Zibby Owens (3:06)

Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books in my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know. Get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbemedia.com and follow me on Instagram ibyoans Carol Lynn is the author of When News Breaks, a Memoir of Love and War. Carol is best known for being the first national anchor to report the 911 attack on the World Trade Center. She was a longtime anchor and correspondent for CNN and ABC News. During her career, she covered the war in the Middle east, the aftermath of the kosovo War, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and every imaginable natural disaster from hurricanes, tornadoes, historic wildfires and floods. Carol received an Emmy, a Peabody, the Alfred I. Dupont Award, and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club Awards for excellence in both investigative reporting and her coverage of the Los Angeles riots. She currently lives in Hawaii. Welcome Carol, thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about your book When News A Memoir of Love and War. Congratulations.

Carol Lynn (4:43)

Oh, thank you so much, Sivi.

Zibby Owens (4:45)

I really loved your book. I found it so well written and immersive. And your story, I mean, how can you not root for you all the way? Plus, you're giving us context into all these world events and the behind the scenes of news and the events themselves and what that felt like and then all of the loss and oh my gosh, you just. I mean, it looks so small, but there's so much in it. You've gone through so much, so I don't know. Congratulations.

Carol Lynn (5:13)

Oh, thank you, Zibi. You know, the challenge was to make sure that the readers knew that this wasn't going to be a book about a gonzo journalist, that there are so many notable female journalists out there doing incredible work today. And I wanted to be sure that people in understood that this was their story too. It's what happens when news breaks for any one of us and how that breaking and making of a life can lead to a life of love and maybe your true purpose. And what happened in my case, away from the TV lights that begged these big questions. You met my mother, for example, Joanne. And all the hopes and dreams she had for me, really to try to protect me from a world that she didn't think was ever going to accept me, this TV world. And to meet a man who. Was he going to be good for me? Was he right for me? Was I driven by these forces that were really rooted in my childhood and the death of my dad that drove me to him, and then the questions of whether I should stay or whether we should leave the marriage. I think these are questions that so many of the readers are exploring when they read the book. And frankly, that's what excites me when people see themselves in these pages.

Zibby Owens (6:37)

Well, on the note about your dad. So your dad had a stroke and lived and became a different type of. Different personality type, often quite volatile. Volatile and unpredictable. And that was part of the backdrop of you growing up and your search for someone on your own and the adrenaline hunt of the news and all these other things. But that was something that I feel like you were working your way through and realizing sort of later on in the book the impact of all of that. Can you just talk about that for a little bit?

Carol Lynn (7:12)

Sure. I thought my mother was going to be the driving character in my book, but as I was writing, it turned out it was my dad and these memories of sitting with him in these encyclopedias and him telling me as a Chinese immigrant that I could be anything I wanted, anything that I could dream, that's what he fought for in his own immigrant experience. And so in these sleepy summers or the quiet of night when we would sit with these encyclopedias and he told me that I could have all the knowledge in the world and he became my first love, you know, this. This man who believed in me deeply. And so when he had his stroke, I was 11 years old. And it was a life changing experience for me because all these years of These quiet, loving moments. And then to see a man who was just struggling to learn to speak again and eat again. And the anger and injustice that he felt of what happened to his own life fueled this ambition in me. That I had to prove that he was right. I had to believe that I could be his channel to the American dream. And to feel that pressure and to want him to see me in ways that he could not see himself. And then later that he died before I could ever make it in the business. I was at this quirky satellite news operation in Washington D.C. and that was the best that he saw of me. Even though I was this kind of pint sized producer for this agency, nobody had heard of working in the White House, albeit. And so I think, you know, when we think about our own stories and we ask ourselves, how did I end up doing this? Or why did I end up where I was when it was so contrary to the person that I think I really am? This adrenaline charged life was really fueled by I've got to make his dreams happen. You know, that was the initial pressure. And then so much was rooted in trying to manifest what he wanted in his own life and what I thought he wanted for me.

Zibby Owens (9:23)

I feel like that's another thing that you're working through the whole time. What is it you really want? Do you want. You loved going out and being, you know, in the field and getting the reports and all the stuff, but you also longed for home. And your body at one point said, no more. You know, time to ground you. And you had this potential autoimmune disease. And I feel like. And then of course, when your life changed with Will, I mean, Will, I feel like your dad in the beginning and his stroke and then this one moment with Will as he stumbles outside and you're just trying to take him for a walk. I feel like these are like two of the bookends of your. The most intense part of your career where you were just like hard charging. And it's almost like you couldn't relax or take a breath until sort of after that, in a way.

