From the Middle East to the Capitol: Courtney Kealy on Journalism’s Frontlines (Part 2)

Transcript

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Hello and thank you for joining no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of interesting and accomplished people in pursuit of great stories and actionable insights.

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I'm Larry Samuels, soon to be joined by my co-hosts, Tushar Saxena and Larry Shea, but before we kick off, I have a very important request to make.

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Your support enables us to bring these great stories to light.

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Now let's get started.

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This episode is part two of our conversation with the foreign correspondent, journalist and media strategist, courtney Keeley.

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We'll pick things up with Tushar, asking Courtney about the role of foreign correspondents within the current media landscape.

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Like all foreign, like all foreign news, it kind of fights for a space in the American, in the US news landscape.

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What do you see as the fundamental role now, currently, of the foreign journalist and do you think foreign journalism in general is still as um?

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Obviously it's necessary, but is it?

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Is it as important um, or is it seen as important in the us landscape as it once was?

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well, a lot of the reason I was living overseas was that, even though foreign correspondent was seen as valuable, it wasn't seen as something you could do your make your career on it.

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There were only a couple of seats at a couple of spots and even then they weren't going nearly as in depth as I was.

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So living overseas and like really inhaling the dirt and rolling around in it, I kind of feel like you have to do.

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There's now a trend like you don't understand the story unless you're Jewish or Muslim, unless your family is from these places, and more than I, you know, I'm all about that perspective too, because I think people are way too sidelined and it was way you know, and now we need to open it up for all the nuances that that brings as well.

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I was trying to do it through my reporting, but every person is limited.

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So I think we've made great strides in inclusivity and people being able to tell their story from where they are, not parachuting somebody in.

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But I think there's real value to people that have developed a certain amount of skills that help them navigate literally navigate, navigate the maps, navigate the towns, navigate the people in a way where maybe you can go home and not be scared that your family is going to get killed and also not do that to the fixer, the people you're interviewing.

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You always have to be very, very careful with that.

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So I loved, I liked.

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I don't like the mothership, I don't like the, I like certain bosses that are like all bosses.

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You know, if you give me a job to do and I just can do the job, that's great for me.

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If I can have some sense of community so I'm not lonely inside, that would be great.

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Some sense of a private life, because we all need that.

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It won't go insane great.

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It's like again, like really the basics of like what an office community or what a small town community would be.

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Or where do you find your public and your private, where do you find your recreation?

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You know, and so, and then a lot of it was also not wanting to be a casualty, but also learning as we developed what the pitfalls were.

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And you know I started a career that was all about hazing If you're tough enough, let's go to.

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It's sort of like going to not hazing in some horrific way, but like are you tough enough, Can you do this.

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But there can be a problem.

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If you become manufactured on air talent in America, you might not have become a journalist first.

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Right.

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And I like the people to become journalists first and then figure out their voice and what they want to say on TV or in radio.

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You certainly did that.

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Meaning cutting, meaning cutting your chops as a journalist first.

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How long would you stay overseas?

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Uh I feel like you have to be on edge to a point like where you need breaks and you need to decompress a little bit.

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How long would you stay in country at?

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any given structure.

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Say, three months in bay route, you need to get out.

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Um often I would get on an assignment like to go home.

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Like you know, it was lean and mean for several years, so it would be like once a year I get to the States.

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A month, two weeks, one, like you know, and I had all these little.

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I mean I was like the king, the queen of the hustle.

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Before the hustle, or the continuation of the hustle, I photographed weddings when I was in babysat to get through graduate school.

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So when a friend would get married I'd photograph their wedding, book them a ticket or I'd just go to photograph their wedding, I don't know.

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So I still photograph my friends' weddings in the middle of homecoming parties.

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So you can work that in when you're overseas.

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Um, is there a social life like what?

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What type of life are you creating for yourself, if, if, if, any uh other than the?

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job when you're overseas it is really, really fun, because you feel totally righteous about working hard and putting hard and you feel like the first time in your life, like maybe you didn't want to hang out the frat parties when you were young because they just seemed kind of dumb and they were like yeah, we're all so crazy, we're in college, well try being crazy after you survive the suicide.

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With a lot of people like you.

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You feel tougher, you don't need to swallow goldfish just for the point.

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You're like damn, that was crazy you know.

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So how many years did you spend um in in country so to speak um bay route.

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I stayed.

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I I've lived in for five years using that as a base and that was up and coming.

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Remember that was when they were rebuilding, that was when nightclubs were reopening, bars and restaurants, beach clubs.

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So you literally had a war and you could scuba dive and you could go back to a private beach club and watch all the women in bikinis and high heels peed around a funky town wearing so it's.

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I mean, you know quite there was a lot of money coming in.

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This was before 2006,.

