September 17, 2025 • 46 mins
We're back! After an 'extended hiatus' from the podcast, let's break down a bit of what's been going on behind-the-scenes over the last week or so. With so much going on - much of it being difficult to process - we explain how we tackle the challenge of delivering the news, both good and bad, while trying to keep to the mission of Good Morning BT.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
That was harder than I thought.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Remember remember how we said it was there going to
be a long one.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Today was a long one today, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (00:06):
Was it good?
Speaker 5 (00:07):
Though?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think so?
Speaker 5 (00:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (00:11):
COPD to the seventeen segment, an official podcast, A good
morning beat.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Just take it from the top, like.
Speaker 5 (00:19):
The episode of one all over again, except it's not
I are we going? You can be we roll. It
means we are. If you have to ask, you are.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Isn't that how you wanted it to work?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (00:35):
Okay, Hi, Hi, everybody, welcome back to the seventeenth segment.
It's been a minute we have. We took about a month,
a little over a month off from holiday, we did,
except not for our radio show, So we didn't go anywhere.
We uh, we just had a little update going on,
(00:56):
a little update going on here.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It was like we were buffering.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
A vacation from our basement, right their basement.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
This could be Jason's basement. This is officially Jason's basement.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
Well, then I'd have to become Jason for real. Bo
and Jason's Beth and Jason. You know what this is.
Here's the thing. I've been wanting to say this ever
since we started and after today, we will have done
this podcast nine times, nine nine times.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
Welcome to episode nine of the seventeenth segment. Everybody, like
we were just saying, we are officially back after a
lot of a lot of shows, a lot of you know,
like The Daily Show and.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
John Oliver's Show.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
A lot of shows take the month of August off,
they take their little break because it's not usually a
huge news time August traditionally, but that was that it
just has not been the case. It just our this
news cycle goes and goes and goes so incredibly quickly
that we've just had to we hang on for dear life,
(02:03):
uh you know, during during some of this, and just
go where the news cycle ends up taking us. This
has been the hardest, I would say, one of the
hardest weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
We've had as far as doing the show.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
We've had some heavy stories that we've told and that
we've had to break on our show. I know that
together we covered Uvaldi and that was really really tough.
We covered the shooting of the police officers that happened
here in Charlotte last year, which was really really tough.
I found out live on the on the air basically
that I knew one of the officers that was really tough.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, and Coleen was tough.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Last August sort of changed back to your point about
shows taken summer months off and us being away from
the podcast for a month, and that's not the tall
I mean, there have been things going on that that
we had to kind of work out. I mean we
were eight episodes in. We're still trying to figure out, honestly,
what this is, what you want to help us make
(03:07):
it be where it's going. And we said in the
beginning that that was we knew that was going to
be the case. So it's still evolving, but we're back
and I would say most of the time August summer,
it's kind of a.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's slowed us time, but it.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Last summer changed everything. Last summer when President Biden stepped
down and they had that, well roll back a little bit.
They had that debate and then President Trump had the
assassination attempt. President Biden got out of the race. Kamala Harris,
you know, jumped aboard and did that campaign and fast
(03:43):
motion days. I've been doing this show for thirteen years.
You've been in the news business for a long time.
I don't think I've ever seen a summer that turned
upside down, and so honestly, ever since last year, all
of what I used to think the times of year
that things happened that you could kind of kind of
(04:04):
plan around, for the most part, I think that's all
out the window. I don't care what your political stripes are.
I think the one thing that President Trump has done
that people on both sides can agree is he's changed
the landscape of what politics really are going forward, because
he's the first president who's really done campaign events while
(04:26):
he's in the White House. We've now in the last
couple of days, learned that he's gonna do a Republican
midterm national convention, and as we talked about on our show,
the Democrats would be stupid not to do the same thing.
It actually makes a lot of sense from a standpoint
of a time of year where things are traditionally not
really lower happening, and now you plug that in. So
(04:50):
I'm bringing all that up to say is I don't
know what the rules are anymore.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
I don't think there are rules, and I think that
that's been one of the most fascinating parts about doing
the kind of show that you and I do live
every single day. And when Bo and I were talking
about the seventeenth segment for today and coming back on
after such a heavy week, we talked about this and
I just sharing with you all what it is like
(05:19):
when you and we've said this over and over again
that we attempt to with our show give as much
good information to you as possible so that you can
begin to assess the news story and do with it
what you will and think about it the way that
(05:40):
you are going to end up thinking about it, and
not trying to to inject our own emotions or throw
flames or inflame a situation more than it already is.
And in the last ten days, we've had really tough stories.
(06:02):
And our week last week started as the national news
was picking up the Arena Zarutska story, which we had
covered already here locally. We had talked about it on
our show. Locally, the local news media had covered it,
but a reporter asked President Trump about it, and then
President Trump did an address about it from the Oval Office.
(06:23):
And then I think most importantly that video of the
surveillance footage came out of the incident from the train.
The surveillance footage from the train came out, and I,
like many other people, saw it and you saw it
too this way, just going through Twitter as we were
preparing for the show, the video just popped up, and
(06:44):
so I saw it without a warning that I was
going to see it, and I think a lot of
people ended up witnessing that video that way. And I
was emotional on the air because I had just seen
it and was kind of had a hard time asking
questions of our cybersecurity Teresa Payton, just talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But little did we know in that time.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
You know, we're covering that very difficult story that's very
local and very personal to so many people here in Charlotte,
and little did we know that twenty four hours later
on our social media feeds, another video of another tragic,
violent event would would come across our feeds, and also
in the same way people I saw it without knowing
(07:28):
that I was what I was about to see. So
many people had a similar experience. I heard from so
many of our listeners saying that that's how they found
out about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And we in.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
Thought that today, as we talk about this kind of
what it's like to be a human being experiencing news
headlines along with the rest of the country, but also
being given the responsibility to tell those headlines and try
to make sense of them by utilizing experts and utilizing
(08:04):
conversations and also getting a temperature check and having conversations
with our listeners, and all of that is so incredibly
complicated and so incredibly.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Emotional. Bo I mean, do you agree.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
With that that there's a level of you have to
put your own emotions aside, which is very difficult as
a human being. But you also have to be able
to filter out and try to figure out how to
filter out the sensational news from the factual news and
try to get the best answers possible to keep an
(08:44):
audience informed from the guests that you end up bringing in.
And we struggled even who are the best voices right
now to talk with us about this.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Well, And it's something that you learn how to do over.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Time, which is a weird thing to learn how to do.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Yeah, And I think both of us when we met
each other were we considered it ourselves pretty good at
being able to compartmentalize. I've always sort of had to,
I mean, given the things that we cover on a
daily basis. I mean, we can have a lot of
fun in the studio, you all know that, but we
also can be hit on a dime with something out
(09:21):
of nowhere that immediately takes you to a different place
and you know that it's not appropriate to laugh it
up anymore. And people depend on this radio station during
times of tragedy to not only tell you what's going on,
but because we have a medium where people call and
now people text, there have been many times over the years,
(09:44):
long before I ever was behind a microphone, but I
was in a production capacity where I saw our station
really just sort of become a sounding board in the
community when things happened and people call in. And it's
not always let me tell you my opinion, let me
bounce it off your opinion. Sometimes when you have a
station that's heard as far and wide as this one
is the fifty thousand, what sometimes are just a place
(10:06):
to vent, a place to make your feelings heard and
someone out there will hear it, maybe not even maybe
you're not even tent on the person who's hosting the
show necessarily responding to it, but just getting it out there.
And I know that because I've seen this station be
in that capacity for a long time. You've been with
me long enough. There are days when we know that
(10:26):
we're we're part of the healing process, and we heal.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
With along, yeah, along with our listeners.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
That and we do consider the people who are part
of our show and call us and text us. It
does feel very intimate. It does feel very much like
a family, and we're trying to help the people we
care about understand something and process and deal and heal
(10:57):
and and grieve and you know, all of those, all
of those things. One of the things this this past
week that was really important to me and I I
access this quote from Walt Whitman often and it was actually,
if you ever watched Ted Lasso, he used it in
one of they used it in one of the episodes.