Carol Lynn (10:09)

Yeah, Siby. Even when it was clear to everybody else that my husband Will was dying, it was never going to be clear to me because the career that I had and what I had to do to make that career happen was how I approached Will's cancer journey and his caregiving. And so many people, early readers have said to me, when they got to that scene where I was like, well, let's build muscle. Let's go out for a Walk. Let's, you know, walk by the ocean and enjoy the scenery. Not really seeing what I needed to see. So many people had said, oh, my gosh, Carol, no, don't you see what's happening? But I had lived this career and this life where I didn't want to see what was happening because I needed certain things to happen. I couldn't take no for an answer. It was always about y. Yes, accept the interview. Yes, take my questions. Yes, hire me. There was no other choice. And so that's how I began to approach Will's cancer treatment. And even now, it's painful for me to read that part, because I think, what did I ask of him? He wanted to live so badly because we had just had our baby. And I'm sorry. Later, I still get emotional about it, but, you know, why couldn't I have just said, yes, let's celebrate the last of our days together? But it was not something I could accept. And that was part of the conditioning of wanting a career that asked everything of me. I got so used to overcoming the odds that I thought, what was cancer? We can do this, you know, I'm.

Zibby Owens (11:58)

So sorry for all that both of you went through at that time and for bringing it up today.

Carol Lynn (12:02)

I'm sorry. No, it's part of the story.

Zibby Owens (12:07)

But don't you think you had to have hope? I mean, yes, it's one thing to say, let's accept and celebrate life, but you were fighting for him all the way. That was your love language. You were just trying to prolong his life because you loved him. Not out of any blocking, out of emotion. I mean, I feel like what you were doing came from such a good place. Like, there is no right. There is no right way to handle a terminal illness of a spouse like, you didn't do anything wrong.

Carol Lynn (12:37)

Thank you for that. And it still means something all these years later to hear that. Because we had just had a baby and we had just come through the fire in our marriage over the years. And it was not so much about why I love this man anymore. It was what marriage became for me was, how do I love this man? How do I stay? How do I learn to love in a way that is not transactional? Because the world of television is what you give something to get something. And it's something that my mother had warned me about, that how others see you determines your fate. So what are you willing to compromise to get that approval? And we had fought so hard for our love in our marriage, and we had finally gotten to the point, you know, 9, 11 was that turning point for, for us and, and for our decision to try to create a family that. To get to the point where, wait a second, you're gonna die. That is not fair. You know, and I think so many people who go through that journey of, how can you, God, give me a baby against all odds and. And take my husband, you know, so there's this faith journey in the book, too, that questions my mother's Christianity and what she believed God wanted for me, how she wanted to keep me safe, and what that path looked like. And I rebelled full bore, right? And I pursued a career that she had always warned me about. And I married a man that she would warn me about too. But eventually she fell in love with him as well. And so, you know, it's that push and pull of we finally get to this place in our life where this is what we thought we always wanted, and it's not at all what we thought it would be. And, you know, but that's where the magic is, you know, And I think in hindsight, that's the beauty of memoir. It's seeing where that journey takes you, because it takes you to places that. And to people you never thought that you would ever get to meet or. And things you never thought you'd get to do. A high price for sure. But we're all going to face that breaking news in our life, and I hope that's what people get out of this book, that it's not about the gonzo journalist experience. It's not about being any more special than anyone else. It's simply using television as a metaphor for what it means to be seen and to find identity when everyone is trying to tell you who you are and what you should be.

Zibby Owens (15:15)

100%, that's so well said. I mean, you and Will, you wrote in the book in great detail about the marital struggles and the other dalliances and the hardest times that most people, frankly, just don't share. Do you feel his death has allowed you. Do you feel okay sharing now versus, you know, had he lived? I mean, obviously, who knows what life would be like in general, but, you know, this whole notion of behind closed doors and that we don't share the hardest times in our marriages, usually so that other people can't learn from them. Here you've given us the ins and outs and how you got through them. Do you think that's something you would have felt comfortable sharing or how was it to share it even now?

Carol Lynn (16:04)