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Before the Israeli-Lebanon war, tourism was starting.

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It was all rebirthing.

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You know it was very much Phoenix from the ashes, but it was all rebirthing.

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You know it was very much Phoenix from the ashes, but it was more than that, because the Baywoodies have always figured out how, in times of the war to be, they're incredibly intoxicating, seductive people.

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They're just like let's dance on the table.

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Tomorrow we might not live, you know.

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So you dance on that table when was it?

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or what I mean mean?

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Look, obviously your time overseas sounds so super exciting for many folks here, and obviously now you're back here in the States.

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So what was it that was?

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If you want to talk about it, what was it that, finally, was the driver to bring you back home?

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The worst experience of my lifetime, something that I've been trying to get over ever since and I think it's taken.

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It's like a whole other lesson in grief and tragedy.

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My brother died of a massive heart attack while I was on a plane flying back to Jerusalem after I'd been home on my own.

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His wife had terminal cancer.

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She my nephews were 12 and eight.

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She had suffered and battled cancer for nearly 12 years.

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It was 2011.

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I was on the A game which got fair square in the desert of Libya.

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I was home watching the rebels take over Tripoli Gaddafi on the run.

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I figured that was where I was gonna push my editors to send me next really hard.

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I wanted to be on the way to Tripoli Gaddafi on the run.

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I figured that was where I was going to push my editors to send me next Really hard.

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I wanted to be on the way to Tripoli.

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I ended up in the suburbs my brother, my deceased brother's house, laden with food and cups of joe and coffee, because my person in the world, my favorite person, my best friend, my everything, had died in the worst kind of way in front of his children.

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He was dying.

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And that obviously you know you did the you did.

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The greatest thing ever is that.

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You know, I know that after your brother passed, it wasn't that far, it wasn't that far.

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After that, your sister-in-law then passed as well and you did the most heroic thing ever, which was then take care of their kids.

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I mean, I've read an article where you said you don't consider yourself their mom, obviously because they had a great mom.

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They have, but their mom is still not with us.

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Yes, right, have a great mom.

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Exactly, you went to present.

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Correctly, they have a great mom.

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Exactly you went to present correct.

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They have a great mom and dad and they got.

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You know, they lost the most, more than anybody else.

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I just walked into the house and I looked at my younger nephew, declan, who's eight, and he said how long are you staying this time?

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And I said I'm not leaving, I'm not going, I'm not going, I'm not leaving, I'm not going, I'm not doing a plane, I'm not leaving.

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And then you know it sucks.

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They're like okay, so when are you going back?

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I said I'm not and I was like, once again, the weight wet and I was like I'm not getting on a plane.

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My brother died of a heart attack while I was on a plane, nobody in my family is going to be okay with me on a plane and they're like, well, how did you get your stuff?

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And I was like my friends, will somebody's taking my dog and they'll send it back.

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But my stuff will get sent back.

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They're like well, what about your job?

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I was like I'm sorry, but you guys are going to have to figure that one out.

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There was nothing to find in my town.

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It was just like.

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This is just reality, right?

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now Reality is just like yeah, it's like a boom just fell on my head.

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This is where we're at.

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We're not changing at all and my sister-in-law is terminal and there's no will, there's no life insurance.

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Everything happened in the way you look for it.

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The way you look for somebody to interview ticks all the boxes.

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I became the type of person that would tick all the boxes in terms of an American tragedy.

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So I was covering tragedy, I was in the funerals, I was covering funerals, I was covering the disasters, I was covering wars, and then I had a total fucking disaster in my hands and I was in the church.

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I was covering wars and then I had a total fucking disaster in my hands and I was in the church.

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I was in the wait, I was in the funeral, I was holding my nephew back, I was tending to Harrison, I was watching my sister-in-law who was not well, and I was like and it's really interesting because the first really overwhelming feelings for the first couple of years were total humiliation of being at needy.

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It was like all the things in America that people didn't talk about, yet health care.

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The recession that's more of a depression took them out from this well-to-do suburb.

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She was the top real estate broker.

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The recession hit the veteran communities of New York City hardest.

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She lost her real estate business all that income coming in.

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My brother switched to real estate to get back out of it, to healthcare.

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The treatments and everything were piling up.

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The house went underwater with this intercession.

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Everything happened to them.

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That was not their fault and I was like you know, I'm not going to sit around and like wonder why this happened to me.

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I'm just going to try to get us out of this mess and I know my brother and I know him.

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Like we didn't have to talk.

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People used to call us the silent twins, because sometimes you would just get really quiet.

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And now there are times you'd be like super rowdy but I just I didn't, like nobody was going to.

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And this is like you know, keep it out.

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But nobody was going to get in.

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The fucking way, get the fuck out of here.

