February 26, 2025 • 25 mins
Morning news anchor Deirdre Fitzpatrick talks about creating a schedule with time for all your interests
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they might have for the rest of us. So today,
I am delighted to welcome Deirdre Fitzpatrick to the show.
She has spent twenty five years as the weekday morning
(00:31):
news anchor for KCIATV, which is the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, California.
She is also the host of the Dying to Ask
A podcast. So, Deirdre, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I'm excited to hear about your daily routines and
how you manage your life. I understand that part of
the job description of being a morning news anchor is
that you get up very very early.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I mean back in my college days, I would
have said it was very late.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
You just staying up the whole time?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, pretty much. I've just kind of completely flip flopped.
So yeah, so my my responsibilities at Case areas. I'm
a morning news anchor, and our morning news goes from
four am until ten am, so there's a six hour
morning news block. I'm responsible primarily for our five am
to seven am news, So I get up, depending on
the day, anywhere from about two am to three am.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's pretty early.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
It is pretty early, well, and that's because you also
have you're responsible for the news reporting. I mean, right,
you're choosing some of like how you're presenting some of it,
from what stories you're doing, so you actually have to
work before you go on air.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, so it's interesting. You know a lot of times
you can kind of cruise into your day and kind
of amp up. I have to start, Like, my sharpest
time of the day is between three and six am
is when I really need to be at my best,
which is problematic for somebody who gets up at that
hour because you know, as humans were not really wired
to do that kind of on the regular. So my
job is in the morning is we have producers who
(02:02):
put together the news all night long. My job is
to come in and be I always say like the
eighth grade English teacher who comes in with the red
pen and goes, yeah, yeah, you can't really say that,
or that's not correct, or we could do this a
little bit better, and then so I copy it. I
try to make things sound a little bit more conversational
so that somebody who's in their bed trying to wake
up at six am and has turned the news on
(02:23):
can really kind of process it in a certain kind
of way. So we write the news in the morning
a little differently than we would say in the evening.
People process information differently at different times of the day.
So my first hour or two I actually work from
home for the first hour. I get up, I have
some coffee, and I get right into our computer. I
catch up on what's happened overnight, read a couple of
newspapers online, and then I'm writing into scripts and I'm
(02:44):
messaging our producers and suggesting things or rewriting things. Sometimes
they'll say, hey, could you write this for me? So
my job is very very hands on for the first hour.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Okay, so the whole team is working at two thirty
three am while you are you are going with this,
and then what time do you go into the studio.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So I typically get into my car at around four am.
I live about twelve minutes to the studio, so you
can see everything is down to the minute. Yes, that
was a process. There's a routine.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's not too much traffic.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Fo there's no traffic at that hour. It's actually not
too bad. So I go in and then I quickly
get myself writing. It takes me about twenty twenty two
minutes to get the mankup on, do the hair, and
then I walk into our studio at about five minutes
before five o'clock and then we're on for the next
few hours.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, and so you are on air till seven am,
more or less, right, more or less?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
More or less what happens after that?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So after that I work on other things. So sometimes
I might be filling in on other hours of our
news if somebody is out or if something else is needed.
But for the most part, I shift into the second
part of my day, which is where I work on
more project stuff. So I work on the podcast that
you mentioned dying to ask. I work on special projects.
So I work for First Television MIT that's who owns
my station, and for the last eleven Olympics, I've been
(04:02):
covering the Olympics for her. So I helped create Olympic
content for thirty television stations, and then I've actually traveled
to the Olympics every two years to go follow athletes
for these stations and work on stories. So I have
a very self managed project list. Yeah, when you've been
(04:23):
in a place for that long, if you're known as
the one who's really good at just getting stuff done,
people tend to go hands off and say, hey, when
do you think you'll have that ready? So I keep
myself busy, which, you know, I think if you're going
to stay in a job for that long is really
crucial because it's really easy if you've been in a
if you've been at least on the surface in the
same job for a really long time, it can get
(04:44):
very road and to not get like that, especially in
a job that for me is as performance based as
it is journalism based, you know, in terms of like
the preparation and the presentation. You have to stay engaged.
And so having all these other projects for me kind
of feeds the creative part that I love about being
a television journalist.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and how do you come up with your ideas?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh my gosh, I'm thinking of like three things just
while we're talking I mean, ideas are everywhere. It's kind
of like it's like writing, Laura. I mean, where do
great ideas come from? They come from really quiet moments
that might come when you're out on a run and
you notice something happening at the corner that you didn't
notice the other day. Sometimes people are emailing you and
they're suggesting ideas. Sometimes it could be just within your
(05:31):
own local community. I mean, I have kids, I'm in schools.
People are telling me about things all the time. I
went to a presentation at my son's high school last night,
and I think I walked away with at least six
story ideas from it, you know that about a subject
that I knew nothing about before I walked in. I
thought I got to file that away. So ideas come
from everywhere if you are open enough to see them.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. So, and when does a work day
sort of end for you?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So the workday technically ends, I'm usually done by about lunchtime,
so about eleven twelve, I've put in my eight or
nine hours, you know, on the clock. The reality is
that with a job like this, probably similar to a
job like yours, you know, never really done done there's
always that straight email that probably needs to be looked at.