(11:19):
But it's be curious, not judgmental. And the the tragic
nature of both of the stories that we spent the
majority of of of our week talking about ignited debates
within communities across the nation about very different things, everything
(11:40):
from mental health to you know, mass transportation, to homeless
the homeless crisis, to political temperatures and uh rhetoric and
all of these things are part of.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
These stories.
Speaker 6 (11:58):
And it's very difficult because you want because you know
that human lives are involved, and you know that people
are grieving and people are trying to make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Of it all. And in all of that, my goal
is to try to.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
Not be judgmental, but to be curious about how complicated
all of these conversations are and how complicated solutions are.
And I spent time last week off the air, having
off the record conversations with officials and thought leaders and
(12:38):
thoughtful people, trying to understand perspectives and to try to
make sense of different solutions and ideas. And I spent
time trying to do that so that I could better
ask questions and better present stories on the air in
(12:59):
a way that didn't feel judgmental to people who were
battling these storylines in their own ways. Because we all
have personal attachments to this city when it comes to
what happened with Arena Zarutska, we have personal attachments to
how we are thinking about the future of mass transportation
(13:21):
in this city. There are so many layers that make
these stories not just black and white, not just anger
and sadness.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
There are so.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Many levels, and my goal is always to try to
understand the complexity of where people are coming from on
their journey, because I mean, we're all on a journey
in this life, and when we come up against difficult, heartbreaking,
complicated stories, we can only meet them where we are
(13:56):
on that journey and with the level of understanding that
we have. And my goal is to always increase understanding,
not only for myself but hopefully for other people who
were trying to process it too.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
And I think it's also important to point out that
here in twenty twenty five, we're at a point in
human existence where everybody's got this camera and this phone
in their hand and can immediately immediately communicate with other
(14:31):
people and provide reactions. In some ways, that's really really good,
and in other ways, I mean, I think about the
two stories this week and the immediacy of so we
had to we sort of jumped to even political strife
so quickly, when when we're not even a month away
(14:53):
from when the stabbing happened, and the funeral for Charlie
Kirk hasn't even happened yet, and yet you're already seeing
the temperature of the discourse in some places. Now I
will say, to the degree that we can control it,
that's not what we've built a show for now. The
(15:14):
great thing about WBT is you got lots of different
people throughout the day, and each person does their show
their own way, and there's a lot of political debate
on our radio station. That's how it's designed. But when
you have a story like this, I do have to
pull back and say, it's amazing to me. And I
think part of it's because we have the ability to
(15:34):
do this now that people are already having conversations about things,
not about investigations. Don't get me wrong, the investigation is
of the utmost importance, but you know, some of the
finger pointing that goes on and some of the accusations
that go on that are part of kind of daily
political discourse. When you have stories that are so tragic
(15:55):
like this, it does give me pause when you're in
the of covering it, sort of saying to yourself, wow,
this is this is still happening in real time, like
the Morning from the Families are happening in real time,
and you haven't had some of the necessary proceedings yet.
And part of that is part of the discussion that
(16:18):
happens as a result of these types of tragedies now
happening so quickly is because, like I said a minute ago,
the technology exists that it can happen, and then you
think back to how it might have been processed twenty
thirty years ago. Some things took their course before other
things were allowed to be, you know, sort of fleshed
(16:39):
out now. You know, sometimes you're talking about things and
you have limited information, and we may be a week
down the road and may learn something that if we
had known at this time last week, the conversation might
have been completely different. Like I said, I'm not saying
that those I mean it's a freedom of speech and
(17:00):
technology makes it possible for us to do so many things.
But I just we're talking about how do we really
feel behind the scenes covering a week like last week,
where so much is just coming at you like out
of a fire hose, and you're trying to process it all.
And doing a show is one thing, but on a
personal level where you're also dispensing information, it's a challenge
(17:26):
sometimes the way we live in today's modern society, because
you know, there's no way you can't get emotional if
you're scrolling through your daily activities, and you happen across
the video the two different examples that you talked about,
because there's the stabbing on the Charlotte light rail and
they are multiple angles because people have phones, and you know,
(17:48):
as time goes on, it comes out that another person
had this particular video of the I mean, this was
an event at the university in Utah that obviously was
a pre planned a huge crowd. I think often about
how many young people were there, just starting out college
and this breaks out. So it's all happening in real
(18:09):
time now. And you know, I've raised kids in an
environment where, you know, cell phones were a thing when
our parents were raising us. They didn't have to worry
about that. And in many ways I sort of envy
the fact that they didn't have to worry about that
extra layer, because you know, you don't grow up and
all of a sudden know exactly how to navigate in
(18:31):
the social media world. It's still evolving as we're talking right.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Now, right and I mean for us, just as human beings,
we've of course are going to have a human reaction.
I can't unplug my empathy. It just doesn't It's just
who I am as a person.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Is I hurt. I hurt, I hurt for people, I
hurt with people I hurt.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
And in those moments especially, you know, like Bo was
saying when we were young, if our parents, if there's
something that didn't want us to see, you just turn
the TV off, you know, you turn the radio down
if there's something you didn't want us to hear.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
But even I couldn't.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
I didn't even get the choice to not see the
Charlie Kirk video, the or the Arena Zurutska video.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I didn't even get that.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
I didn't even get the choice because I was prepping
for our show and just saw it. And in the
same way that it broke so many people to see,
I had that same reaction.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Well, and whenever you're listening to this or watching it,
don't misunderstand. And I said this on the air too.
Neither one of us are saying that that video shouldn't
exist and be out there to be seen. What we're
talking about is really a commentary on how the information
gets from person to person. It's just where we are.
It's not gonna change. In fact, it's only going to
(20:01):
get I think it's only going to go more in
the direction that it's going now. But we sat down
and decided that we were going to get into some
of the behind the scenes about how we cover a
story or stories like have happened the last week. And
there's not a we didn't go to we didn't go
to school and take journalism classes, or you know, a
(20:25):
lot of broadcasting I know for both of us, when
you tell a young broadcaster, how do you make it
in this business? You know, sure, you can go to
school for certain things, but this is not a business
where you go to school and when you're done, it
places you in a position and boom, you're a news anchor.
You know, you have to pay your dues and climb
the ladder, and on your way up, you learn from
(20:46):
people the things that we're encountering about the way news
is disseminated now in twenty twenty five, we weren't taught
this along the way because it didn't exist. So a
lot of this is sort of you figure out how
you cover things as you navigate new I mean, or
do you agree with what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Well, and I think too.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
Part of what becomes the new story is also the reaction,
because the reaction became the reactions from different people became
very public because people do share their reactions in real time,
sometimes before they have a chance to fully intellectualize or
think about something. You know, often share reactions and sometimes
(21:26):
you see people regret it and delete it. But in
the worlds of social media, poster never truly deleted. People
have screen taken screenshots and that kind of thing. So
that's where I come back to what I was saying
about be curious not judgmental when it comes to having
to even process a new story, that the story itself
is a reaction, is to not make the mistake of
(21:50):
having a reaction to the reaction, and more try to
take a deep breath and get a scent of of
where communication is coming from and why and and and
then figure out how to to to tell that story.
(22:13):
And in all of that, I think the great thing
about that we are very lucky in this sense is that.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
We lean on each other.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
We're we we lean on each other's sensibilities, are both
of our levels of empathy, both of our We lean
on each other's knowledge of politics, of news coverage, the
things that we know that we have done in ways
that we have covered stories, and we rely on each
other's expertise to try to strike the right tone in
(22:47):
giving information to people as to not elicit more reaction,
you know, is to not make the temperature go up
more than it already is. You know, I think our
goal is always to to take the human perspective from
(23:09):
it and the best ways possible and not excusing bad
behavior by any stretch of the imagination, but to to.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I don't know, I don't know what the word is
that I'm looking for.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
You said something, you said the word tone. Tone is
a tough thing to navigate and again getting back to
and part of what we'd like to do with this
podcast is kind of take you behind the scenes and
give you an idea of you listen to the show,
and we pride ourselves in sort of being real on
the air, but what's going on up here when certain
(23:46):
things are happening on the air, because you always have
to kind of think five minutes ahead of where you
are now, then comes the moments where breaking news happens
in an instant and you have to make a decision
about something that's happened before five minuts are over. And
I have an example that happened on the show yesterday
that's sort of in the lighter direction to a degree
(24:08):
that sort of paints this picture for you. But tone
is a very important thing to us, because, as I
said a few minutes ago, we're built a little bit
differently than the rest of the shows on the station.