Great question. I think it has to do with my intent in writing this to begin with. So I had an audience of one Siby. And it's my daughter Chloe, whom you meet as a baby in the book, and you as a mom, totally understand this. But when we see our children walk the walk that. Where we once were, making the decisions of who to love and what to do and what their purpose is in life, that was my daughter. That is my daughter. You know, she's 22. She's just starting her life. She had gone through a breakup, a heartbreak. She was trying to make critical decisions in her career and asking all these big questions about why, and yet feeling that pressure of needing to be perfect, you know, that curated life that she or her generation feels they need to present on success media. And it made me question, gosh, why did I make the decisions that I made? And I thought, you know what? I'm going to pick up the pages of a book I started when I left cnn, and I'm just going to finish this and see where this takes me, because I want her to know the things about me that she didn't know, that nobody knew. I wanted to have that freedom and agency for myself, but I wanted her to have that story so that she knew that she didn't have to be perfect and that a good life comes from the imperfection and how we learn and see ourselves. And it's not about not making mistakes. It's about making those mistakes and then embracing ourselves for the journey that came from it. And so that's where the book came from. It wasn't, oh, people want to read my story. I mean, my story is, you know, when agents or publishers ask the eternal questions, why you? Why this? Why now? All really good questions. But I had that audience of one. And I wanted her to know, you know, I wanted her to know everything about her mom and her biological dad, and I wanted her to know most of all, you're gonna make mistakes, you know, and those mistakes at the time, you're gonna feel like they're just killing you, but they're not. You know, they're planting the seeds of the person that you're gonna become. And when that happens, it's gonna be really exciting. And that's what I want for you.

Zibby Owens (18:18)

Chloe is very lucky.

Carol Lynn (18:20)

Tell her that.

Zibby Owens (18:23)

Did she read the book, though? Did she actually read it? Yes. Okay, good.

Carol Lynn (18:26)

I had to wait until it was pretty solid because, as you know, things move around a lot in revision, But I had to. I had to be sure she knew about the America's cup incident. She I had told her about that at one point in her life, but she didn't know about my affair in Kosovo and that was going to hurt. I knew when she read it because she has a certain opinion of me and I'm her mother. You know, moms don't run around war zones. I'm British captains, right? That's not who I am to her. But she read it and we had a two hour conversation, Zibby. And at first she was saying, you know, so sad. It's so sad. And I said, no, but it. What about this and what about that? And then we were able to really talk about, you know, what love. You know, what it is to love somebody. And she said because she had gone through a recent breakup and she was questioning, well, maybe I should have stayed. And I said, look, let's talk about the spectrum of relationships that you're going to have in your life and the decision point when you're going to face times in your relationships. Is this worth it? What skin do I have in the game? What is. What do I as a woman have invested? And can I really walk away? And when you're a family, whatever that definition is today, in my case, my mother was and my career were so intertwined with my relationship with this older newsman who jump started my career. He was me and I was him, you know, and we were in it. But for her, I wanted her to be able to ask those questions, understanding that sometimes you walk and sometimes you stay and you fight. And that was a great conversation to have with my daughter, Zibby. She also then became the critic, right? Like, oh, Ma, you love a good metaphor, don't you? That's the key to metaphor. I'm a key to. And then she gave me notes which I love. Can you imagine you give birth to one of your future Beta readers and editors?

Zibby Owens (20:36)

My dad wrote a book. I gave him lots of notes. I think he took two of them. But I was sticky notes and crossing things out. At least you have a vested interest in your audience. The way you wrote about news I also found really interesting because you were right there. CNN was getting off the ground and people were laughing at the whole idea of round the clock news. And you take us from that to just the development of the media from the nightly news model to what it is today, really. And I'm just wondering how you feel about news and even social media news. I mean, I've been realizing lately, like, you know, I'm a hardcore newspaper reader, like, I love the experience of newspapers, but it's just so. Things are so fast now on Instagram, I'm just like, oh my gosh. Not only did I know about this, I've watched five videos of the people who are like, inside this bar where it happened. I don't need this headline. So I'm just curious, like, how are you feeling about the evolution of news today? And is there a path for a newscaster the way it used there used to be?

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Carol Lynn (24:08)

The answer is no, not in my opinion, there is not a path. The path that I walked doesn't really exist because the destination is different. For me, it was getting to the network and then getting on a morning show where you had two hours of airtime every day, 10 hours a week. Then it would be an evening magazine show, so on and so forth. Now it is so personality driven is you have to be a brand. And I can't even imagine developing a brand and worrying about the journalism and then not even having time to properly, in my opinion, research a story and fact check that you're in rolling coverage all the time. You're reporting things as you know them. They're things that we were filtering on 9 11, the morning of 911 when that first plane hit the World Trade center, we were filtering and holding back things that today I think there would be a lot of pressure to report them and then sort it out later at the same time. Zibi I'm optimistic, you know, so while we live in an age now where we literally question what is fact and what is truth, right now it's whatever my truth is is my fact. So we don't have a common well to draw upon for information. So we're acclimating the next generation of news consumers to be skeptics, which is good on the one hand. On the other hand, there are really exciting things that are happening on the local level, the hyperlocal level. So the way it sounds, you and I tend to focus on the national level. We're reading the national newspapers, we're watching the national cable networks, so on and so forth. But what's happening on the local level is that people are coming together and funding hyperlocal media. And I live in Hawaii now and that's what's happening on a scale that other people like news agencies in California are taking note, where a tech billionaire, Pierre Omidyar, is funding something called Civil Beat, which is all about the same issues that are happening on the mainland are here happening in Hawaii, but a real focus on local solutions. So when you fund hyperlocal news, whether it's your local Patch newspaper or local NPR or your local pbs, you're informing the local audience about what's important in Your community. And that plants the seed for legal precedent, local laws that change, that set the precedent for future generations. On a federal level, I see that as hopeful because people are skeptical about the national news, but they believe in their neighbors. And I think if we look at what credible local news sources we have, we're going to find something that's pretty rich. And there are organizations like Poynter and the American Journalism Project and other private funders who are funding these. These ideas at the local level. It's just not going to bubble up right away. Right. But we are going to see efforts, and we still are a democracy. It doesn't look that way every day. Every day I wake up and I wonder really, what's next?

