfriend. Hey, when when
he introduced me into his friends, one of them goes, oh,
a girl with personality. Oh, and I was like attacked,
also pride, also like oh, and I remember, you know
(11:33):
you're seventeen, eighteen nineteen. Those are formative moments, right, And
it was the first time I really heard in high
school like no one ever wanted to date me. So
the idea that finally I was datable and then somebody
was like, oh one of these person girl.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Who talks, you know what I mean was brain.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was disheartening, but it was also uh empowering, Like
I think I realized, like, yep, that's who's got two
thumbs and a personality. We're doing it and I'm not
offering other things. You know, It's not like six feet
of legs or something. It's just like this, this is
me and if you're not into that, you should bounce.
And it made me like I never had pretty privilege
(12:15):
and that's the greatest thing ever, because you really weed
out a lot of psychopaths. That's another thing I learned
from watching Love Is Blind. You know people who want
to use you as a trophy, who just have other
ideas about who you are and what you can be.
Being that like ugh personality girl means everyone knows what
they signed up for. That's probably for the best.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, So it just weeds you right out of.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
The well, just like you're not ready.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
If you had a talent, another talent, another talent, what
would it be and how would it change your trajectory
slash career life.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Oh I wish, I wish I spoke other languages, and
I wish I had a facility for speaking other languages.
I would absolutely have had some other kind of international career,
not even in journalism. But I love the world. I
love cities, and when I do travel, I'm always like,
why don't I live here? And then I quickly remember
that I can barely speak the language. But it is,
(13:12):
it is the hidden talent I wish that I had.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I picture you being Nicole Kidman, an interpreter. Remember Oh wow,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
She like she?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I mean, that's a beauty, that's powerful, powerful to know
speak other languages.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It really is, it really is. You know, in the
Bible it was like Babylon, like getting everyone together. It
causes a lot of worries, but I think, like the
truth is, I can't think of a bigger and better
power to have, especially in this moment.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Especially in this moment, that that is so true. We
can get to that last rapid fire, not so rapid fire.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Love. I've ruined the conceit.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I love it. I love it. I don't mind, I
don't mind. They'll edit this, she's she'll speed it up,
speed it up, keep it as is, would just speed
it up? No kidding. I am scared. I am truly
truly scared of the expectations for myself. What are you
(14:16):
scared of?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Uh? You know, I don't know what I would have
said until you said that sentence, and that kind of
hit me in my soul. I think probably the same.
And you know, for any of us who do these
jobs where the air gets a little thinner as you
get higher, gets a little more lonely, there's few and
(14:39):
farther of us in between. Your own ambition can be
just as terrifying as anything else, because you can really
can take over so much of your life, just so much.
It just it's like what can get in my way? Nothing?
You know, But I'm the one who has to pump
the brakes something and it turns out that's scary for me.
(15:05):
Are we already at the naked part? I'm uncomfortable. Wait
a second, like my heart is beating. Creation has said
that my heart is beating too hard. It's true. Our
expectations are bonkers for ourselves, scary.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I was thinking on the way over here, true story,
I'm going to ask her this question, and I was
kind of dancing around things that I was going to
say I was scared of. I wasn't going to be
completely naked with you, and then I said, well, fuck it.
You know this is what I'm afraid of. I am
truly terrified of my expert.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah. Well, you've also seen me in some moments too,
so we have like some interesting bonding that we've done
on set. I think that what it is about ambition,
especially here we are we're a post Obama, we're a
post integration, post multiculturalism, post wokeism. A generation and you
(16:03):
feel two things at once that nothing can stop you everything,
your ancestors. Did you are their wildest dreams? You know
what I mean? When I was watching you do the
what's the sports thing? Alos, I was like this, this
is it, you know what I mean? Like these women
run it like doing everything you anchoring. It really felt
(16:23):
like such a moment when you think of how far
we as Black Americans would have come, and somehow the
things around us that feel like darker and more complex
make that freedom not always feel a sort of wind
(16:44):
swept as it could be. Do you know what I mean.
I'm not explaining this correctly. This show is very effective.
There's something that is like I could do I could
do anything, and I could be anything, and then you
just death by a thousand powerpoints, you know, like the
various people who enter your life and kind of give
(17:04):
you these little reasons why this can't and this can't
and this cant and this can't, and it can. It
can just really wear you down.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It can. It can really not necessarily I want to
careful with the words that I use, but the higher
you a sin, the more that the more that becomes normal,
which really isn't normal, because you know, there are things
that we prayed for that we're doing right now that
sometimes feel burdensome. Yes, and and and and we don't
(17:36):
in the day to day of it really appreciate what
it is because we're in the thick of doing it,
and our expectations get bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They do, and they do, and because there's always someone
out there who will have diminish expectations of you. That's right,
they're they're there, They're right there all the time, waiting.
And so you're caught between wanting to have more, wanting
to want more, feeling maybe you don't deserve it, like
maybe you should stop complaining. Maybe actually you have enough.
(18:07):
It's like it's a beast.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
When I was not even necessarily but really starting out,
and I was in local news, and I I remember
going through a phase between going from local news to
working at the Tennis Channel to then ultimately going to ESPN,
and I would listen to MPR All Things Considered, and
(18:32):
I would hear this voice that felt very reassuring, really curious,
but also it felt as if I had to sit
up straight when I would be driving and it was you,
my friend, And I thought to myself, I didn't know
at the time, or this had to be twenty twelve,
(18:53):
twenty thirteen. I didn't know at the time whether you
were black or white. That never even entered my mind at.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That all the time. It never I did more when
I was starting out. Yeah, it would just never. The
beauty of what was being accomplished was such compelling storytelling
that you didn't care about the person in terms of
who they were and how they were raised. The facts
were there, the storytelling was there, and I'm just listening.
That was the beauty for me of all things considered.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Talk to me about what MPR National Public Radio for
those who don't know my audience should know, I'd be
disappointed if you didn't talk to me about the beauty
of and the sometimes that things that are not beautiful
of working there for so long.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I think that I grew up in Boston and then
was bussed in like a school integration program that was
voluntary and I just did it for a few years.
But what it did was instill this ability to like now,
all the young people say code switch, and I didn't
realize what that was until I had to be in
(20:00):
newsrooms and had to navigate the local language that is
news and it is its own language, you know, certain people.
I'd watched them pitch stories and it just seemed like
everything they said ended up on air, And meanwhile I
was there trying to explain, like well because and I
(20:22):
it took me a while to realize I had to
learn the language. I think that one of the great
things about NPR was it was and is about curiosity.
That is its actual north star. And that's probably why
so many people hate it, because if you think something
is wrong, morally, physically, whatever it is, you're not curious
(20:45):
about it, and the people who are curious about it
are going to irritate the hell out of you, because
why are they entertaining this idea, Why are they platforming
this idea? Why are they pushing this idea? There's not
I think that our culture rewards definitiveness, and NPR, and
(21:05):
I know my training as a journalist didn't reward They
rewarded curiosity. And we're actually talking as just a few
weeks ago, Susan Stamberg, who was the first woman to
anchor a national news show and someone who helped me
when I was at MPR, she just passed away and
that was her hallmark was curiosity. She was not out
(21:28):
there trying to prove she was the shark in shark
infested waters, you know what I mean, Like she just
she just chose a completely different way to do the
job and do the work. And some people were really
irritated by that. When she first started out. She wasn't
(21:49):
authoritative enough, she wasn't this, she wasn't that, And luckily
she had a boss. I was like, I don't care.
I think she's great. And now I think you know
what that's like as well, Right for someone to look
at you and be like, no, no, no, there is
something here and I'm going to fight for you. And
what a great and wonderful moment that is. And I
just lucked out because I had a lot of people
like that at MPR. I heard nos all the time,
(22:12):
but at the right moments, people said, there's something here.
I don't quite know what it is, but like, let's say, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Do you think working at MPR set you apart from
other journalists? I felt like there was If you're on TV,
you were a different type of journalist. Obviously are broadcast journalist,
but if that was your bread and butter, if that's
how you were raised, I don't necessarily know if you
were considered as serious you as in the TV journalist,
(22:53):
as someone who was a newspaper journalist, or someone who
was a radio journalist who worked for MPR. There was
a credibility that was often assigned to you without you
even I would think from the outside looking in, and
you earned it, but it was just given automatically.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh yeah, I had to play catch up. Yeah, It's
like it was that news table and people start speaking French,
like everyone has been reading the New Yorker since they
were a kid. It's fully a class issue, but I
just happened to from my childhood have experienced that feeling
of being like, Okay, I'm in this environment where some
people have had way more advantage than me, and I'm
(23:30):
going to have to work three and four times as
hard to be considered as good. And I often joke
that I was kind of like to your point about perception,
I was like the bimbo of NPR and I'm like
the professor at CNN. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
By the way I was beautifully stated, honestly, I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Because you were like, you want to talk about music.