And because I work these kind of off hours, I
like to stay in touch, knowing what I'm heading into
(06:21):
the next day, So you try to be careful about
how much you're doing that in the afternoons. But I
would say that I probably work a little bit more
than I should once I leave.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, I mean, because if you have started working at
three am and you're you know, a normal work day
would be done at noon, but the rest of the
world is not done working at noon. I would imagine
you have to actually actively put in some boundaries in
order to create some personal time.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And you know, I've gotten better about that. I think,
like most women, once we get to be on a
certain age, you start realizing that's not a great idea
to continue doing that, so I do so I will
set like it. I will purposely not take my work
I have two different phones. I have a personal phone
and I have a work phone, and I will leave
the work phone if I don't think I need to
have it. I'll leave it at home while I'm out
(07:11):
running errants in the afternoon, but I might check before
I go to bed, just to make sure that something
hasn't changed, so I think, you know, it's really easy,
and we all definitely fell into this during the pandemic
of doing things all the time. The truth is that
that's not really good for anyone, so I try to
be really careful. The weird thing I run into is that,
you know, my workday starts at three am, and I
(07:33):
will send, I'll respond to emails at that time. But
for people who don't necessarily know exactly what I do
in the hours that I keep, it comes across as
very aggressive. So I have recently been told that I
should really think about sending those emails later. So I
don't know what the like fine line is because it's
really clear of my work email what I do for
a living. But that was a new one that kind
(07:55):
of came at me this year.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break. I
will be back with more from Dirja. So I am
back talking with Deirdre Fitzpatrick, who is the morning anchor
of KCRITV, the NBC affiliate and Sacramento. We've been talking
about how early she has to get up in order
(08:19):
to be on air from five to seven in most mornings.
But with that, I imagine you have to go to
bed pretty early to be up at two thirty or
three in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What does that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
It doesn't look like what it should. I mean, if
you back time, you know, to get the recommended eight
hours of sleep, I should be in bed at dinner time.
But that's not terribly practical. So I try to protect
sleep as much as I can, particularly these days, because
I used to be able to muscle through and kind
of power through anything, and that just stopped working at
a certain point, you know. So now I'm a little
(08:51):
bit more careful about it. I always say, if I
wake up and I've got a six in front of it,
I feel pretty good. And then on the weekends, I'm
really good about getting an eight in front of that
total sleep, maybe even pushing a nine. On the odd day,
I probably go to bed, I would say by about
between eight and nine. I prefer to go to bed
around eight o'clock. But you know, I have teenagers. They
(09:13):
don't ever want to talk to you until it's late
and inconvenient, and so I've had to shift that a
little bit over the years.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, I was going to ask about that because of
course teenagers have the total opposite schedule, like they might
stay up until two thirty three am, and so you
would completely be ships passing in the night in your house,
or even just if they have events in the evening,
you know that the school concert gets done at nine
fifteen or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm curious how you sort of work that into your life,
knowing that you do have to be upset.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question because it's not
just me obviously. I mean, my job comes with a
certain kind of lifestyle, and it's not a lifestyle that's
really for everyone, but for my family members, it's the
lifestyle that affects them as well. So you know, my
husband and I just celebrate our twentieth anniversary and he's
never like seen me on a Tuesday at ten pm,
(10:08):
like to have a conversation. So it is it is
a bit of an adjustment. And I've talked to people
in other fields who work, say in emergency medicine, where
it's also very common to work these odd shift hours,
and it does take a lot of flexibility from the
other family members. Now there are advantages for those family
members too, because if somebody needs to go do a
doctor's appointment in the middle of the afternoon, I'm your girl, right,
(10:29):
somebody needs to go run to Costco or pick up
the dry cleaning. I'm available to do those things. However,
doing something at nine or ten o'clock at night is
not really conducive to me being able to do my
job at full capacity. So not only does it take
a lot of cooperation I think from your family members
and discipline for everybody. I really rely on my parent
(10:51):
network too. I have a group of moms who know
that for sports pickups and drop offs, I'm great to
go take the kids wherever, but if there's going to
be a pick up at eight o'clock, nine o'clock or later,
I really need some help with that one. If my
husband's not available to go pick up my sons. So there,
it takes a lot of planning, obviously, but also I
(11:11):
think a lot of flexibility with the people in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Absolutely well, I'm curious. I mean, one of the bits
of sleep advice people always have out there is like
trying to maintain something near the same schedule into weekends,
and I imagine that that's also just not something that
would really happen.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I have no we do. I've known people who do that,
and I don't know how that flies with their spouses.
That would not fly in my house. But I'm not
that far off. So if on a weekday, I'm I
go to bed at eight o'clock, I mean, honestly, Laura,
I want to go to bed by ten on a
Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You're really tired. I mean, I'm doti Yeah, yeah, I've
been working all week.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yes, but I'll probably still like to get up early.
I mean, I still I like mornings.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I love morning person I'm in. I imagine, with your
line of work, you kind of have to be. But
are you?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You should be? Not all people are, but I am,
but yeah I am. I love the quiet of a morning.