Zibby Owens (27:25)

Yeah.

Carol Lynn (27:26)

But I think we can't lose the. The hope that people understand they're smarter than. They're smarter than we're giving them credit for. And it's going to. It's just going to go down to neighbor to neighbor and how we hold each other in our community accountable for what is, what is fact.

Zibby Owens (27:43)

That's so interesting. I love that. When you finished writing the book or even when the book has come out, how does it make you feel? The sense of closure? Did you get a sense of closure? Have the reactions been informative themselves? Like, what has it done for you emotionally to have it out there?

Carol Lynn (28:02)

Wow. I'll tell you, Zibby, it is all about the readers. And these are people I don't know. So for the first time, I have strangers, a certain number of strangers posting reviews and commenting or dming me. And the reaction is exactly what I hoped for. That it's not so much my story, it's their story. You know, they see themselves in these pages. They see their marriage, they see their mothers, they see their careers and their choices. And what I love about most of the reaction is that they say that, wow, your book sits with me. It still sits with me. And it was very intentional the way it ended, because this wasn't about a Hallmark ending or finding a new relationship. It wasn't, you know, the cliche of the big city girl going to the small town and finding true love. Or even so much about choosing motherhood over career. I didn't want people to walk away with that. And I don't think they did. I think they walked away thinking about their own story. And I love that. I love that this can be a conversation, you know, even if it's a conversation that a woman or in some cases men are having with themselves. And that is very exciting to Me, because this book was never about me. I mean, it's about me, but it's. The intent of it was not to, say, read my story, you know, because there are so many great stories out there. But if I think writing memoir in part, is about giving back and also finding meaning, you know, or get. Or planting seeds, curiosity, seeds in the reader so that they hunger, they want more, and if they read my book and it leads them to read another book because they're now curious, then all the better, right? For the reading community.

Zibby Owens (30:01)

Amazing. I love it. Well, I have to say, the book, it just really got me. It just. You know, some books, they just, like, go right to your soul or something. And I just feel you did such a lovely job with it, and you were so open, and you weren't trying to polish yourself into perfection, and you were as authentic as possible. And, I don't know, it just. That's what makes people relate and things resonate so well, right. When you just, like, put yourself out there and share the imperfect lessons that we all learned. Right. That's how we connect. So, anyway, I really loved it. It was really good.

Carol Lynn (30:40)

I'm so glad. Siby, thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing, because I really think you have an intuitive sense of the importance of story. You know, you and I met briefly, and why would you remember? But I went to one of the book walks that originates at Zibby's bookshop in Santa Monica.

Zibby Owens (30:57)

Yes.

Carol Lynn (30:58)

And I bought your book on being Jewish to give to Jodi, who's in my book.

Zibby Owens (31:03)

Yeah, I know. Jodi.

Carol Lynn (31:05)

Jodi, yes. And when I gave her the book, let me tell you, when I gave her your book, she was so grateful because she, as a Jewish woman, felt seen. She felt like that, even though I've known her for all these years, that when I gave her your book, she felt like I understood, like I got it right. And to share other people's stories, that's the impact. So I just want to applaud the work that you're doing to not only celebrate authors, but your own work where you're giving voice to these super important issues. You know, these are stories that people need to read. And just on my own personal level, when I heard that crack in Jody's voice over the phone when she was thanking me for your book, I thought, you know, that's. That's the value of talking about what's happening in people's lives.

Zibby Owens (31:57)

Oh, so nice. Thank you so much. Oh, well, I hope I see you again in the bookstore another time. Thank you for giving that book and thank you for sharing your book and all the rest. So lovely to have heard your story. Thank you so much.

Carol Lynn (32:14)

Thank you Zibby.

Zibby Owens (32:15)

Okay, take care. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram Iby Owens and Spread the Word. Thanks so much. Oh and buy the book books.

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