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Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast, show variety hour. We are very happy to be here. We have a great guest. We've been trying to chase her down for the better part of a decade. Okay, well, maybe it's not a decade, but it's in there. Robin Doolittle, investigative reporter extraordinaire. She's done so many interesting things. Some of you may remember her from her great friggin' entertaining show,

and innovative reporting on Rob Ford, and which led to a book at some point, Crazy Town, which is so effed up, the whole thing. Anyway, I can't even get into that. I could spend an entire show talking to Robin Doolittle, who's here with us today, just about the political stuff that she's covered. Her early career started off right out of the gate,

Toronto Star newspaper and just getting into like as a young person, Robin, I'm really struck by the fact that here's your you're in your 20s and you're like, I'm going into investigative reporting. So just a little bit of background. Is that the direction you wanted to go or was it just happenstance? Like it was it just this is this is an opportunity I have. This is happening right now. This is what I'm going to do.

Yeah, that's such a good question because it is one of the first things young journalists ask me all the time. You know, how do I get into investigative journalism? I want to be an investigative journalist. And the thing that I tell them, especially when they're in their really early 20s,

is what editors told me, which is don't, don't do that. Not for a long time. This is not the time in your early twenties to be doing investigative journalism. You want to be covering, you know, general assignments, which is just the day's events. Anything can be thrown at you. You want to be covering beats like,

Police beat, city hall beat, getting a real feel for the business, writing as many stories as you can. So back when I was doing, you know, the Rob Ford stuff, I was not an investigative reporter. I was a city hall municipal politics reporter and

The Rob Ford investigation is something that I sort of chipped away at over the course of several years. More on slow news days. I know it sounds crazy to think back to that time and not think it was like totally consumed with.

with that side of Rob Ford. But there was a big politics story happening in the city of Toronto when he was mayor and just the internal conflicts happening. So the long answer to your short question is that I got into this kind of more the old fashioned way, which is that on a beat, you take your extra time, maybe your weekends, your evenings, and do it on the side. And that's what I recommend to young journalists to do. That's the best way to get into it.

Even starting there, which was a really, really big story. I remember the, and you probably get sick of talking about it ad nauseum. Okay, good. I haven't talked about it in quite a long time. Actually, the first couple of years I was like, please no one bring up Rob Ford, but now it's enough times past. I think, I think when we saw, you know, the mayor of a Canadian city appearing on late night talk shows in the United States and

And then of course the famous video that you really kind of, I guess you could call it took apart. My dog is crying to go out the door. Welcome to welcome to real life. I'll just show you where she is. She wants to go out this door and she, she won't stop moaning until she goes there. You better definitely listen to a dog when they're asking to go outside. Otherwise the rest is on you. What happens after that?

Well, you could end up, you could end up with a turd in your kitchen. A little mess. So, you know, you've got to be on it. Yeah. But yeah, so, so Rob Ford is now, he's, you know, making the rounds on late night talk shows and we're all just up in Canada cringing, but you had such a, like to, to sit back, did you take a lot of criticism? I guess is what I'm trying to say about, oh, you don't go into that Rob and do a little, because you're, you're going to get a lot of flack. People are going to come after you. There's going to be trucks parked in your driveway. Yeah.

You know, it is, it's a very funny time to reflect on because we're now in a post kind of Trump world where we're much more used to this type of stuff. But what was so difficult to cover the Ford government when I was,

so this was, this was 2010 is when I, is when I got changed. So I was, how old am I now? How old? I guess. You're 37 years old. I'm, I'm almost 37. Don't age me yet. I've got two more months to go. Um,

Yeah, I think I was about 25, 26 maybe when I got moved to the City Hall Bureau in 2010. And my very good friend, Daniel Dale, now world famous journalist, was also moved to City Hall in the same time. And the two of us were covering this in the City Hall Bureau. And it was just so bizarre because it's,

you so rarely encounter politicians lie. Of course they say, no, I know breaking news, everybody. I have some bad news for you. No, but they, you know, I say they lie, but really I think there was a gentleman's lie, I guess. Does that make sense? Like there's a spin. There's a kernel of truth. They're stretching within the confines of what you could maybe say, maybe crossing the line here and there, but,

You so rarely at that point, at least to me, had encountered this like someone who was totally willing to stand at a podium and say the sky is is green. The sky is purple. You might think it looks blue, but it's not. And that's the bottom line. And it made it really challenging to cover because.