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Either with me.

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You're getting the fuck out of here either with me, or getting the fuck out of my life.

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And there are kids at stake and I don't give a shit what adults problems are having.

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I mean, I cared about my mom, I cared about my family, I cared about my sister-in-law and her friends, but it was protect those kids.

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Protect those kids as much as you possibly can from any more harm that is already following you.

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So now that you are back domestically reporting, how do you see the problems in the United States as compared to what you saw overseas?

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Is there a comparison at all?

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We are much more naive in terms of recognizing what our real problems are and sometimes, when your problems are in front of you, it's easy to be distracted by the school Squirrel squirrel.

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We are so distracted by so many things in our lives that don't affect change or be good for the greater good, the greater community and people, and I think we've come to a tipping point where we realize it's like left our country and our communities in tatters and we're just learning how to try to tiptoe around it and regain our levels of communication and even just speaking to people unlike having a coffee and not talking about who you work for.

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Right.

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Soft-stepping, to make sure that you're not in any way offending them.

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I mean, I'm in New York so it's very, very hard to talk about the Helmholtz massacre or anything that's ensued since then.

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That's a new one, and I hear Russian and it's like, oh, I have to be engaged in Ukraine.

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You don't want to put Russians on the spot who are in the States.

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You don't want to put Ukrainians on the spot who are watching a war continue.

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You don't want to put Arabs on the spot who are under attack.

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You don't want to put Arabs on the spot for being under attack.

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You don't want to put Israelis or Jewish people who feel under attack too.

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You don't feel like enough attention has been paid to the fact that that was the worst, the worst massacre or the worst thing that's happened to them collectively as a people since the Holocaust.

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That's a fact and so it can stop.

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Just like everything, like you said arrows and bows and guns and everything coming at you and I each, you know it's like I covered the Middle East.

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It's coming back again.

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So my experience of like informing me and knowing Hamas, knowing Hezbollah, knowing the region, knowing Netanyahu, many of the players, I know what they've evolved into, I don't like anything, you know, but I also cover politics.

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I always say like, um, um, I have a, I have a.

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I have a high disregard for all politicians, like when you, if you're a journalist, you're not just invited to the dinner party, you're supposed to be the one not invited totally right, you're not doing your job unless you're a little bit hated, yeah you have to be hated.

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Totally.

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Now we're kind of reviled, but if you're walking around in washington rubbing elbows, you're not doing your damn job, you know.

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And so there were choices to be made like, um, you know, jerusalem and washington are places to have families until they weren't, you know.

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And um, and yeah, so I wrote my family wave right into all of a sudden, going from Fox to Al Jazeera, america opened in-depth journalism, the way I wanted it with, with an expertise in the Middle East and geopolitics.

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Sign me up and that.

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And that experiment was a great experiment with talented people.

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And then it was over and we flooded the market to look for jobs, you know, and then TRT, which is out of Istanbul, came calling in their English language out of Istanbul, you know, and I'm like am I going to be influenced by Erdogan?

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How am I going to live there?

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It was a big question mark and put food on the table and went back and forth and did some really incredible stories back into my old stomping grounds and then I realized that, um, I need to back my states for my nephews they're what you know, they're college and boarding school.

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At that point I couldn't cross commute for, you know, more than 17 months from istanbul, and so, um, I got myself to washington on premise of I know what crazy is.

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I've been at Saddam Hussein's death sentencing.

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I've been at Saddam Hussein's death sentencing.

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I've been at Yafis' or our festival.

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I've been to Tahrir when they want the war gone.

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I've been in the deserts of Libya with Gaddafi on the run.

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What do these all have in?

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common that every despot and dictator do fail eventually.

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Maybe not under the watch, right?

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Hafez al-Assad died a minute, so why wouldn't Trump go down?

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So, instead of coming in with I know Washington and other people and we all worked on the Hill together when I was a young, this or that no, I was like I know what chaos is and I know what crazy is and I know what this town doesn't know.

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It's fucking crazy and things are mad.

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They're going to get worse.

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So when my pitch to those editors was why should I be in Washington?

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Why should you transfer me back to an american contract?

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It's like you know, individual number one has now been named in the current with coming.

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Um, the midterms, with the year of the woman, just came through.

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You know, this was before where we raved me through um, the muller report's gonna come out.

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I need to.

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There, it's all going down and it's going to go down, and it's going to go down in waves.

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You never expected, Because if you try to predict what's going to happen, thinking of the Middle East, thinking of the Trump administration, you haven't been properly reached.

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So let's go into the unknown together.

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Now the unfortunate thing is that you've seen it all happen before and you know what's coming down the pipe.

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So what?

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I didn't pitch for.

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I didn't pitch it COVID, I didn't pitch Black Lives Matter Plaza and I didn't pitch an insurrection, but I pitched for UZ.

