Jessica Yellin: I Left CNN to Pursue Independent Journalism

It's kind of living through a crisis every day. Nobody else knows the horrors of that as well as each other, and as much as your — people imagine we're so competitive, and you are with a story, but there is this real camaraderie that develops. And I feel the same way about you — I woke up to you every day for years.

So no, you're right. I mean, that camaraderie was something I never expected. I thought it was going to be the most competitive news beat you could imagine, and sure there was some of that, but I mean we just had each other's backs flying around the country and the world and not sleeping and trying to keep each other sane. Most of the time awake, yeah, and then in a way — but so you made this decision, and I mean I'm not just excited to share your reflections on this with everyone, but for me personally — I mean I just left NPR five weeks ago, so I'm still in a state of weird surreal denial. Did I do the right thing? I did the right thing. I don't have any regrets leaving a big institution that felt, you know, so safe, like being part of something big.

And I mean I would love to start there. Like, when was there a moment? Was there an epiphany? Had you been thinking for a long time kind of carving out a new course, you know, doing this on your own? Take us through the thought process in the time that you transitioned from this fabulous career at these well-known institutions to doing what you're doing today.

First of all, you did the right thing. You know, for me it was a lot of — I got into journalism because I thought I kind of was a millennial — I should have been a millennial — and I grew up in a household that was super "do well, do good." And I really thought that journalism was a way to be successful but also really, really give back. And I had this ongoing experience that what I was doing every day with my personal career didn't speak to the ways I wanted to move the needle.

Like specifically, as a political reporter I spent all this time, as you know, chasing undecided voters. During a campaign you spend the last six months only talking to undecided voters. That's it, no one else, because there's like no one else matters. Yeah. And that's a thing in itself. And overwhelmingly they were women, and I'd go back to home base — you know, you'd be out in the country, go back home — and I'd be like, I really think we need to do our stories a little bit differently because it's not resonating. And the conventional wisdom in Washington is always like, the swing voters, they don't care about politics, they don't care, they're disengaged. If you look at data it shows women follow human interest stories and not politics and international relations — these women just don't care.

And I had these conversations with them all the time. We're not speaking in a way they hear. They care enormously. But especially when I was — it's different for you at NPR, you did a lot of substance — I was in an environment where we did a lot of political brawling, right, rhetoric. And it was at a time when we used to be doing lots of stories in the field but started to be doing a lot of panel discussions in the studio. And the whole drama was like, where's the fight? Or as the producers used to say, "Who's going to bring the heat?" And they would say that. I mean, I would find a member of Congress who is so smart and didn't get any air time and could explain a policy really well, and say we've got to get them on air. And I'd be told, "Will they bring the heat? Will they throw it down?" Wow. And if not, they don't get air time.

And I always justified it because I'm a driven competitive person — like, when I get a bigger title, when I'm more influential, I can do the things I believe in. And it kept getting further — like I'd rise and that would get further out of my reach because of whatever the pressures of the internet or ratings or whatever. And I kind of had one of those life existential moments where I'm like, I can stay or I can go, but if I stay I'm gonna keep doing — like, I can't fool myself into thinking I'm ever gonna get to do that thing.

And I really wanted to do the news in a different voice. And I had this feeling that if I could do that, it could engage these undecided voters, it could genuinely empower people to feel like they have more control over their life, and participate and vote. So I did it.

So that's what you mean by moving the needle — like, give people something substantive that helps them make a decision more intelligently or change their life in some way. Is that what you feel like you were missing before?

I mean, we would go on air and say, you know, the votes aren't there, it's gonna go to reconciliation, Pelosi's in a huddle and this isn't happening, you're not getting your $1,400 check. And people are like, I don't know why I'm not getting my $1,400 check — what did you just say? It's like sometimes the news felt like walking into a dinner party 10 minutes after it started and you're like, what's that person talking about? Why is this — and you know it impacts your life, but the surveys I've done show a huge part of the audience feels less informed after watching TV news than before.

