For this first session of day two of the 20-25 Widening the Pipeline launch, we're joined by a journalist who embodies the phrase 'finding your why' in journalism. The link that I sent you from his conversation last year with last year's Widening Fellows helps you to understand part of the motivation for Boris Sanchez as the anchor of CNN News Central. We wanted him to come back this year because the art of sort of centering yourself and figuring out why you want to be a journalist is one thing. But staying there during turbulent times like the times that we're facing right now is sort of next level when it comes to our professionalism and our focus. So, we are greatly privileged that Boris has agreed to come back and meet the 20-25 Widening Fellows and to continue that conversation about finding your why and staying there. So, Boris, thank you so much for being here. Of course. I'm honored to be here. I had a great time last year and I'm eager to restart the conversation. I appreciate you having me. Great. I told you outside, so I'll start by asking you what I ask really everybody these days. How are you doing in terms of the stress of the news cycle, the sort of madness that's going on in the world today? I personally am doing well. In my private life, I got engaged last year, planning a wedding. I have stuff going on with my family. So that's all going really well. Professionally, things are a little bit trickier. There have been layoffs, not just at CNN, but at other news outlets. There's a period of reorientation. There's a period of reorientation and reformation for a lot of news organizations. And there's a lot of uncertainty given so many of the changes that have come to our politics as well and how the relationship between government and news outlets and journalism might change in the future. Again, it's uncertain. And so I would say that while personally I think things are going great for me, there are a lot of questions. There are a lot of questions about what the future of news looks like, what it sounds like, what we cover, how we cover it. And while that can be nerve-wracking at times, while it can be difficult to keep track of everything that's happening because there is so much happening, these periods of uncertainty also lend themselves to tremendous opportunity. And so being able to capture the winds in the direction that they're blowing represents, especially for younger journalists, a chance to rise very quickly. And to find yourself, eventually, where you want to be. For those of you who may not have had a chance to watch Boris' session from last year, the most powerful element of it for me was you sort of drawing an arc between sitting around listening to your grandfather's stories and then one day asking a question to President Barack Obama. It was President Trump. Trump, excuse me. Whoever it was. Yes, no worries. Yeah. Sorry. The president. The president. But, so I wanted you to sort of maybe detail some of your lived experience and how it propelled you to where you are right now. Absolutely. It's a long, complex story, but I'll give you the abridged version. I'm an immigrant. I came to this country as a small child in part because my grandfather was a political prisoner. Back in the 1950s, in Cuba, there was a dictator by the name of Fulgencio Batista, and he disappeared with people that disagreed with him. He censored the press. He did a number of things that were meant to keep himself in power. He led a coup that put him in power after he had lost an election previously, and took control of the government, and many of my grandfather's friends found themselves at odds with the sort of society that he was creating in Cuba. For a hundred years before my grandfather was born, there were insurrections and coups and tyrants and a fight against the colonial power in Spain. So, this is like part of the culture that he grew up in, this endless fight. A young nation, the children ultimately of conquistadors and slaves and natives of the Caribbean trying to define themselves, and that was a struggle that continues to this day. Eventually, my grandfather started helping folks who were rebels sneak out of Cuba. He worked on a cruise liner and he would take them as stowaways. And while he did that successfully for a couple of years, he got caught and basically had to leave his old life behind, leave my grandmother and my dad behind; to first hide out in Miami and find his way back to Cuba, find his way into the mountains, have this huge revolutionary beard, a beret and a Thompson shotgun. And he was a guerrilla rebel. He was a revolutionary fighting for what he believed would be freedom and democracy for Cuba. That didn't happen. Things did not go a direction that he agreed with. And so, he found himself yet again fighting a tyrant. And seeing many of his friends put in front of a firing squad or sent to prison for their ideas and for organizing, and trying to have representation at a high level. And for that, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. And so, I was a little kid, as you alluded to, hearing my grandfather's stories in our backyard in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami, around a domino table with faint salsa music in the background, the palm trees swaying, and hearing about these things that were, I don't know, I don't know what they were. I think I had a little bit of a feeling, you know, like, hey, that's a really very urgent, this history, that my grandfather had lived and that my family had endured. Because they endured a lot to eventually come to the United States. We were able to get asylum from the United States. And this was after years of a long process, going from early 1960, when he was arrested to and incarcerated to the mid-to-late 80's. Hearing the urgency in these stories, it made me realize that this history is living. It's breathing right, it has a room down the hall, and he plays catch with me right; and um, I inherited that desire to shout for those who have been silenced and to speak truth to those who think they own it, and because of that, I was like, 'All right, what is out there for me to do? Uh, that I have to tell them about the local anchor, yes, that's that. Was I headed there next. I had a lot of aspirations as a young man; uh, I wanted to play for the Miami Heat; I wanted to be a spy because I watched a lot of movies. But the thing that I found most captivating in this period of my life was when I realized that politics and international relations and freedom of expression were important to me because they were important to my family. Uh, I would watch the local news, and when I was growing up there, there was a block of programming where we had uh, The Simpsons and the local news; and then in Living Color, and those are my three favorite programs I'd watch them every