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I mentioned it at the top of the show that you were in the Capitol and you were on the ground on January 6th.

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Who were you working for and can you tell us about that experience?

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So after Al Jazeera America closed.

00:18:54.448 --> 00:19:01.161
Trt came calling and I didn't think I'd ever go back overseas, because I have my nephews and I told them I won't go anywhere.

00:19:01.701 --> 00:19:13.592
And six years from the day I walked in, nearly six full years from the day I walked into my brother's house after he just died, my nephew saying when are you leaving?

00:19:13.592 --> 00:19:23.769
Six years after that, the night before Harrison's high school graduation Declan was on a boarding school schedule at the time and I get a call from TRT World to assemble.

00:19:23.769 --> 00:19:25.365
Do you want to come here and work for us?

00:19:25.365 --> 00:19:26.188
Work for a show?

00:19:26.759 --> 00:19:28.807
And you'll do in-depth five-minute pieces.

00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:39.160
And so by the time, let's get back the most important point by the time we got to january, I was thoroughly spooked by what had happened.

00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:50.119
And I was so spooked that I told a friend of mine whose ex-husband is in government and it was in the government get your kids off social media, do not let them say anywhere they are like anywhere.

00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:54.775
And and I asked her after the insurrection, did you think I was going a little crazy?

00:19:54.775 --> 00:20:05.222
And she said, yeah, I was like, I was trained by special forces, you know, british Paris in Baghdad, and I absorbed, you know, absorbed.

00:20:05.222 --> 00:20:14.874
It wasn't a lot of people resented having bodyguards and having to cover this military, but that became almost of mine, especially working for Fox and American Network.

00:20:14.874 --> 00:20:23.721
Um, it wasn't necessarily about black ops or or injustices or you know, it became more of like troop movements and what does the?

00:20:23.721 --> 00:20:24.784
Will the surge work?

00:20:24.784 --> 00:20:26.406
And who is General Petraeus?

00:20:26.406 --> 00:20:28.791
And what is this coin, you know?

00:20:28.791 --> 00:20:30.145
And they brought it to Afghanistan, you know it's.

00:20:30.145 --> 00:20:31.599
Maybe it to afghanistan, you know it was.

00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:36.150
Maybe it was too little, too late, maybe it was just not enough to affect enough change.

00:20:36.990 --> 00:20:43.692
Um, but here I am, back in dc and saying I'll pick up my press passes to the spirit chief that I had.

00:20:43.692 --> 00:20:45.162
That was like just what do you want?

00:20:45.162 --> 00:20:51.554
I was like, um, let me cut, let me, yeah, let me be in the restful building the day that he's going to talk.

00:20:51.554 --> 00:21:19.916
Um, this january, this january 6th, um, so I am and this is this is also like from all the experience of being alone and figuring stuff out with hussein or the special forces like I'm thoroughly absorbing, you know, the hostile environment of driving down where there are T-walls and there are fences and they redirect to traffic and everything's locked down.

00:21:19.916 --> 00:21:34.241
So you know, there's a visual element that's completely comparable to the green zone of Baghdad, comparable to the green zone of Baghdad.

00:21:34.261 --> 00:21:35.685
But then there's this total, um disconnect with reality.

00:21:35.685 --> 00:21:40.461
Because I walk up to a capital policeman that day and say that Monday and I'm like, hey, what is your plan for?

00:21:40.461 --> 00:21:42.522
Um, when Trump gives a speech?

00:21:42.522 --> 00:21:45.445
I'm trying to decide if I should be inside or outside.

00:21:45.445 --> 00:21:47.107
Just be fine out here.

00:21:47.107 --> 00:21:53.594
I'm like, okay, but no, you know um.

00:21:53.594 --> 00:21:55.276
And then juan, I say you know I?

00:21:55.276 --> 00:21:57.824
I say I want, I want juan as the cameraman.

00:21:57.824 --> 00:22:01.511
He knows I walked all over the summer, all over the.

00:22:01.771 --> 00:22:10.061
I got on the subway underneath I walked through empty, empty, empty, covid, closed off um tunnels, all through the buildings.

00:22:10.061 --> 00:22:12.390
He knew his way around the tunnel, all the tunnels.

00:22:14.564 --> 00:22:20.369
And so I was like I need Juan, who's covered the White House and government for 20 years.

00:22:20.369 --> 00:22:22.989
He knows all the ways around because he knows the tunnels.

00:22:22.989 --> 00:22:24.906
So I have a cameraman who knows the tunnels.

00:22:24.906 --> 00:22:26.747
I've decided to stay inside.

00:22:26.747 --> 00:22:28.306
He's found us the spot.