By design. Most of our colleagues will set out to
do a three hour show or whatever allotment they have,
and they'll talk about three or four big issues, dig
(24:31):
deep into them, and phone calls and discussions will come
out of that. We're doing a show that's designed for
you to come at wherever you are in your commute
or your daily routine during that four hours, and our
goal is, if all things are equal and it's not
an unusual day where just any number of things would
(24:52):
be going on, we're trying to give you all the
necessary information so that you can go out into the
world and have conversations about any of those things. And
maybe I'm not I always tell people were kind of
a mile wide and an inch deep, right. We don't
have time to go a mile deep, but we try
to go a mile wide and be this sort of
(25:14):
conveyor about that catches everything that might have happened, so
that when you get to work or you get to school,
you feel kind of heard news, weather, traffic, sports, and
in some days other directions from.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
That entertainment some days so that you feel so that
you feel joyful going in.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
I want you, and I know Beth wants you to
come away from our show with a sense of hope,
with a sense of it's not always going to be
joy some days it'll be more festive than others, but
you come away with a feeling of I'm ready to
go out there and sort of, as director Laura would say,
take on the day, well tackle the world.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
I think hope is probably the best. I mean because
even even when we try that this week, this past
week was so so difficult, and we were all so
searching for hope. And I think sometimes in the darkest
moments is when people look for hope the most because
they want to find a way through.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Well, that's why I said tone, because our struggle always
ends up being how do you know when to change
the tone? How do you know? Because as soon as
something like last week happens, a week where you have
two huge things that are so unique, one of them's local,
but equally, I mean, how many things are going to
happen in Charlotte that are as local as the light
(26:29):
rail tragedy, and yet President Trump is speaking about it
in the Oval Office within forty eight hours. So it
was a local story and a national story, maybe the
most juxtaposed of those two things I've ever seen. And
then two days later, if you told me there would
be something that would come along that would not eliminate
that story from being discussed, but it would sort of
(26:50):
compete with it for top story billing, the Charlie Kirk
assassination happens. And then you combine those two things and
think about that week. And so we start thinking, and
this is where I say on the other programs, things
that happened last week will be lingering discussion pieces for
weeks to come. On our show. They will be discussion
(27:11):
pieces as different parts of the news gathering pieces of
it come into play. For example, yesterday there's the arraignment
of the suspect in Utah, and there will be things
coming up in a few weeks. We found out today
that there's going to be a House judiciary hearing about
what happened in Charlotte with the light rail. That'll be
(27:34):
something we'll be discussing in the coming days. But we
know that as you get further away from this, we
sort of transition back into that show where we're giving
you a little bit of everything, and we try to
return to that tone where we like to live, where
we like to be, of being hopeful, of being able
to talk about lighter things and serious things. But there
are weeks that come along truth be told, like last week,
(27:56):
where it sort of turns the whole show template upside
down and we immediately know we have to be in
a certain place and we're going to be there sometimes, Beth,
as long as the listeners tell us to be there.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
And we had an example of that today and today
being Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
The sixth, seventeenth, sixteenth, I never know.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
The day, the seventeenth, the seventeenth day, and by the way,
you're listening and watching the seventeenth segment.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Seventeenth segment.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
But today we were talking about we had a couple
of lighter stories, and in those discussions, we got texts
from a lot of you saying, man, I needed this, Man,
I needed to smile today. Man, I'm so glad that
you guys are talking about something light right now. I
(28:47):
was feeling heavy. I need I needed to smile again
after last week, and those are the moments that we
know that, Okay, so you all are feeling kind of
the way that we were feeling. We wanted to take
a deep breath and smile for a minute too. And
the fact that that that you all wrote us and
said the same thing, then we know that we're kind
of in all of this, We're in it together, and
(29:10):
that we are understanding and feeling similarly, similarly similar Nmonini,
and so we we appreciate the fact that that you
all communicate that to us that when you it's kind
of I don't know if you all remember this, but
(29:31):
right after if you were alive when nine to eleven happened,
it was shortly after.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Oh and by the way, that anniversary was the anniversary.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Yeah, that anniversary of the twenty fourth anniversary of that
was last week as well. But Saturday Night Live, Rudy
Giuliani was on the stage and basically, and I'm paraphrasing, said,
you know, we need to laugh.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
It's okay to laugh.
Speaker 6 (29:55):
And we were having that discussion together with each other
the air.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Laughing because I'm thinking of can we be funny? And
he said, why start now?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well, I start now. And so it's that kind of
feeling that we get to a place where we realize
that part of the responsibility of communicating is giving permission
sometimes to feel something good even when things feel have
felt heavy, and when you know that other people are
(30:27):
experiencing really heavy emotions, that there is something about what
we do that can help people take baby steps toward
a different emotion.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
Well, I mean the segment we started and this is
just a brain child. We had a lot about a
month ago about the tell me something good, yeah, that
we do on Fridays that we've been doing to a
degree every week, some days more than some days more
than others, depending on what else you got going on.
But you find room for it. But this idea of
(30:59):
tell us some thing good that happened in your life
for something that you want to put out there over
the fifty thousand watts and here again, we didn't know
if Friday of last week was the right time to
do that again, given the week, and I'll be honest
with you, going into it, I thought this doesn't feel right.
And we had conversations about it and said, you know
what the listeners will will tell us. And now that
(31:21):
we have a text line, we can sort of float
that out there. And if Friday had come along last
week around seven fifty, which is when we normally do it,
and we were getting nothing, or we were getting, you know,
the tons of texts to say, don't do this, don't
do this, we wouldn't have done it. You know, we
we've invited you into this process, and so when you
(31:42):
sort of tell us what you're feeling, we trust that.
I mean, that's part of the collective sort of emotion
that we tap into. But like you said, we got
tons of texts. We even got a few that were
unsolicited before even asked.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
Yeah, we we got we were surprised. But we got emails,
not only text messages, but emails too from people saying,
please please tell me that you're going to do You're
telling me something good segment this Friday. I think we
need it more than ever.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
You know, we.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
Got requests for it, and like bo was saying, before
we even said that we were going to do it,
people instinctively started sending us their good news about you know,
one guy had had delivered his daughter's child in their
living room.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Because she didn't make it to the hospital in time.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
And people celebrating birthdays, and people who I think we're
probably struggling, like how do I celebrate my anniversary when
my heart feels so heavy, and kind of used us
to help help lift them into a place where they
could feel that it was okay for them to celebrate
their anniversary, you know, on a day where their hearts
were feeling heavy. And we were blown away by the
(32:53):
fact that our phone lines and our text lines just
exploded with people wanting to say something good out loud
about their lives because they needed to remember that good
is still there. And I think those are the hardest
things to find and to navigate when hearts are broken
(33:16):
and when newsline news headlines are heavy. Is we do
all still have to figure out ways to keep taking
a step forward, and sometimes that means reminding ourselves about
the good that exists in whatever small way we can
(33:37):
and whatever big ways that we can.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
And that's huge.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
It's a really important point that you make. And if
you're listening or watching and you did not hear that
part of our show last week, I don't mean to
suggest to you that we turned on a dime and
then everything is as it was. What I mean is
is that we decided, are we going to take a
moment during the show this week to tap into a
little bit of that part, to give people that moment,
(34:03):
Because of course there's much more to come out out
about these two stories, and we have since that segment
talked about those stories a good bit. But I do
think it gave us sort of the moment to know that, Okay,
you can sort of turn the ship a little bit
this way, and that's what we have to navigate. I mean, look,
(34:25):
I can tell you from personal experience. You know, you
know things in my personal life that some of which
have been talked about on the air. There's a part
of my heart that's shattered forever. But you have to
find you have to figure out how to live your
life to a degree where you can find positive things again.
(34:50):
And you know, unfortunately this is something that I can
talk about personally, but that's the same thing that you
have to do to a degree in a position like
this when you're doing a radio show. We have built
the show on a lot of pillars, and one of
those pillars is we're going to tell you the bad news,
(35:12):
but we're also going to give you reasons to be hopeful.
