Life After News
What happens when the newsroom lights go out—and life begins again?
Life After News explores the raw, funny, and deeply human stories of journalists who’ve walked away from the adrenaline of breaking news to reinvent themselves in surprising ways. Hosted by former TV news director Jason Ball, the podcast goes behind the headlines to talk with anchors, reporters, producers, and executives about identity, resilience, and what it takes to start over.
From career pivots to personal awakenings, these conversations reveal how the skills learned under deadline pressure translate into entirely new chapters of life. It’s not just about leaving the news—it’s about discovering what comes after.
Whether you’re in media, on the edge of a career change, or just fascinated by reinvention, Life After News is your invitation to listen in, learn, and maybe imagine your own next chapter.
Episodes
55 episodes
🎙️ Chase Cain Bet on Himself. Now He’s Betting on YouTube to Change Climate Coverage 🌎🎥
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 NB...
🎙️ From the Fall of the Soviet Union to “Superpower California,” Markos Kounalakis has seen it all
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 Marko...
🎙️ Paul Magers on Sobriety, Newsroom Successes, and a Night with Paul McCartney
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 leavin...
🎙️ From Anchor to Attorney: Hema Mullur’s Reinvention Story
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...
🎙️ He Ran WABC at Its Peak and Became My Mentor. Bart Feder’s Life After News
“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 n...
🎙️ Special Monday Episode: Remembering Sam Rubin 💛🎂
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...
🎙️ Storyteller Is the Job Title: Michaela Pereira is back and she brought a friend
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-lif...
🎙️ 58 Years in the News: Hal Eisner on Accidents, Survival, and Letting Go
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 hea...
🎙️ From Global Newsrooms to Local Impact with Julie Makinen
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...
🎙️ Life After News (Special Episode): Midlife Awakening with Marianne Williamson 🌅✨
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 ...
🎙️ The Makeup Room Advice That Changed Everything: Lisa Breckenridge’s Life After News
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 ...
🎙️ Every Election Year That Changed My Life
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 bec...
🎙️ Lora McLaughlin Peterson returns with LORIFIED: The Cookbook…and other updates
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 t...
🎙️ Strip Clubs, Sedated Puppies & Hidden Cameras: Inside David Goldstein’s Wildest Investigations
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 s...
🎙️ When to Chase the Dream and When to Walk Away: Liberté Chan’s Life After News
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...
📰 The Future of Local Journalism; How You Can Make a Difference
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...
🎙️ The Reporter Who Never Backed Down: Hank Plante vs. America’s Politicians
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 ...
🎙️Producing Compassion From TV News to Project Angel Food with Richard Ayoub
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 co...
🎙️ Life After News: How to Become an Independent Video Journalist with Fernando Hurtado
Life After News: How to Become an Independent Video Journalist with Fernando HurtadoEpisode: Life After News Guest: Fernando Hurtado (creator of In the Hyphen) Host: Jason Ball...
🎙️ Helicopter Pilot/Reporter Larry Welk Files a New Flight Path 🚁
🎧 Larry Welk: Veteran helicopter reporter, aviation entrepreneur, and grandson of television legend Lawrence Welk🚁 Episode SummaryIf you’ve ever watched a police pursuit in Los Angeles, chances are you’ve heard Larry Welk’s...
🎙️ What’s on the Menu for Food Critic Tom Sietsema’s Life After News
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 wha...
🎙️ Lisa Guerrero: Walking Away, Speaking Up, and Becoming a Warrior 💥🎙️
Guest: Lisa Guerrero (investigative journalist, author of Warrior) Host: Jason Ball Link: 👉 lisaguerrero.comEpisode vibe: Courage, accountability, and wh...
🎙️ From Early Web Producer to Change-Maker: Olsen Ebright on How You Can Make a Difference 💻🗞️🏘️
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 ...
🎙️ From Reporting to Working with Reese Witherspoon: Simone Boyce’s Life After News
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...
🎙️ Christina McLarty Arquette on Jumping from Entertainment Reporter to Indie Producer (and Reviving Bozo) 🎬🤹♀️🐄
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 Pris...