00:22:28.306 --> 00:22:29.806
I've checked the Capitol Police.

00:22:29.806 --> 00:22:31.026
He's like it's going to be fine.

00:22:31.026 --> 00:22:32.948
I'm like I don't know.

00:22:32.948 --> 00:22:35.125
You know it's going to be a long day.

00:22:35.125 --> 00:22:38.130
We're going to need our, we're going to need our electricity.

00:22:38.130 --> 00:22:48.023
I'm going to need to be in this spot and and then I I'm driving up in an Uber early, so we get it the night before we.

00:22:48.023 --> 00:22:50.065
We know the other.

00:22:50.065 --> 00:22:51.465
He's from Chile.

00:22:51.465 --> 00:22:53.707
He makes friends with the Portuguese guy.

00:22:53.707 --> 00:22:54.747
They're going to watch our stuff.

00:22:54.747 --> 00:23:05.232
We'll be back at it first thing in the morning, and so we're set up and I'm in that morning.

00:23:05.232 --> 00:23:09.055
My partner is a political reporter.

00:23:09.055 --> 00:23:11.355
He's from Columbus, ohio, not New.

00:23:11.395 --> 00:23:11.596
York.

00:23:11.596 --> 00:23:15.298
He's from all he knows flyover country.

00:23:15.298 --> 00:23:18.222
He's covered all the presidential elections.

00:23:18.222 --> 00:23:20.611
We're both journalists, but we complement each other in different ways.

00:23:20.611 --> 00:23:25.265
So I'd be like this is happening, he's like that's not going to happen.

00:23:25.265 --> 00:23:29.641
I'm like it is and it's like dude, this is happening, right, You're.

00:23:29.661 --> 00:23:37.684
American to me right but it is sorry so um yeah, so I drive in.

00:23:38.086 --> 00:24:21.410
I remember seeing like a one of those axe throwing games it's not a game and there was a biden and pelosi and you could throw acts with their faces, and that was there, and I was looking at all the cars I was like, well, maybe, maybe they're having them parked by the title basins to get into virginia quickly, maybe this is how they're going to get the traffic out, maybe they're going to redirect it this way, maybe this is going to cut this way and this is going to cut this way and I, I get inside and you know, we start going live, and then it's it's midday and I'm up live with um, you know, with my earpiece, in right, like this, and they, they put Trump's speech into my ear so I can follow along live and they can cut in and out to me anytime and I'm listening to it.

00:24:21.410 --> 00:24:28.203
And then at the very end she says, you know, you know, basically it says to people, let's go to the Capitol.

00:24:28.203 --> 00:24:35.894
Basically, it says to people, let's go to the Capitol and I text Jim, I was like he's coming here and he's like, no, he can't do that.

00:24:35.894 --> 00:24:43.423
Well, yeah, we find out from Patsy Hutchinson that he tried to take the wheel.

00:24:43.423 --> 00:24:45.186
But all because he did try to take the wheel.

00:24:45.186 --> 00:24:49.213
He did try to drive up to the Capitol and it felt like that.

00:24:49.213 --> 00:24:53.684
It was like, oh my God, it's coming.

00:24:53.704 --> 00:25:03.343
And then and Juan was getting food and I was like Juan, come back, because you know there's only you have to go down a tunnel to get a sandwich.

00:25:03.343 --> 00:25:04.685
And I was like, come back, it's not safe, it's not safe.

00:25:04.685 --> 00:25:07.731
He swaggers up and all of a sudden his fear factor is that he starts swaggering.

00:25:07.731 --> 00:25:10.618
He's he's like not scared at all, so he goes.

00:25:10.618 --> 00:25:17.417
I survived pinnish and I said, juan, you want to survive this or do you want to be this, the sidebar?

00:25:17.417 --> 00:25:21.208
He survived pinnish, but he didn't survive the insurrection at the capitol.

00:25:21.327 --> 00:25:44.203
I was like that's gonna be the effing headline, juan, and he's like tranquilo courtney, and I'm like, okay, fine, I call me a crazy lady, but like I know my stuff and so and it was to rush to the window to see if they were coming into the building and then we went on lockdown and it didn't come into that building and it I wasn't where the gunfire was and you know, I was on lockdown.

00:25:44.203 --> 00:25:46.871
I went live for the rest of the day covering everything as it broke.

00:25:46.871 --> 00:25:49.046
At first I thought it was smaller people.

00:25:49.046 --> 00:25:51.291
At first I thought it was a crowd that could be contained.

00:25:51.291 --> 00:25:53.445
They're saying it's not that many people.

00:25:53.445 --> 00:25:59.627
You know, I know how to report large crowds and I was like it's not on this side, it's not on that side.