About what you have left in your day, whatever that
may be. So everybody is going down this road with
a different set of circumstances. And I don't have to
tell you that, I don't have to feel best that,
but I can tell you that with this podcast, we're
(35:32):
again trying to sort of let you into how we
make decisions. And so I said earlier, I had an example,
and this is sort of on the it's light, but
it's not light, but I'm gonna tell you it anyway
because it'll sort of illustrate what we sort of have
to make decisions about during a show. We were yesterday
just past eight o'clock having what I would most definitely
(35:56):
consider one of our happier upbeat, just messing around. We
were talking about our fantasy football league that we've.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Started, and we're.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Talking about best team, and we're talking about the scores,
and I'm thinking, okay, so look, the punchline of the
story to a degree, is I had the highest score
of the week last week.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
That's not the punchline. That's him bragging.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
But wait a minute, You'll see where I'm going. Yeah,
I was very happy about saying I scored this many
points because I've played fantasy football since two thousand and one.
I don't know how many leagues. I've never scored as
many points as I did this week in this league,
one hundred and forty eight. Okay, we're talking about our scores,
and I'm okay, we're working around to tell them what
(36:37):
both scores, and then we tell best scorer and Zochie
and he's in first place and all these things. And
then I'm about to come around to say, okay, this
is how much I beat your dad by. And then
I look up on the screen and Bernie points to
it and it says, Robert Redford has died.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, that's the second time you've now done this.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Bow It was Steve.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It was Steve who pointed at the screen.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
With Steve, he was Steve.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Look I pointed to a Nick and I said, that
was that was totally it. But I said, I said,
and as I said this, I'm thinking in the moment, Okay,
the whole point of this was the build tours. I'm
going to tell you what my fantasy football and now
Robert Redford has died. What am I gonna do? Go? Oh,
hang on more on this in a moment. Back to
my fantasy football. I can't do that, and and and
(37:22):
Robert Redford passing one of the most recognizable famous actors
of our time, icon and icon, and I in the
moment there basically know, Okay, that segment just ended. We
we've got to go to something else. And I'm telling
you this now in the context of it. But that's
kind of a micro example of sort of these decisions
we have to make about tone and what is appropriate
(37:44):
at a given time. And sometimes you have times to
plan for this stuff, and sometimes it happens in the moment.
And again I'm also not equating Robert Redford passing away
at advanced age to a tragedy that happened, you know,
either one of those exams, as we talked about in
Charlotte last week. Of course I'm not, but I'm saying
(38:04):
Robert Redford passing away is a complete tonal shift of
a story that we have to immediately acknowledge. But we're
in the middle of something sort of you know, having
fun with and there in the moment yesterday, I had
to say, you know what, I don't know if they're
ever going to hear what my fantasy football score was,
but it ain't now and we had to move on,
(38:25):
and we did, and there you go. It's just an
example of, you know, tonal decisions you have to make
when you do a show like ours. But I think
the listeners, I hope you appreciate us being transparent about
what we sort of have to navigate through. And granted,
it's not like being a surgeon or something. You know,
we're not rocket scientists here, but we're trying to produce
(38:48):
a product for you that you all have come to
show us that you like. And I don't know if
we get it right every day. I mean, it's four
hours every day, and there are days that I'll come
out of it and I'm like, I wish I had
that one to do over again, or I'm not so
sure that that was the best way that could have
been said. But the feeling that I have to hope
(39:09):
for after it's over is that we can look at
each other and our team in the room, Bernie and
that guy Steve, Yeah, move right along, that we feel
like we've been in the right neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Well, I think you know, and I think this is
kind of the way that we end this.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
I think the main thing that we want you to
know and I think that you're probably understanding from how
we're talking about how tough this is.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
We care a lot.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
We care about you a lot, and Bo.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Will tell you this about me. I care about the
world a lot.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
And it's one of the reasons that we've talked sometimes
about how our show these like rejoins that people will
hear of movie clips.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
He has the clip that says.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You know, do you want to be good or do
you want to change the world?
Speaker 6 (40:00):
And that is is there because BeO knows that my
heart aches over the state of the world often. And
the main thing that we try to do is make
sure that we let you know that we care and
(40:23):
we we handle the ways that we communicate because we care,
and we want you to to go out and and
and live your best life possible thinking about stories in
the best way possible, and and by best I mean,
you know, the most three dimensional way possible, because stories
(40:46):
are difficult and but but thinking about them in a
in a three dimensional way sometimes is helpful in processing.
And so the main thing we want you to know
is that that we care a whole lot about what
we do, and we care a whole lot about who
we do it for. And that's for our listeners and
for you out.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
There well, and if you don't mind me adding in,
I mean, you know, when you're talking about what we
do and how we do it, I think one of
the other things. And we had this conversation in the
studio last week, we had this conversation even today when
we were talking about, you know, are we going to
do seventeen segment and how are we going to do
the seventeen segment. One of the things that our listeners
(41:27):
told us that we that they needed and I think
that we all in the room needed and around the
around the building in general, was and we referred to
it in the room as an exhale moment that we've
you know, we've been going and going and everything is
very heavy and at a certain point you just kind
of need an exhale moment. And most of the time
(41:50):
for us, that tends to be you know, a good
chunk of the show on and off, but especially on
Fridays with the tell Me something Good is Those are
kind of those exhale moments where you get to just go,
you know, what, things aren't great? Things are are you know,
are maybe bad, but also they could be worse. But
there are still good things that we can look at
(42:11):
and go, but there's still this at least we have this,
and those are those those exhale moments. And I just
I feel like that's a good way of phrasing it,
simply because I think that's something that everybody can relate to,
is just those those moments where you kind of stop
and just and you do you have that kind of
(42:32):
you know reset, Yeah, you can just pull back and
go yeah, it's it's not you know, things aren't great,
but there are still those those bits that we can
pull from that are are those good moments. And it
is that that tell me something good. It's that that
Staple Friday segment.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Now that was so well said Bernie.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Are I mean, are we done with.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
That? There you go, there's Bear Thompson AT's finest.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Well.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Look, you mentioned the quote, Steve knows the quote. Some
of you may recognize that that quote are you going
to be good? Are you going to be good?
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Or are You're going to change the world?
Speaker 5 (43:16):
You're going to change the world. It's from the New Thunderbolts,
the New Avengers movie, and it's Julia Luis Dreyfus and
she says that, and it's are you going to be
good or are you going to change the world? And
then what if I want to do both? And I
think that's a good place to end, because we're not
going to change the world every day. I don't know
(43:37):
if we've ever changed the world. We are trying to
be that light that hits somebody each day. And even
with your song, we've had a couple of people over
the years call in and say I needed to hear
that today, sometimes seriously, sometimes not, but I'm hoping, hoping
over four hours we say something that's what somebody out
(43:58):
there needs to hear that day for whatever. So can
you be good? Can we be good? Try to be good?
We hope to be But the most important thing of
all is is try to be both every day. And
you don't always hit that mark, but I think that's
a good I think it's a good thing to strive for.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, you can only I don't know why I'm get emotional,
I'm getting ALTERI out every year. You can only change
the world by being the best possible version of yourself
in the space that you're given on this earth. You know,
the space that you're given, and then affecting the people
around you in the best ways that you know how,
(44:40):
so that they can then change their little space of
the world.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
And that is how you, in fact change the world,
is by being the best version of yourself that you
can be with the people around you. And it's what
we do with each other, and it's why I think
we're a really good team because we rely on each
other and rely on each other's hearts in tough moments,
(45:07):
but also because we we feel responsible to all of
you and we do believe that you can be good
and you can change the world in small ways every day.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
Yeah, while we're at it, let's try for both, right.
And it's been a heavy a few weeks. This has
been I think easily the heaviest of these podcasts that
we've done. But oh for sure, but necessary and as
we sort of evolve what this is we're bringing along
the way and I hope, I hope you appreciate that fact.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Go out and be curious.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Nine times nine times.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Listen to Good Morning Beat with Bo Thompson and Dead
Trouvelman Live eight six to ten on News Talk eleven
ten and ninety nine three. You bet we still stay
Stalls Destiny
That was harder than I thought.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Remember remember how we said it was there going to
be a long one.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Today was a long one today, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (00:06):
Was it good?
