Life After News

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a veteran TV journalist walks away from a major network job to build something of his own? In this episode of Life After News , Jason talks with meteorologist and climate reporter Chase Cain about leaving NBC News, starting over in San Francisco, and launching a new climate-focused platform on YouTube. Chase explains why he believes mainstream media still isn’t g...

Send a text What does the collapse of the Soviet Union teach us about the world today? And why might California be one of the most powerful places on Earth even without an army? In this episode of Life After News , Jason sits down with Markos Kounalakis , journalist, scholar, Hoover Institution fellow, and author of several books including Freedom Isn’t Free: The Price of World Order . Kounalakis...

Send us Fan Mail What happens after the anchor desk? For longtime Los Angeles and Minneapolis news anchor Paul Magers , life after news has been meaningful, reflective, and surprisingly joyful. Paul joins Jason for a candid conversation about leaving television news in 2017, getting sober, and finding purpose in helping others. Along the way, the two share stories from their newsroom days, what re...

Send us Fan Mail Jason joins this week from Arkansas, where he’s helping his parents through health challenges and he opens the episode with a blunt reality check about the state of the news business. Layoffs are accelerating. Nexstar. The Washington Post. CBS. If you think it won’t happen to you, think again. The canary in the coal mine is gone. Jason challenges everyone still in the industry: Ma...

Send us Fan Mail “Sometimes good guys do finish first.” ✅ In this episode, I sit down with Bart Feder , former News Director at WABC , former SVP at CNN , and one of the most influential mentors I’ve ever had (and the mentor to dozens of news directors across Tribune). Bart is now living his true Life After News as a certified executive coach , helping leaders grow without burning out and without...

Send us Fan Mail We normally drop new episodes on Tuesdays but today is a special Monday. Today would’ve been Sam Rubin’s 66th birthday . Sam was the entertainment reporter for KTLA 5 Morning News for decades until his untimely death in 2024.  And it felt like the right day to pause, remember him, and talk about something we don’t always give enough space to in newsroom life: what it really means...

Send us Fan Mail Last week was a tough one for journalism. The Washington Post laid off 300+ employees —about a third of its staff cutting deep, including foreign bureaus. 💔📰 So, this episode is about something we all need right now: two real-life “Life After News” success stories . ✨ Michaela Pereira returns with a big career update (and a big reminder that reinvention can happen at any age)....

Send us Fan Mail Hal Eisner spent 58 years in TV and radio news, then retired (without going cold turkey) and did what a lot of us talk about doing… he wrote the book. 📚 In this episode, Hal shares the incredible, often wild, sometimes heartbreaking moments that shaped his career and his Life After News including the day he went from covering the story to being the story. ✨ What you’ll hear in t...

Send us Fan Mail Guest: Julie Makinen (journalist, editor, newsroom leader, and local news advocate) Julie Makinen has done the rare thing in journalism: she’s worked at the highest levels of national and international newsrooms and chosen to bring that experience home to local journalism in the Coachella Valley. In this episode, Julie walks through her unexpected path from Stanford human biology...

Send us Fan Mail This week’s episode is a little different. Instead of a traditional “journalism pivot” story, Dorothy Lucey and I sit down with Marianne Williamson , presidential candidate, author, spiritual teacher, and longtime activist, to talk about what happens after the title, the role, and the identity fall away. Her newest book, Midlife Awakening , reframes what we’ve long called a “midli...

Send us Fan Mail Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of the year. Jason Ball sits down with longtime TV journalist and beloved morning-show personality Lisa Breckenridge to talk about what happens when the newsroom chapter ends, but the storyteller isn’t finished. Lisa opens up about her unexpected exit from Fox, the identity shift that comes with leaving television, and the advice Mar...

Send us Fan Mail In the final episode of the year, Jason Ball takes a moment to look back not just at 2025, but at a life shaped by big transitions, many of them coinciding with presidential election years. From high school to his first job in television to becoming a news director, to finally stepping away and building something new, this episode is about evolution, reinvention, and what comes af...

Send us Fan Mail Life After News has some big updates, and this episode is a perfect example of why. You never really know where this road leads until you look up and realize someone took a local TV segment, turned it into a digital brand, and then turned that into a full-blown cookbook. Lora McLaughlin Peterson is back, and she’s pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to get a cookbook...