00:26:01.983 --> 00:26:25.310
But as we saw footage, as we heard from people, right, there we realized what an absolute, total disaster it was, how dangerous it turned, how much of a riot it turned into um a lot of people I I do really truly believe a lot of people were there as supporters and were taking directions, but they were more like oh look where we got to.

00:26:25.392 --> 00:26:42.022
This is strange, you know right um, whereas there were people that you know, the people we mourned about that did have the zip ties and the guns and we're gonna we're gonna try to take hostages and we're maybe gonna go after leaders, and Pelosi was in danger and the vice president was in danger and all those people were in danger.

00:26:42.022 --> 00:27:01.863
I don't think the average civilian was had gone there to to do bad um, I don't you you know, I'm not going to say that against Trump supporters or royals or people that really, truly believed when he said the election was stolen, but it was Despite the fact that it wasn't.

00:27:03.561 --> 00:27:07.728
Speaking for themselves, so that's just sort of like that.

00:27:07.728 --> 00:27:18.173
Those the most dangerous stories are when the initial story happens and it's like the first 24 hours for generalists where you get really hurt, so yeah.

00:27:18.173 --> 00:27:19.886
So then I walked.

00:27:19.886 --> 00:27:22.127
It's like this crazy stuff happens.

00:27:22.127 --> 00:27:30.730
Like I was walking to finally go out around eight o'clock at night and there's these two guys that walk past me as I'm walking up to one of the entrances.

00:27:30.730 --> 00:27:32.432
There's like this dim light.

00:27:32.432 --> 00:27:34.978
Yeah, two guys that walk past me as I'm walking up to one of the entrances.

00:27:34.978 --> 00:27:35.778
There's like this dim light.

00:27:35.798 --> 00:27:42.356
Yeah, I watched no-transcript central casting detective raincoats walk past me and I was like where'd you get those?

00:27:42.356 --> 00:27:57.232
Like, and it looks like they're from a movie, you know, like they have the collars and they're sort of like a beige and they come to like mid-cab and you see them on cops at queens doing detective work, and like they're just walking past me with this like crazy light.

00:27:57.232 --> 00:28:07.515
And because one room is down the hallway of the russell building is on, all these lights are out and I'm like where did you guys come from, you know?

00:28:07.515 --> 00:28:25.753
And then I walk outside and it's all of the riot police um the street, lamps hitting the, their helmets and their visors, and then past them is all the um, the DC cops and fire engines, and then there's Union Station and I'm like am I getting an Uber?

00:28:27.268 --> 00:28:32.893
And still, juan, to his credit, he was right he's like stop worrying, stop worrying, you'll be fine, you'll be fine.

00:28:32.893 --> 00:28:33.875
I was like I don't know.

00:28:33.875 --> 00:28:38.551
So we're walking out together and I order an Uber to see if I can get one.

00:28:38.551 --> 00:28:43.212
And I look down, it says your driver, mohammed, is on his way.

00:28:43.212 --> 00:28:46.157
And I was like oh come to the law.

00:28:48.704 --> 00:28:53.928
If anyone knows how to get me out of this racist, dangerous spot, maybe Mohammed knows how to get out of it.

00:28:54.509 --> 00:28:57.250
I was going to say, like when you put in for your Uber what did it say that?

00:28:57.269 --> 00:28:59.912
your wait time will be seven hours, that's what.

00:28:59.971 --> 00:29:05.934
I was thinking too 35 years, because nobody of color is coming to this community to rescue you, yeah.

00:29:06.256 --> 00:29:07.215
Now it's like oh my.

00:29:07.256 --> 00:29:09.396
God Muhammad's coming.

00:29:09.396 --> 00:29:17.501
Oh okay, I'm super comfortable in the Middle East and I know how people had to deal with this, but this stuff, that's Washington crazy Nah.

00:29:21.805 --> 00:29:22.246
So what is it like?

00:29:22.246 --> 00:29:34.497
Or have you ever taken a time I don't assume that at certain points in your life and certain points even now in your career, that you just take a step back and you say I've seen, I've seen history very, quite literally up close and personal.

00:29:34.497 --> 00:29:36.028
What is that like?

00:29:36.849 --> 00:29:38.915
It's wonderful, it's just wonderful.

00:29:38.915 --> 00:29:41.307
I mean talk about not living with regret.

00:29:41.887 --> 00:29:43.368
Right, you know I stepped up.

00:29:44.430 --> 00:29:47.712
You know, I was like my sister-in-law, james Taylor.

00:29:47.712 --> 00:29:50.875
It took me more than a decade to even listen to James Taylor.

00:29:50.875 --> 00:29:56.280
I was driving back to DC and it popped up on my Spotify and I thought I'm going to listen to this song and see if I can take it.

00:29:56.280 --> 00:30:01.509
You know, and it's the.