I love the freshness. I love that nothing has gone
wrong when that alarm clock goes goes off, like nothing
has ruined the day yet, right, It's all just fresh,
full of possibility. I love the quiet my favorite hour
of the day. I used to really hate when that
(12:19):
alarm went off and I got up and I was
walking around. I was really resentful of it. And then
I started looking at it as Wow, this is completely
my time. And now on the odd occasion that somebody
is awake in my house. I'm kind of annoyed by.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It, like I don't know, what are you doing? What
are you doing? This is why are you here? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Well, now I'm very curious because a lot of people
who exercise seriously do that in the morning. And I
know that you are a competitive athlete, You've done Iron Man,
Ultra marathons, all that. I don't believe that you are
training at two thirty am for those things.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So when does that fit in?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Not necessarily training for those things at that time, But
I do get a little bit of movement in the
morning just to wake my brain up. And I listened
to before breakfast because it's kind of I'm not kidding you.
I go into my gym in the garage. We've got
a garage gym, and I have for years. I've listened
to you. So you're actually, oddly one of the first
(13:20):
voices I hear in the day. Quite a lovely but
you know, just like a couple of minutes. And I think,
especially for working parents who are really busy, even if
you're not working odd hours, I think getting a couple
of minutes of exercise throughout the day is what gives
you that energy to go deal with whatever schedule you
have to deal with. So I do a little bit
(13:42):
of that, but my time is really after work. I
like a reset because sometimes the news is really it's
not all happy, right, So I love that little swite
it out, get it out sessions. So second I'm done
with work, I either change at work into the workout clothes,
so it's a lot harder to talk yourself out of
it when you get home, or I change instantly when
(14:03):
I get home and I walk out the door. So
I'm a runner. I run the neighborhood. So I do
those things almost instantly, and they're non negotiable. They must happen.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And about how much time are you devoting to that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Not as much time as you would think. I think
a lot of people think it would take hours, you know.
I like I do marathons. I do not do the
amount of training you should be doing. I am not
something you want to come.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
To spend less time on it. Yes, yes, I do not.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
What I do though, is I do try to maintain
a certain level of fitness so that if there is
that race or a project or a you know, a
girlfriend calls and says, Hey, we're going to go up
to the mountains. We're going to do this. Come do it.
Then I can pull it off. So am I gonna
win it? Absolutely not. Am I going to hang in
there till the end? Absolutely? And I'm probably gonna have
a pretty good time while I'm doing it, because I do.
(14:50):
When you have that time to go and exercise or
be with your friends or just have that free time,
I really have learned to enjoy it and be in
the moment. I speak terrible about that, and I am
not anymore. I really really am there.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
If I'm there and there, Well, what's the longest race
you've done?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Fifty kilometers?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, that's about thirty miles, right, thirty.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, it's supposed to be about thirty one. They're rarely
measured exact, so can vary a little bit.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
What is I am very curious mentally, like what you're
doing during thirty one miles where you're running and trying
to keep yourself moving forward?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Do you know what I'm doing? I'm talking, Yes, I'm
talking NonStop because I run them with my girlfriends. Okay,
so I have a couple of girlfriends who live in
different cities will meet up and that's the time that
we have together. So our joke is the longer we
take to do this, the more time we get together
away from the children. We have no responsibilities out here. Yeah,
unless you're like a super serious person, you're in it
(15:50):
to win it. You're in it to finish it, which
means that when you're coming to a steep hill, you're
really hiking it. And out here, I live in northern California.
I mean it's very, very beautiful. So these are these
like incredible vistas and mountains and your nature and it's
just like a really lovely moment. So even if it's
a really long day, it still ends up being really fun.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, well, more power to you. I think I might
enjoy the beauty for about three miles with it.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
You know what, With the right people and the right snacks,
I think you could do it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
You can do it.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well, We're going to take one more quick ad break
and I'll be back with more from Deerdriff.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Well.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I am back interviewing Deerdrif Fitzpatrick for Before Breakfast. She
has told us that she listens to this show in
the morning, so that is very exciting to hear.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So I want to hear a little bit more about.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Your Olympics experience, because you have been doing this for
a great many years. You fly off, you cover what's
going on with there. I wonder if there's a particular
memory or two that was formative of those experiences that
you'd be willing to share.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, So I started doing this back in two thousand,
so almost twenty five years ago. When we started doing it.
We launched this project in my company and we send
every two years. What we've done is we've sent a
small team eight to ten people to the Olympics to
do what we call group coverage. So it's a small
amount of people reporting and producing content for lots of
(17:20):
different stations, and there are three reporter photographer teams, And
the illusion for all of these stations as you do
live shots for them is that I'm there just for you,
when in fact I'm actually there for thirty stations. So
you really get a chance to cover and interact with
athletes from all the different sports and really from all
over the country, which has been super fun. I would say, like, honestly,
(17:44):
my favorite thus far would be the Paris Olympics, and
I think it's because you know, we had this gap
of two Olympics being just so unbelievably weird during the pandemic.