single night, probably too young to be watching In Living Color; I was like seven but alas, uh, and on the local news. There was a guy who shared my last name, his name was Sanchez; he's like a handsome guy, and I thought, 'Wow, I wonder if we're related.' He has my same last name, so I asked my dad, and my dad lied and said, 'Yeah, that's your uncle but we don't really talk to him; we're not really close. And I thought, 'My fake uncle has the coolest job ever!' Right? He gets to tell stories, he comes on, he wears a suit and tie, and he just like you know, he has fun with the viewer, and exchanges a rundown of what's happened throughout the day-the significance of that paired with the idea that you can do that for a living; I mean, the emotional significance. Of a press, and what the press means, and the fact that you could do that with a living was very attractive to me. And when the Miami Heat did not come calling for me, when I didn't uh grow tall enough or have good hand-eye coordination, I thought I'll go and pursue journalism, and that's essentially what I what I did. And I'm sure we'll cover the rest of um that trajectory because I think there are some valuable ideas to draw from it. But going from being that little kid urgently desperately wanting to impress my family, my mom, dad, and grandfather and grandparents given the the weight of the conversations that they were having. And I could tell what it meant to them, wanting to be part of that conversation. Fast forward 25 years after that, to going to the White House and standing in front of the President, and having him point to me to ask me a question, to question what he's doing, the very thing that my grandfather was incarcerated for-that carries enormous emotional significance. It's hard for me to talk about sometimes, but it's hard for me to talk about what it means you said the last time that we were here, Rachel, that we are our ancestors' wildest dreams. When I have faced obstacles, when I have gotten frustrated, when I face these periods of uncertainty Where I don't know what the news is going to look like, uh, I think look at what they endured so that I could have this problem, so that I could have this obstacle, this problem, this obstacle, this challenge is a gift. We understand, we know what that means. But I think I dug into the pandemic and I think was part of the story. But sometimes it feels like, like we need to do something. But sometimes we require to do something to come out of something that happened in the past. And so it's just kind of at the beginning something that came out of here, then it just stood in it and I'm glad we received. It's done, it's a thank you for the email, thank you for that, thank you for bringing that in. I think it's going to be something that you're going to learn very new again tomorrow, but not now. Yeah, because being professional and keeping our personal opinions to ourselves is one thing. But what is it like for you in this moment in time, given your legacy, given your lived experience, to navigate all of this? That's a tough one. Because there are so many angles to it. I think you have to be exceedingly sharp and careful because if you get something wrong, it's very easy for you to be discredited. If you are imprecise, it's very easy for someone to point to something that you said and say he's biased. Even when it's a statement that has come out of your mouth that could be interpreted a multitude of ways, that doesn't necessarily have it. The connotation that some people are accusing you of having, it'll get picked up and it'll get published on YouTube and people will yell in the comments section about how you are, you can pick, anti-Semitic, anti-freedom for Palestinians. You can walk into a minefield with certain issues. And especially when you are trying to discern truth and fight. Fact-check the most powerful office in the country. One that has been, that it's proven has been hostile to journalists. Especially when they use words or phrases that they don't like. Gulf of America is a perfect example that we're watching unfold right now. I would say that for me, it is a challenge, but it's one that I relish in part because it's sort of like doing a gymnastics exercise. But it's also a challenge to act on a tight wire without a net underneath. That sounds fun to you, of course. It's a blast. It's a blast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, what else would I be doing? I don't know. I couldn't be an accountant. That's for sure. I couldn't work in a cubicle. This is like very stimulating. And so I find it very exciting. I think the main thing for me to focus on when it comes to, and this is something that I've thought about more in recent years after having covered the White House during Trump's first administration. I think the main thing for me to focus on when it comes to, and this is something that I've thought about more in recent years after having covered the White House during Trump's first administration. Because actually, previously when I would talk to family members or friends, people that I'm close to, and they would say things like, well, why? Why does CNN so negative? Why this or why that? And they would flag things, especially during the pandemic, that I would think have been thoroughly debunked. And they would present these ideas and sort of challenge me with them. And I would candidly get frustrated and say, no, no, no, no, no. Like, you cannot get your news off of Reddit. You cannot get your news off of, you know. Yeah. username that has 10 numbers on it that is clearly a Russian bot on X or on Twitter. And so then I would find myself trying to make the case that these esteemed legacy institutions, whether CNN, The New York Times, some of our other platforms, award-winning journalism across the board, are valid and should be seen that way. Now I don't try to do that as much, mostly because I've focused in my personal life on preserving the relationship. And it doesn't mean that I don't fact-check them, it's just I don't get emotional about it. I don't say, oh my God, that's so dumb. Why would you ever think that? Come on, how dumb are you? And I realize that will drive my friends away. The conversation will become, oh, my God. It's so personal. And as much as I aspired previously to be dispassionate about it, I would find myself at times outraged by certain things. How do you not see this thing that is right in front of you? And I realize that that emotional reaction is partly the reason that that misinformation is being put out there the way that it is. And so it's sort of like trash talk when you're playing a basketball game or you're playing sports. If the person who's talking to you has you focused on what they're saying and what they're saying is driving you emotionally, then you're not focused on what you're