Life After News
What happens when the newsroom lights go out—and life begins again? Life After News explores the raw, funny, and deeply human stories of journalists who’ve walked away from the adrenaline of breaking news to reinvent themselves in surprising ways. Hosted by former TV news director Jason Ball, the podcast goes behind the headlines to talk with anchors, reporters, producers, and executives about identity, resilience, and what it takes to start over. From career pivots to personal awakenings, these conversations reveal how the skills learned under deadline pressure translate into entirely new chapters of life. It’s not just about leaving the news—it’s about discovering what comes after. Whether you’re in media, on the edge of a career change, or just fascinated by reinvention, Life After News is your invitation to listen in, learn, and maybe imagine your own next chapter.
Episodes
Last week was a tough one for journalism. The Washington Post laid off 300+ employees—about a third of its staff cutting deep, including foreign bureaus. 💔📰
So, this episode is about something we all need right now: two real-life “Life After News” success stories. ✨
Michaela Pereira returns with a big career update (and a big reminder that reinvention can happen at any age). Then we’re joined by her longtime friend Sumi ...
Hal Eisner spent 58 years in TV and radio news, then retired (without going cold turkey) and did what a lot of us talk about doing… he wrote the book. 📚
In this episode, Hal shares the incredible, often wild, sometimes heartbreaking moments that shaped his career and his Life After News including the day he went from covering the story to being the story.
✨ What you’ll hear in this episode
🚗 The Hollywood DUI crash tha...
Guest: Julie Makinen (journalist, editor, newsroom leader, and local news advocate)
Julie Makinen has done the rare thing in journalism: she’s worked at the highest levels of national and international newsrooms and chosen to bring that experience home to local journalism in the Coachella Valley. In this episode, Julie walks through her unexpected path from Stanford human biology major (med school was the plan… until i...
This week’s episode is a little different. Instead of a traditional “journalism pivot” story, Dorothy Lucey and I sit down with Marianne Williamson, presidential candidate, author, spiritual teacher, and longtime activist, to talk about what happens after the title, the role, and the identity fall away.
Her newest book, Midlife Awakening, reframes what we’ve long called a “midlife crisis” as something else entirely:
Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of the year. Jason Ball sits down with longtime TV journalist and beloved morning-show personality Lisa Breckenridge to talk about what happens when the newsroom chapter ends, but the storyteller isn’t finished. Lisa opens up about her unexpected exit from Fox, the identity shift that comes with leaving television, and the advice Maria Shriver gave her in a makeup room t...
In the final episode of the year, Jason Ball takes a moment to look back not just at 2025, but at a life shaped by big transitions, many of them coinciding with presidential election years. From high school to his first job in television to becoming a news director, to finally stepping away and building something new, this episode is about evolution, reinvention, and what comes after the headlines.
Jason reflects on la...
Life After News has some big updates, and this episode is a perfect example of why. You never really know where this road leads until you look up and realize someone took a local TV segment, turned it into a digital brand, and then turned that into a full-blown cookbook.
Lora McLaughlin Peterson is back, and she’s pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to get a cookbook from idea to your kitchen counter. Spoi...
If David Goldstein showed up at your door, you were having a bad day. For decades, the longtime Los Angeles investigative reporter exposed corruption, waste, and abuse from LA city workers drinking and hitting strip clubs on the clock, to pet stores sedating puppies to make them easier to sell, to delivery drivers snacking on your food before it got to your door.
Now two years into retirement from KCBS/KCAL, David join...
Meteorologist Liberté Chan joins Jason for a raw, vulnerable, and very real conversation about knowing when to chase the dream and when to walk away from it.
From her early days as an intern at KTLA to anchoring in Palm Springs, to “manifesting” her way back on-air in Los Angeles, Liberté shares how sheer persistence (and a few strategically timed visits to the news director’s office) helped her land her dream job as a...
Join host Jason Ball and guest Randy Lovely, former newspaper executive and current President of the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation (CVJF), for a deep dive into the evolution of the news industry, the decline of newspapers' financial heyday, and the critical importance of supporting local journalism.