And this is where he he the administration was very smart. You ended up not just being able to cover the story. You had to then also defend yourself as a person, defend your journalism. You were it was it became this this political fight between the media and the politicians, between, you know, different left right wing politicians and the journalists are calling the balls and strikes, right?

And it was really difficult. And so, you know, you're talking about the era of Rob Ford going on late night TV. That was after the crack video. So we were before the world really woke up to this. But, you know, we were covering...

the shenanigans happening in that workplace without being able to actually write about a lot of it. Well, I was looking at it for two years before we ever got a word printed in the paper because it was so difficult to try to say, we are going to print a story that alleges that the mayor of the largest city in Canada

has a serious drinking and or drug problem and it's impacting his ability to do his job and his staff wants him in rehab. Getting across that finish line from a journalism perspective was really challenging, especially in that climate. Well, it seemed to endear...

him to the people that had him elected yeah the people that felt invisible marginalized not paid attention to because you know blue collar workers hard-working guys you know in in it just seemed to be like he's our guy we like to drink too we we have a beer every now and again and and and who doesn't like to hit the pipe once in a while like come on

I think so much of it, and you see this with, I mean, in politics very much now, this populist

I don't want to made to be feel stupid. Like that's, and you see this with COVID so much right now, people, they just don't like these, you know, fancy pants, people telling them what to do or how to think. I think because I don't know, it's, it is, it's an interesting reality to live in because on one hand, if you started from the, from scratch, you'd think you'd want the smartest, most accomplished people, not,

making decisions. But yeah. And then you end up in a situation where you have someone like

Rob Ford or Doug Ford for that matter, running a government. And it always, it was always interesting to covering that these are very wealthy people that inherited their, their wealth and inherited their jobs from their father. And that yet they connected with the, with people who,

who are making often, not everyone, because sometimes we do oversimplify that the people who follow these guys are all kind of working class people. And that's definitely not the case. Like there are plenty of conservatives. There's a bird attack happening across the street for me right now. So apologies. I love it. No, you know what? Yeah. No, because I think it's great to have this kind of a backdrop.

With the tone of the conversation, Robin, it helps people to digest some very hard... This is tweeting, real-life tweeting. Yes, that's the birdie internet. You know, it makes me kind of jump forward a little bit thinking about what's going on with Rudy Giuliani right now. I mean, here you have the former mayor of New York City

who is entangled. I mean, he was revered, you know, here's this once again, this very wealthy lawyer running the city of New York, you know, running it through nine 11 and, and, and, and being heroic. I mean, I just remember the news stories coming out of, of that state where the whole world was looking at Rudy, like, Oh my God, this he's the only guy that can lead us forward. And it is so difficult to see him all these years later, uh,

of the debacle that he has created, the lies that he told. You know, you talk about the gentleman lies. It's interesting watching all that. What's your kind of take on how that's unfolding? Well, I mean, I guess there's two thoughts I have around Rudy Giuliani. One is...

It's amazing to think like, I mean, he has now, I believe, been disbarred. So he cannot be a lawyer anymore. In New York State. In New York State. But it's interesting that that's what it took, right? So one is the institutions playing...

catch up to this new reality that, I mean, why was, but you politically couldn't have done it earlier, I guess is the thing. So there's that reality, right? And this is what we're all dealing with is there's the law and then there's the application of the law. And ultimately laws are just,

you know, things written in books. They're not real if the public doesn't believe in them, if the public doesn't believe in the institutions that uphold the laws. And so you do need public buy-in for so much of this stuff that we're grappling with right now. So that's one thing. It's just the institutions trying to catch up with this new reality. And with Giuliani, as so many of these guys, you look at them and you're like, what's your plan? You must have a plan. You're a smart person. What's the long game here? Like,

You look at Ted Cruz, like you, what is your, you obviously want to be president. Oh my God. What's your strategy here? Like you were just completely humiliating yourself over and over again. So that's, I think what's really fascinating for me to sit back and think like, what's going, what's the plan? What are your advisors thinking around me? There's no plan.