actually doing with the game. So it's much better to be stoic and sort of just let them talk, let them talk, and then wait, and then answer with something much more substantive, much more forceful than just 'this is outrageous.' And so that's kind of my thinking and my philosophy, just present the facts, present the facts, present the facts. Well, let's extend that a little bit more because I have been talking to some people about this concept of something called moral injury, which is, you know, if you're a professional and you're reporting on a topic that's almost absolutely repugnant to you and you have to interview people and get information, what is the effect on you? What's the toll? You stress with us that your personal life is good, you've got a lot going on, I guess, to help insulate you from some of that. But as a journalist, you're stuck. You're still a human being. A hundred percent. You still have an identity and a connection to a community of people. How do you deal with that? This is one of the most important lessons that I learned as a professional, and this is something that maybe you're talked to about in school, but it doesn't land until you find yourself in a certain situation. I'll give you an anecdote. A few years ago, I was, it was 2016, and I was covering a Hillary Clinton event. I was in Tucson or Phoenix, somewhere in Arizona. And I remember I was doing a live shot, and I was explaining: This is what the campaign is; they cut me off, and they said, Boris, so sorry to interrupt, but we have live images of President Obama landing in Cuba. And they took it live, and they had a whole conversation, and I was listening to it, and I was actually supposed to be there to report on this historic visit, the first American president to go to Cuba. Since, I think, California... I was 12 in Coolidge in the 20s. And it was this time where there was this warming of relations, and I was really eager to go, in part because I felt like very few people can give a perspective of the political situation there that takes into full account what it was like to grow up Cuban, and to be in Cuba, and the things that your family endured and sacrificed. And so I felt like my voice wasn't being there. And it was infuriating to me, and part of the reason I couldn't go is because I wasn't granted a visa by the Cuban government, because I was born there, and so they don't recognize my American passport. I have to get a Cuban passport, which is like hundreds of dollars, and only useful for going to Cuba. And so essentially, I couldn't go. Eventually I got a Cuban passport, and they still didn't let me go. Nevertheless, I felt very frustrated, and so I took a picture; I think it was a picture of the plane. I took a picture of the plane, and I posted on social media something to the effect of ... I don't even remember what I wrote. But it was very emotionally charged, and I said, like, someday I will set foot on a free Cuba; is what I wrote. And I thought nothing of it. I got in a car, wound up at the airport, flew, I think it was back to D. C. I don't remember where I was flying. But I didn't have Wi-Fi on the plane. And when I landed, my phone was like, and I was like, what? What just happened? And so I got calls from executives at CNN. I got a call from my agent at the time. I got all sorts of messages saying, 'Hey, like, you really have to think about what you post.' And I sort of thought to myself, 'What? What are they talking about?' My grandfather was incarcerated. My ... Somebody came to my ... Speaker 1. Speaker 2. Speaker 5. Speaker 4. Speaker 8. Speaker 10. Speaker 14. Speaker 15. Speaker 16. Speaker 18. Speaker 23. Speaker 24. Speaker 25. Speaker 27. Speaker 28. Speaker 31. Speaker 32. Speaker 33. Speaker 34. Speaker 36. Could I not get emotional about an issue that is so integral to my identity? How could you not feel charged by that? And in the days after, I took the post down. In the days after that, I had a conversation with an executive at CNN, someone who has been a champion for me through and through, someone who genuinely, outside of work, I adore, I love him. And that is not the job. We use our perspective and we use our experience to highlight things that perhaps other people don't see, but to become invested in the outcome of what happens, whether an election, whether it's the policy of another country, that begins to hamper your ability to speak objectively and dispassionately. And he gave me his example. He is a gay man of color and he said: how many things, he's been in TV for a long time, how many horrible things do you think that I have heard people say in front of me? How many horrible things do you think I have wanted to say back? How many stories have gone uncovered that we should have covered or they were covered a certain way that didn't actually capture the essence of my experience? Your experience is valid and it's important but it's your experience. And-You're not, as a journalist, allowed to have your emotions interfere with what you narrate as history. Some people will argue that it's impossible to separate those two things. I would say that you're supposed to do it to the best of your ability, to present the facts, to allow the facts to speak for themselves. And I recognized in that moment, I have a sensitivity to this Cuba issue. And I'd known that before, but especially in the context of what I do now. And so when I speak to it, I cannot allow this generational trauma, this ancestral wound, to interfere with my ability to ascertain and then describe what is happening in the current moment. Right? That having been said, I will go to the grave stating the fact of what happened and what continues to happen to people who try to speak up and who try to organize in Cuba. So it's a balance. I'm using that as an example for what you're describing now, which is a series of stories that, for a multitude of reasons, would make a number of us, a variety of us, feel outweighed. Outraged and entangled and furious. Again, those emotions end where the job begins. And that's hard, but it's something I think you have to practice and learn over time. You definitely have me thinking about some of my Black History Month stories and tweets. I have to go take a few things now. But I'm going to open this up soon because I could ask questions all day. But I know you all are going to be here. All want to talk with Boris, but in that sense, the issue of immigration and stories that are coming out-we're going to have a session next month, a virtual training session about that. But does this mean that you kind of recuse yourself? No, no absolutely not! Okay, absolutely not! I would say that the for me, the antidote to that reaction that I would naturally have think about this for a second. I came to this country because it granted my family asylum because my