This is before NPR music, So it was you give
us culture, and yet Todd that doesn't mean anything, you know,
and and and then coming to TV and like still
wanting to talk about those things, but in a way
that's like too nerdy for TV. Uh, it's I can't
find my way caep I have. It's been it's been
(24:16):
an exciting journey and a challenge, which is great to
have a challenge at this point in my life. But yeah,
for sure, it does make you different because you don't
prioritize speed the way everybody else does. You don't prioritize
being first the way everybody else does. You can and do,
and plenty of people break news at NPR, but you know,
(24:39):
here at CNN, it's like being there first. It's breaking news.
It is the trusted name, the original breaking news. And like,
of course I don't fit, you know what I mean.
Of course I'm a square peg, but that's okay. And
I think, however, it helps that i'm the age I am.
(25:00):
I think if I was a square peg in twenty six, yeah,
I would be bummed. Yeah, I would not fit. I
would flame out and I would not know what to
do and they wouldn't know what to do with me.
But luckily I sort of you know, it's like a
person who gets their big break in their forties. It's
like you show up fully formed and there's kind of
less people can do to push you around because you're
just fully formed.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You know, I am who I am? I don't even
know in order hard for you to shake my confidence.
You can try. You can't that part, but I'm just
this is me and that's all I am.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
And that you can try. That shocked me because when
I was in my twenties and thirties, people tried all
the time and it worked. I just all the time
was my confidence would be shaken. I shouldn't be here.
What am I doing? This doesn't make any sense. I
guess I'm would have to blah blah blah blah blah.
But now that like I've had, you know, two kids,
and like I've been in my marriage for twenty years,
(25:52):
the stakes just feel different, you know what I mean?
Because all I can think of is like, am I
gonna remember this conversation? I get that. No, you should
probably wrap it up, thanks, you should probably get it going.
I don't have exactly the time.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Your opinion is noted and completely forget.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, And I'm not trying to make you fall in
love with me, and I'm not trying to be the
sexy Angenoux in the office. I'm not even being on
TV now. The way I wear my hair, the way
I look, I just kind of feel like I'm not
trying to come hither my way through the process because
it's baked, like this is it, We're done, this is
(26:28):
it on arrival, and people kind of have to decide
if they're there for it or not. And the ultimate
compliment is when someone says something you just said, which
is like, what I remember is the story that you told,
because I don't need you to remember me at all,
but boy, do I want you to walk away and
tell tell someone else the thing you just heard us
talking about.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
What you just learned. And that was always the case,
never never ever missed. I always walked away feeling much
more educated, much more learned or informed about whatever it
may have been. Are you to make sure I'm right
on this first generation?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah? Yeah, I was born in Jamaica. Right now, we're
all watching the storm Hurricane Melissa and our WhatsApp groups,
both parents. I have no accent. Before anyone asks, I
have no other credentials other than my birth certificate.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And do you still have family there, Yeah, a lot
of cousins. How are they doing.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
We're gonna find out. We're gonna find out in a
few hours. I mean, I think one thing, and I'm
even trying to convey this on air. Jamaica has a
lot of infrastructure. I've sort of heard people here and
there will say something like, oh, it's so difficult. There's
so many people in the resorts and shanty towns, and
I'm just like, that's no, Like, there's infrastructure. There are
(27:46):
people who have They've been like vocal, a country that's
very vocal about climate change and its effects on the island,
and these bigger and bigger storms. They've tried to put
their telecommunications material like underground. There's all kinds of stuff
they've tried to do. But we're now in an era
where a storm can appear kind of out of nowhere,
reached two hundred miles an hour and still park for
(28:08):
multiple days. These behaviors are different, and so I think,
I'm sorry, this is kind of wound up. It's like
in the back of my mind all the time that
the island is facing kind of a cataclysmic event, and
I'm not sure in a real crisis if the US
(28:29):
would help.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
By the time this airs, we will have known what
has happened in Jamaica, but there still will be time
for us to know if in fact the US will help,
Which leads me to my next question, how do you
feel about the America you know now? Is it any
different from the America you knew ten years ago, fifteen
years ago, twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's closer to the America I knew pre Obama, that's
for sure, you know. But at the same time, it's
a little bit more familiar because I remember both during
the election of Barack Obama and later during what we
all call now as the Awokening, And if you haven't
start calling it that, there were moments yeah, when you
(29:17):
looked around and you were like, oh, okay, are we
not racist? Now we're making the watchmen? What's going on? Like?
It wasn't clear what had kind of kicked off that
particular reckoning and how long it would last. So to me,
I sort of had this sense of like another shoe
was going to drop, because I'm by nature cynical, and
(29:41):
now that shoe has dropped, and there's so much language
and policy and politics that are about rolling back the
last five years, so very directly in executive order that
says thou shalt not use this word or that word
and not pay contractors who espouse these beliefs. Okay, that's
(30:04):
like a direct thing. But then even a further project
that undermines universities and says and also, do you really
need afro am studies in women's studies? Do you really
are these things actually hostile to America? Like it is
rolling back even further some of those things that in
(30:24):
some circles were considered cultural gains when we all thought
we were on a glide path towards multiculturalism as an
unmitigated good to be valued, whereas now multiculturalism is often
described in the context of disturbing the history and peace
(30:47):
of the mainstream culture. Right, it is a destabilizing thing.
Immigrants are destabilizing by nature. That's the language we live
with now, and it is language that is most foremost
more familiar to Americans throughout history than we realize. And
it's because we've all had this experience of Obama awokening
(31:10):
all this stuff that it feels very like whiplash when
it's the default setting. It just someone like me had
hoped it wouldn't be the default setting, not because I'm
just a default progressive or something like that, but I
am an immigrant, I am a black woman, like these
gains are what allowed me to be the person I
am today. And it's pretty disturbing to see how much
(31:36):
of that story people consider wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I would think that we would be the rule and
not the exception to the rule. When we were having
our racial renaissance, I could not think of our default
setting of what this country used to be like, and
for some reason, used to felt like a long time
ago to me. It didn't feel like the sixties or
the fifties. It felt yeah, it felt like eighteen hundreds.
(32:01):
Abraham Lincoln. Oh, that was so long ago. It felt
so long ago. Especially growing up in California. I didn't
know that no or was a part of the vocabulary
or racism California. I have to be honest. I grew
up in Pasady, in a, Los Angeles primarily, and it's
just a it's a melting pot. And if in fact,
people do feel a way about you, you don't know it. Yeah,
(32:24):
you just don't know it because it's not considered, you know,
in style. And we all had to work with one another.
So fast forward to where we are today. I think
that I was really shocked. But what also scares me
when we talked about being scared, is a racure. Yeah,
I'm truly terrified that the progress that we've seen, you
(32:47):
and I have been a part of that it may
not ever be remembered. What the history, the history that
has been accomplished, be erased forever. And I know I
might be dramatic in thinking that, but I can talk
to people today, young people today, and they really don't
(33:08):
have an understanding of what's happening. And so if you
don't really have that oral understanding or even that I'm
reading a book understanding, how do you keep it in play?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Do you ever.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Wonder about the erasing of history, more specifically African American
history in this country.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I think that the truth has a way of coming out,
and I think that if there's one people that have
found a way to tell their story in spite of
things that are thrown at them, it is Black American
specifically and the people of color who come to reside
(33:52):
in the US that finding a way for us to
tell our stories. It's just the way it is, and
it was the same thing with white ethnic groups, by
the way, right, telling the Italian story, telling the Irish
American story. Those things didn't go away just because people
at the time said your American now stopped talking about
where you came from and who you are. That is meaningless.
(34:14):
All those communities were turned the same patrolled the same thing,
and based on my growing up in Boston, that didn't
stop them. So I think that that's one thing is
like we are especially going forward in the age of
ai story and authenticity of story and telling story, and
like that's that's going to be meaningful and having conversations
(34:36):
is still going to be meaningful. And we have a
you know, a Grio tradition right like you and I
are telling this story now. The other thing I want
to say is that it may be a wake up call,
not being woke, but I wake up for the generations
that had felt pretty comfortable where they were in the culture.