Because we're talking about these big ideas but not explaining — like, the easiest example is just tell someone what a tariff is before you do a trade war story. That seems so basic, but how often does that happen? It doesn't happen. And you need to define the terms all the time to engage people. And you can do it quickly and you can do it without being demeaning, and it engages a different audience.

So one of the things is like, can we use less jargon? But the other thing is, my whole career as a TV reporter I was always told to ramp up the panic. You know, I was at the White House for TV news and I would be on the North Lawn as a baby reporter and they'd come in my ear and they'd say, "Urgency! Intensity! Panic! Go!" Wow.

I just can't — I sort of thought that was going on, but hearing you actually say that those words were being spoken into your ears is really jarring. And it's no wonder then that people feel triggered by the news.

Our assumption is that you feel triggered by the news because the news is scary. But my contention is it's deliberately crafted to — I say "compete for your anxiety" — to trigger a fear and panic response. Because like any industry that's ripe for disruption, it has one thesis on how to succeed, and the thesis is conflict wins eyeballs. And I think conflict is one way to win eyeballs, but empathy is another. And empathy is more calming. Empathy creates community. And my whole thing was like, can I explain what we're talking about, make complicated ideas simple, and trigger an empathy response so people care, feel safe, and engaged?

Well, to me, part of that is the connection that you make. There's an intimacy, as if I am sitting with a really smart friend talking about what happened today. And I was just watching some cable news today looking at the impeachment trial coverage and then watched your coverage, and it really is like — I mean, noise is definitely something that you find not at all when you're listening to you. But that doesn't even capture all of it. There's a connection that I feel that you make. There's a humanity, there's an authenticity, there's a humbleness — I mean, even some of the things you do where you're messing around and forgetting a phone number that you were going to give to people. It's so human. And I think that is how you really developed this trust.

That is true. I mean, part of it's — so when I started in TV news I was a one-man band reporter in Orlando, Florida, which is crazy because I'm from LA and I didn't know a soul there. I airdropped in, they gave me a camera — that was before iPhones — so they gave me a physical map and I'd have to drive myself around, set up, shoot my own interviews, drive home, log them, edit, write the piece, edit it, and put it on air.

[laughter]

The glamorous news! So it was like training to do what I'm doing now, which is all the things. And there is a humility in going from being chief White House correspondent at CNN to sitting in my — I was sitting in my house talking to my phone before the pandemic. So it's humbling. Now we all know what that feels like.

Do you — I mean, are there some days where you miss having the institution and all of what that brings?

Yeah. So the thing I miss the most is my colleagues and the camaraderie. Like when I was at CNN I sat in between Gloria Borger and Dana Bash, and they were my everyday. And you're working on a story and you just pop into Gloria's office or Dana's and say, what do you think about this direction? Can I run this by you? You don't have that.

I have a kitchen cabinet I've assembled of reporter friends, and now that you're solo I might add you to it — and I'll be yours. But still, the best part is that I get to decide every day what counts as news, and the worst part is that I have to decide every day what counts as news.

Some days, as you know, it's really hard. Like some days, didn't you just want to get an assignment?

Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of pressure. Is it exhausting? Having all of the responsibility on your own shoulders — you can't turn to a producer or a Dana Bash or someone. I mean, it's not just bouncing ideas, it's the responsibility in the decision-making. It is all on you.

Yeah. And all the resources — like, with these institutions, I mean, it is magnificent. The reach — CNN can get into any war zone, crisis spot. They have all the data, they have — you can pick up a phone and reach someone anywhere to get information. And it is like a withdrawal process to not have that.

And I honestly have CNN and MSNBC and Fox on all day long. You know, I do engage. And you're the same, I'm sure — after all these years you have just a way of ingesting all the news all the time. And people ask, how do you decide what to read? I'm like, I just — I don't know, I'm like a roving vacuum. I just — right, it's a good way to put it. It's just sucking up whatever you can.

And I still use sources and all that. But yeah, it's super isolating. And I think this is the challenge of the trend toward independent journalism — it gives you more of a voice, it gives you more freedom, but it's also quite isolating. And I always think about where's the future headed? Is there a way to sort of have a combined force of different independent journalists who can sort of support each other, as opposed to everybody being atomized and really on their own?