grandfather was a political prisoner. I believe in the idea of immigration; I think that's the people who came to this country and and founded it-and wrestled it away from the natives who lived here, were themselves exiles seeking religious freedom, therefore with Rare exception, successive generations have come here or have been brought here by force and have had opportunities to make a better life because the society has deemed that there are certain rights that are inalienable, inalienable, and should be uh given to to its people, not even given to its people you're born with them; and therefore the purpose of government is to defend those rights. So imagine that experience that I just shared with you-I have that belief in immigration, that belief in those inalienable rights, and then I'm at the White House covering immigration or covering the White House but specifically. Stories about immigration come up where families are being separated and children being put behind cages. I could be one of those children, so again, how do you not react to that emotionally? It doesn't mean that I recuse myself; it means that I then deconstruct the mind that thinks that that is the solution to the problems created by immigration. When I go to Trump rallies and I talk to folks who support this sort of view, I try to put myself in their shoes; I try to ask them questions-not that I would necessarily ever believe that separating a child from its parents and putting it in a cage is the best solution, but to understand. The fears that drive the urgency to do something like that to understand the anxiety, to understand the the rage, the pressures that are put on communities that feel like they've been ignored on this specific issue for a long time, so much so that it bubbles up into the fury and a rancor of someone who then says they're thieves, they're murderers, they're rapists, etc. And and they hear that and they think he's right. So, essentially what I'm describing is a process of establishing some form of empathy for folks who may look at me and think that is part of the problem, and again, that's an enormous challenge. But it's one that I think that is worthwhile, and one that I think allows your reporting to go further because it then can potentially strengthen your ability to articulate your experience if that makes sense. No, you're reminding me of a very um powerful opportunity I had to do just that in 1988 when I covered a clan rally in Clearwater and Florida, yeah. And um in the moment, you know, traumatized and it was awful, and I did a little 10-inch story or whatever. But the following week, I did an op-ed and talked about, you know, the price of hate, what is the toll of that? I have found throughout my career that sometimes writing an op-ed about An aspect of lived experience that I can you know speak truth to power about has been effective, um, but it's it's fascinating to me to hear the way you sort of deconstructed it and the way you're able to stay centered in who you are and your why, but also think of the larger objective. So I'm going to open it up now because like I say, I know there are questions so, who would like to ask the first question? We'll start with Lionel and then just talk about the first question just go down that row if there are and introduce yourselves, uh, Lionel Ramos covering state government with Kosu at Oklahoma City. Um, I want to kind of narrow in a little Bit on a dynamic that I mentioned, which is something that I experienced covering immigration, um, it's what I've been covering predominantly really since the beginning of this year, um, which is that I go to work, I go to the state house, right? I go talk to folks, um, at these different community events and things like that, and I went to a legal clinic where there was all these law students helping folks, you know, create powers of attorney and stand by guardianships and like signing away rights away to their children, their businesses, their houses, to people they trusted or didn't trust, didn't know very well, um, in case they got Detained and deported, um, and so I go, and I report. I talk to people; I take pictures, um, with a certain level of detachment right, and I am kind of it feels like I'm playing. Then I come home, and I sit at home, and then it kind of all just likes sinks in at once it's like you just spent, you know, eight hours with families that are going through the worst of their life right now, yeah, um. And so if you could talk a little bit about that day-to-day right because I... I feel centered in my why, um, in a top view right like I... I have actually my mom uh watched the Revolution in Romania over is, um, that my grandma still leads lives in communist flats, um, and showed Up to the point where I performed in the circus, I was born in Florida, um, and spent a lot of time with, you know, Cuban individuals there, um. But just that dynamic of like having that level of detachment coming home, and then like, fucking cooking dinner and stuff, right? Like, and feeling like you want to do that or should do that, right, and like, how do you navigate that because that's where I struggle the most. Yeah, I think a huge part of being able to step back into regular life is recognizing that while it is a mission, it is, is a profession, and in order for you to perform it well, in order for you to achieve that mission, you need to be able to function. Fully and in order to do that, you need to be able to sleep. You need to be able to disconnect yourself from it. You need to be able to to have a functioning social life and that's coming from someone who has lost friendships and relationships because I've dedicated over and over again my career and put my career before uh, a lot of other things. I i would say that the thing for me that can be a solace in moments like that is the fact that while you are there to document what's happening as you described at the worst moment in these folks' lives, you are preserving that history by documenting their experience by preserving it for history. You are bearing witness to something that is going on in their lives, and that is going to be a change. And there's not an absolution, but there is a power. There is a a you're serving testament for someone's experience, and especially when it's something so difficult and so awful. Often the very act of doing that is cathartic because it means that people will know, people will hear it, people will see it. And if that in any way creates change or allows someone to perhaps see the issue differently; if that in any way allows that person to feel validated because someone there is listening and documenting their experience, then. It was worthwhile, and you were advancing your mission often. Uh, that you describe one example I'll give you a more sort of um extreme one in in the sense that