(35:01):
And that's probably not a bad thing, you know. I
think one of the reasons hearing your background is sort
of intriguing because even though my family isn't from the US,
they came to Boston in the late seventies early eighties,
So this is right after the bussing crisis, So there
was a visceral understanding of what ethnic white ethnic tensions
(35:25):
in a modern setting could look like. Because a photograph
had been all over the newspapers of a man trying
to spear a protester with the American flag, and that
wasn't an image from the sixties or the late fifties, right,
that was seventy eight, seventy nine. And I think that
when I covered the Obama election, I was covering it
(35:48):
in the South. I was based in Nashville, so I
was constantly talking to older black voters who were telling me,
you don't understand what a big deal this is. Street
to your point, I'm only close to it because I
actually it was like part of my job to be
close to it. And I think that's why I had
(36:09):
a little bit more, as I said, cynicism, because I
know the generation that has fought some of these same battles,
they're still walking around, you know what I mean, Like
they're still like, yes, they're reaching the age where some
of them are starting to pass. But like we only
talk about the first who to do something. We don't
(36:31):
talk about the second, the third, the fourth, to twentieth
and the stresses they went through, they became our aunts
and uncles and grandparents. The same way all those people
who threw rocks at buses and complained about the National
Guard coming to escort black children to school, their parents
and aunts and uncles and grandparents were out there. So
to me, it's all just way more present than we
(36:52):
want to admit. And it's how to talk about it
that's become really complex because we have more ways to
talk about it, and yet we are worse at talking
about it in so many ways, you know what I mean.
And I'm part of the problem. Like being on TV
doing a chat show, doing a panel politics things, I
just have days where I'm like, I don't know if
(37:13):
there's a good way to do this. I actually don't
know if baked into the structure of this is something
that is like kind of toxic. But I also know
that maybe it's a good thing that I'm here to
sit and have this conversation the way I would have
it versus the way someone would have had it fifteen
years ago.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You have a show CNN this morning you all should
be watching six am Eastern Standard time, and you have
something that I like, this idea and you've really been
able to connect with audiences with your panel or you
do this, let's see what the chat things right? And
when you talk about the group chat, do you feel
(38:06):
like that allows us to all share our thoughts? Oftentimes
I've noticed that people will go on these shows they
I mean, this will be anybody.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
They'll have I've done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all do.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We have our own thoughts. But when you when you
make it so so simple, as if I was in
a group chat with someone and they said they've wanted
to talk about I don't know, you know, the you know,
the shutdown or the big beautiful bill or whatever it
would be, I would say, I don't know, tell me
your thoughts. You've created that environment on your show, which
is the person sitting at home, which is the person
(38:39):
who wants to say, wait, what does that really mean?
You've created that type of environment. Was that your plan
going in when you were told that this would be
your show?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It was, But it's only that I've done it longer
I've realized it was not a good plan, because you know,
I think one of the difference between linear television and
social media and in podcasting is we're allowed to think
out loud right now. There's a possibility I'll be wrong,
there's a possibility you'll be wrong. But we're in a
good faith conversation that neither of us are trying to
(39:11):
tear each other apart in that process. We're actually trying
to build the story together. And TV is not like that.
It's it's in a way can be quite adversarial, even
in the most chummy of environments, and it does not
necessarily reward thinking out loud, especially politics. That's simply another
(39:32):
way for someone to score a point against you. And
so there's a kind of there can be not always,
but there can be a kind of uncharitable way of talking.
And I think what I tried to say to people
is like, look, it's the morning. We ain't fighting. It's
too early too what I mean, it's just too early
(39:53):
no one I know. Can I swear on this show?
Yes you can. It's like it's too early for that
ship with Audi Cornish.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yes exactly. By the way, that should be the title,
the shit that should be the title.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I have a couple, there's this again, there's one thing
after another, the like, but you have I don't know, Audi.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I think I I I want to and I'm necessary
of saying I'm disagreeing, but I used to.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Tell me you're on more shows than me, so you
know what it's like when you have to kind of
sit up straight and yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Too much tension, it's too much pressure. People are trying
to go viral.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, you want to talk to each other like. It's
a weird environment. It's a very weird environment.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
But you've created for me at least an environment where
it's okay to say, you know what, I really don't
know because I have heard over and over again walking
down the street. I'm sure you have people like I
want to ask a question I'm just curious about And
as we started this conversation, Uh, what I said your
superpower was, and what I really love about myself as
well as a journalist is that I'm just naturally curious.
(40:56):
I am curious, and so the why is never ridiculous
to me. I'm curious what do you mean by that?
Because I find that the more that you push and
you ask more questions, the person that is doesn't always
have the answer once you really dig deep, they too
are still learning it and understanding it and processing it.
So I think it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And they want to be heard. Yeah, that is the
biggest thing I've learned about becoming a more public figure
because at NPR people just didn't recognize me the way
they can physically recognize me now. And I too will
say to someone I'm like, oh, say more, what do
you mean by that? Why are you asking that? And
inevitably you get to the reason why. That's their animating question,
(41:37):
and that is far more revealing than me answering the question,
you know, and so many people out here they just
want someone to hear them. And it's really profound. Is
it's almost at the heart of every story I do,
where the story is really my choice, right, not just
like hey, it's the government shut down, but like things
(41:59):
I do on my podcast, somewhere at the heart of
the story as someone who's like, I wish people understood X,
and it is like it's it is the most heartbreaking
thing for me in my work that people don't understand
is there, But like I know it's there, is like
wanting people just wishing that someone really understood them.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I will, I will, I will end with this because
I know you have to go and oh.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
My god, Carrie. No, I could just be on here
talking to you forever a week because I'm bad at
lightning once. But can I ask a question? Ever, since
we're getting to the end, why did you want to
do a show called Naked? And I asked this because
number one, you're beautiful and I do. No, I'm not
saying this in a mean spirited way. We're just doing
it objectively, Like was there did you play with the
(42:48):
ideas of like sex, sexuality, your image, but also where
you wanted to go in the conversation sort of like
what was the thinking there?
Speaker 1 (42:56):
You know, it's interesting that you say that I have
grown up. I think as all of my friends tell me,
I have a tomboy nature because I don't.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I don't really access pretty privilege. I feel like people
will tell me. I had to figure this out in
my you know, mid twenties. I was like, oh, I
am because I you know, I didn't grow up. My
mother raised me to think you're so smart. You're so smart.
It wasn't ever about the the the looks or the
Esturian athlete, right, Yeah, Like your physicality has a difference.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
It's different. It didn't feel like sexual or it didn't
feel sexy or whatever you want to say. But I
think naked came about in twenty twenty when we were
in what I called that that that racial renaissance where
we were understanding everything that was going on in this country,
and I felt, for the very first time, just as
an adult, like, oh wow, people really care about what
(43:45):
is going on in the world and why people are marginalized,
and they want to talk about it and it's not
fair and they're listening, and so I have. I had
lived my life, especially in front of the camera, being
very careful about what I said and how I looked
and how I presented, and I just wanted to not
do that. I wanted to take.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
My earrings off, or my shoes off, or my bra off,
you know, last when you get really relaxed, right and
you want to just that was the visual of just
being relaxed and being very honest, just as I said,
what scares you? Like?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
That's that question? Saying it out loud is extremely vulnerable,
And that is when I realize vulnerability is a superpower.
Growing up as a black woman, you don't realize that
being vulnerable is powerful, and you're always taught to be strong,
and I just.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Get rewarded for the opposite.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, correct, correct, And that's what I've been trying to do,
and that's a lifelong struggle. I lean into vulnerability, but
then I sometimes you know, jump back, you know, if
in fact, I feel like I can't be rewarded for
being vulnerable, I go back to putting on a mask,
if you will, in certain environments. And my hope is
that I can always have someone come on and they
can be a little vulnerable. So I appreciate you for
(44:52):
doing that.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
For you saying I think you get there, I mean,
just as someone who's a listener, I often joke that
the intimacy that we're all driving for and that now
people commodify as podcasters, it's not an easy thing to achieve.
It's not actually just talking, you know what I mean.