We are talking with Robin Doodle, author, investigative journalist, and so, so, so much more. We're going to be right back. We're going to talk about gender disparity and, you know, how women are being paid as compared to men. And Robin's got lots of opinions about this. And I want to know. I want to know. I'm going to tell you. We'll be right back. Who wants yesterday's papers? Who wants yesterday's gun? Who wants yesterday's papers?

Welcome back. Talking to the incredibly intelligent, witty, funny, acerbic, sardonic Robin Doolittle. Thanks for doing this, Robin. I don't think I said that off the top of the show. I appreciate it a lot. Oh, it's my pleasure. You're living in a time where journalists have really been knocked around.

And I think it was, you know, it was kind of happening and kind of there. You know, journalists certainly took a few low blows, a few punches, blind punches. But the Trump era absolutely changed the climate for journalists, for investigative journalists, for sure. Like the fake news and all this stuff. How do you feel now?

about what's happened this last, you know, four or five years in your industry. I know in music, we've had a lot of changes in the arts, but you media is, is it's tricky. And there's a lot of hoops to jump through. I mean, we're like any other industry, certainly entertainment industry as well in that, you know,

30 years ago, you put out something, whether it's a song or a story, and you might hear from people, but probably not, not a lot, right? Like, but now we're just so accessible, right? Like you can get instant feedback. People feel entitled to you as a person. And I mean, with the job that I have,

As hard as it can be sometimes, I do also understand the job that I have. Like, it's a good gig. I'm not saying it's not, right? Like, we get this huge platform to comment or report on our society. So there is a, I think ultimately it is a good thing, but it is really hard. It's really different from even when I went through journalism school. This, you know, so much of your job is about, you're now this like publicist.

like public person that like, I'm a newspaper reporter. I went into newspapers. I had no desire to be on TV or like that. That's why I've always stuck with newspapers and suddenly, you know, talking about your stories. It's a huge part of the job. That's a lesson we talked earlier about Rob Ford that I took from that period of my life that,

it's not enough to just write something and put it in the paper. You have to then be accountable and explain to people about your process, what it means, how it fits in the context. Not everyone's going to read the newspaper every day. You've got to read...

people on multiple platforms and ultimately explain your process and that people really need to kind of peek behind the curtain. So that's- Or defend your process. And defend your process, exactly. And it's a good thing to have that pushback, right? So I see that as a huge part of my job, which is why I really am just thrilled that you asked me on to talk about the Power Gap series that we did.

Well, yeah. And, you know, speaking to that, do you think you're paid the same as your male counterparts doing the same investigating journalism that you are doing this same job? Are you paid appropriately and accordingly?

Well, that's a great question, Jan. I mean, the reality is I don't know. You don't know, right? Okay. I was going to say, that's kind of hush hush, right? You're not like, hey, what are you being paid? Because I got paid. So me speaking personally, I feel well compensated. The globe is, you know, I have...

I have my previous series that I did between kind of Rob Ford. I mean, I do lots of things, but like the big things that people might've heard about, I did a big investigation into sexual assault and police and how they dismiss 20% of cases as unfounded, AKA false or baseless. And that was a very big thing. And I got kind of like a promotion, I guess, if you will, after that appropriately, I think, and the globe was great. And,

So, but when you bring up pay, like the series that we did, a big one of the kind of the catalyst for why I wanted to look into this was that in the United Kingdom, they changed the law a few years ago that large entities, I think any business with more than 250 employees have to disclose wage gap information. And sort of tied into all of that, the BBC...

had to release information about some of its most high paid employees. And through that process, a number of very prominent female journalists learned they were being paid dramatically less than the men doing the exact same job. And it got me thinking, like, could we do this

here? Could we do an investigation into this here? Because I think you and your listeners, we've probably all heard the stat that women make 87 cents for every dollar that a man makes. That's the most commonly cited thing that the wage gap is 13%. But it does always bother me because it's like, what is that number? Is that every woman is making 13% less? Of course not. And there's a segment of the population that dismisses the wage gap. They say,

Oh, well, that's not including part-time work or not looking at different industries, yada, yada. And the bottom line is I think most women want to know is the guy sitting next to me with the same job, doing the same work, making the same, you know, or had the same education, making the same money. And that's what we wanted to get into. The problem, of course, as you mentioned, is that salaries are secret. So how do you investigate that? How do you lift that veil? How do we change those values?