the results are immediate uh when you talk to folks who have suffered in the past and who have suffered in the past and who have suffered in the past and who have experienced extreme loss uh whether I would say you know hurricanes, shootings, when I've spoken with folks whose families were abducted on October 7th or families who lost loved ones for example I keep thinking of Surfside this condo building that collapsed in the middle of the night. These folks I mean think. About that for a moment, it's sort of um, it's debilitating-your loved one is there one moment and you're like, 'Oh my god, I'm going to die, I'm going to die,' and then, for unexplained reasons, they're gone, and their remains are impossible to find. And what you recognize is that most often those folks, as they're processing what happened, as you try to understand who their loved one was, as you try to gather information about them so you can share the significance of this moment with the world. You recognize that by them actually articulating these things it helps the process of mourning; it helps the process of giving meaning to these Things that are happening because so much of what we do is just to give meaning to things that are very difficult to explain or impossible to explain. And so for me, the comfort comes in the belief that what I'm doing is helping and what I'm doing is a positive thing. And even when we fall short, even when we struggle, even when the news is bad, and even when the news is bad and even when the news is nuts. Or honestly, I did a story yesterday about uh or I didn't do it but I covered a story about how KFC is moving to Texas, is it going to be called Texas Fried Chicken? Like you know it's kind of it's kind of funny, but you also need that. You need that sort of relief and that escape because you're, uh, dedicated to to a certain uh beat, you said you cover the state house, is that right? Yeah, so, so you're focused on a certain beat, but as journalists generally what we cover is the extent of the human experience, so I'm sure that you also photograph other things and finding joy and finding comfort in that is also an antidote to the sort of crushing moments and and I identify with that so much; the crushing moments that you've experienced being there at someone's worst moment, watching as someone in real time is processing some of the worst things that you can. Imagine I hope that that answers comforting, I should say I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if it's a 'I think the the moments vary and their intensity right but uh, I do find that comfort in in knowing that like that I'm helping people with the grieving process or um, sometimes even preemptively right, like in the case of planning for a future that you don't know will occur um, but it's uh, you know, I guess there's just some some practice to do is what it sounds like for sure. I think it's something that it's a skill that you build over time, yeah, yeah. Here you go, um, hi, um, I'm Chloe, I'm with Al Jazeera. English, um, I guess my question is similar to Lionel's. It's just that there have been a lot of feelings of helplessness, so it's it's kind of hard to center myself and my why. Because I have friends who are like nurses who are social case workers, um, and it's sometimes hard to, for example, my why is like similar story: my family was in Cuba and Peru, and then moved to China. Um, and like, in my growing up, I was like, 'I'm going to be a journalist, I'm going to be a writer to archive stories like theirs.' But in the act of archiving, I'm not preventing what is happening from them; like, at work, at my job, um, a lot of what's been going on is you. know the war on gaza and it's hard to be hearing these horrible stories of death and loss and knowing that i'm reporting them i'm archiving them for the world to see but it's hard to be hearing these stories of death and loss and knowing that i'm reporting them i'm archiving them for the world to see but it's not stopping what's happening with them so I guess my question to you is like how do you kind of grapple with that like how do you recenter yourself in your reason for why you're doing the job if it seems like okay you know I'll give you I think the anecdote that best fits the dynamic you're describing of my career this was 2015, 16 about 10 years ago I was in Miami and I'd been out with some friends and, and it was very late in the night and I got a call, and it was: 'Simple, get to the airport, we're going to put you on a plane to Ecuador. There's been an earthquake; hundreds and hundreds of people are dead. You okay? So I sobered myself and gathered my passport and ran to the airport, and when we got there, I mean it was like this entire shoreline picture like a city right in front of the ocean, and as far as you could see, it's just rubble-there's nothing standing; it's just rubble. And you're walking over what used to be a daycare, and there's children's shoes and toys And the smell of death is harsh, and this is now three or four days in. People are hungry; there, there isn't potable water that's easily accessible. There's a huge line outside certain government offices where people have been told there might be water, there may not. We're interviewing a mayor, and somebody chucks a water bottle full of urine at him, and it hits us, and we're like, 'What the hell?' These folks are angry. Our security detail arrived to the airport; grateful for, says, 'We need to get out of here because this is going to get bad.' So we air a couple stories, and then we find out that there's a place where things are even worse so we drive several hours to get there through the night uh we have like eight hours we gather everything we need to get these very powerful interviews uh this uh expectant mother thinking like what am i going to do there's nothing to eat and uh we we drive back jungles again middle of the night right so i shouldn't say jungles but forest um and i haven't i've i think i've been working for 30 hours haven't slept i'm writing the piece in the car the photographer is next to me watching what i'm i'm writing to pull the sound bites uh we get to the hotel it's sent in script goes through process of approval and we get to the hotel and we It gets approved. The editor edits it. I have about an hour where I get to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, and just like try to decompress and calm down. It was about 11 a. m., and so I'm just trying to I can't fall asleep, so I'm just trying to decompress so that I can go live and try to like explain this as well as I could to toss to the piece. It was supposed to ever leave in the one o'clock hour, and then I get a call like 20 minutes before. 