Well, I wanted to ask you about this. It's almost like a paradoxical tension. I mean, you say "independent journalism" and I think two things that feel completely at odds. Independent journalism is what you have done — you've shown that you don't need to be part of the noise, you don't need to be part of the panic, all the things that we all just feel so fed up about when we're watching, you know, on a day when it doesn't even seem that newsy. You turn on the news at six o'clock and it's like, stop — like, I want to be calm.

So you've obviously tapped into what people genuinely want today — not the noise, not the panic. They want to develop trust in one person like you and turn to you every day. But then we also talk about the fact that we're in this age where anyone can be a journalist, and that's sort of terrifying. Because there's a reason that this profession exists, right? There's a reason that you and I got in this profession — because not everyone can report. There are editors who have gone through years of training, reporters who've gone through years of training to have news judgment, to understand what's important, to be fair, to be balanced.

So how do we create space for you to do this great stuff while also letting people know they can't just go trust anyone who pops up on their feed?

It's part of the challenge — I mean, it's the challenge of our world right now and of social media. I don't think — I think it's a little too late. Like, Alex Jones was the first — people who follow Alex Jones believe that he's an independent journalist. People who follow Glenn Beck believe the same. And then take that across the spectrum, from whoever's reporting on QAnon stuff to, you know, more of the Trump future Trump network-ish environment.

So there's never been a credentialing process for journalism, and we always trusted these institutions to give it to us. I think I'm hopeful that more people who are trained journalists enter this space and, sort of by their presence and their heft, occupy a lot of it and show people what journalism looks like. But I don't know — it's a little bit like, you know, once Napster is out there, you can't undo that to the music industry, right?

I think that it's just promising that people do have trust in people who are real journalists. And then you ask, like, what is a real journalist? I didn't take a test to get my job at my first news org, right? Did you? You just had your 10,000 hours.

And one of the things I do on my Insta page is, in addition to coming on and doing videos, I also do a news digest every day of what the important stories are by posting articles and stories, and then I annotate them. So I'm providing context on top of institutional news. And I think it's doing two things: one is it's causing the audience to look at news and think, what's the larger context, because I'm literally annotating it every day. And then also I'm directing them to trusted sources. So I use only sources I trust in the stories gallery, without ever saying "these are places you trust." It is mainstream news orgs. It's also, you know, Lawfare or FiveThirtyEight — slightly places we know. But I think that as we create this ecosystem, we are the ones who can kind of tell our audience, you can trust this, this is a reliable source. I personally don't trust this source. And I'm always like, do what you want — I don't trust it.

But do you think we can get back to a time where there is a widely accepted — I mean, from all parts of the political spectrum — a widely accepted definition for who or what is a trusted source? It feels like you and I could say these are trusted sources, but you brought up some journalists who people will listen to, and they're not going to question it. They're not sitting there being like, should I trust Alex Jones? Should I not? Should I maybe go to Jessica Yellin instead? What is wrong with the climate and what can we do to change that, if anything?

I think part of — you know, we're struggling as a globe with this concept of shared facts. How do we get back to shared facts? I think part of the challenge, or the goal, is to train people in truth discernment. And that's something that is actually being studied — I've interviewed a few people who are working on it. And it's about helping people do what I was talking about — see the context, give them information, don't force it on them, explain to them this is what I think, here's why. If they come back at you with, "I have these other facts that I've gotten from QAnon" or whatever, query it without challenging it. There are strategies that we're learning.

But I don't think it's an easy solution. And as long as the social media platforms are doing what they're doing and we are in this politically polarized environment, it's not going to get better just through these strategies we're talking about. We need to reform the social media platforms and we need leaders that talk about uniting us. And even then, I don't know where we end up.

What advice do you think we can give to people to avoid getting stuck in an echo chamber? That feels like it's happening more and more often. I find even people who don't even realize they're in echo chambers — you sit with them for 30 seconds and they tell you where they're getting the news and who they're talking to about the news, and I'm like, my God, you don't have an open mind at all. Is there something that we can do as journalists to change that?