practices and talking from like a legal standpoint is it within their rights to withhold that kind of information like literally would it come down to you tapping the guy working next door to you going you know between you and me like what what are you being paid

I mean, this is the kind of conclusion of what our series has found is that ultimately we do need some amount of transparency and maybe it's not companies posting, you know, this is everyone's salary, but that there's, you know, salary ranges available. Some places you're not allowed, it's in your contract that you are not allowed to discuss your salary with colleagues. And this is, you know, all the research shows a huge detriment to women and people of color, um,

Ultimately, what we were able to do with our series that we did, there's this one segment of the population where wages aren't secret, and that's the public sector. So this isn't just government, but universities, crown corporations, places that sell your lottery, your booze, like city halls and school boards, et cetera. We collected all this information and ran it through gender analysis. And that's where we found that the wage gap is still an issue. But the even bigger issue was that women were just

crazily outnumbered, not just at the very top of organizations, which I think we all know women are underrepresented as CEOs, but in all types of management jobs. They are not getting through the pipeline. And when you talk about why, why is that? One, I think we're focusing too much on salary. Salaries are a problem, but it's just dramatically underrepresented in any type of leadership position.

even in middle management, and this lack of transparency that we have no idea. And the last thing is, if you are encountering gender barriers, there's very few places you can go. I was shocked when I did my reporting to find women in this country are being fired every single week after becoming pregnant. I didn't think that happened anymore. It happens constantly. It was the number one thing I heard from employment lawyers, women telling their employers they're pregnant and mysteriously being fired shortly after.

So what can they do? And you talked about there's nowhere for them to go. So there's no kind of ombudsman. There's no, what about HR? What about the actual letter of the law that it's against the law to fire somebody for getting pregnant in their jobs? Exactly. It's been illegal in this country to pay people doing the same work, different wages because of their gender for more than 70 years.

It's been illegal to fire a woman because she's pregnant for decades. It's been illegal. Yeah. So why is that? Since the early seventies. Right. And so what do you do though? If you encounter these issues, you can go to HR. I've heard, you know, I interviewed hundreds of people for this investigation and they

H.R. is often many people I spoke to. I don't want to shade on any H.R. No, no, no, no, no. But listen, H.R. represents a company. Right. And many people. And they're looking out for their own job. They're looking out. Right. And H.R. tends to be a very gendered like they're the women. They often have less power. So where do you go?

So if you're fired, you can sue in a regular court, but you can't sue for gender discrimination. You can tack it on. If you want to sue for gender discrimination, really your option is to go to the Human Rights Tribunal. And human rights tribunals across the country have been so dramatically underfunded that it's basically like it's got no teeth. It takes two to four years to get a hearing. Damages are rarely above $20,000.

Um, and politicians, especially in Ontario and in Alberta are purposely, um,

understaffing these organizations. So a lot of the time you're, you know, you're facing this, do you want to sue your employer? Do you want to wait four years while you're suing your employer to get 20 grand? You're not going to do that. So what do you do? You quit. Yeah. You quit, you move on, you find a new job and it just continues. Yeah. They make it impossible. They put, they put time limitations on everything. Yeah. And it's only a year too. If you don't file within a year, you can't do it.

and how many people make the decision to do that. So it's, and there's a lack of transparency there too, around what happens with this. And often that's going a long thing, 10 seconds,

What almost always happens in these cases, if it's a complete breakdown, is you sign a settlement agreement that includes a confidentiality clause in the states called an NDA. Can't say anything. It's over. And then there's no incentive to actually change. We're going to be right back here listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm here with Robin Doolittle. Don't go away.

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Welcome back to the podcast. My guest, Robin Doolittle, always on the breaks. We always talk about things that should be actually part of the podcast because, you know, we're all fired up. We're talking about stuff. And then, you know, we end the segment and then we're just like, ah, and then this other thing happened.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you, I mean, I've spent, you know, a lot of time looking at different sectors in the workforce. I never really got into music, but I'd love to hear your, like, what's it like being a woman in the music industry? And how has it changed through your career? Oh my God. I mean, the first of all, and I always answer this, you know, as fairly as I can, the most difficult kind of

pushback I got in my early days, I wasn't so much from a, of a financial nature, but it was just women holding me back other women. And I know we're constantly inundated with men in the industry and, and things of a sexual nature and, and being a, being, you know, facing harassment and, you know, assaults and things like that. That was never my experience. I mean, I, I,

Absolutely heard of that kind of thing. There's absolutely, you know, those kinds of things going on constantly, especially in the 80s and the 90s. But me, it was more like just women admonishing me for my weight, for what I was wearing. You can't wear your hair like that. You can't wear that on Letterman. You know, it was tough because...

