Searching for America with Robyn Curnow

I went to a Willie Nelson concert in suburban Atlanta and accidentally had an existential crisis. There was Willie, hunched over Trigger, joking about death, singing “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die,” and performing Just Breathe like a man quietly writing his own goodbye letter in real time. This episode is about outlaw country, aging without panic, cowboy philosophy, and why a 93-year-old ston...

I first met Ted Turner in 1998, when I began what became a twenty-five-year career at CNN as a foreign correspondent and anchor. My husband Kim still works there and remembers the early days, when Ted would wander into the newsroom wearing a bathrobe because he lived upstairs in the penthouse at CNN Center. Ted’s office was guarded by a giant taxidermied lion he’d shot in Botswana. He once asked a...

I went to a BTS concert in Tampa expecting to chaperone my daughter. Instead, I found myself inside something much bigger. This is not just a boy band. It is a global system built from the ground up—powered by fans who translate, organize, and decide what matters before the mainstream catches up. Why are so many of these fans Latina and Black girls? What does K-pop reveal about class, identity, an...

I went to a baseball game in Atlanta this week and, thanks to a corporate perk, found myself in some of the best seats in the stadium. Right behind the catcher. Which sounds ideal. Close enough to hear the players. Close enough to see the grip on the ball. Close enough to feel like you really understand what’s going on. Except… I didn’t. When the Braves hit a home run, I had to look up at the jumb...

What can The Masters teach us about America’s $30+ trillion debt? Quite a lot. Augusta’s polished traditions, booming merchandise sales, and open-wallet culture offer a surprisingly sharp metaphor for Washington’s spending habits. Robyn Curnow is a foreign correspondent living the American South - this is her outsider/insider take on life in America. Sign up for the Searching for America newslette...

America is built on freedom. So why are there still more than 500 places where you can’t legally buy a drink? In this episode of Searching for America , Robyn Curnow explores the strange, contradictory world of American drinking laws - from Utah’s strict alcohol rules and ID checks to dry counties that still exist nearly a century after Prohibition. Why can you drive at 16 but not buy a beer until...

American presidents love dogs. The optics are perfect: loyal, friendly, impossible to fact-check. From White House photo ops to wartime morale, First Dogs have always helped sell the presidency. And then came the no-dog presidency. Which tells you… quite a lot about the Presidency of Donald Trump and why so many Americans voted for him. WANT MORE QUIRKS FROM AMERICA? SIGN UP http://robyncurnow.sub...

Atlanta's pollen season arrives like a political crisis: overnight, everywhere, impossible to breathe through. At Easter-time, I'm thinking about what renewal actually looks like when it's happening to you - not the soft-focus version, but the detonation. Which means thinking about China's stranglehold on rare earths, Russia's gas leash on Europe, Iran's proxy franchise. Three decades of "order" p...

What's causing anxiety in America right now? No, it's not Iran, Trump or Gavin Newsom's hair. It's what Andrew Yang calls "The Fuckening." As a mother of two daughters choosing their courses right now, I'm standing in the middle of it — holding a course catalogue, trying to figure out what my teenage daughters should study in an age of AI.  Anthropic's latest research says the most AI-ex...

Artificial intelligence may be the most powerful technology humans have ever built - but many Americans don’t trust it. After taking an AI course at Georgia Institute of Technology , Robyn Curnow explores why voters across the political spectrum are uneasy about AI, from job fears to electricity-hungry data centers. From a conversation with an HVAC technician who believes the “devil’s number” is h...

In the American South, an insult doesn’t always sound like an insult. Sometimes it sounds polite. "I"ll pray for you." Sometimes it sounds sympathetic. "You sweet thing." And sometimes it sounds like three very gentle words: “Bless your heart.” In this episode of Searching for America , Robyn Curnow explores one of the South’s most fascinating cultural phrases - a sentence...

Early in January, the White House released a video from the movie Gladiator . Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, turning to his men before battle: “At my signal, unleash hell.” It felt theatrical at the time. Symbolic. A meme. But in the months since, American and Israeli strikes on Iran have made that line feel less like metaphor or meme and more like policy. This isn’t Iraq. There’s no talk of...