Today is Giving Tuesday! Support Local Journalism!
In this episode, Randy Lovely stresses that local journal...
He asked George W. Bush if he was smart enough to be president., confronted Dick Cheney about his lesbian daughter and gay rights mid-campaign, and gave Gavin Newsom both his best and worst interviews.
This week on Life After News, Jason sits down with legendary San Francisco political reporter Hank Plante for a wide-ranging, conversation about power, politics, the AIDS crisis, and why both of them chose a new chapter ...
In this episode of Life After News, Jason Ball sits down with his longtime friend Richard Ayoub, the CEO of Project Angel Food, as Richard celebrates his 10th anniversary leading the organization.
From the control rooms of KCAL 9 to the bustling kitchen that now prepares over 1.5 million medically tailored meals a year, Richard shares how his television producing skills, storytelling, deadlines, and people management, ...
Life After News: How to Become an Independent Video Journalist with Fernando Hurtado
Episode: Life After News
Guest: Fernando Hurtado (creator of In the Hyphen)
Host: Jason Ball
Episode summary
A step-by-step masterclass on going solo as a video journalist. Fernando Hurtado left a “dream job” at NBC/Telemundo to launch In the Hyphen, a YouTube channel covering U.S. Latino life with deeply researched, visually ...
🎧 Larry Welk: Veteran helicopter reporter, aviation entrepreneur, and grandson of television legend Lawrence Welk
🚁 Episode Summary
If you’ve ever watched a police pursuit in Los Angeles, chances are you’ve heard Larry Welk’s voice from above. Larry was in the helicopter for the very first televised police pursuit in L.A. history in 1992 and he’s been part of nearly every major aerial story since.
In this episode, Jaso...
This week, Jason Ball sits down with the legendary Tom Sietsema, who recently retired after nearly 26 years as The Washington Post’s food critic 🍽️. From dining in disguise to crafting over 1,200 restaurant reviews, Tom shares what it was like living a double life as one of America’s most respected (and most anonymous) culinary voices.
Now, he’s stepping into his life after news — trading deadlines for dinner parties ...
Guest: Lisa Guerrero (investigative journalist, author of Warrior)
Host: Jason Ball
Link: 👉 lisaguerrero.com
Episode vibe: Courage, accountability, and what it really takes to speak truth to power.
Content note: This episode includes discussion of pregnancy loss and workplace trauma.
What we cover
- Why Lisa chose to leave Inside Edition after 18 years and what that says about a crisis in establishment media ...
What happens when a millennial “big J” journalist who helped build TV news on the internet trades breaking news for neighborhood impact? In this episode, Olsen Ebright (KTLA/KNBC/CBS) joins Jason to unpack the birth of digital news, the social-media rollercoaster, sane push-alert strategy, and why hyper-local politics might be your most powerful lever for change.
👉 Listen & subscribe now to hear practical, no-nons...
This week, Jason sits down with Simone Boyce, former KTLA reporter, MTV News & Access Hollywood host, and the very first anchor of NBC News Signal (now NBC News Now). From those early experimental days of streaming news to hosting The Bright Side for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, Simone has lived many chapters of life in and after news. And now? She’s eyeing a future in political comedy. 🎭✨
Simone opens up a...
Christina McLarty Arquette walked away from on-air entertainment reporting to build a prolific producing career across documentaries and scripted features. In this episode, we dig into how she finished her first doc Survivor’s Guide to Prison, produced the cult-favorite You Cannot Kill David Arquette, brought film productions to Arkansas (including Jason's hometown), and why she and David Arquette are reimagining...
In this episode of Life After News, Jason Ball sits down with international journalist May Lee. May is a former CNN and ABC News correspondent, anchor, talk show host, professor, and now co-host of the hit podcast Shoes Off Inside.
✨ May shares her remarkable journey:
- From small-market local news to becoming CNN’s “disaster queen” covering global crises 🌍
- Breaking into Japanese media as one of the first Asian Ameri...
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