Alisyn Camerota and the power of following your bliss

**Alisyn Camerota is a journalist, author and co-anchor of CNN Newsroom. She’s had more than 3 decades working as a broadcast journalist, and has more awards than we can list here. She’s a favorite client of MT Deco’s and we are honored that she took the time to (virtually) sit down with us and dish all about her career path, how she’s always followed her dreams, and how the road to achieving personal and professional dreams has never been smooth, but always worth it. Alisyn also shared her advice for how you, too, can find success.

What follows is a lightly edited and condensed version of our conversation.** 

Did you always want to be a reporter?

Yes. I was 15 years old and I was watching Phil Donahue, who had one of the original talk shows in the seventies and eighties. He was running around his studio with a microphone, interviewing the guests and studio audience, and I truly had one of those “aha” moments where I thought, “What do you call that job?” I found out it was called broadcast journalism, and it just looked to me so exciting and so dynamic. From that moment on, that was my North Star and every decision I made was to get closer to that goal.

Did it go smoothly?

[laughs] It went smoothly in that I never doubted that this is what I wanted to do. But it did not go smoothly in terms of a straight line, because all I had was a dream. And you need a little bit more than that. So, I only applied to colleges that had TV stations. In all of my broadcast journalism classes and trying out for the campus newscast, I just sucked. It took a long time for me to develop those skills. I was not a natural. There were definitely obstacles and setbacks and detours. But if you're following your bliss and doing what you love, those things don't feel like deal breakers.

It seems like you definitely developed those skills. I saw a tweet recently highlighting a clip from your show where you interviewed a Texas Congressman — questioning him about their fast legislation on abortion laws and dragging their feet on gun laws. And that kind of hit me as a question that I think a lot of people legitimately have, but could feel it was political or “too soon”. What inspired you to go there at that moment?

I only ask questions that I really want to know the answer to. So in other words, I don't see everything through a political lens. Why does Texas seem more energized and more organized to protect unborn embryos than living, breathing 10-year-olds? I just want an answer. The guy that I was interviewing was somebody who had voted for essentially banning abortion. Why can't they move with that same energy for all of these kids who were counting on them? These are kids who were in a classroom begging the police to go in and begging for their lives, and the Texas State Legislature isn't doing anything. This isn't rhetorical. I truly want to know the answer and I'm not satisfied yet with how they've tried to explain that. 

Do you think that as a less seasoned reporter, you would've felt confident going there?

Definitely not. In my first years of reporting, I wouldn't have necessarily known what Texas had just done on abortion. But in this case, I had just been covering that story. So I had that institutional knowledge and knew how the Texas State Legislature had acted. It definitely takes years of confidence building and context building to contextualize a question like that. 

Is there any one particular story that has stuck with you throughout your time reporting?

There’s a million. Every story has a nugget where I learn something new. I'm always open to my mind being blown and those are the best moments. The stories that I would say that stick with me most were probably from when I was a crime reporter for five years on America's Most Wanted. My job was to go to the county jail where the murderer or the rapist had just been caught, and I interviewed the murderer or rapist to find out why he'd done it. That was always fascinating. I carry a lot of those stories with me from that time. I did a lot of victim interviews and missing child cases too, and that taught me incredible compassion. 

Also, I think that having to sit across from murderers and rapists did teach me some courage in an interview situation, where a state Senator isn’t intimidating. I'm grateful for those years of interviewing scary people.

You’re often talking to people when they are at their most vulnerable. What do you bring to that conversation in order to make them feel comfortable? 

Breaking news is often horrible and devastating. Part of what being a crime reporter taught me was that you can't force anyone to go on camera. When I interview a grieving family member or a victim, I know that they want to tell their story. I know it won’t be easy, I often interview people who are dealing with raw grief, and many of the interviews are gut-wrenchingly sad. But they're there because they want people to know something. That steels my spine to go into those interviews because I want to help them get their story out and I'm a conduit to doing that. It’s my honor to have a platform to give those people. I respect that they have a story that they want to tell, and we’re on the same team. 