Those are the ones I did not travel for. And
to be in Paris this past summer with these athletes
and doing these stories and with the Eiffel Tower behind
me is my office was like a pinch me moment
(18:07):
all day long because it was so joyous after really
difficult ears for a lot of people. There was so
much joy every day, no matter who you met, of
people who were so grateful to have this experience. I've
always loved the Olympics, just the wonder of it and
the magic and the underdogs and the people who you know,
literally dedicate their entire lives for a couple of seconds
(18:30):
of opportunity. Sometimes at works, sometimes it doesn't, and I've
always just absolutely loved it. So to be in that
environment after COVID, after the pandemic, and to be in
this international experience where people were really in a great
mood every single day, it was like this unbelievable professional gift.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And I love the weird sports, oh right, like the
ones that you're what's your favorite?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Like of those people don't know?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But I mean I just like the random things that
you don't even hear about for four years. I mean
like in the winter ones where they're doing the luge
or something.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Like that, and it's like people dedicate their lives to sledding. Yeah,
I mean I love that. I love that fact competitive
sledding exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
So I've been down the Olympic bob sled track in
York City twice.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Wo and how is that?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The first time was absolutely awful. They give you the
safety lesson. I did not pay attention, and I suffered
for it, because if you don't sit in the bob
sled and do certain things, it's like being in a
car accident over and over and over again. Second time,
not only did I listen, I was like in it
to find out, like could I be good at this?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I could not, But I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Not going to be your next career.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Slightly enjoyed the experience a little bit more, but I
had that same realization and like, wow, somebody does this
every single day to be the best person on the
planet and doing this how amazing?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Just like terrifying, Like throw yourself down a hill.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Like that a if you're on skeleton, yes.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, Like oh, the physical courage is amazing, and I'm
sure that you have many stories of covering that. So
you also read a lot. I understand you. Sometimes you
make time in your busy schedule to read. When does
that happen?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
So I read, you know, kind of like I do
everything a little bit here and there all the time.
You know, there are these pockets I guess you have
highlighted through the timelogs. There are these pockets of time
in your day that you don't even realize you have.
So if I'm in the long line at the grocery store,
I've got a book in my backpack. I will pull
out a book standing in the grocery store line and
get through a couple of pages. I am probably because
(20:39):
of my job, a very very fast reader could take
into information very quickly, So I will. I really try
to default to a book over scrolling my phone. Always.
I love going to the library. Love the library. There's
nowhere more fun to me than going to the library
on a Friday afternoon. Love to do that. And so
I've always got a book, and I'm always trying to
(21:02):
sneak it in. I just I feel better, you know,
even as a kid, that was always the thing that
got my brain going and helped me think of those
new ideas and really calm me down too. And so
I sneak the reading in like I sneak a workout in,
or like you sneak anything for yourself in when you're
a working mom.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, and I love the idea that if you are
mostly done for the day with work at noon, the
library is still open. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The other upside of this schedule.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Is people always wonder, like, how do you do things
when you work that schedule? I look at people who
work a traditional nine to five.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, because you can't go to anything right where where's
you've got the afternoon?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I mean, you're up.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
There's some flexibility. You might feel a little jet lagged
at times, but there is only some flexibility to do things.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, so du joe.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
One question I always ask guests is what have you
done lately to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
From great to awesome?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Anything that just made a day a little bit better?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know? I I have this year, I have my
first kid went to college. And that's a really you
haven't had that yet?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
You still have one?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And no, my oldest is the senior. So the next
year will be okay.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
So I'll give you something that happened this morning at
three am with my college kid. He happened to come
home last night. He had to drop off a car
back at our house. You go to college in the
Bay Area, so he drove the car back home. I
thought he was bringing one friend with him. Well, as
it turns out, when I woke up this morning at
two am, he had brought four friends home with him
and they were here for like mere hours. Laura, and
(22:40):
so I wake up at two am and there are
five college kids, five college freshmen, crashed out in my
living room while I'm trying to get ready for work,
and he says, we need a ride to the train
station at four Is that okay? It's on your way
to work? And I said sure. I'm really learning to
go at the flow, and that opportunity to take these
(23:02):
kids literally just driving them to the train station could
have been a nothing burger, right. Instead, I chose to
just really really enjoy the spirit of a nineteen year
old who thinks that it's a great idea to drive
two hours at eleven pm the night before, only to
get up a couple hours later to take a three
hour train and to go right back to where they started.
(23:24):
And it put me in the best mood this morning
because I got to be around and suck in some
of their energy at a very odd time of the day,
and that took me from good to great in a
very unexpected way, because I can tell you when I
went to bed last night, I did not see that coming.
It was not on my bigo guard for today, not
on the big card.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I love that energy too. I mean, they're kind of nuts,
but you know it's good. It's good. Maybe they need
less sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Than the rest of us, but yeah, I think the
exactly well, Danjit, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Everyone who is listening to this.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You can catch her on Casey ra and Sacramento if
you happen to live around there, or you can listen
to the Dying to Ask podcast if you'd like to
hear her talking with various guests talking about self improvement
in general. And if you have feedback on this or
any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura
at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
(24:43):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they might have for the rest of us. So today,
I am delighted to welcome Deirdre Fitzpatrick to the show.