Send us Fan Mail If David Goldstein showed up at your door, you were having a bad day. For decades, the longtime Los Angeles investigative reporter exposed corruption, waste, and abuse from LA city workers drinking and hitting strip clubs on the clock, to pet stores sedating puppies to make them easier to sell, to delivery drivers snacking on your food before it got to your door. Now two years int...

Send us Fan Mail Meteorologist Liberté Chan joins Jason for a raw, vulnerable, and very real conversation about knowing when to chase the dream and when to walk away from it. From her early days as an intern at KTLA to anchoring in Palm Springs, to “manifesting” her way back on-air in Los Angeles, Liberté shares how sheer persistence (and a few strategically timed visits to the news director’s off...

Send us Fan Mail Join host Jason Ball and guest Randy Lovely , former newspaper executive and current President of the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation (CVJF) , for a deep dive into the evolution of the news industry, the decline of newspapers' financial heyday, and the critical importance of supporting local journalism. Today is Giving Tuesday! Support Local Journalism! In this episode...

Send us Fan Mail He asked George W. Bush if he was smart enough to be president., confronted Dick Cheney about his lesbian daughter and gay rights mid-campaign, and gave Gavin Newsom both his best and worst interviews. This week on Life After News , Jason sits down with legendary San Francisco political reporter Hank Plante for a wide-ranging, conversation about power, politics, the AIDS crisis, a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Life After News , Jason Ball sits down with his longtime friend Richard Ayoub , the CEO of Project Angel Food , as Richard celebrates his 10th anniversary leading the organization . From the control rooms of KCAL 9 to the bustling kitchen that now prepares over 1.5 million medically tailored meals a year , Richard shares how his television producing skills, stor...

Send us Fan Mail Life After News:  How to Become an Independent Video Journalist with Fernando Hurtado Episode: Life After News Guest: Fernando Hurtado (creator of In the Hyphen ) Host: Jason Ball Episode summary A step-by-step masterclass on going solo as a video journalist. Fernando Hurtado left a “dream job” at NBC/Telemundo to launch In the Hyphen , a YouTube channel covering U.S. Latino life...

Send us Fan Mail 🎧 Larry Welk: Veteran helicopter reporter, aviation entrepreneur, and grandson of television legend Lawrence Welk 🚁 Episode Summary If you’ve ever watched a police pursuit in Los Angeles, chances are you’ve heard Larry Welk’s voice from above. Larry was in the helicopter for the very first televised police pursuit in L.A. history in 1992 and he’s been part of nearly every major...

Send us Fan Mail This week, Jason Ball sits down with the legendary Tom Sietsema , who recently retired after nearly 26 years as The Washington Post’s food critic 🍽️. From dining in disguise to crafting over 1,200 restaurant reviews, Tom shares what it was like living a double life as one of America’s most respected (and most anonymous) culinary voices. Now, he’s stepping into his life after news...

Send us Fan Mail Guest: Lisa Guerrero (investigative journalist, author of Warrior ) Host: Jason Ball Link: 👉 lisaguerrero.com Episode vibe: Courage, accountability, and what it really takes to speak truth to power. Content note: This episode includes discussion of pregnancy loss and workplace trauma. What we cover Why Lisa chose to leave Inside Edition after 18 years and what that says about a c...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when a millennial “big J” journalist who helped build TV news on the internet trades breaking news for neighborhood impact? In this episode, Olsen Ebright (KTLA/KNBC/CBS) joins Jason to unpack the birth of digital news, the social-media rollercoaster, sane push-alert strategy, and why hyper-local politics might be your most powerful lever for change. 👉 Listen & s...

Send us Fan Mail This week, Jason sits down with Simone Boyce, former KTLA reporter, MTV News & Access Hollywood host, and the very first anchor of NBC News Signal (now NBC News Now). From those early experimental days of streaming news to hosting The Bright Side for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, Simone has lived many chapters of life in and after news. And now? She’s eyeing a future in...

Send us Fan Mail Christina McLarty Arquette walked away from on-air entertainment reporting to build a prolific producing career across documentaries and scripted features. In this episode, we dig into how she finished her first doc Survivor’s Guide to Prison , produced the cult-favorite You Cannot Kill David Arquette , brought film productions to Arkansas (including Jason's hometown), and wh...