Just talking is how's the weather? That ain't what we're doing,
(45:14):
you know what I mean. And I think that's why
a lot of celebrity podcasts work is it's a shortcut,
you know, And we're at the point where it's so
hard to get people to talk in a way that
feels kind of authentic and real that you have to
like apply them with hot sauce, you know what I mean,
or like bring them into a chicken shot, like you
have to do all of these things just to disarm
(45:35):
people from their media training, because being vulnerable is cringe
and a political punishment point. And you know, I think
I just want to say to people out there who
are listening. And I don't know if what other kind
of show I'd get to say this on, But like
if you did spend the Awokening or these last couple
of years opening your eyes to the world in a
(45:58):
different way, it's okay. You don't have to backpedal. You
don't have to back away from your own growth because
it's uncool. That's actually this is the real part, Like
the part where like Pelosi wears a dai shiki. That's
the easy.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
And no one just time out. No one asked for
that one.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I didn't ask for do eyeshadow shades. I didn't ask
for special colored band aids we had. There are some
pretty specific things we won't go into that we did
ask for, that we didn't ask for, we didn't need it.
One interesting thing that happened was like the even people
in my own life who came to me and said,
you know, I've really been thinking about how we grew
up or I've really been thinking about this or that,
(46:41):
and like, I'm starting to understand some things better. And
I wish we had talked about it in the past
and that was special, that was real, that was special.
Were there moments where it was cringey and weird? Sure
you don't do that, but like, guess what that lesson
got learned? You know what I mean? Like that's a
(47:03):
good thing. Don't back away from those things, correct, because
that's how you raise a generation of kids who are
seeing what we're doing now. You know, they're in their
text chains joking about Hitler, like get it together. You know,
there's no need to do all that. There's really no
need for that kind of backsliding out of fear. And
I realize there are so many people who do talk
(47:26):
about fearfulness right now, and it's a way different scale
from what all y'all comedians were saying about cancel culture.
This is different the kind of fear we're talking about.
And I just hope that like people who are the
kind of people who would listen to your show, in
my opinion, are the kind of people I want to say,
hold on to your heart, hold on to your cringe,
(47:48):
hold on to your earnestness, hold on to that part
of you that got opened up. You know what I mean?
Like we all we need that, We need it, and
we need that for what's ahead. Even if it feels
like a small thing listening to a show or whatever,
if it's doing the work of keeping you moving forward
and growing, keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Hey, everybody, I hope you enjoyed that interview. Before I
let you go, I think and I'm going to start
doing something and I don't know how consistently I can
do it, but at the end of each podcast, I
want to give a bit of a recap on what
I learned. I used to do this on my old podcast,
where it was like what did I learn? And then
I'm going to also, maybe I don't know how to
say this, maybe I'll tell you something about a cultural
what the kid say moment? What the kids say moment.
(48:30):
So what I learned is, first, Audie Cornish is really
truly a good person, and you want to see good
people win. And what I mean by that it sounds
very simple. It sounds like, okay, well, what does that
mean I'm a good person? No, it just means that
she really takes her craft seriously and she wants to
tell stories that educate and entertain and hopefully allow you
(48:53):
to feel as if you can be better, learn more,
share the story, whatever it may be. She really does
do that. And the story that I shared was when
I was doing a CNN panel with her. She was hosting,
she was filling in for Abby, and she was so
smart that she was making some of the guests intimidated
and they didn't like how quick witted she was or
(49:14):
how she made them feel, and they felt inferior. And
so during the commercial break, because stuff gets stank during
the commercial break, I'm telling you we need a show
called commercial Breaks, because behind the scenes, the bts, the
commercial break is when the should go down. And she
handled herself so well. She really truly did. So that's
what I learned today. How do you thank you so
(49:36):
much for coming on the show? Really do appreciate you
for taking the time out. Meanwhile, for folks at home
who want to hear more from Audi, you can. She
is the host of CNN podcast The Assignment and the
anchor of CNN This Morning, airing weekday six to seven
am Eastern and streaming in the CNN app. You can
visit CNN dot com Forward slash All Access for more.
(49:58):
Appreciate you all. Season five underway. We are doing well, y'all.
We are doing our well thing, and I appreciate y'all
for subscribing and listening. Even if you nice nasty go
in and leave a comment which a nice nasty ass.
Talk to y'all next week. Naked Sports written and executive
produced by me Carrie Champion, produced by Jacquise Thomas, sound
(50:20):
designed and mastered by Dwayne Crawford. Naked Sports is a
part of the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartMedia
Welcome to Naked Sports, the podcast where we live at
the intersection of sports, politics, and culture. Our purpose reveal
the common threads that bind them all.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
So what's happening in women's basketball right now is what
we've been trying to.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Get to for almost thirty years. From the stadiums where
athlete to break barriers and set records.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Caitlin Quark broke the all time single game assist record.
This is crazy for rookies to be doing.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms
and the community we create. Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm
your host, Carrie Champion. Hey everybody, I'm Kerrie Champion. Miss
jaw family, Welcome back to Naked Sports. So my next
guest was a very familiar voice on NPR Radio as
(00:48):
she hosted All Things Considered. Now she is a colleague
on CNN. She hosts CNN This Morning Without Eye Cornish.
She is someone that I have admired for years, years, years, years,
And you always have this situation where you don't necessarily
always want to meet your heroes just in case. Well,
she is definitely a journalistm hero for me, and I
(01:11):
am more than happy to say that I have met her,
I have gotten to know her, and she is absolutely amazing.
So today on Naked Sports, where we try to make
sports policy and culture intersect, I think we have the
perfect guess audy cornish howdi Welcome to Naked Sports, where
(01:31):
we try to make culture policy and I guess entertainment.
If you will all come together, there's sports included. Can
you do me a favor? Can you take off your earrings,
maybe your jacket, some shoes, something to make you feel
a little less tight, a little more.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I don't know why I'm wearing earrings when I'm wearing
my cans. It makes no sense. But I'm transitioning from
TV mode to radio mode, you know what I mean.
And it's like it is a taking off of things
that's right, basically.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And my hope is while you do that, you feel
a little less dressed, not so naked, but a little
less stressed, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I always feel that with you, you are the most
like you're one of the most charismatic people I've ever met,
and every once in a while, like the word charisma
doesn't really mean much until you encounter it, and then
you're like, oh shoot, like wait, a second. This person
has a different way of interacting with the world, which
(02:34):
isn't physical. It's like, there's something about the way you're
able to put people at ease that I actually really admire.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Thank you. I will receive that because you will hear
in this intro how I was very effusive with my praise,
and I appreciate that. I think that when I do
these interviews, and especially starting season five, I want people
to know my guests the way that I know my guests.
I think that's something that I haven't been able to
really convey for me on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Isn't that the crazy part of podcasting or interviewing? It's
sometimes someone said to me the other day, the showrunner
was like, I don't know if you can communicate with
the audience the way you do in conversation in an interview,
and I think maybe there's something to that. All this
time I thought the interview was a medium of intimacy,
(03:25):
which it is, but I think as long as it's
a medium of inquiry, sometimes it can make it hard
to get to what you really want to do right.
And I've now come to realize that sometimes sharing an
inquiry aren't the same No matter how you make it sound.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yes, no matter, it's not the same. And that is
so profound of you to say. So I have I've
come up with different guests, different questions, but for you specifically,
and I think of when I do rapid fire, I
do it in this way, and so we'll start with
this question. My name is Carrie, and I was supposed
to be Gary after my father. My mom knew she
(04:03):
was going to have a boy. She did not have
a boy, and so at the last minute she was like, eh,
I'll put a C in front of her name, in
an I at the end, and it made it more feminine.
And here you have Carrie, which means caring if you
look it up. I would like to know the origin
story of Audi.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
That's interesting. So the origin story, well, first of all,
my mom also wanted to name me a different name,
and she went around giving all of the kids her
name that her choice of name is the middle name.
That was the compromise. So all of us joke that
our middle names are our alternate, our sliding doors, you know,
like there's a world where I am Natalie Oh, which
(04:43):
also kind of fits. You know, I have no problem
with that, but my dad went out and he went
with Audie and it was the name of a beauty
queen in Jamaica. Pageant culture, especially in the seventies, was
a very big deal in Jamaica, and if you look
(05:03):
back on that period, the biggest pop stars, prime ministers, whoever.