Do you have an outlet for yourself after conducting these types of interviews that allows you to manage that experience for yourself? 

I don't really stop myself from feeling the grief when I'm with them. I try not to get in the way of their emotions or their story, but if I get teary, that’s ok. I don't try to stop myself from expressing human emotions anymore. I don't try to be the neutral reporter who is rock steady. I’m human and I know the audience is upset hearing these stories too. We’re empathetically experiencing it. But when I leave, I have to compartmentalize. I have a few survival techniques. I’ll call my loved ones, I’ll go back to my motel and just be out of motion. I’ll read a book or do yoga, or watch TV. I just try to put some distance between me and the story because when I’m in it all day, it’s so consuming that nothing else exists. 

Speaking of calling your loved ones, you have three kids, and they’re twins aged 17, and a 15 year old. You’ve publicly talked about going through infertility when trying to conceive. Why did you feel that was important to share?

I went through infertility for three years and it was a really tough, painful time for me. So many people that go through infertility suffer in silence. Unless you've lived through it, it's hard to describe quite how emotionally searing it is. I kept it a secret while I was going through it and I was in a support group. It really, really helped because we were all going through it together and we could talk about it together. There is research, in fact, that shows that if you are in a support group and feel supported to talk about it, you actually have more success. That worked for me and it worked for everybody in my group. I made a vow to myself that if I was ever on the other side of infertility, that I would do whatever I could to give back and help people who were still going through it. When I was going through it I clung to other people’s stories, every detail from what methods they were using to what they did with their depression, whether they were successful. 

Then when I was on the other side of it, I just realized that telling my story does help people. I decided that I would be that beacon for people if I could. Once I had children, it was easier to talk about and then because I had this platform on television it was even easier for me to talk about it. I feel so grateful to have had all of the help, not only from the support group, but from doctors and nurses, and advanced technologies that I will help people who are struggling with it however I can. 

Does it feel like a million years ago or yesterday? 

Raising the kids feels like a blink of an eye. But the infertility journey does not feel like a million years ago. I can still conjure the desperation. It was so acute for me that it’s never entirely gone. 

I was going to ask you how you juggle such a demanding career with three kids, and then in my head I was like ‘would I ask her this question if she was a man?’ and probably not because I’d assume he had a wife doing a lot of work. 

[laughs] I'm really glad that you brought that up because I happen to have a super high-functioning supportive, capable husband. I actually could not do my job at this level and help my kids at this level if my husband didn't dive in. We have this joke in our house that all the mothers at school functions email me to ask questions like what snack I'll be bringing to the function, and I forward it to my husband, and he’ll already have it handled. He arranges the carpools and the playdates and all the mothers know to contact him. We have had, thankfully, a lot of responsibility and family duty sharing between us.

What advice would you have for people who are still working to achieve the dream that they've set out for themselves? 

This is not an original idea by any stretch, but I know it is a successful one, and it's just to follow your bliss. I really, really wanted to be a TV reporter. I knew from the first minute that I went out on campus with a microphone and camera that it lit up endorphins in my brain. So if you are following your bliss, it doesn't feel like hard work. When you have to deal with setbacks or deal with long roads ahead or obstacles, you just keep your eye on that North Star. That's what I recommend; find your passion and follow it. 

I must say for younger generations, I think that's easier than ever. People aren't as forced into the box of what corporate success looks like. The landscape has changed so much in the past two years, on top of the last two decades, that I think that it's easier to create your own path and cobble together your own passion. I see it all around me with 20 year-olds and 30 year-olds breaking the corporate mold and doing something that they feel passionately about. I think that this is time-tested wisdom, but I also think it's more relevant today than ever, which is to find your passion and just stick to that. 

And what about those that are looking to build their family?

Get a support group. If you're challenged with infertility, find support as soon as possible, because it will help you emotionally, it will help you mentally, and studies show it will also help your success rate.