Part of it's the way we talk, apparently. It's literally about rejiggering the language we use and the way we frame things. I encourage people to follow — hear a few accounts, follow people you don't believe in, just follow things you don't believe so you can at least see what another point of view is.

And at periodic times I've gotten blowback because I follow this account or that account — and how could you give them a follow? And I explain, I'm a journalist, I want to know what the conversation is. And I'm told, you must unfollow so-and-so, because social media is a little different — it's perceived as an endorsement.

So I model that. And I've seen some of these new inventions — people who are troubled by this trend are trying to correct by giving individual journalists a grade on if you're left or right based on your Twitter following, which is a ridiculous way to measure what your actual output is. Those two don't correlate. I've talked to tech people who want to blockchain facts so you can go back and verify where each fact came from. And I was like, well, you can explain why that's not going to work.

At some point we have to trust that humans want to live in a functioning society, and at some point there'll be enough mutual interest for us to find common ground to function well together. I have to believe that. And I think the more we have conversations like this, the more it teaches people to go out and proselytize. And if everybody watching now goes after this and finds three accounts on each of your social media platforms you loathe and follows them, so you know what else is being said — it helps to open your mind a little bit.

I don't know. What do you think the solution is? I've been puzzling over it.

I mean, it's so hard because it has been so at the heart of what I do as a journalist to almost force people to hear different perspectives. And for a long time I felt like people valued that and they liked that. In the last few years, I get pummeled. And I take it — this is my job, I have to do this. But the criticism can so quickly jump to, "I don't want to be hearing this," "Why should I bring this," "Why are you putting a hater on the air," "This is not why I come to NPR."

And it worries me deeply that people jump to that reaction so quickly instead of being like, you know, maybe that was a little too hateful but I get what you're trying to do. It's become like we've offended them by exposing people to different views, and that's deeply worrying.

What do you think — journalism had a unique challenge during the Trump years because he lied so frequently that it required that journalists are constantly calling that out. And it made it seem as though reporters were in opposition to the president, and therefore partisan. So it created a unique dynamic. If he's removed from the picture, if you have different leadership, does that change the landscape where journalists have more space to show multiple sides and not be seen as the opposition or the ally of a certain party?

I mean, that is my hope. That Trump was such a unique figure because he basically declared war on the truth, and our profession is all about the truth. So we constantly had to be fighting for the truth, which, as you just said, made it look like we were fighting constantly and being activists against him. So I'm hoping that tension was in some large part created by just a very unique presidency. But at the same time, we've all been talking about these underlying forces in the country — not having shared facts. Those are not things that are going to just disappear, which is really scary.

I wonder — what do you know about your audience? Would you call them an echo chamber? Do you feel like they come from all different backgrounds and disagree on stuff?

It's interesting. They disagree on specific topics. I have a lot of parents and a lot of teachers, and whenever I do a story on school reopening, both sides are enraged. The parents are enraged the teachers won't go back to school and they're being so selfish and the kids aren't learning. And the teachers are enraged that no one cares that they haven't had vaccines and they can't. So it's issue-specific.

I'm very aligned — like, I report science and facts. You're allowed to be here if you're anti-vax, but I don't have time or space to entertain that. And I have anti-vax people in the audience. So I understand that some people hold those beliefs quite forcefully and that's your prerogative — I'm just not gonna engage it. So that becomes a fight.

I had a lot of people who were Trump voters in 2016 and then became Biden-Harris in 2020. And in that process there was a lot of conflict, sort of as they were grappling with that choice. Some of that continues to play out and there's new divisions that emerge as well. But my audience is definitely — it's not MAGA. There's not dedicated Trump supporters. They would never engage with what I do, and it's okay with me.

I think we just have a few minutes left before we go into the breakout. I wonder — the thing that I struggled with so much in recent times, and no one will be surprised by this, was disinformation about this election. The number of times that I would say on the air that the president is lying and trying to overturn a democratic election, but feel like I was inadvertently spreading disinformation by telling Americans that the president was saying this election was not fair — it kept me up at night.