It was kind of this, you know, a little bit
of a cultural thing to have like a Miss Universe
contestant on your arm, and many, many beautiful Jamaican women
advance in those international competitions, but it means there are
lots and lots of local competitions, right, little parish pageants
(05:24):
and things like that. And I was named after a
woman that my dad saw on and he did one
of those like if I ever had a daughter, and
I thought he made it up, and then I later
on as an adult journalist, you can't help it. I
went and kind of looked her up, and I think
I was able to find her on Facebook and she
had passed by then. But it's a crazy name to
(05:44):
have because it's unisex. The most famous audi in the
States is you said this was rapid fire. This is
not rapid fire. I'm so sorry. I'm like looking off
in the middle distance. The original rabid fire. If the
rabbid fire answer is my dad gave it to me
and he named me after a woman he saw in
(06:06):
a beauty pageant.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Done, and you are a beauty for sure? Oh what
about this? So I ran track. My event was hurdles.
I was not great, But if in fact I wanted
to be a track star, I knew that I could
not be. What sport did you play and love?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
But it didn't transition into a professional athlete?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh, needless to say, I did everything. I played basketball,
I was like a little what is it power forward?
What's left right? If you're like, can't really shoot? And
I played center fields and softball and I was a catcher,
which I really enjoyed. H Yeah, that was it. Then
(06:49):
I was in the marching band, which is sports adjacent. Sure,
sports adjacent.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
OHO knew we had an athlete, a beauty queen and
an athlete. All I mean, there wasn't athlete if we
found that out in the first three minutes of God.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Parents thought playing American sports would make us more American.
So it was very much of like me being you know,
at first out in left field, like this blows whose
idea was this? And then being like, well, in America, yeah,
he played baseball, you know, and so that's what you
had to do, like get beamed in the face with
a softball a couple of times. So, as it turns
(07:25):
out now that citizenship is questioned in such a manner,
it would get only more difficult as time went on.
But I would not call myself an athlete. I would
just call myself Jamaican, like there was some requirements. I
would call you an athlete. You've played it, you did it,
You're an athlete. Respect for sports. I would say that
(07:46):
Jamaican raised in Boston. It's like your passport is just
like athletic mascot stamps.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
There you go, there you go. Okay, So I did
just binge watch Nobody Wants This season two on Netflix.
It is Guilty Pleasure, And I know that you love
reality shows.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I do.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Which one has you basically enthralled at this moment?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Are we ever really enthralled by show? Or are we
just sort of like succumbing to it? For me, it's
Love is Blind also Netflix, because it's the first season
was so wild and I think it has all the
things you want in a reality show, which is just
like it's on the verge of exploitation and probably is,
(08:35):
and that's what makes it a guilty pleasure. But also
it just plunges people into like a cold bath of
emotions in front of the world. And like all reality shows,
it gets worse every year. But yeah, I watch it
each and every.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Time, like Queven, though, I know it a quick follow
up if and these are big ifs. If you weren't married,
if you weren't on CNN, would you ever do you.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Love is Blind? Oh no, but I would definitely host
Love Is Blind, because girl, I have questions. I have
questions for everyone involved. I have questions for their lawyers.
Sorry nick y'all do your best because they're they're actually,
you know, into selling the propaganda of it. But honestly,
(09:22):
I think it should be called Love is Therapy. Every
single person on it I had real issues they could
have worked out prior to this point.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, well when now they say relationships are your
most the biggest mirror for you in terms of who
you are and what you are not, So I don't know,
maybe that's.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
What right I know, I know, but you know what,
my I had a pastor who once said, you know,
you may you may have a partner who like, hits
your trigger button, but they didn't install it. And that's
what it's like watching this show. It's people who like
they have other triggers, they have other issues, and the
situation brings it out like someone's hitting the button, but
(10:04):
they didn't install it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yallation exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think that's the thing. When they suddenly are like, oh, yeah,
I guess my dad is a lot, then they maybe
wouldn't have noticed unless they saw yeah, as you said,
they saw it in the mirror.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, and they're like, WHOA. If I if I had
a hidden talent one if I, if I could ask
for any hidden talent, it would be to sing and
or dance. I think my life would be completely different,
My career, my trajectory would be different if, in fact,
I had that talent. I don't know if I'd be
on Broadway. I don't necessarily know if I'd be an actress,
(10:42):
but I know that it would. It would create something
different in my spirit. If you had another talent, because
you have many, actually.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I can actually ask you question, is a great being curious?
Is a beautiful talent? People aren't cure anymore. That's what
you don't say about the cat. It's a little rum
and being curious as a woman is not great. Not great.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
They judge all the time, They judgress all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I heard somebody listening. But I had an ex boyfriend.
I remember, he's my favorite ex boyfriend. Hey, when when
he introduced me into his friends, one of them goes, oh,
a girl with personality. Oh, and I was like attacked,
also pride, also like oh, and I remember, you know
(11:33):
you're seventeen, eighteen nineteen. Those are formative moments, right, And
it was the first time I really heard in high
school like no one ever wanted to date me. So
the idea that finally I was datable and then somebody
was like, oh one of these person girl.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Who talks, you know what I mean was brain.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was disheartening, but it was also uh empowering, Like
I think I realized, like, yep, that's who's got two
thumbs and a personality. We're doing it and I'm not
offering other things. You know, It's not like six feet
of legs or something. It's just like this, this is
me and if you're not into that, you should bounce.
And it made me like I never had pretty privilege
(12:15):
and that's the greatest thing ever, because you really weed
out a lot of psychopaths. That's another thing I learned
from watching Love Is Blind. You know people who want
to use you as a trophy, who just have other
ideas about who you are and what you can be.
Being that like ugh personality girl means everyone knows what
they signed up for. That's probably for the best.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, So it just weeds you right out of.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
The well, just like you're not ready.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
If you had a talent, another talent, another talent, what
would it be and how would it change your trajectory
slash career life.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Oh I wish, I wish I spoke other languages, and
I wish I had a facility for speaking other languages.
I would absolutely have had some other kind of international career,
not even in journalism. But I love the world. I
love cities, and when I do travel, I'm always like,
why don't I live here? And then I quickly remember
that I can barely speak the language. But it is,
(13:12):
it is the hidden talent I wish that I had.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I picture you being Nicole Kidman, an interpreter. Remember Oh wow,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
She like she?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I mean, that's a beauty, that's powerful, powerful to know
speak other languages.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It really is, it really is. You know, in the
Bible it was like Babylon, like getting everyone together. It
causes a lot of worries, but I think, like the
truth is, I can't think of a bigger and better
power to have, especially in this moment.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Especially in this moment, that that is so true. We
can get to that last rapid fire, not so rapid fire.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Love. I've ruined the conceit.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I love it. I love it. I don't mind, I
don't mind. They'll edit this, she's she'll speed it up,
speed it up, keep it as is, would just speed
it up? No kidding. I am scared. I am truly
truly scared of the expectations for myself. What are you
(14:16):
scared of?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Uh? You know, I don't know what I would have
said until you said that sentence, and that kind of
hit me in my soul. I think probably the same.
And you know, for any of us who do these
jobs where the air gets a little thinner as you
get higher, gets a little more lonely, there's few and
(14:39):
farther of us in between. Your own ambition can be
just as terrifying as anything else, because you can really
can take over so much of your life, just so much.
It just it's like what can get in my way? Nothing?
You know, But I'm the one who has to pump
the brakes something and it turns out that's scary for me.
(15:05):
Are we already at the naked part? I'm uncomfortable. Wait
a second, like my heart is beating. Creation has said
that my heart is beating too hard. It's true. Our
expectations are bonkers for ourselves, scary.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I was thinking on the way over here, true story,
I'm going to ask her this question, and I was
kind of dancing around things that I was going to
say I was scared of. I wasn't going to be
completely naked with you, and then I said, well, fuck it.
You know this is what I'm afraid of. I am
truly terrified of my expert.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah. Well, you've also seen me in some moments too,
so we have like some interesting bonding that we've done
on set. I think that what it is about ambition,
especially here we are we're a post Obama, we're a
post integration, post multiculturalism, post wokeism. A generation and you
(16:03):
feel two things at once that nothing can stop you everything,
your ancestors. Did you are their wildest dreams? You know
what I mean? When I was watching you do the
what's the sports thing? Alos, I was like this, this
is it, you know what I mean? Like these women
run it like doing everything you anchoring. It really felt
(16:23):
like such a moment when you think of how far
we as Black Americans would have come, and somehow the
things around us that feel like darker and more complex
make that freedom not always feel a sort of wind
(16:44):
swept as it could be. Do you know what I mean.
I'm not explaining this correctly. This show is very effective.