00:30:01.509 --> 00:30:02.112
I've seen fire and rain.

00:30:02.112 --> 00:30:03.256
I was like, well, so have I, you know?

00:30:03.256 --> 00:30:04.744
So?

00:30:04.744 --> 00:30:05.806
So there's James Taylor.

00:30:05.806 --> 00:30:08.009
My nephew's an amazing musician.

00:30:08.009 --> 00:30:10.732
He's just starting what's going to be an incredible career.

00:30:10.732 --> 00:30:14.237
My younger nephew got caught up in COVID and he's 20.

00:30:14.237 --> 00:30:16.820
And so that generation is all the help they can get.

00:30:17.441 --> 00:30:38.439
I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to use my knowledge base to affect some kind of change or do some kind of good coming out of what's happening now in the Middle East, in the region, in not just Gaza and not just Israel and not just the hostages, but everyone involved, which is everyone.

00:30:38.439 --> 00:30:50.270
It's the Syrians and it's the Yemenis and it's the Lebanese and it's the Iraqis and it's the Iranians and it's the militant groups and it's the innocent civilians and it's the collective collateral damage.

00:30:50.270 --> 00:30:54.392
It's so, you know, and it's what I've seen before.

00:30:54.392 --> 00:30:55.307
I've seen it.

00:30:55.307 --> 00:31:01.756
I've seen American bombs do terrible things before, and maybe this is is.

00:31:01.935 --> 00:31:09.617
I think this is another like for lack of a better word call it like a heaving or a break with reality, but it's also an inflection point of.

00:31:09.617 --> 00:31:21.615
We will look back at this time of when it all hit us um again and how we all reacted again and figure out how do we, how do we pick ourselves up after that?

00:31:21.615 --> 00:31:30.133
I learned how to do that in the Middle East by people that constantly had to pick themselves up after a terrible tragedy, where I learned it personally how to do it.

00:31:30.133 --> 00:31:32.412
Now it's just a really good life skill.

00:31:32.924 --> 00:31:38.493
What are your current views on where the industry as a whole stands right now?

00:31:40.547 --> 00:31:41.611
We're a monopoly game.

00:31:41.611 --> 00:31:47.611
We're the pieces that are being sold and bartered and built on.

00:31:47.611 --> 00:31:50.297
I'm literally um, you know his parents sold today or tomorrow.

00:31:50.297 --> 00:31:50.857
No, it's not.

00:31:50.857 --> 00:31:51.747
They can live in.

00:31:51.747 --> 00:31:54.883
Cbs can live and breathe in its latest incarnation for the next 12 months.

00:31:54.883 --> 00:31:55.064
Maybe.

00:31:55.064 --> 00:31:57.229
Where's abc?

00:31:57.229 --> 00:31:58.411
What's happening at murdoch?

00:31:58.411 --> 00:32:01.135
What happened after Fox took a different turn?

00:32:01.135 --> 00:32:03.267
What's happening at radio?

00:32:03.267 --> 00:32:04.691
You know radio is not dead.

00:32:04.691 --> 00:32:07.780
Podcasting exists, but where you know.

00:32:07.800 --> 00:32:10.086
So what was AI going to do to everyone next?

00:32:10.086 --> 00:32:14.565
Like I'm not scared of AI, it's a tool to use, just like the internet was as well.

00:32:14.565 --> 00:32:17.127
But you have to learn the tool to continue to use them.

00:32:17.127 --> 00:32:21.511
But they still come down to reading, writing, arithmetic, Like it always does.

00:32:21.511 --> 00:32:24.515
If you can't string a sentence together, you can't string a paragraph together.

00:32:24.515 --> 00:32:29.420
If you can't string a paragraph, you can't make a point, If you can't bring in information after that.

00:32:29.460 --> 00:32:43.166
So, whether you're writing a school article, whether you're writing a newspaper article, whether you're telling a story in film old-fashioned film, in digital, in a podcast, where's your beginning, middle and end?

00:32:43.166 --> 00:32:43.867
Where's your narrative art?

00:32:43.867 --> 00:32:45.852
And it comes back to life.

00:32:45.852 --> 00:33:11.009
It comes back to why I'm glad I took a long term through literature and I understood that Plato's Republic, that poets were going to be inheriting the information to dispense it to the people, because they later didn't believe that people could deal with it unfiltered and it needed to be packaged and put out there so they could digest it.

00:33:12.090 --> 00:33:13.433
And what now is?

00:33:13.433 --> 00:33:15.317
It's just this fire hose of everything.

00:33:15.317 --> 00:33:16.098
And we need to.

00:33:16.098 --> 00:33:39.442
We need to figure out new ways to um, have great storytellers and truth sayers and people who speak power to justice, earn a living, take care of their children and their families and themselves and do really hard work, and there's nothing to sustain people right now beyond the well you could find.