Speaker 5 (00:07):
Though?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think so?
Speaker 5 (00:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (00:11):
COPD to the seventeen segment, an official podcast, A good
morning beat.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Just take it from the top, like.
Speaker 5 (00:19):
The episode of one all over again, except it's not
I are we going? You can be we roll. It
means we are. If you have to ask, you are.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Isn't that how you wanted it to work?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (00:35):
Okay, Hi, Hi, everybody, welcome back to the seventeenth segment.
It's been a minute we have. We took about a month,
a little over a month off from holiday, we did,
except not for our radio show, So we didn't go anywhere.
We uh, we just had a little update going on,
(00:56):
a little update going on here.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It was like we were buffering.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
A vacation from our basement, right their basement.
Speaker 6 (01:03):
This could be Jason's basement. This is officially Jason's basement.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
Well, then I'd have to become Jason for real. Bo
and Jason's Beth and Jason. You know what this is.
Here's the thing. I've been wanting to say this ever
since we started and after today, we will have done
this podcast nine times, nine nine times.
Speaker 6 (01:24):
Welcome to episode nine of the seventeenth segment. Everybody, like
we were just saying, we are officially back after a
lot of a lot of shows, a lot of you know,
like The Daily Show and.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
John Oliver's Show.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
A lot of shows take the month of August off,
they take their little break because it's not usually a
huge news time August traditionally, but that was that it
just has not been the case. It just our this
news cycle goes and goes and goes so incredibly quickly
that we've just had to we hang on for dear life,
(02:03):
uh you know, during during some of this, and just
go where the news cycle ends up taking us. This
has been the hardest, I would say, one of the
hardest weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
We've had as far as doing the show.
Speaker 6 (02:19):
We've had some heavy stories that we've told and that
we've had to break on our show. I know that
together we covered Uvaldi and that was really really tough.
We covered the shooting of the police officers that happened
here in Charlotte last year, which was really really tough.
I found out live on the on the air basically
that I knew one of the officers that was really tough.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, and Coleen was tough.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Last August sort of changed back to your point about
shows taken summer months off and us being away from
the podcast for a month, and that's not the tall
I mean, there have been things going on that that
we had to kind of work out. I mean we
were eight episodes in. We're still trying to figure out, honestly,
what this is, what you want to help us make
(03:07):
it be where it's going. And we said in the
beginning that that was we knew that was going to
be the case. So it's still evolving, but we're back
and I would say most of the time August summer,
it's kind of a.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's slowed us time, but it.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Last summer changed everything. Last summer when President Biden stepped
down and they had that, well roll back a little bit.
They had that debate and then President Trump had the
assassination attempt. President Biden got out of the race. Kamala Harris,
you know, jumped aboard and did that campaign and fast
(03:43):
motion days. I've been doing this show for thirteen years.
You've been in the news business for a long time.
I don't think I've ever seen a summer that turned
upside down, and so honestly, ever since last year, all
of what I used to think the times of year
that things happened that you could kind of kind of
(04:04):
plan around, for the most part, I think that's all
out the window. I don't care what your political stripes are.
I think the one thing that President Trump has done
that people on both sides can agree is he's changed
the landscape of what politics really are going forward, because
he's the first president who's really done campaign events while
(04:26):
he's in the White House. We've now in the last
couple of days, learned that he's gonna do a Republican
midterm national convention, and as we talked about on our show,
the Democrats would be stupid not to do the same thing.
It actually makes a lot of sense from a standpoint
of a time of year where things are traditionally not
really lower happening, and now you plug that in. So
(04:50):
I'm bringing all that up to say is I don't
know what the rules are anymore.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
I don't think there are rules, and I think that
that's been one of the most fascinating parts about doing
the kind of show that you and I do live
every single day. And when Bo and I were talking
about the seventeenth segment for today and coming back on
after such a heavy week, we talked about this and
I just sharing with you all what it is like
(05:19):
when you and we've said this over and over again
that we attempt to with our show give as much
good information to you as possible so that you can
begin to assess the news story and do with it
what you will and think about it the way that
(05:40):
you are going to end up thinking about it, and
not trying to to inject our own emotions or throw
flames or inflame a situation more than it already is.
And in the last ten days, we've had really tough stories.
(06:02):
And our week last week started as the national news
was picking up the Arena Zarutska story, which we had
covered already here locally. We had talked about it on
our show. Locally, the local news media had covered it,
but a reporter asked President Trump about it, and then
President Trump did an address about it from the Oval Office.
(06:23):
And then I think most importantly that video of the
surveillance footage came out of the incident from the train.
The surveillance footage from the train came out, and I,
like many other people, saw it and you saw it
too this way, just going through Twitter as we were
preparing for the show, the video just popped up, and
(06:44):
so I saw it without a warning that I was
going to see it, and I think a lot of
people ended up witnessing that video that way. And I
was emotional on the air because I had just seen
it and was kind of had a hard time asking
questions of our cybersecurity Teresa Payton, just talking about it.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
But little did we know in that time.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
You know, we're covering that very difficult story that's very
local and very personal to so many people here in Charlotte,
and little did we know that twenty four hours later
on our social media feeds, another video of another tragic,
violent event would would come across our feeds, and also
in the same way people I saw it without knowing
(07:28):
that I was what I was about to see. So
many people had a similar experience. I heard from so
many of our listeners saying that that's how they found
out about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And we in.
Speaker 6 (07:42):
Thought that today, as we talk about this kind of
what it's like to be a human being experiencing news
headlines along with the rest of the country, but also
being given the responsibility to tell those headlines and try
to make sense of them by utilizing experts and utilizing
(08:04):
conversations and also getting a temperature check and having conversations
with our listeners, and all of that is so incredibly
complicated and so incredibly.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Emotional. Bo I mean, do you agree.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
With that that there's a level of you have to
put your own emotions aside, which is very difficult as
a human being. But you also have to be able
to filter out and try to figure out how to
filter out the sensational news from the factual news and
try to get the best answers possible to keep an
(08:44):
audience informed from the guests that you end up bringing in.
And we struggled even who are the best voices right
now to talk with us about this.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Well, And it's something that you learn how to do over.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Time, which is a weird thing to learn how to do.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Yeah, And I think both of us when we met
each other were we considered it ourselves pretty good at
being able to compartmentalize. I've always sort of had to,
I mean, given the things that we cover on a
daily basis. I mean, we can have a lot of
fun in the studio, you all know that, but we
also can be hit on a dime with something out
(09:21):
of nowhere that immediately takes you to a different place
and you know that it's not appropriate to laugh it
up anymore. And people depend on this radio station during
times of tragedy to not only tell you what's going on,
but because we have a medium where people call and
now people text, there have been many times over the years,
(09:44):
long before I ever was behind a microphone, but I
was in a production capacity where I saw our station
really just sort of become a sounding board in the
community when things happened and people call in. And it's
not always let me tell you my opinion, let me
bounce it off your opinion. Sometimes when you have a
station that's heard as far and wide as this one
is the fifty thousand, what sometimes are just a place
(10:06):
to vent, a place to make your feelings heard and
someone out there will hear it, maybe not even maybe
you're not even tent on the person who's hosting the
show necessarily responding to it, but just getting it out there.
And I know that because I've seen this station be
in that capacity for a long time. You've been with
me long enough. There are days when we know that
(10:26):
we're we're part of the healing process, and we heal.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
With along, yeah, along with our listeners.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
That and we do consider the people who are part
of our show and call us and text us. It
does feel very intimate. It does feel very much like
a family, and we're trying to help the people we
care about understand something and process and deal and heal
(10:57):
and and grieve and you know, all of those, all
of those things. One of the things this this past
week that was really important to me and I I
access this quote from Walt Whitman often and it was actually,
if you ever watched Ted Lasso, he used it in
one of they used it in one of the episodes.
(11:19):
But it's be curious, not judgmental. And the the tragic
nature of both of the stories that we spent the
majority of of of our week talking about ignited debates
within communities across the nation about very different things, everything
(11:40):
from mental health to you know, mass transportation, to homeless
the homeless crisis, to political temperatures and uh rhetoric and
all of these things are part of.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
These stories.