She has spent twenty five years as the weekday morning
(00:31):
news anchor for KCIATV, which is the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, California.
She is also the host of the Dying to Ask
A podcast. So, Deirdre, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So I'm excited to hear about your daily routines and
how you manage your life. I understand that part of
the job description of being a morning news anchor is
that you get up very very early.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I mean back in my college days, I would
have said it was very late.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
You just staying up the whole time?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, pretty much. I've just kind of completely flip flopped.
So yeah, so my my responsibilities at Case areas. I'm
a morning news anchor, and our morning news goes from
four am until ten am, so there's a six hour
morning news block. I'm responsible primarily for our five am
to seven am news, So I get up, depending on
the day, anywhere from about two am to three am.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's pretty early.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
It is pretty early, well, and that's because you also
have you're responsible for the news reporting. I mean, right,
you're choosing some of like how you're presenting some of it,
from what stories you're doing, so you actually have to
work before you go on air.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, so it's interesting. You know a lot of times
you can kind of cruise into your day and kind
of amp up. I have to start, Like, my sharpest
time of the day is between three and six am
is when I really need to be at my best,
which is problematic for somebody who gets up at that
hour because you know, as humans were not really wired
to do that kind of on the regular. So my
job is in the morning is we have producers who
(02:02):
put together the news all night long. My job is
to come in and be I always say like the
eighth grade English teacher who comes in with the red
pen and goes, yeah, yeah, you can't really say that,
or that's not correct, or we could do this a
little bit better, and then so I copy it. I
try to make things sound a little bit more conversational
so that somebody who's in their bed trying to wake
up at six am and has turned the news on
(02:23):
can really kind of process it in a certain kind
of way. So we write the news in the morning
a little differently than we would say in the evening.
People process information differently at different times of the day.
So my first hour or two I actually work from
home for the first hour. I get up, I have
some coffee, and I get right into our computer. I
catch up on what's happened overnight, read a couple of
newspapers online, and then I'm writing into scripts and I'm
(02:44):
messaging our producers and suggesting things or rewriting things. Sometimes
they'll say, hey, could you write this for me? So
my job is very very hands on for the first hour.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Okay, so the whole team is working at two thirty
three am while you are you are going with this,
and then what time do you go into the studio.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So I typically get into my car at around four am.
I live about twelve minutes to the studio, so you
can see everything is down to the minute. Yes, that
was a process. There's a routine.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's not too much traffic.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Fo there's no traffic at that hour. It's actually not
too bad. So I go in and then I quickly
get myself writing. It takes me about twenty twenty two
minutes to get the mankup on, do the hair, and
then I walk into our studio at about five minutes
before five o'clock and then we're on for the next
few hours.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, and so you are on air till seven am,
more or less, right, more or less?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
More or less what happens after that?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
So after that I work on other things. So sometimes
I might be filling in on other hours of our
news if somebody is out or if something else is needed.
But for the most part, I shift into the second
part of my day, which is where I work on
more project stuff. So I work on the podcast that
you mentioned dying to ask. I work on special projects.
So I work for First Television MIT that's who owns
my station, and for the last eleven Olympics, I've been
(04:02):
covering the Olympics for her. So I helped create Olympic
content for thirty television stations, and then I've actually traveled
to the Olympics every two years to go follow athletes
for these stations and work on stories. So I have
a very self managed project list. Yeah, when you've been
(04:23):
in a place for that long, if you're known as
the one who's really good at just getting stuff done,
people tend to go hands off and say, hey, when
do you think you'll have that ready? So I keep
myself busy, which, you know, I think if you're going
to stay in a job for that long is really
crucial because it's really easy if you've been in a
if you've been at least on the surface in the
same job for a really long time, it can get
(04:44):
very road and to not get like that, especially in
a job that for me is as performance based as
it is journalism based, you know, in terms of like
the preparation and the presentation. You have to stay engaged.
And so having all these other projects for me kind
of feeds the creative part that I love about being
a television journalist.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, and how do you come up with your ideas?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh my gosh, I'm thinking of like three things just
while we're talking I mean, ideas are everywhere. It's kind
of like it's like writing, Laura. I mean, where do
great ideas come from? They come from really quiet moments
that might come when you're out on a run and
you notice something happening at the corner that you didn't
notice the other day. Sometimes people are emailing you and
they're suggesting ideas. Sometimes it could be just within your
(05:31):
own local community. I mean, I have kids, I'm in schools.
People are telling me about things all the time. I
went to a presentation at my son's high school last night,
and I think I walked away with at least six
story ideas from it, you know that about a subject
that I knew nothing about before I walked in. I
thought I got to file that away. So ideas come
from everywhere if you are open enough to see them.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. So, and when does a work day
sort of end for you?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So the workday technically ends, I'm usually done by about lunchtime,
so about eleven twelve, I've put in my eight or
nine hours, you know, on the clock. The reality is
that with a job like this, probably similar to a
job like yours, you know, never really done done there's
always that straight email that probably needs to be looked at.