'Hey, we're standing down on your piece; it's getting floated because uh something is happening in Minnesota, and it's probably gonna blow up our Afternoon, we don't know; I was like, okay, it must be like a big deal. I'm thinking hundreds of people are dead, almost a thousand people are dead, and this is really bad. And, I've been doing sort of stories, but this is like the big one; this is the one that I'm like: people will see this and think we should do something for Ecuador-money aid-something should be done. Um, this is the one that I'm like: people will see this and think we should do something for Ecuador. Um, this is the one that I'm like: people will see this and think we should do something for Ecuador because Prince passed away; and, you can say hey, like, man-these people in Ecuador but then think about who our audience is think about what prince meant to them think about what prince as a symbol as an artist has meant to this country and so you're faced with this judgment where you only have so much space to write a column you only have one image to write a column you only have one image to write a column you only have one image to send in that people will see you only have a certain amount of time that people will watch your story and you have to balance what has the most impact for our viewers and to this day i still am frustrated that that piece didn't run but i understand that for millions of people in this Country, the death of someone that they love that they have this relationship with watching him grow-some of the most emotionally impactful moments of folks' lives are attached to this artist's music and so hearing that he's passed away evokes profound emotions. So I completely understand why that happened. That's one example; there are many others, though. To me, that that to me was was one example where I had to go through the process of thinking, 'How do we make these judgments about what gets attention, what doesn't get attention? What has impact, what doesn't have impact?' And I learned a lot from that experience. There have been many other. examples where i have put together stories or i put together panels and conversations and then they go away or they don't land nobody watches them and i think this is such a good conversation amplify that with often pitching stories or trying to do stories that your own bosses think we're going to do something else right uh last time i was here we talked about years that i had spent pitching stories about the latino electorate and latino voters and and predicting that at some point there was going to start being this realignment of where latino voters were and we saw that in the last election a lot of people were surprised On November 7th and 8th, when they saw that a majority of Latino men voted for Donald Trump. I've been doing that story for years, and when I started pitching it initially, there were these signs that there's going to be a lot of people who are going to vote for me. I don't know if you saw it, but I decided to do it because I felt like when I started it was a team that was going to do so many things, I think you know. It shows that there was a rightward shift among Latinos. My bosses were like, 'Well, maybe around the election time and I felt like we got to do this story eventually; we did more and more of them because of the way that things played out. And the way that I was able to network and leverage folks doing that story, other places, friends of mine, uh, and showing it to them, and saying like they're doing the story, are we going to do this story? This is an important thing. So all that to say, that I think I have to, at least for myself, have to remain committed to doing the best job I possibly can, and then sort of hoping that the stars align or that the right conditions are in place so that the right people watch them so that it has an impact. Because often I find that it doesn't. And sometimes it's the stories that you don't think will have an impact that do. A quick example to balance out some of the more somber stuff. When I was at my first job in Redding, California, in the middle of nowhere, market 130-something, I was randomly at the last minute assigned a story about a young boy who was five or six years old who had developed liver cancer. And so I'm sure some of you have experienced this: yes. You go to a stranger's house and you knock on the door and you don't know who's going to answer. This guy opens the door, who had clearly done time, tattoos on his neck, very sort of rough skin. And so Redding, just so you know, is overwhelmingly white. The most diverse place in Redding was the TV station because we had two Hispanics, two African-American people, and an Asian person. And that was the most diverse place in Redding. So I knock on the door. This man opens. I'm not sure if he thinks. I'm just like, I'm not sure what he thinks. I'm like knocking on his door. I didn't take any of the equipment with me. I left him in the car. And I'm like, sir, I'm so-and-so and such-and-such, da-da-da-da-da. He's like, this hardened man. You can see the crevices in his skin and the things that he has seen with his eyes. You could feel him. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching his son play with their daughter. And it's hard not to get emotional. This kid's fighting for his life. And they don't have very much money. And I'm interviewing the dad. And this stone of a man crumbles. And he starts to cry. And he describes that his son is everything. The story airs. Or, yes, the story airs. And the next day, I had a different story assigned. And, uh. As I'm getting ready to go into the studio, they said, forget that, forget that. We have the video from yesterday. We just got this news. Go on and do it right now. This is literally on the air. I walk out and I go to do it. And it's, they were able to find a donor. I don't know if I had anything to do with that. But the fact is that I get to tell that kid's story and it comes to a good resolution. And I get to tell people it came to a good resolution. That, to me, more than almost anything else, is a testament to what we do. Do you have a hard stop? Because we could keep you here all morning. I've answered two questions, yeah. I feel like we got through a lot more last year because my answers were a lot shorter. I apologize. They're more powerful this year. So let's take a few more before we let you go. Hello, my name is Nixon and I'm with The Register. And I believe in lifelong learning, it's like a crucial, important, especially in this career. Especially how things are developed. And just, and just changing. And I'm kind of curious, what type of investments are you making in your professional development? You're talking to someone who tears themselves to shreds every day. I am my biggest critic, for sure. I think one of the best skills that you can have at anything in life is to separate yourself from your ego. And how you feel about