Speaker 6 (11:58):
And it's very difficult because you want because you know
that human lives are involved, and you know that people
are grieving and people are trying to make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Of it all. And in all of that, my goal
is to try to.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
Not be judgmental, but to be curious about how complicated
all of these conversations are and how complicated solutions are.
And I spent time last week off the air, having
off the record conversations with officials and thought leaders and
(12:38):
thoughtful people, trying to understand perspectives and to try to
make sense of different solutions and ideas. And I spent
time trying to do that so that I could better
ask questions and better present stories on the air in
(12:59):
a way that didn't feel judgmental to people who were
battling these storylines in their own ways. Because we all
have personal attachments to this city when it comes to
what happened with Arena Zarutska, we have personal attachments to
how we are thinking about the future of mass transportation
(13:21):
in this city. There are so many layers that make
these stories not just black and white, not just anger
and sadness.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
There are so.
Speaker 6 (13:31):
Many levels, and my goal is always to try to
understand the complexity of where people are coming from on
their journey, because I mean, we're all on a journey
in this life, and when we come up against difficult, heartbreaking,
complicated stories, we can only meet them where we are
(13:56):
on that journey and with the level of understanding that
we have. And my goal is to always increase understanding,
not only for myself but hopefully for other people who
were trying to process it too.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Does that make any sense?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
And I think it's also important to point out that
here in twenty twenty five, we're at a point in
human existence where everybody's got this camera and this phone
in their hand and can immediately immediately communicate with other
(14:31):
people and provide reactions. In some ways, that's really really good,
and in other ways, I mean, I think about the
two stories this week and the immediacy of so we
had to we sort of jumped to even political strife
so quickly, when when we're not even a month away
(14:53):
from when the stabbing happened, and the funeral for Charlie
Kirk hasn't even happened yet, and yet you're already seeing
the temperature of the discourse in some places. Now I
will say, to the degree that we can control it,
that's not what we've built a show for now. The
(15:14):
great thing about WBT is you got lots of different
people throughout the day, and each person does their show
their own way, and there's a lot of political debate
on our radio station. That's how it's designed. But when
you have a story like this, I do have to
pull back and say, it's amazing to me. And I
think part of it's because we have the ability to
(15:34):
do this now that people are already having conversations about things,
not about investigations. Don't get me wrong, the investigation is
of the utmost importance, but you know, some of the
finger pointing that goes on and some of the accusations
that go on that are part of kind of daily
political discourse. When you have stories that are so tragic
(15:55):
like this, it does give me pause when you're in
the of covering it, sort of saying to yourself, wow,
this is this is still happening in real time, like
the Morning from the Families are happening in real time,
and you haven't had some of the necessary proceedings yet.
And part of that is part of the discussion that
(16:18):
happens as a result of these types of tragedies now
happening so quickly is because, like I said a minute ago,
the technology exists that it can happen, and then you
think back to how it might have been processed twenty
thirty years ago. Some things took their course before other
things were allowed to be, you know, sort of fleshed
(16:39):
out now. You know, sometimes you're talking about things and
you have limited information, and we may be a week
down the road and may learn something that if we
had known at this time last week, the conversation might
have been completely different. Like I said, I'm not saying
that those I mean it's a freedom of speech and
(17:00):
technology makes it possible for us to do so many things.
But I just we're talking about how do we really
feel behind the scenes covering a week like last week,
where so much is just coming at you like out
of a fire hose, and you're trying to process it all.
And doing a show is one thing, but on a
personal level where you're also dispensing information, it's a challenge
(17:26):
sometimes the way we live in today's modern society, because
you know, there's no way you can't get emotional if
you're scrolling through your daily activities, and you happen across
the video the two different examples that you talked about,
because there's the stabbing on the Charlotte light rail and
they are multiple angles because people have phones, and you know,
(17:48):
as time goes on, it comes out that another person
had this particular video of the I mean, this was
an event at the university in Utah that obviously was
a pre planned a huge crowd. I think often about
how many young people were there, just starting out college
and this breaks out. So it's all happening in real
(18:09):
time now. And you know, I've raised kids in an
environment where, you know, cell phones were a thing when
our parents were raising us. They didn't have to worry
about that. And in many ways I sort of envy
the fact that they didn't have to worry about that
extra layer, because you know, you don't grow up and
all of a sudden know exactly how to navigate in
(18:31):
the social media world. It's still evolving as we're talking right.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
Now, right and I mean for us, just as human beings,
we've of course are going to have a human reaction.
I can't unplug my empathy. It just doesn't It's just
who I am as a person.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Is I hurt. I hurt, I hurt for people, I
hurt with people I hurt.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
And in those moments especially, you know, like Bo was
saying when we were young, if our parents, if there's
something that didn't want us to see, you just turn
the TV off, you know, you turn the radio down
if there's something you didn't want us to hear.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
But even I couldn't.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
I didn't even get the choice to not see the
Charlie Kirk video, the or the Arena Zurutska video.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I didn't even get that.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
I didn't even get the choice because I was prepping
for our show and just saw it. And in the
same way that it broke so many people to see,
I had that same reaction.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Well, and whenever you're listening to this or watching it,
don't misunderstand. And I said this on the air too.
Neither one of us are saying that that video shouldn't
exist and be out there to be seen. What we're
talking about is really a commentary on how the information
gets from person to person. It's just where we are.
It's not gonna change. In fact, it's only going to
(20:01):
get I think it's only going to go more in
the direction that it's going now. But we sat down
and decided that we were going to get into some
of the behind the scenes about how we cover a
story or stories like have happened the last week. And
there's not a we didn't go to we didn't go
to school and take journalism classes, or you know, a
(20:25):
lot of broadcasting I know for both of us, when
you tell a young broadcaster, how do you make it
in this business? You know, sure, you can go to
school for certain things, but this is not a business
where you go to school and when you're done, it
places you in a position and boom, you're a news anchor.
You know, you have to pay your dues and climb
the ladder, and on your way up, you learn from
(20:46):
people the things that we're encountering about the way news
is disseminated now in twenty twenty five, we weren't taught
this along the way because it didn't exist. So a
lot of this is sort of you figure out how
you cover things as you navigate new I mean, or
do you agree with what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (21:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Well, and I think too.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
Part of what becomes the new story is also the reaction,
because the reaction became the reactions from different people became
very public because people do share their reactions in real time,
sometimes before they have a chance to fully intellectualize or
think about something. You know, often share reactions and sometimes
(21:26):
you see people regret it and delete it. But in
the worlds of social media, poster never truly deleted. People
have screen taken screenshots and that kind of thing. So
that's where I come back to what I was saying
about be curious not judgmental when it comes to having
to even process a new story, that the story itself
is a reaction, is to not make the mistake of
(21:50):
having a reaction to the reaction, and more try to
take a deep breath and get a scent of of
where communication is coming from and why and and and
then figure out how to to to tell that story.
(22:13):
And in all of that, I think the great thing
about that we are very lucky in this sense is that.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
We lean on each other.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
We're we we lean on each other's sensibilities, are both
of our levels of empathy, both of our We lean
on each other's knowledge of politics, of news coverage, the
things that we know that we have done in ways
that we have covered stories, and we rely on each
other's expertise to try to strike the right tone in
(22:47):
giving information to people as to not elicit more reaction,
you know, is to not make the temperature go up
more than it already is. You know, I think our
goal is always to to take the human perspective from
(23:09):
it and the best ways possible and not excusing bad
behavior by any stretch of the imagination, but to to.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I don't know, I don't know what the word is
that I'm looking for.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
You said something, you said the word tone. Tone is
a tough thing to navigate and again getting back to
and part of what we'd like to do with this
podcast is kind of take you behind the scenes and
give you an idea of you listen to the show,
and we pride ourselves in sort of being real on
the air, but what's going on up here when certain
(23:46):
things are happening on the air, because you always have
to kind of think five minutes ahead of where you
are now, then comes the moments where breaking news happens
in an instant and you have to make a decision
about something that's happened before five minuts are over. And
I have an example that happened on the show yesterday
that's sort of in the lighter direction to a degree
(24:08):
that sort of paints this picture for you. But tone
is a very important thing to us, because, as I
said a few minutes ago, we're built a little bit
differently than the rest of the shows on the station.