And because I work these kind of off hours, I
like to stay in touch, knowing what I'm heading into
(06:21):
the next day, So you try to be careful about
how much you're doing that in the afternoons. But I
would say that I probably work a little bit more
than I should once I leave.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, I mean, because if you have started working at
three am and you're you know, a normal work day
would be done at noon, but the rest of the
world is not done working at noon. I would imagine
you have to actually actively put in some boundaries in
order to create some personal time.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And you know, I've gotten better about that. I think,
like most women, once we get to be on a
certain age, you start realizing that's not a great idea
to continue doing that, so I do so I will
set like it. I will purposely not take my work
I have two different phones. I have a personal phone
and I have a work phone, and I will leave
the work phone if I don't think I need to
have it. I'll leave it at home while I'm out
(07:11):
running errants in the afternoon, but I might check before
I go to bed, just to make sure that something
hasn't changed, so I think, you know, it's really easy,
and we all definitely fell into this during the pandemic
of doing things all the time. The truth is that
that's not really good for anyone, so I try to
be really careful. The weird thing I run into is that,
you know, my workday starts at three am, and I
(07:33):
will send, I'll respond to emails at that time. But
for people who don't necessarily know exactly what I do
in the hours that I keep, it comes across as
very aggressive. So I have recently been told that I
should really think about sending those emails later. So I
don't know what the like fine line is because it's
really clear of my work email what I do for
a living. But that was a new one that kind
(07:55):
of came at me this year.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break. I
will be back with more from Dirja. So I am
back talking with Deirdre Fitzpatrick, who is the morning anchor
of KCRITV, the NBC affiliate and Sacramento. We've been talking
about how early she has to get up in order
(08:19):
to be on air from five to seven in most mornings.
But with that, I imagine you have to go to
bed pretty early to be up at two thirty or
three in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What does that look like for you?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
It doesn't look like what it should. I mean, if
you back time, you know, to get the recommended eight
hours of sleep, I should be in bed at dinner time.
But that's not terribly practical. So I try to protect
sleep as much as I can, particularly these days, because
I used to be able to muscle through and kind
of power through anything, and that just stopped working at
a certain point, you know. So now I'm a little
(08:51):
bit more careful about it. I always say, if I
wake up and I've got a six in front of it,
I feel pretty good. And then on the weekends, I'm
really good about getting an eight in front of that
total sleep, maybe even pushing a nine. On the odd day,
I probably go to bed, I would say by about
between eight and nine. I prefer to go to bed
around eight o'clock. But you know, I have teenagers. They
(09:13):
don't ever want to talk to you until it's late
and inconvenient, and so I've had to shift that a
little bit over the years.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, I was going to ask about that because of
course teenagers have the total opposite schedule, like they might
stay up until two thirty three am, and so you
would completely be ships passing in the night in your house,
or even just if they have events in the evening,
you know that the school concert gets done at nine
fifteen or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm curious how you sort of work that into your life,
knowing that you do have to be upset.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question because it's not
just me obviously. I mean, my job comes with a
certain kind of lifestyle, and it's not a lifestyle that's
really for everyone, but for my family members, it's the
lifestyle that affects them as well. So you know, my
husband and I just celebrate our twentieth anniversary and he's
never like seen me on a Tuesday at ten pm,
(10:08):
like to have a conversation. So it is it is
a bit of an adjustment. And I've talked to people
in other fields who work, say in emergency medicine, where
it's also very common to work these odd shift hours,
and it does take a lot of flexibility from the
other family members. Now there are advantages for those family
members too, because if somebody needs to go do a
doctor's appointment in the middle of the afternoon, I'm your girl, right,
(10:29):
somebody needs to go run to Costco or pick up
the dry cleaning. I'm available to do those things. However,
doing something at nine or ten o'clock at night is
not really conducive to me being able to do my
job at full capacity. So not only does it take
a lot of cooperation I think from your family members
and discipline for everybody. I really rely on my parent
(10:51):
network too. I have a group of moms who know
that for sports pickups and drop offs, I'm great to
go take the kids wherever, but if there's going to
be a pick up at eight o'clock, nine o'clock or later,
I really need some help with that one. If my
husband's not available to go pick up my sons. So there,
it takes a lot of planning, obviously, but also I
(11:11):
think a lot of flexibility with the people in your life.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Absolutely well, I'm curious. I mean, one of the bits
of sleep advice people always have out there is like
trying to maintain something near the same schedule into weekends,
and I imagine that that's also just not something that
would really happen.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I have no we do. I've known people who do that,
and I don't know how that flies with their spouses.
That would not fly in my house. But I'm not
that far off. So if on a weekday, I'm I
go to bed at eight o'clock, I mean, honestly, Laura,
I want to go to bed by ten on a
Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You're really tired. I mean, I'm doti Yeah, yeah, I've
been working all week.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yes, but I'll probably still like to get up early.
I mean, I still I like mornings.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I love morning person I'm in. I imagine, with your
line of work, you kind of have to be. But
are you?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You should be? Not all people are, but I am,
but yeah I am. I love the quiet of a morning.