yourself. And what you think you can be, or what you think you are, and say, where am I right now? What are my weaknesses? What do other people see that maybe I'm not seeing? Right? What do the folks that I want to be like, have? What are they doing? What skills do they possess that I would need to possess in order to get to where they are? How am I doing with those things, right? If you're able to find someone that you aspire to. And deconstruct. Not only how they got there, but the skills that they developed on the way. And how they developed those skills. Then you give yourself a blueprint for how to get there. But that starts with ruthless self-assessment. Ruthless criticism. And that's hard. Because you may overdo it. And you may think, 'I suck.' What am I doing? And often I have found myself doing it. When I started at the White House, I struggled with imposter syndrome. In part, because I walked in. Never really having been a political reporter before. I'd done some stories at the State House. But I'd never done politics. Politics had never been my beat. And I'm looking at my right. I'm standing on the North Lawn. The White House is imposing upon itself. Because it's the fucking White House. And there's people on the right that you watch and admire. And there's people on the left that you watch and admire. And you realize people are listening to what I'm saying. And dissecting what I'm saying. For meaning that may not be there. They’re looking for reasons to criticize and tear you down. Certain folks. And so, it’s a lot of pressure. And so, I would go on and I would stumble through my words. I would f**k up. I would say the wrong thing. And when I would go home, I would stay awake and like stare at the ceiling. What am I doing? How do I get better? And honestly, it’s repetition. I said this last year, I’ll say it again. A philosopher, a philosopher warrior, by the name of Little Wayne, taught me that repetition is the father of learning. Repetition. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. And when you fail, remember why you’re doing it. Remember the thing that’s driving you. Remember your purpose. Immerse yourself in that. Do it again. And it'll give you the motivation to get back up and fail again. Because you're going to fail. You're not going to stop failing. Even now. I fail. Constantly. But the failures, to me, are a different standard. So, to a lot of other folks, they're imperceptible. You'll say, oh, that was awesome. I watched some of the video from last year. I was like, oh, my God. What was I saying? Like, how is this useful to young people? Right? But then I realized, like, I'm aspiring to something. That's up there. Even if I don't get there, recognizing where I can do better and doing my best to get better will help get me there. And so it's a process of self-analysis, self-criticism, but then also compassion. Self-compassion. I'm doing the best I can right now, but I will do better tomorrow. That's what I tell myself. Two more. Thank you. I admire your work a lot. So please, like, continue doing what you're doing, because I follow your work a lot. I don't want to seem like a sucker or anything like that, but journalism is just very, like, I don't know. I hold it dearest to my heart. And the work that you do is literally where I aspire to be at and do at. So continue doing what you're doing. My name is Johnny Perez, and I'm with WHYY Public Media. And my question to you is my why. So long story short, my why is for the community. I'm Latino, Guatemalan American, and everything that I do, I do it for our people, my people, my parents. They're undocumented. They're immigrants, literally from high school, from the jump. That's why I chose media. But even to this day, being just a general assignment reporter for Delaware, the state of Delaware itself, I do a lot of stories that relate to the Latino community. And if it helps them in a way to be educated, I'll do it. However, it's a general assignment, so it's not really concentrated on Latinos. But I've been a huge advocate for Latinos in my organization, which is why our Spanish-speaking audience isn't there at the moment. And I've always mentioned it at our all-staff meetings, like, 'yo, you guys need to look at the Latino community.' Like, that's an audience you guys are losing right there. Like, we can get more traction from them too. But now, fortunately enough, I'm actually spearheading this WhatsApp group where I can have conversations with Latinos. I can send my stories and other stories to Latinos and translate them in Spanish for them. So, I'm happy that my organization is doing something, but my question is, how do you keep yourself motivated and committed to the Latino communities? And I know I'm already thinking ahead, and I know Latinos are in need. They need a lot. They want support. They're going to ask questions. They're going to contact you literally maybe la madrugada or at midnight and stuff like that. So my second part of the question is, how do you balance that, and how do you, like, I guess, lock out of, or how do you block that? Like, yeah, how do you know your boundaries on that? I'd say the way that I stay motivated is recognizing that by having this platform, I have to be an advocate and an ambassador. Not just for my community, for Latinos, but for other represented communities as well. Because you will only succeed in a situation in which a lot of these news directors, these managerial types, these executives, don't recognize perhaps the importance of a story until it hits them in the face, or until it's a certain month, or there's a certain event going on. And the way that you bring it to their attention, and you show the strength of, or the importance of, that community and that story is with allies and with folks that either at other outlets or at your own have had similar experiences to you. And so, what I would say is that knowing that there are folks like you, that there are folks, like any NASJ conference that I go to, that will say hi to me and will say, 'I'm so-and-so' and 'such-and-such' and 'I like what you do' and da-da-da-da-da, knowing that there are folks out there that see themselves represented and that have faith that they can someday represent their communities too, the way that Sanchez Anchor represented my community and inspired me to pursue this in a way, that is a motivating factor, not only to tell these stories and to be a voice and to be an ambassador and to build a bridge to the stories that are impactful to us, to the folks that are more worried about making profit for a news organization, but also for the folks that have my similar shared experience who also have their frustrations in trying to tell certain stories, whether, again, it's at CNN or it's at Washington Post or Politico or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that