There's something that is like I could do I could
do anything, and I could be anything, and then you
just death by a thousand powerpoints, you know, like the
various people who enter your life and kind of give
(17:04):
you these little reasons why this can't and this can't
and this cant and this can't, and it can. It
can just really wear you down.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It can. It can really not necessarily I want to
careful with the words that I use, but the higher
you a sin, the more that the more that becomes normal,
which really isn't normal, because you know, there are things
that we prayed for that we're doing right now that
sometimes feel burdensome. Yes, and and and and we don't
(17:36):
in the day to day of it really appreciate what
it is because we're in the thick of doing it,
and our expectations get bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
They do, and they do, and because there's always someone
out there who will have diminish expectations of you. That's right,
they're they're there, They're right there all the time, waiting.
And so you're caught between wanting to have more, wanting
to want more, feeling maybe you don't deserve it, like
maybe you should stop complaining. Maybe actually you have enough.
(18:07):
It's like it's a beast.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
When I was not even necessarily but really starting out,
and I was in local news, and I I remember
going through a phase between going from local news to
working at the Tennis Channel to then ultimately going to ESPN,
and I would listen to MPR All Things Considered, and
(18:32):
I would hear this voice that felt very reassuring, really curious,
but also it felt as if I had to sit
up straight when I would be driving and it was you,
my friend, And I thought to myself, I didn't know
at the time, or this had to be twenty twelve,
(18:53):
twenty thirteen. I didn't know at the time whether you
were black or white. That never even entered my mind at.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That all the time. It never I did more when
I was starting out. Yeah, it would just never. The
beauty of what was being accomplished was such compelling storytelling
that you didn't care about the person in terms of
who they were and how they were raised. The facts
were there, the storytelling was there, and I'm just listening.
That was the beauty for me of all things considered.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Talk to me about what MPR National Public Radio for
those who don't know my audience should know, I'd be
disappointed if you didn't talk to me about the beauty
of and the sometimes that things that are not beautiful
of working there for so long.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I think that I grew up in Boston and then
was bussed in like a school integration program that was
voluntary and I just did it for a few years.
But what it did was instill this ability to like now,
all the young people say code switch, and I didn't
realize what that was until I had to be in
(20:00):
newsrooms and had to navigate the local language that is
news and it is its own language, you know, certain people.
I'd watched them pitch stories and it just seemed like
everything they said ended up on air, And meanwhile I
was there trying to explain, like well because and I
(20:22):
it took me a while to realize I had to
learn the language. I think that one of the great
things about NPR was it was and is about curiosity.
That is its actual north star. And that's probably why
so many people hate it, because if you think something
is wrong, morally, physically, whatever it is, you're not curious
(20:45):
about it, and the people who are curious about it
are going to irritate the hell out of you, because
why are they entertaining this idea, Why are they platforming
this idea? Why are they pushing this idea? There's not
I think that our culture rewards definitiveness, and NPR, and
(21:05):
I know my training as a journalist didn't reward They
rewarded curiosity. And we're actually talking as just a few
weeks ago, Susan Stamberg, who was the first woman to
anchor a national news show and someone who helped me
when I was at MPR, she just passed away and
that was her hallmark was curiosity. She was not out
(21:28):
there trying to prove she was the shark in shark
infested waters, you know what I mean, Like she just
she just chose a completely different way to do the
job and do the work. And some people were really
irritated by that. When she first started out. She wasn't
(21:49):
authoritative enough, she wasn't this, she wasn't that, And luckily
she had a boss. I was like, I don't care.
I think she's great. And now I think you know
what that's like as well, Right for someone to look
at you and be like, no, no, no, there is
something here and I'm going to fight for you. And
what a great and wonderful moment that is. And I
just lucked out because I had a lot of people
like that at MPR. I heard nos all the time,
(22:12):
but at the right moments, people said, there's something here.
I don't quite know what it is, but like, let's say, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Do you think working at MPR set you apart from
other journalists? I felt like there was If you're on TV,
you were a different type of journalist. Obviously are broadcast journalist,
but if that was your bread and butter, if that's
how you were raised, I don't necessarily know if you
were considered as serious you as in the TV journalist,
(22:53):
as someone who was a newspaper journalist, or someone who
was a radio journalist who worked for MPR. There was
a credibility that was often assigned to you without you
even I would think from the outside looking in, and
you earned it, but it was just given automatically.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Oh yeah, I had to play catch up. Yeah, It's
like it was that news table and people start speaking French,
like everyone has been reading the New Yorker since they
were a kid. It's fully a class issue, but I
just happened to from my childhood have experienced that feeling
of being like, Okay, I'm in this environment where some
people have had way more advantage than me, and I'm
(23:30):
going to have to work three and four times as
hard to be considered as good. And I often joke
that I was kind of like to your point about perception,
I was like the bimbo of NPR and I'm like
the professor at CNN. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
By the way I was beautifully stated, honestly, I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Because you were like, you want to talk about music.
This is before NPR music, So it was you give
us culture, and yet Todd that doesn't mean anything, you know,
and and and then coming to TV and like still
wanting to talk about those things, but in a way
that's like too nerdy for TV. Uh, it's I can't
find my way caep I have. It's been it's been
(24:16):
an exciting journey and a challenge, which is great to
have a challenge at this point in my life. But yeah,
for sure, it does make you different because you don't
prioritize speed the way everybody else does. You don't prioritize
being first the way everybody else does. You can and do,
and plenty of people break news at NPR, but you know,
(24:39):
here at CNN, it's like being there first. It's breaking news.
It is the trusted name, the original breaking news. And like,
of course I don't fit, you know what I mean.
Of course I'm a square peg, but that's okay. And
I think, however, it helps that i'm the age I am.
(25:00):
I think if I was a square peg in twenty six, yeah,
I would be bummed. Yeah, I would not fit. I
would flame out and I would not know what to
do and they wouldn't know what to do with me.
But luckily I sort of you know, it's like a
person who gets their big break in their forties. It's
like you show up fully formed and there's kind of
less people can do to push you around because you're
just fully formed.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
You know, I am who I am? I don't even
know in order hard for you to shake my confidence.
You can try. You can't that part, but I'm just
this is me and that's all I am.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
And that you can try. That shocked me because when
I was in my twenties and thirties, people tried all
the time and it worked. I just all the time
was my confidence would be shaken. I shouldn't be here.
What am I doing? This doesn't make any sense. I
guess I'm would have to blah blah blah blah blah.
But now that like I've had, you know, two kids,
and like I've been in my marriage for twenty years,
(25:52):
the stakes just feel different, you know what I mean?
Because all I can think of is like, am I
gonna remember this conversation? I get that. No, you should
probably wrap it up, thanks, you should probably get it going.
I don't have exactly the time.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Your opinion is noted and completely forget.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, And I'm not trying to make you fall in
love with me, and I'm not trying to be the
sexy Angenoux in the office. I'm not even being on
TV now. The way I wear my hair, the way
I look, I just kind of feel like I'm not
trying to come hither my way through the process because
it's baked, like this is it, We're done, this is
(26:28):
it on arrival, and people kind of have to decide
if they're there for it or not. And the ultimate
compliment is when someone says something you just said, which
is like, what I remember is the story that you told,
because I don't need you to remember me at all,
but boy, do I want you to walk away and
tell tell someone else the thing you just heard us
talking about.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
What you just learned. And that was always the case,
never never ever missed. I always walked away feeling much
more educated, much more learned or informed about whatever it
may have been. Are you to make sure I'm right
on this first generation?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah? Yeah, I was born in Jamaica. Right now, we're
all watching the storm Hurricane Melissa and our WhatsApp groups,
both parents. I have no accent. Before anyone asks, I
have no other credentials other than my birth certificate.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And do you still have family there, Yeah, a lot
of cousins. How are they doing.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
We're gonna find out. We're gonna find out in a
few hours. I mean, I think one thing, and I'm
even trying to convey this on air. Jamaica has a
lot of infrastructure. I've sort of heard people here and
there will say something like, oh, it's so difficult. There's
so many people in the resorts and shanty towns, and
I'm just like, that's no, Like, there's infrastructure. There are
(27:46):
people who have They've been like vocal, a country that's
very vocal about climate change and its effects on the island,
and these bigger and bigger storms. They've tried to put
their telecommunications material like underground. There's all kinds of stuff
they've tried to do. But we're now in an era
where a storm can appear kind of out of nowhere,
reached two hundred miles an hour and still park for
(28:08):
multiple days. These behaviors are different, and so I think,
I'm sorry, this is kind of wound up. It's like
in the back of my mind all the time that
the island is facing kind of a cataclysmic event, and
I'm not sure in a real crisis if the US
(28:29):
would help.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
By the time this airs, we will have known what
has happened in Jamaica, but there still will be time
for us to know if in fact the US will help,
Which leads me to my next question, how do you
feel about the America you know now? Is it any
different from the America you knew ten years ago, fifteen
years ago, twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's closer to the America I knew pre Obama, that's
for sure, you know. But at the same time, it's
a little bit more familiar because I remember both during
the election of Barack Obama and later during what we
all call now as the Awokening, And if you haven't
start calling it that, there were moments yeah, when you
(29:17):
looked around and you were like, oh, okay, are we
not racist? Now we're making the watchmen? What's going on? Like?