By design. Most of our colleagues will set out to
do a three hour show or whatever allotment they have,
and they'll talk about three or four big issues, dig
(24:31):
deep into them, and phone calls and discussions will come
out of that. We're doing a show that's designed for
you to come at wherever you are in your commute
or your daily routine during that four hours, and our
goal is, if all things are equal and it's not
an unusual day where just any number of things would
(24:52):
be going on, we're trying to give you all the
necessary information so that you can go out into the
world and have conversations about any of those things. And
maybe I'm not I always tell people were kind of
a mile wide and an inch deep, right. We don't
have time to go a mile deep, but we try
to go a mile wide and be this sort of
(25:14):
conveyor about that catches everything that might have happened, so
that when you get to work or you get to school,
you feel kind of heard news, weather, traffic, sports, and
in some days other directions from.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
That entertainment some days so that you feel so that
you feel joyful going in.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
I want you, and I know Beth wants you to
come away from our show with a sense of hope,
with a sense of it's not always going to be
joy some days it'll be more festive than others, but
you come away with a feeling of I'm ready to
go out there and sort of, as director Laura would say,
take on the day, well tackle the world.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
I think hope is probably the best. I mean because
even even when we try that this week, this past
week was so so difficult, and we were all so
searching for hope. And I think sometimes in the darkest
moments is when people look for hope the most because
they want to find a way through.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Well, that's why I said tone, because our struggle always
ends up being how do you know when to change
the tone? How do you know? Because as soon as
something like last week happens, a week where you have
two huge things that are so unique, one of them's local,
but equally, I mean, how many things are going to
happen in Charlotte that are as local as the light
(26:29):
rail tragedy, and yet President Trump is speaking about it
in the Oval Office within forty eight hours. So it
was a local story and a national story, maybe the
most juxtaposed of those two things I've ever seen. And
then two days later, if you told me there would
be something that would come along that would not eliminate
that story from being discussed, but it would sort of
(26:50):
compete with it for top story billing, the Charlie Kirk
assassination happens. And then you combine those two things and
think about that week. And so we start thinking, and
this is where I say on the other programs, things
that happened last week will be lingering discussion pieces for
weeks to come. On our show. They will be discussion
(27:11):
pieces as different parts of the news gathering pieces of
it come into play. For example, yesterday there's the arraignment
of the suspect in Utah, and there will be things
coming up in a few weeks. We found out today
that there's going to be a House judiciary hearing about
what happened in Charlotte with the light rail. That'll be
(27:34):
something we'll be discussing in the coming days. But we
know that as you get further away from this, we
sort of transition back into that show where we're giving
you a little bit of everything, and we try to
return to that tone where we like to live, where
we like to be, of being hopeful, of being able
to talk about lighter things and serious things. But there
are weeks that come along truth be told, like last week,
(27:56):
where it sort of turns the whole show template upside
down and we immediately know we have to be in
a certain place and we're going to be there sometimes, Beth,
as long as the listeners tell us to be there.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
And we had an example of that today and today
being Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
The sixth, seventeenth, sixteenth, I never know.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
The day, the seventeenth, the seventeenth day, and by the way,
you're listening and watching the seventeenth segment.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Seventeenth segment.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
But today we were talking about we had a couple
of lighter stories, and in those discussions, we got texts
from a lot of you saying, man, I needed this, Man,
I needed to smile today. Man, I'm so glad that
you guys are talking about something light right now. I
(28:47):
was feeling heavy. I need I needed to smile again
after last week, and those are the moments that we
know that, Okay, so you all are feeling kind of
the way that we were feeling. We wanted to take
a deep breath and smile for a minute too. And
the fact that that that you all wrote us and
said the same thing, then we know that we're kind
of in all of this, We're in it together, and
(29:10):
that we are understanding and feeling similarly, similarly similar Nmonini,
and so we we appreciate the fact that that you
all communicate that to us that when you it's kind
of I don't know if you all remember this, but
(29:31):
right after if you were alive when nine to eleven happened,
it was shortly after.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Oh and by the way, that anniversary was the anniversary.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Yeah, that anniversary of the twenty fourth anniversary of that
was last week as well. But Saturday Night Live, Rudy
Giuliani was on the stage and basically, and I'm paraphrasing, said,
you know, we need to laugh.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
It's okay to laugh.
Speaker 6 (29:55):
And we were having that discussion together with each other
the air.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Laughing because I'm thinking of can we be funny? And
he said, why start now?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Well, I start now. And so it's that kind of
feeling that we get to a place where we realize
that part of the responsibility of communicating is giving permission
sometimes to feel something good even when things feel have
felt heavy, and when you know that other people are
(30:27):
experiencing really heavy emotions, that there is something about what
we do that can help people take baby steps toward
a different emotion.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
Well, I mean the segment we started and this is
just a brain child. We had a lot about a
month ago about the tell me something good, yeah, that
we do on Fridays that we've been doing to a
degree every week, some days more than some days more
than others, depending on what else you got going on.
But you find room for it. But this idea of
(30:59):
tell us some thing good that happened in your life
for something that you want to put out there over
the fifty thousand watts and here again, we didn't know
if Friday of last week was the right time to
do that again, given the week, and I'll be honest
with you, going into it, I thought this doesn't feel right.
And we had conversations about it and said, you know
what the listeners will will tell us. And now that
(31:21):
we have a text line, we can sort of float
that out there. And if Friday had come along last
week around seven fifty, which is when we normally do it,
and we were getting nothing, or we were getting, you know,
the tons of texts to say, don't do this, don't
do this, we wouldn't have done it. You know, we
we've invited you into this process, and so when you
(31:42):
sort of tell us what you're feeling, we trust that.
I mean, that's part of the collective sort of emotion
that we tap into. But like you said, we got
tons of texts. We even got a few that were
unsolicited before even asked.
Speaker 6 (31:56):
Yeah, we we got we were surprised. But we got emails,
not only text messages, but emails too from people saying,
please please tell me that you're going to do You're
telling me something good segment this Friday. I think we
need it more than ever.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
You know, we.
Speaker 6 (32:13):
Got requests for it, and like bo was saying, before
we even said that we were going to do it,
people instinctively started sending us their good news about you know,
one guy had had delivered his daughter's child in their
living room.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Because she didn't make it to the hospital in time.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
And people celebrating birthdays, and people who I think we're
probably struggling, like how do I celebrate my anniversary when
my heart feels so heavy, and kind of used us
to help help lift them into a place where they
could feel that it was okay for them to celebrate
their anniversary, you know, on a day where their hearts
were feeling heavy. And we were blown away by the
(32:53):
fact that our phone lines and our text lines just
exploded with people wanting to say something good out loud
about their lives because they needed to remember that good
is still there. And I think those are the hardest
things to find and to navigate when hearts are broken
(33:16):
and when newsline news headlines are heavy. Is we do
all still have to figure out ways to keep taking
a step forward, and sometimes that means reminding ourselves about
the good that exists in whatever small way we can
(33:37):
and whatever big ways that we can.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
And that's huge.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
It's a really important point that you make. And if
you're listening or watching and you did not hear that
part of our show last week, I don't mean to
suggest to you that we turned on a dime and
then everything is as it was. What I mean is
is that we decided, are we going to take a
moment during the show this week to tap into a
little bit of that part, to give people that moment,
(34:03):
Because of course there's much more to come out out
about these two stories, and we have since that segment
talked about those stories a good bit. But I do
think it gave us sort of the moment to know that, Okay,
you can sort of turn the ship a little bit
this way, and that's what we have to navigate. I mean, look,
(34:25):
I can tell you from personal experience. You know, you
know things in my personal life that some of which
have been talked about on the air. There's a part
of my heart that's shattered forever. But you have to
find you have to figure out how to live your
life to a degree where you can find positive things again.
(34:50):
And you know, unfortunately this is something that I can
talk about personally, but that's the same thing that you
have to do to a degree in a position like
this when you're doing a radio show. We have built
the show on a lot of pillars, and one of
those pillars is we're going to tell you the bad news,
(35:12):
but we're also going to give you reasons to be hopeful.