laying the foundation for a future, for a more inclusive future is part of the reason that I stay motivated and a huge part of that is incorporating networking, incorporating community into that because there are strengths in numbers. Quickly, Kirti and then Gabe. Hi, thank you for being here. I'm Kirti Gopal with Inside Climate News and you're really touching on a lot of ideas that I wonder about a lot and think about a lot, so this is really helpful. When you were talking about this idea of needing to sometimes separate your emotions or your experiences and your convictions from the job just to be able to do the job, I'm curious if you could say a little bit more about how much of that you feel is about the process and the content that you're putting out there, the process of reporting, versus how much is about the way your work is received or this idea of credibility or just how your work is out there. Help me understand what you're asking a little bit better. When you say that you need to sometimes keep your emotions outside of the job, do you think that's about influencing the way you do your reporting or the way your reporting is received or both? Both. For one, I would say that the process itself should be almost sacred in the sense that I can't allow these other things to interfere with what I'm doing, whether it's emotions, whether it's pressures, whether it's a tweet or an email that says, 'Hey, you're not covering this story or what you said is wrong or whatnot.' I can't allow that to interfere with this-this is what we're covering today, this is the fact of the situation. Every now and then I hear some of our elected officials say things that are jaw-dropping, but I recognize they are designed to be jaw-dropping because they want the attention, they want to generate the controversy in part because you lose focus on the process. You will lose yourself in outrage over some rhetorical device that was used and not focus on what the other hand is doing as it does a number of the things that we've seen. So I would say that as you develop your process of whatever it is that you're doing, there's a book by a football coach, Bill Walsh from the 80s. And to be honest, I bought the book and I never read it because I felt like I knew what he was going to say. The title, The Score, will keep, the score keeps itself? Something like that. What it means is, and I think Bill Belichick who was in his coaching tree, the former coach of the New England Patriots has expressed this idea, just do your job. Don't worry about the outcome, don't worry about what if this happens, what does it say about me, what does it mean, what are my parents going to think, what is the feedback going to be on social media? Just focus on the process itself. The score will take care of itself. At the end of the day, if you've done the process, if every rep that you've put in, if every story that you've put in is the best that you can possibly do, then other things will fall in line. Even if they don't immediately, the process itself will make you better. I'm a big process person. I don't know, I feel like a lot of that was semantics. But basically, just focus on the nitty-gritty, focus on the job, separate everything else. Last question. CNBC, thank you so much. It's a perfect lead into my question, which is, what is your relationship to social media now? And how are you handling professionally a White House that has operationalized 12-year-old trolling as their modus operandi? If I didn't have the job that I do, I wouldn't have social media. I wouldn't. I'll tell you my candid thoughts about social media. It is a machine that runs on our envy and resentment. Because, That was deep. That was seriously deep. Because the reason that these services are so successful is because they have built algorithms that tap into some of our most primal emotions. And so when you see someone that has the house that you want, the vacation that you want, the body that you want, the partner that you want, all these things, it drives something out of you. It creates a desire for that experience. And so by presenting this sort of vision of what life can be, you simultaneously desire it and feel upset that you don't have it. So it harbors more of your resentment. And there is no easier human emotion to evoke than rage. It's the most profitable emotion for these social media companies, which is why they really do not care about misinformation. They truly do not care about misinformation. So my response is, how do I handle social media? I ignore it for the most part. Every now and then, I will post something if I think it's like funny, or if I think, like I post a lot of stories more than anything on Instagram because I feel like I enjoy showing what I'm doing because folks will reach out to me or they'll ask questions. I like to be engaged, but I'm also very deliberate about who I actually engage with. I have like a lot of filters on my inbox so that I only see like people that I know. I'll post things like I've posted a speech that I've given or like a story that I thought was interesting. But for the most part, I don't engage. I don't respond. You'll find like entire comment sections of posts that I've done that are just like, 'fuck you'. You're a communist. You're this. You're that. Words that I probably shouldn't be saying because this is being recorded. But alas, I don't respond. It's not worth engaging because what you find is that most often those folks are just having a conversation with themselves. It's a parasocial thing where they think that like by, they see something that you say, something that you say upsets the balance of whatever they've carved as reality. And so they have to tell you this bothers me. I hate you. Literally, some woman like a year ago, I did a story about, it doesn't matter what, but she posted, I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. And I was like, are you okay? It's four in the morning. Like what is your family doing? People care about you-honestly that's what I would say. Don't waste your time on being committed to the rage because it's for profit and not ours. We have just received a master class in not only emotional self-regulation but in career strategy and really connecting with why we do what we do, and embracing that moving forward. So I'd like to take this opportunity for us to show our thanks to Boris Sanchez of CNN for joining us today. Thank you so much. I hope-thank you, truly. I hope that I have said something useful. Sometimes I find that I just like ramble and then afterward I'm like, oh God. Somebody's going to clip that and put it on our website. So valuable about this is, you know, as we talk about things like imposter syndrome or whatever, to realize that someone like him grapples with the same stuff that we do is really cool.