It wasn't clear what had kind of kicked off that
particular reckoning and how long it would last. So to me,
I sort of had this sense of like another shoe
was going to drop, because I'm by nature cynical, and
(29:41):
now that shoe has dropped, and there's so much language
and policy and politics that are about rolling back the
last five years, so very directly in executive order that
says thou shalt not use this word or that word
and not pay contractors who espouse these beliefs. Okay, that's
(30:04):
like a direct thing. But then even a further project
that undermines universities and says and also, do you really
need afro am studies in women's studies? Do you really
are these things actually hostile to America? Like it is
rolling back even further some of those things that in
(30:24):
some circles were considered cultural gains when we all thought
we were on a glide path towards multiculturalism as an
unmitigated good to be valued, whereas now multiculturalism is often
described in the context of disturbing the history and peace
(30:47):
of the mainstream culture. Right, it is a destabilizing thing.
Immigrants are destabilizing by nature. That's the language we live
with now, and it is language that is most foremost
more familiar to Americans throughout history than we realize. And
it's because we've all had this experience of Obama awokening
(31:10):
all this stuff that it feels very like whiplash when
it's the default setting. It just someone like me had
hoped it wouldn't be the default setting, not because I'm
just a default progressive or something like that, but I
am an immigrant, I am a black woman, like these
gains are what allowed me to be the person I
am today. And it's pretty disturbing to see how much
(31:36):
of that story people consider wrong.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I would think that we would be the rule and
not the exception to the rule. When we were having
our racial renaissance, I could not think of our default
setting of what this country used to be like, and
for some reason, used to felt like a long time
ago to me. It didn't feel like the sixties or
the fifties. It felt yeah, it felt like eighteen hundreds.
(32:01):
Abraham Lincoln. Oh, that was so long ago. It felt
so long ago. Especially growing up in California. I didn't
know that no or was a part of the vocabulary
or racism California. I have to be honest. I grew
up in Pasady, in a, Los Angeles primarily, and it's
just a it's a melting pot. And if in fact,
people do feel a way about you, you don't know it. Yeah,
(32:24):
you just don't know it because it's not considered, you know,
in style. And we all had to work with one another.
So fast forward to where we are today. I think
that I was really shocked. But what also scares me
when we talked about being scared, is a racure. Yeah,
I'm truly terrified that the progress that we've seen, you
(32:47):
and I have been a part of that it may
not ever be remembered. What the history, the history that
has been accomplished, be erased forever. And I know I
might be dramatic in thinking that, but I can talk
to people today, young people today, and they really don't
(33:08):
have an understanding of what's happening. And so if you
don't really have that oral understanding or even that I'm
reading a book understanding, how do you keep it in play?
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Do you ever.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Wonder about the erasing of history, more specifically African American
history in this country.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I think that the truth has a way of coming out,
and I think that if there's one people that have
found a way to tell their story in spite of
things that are thrown at them, it is Black American
specifically and the people of color who come to reside
(33:52):
in the US that finding a way for us to
tell our stories. It's just the way it is, and
it was the same thing with white ethnic groups, by
the way, right, telling the Italian story, telling the Irish
American story. Those things didn't go away just because people
at the time said your American now stopped talking about
where you came from and who you are. That is meaningless.
(34:14):
All those communities were turned the same patrolled the same thing,
and based on my growing up in Boston, that didn't
stop them. So I think that that's one thing is
like we are especially going forward in the age of
ai story and authenticity of story and telling story, and
like that's that's going to be meaningful and having conversations
(34:36):
is still going to be meaningful. And we have a
you know, a Grio tradition right like you and I
are telling this story now. The other thing I want
to say is that it may be a wake up call,
not being woke, but I wake up for the generations
that had felt pretty comfortable where they were in the culture.
(35:01):
And that's probably not a bad thing, you know. I
think one of the reasons hearing your background is sort
of intriguing because even though my family isn't from the US,
they came to Boston in the late seventies early eighties,
So this is right after the bussing crisis, So there
was a visceral understanding of what ethnic white ethnic tensions
(35:25):
in a modern setting could look like. Because a photograph
had been all over the newspapers of a man trying
to spear a protester with the American flag, and that
wasn't an image from the sixties or the late fifties, right,
that was seventy eight, seventy nine. And I think that
when I covered the Obama election, I was covering it
(35:48):
in the South. I was based in Nashville, so I
was constantly talking to older black voters who were telling me,
you don't understand what a big deal this is. Street
to your point, I'm only close to it because I
actually it was like part of my job to be
close to it. And I think that's why I had
(36:09):
a little bit more, as I said, cynicism, because I
know the generation that has fought some of these same battles,
they're still walking around, you know what I mean, Like
they're still like, yes, they're reaching the age where some
of them are starting to pass. But like we only
talk about the first who to do something. We don't
(36:31):
talk about the second, the third, the fourth, to twentieth
and the stresses they went through, they became our aunts
and uncles and grandparents. The same way all those people
who threw rocks at buses and complained about the National
Guard coming to escort black children to school, their parents
and aunts and uncles and grandparents were out there. So
to me, it's all just way more present than we
(36:52):
want to admit. And it's how to talk about it
that's become really complex because we have more ways to
talk about it, and yet we are worse at talking
about it in so many ways, you know what I mean.
And I'm part of the problem. Like being on TV
doing a chat show, doing a panel politics things, I
just have days where I'm like, I don't know if
(37:13):
there's a good way to do this. I actually don't
know if baked into the structure of this is something
that is like kind of toxic. But I also know
that maybe it's a good thing that I'm here to
sit and have this conversation the way I would have
it versus the way someone would have had it fifteen
years ago.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You have a show CNN this morning you all should
be watching six am Eastern Standard time, and you have
something that I like, this idea and you've really been
able to connect with audiences with your panel or you
do this, let's see what the chat things right? And
when you talk about the group chat, do you feel
(38:06):
like that allows us to all share our thoughts? Oftentimes
I've noticed that people will go on these shows they
I mean, this will be anybody.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
They'll have I've done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all do.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We have our own thoughts. But when you when you
make it so so simple, as if I was in
a group chat with someone and they said they've wanted
to talk about I don't know, you know, the you know,
the shutdown or the big beautiful bill or whatever it
would be, I would say, I don't know, tell me
your thoughts. You've created that environment on your show, which
is the person sitting at home, which is the person
(38:39):
who wants to say, wait, what does that really mean?
You've created that type of environment. Was that your plan
going in when you were told that this would be
your show?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It was, But it's only that I've done it longer
I've realized it was not a good plan, because you know,
I think one of the difference between linear television and
social media and in podcasting is we're allowed to think
out loud right now. There's a possibility I'll be wrong,
there's a possibility you'll be wrong. But we're in a
good faith conversation that neither of us are trying to
(39:11):
tear each other apart in that process. We're actually trying
to build the story together. And TV is not like that.
It's it's in a way can be quite adversarial, even
in the most chummy of environments, and it does not
necessarily reward thinking out loud, especially politics. That's simply another
(39:32):
way for someone to score a point against you. And
so there's a kind of there can be not always,
but there can be a kind of uncharitable way of talking.
And I think what I tried to say to people
is like, look, it's the morning. We ain't fighting. It's
too early too what I mean, it's just too early
(39:53):
no one I know. Can I swear on this show?
Yes you can. It's like it's too early for that
ship with Audi Cornish.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yes exactly. By the way, that should be the title,
the shit that should be the title.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I have a couple, there's this again, there's one thing
after another, the like, but you have I don't know, Audi.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I think I I I want to and I'm necessary
of saying I'm disagreeing, but I used to.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Tell me you're on more shows than me, so you
know what it's like when you have to kind of
sit up straight and yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Too much tension, it's too much pressure. People are trying
to go viral.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, you want to talk to each other like. It's
a weird environment. It's a very weird environment.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
But you've created for me at least an environment where
it's okay to say, you know what, I really don't
know because I have heard over and over again walking
down the street. I'm sure you have people like I
want to ask a question I'm just curious about And
as we started this conversation, Uh, what I said your
superpower was, and what I really love about myself as
well as a journalist is that I'm just naturally curious.