About what you have left in your day, whatever that
may be. So everybody is going down this road with
a different set of circumstances. And I don't have to
tell you that, I don't have to feel best that,
but I can tell you that with this podcast, we're
(35:32):
again trying to sort of let you into how we
make decisions. And so I said earlier, I had an example,
and this is sort of on the it's light, but
it's not light, but I'm gonna tell you it anyway
because it'll sort of illustrate what we sort of have
to make decisions about during a show. We were yesterday
just past eight o'clock having what I would most definitely
(35:56):
consider one of our happier upbeat, just messing around. We
were talking about our fantasy football league that we've.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Started, and we're.
Speaker 5 (36:05):
Talking about best team, and we're talking about the scores,
and I'm thinking, okay, so look, the punchline of the
story to a degree, is I had the highest score
of the week last week.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
That's not the punchline. That's him bragging.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
But wait a minute, You'll see where I'm going. Yeah,
I was very happy about saying I scored this many
points because I've played fantasy football since two thousand and one.
I don't know how many leagues. I've never scored as
many points as I did this week in this league,
one hundred and forty eight. Okay, we're talking about our scores,
and I'm okay, we're working around to tell them what
(36:37):
both scores, and then we tell best scorer and Zochie
and he's in first place and all these things. And
then I'm about to come around to say, okay, this
is how much I beat your dad by. And then
I look up on the screen and Bernie points to
it and it says, Robert Redford has died.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Okay, that's the second time you've now done this.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Bow It was Steve.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It was Steve who pointed at the screen.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
With Steve, he was Steve.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
Look I pointed to a Nick and I said, that
was that was totally it. But I said, I said,
and as I said this, I'm thinking in the moment, Okay,
the whole point of this was the build tours. I'm
going to tell you what my fantasy football and now
Robert Redford has died. What am I gonna do? Go? Oh,
hang on more on this in a moment. Back to
my fantasy football. I can't do that, and and and
(37:22):
Robert Redford passing one of the most recognizable famous actors
of our time, icon and icon, and I in the
moment there basically know, Okay, that segment just ended. We
we've got to go to something else. And I'm telling
you this now in the context of it. But that's
kind of a micro example of sort of these decisions
we have to make about tone and what is appropriate
(37:44):
at a given time. And sometimes you have times to
plan for this stuff, and sometimes it happens in the moment.
And again I'm also not equating Robert Redford passing away
at advanced age to a tragedy that happened, you know,
either one of those exams, as we talked about in
Charlotte last week. Of course I'm not, but I'm saying
(38:04):
Robert Redford passing away is a complete tonal shift of
a story that we have to immediately acknowledge. But we're
in the middle of something sort of you know, having
fun with and there in the moment yesterday, I had
to say, you know what, I don't know if they're
ever going to hear what my fantasy football score was,
but it ain't now and we had to move on,
(38:25):
and we did, and there you go. It's just an
example of, you know, tonal decisions you have to make
when you do a show like ours. But I think
the listeners, I hope you appreciate us being transparent about
what we sort of have to navigate through. And granted,
it's not like being a surgeon or something. You know,
we're not rocket scientists here, but we're trying to produce
(38:48):
a product for you that you all have come to
show us that you like. And I don't know if
we get it right every day. I mean, it's four
hours every day, and there are days that I'll come
out of it and I'm like, I wish I had
that one to do over again, or I'm not so
sure that that was the best way that could have
been said. But the feeling that I have to hope
(39:09):
for after it's over is that we can look at
each other and our team in the room, Bernie and
that guy Steve, Yeah, move right along, that we feel
like we've been in the right neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Well, I think you know, and I think this is
kind of the way that we end this.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
I think the main thing that we want you to
know and I think that you're probably understanding from how
we're talking about how tough this is.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
We care a lot.
Speaker 6 (39:38):
We care about you a lot, and Bo.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Will tell you this about me. I care about the
world a lot.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
And it's one of the reasons that we've talked sometimes
about how our show these like rejoins that people will
hear of movie clips.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
He has the clip that says.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You know, do you want to be good or do
you want to change the world?
Speaker 6 (40:00):
And that is is there because BeO knows that my
heart aches over the state of the world often. And
the main thing that we try to do is make
sure that we let you know that we care and
(40:23):
we we handle the ways that we communicate because we care,
and we want you to to go out and and
and live your best life possible thinking about stories in
the best way possible, and and by best I mean,
you know, the most three dimensional way possible, because stories
(40:46):
are difficult and but but thinking about them in a
in a three dimensional way sometimes is helpful in processing.
And so the main thing we want you to know
is that that we care a whole lot about what
we do, and we care a whole lot about who
we do it for. And that's for our listeners and
for you out.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
There well, and if you don't mind me adding in,
I mean, you know, when you're talking about what we
do and how we do it, I think one of
the other things. And we had this conversation in the
studio last week, we had this conversation even today when
we were talking about, you know, are we going to
do seventeen segment and how are we going to do
the seventeen segment. One of the things that our listeners
(41:27):
told us that we that they needed and I think
that we all in the room needed and around the
around the building in general, was and we referred to
it in the room as an exhale moment that we've
you know, we've been going and going and everything is
very heavy and at a certain point you just kind
of need an exhale moment. And most of the time
(41:50):
for us, that tends to be you know, a good
chunk of the show on and off, but especially on
Fridays with the tell Me something Good is Those are
kind of those exhale moments where you get to just go,
you know, what, things aren't great? Things are are you know,
are maybe bad, but also they could be worse. But
there are still good things that we can look at
(42:11):
and go, but there's still this at least we have this,
and those are those those exhale moments. And I just
I feel like that's a good way of phrasing it,
simply because I think that's something that everybody can relate to,
is just those those moments where you kind of stop
and just and you do you have that kind of
(42:32):
you know reset, Yeah, you can just pull back and
go yeah, it's it's not you know, things aren't great,
but there are still those those bits that we can
pull from that are are those good moments. And it
is that that tell me something good. It's that that
Staple Friday segment.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Now that was so well said Bernie.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Are I mean, are we done with.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
That? There you go, there's Bear Thompson AT's finest.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Well.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Look, you mentioned the quote, Steve knows the quote. Some
of you may recognize that that quote are you going
to be good? Are you going to be good?
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Or are You're going to change the world?
Speaker 5 (43:16):
You're going to change the world. It's from the New Thunderbolts,
the New Avengers movie, and it's Julia Luis Dreyfus and
she says that, and it's are you going to be
good or are you going to change the world? And
then what if I want to do both? And I
think that's a good place to end, because we're not
going to change the world every day. I don't know
(43:37):
if we've ever changed the world. We are trying to
be that light that hits somebody each day. And even
with your song, we've had a couple of people over
the years call in and say I needed to hear
that today, sometimes seriously, sometimes not, but I'm hoping, hoping
over four hours we say something that's what somebody out
(43:58):
there needs to hear that day for whatever. So can
you be good? Can we be good? Try to be good?
We hope to be But the most important thing of
all is is try to be both every day. And
you don't always hit that mark, but I think that's
a good I think it's a good thing to strive for.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, you can only I don't know why I'm get emotional,
I'm getting ALTERI out every year. You can only change
the world by being the best possible version of yourself
in the space that you're given on this earth. You know,
the space that you're given, and then affecting the people
around you in the best ways that you know how,
(44:40):
so that they can then change their little space of
the world.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
And that is how you, in fact change the world,
is by being the best version of yourself that you
can be with the people around you. And it's what
we do with each other, and it's why I think
we're a really good team because we rely on each
other and rely on each other's hearts in tough moments,
(45:07):
but also because we we feel responsible to all of
you and we do believe that you can be good
and you can change the world in small ways every day.
Speaker 5 (45:19):
Yeah, while we're at it, let's try for both, right.
And it's been a heavy a few weeks. This has
been I think easily the heaviest of these podcasts that
we've done. But oh for sure, but necessary and as
we sort of evolve what this is we're bringing along
the way and I hope, I hope you appreciate that fact.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Go out and be curious.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Nine times nine times.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Listen to Good Morning Beat with Bo Thompson and Dead
Trouvelman Live eight six to ten on News Talk eleven
ten and ninety nine three. You bet we still stay
Stalls Destiny
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