00:33:39.442 --> 00:33:42.574
One person, maybe stay under this banner of this new organization.

00:33:42.574 --> 00:33:46.833
I've worked for the Grey Lady.

00:33:46.833 --> 00:33:49.030
I've worked for Mickey Mouse.

00:33:49.030 --> 00:33:51.815
I've worked for Murdoch.

00:33:51.815 --> 00:33:53.457
I've worked for the Emir.

00:33:53.457 --> 00:33:55.230
I've worked for Erdogan.

00:33:55.230 --> 00:34:02.133
If you're callous and you put it that way, it looks like I'm shilling for some pretty nasty people.

00:34:02.133 --> 00:34:05.335
Abc wasn't owned by Mickey Mouse when I first started.

00:34:05.335 --> 00:34:07.892
Murdoch wasn't a big player in the US.

00:34:09.224 --> 00:34:09.365
The.

00:34:09.385 --> 00:34:10.811
Emir certainly wasn't a player.

00:34:10.811 --> 00:34:14.896
Qatar, you know, people weren't going to Saudi for work as they are now.

00:34:14.896 --> 00:34:21.137
What's wrong with our economy that we can't stand up for human rights and not go to Saudi for work?

00:34:21.137 --> 00:34:22.351
We're all being driven to it.

00:34:22.351 --> 00:34:34.835
And then where do you find the ways where you're like okay, I work for this organization, but it's the same work I've always done and I'm going to look at who my audience is and I'm going to serve them up to the way I serve them every time.

00:34:34.835 --> 00:34:37.512
So my reporting hasn't changed.

00:34:37.512 --> 00:34:48.753
So now I just call them overlords, right, because we're now at the big man behind the curtain with that microphone, as scared as you are.

00:34:49.193 --> 00:34:54.588
And news was never supposed to be a Wall Street commodity.

00:34:54.588 --> 00:35:01.389
It was not supposed to be arbitrage, it was not supposed to be hostile takeovers, it was not supposed to be this.

00:35:01.389 --> 00:35:10.735
And we have people you know starting out up to their 80s, but don't know how to write this, how to get it back on track.

00:35:10.735 --> 00:35:38.634
And so we all know it's storytelling, we know it's voice, we know it's integrity, we know it's ethics and we know that there's a whole multimedia way to tell it how are you going to pay your rent, how you can take care of kids and um, and some of the choices are I took a pair of my kids, my guys, my brother and his wife's shauna caris kids by staying nearby.

00:35:38.634 --> 00:35:58.992
But when I stayed at home, like I left the Middle East to cover Newtown, to cover the Boston bombings, to cover the UN, the day Sergei Lavrov was speaking, we realized Russia really had some different ideas and did not care a toss.

00:35:58.992 --> 00:36:08.094
While they were moving military bases into Syria, while they were being hosted at the UNGA and he was speaking in real time.

00:36:08.094 --> 00:36:22.130
And those Russian military bases which empowered the siege of Aleppo, which is when I helped people fundraise for military equipment in Ukraine I knew that they go, they talk with the doctors, because the Russian military helped the Syrian regime to have their doctors.

00:36:22.130 --> 00:36:23.398
So the more because the Russian military helped the Syrian regime to have their doctors.

00:36:23.398 --> 00:36:31.056
So the more you learn about war and the more you learn about the tactics they use, the more you realize when they're going to use them other places.

00:36:31.684 --> 00:36:33.592
So where does this knowledge base come from?

00:36:33.592 --> 00:36:40.927
We know that Biden was going to fall back into a very old-fashioned perspective of pro-Israel and at a time.

00:36:40.927 --> 00:36:43.585
I mean those first few days were just horrific.

00:36:43.585 --> 00:36:45.329
And there's still hostages.

00:36:45.329 --> 00:36:47.873
Like how do you thread that needle?

00:36:47.873 --> 00:36:54.168
He was never good in the Middle East, I'm sorry.

00:36:54.168 --> 00:37:09.219
So you know you're expecting a president to be able to deal with something that was never on his table and he kept kept off his table for a reason until it fell, crashed through the ceiling of his living room at the White House.

00:37:10.826 --> 00:37:16.623
So all of this is like when people say, well, I'm not going to vote because I don't believe what he's done with the Palestinians are okay.

00:37:16.623 --> 00:37:23.257
Well, have you never heard that a second term president actually has the wherewithal of not having to worry about re-election?

00:37:23.257 --> 00:37:36.074

From the Middle East to the Capitol: Courtney Kealy on Journalism’s Frontlines (Part 2)

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From the Middle East to the Capitol: Courtney Kealy’s Frontline View of Journalism (Part 2)