(40:56):
I am curious, and so the why is never ridiculous
to me. I'm curious what do you mean by that?
Because I find that the more that you push and
you ask more questions, the person that is doesn't always
have the answer once you really dig deep, they too
are still learning it and understanding it and processing it.
So I think it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
And they want to be heard. Yeah, that is the
biggest thing I've learned about becoming a more public figure
because at NPR people just didn't recognize me the way
they can physically recognize me now. And I too will
say to someone I'm like, oh, say more, what do
you mean by that? Why are you asking that? And
inevitably you get to the reason why. That's their animating question,
(41:37):
and that is far more revealing than me answering the question,
you know, and so many people out here they just
want someone to hear them. And it's really profound. Is
it's almost at the heart of every story I do,
where the story is really my choice, right, not just
like hey, it's the government shut down, but like things
(41:59):
I do on my podcast, somewhere at the heart of
the story as someone who's like, I wish people understood X,
and it is like it's it is the most heartbreaking
thing for me in my work that people don't understand
is there, But like I know it's there, is like
wanting people just wishing that someone really understood them.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I will, I will, I will end with this because
I know you have to go and oh.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
My god, Carrie. No, I could just be on here
talking to you forever a week because I'm bad at
lightning once. But can I ask a question? Ever, since
we're getting to the end, why did you want to
do a show called Naked? And I asked this because
number one, you're beautiful and I do. No, I'm not
saying this in a mean spirited way. We're just doing
it objectively, Like was there did you play with the
(42:48):
ideas of like sex, sexuality, your image, but also where
you wanted to go in the conversation sort of like
what was the thinking there?
Speaker 1 (42:56):
You know, it's interesting that you say that I have
grown up. I think as all of my friends tell me,
I have a tomboy nature because I don't.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
I don't really access pretty privilege. I feel like people
will tell me. I had to figure this out in
my you know, mid twenties. I was like, oh, I
am because I you know, I didn't grow up. My
mother raised me to think you're so smart. You're so smart.
It wasn't ever about the the the looks or the
Esturian athlete, right, Yeah, Like your physicality has a difference.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
It's different. It didn't feel like sexual or it didn't
feel sexy or whatever you want to say. But I
think naked came about in twenty twenty when we were
in what I called that that that racial renaissance where
we were understanding everything that was going on in this country,
and I felt, for the very first time, just as
an adult, like, oh wow, people really care about what
(43:45):
is going on in the world and why people are marginalized,
and they want to talk about it and it's not
fair and they're listening, and so I have. I had
lived my life, especially in front of the camera, being
very careful about what I said and how I looked
and how I presented, and I just wanted to not
do that. I wanted to take.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
My earrings off, or my shoes off, or my bra off,
you know, last when you get really relaxed, right and
you want to just that was the visual of just
being relaxed and being very honest, just as I said,
what scares you? Like?
Speaker 1 (44:15):
That's that question? Saying it out loud is extremely vulnerable,
And that is when I realize vulnerability is a superpower.
Growing up as a black woman, you don't realize that
being vulnerable is powerful, and you're always taught to be strong,
and I just.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Get rewarded for the opposite.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, correct, correct, And that's what I've been trying to do,
and that's a lifelong struggle. I lean into vulnerability, but
then I sometimes you know, jump back, you know, if
in fact, I feel like I can't be rewarded for
being vulnerable, I go back to putting on a mask,
if you will, in certain environments. And my hope is
that I can always have someone come on and they
can be a little vulnerable. So I appreciate you for
(44:52):
doing that.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
For you saying I think you get there, I mean,
just as someone who's a listener, I often joke that
the intimacy that we're all driving for and that now
people commodify as podcasters, it's not an easy thing to achieve.
It's not actually just talking, you know what I mean.
Just talking is how's the weather? That ain't what we're doing,
(45:14):
you know what I mean. And I think that's why
a lot of celebrity podcasts work is it's a shortcut,
you know, And we're at the point where it's so
hard to get people to talk in a way that
feels kind of authentic and real that you have to
like apply them with hot sauce, you know what I mean,
or like bring them into a chicken shot, like you
have to do all of these things just to disarm
(45:35):
people from their media training, because being vulnerable is cringe
and a political punishment point. And you know, I think
I just want to say to people out there who
are listening. And I don't know if what other kind
of show I'd get to say this on, But like
if you did spend the Awokening or these last couple
of years opening your eyes to the world in a
(45:58):
different way, it's okay. You don't have to backpedal. You
don't have to back away from your own growth because
it's uncool. That's actually this is the real part, Like
the part where like Pelosi wears a dai shiki. That's
the easy.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
And no one just time out. No one asked for
that one.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I didn't ask for do eyeshadow shades. I didn't ask
for special colored band aids we had. There are some
pretty specific things we won't go into that we did
ask for, that we didn't ask for, we didn't need it.
One interesting thing that happened was like the even people
in my own life who came to me and said,
you know, I've really been thinking about how we grew
up or I've really been thinking about this or that,
(46:41):
and like, I'm starting to understand some things better. And
I wish we had talked about it in the past
and that was special, that was real, that was special.
Were there moments where it was cringey and weird? Sure
you don't do that, but like, guess what that lesson
got learned? You know what I mean? Like that's a
(47:03):
good thing. Don't back away from those things, correct, because
that's how you raise a generation of kids who are
seeing what we're doing now. You know, they're in their
text chains joking about Hitler, like get it together. You know,
there's no need to do all that. There's really no
need for that kind of backsliding out of fear. And
I realize there are so many people who do talk
(47:26):
about fearfulness right now, and it's a way different scale
from what all y'all comedians were saying about cancel culture.
This is different the kind of fear we're talking about.
And I just hope that like people who are the
kind of people who would listen to your show, in
my opinion, are the kind of people I want to say,
hold on to your heart, hold on to your cringe,
(47:48):
hold on to your earnestness, hold on to that part
of you that got opened up. You know what I mean?
Like we all we need that, We need it, and
we need that for what's ahead. Even if it feels
like a small thing listening to a show or whatever,
if it's doing the work of keeping you moving forward
and growing, keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Hey, everybody, I hope you enjoyed that interview. Before I
let you go, I think and I'm going to start
doing something and I don't know how consistently I can
do it, but at the end of each podcast, I
want to give a bit of a recap on what
I learned. I used to do this on my old podcast,
where it was like what did I learn? And then
I'm going to also, maybe I don't know how to
say this, maybe I'll tell you something about a cultural
what the kid say moment? What the kids say moment.
(48:30):
So what I learned is, first, Audie Cornish is really
truly a good person, and you want to see good
people win. And what I mean by that it sounds
very simple. It sounds like, okay, well, what does that
mean I'm a good person? No, it just means that
she really takes her craft seriously and she wants to
tell stories that educate and entertain and hopefully allow you
(48:53):
to feel as if you can be better, learn more,
share the story, whatever it may be. She really does
do that. And the story that I shared was when
I was doing a CNN panel with her. She was hosting,
she was filling in for Abby, and she was so
smart that she was making some of the guests intimidated
and they didn't like how quick witted she was or
(49:14):
how she made them feel, and they felt inferior. And
so during the commercial break, because stuff gets stank during
the commercial break, I'm telling you we need a show
called commercial Breaks, because behind the scenes, the bts, the
commercial break is when the should go down. And she
handled herself so well. She really truly did. So that's
what I learned today. How do you thank you so
(49:36):
much for coming on the show? Really do appreciate you
for taking the time out. Meanwhile, for folks at home
who want to hear more from Audi, you can. She
is the host of CNN podcast The Assignment and the
anchor of CNN This Morning, airing weekday six to seven
am Eastern and streaming in the CNN app. You can
visit CNN dot com Forward slash All Access for more.
(49:58):
Appreciate you all. Season five underway. We are doing well, y'all.
We are doing our well thing, and I appreciate y'all
for subscribing and listening. Even if you nice nasty go
in and leave a comment which a nice nasty ass.
Talk to y'all next week. Naked Sports written and executive
produced by me Carrie Champion, produced by Jacquise Thomas, sound
(50:20):
designed and mastered by Dwayne Crawford. Naked Sports is a
part of the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartMedia
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com