For some reason, there was kind of that attitude. It's like because she succeeds means that you fail. And that's how a lot of women brought themselves forward. They were afraid of, you know, if I do well, that means there's no room for them to do well. Well, there's actual research behind this. It's like the queen bee syndrome. It's the real thing that's created by this huge power imbalance that we have in our society where women feel like there can only be one.

Uh, there's research that shows, um, I believe it was, I believe it was Norway. It's either Norway or Denver or not Denver, Jesus, Denmark, not Denver, Norway or Denmark. Yes. They looked at, um, uh, different companies and found that if the layer, if the level above you had a large number of women, you were more likely to be promoted.

If the layer above you had very few women, you were, it was harder. Like there was a queen bee syndrome that the women themselves were harder on women. And there's lots of research that shows that women are harder on women. And it's because of this dynamic where there's, there's only room for one. I've encountered that too. It's an awful situation to try to. Yeah. I was going to say that was going to be my next question. Robin is if you've encountered that in your life,

journalism career in your career as an author, like if there's that kind of a competitive nature, oh, she's got the scoop or she's doing that. And just if you had a lot of support from your female colleagues or if they could sometimes make it more difficult and how that was in comparison to how the men treated you. Yeah. So I have, I mean, I think like everybody, I've had good and bad situations. I have had really amazing experiences

veteran women, like for example, Christy Blashford and Rosie Damano were very famous newspaper columnists when I was starting. And they were both

very generous to me and, and, and my, and my female colleagues, frankly, like, you know, just even little things. Like if they had a party at their house, they might invite you when you're like a 20 year old, nothing. And there were like bigger, like more important people there, or whether it's sharing a quote, if you missed it at court or just like giving you guidance,

and Matt Thomas was great and just so appreciated and I always try to pay that forward now Michelle Shepard, Tanya Talaga these were like really you know famous women when I was starting out that were just so generous and I focus on them I did encounter also women who seemed to have disdained for me when I was very young in the industry and I was just always perplexed like

what is going on here? What did I do to you? I'm, I'm writing like 10 inch crime blotter stories. Like, why are you upset with me? And, and the men, yeah, I mean, I've had, I mean, I've had such wonderful men, of course, but I've also had guys who are men who editors who were inappropriate with me or, you

Yeah, I will say that I, for the most part, I haven't encountered any of, you know, sexual harassment or whatnot in my, in my, in my workplace. But as a journalist going out into the world, it's constant. It's a huge problem. I, especially when I was in my early twenties, I looked really young and I,

It was just this, I don't know, constantly being disrespected, being told you're a teenager. Yeah, it's difficult. And I also, when I was covering the police beat, I don't want to, you know, dump on, it's really easy to dunk on police, but that I remember when I took over the beat, I asked the outgoing crime reporter, like, how do you make cop sources? Like, how do you do that? How do you get the detective to tell you where, like, whatever it is? And he was like, oh, just go drinking with them.

And I'm like, okay, okay. That's that makes sense. I'll go drinking with them. And I think I was how old, but I've been 23, 24. And all right. So can I take, take so-and-so for a pint after work or something? And just so often it became clear that the person thought this was a date and it just puts you at such a, such a disadvantage. And I've had bad situations, not just with police, but with lawyers of politicians and it, um,

it hurts you in a variety of ways because that person now you can no longer be a source, right? Like you, you're blocked off from that. And I ended up what I tell young, especially young women to do. I only do breakfast meetings now because I find there's, there's not, um,

there's not the same level of confusion over scrambled eggs. So that's the kind of stuff that you have to navigate while also being this constant narrative that's out in the, in the world that, you know, female journalists sleep with sources for information. Like that's a trope. That's, that's constant in pop culture. Like,

Whether it's House of Cards or, frankly, Lois Lane. Like, Lois Lane, girl boss reporter, is in love with the man she's covering. That just trying to move away from that horrible false stereotype. Yeah, the stereotypes, yeah, they're constantly there. I mean, you could have just been describing the music industry, right?