I think that so often, especially with a figure like Donald Trump, just by elevating his voice we are spreading disinformation. How did you handle that, and what lessons did you take that maybe can help us in moments like this in the future?

Well, I'll tell you, I had your exact anxiety. There was one day where I kept trying to sort of massage how I said what he was saying, what he was doing. And then one day I was like — he is trying to install himself as our unelected leader. That is what is happening. I'm going to say that. I tortured myself about it, but then I was like, the whole reason I'm on my own is because I can say what I think is true. So I'm doing it. But it was agonizing.

So what I did is, because I'm on social media, I end up seeing a lot of the conspiracy theories, the QAnon stuff, earlier than it's actually in the news. People were blowing me up about why am I not reporting on all the missing children and all the pedophilia a year ago. And so I started talking to people who study disinformation and study QAnon to actually ask them, what are you supposed to do? What works?

And they gave me a couple of tips. One is: fact-checking is not an effective way to refute disinformation. Sometimes it can be, after you're engaged in a conversation with a person who's somewhat open — then you can do it. The first thing is because you don't want to repeat the lie. Even the repetition of it embeds it in their memory as a factoid that they draw on later, disconnected from whether they remember it was true or false.

They say the most effective things to do are two things: ask them, "Why do you think this information is out there? Who's benefiting from this?" Go big — like, what's the motive behind it? And then the other thing is to ask a question that might cause them to mull about it in the future. Like, "So I see that, and you know what bothers me is I've never found evidence that this thing is true — that Bill Gates is putting a chip in you. Where's the original source of the chip? I've never found it." And you don't say it's wrong, because then they immediately defend themselves. You say, "I'm bothered by it, I don't know." And you move on and you let it turn in their head. And that's the most effective way. "Inform, don't persuade" is the headline way they've described it.

That's really helpful. I am still traumatized by the injecting Lysol — I mean, seriously. There was a big fight. It was like, don't put those words on the air. And other people said, no, air it over and over again and let's fact-check it and have doctors describing why you shouldn't inject Lysol. I mean, it was crazy. And I was just stunned that we were put in that position. But the risks are enormous if you just throw stuff out into the world.

I think it's uniquely different when it's from the president and you are justified in airing it because this is the president. It's different when it's something that circulated from Parler and you're getting it in DMs on social media. When it's the president saying that, I do think it's going to get out there anyway, so you may as well fact-check it.

My last question: do you feel — I've been talking to a lot of friends in the journalism field, especially those who cover the White House, and they're like, wow, it's so quiet. The lid, which is the time that the White House says there's no more news, is like at 4 p.m. How should we fill the space? Do you think people are losing their minds a little bit? Are they bored?

Can you hear me? Yeah. Are people bored? Are your former colleagues bored?

I'm not bored. But sort of — I think it was just, you were in this mode for so long that there would be a tweet at 10 p.m., or the news would be made by one person. It's refreshing, but it's almost like you have to realign yourself in some way.

Well, I think we all have a little PTSD. And it's like, now everybody has to start processing what's happened over the last four years. And the thing that I think an audience can understand, but you don't really know it until you're a reporter, is you internalize the stuff you're talking about and then you filter it and put it out. And so I really think we take in a lot of that and it's emotionally hard. And we get really numb to it and we act tough, but at some point it comes home to roost. So now is the time to kind of find a way to deal with it and process it. I sound very California, but it's also true.

[laughter]

And I think it's time — now we are able to cover the undercovered stories and shift to explaining to people: this is the debate over the minimum wage, here's the truth about how it could affect your life, here's what this $1,400 — like, re-cover the news in a way that is about how it impacts people's lives, because we have the pacing and the time to do it now. And I do believe that's what the audience wants.

I could not agree more. Well, it is — I love talking to you, and we could have this conversation for hours more. But I'm so happy hearing your voice.

Waking up — yeah, we should do this a lot more often.