In this episode, Robyn Curnow reflects on her years writing obituaries for global giants — from Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II and Muhammad Ali — and why she always found them strangely uplifting. Because an obituary isn’t really about death. It’s about shape. It’s about distilling a messy, complicated life into its through-line: courage, ambition, service, love. From histori...

Donald Trump isn’t playing chess. He’s playing poker. And once you see that, American politics start to feel less like a grandmaster tournament - and more like a high-stakes table in Vegas. This week on  Searching for America , I ask what happens when a country that increasingly thinks in bets elects a president who governs like a gambler. From tariffs and brinkmanship to Super Bowl wagers and pre...

Where will the next war start? Not on a border. Not at sea. But a few hundred miles above our heads. The most important battlefield of the future isn’t on Earth. Power is shifting - not across borders, but above them. Space is the next frontier because it's the backend of our modern life. In this episode of Searching for America , I explore how space has become the next battlefield, and why lower...

I used to think sororities were just a girl gang cult — then I saw what they really are when my daughter joined one this past month. Greek sorority life in America is more than a mean girl clique or a perky authoritarian cheer squad in pastel and glitter. For millions of America's young women, sororities are built on loyalty, connection, and mutual support. In this episode of Searching for America...

  America braced again. Another winter storm. Another week of breathless warnings. Another round of stockpiling flashlights, firewood — and nerves. In this episode of Searching for America , I reflect on how weather in the United States isn’t just something that happens — it’s something that comes for you . Storms don’t pass, they threaten. They don’t dissipate, they devastate. And over time, that...

I was driving through Atlanta when she stopped at a red light behind a car with a bumper sticker that read: “I miss Ronald Reagan.” And it made me wonder — do Americans really miss Ronald Reagan… or do they miss the simpler idea of America his presidency has come to represent? Because nostalgia has become one of the most powerful political drugs in the United States. It doesn’t ask for accuracy. I...

Why has Greenland suddenly become central to American power — and what does the Arctic reveal about the limits of U.S. strategy? In this episode of Searching for America , I explore how the High North has moved from geopolitical afterthought to strategic test case. As the United States revives a hemispheric, Monroe-Doctrine-style focus under Trump, I look at why allies in Denmark and Greenland hav...

I want to look at Venezuela not as a failed state or a morality tale, but as a map. When I zoom out, what I see isn’t just Caracas or Maduro — I see oil, ports, shipping lanes, and a quiet power struggle playing out very close to home. Venezuela sits only about 1,300 miles from the United States, right on the edge of the Caribbean basin, and over the past two decades China, Russia, and Iran have a...

Will artificial intelligence kill journalism? In this episode of Searching for America , I explore what happens to truth, trust, and storytelling in a world where AI can now write articles, summarize reports, fact-check, and even present the news. Drawing on my years inside newsrooms, I look at how AI is already reshaping journalism — accelerating job losses, blurring the line between what’s real...

Why is Dolly Parton one of the few Americans almost everyone seems to agree on? In this episode of Searching for America , I explore how a brassy country superstar with big hair, big humor, and even bigger generosity became an unlikely bridge across America’s political divide. From “Dolly for President” T-shirts to write-in ballots, I look at why Dolly inspires affection on both the left and the r...

Why does it feel like the news wants us angry? In this week’s Searching for America , I dig into what I call “angertainment” — the weaponization of news into a cycle of outrage and division. I spent more than twenty years inside the global media machine, from CNN to the BBC, and I’ve watched how fear and fury turned into a profitable formula. In this episode, I talk about how I reached my breaking...

Why do Americans spend more on Halloween than some countries spend on national defense? In this episode of Searching for America , I take a curious look at America’s favorite pagan holiday and the astonishing amount of money spent on plastic spiders, fake cemeteries, inflatable unicorns, and candy by the truckload. As an outsider living in the Deep South Bible Belt, I’m endlessly amused by how Hal...

The American Dream is about working hard and being rewarded. In Denmark, the dream is more about contentment and consistency than bigger and better. Robyn Curnow has been visiting Denmark the past few weeks and she reflects on what makes Danes, and her Danish husband, 'happier' than most. New! Substack! http://robycurnow.substack.com http://www.instagram.com/robyncurnow http://www.x.com/robyncurno...