Just because all those preexisting conditions, let's call them. Yeah. Is that it? That like, you know, like back to you, like what you're facing is they're just this like constant, Oh, I bet she's sleeping with so-and-so to get this deal or this. Not so much now. I mean, I think those things are slowly disappearing. There's there's,

Women are hugely powerful in the music industry now. I mean, women, even in the 90s, we saw a group of women that sold more records collectively than 80% of the artists put together. And oddly enough, a lot of those women were Canadian at the time. In the 90s, we saw Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan with Lilith Fair.

Even going back to Alanna Miles, who was one of the women out of the gate that did so well internationally. She sold five, six million records, which was unheard of in rock and roll. Celine Dion's deals at Caesar's Palace

continue to set world records for how much money they pay her and I'll tell you what Elton John Rod Stewart some of those iconic people would never come close to what Celine Dion makes so it is about putting you know butts in the seats yeah so there's some fairness there too I mean even with male rock bands who dominated the scene probably for you know 50 years in the rock and roll scene um

Tickets are pretty much the same price. So if I'm selling a ticket or if Coldplay is selling a ticket, I mean, that's a terrible example, Robin. But I mean, you know, I can charge a pretty good ticket price, but I also want to make it affordable. I want to make sure people are able to come. It really does matter.

you know, it irks me to see tickets being out of reach of people. Yeah. When you see someone like Madonna, for instance, you know, selling tickets for $600, who can go to that? And, you know, people have to make a choice between their rent and

Going to see Madonna. I think, I think I'll pay my rent. Well, it's interesting though, too. They just, the, they talk about that situation, which is something else you see is women when they get to that level are they kind of embracing the, the power, right? And I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's, that's something else too. It's like, are you doing, once you're there, are you throwing the rope down? Yeah.

and the people that you hire, the people that you bring on, the people that you promote, thinking about your customers. Like there's a way to think about this or your fans in all sorts of different ways. And going forward, I think that that's really what we need to demand of our leaders and maybe demand Madonna make,

seats cheaper because $600 is too much money. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm going to hold Robyn Doolittle captive for the last segment of the show. I don't want to let her go yet. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Paperback Riders

This goes by very fast, doesn't it, Robin Doolittle? It goes by very, very fast. I wanted to tell you, and I said this on the break briefly, you're really great to talk to because you speak so well, but you're such a good writer. And sometimes in journalism...

there's that thing that kind of keeps you from wanting to read a story because they can either be a very banal, like there's not that flair and not a lot of journalists can go on to be an author, which you have done because of a writing style. I don't know if, well, yeah, you're old enough to remember this. I used to love reading crime reporting and sometimes it was so, it was so pedestrian five o'clock.

I mean, it was just the way they reported about it was so kind of mundane. And writing is a formula to crime writing. But you write in a really unique voice, very much your own. And it's like, oh, I want to read this. It comes across not with a ton of superlatives, but you're just a great writer. That's true.

That is so nice to hear. And if there's any kind of young writers listening, I had... This is like such a cliche story, but I had the features prof when I was in university tell me I was a horrible writer. Yeah, well... And, you know...

Like, I don't like writing, number one. I love reporting. I love reporting. That is my, like coming up with stories. I love navigating reporting barriers. Like when you hit a wall and you're like, how do I get around this?

Who else can I find? Where else can I get this information? Like sorting those things out is that's my real fun. I have to actually sit down and write. I'm procrastinating doing a story today. I was like, I can't do that today. I'm on a Jan Arden's podcast. But, but yeah, it's something that you, I've had to work at really hard. It wasn't something that came naturally to me, but yeah,

but, and also just confidence, like having those voices when you're younger, when people say stuff like that to you, it gets in your head. And it's so silly that, you know, the, that you let these people who was like a, you know, a loser failed journalist prof tell me this and hit my head forever. But, but when you say like the, I, you know, I sound kind of like I write that, that's how I ultimately figured it out is I, I,

I write as if I'm talking. And I think that that's my, that's my big advice to young writers is when I was starting out, I was very fixated on how would a smart person write this?