I love the freshness. I love that nothing has gone
wrong when that alarm clock goes goes off, like nothing
has ruined the day yet, right, It's all just fresh,
full of possibility. I love the quiet my favorite hour
of the day. I used to really hate when that
(12:19):
alarm went off and I got up and I was
walking around. I was really resentful of it. And then
I started looking at it as Wow, this is completely
my time. And now on the odd occasion that somebody
is awake in my house. I'm kind of annoyed by.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It, like I don't know, what are you doing? What
are you doing? This is why are you here? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Well, now I'm very curious because a lot of people
who exercise seriously do that in the morning. And I
know that you are a competitive athlete, You've done Iron Man,
Ultra marathons, all that. I don't believe that you are
training at two thirty am for those things.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So when does that fit in?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Not necessarily training for those things at that time, But
I do get a little bit of movement in the
morning just to wake my brain up. And I listened
to before breakfast because it's kind of I'm not kidding you.
I go into my gym in the garage. We've got
a garage gym, and I have for years. I've listened
to you. So you're actually, oddly one of the first
(13:20):
voices I hear in the day. Quite a lovely but
you know, just like a couple of minutes. And I think,
especially for working parents who are really busy, even if
you're not working odd hours, I think getting a couple
of minutes of exercise throughout the day is what gives
you that energy to go deal with whatever schedule you
have to deal with. So I do a little bit
(13:42):
of that, but my time is really after work. I
like a reset because sometimes the news is really it's
not all happy, right, So I love that little swite
it out, get it out sessions. So second I'm done
with work, I either change at work into the workout clothes,
so it's a lot harder to talk yourself out of
it when you get home, or I change instantly when
(14:03):
I get home and I walk out the door. So
I'm a runner. I run the neighborhood. So I do
those things almost instantly, and they're non negotiable. They must happen.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And about how much time are you devoting to that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Not as much time as you would think. I think
a lot of people think it would take hours, you know.
I like I do marathons. I do not do the
amount of training you should be doing. I am not
something you want to come.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
To spend less time on it. Yes, yes, I do not.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
What I do though, is I do try to maintain
a certain level of fitness so that if there is
that race or a project or a you know, a
girlfriend calls and says, Hey, we're going to go up
to the mountains. We're going to do this. Come do it.
Then I can pull it off. So am I gonna
win it? Absolutely not. Am I going to hang in
there till the end? Absolutely? And I'm probably gonna have
a pretty good time while I'm doing it, because I do.
(14:50):
When you have that time to go and exercise or
be with your friends or just have that free time,
I really have learned to enjoy it and be in
the moment. I speak terrible about that, and I am
not anymore. I really really am there.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
If I'm there and there, Well, what's the longest race
you've done?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Fifty kilometers?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Okay, that's about thirty miles, right, thirty.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, it's supposed to be about thirty one. They're rarely
measured exact, so can vary a little bit.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
What is I am very curious mentally, like what you're
doing during thirty one miles where you're running and trying
to keep yourself moving forward?
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Do you know what I'm doing? I'm talking, Yes, I'm
talking NonStop because I run them with my girlfriends. Okay,
so I have a couple of girlfriends who live in
different cities will meet up and that's the time that
we have together. So our joke is the longer we
take to do this, the more time we get together
away from the children. We have no responsibilities out here. Yeah,
unless you're like a super serious person, you're in it
(15:50):
to win it. You're in it to finish it, which
means that when you're coming to a steep hill, you're
really hiking it. And out here, I live in northern California.
I mean it's very, very beautiful. So these are these
like incredible vistas and mountains and your nature and it's
just like a really lovely moment. So even if it's
a really long day, it still ends up being really fun.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, well, more power to you. I think I might
enjoy the beauty for about three miles with it.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
You know what, With the right people and the right snacks,
I think you could do it.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
You can do it.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Well, We're going to take one more quick ad break
and I'll be back with more from Deerdriff.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Well.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I am back interviewing Deerdrif Fitzpatrick for Before Breakfast. She
has told us that she listens to this show in
the morning, so that is very exciting to hear.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
So I want to hear a little bit more about.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Your Olympics experience, because you have been doing this for
a great many years. You fly off, you cover what's
going on with there. I wonder if there's a particular
memory or two that was formative of those experiences that
you'd be willing to share.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, So I started doing this back in two thousand,
so almost twenty five years ago. When we started doing it.
We launched this project in my company and we send
every two years. What we've done is we've sent a
small team eight to ten people to the Olympics to
do what we call group coverage. So it's a small
amount of people reporting and producing content for lots of
(17:20):
different stations, and there are three reporter photographer teams, And
the illusion for all of these stations as you do
live shots for them is that I'm there just for you,
when in fact I'm actually there for thirty stations. So
you really get a chance to cover and interact with
athletes from all the different sports and really from all
over the country, which has been super fun. I would say, like, honestly,
(17:44):
my favorite thus far would be the Paris Olympics, and
I think it's because you know, we had this gap
of two Olympics being just so unbelievably weird during the pandemic.
Those are the ones I did not travel for. And
to be in Paris this past summer with these athletes
and doing these stories and with the Eiffel Tower behind
me is my office was like a pinch me moment
(18:07):
all day long because it was so joyous after really
difficult ears for a lot of people. There was so
much joy every day, no matter who you met, of
people who were so grateful to have this experience. I've
always loved the Olympics, just the wonder of it and
the magic and the underdogs and the people who you know,
literally dedicate their entire lives for a couple of seconds
(18:30):
of opportunity. Sometimes at works, sometimes it doesn't, and I've
always just absolutely loved it. So to be in that
environment after COVID, after the pandemic, and to be in
this international experience where people were really in a great
mood every single day, it was like this unbelievable professional gift.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
And I love the weird sports, oh right, like the
ones that you're what's your favorite?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Like of those people don't know?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
But I mean I just like the random things that
you don't even hear about for four years. I mean
like in the winter ones where they're doing the luge
or something.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Like that, and it's like people dedicate their lives to sledding. Yeah,
I mean I love that. I love that fact competitive
sledding exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
So I've been down the Olympic bob sled track in
York City twice.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Wo and how is that?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The first time was absolutely awful. They give you the
safety lesson. I did not pay attention, and I suffered
for it, because if you don't sit in the bob
sled and do certain things, it's like being in a
car accident over and over and over again. Second time,
not only did I listen, I was like in it
to find out, like could I be good at this?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I could not, But I'm.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Not going to be your next career.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Slightly enjoyed the experience a little bit more, but I
had that same realization and like, wow, somebody does this
every single day to be the best person on the
planet and doing this how amazing?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Just like terrifying, Like throw yourself down a hill.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Like that a if you're on skeleton, yes.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, Like oh, the physical courage is amazing, and I'm
sure that you have many stories of covering that. So
you also read a lot. I understand you. Sometimes you
make time in your busy schedule to read. When does
that happen?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
So I read, you know, kind of like I do
everything a little bit here and there all the time.
You know, there are these pockets I guess you have
highlighted through the timelogs. There are these pockets of time
in your day that you don't even realize you have.
So if I'm in the long line at the grocery store,
I've got a book in my backpack. I will pull
out a book standing in the grocery store line and
get through a couple of pages. I am probably because
(20:39):
of my job, a very very fast reader could take
into information very quickly, So I will. I really try
to default to a book over scrolling my phone. Always.
I love going to the library. Love the library. There's
nowhere more fun to me than going to the library
on a Friday afternoon. Love to do that. And so
I've always got a book, and I'm always trying to
(21:02):
sneak it in. I just I feel better, you know,
even as a kid, that was always the thing that
got my brain going and helped me think of those
new ideas and really calm me down too. And so
I sneak the reading in like I sneak a workout in,
or like you sneak anything for yourself in when you're
a working mom.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well, and I love the idea that if you are
mostly done for the day with work at noon, the
library is still open. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
The other upside of this schedule.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Is people always wonder, like, how do you do things
when you work that schedule? I look at people who
work a traditional nine to five.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, because you can't go to anything right where where's
you've got the afternoon?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I mean, you're up.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
There's some flexibility. You might feel a little jet lagged
at times, but there is only some flexibility to do things.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, so du joe.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
One question I always ask guests is what have you
done lately to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
From great to awesome?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Anything that just made a day a little bit better?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
You know? I I have this year, I have my
first kid went to college. And that's a really you
haven't had that yet?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
You still have one?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And no, my oldest is the senior. So the next
year will be okay.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
So I'll give you something that happened this morning at
three am with my college kid. He happened to come
home last night. He had to drop off a car
back at our house. You go to college in the
Bay Area, so he drove the car back home. I
thought he was bringing one friend with him. Well, as
it turns out, when I woke up this morning at
two am, he had brought four friends home with him
and they were here for like mere hours. Laura, and
(22:40):
so I wake up at two am and there are
five college kids, five college freshmen, crashed out in my
living room while I'm trying to get ready for work,
and he says, we need a ride to the train
station at four Is that okay? It's on your way
to work? And I said sure. I'm really learning to
go at the flow, and that opportunity to take these
(23:02):
kids literally just driving them to the train station could
have been a nothing burger, right. Instead, I chose to
just really really enjoy the spirit of a nineteen year
old who thinks that it's a great idea to drive
two hours at eleven pm the night before, only to
get up a couple hours later to take a three
hour train and to go right back to where they started.
(23:24):
And it put me in the best mood this morning
because I got to be around and suck in some
of their energy at a very odd time of the day,
and that took me from good to great in a
very unexpected way, because I can tell you when I
went to bed last night, I did not see that coming.
It was not on my bigo guard for today, not
on the big card.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I love that energy too. I mean, they're kind of nuts,
but you know it's good. It's good. Maybe they need
less sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Than the rest of us, but yeah, I think the
exactly well, Danjit, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Everyone who is listening to this.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You can catch her on Casey ra and Sacramento if
you happen to live around there, or you can listen
to the Dying to Ask podcast if you'd like to
hear her talking with various guests talking about self improvement
in general. And if you have feedback on this or
any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura
at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
(24:43):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
Show Links
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