And so often smart people are like really super, you know, brilliant people are horrible writers. They're like, you don't need a $10 word. You don't need a $10 word. Just say it as easily and understandably as possible. You know, you don't want eight ideas in one sentence. You give people a long sentence, throw them a short one. There's a rhythm to it. Like that's, that's how I try to write. And I think it's really helpful to, if you're, if you're writing and you're hitting a block,

turn to the plant beside you and explain to them what you're trying to say. Because often it comes out of your mouth so much better than when you're just focusing on the geese.

Exactly. Like reading something out loud to me has always been so important when I'm writing. Because it's in my head, you're looking at the page, you're looking at your computer screen, you're trying to write this little thought down. And it's suddenly become so much more complicated than it ever needed to be. And as soon as you read it out loud, guys, you know, you're like, oh my God, I missed the boat. Robin, how are you different from the Robin in your 20s to now? Like how...

What do you find? Cause I think, I think aging is a gift. The thirties are great. Your forties are going to be spectacular, but like you said, you took a lot of grief from, from people telling you you weren't good at what you were doing. And, and, uh, so what, what has this last, yeah, this last 15 years. So I think a couple of big things, um,

In my early 20s, certainly my teen years, but in my early 20s, I was not able to regulate my emotions as much. It was very high, very low. I could go from zero to 100 real quick. Just taking, I think, much more personal offense to things that didn't need to be. Like there's the...

Yeah, I would become more angry earlier, quicker, which kind of bleeds into the second thing, which is just really embracing and seeing gray. And this is such a hard thing in our society to do right now. But

You know, things are not black and white and someone else, someone's truth might be true to them. It might be true in one version of events and wouldn't be true to mine. And we can both be different and that's okay. And I'm not saying there's a both sides to everything. Don't get confused, but just this embracing that things are often complicated and the most interesting and beautiful things are complicated, right?

And that's something that I've certainly, you know, as I get older, I appreciate more and more. I think being protective of my time and my personal space has something that I've, you know, really leaned into in my 30s.

I had a really hard time saying no to things. I still have a hard time saying no to things now, but like, it's okay to say no. If you don't have time to do something or, you know, every weekend is someone's birthday or shower or engagement thing or birthday party, like kids' birthday party, aunts going away party.

It's like, you just can't do it. You'd live your whole life just celebrating other people's things. And that's lovely, but you also need time to just, you know, clean your house and sit and watch RuPaul's drag race. So that's something that I've really done as well. And I also, I've had, I have two kids now, which is, which also does put things a little in perspective. Yeah.

And, but I'm glad I, I, I'm glad I had them when I was in my thirties for sure. And, you know, if biology wasn't a thing, I would have done it in my forties. But yeah, those slowing down, taking a breath. Those are some understanding that not everything's going to be a win. Yeah.

All those fun things. What about you? I love the journalist. She just can't. I know, I'm sorry. I've been trying not to ask you questions this whole time. No, no. I love talking about it. I mean, I just finished writing a book about that last year called If I Knew Then. And it's all about, you know, looking back at those decades, those markers in my life and thinking how much I've loved getting older. The thing that I somehow dreaded most in my 20s and 30s that I lamented about, that I worried about,

that I thought, you know, what, what does that look like? And I think I had really great role models. I mean, my mom was just like, it gets better and better all the time. You just feel better about your body and, and you just enjoy life more and you you're more reasonable. And exactly what you said, that emotional meter, that pendulum that swings from being

extraordinarily hard to control. I don't know what it is. I think it's just becoming a person. I don't think there's any long explanation for it. It's just going from zero to a hundred. When you're mad, you're mad. When you're sad, you're sad. And you try not to cry and everything's emotional and everything's personal.

And I'm not like that anymore. So I think there is a general thing that happens with human beings. It's probably biological that back in the caveman days, you needed to run. Yeah. Yeah. Like back in the caveman days, you needed to like run from, you know, predators or something to survive. Large birds. Teens and 20s. Yeah. And then after that, if you can survive that long, you have the younger people, you know, in the village taking care of you and you can kind of chill a little bit at that.

That's completely not true, guys. That's a fake. No, it's it's all folks. It's all facts here on the show. Everything is backed up. You can see it in the show notes. I'm sure some article on the Internet will say that's true. But that's that's my guess, because it's so common. Everybody, you know, your brain is still developing and

And it's, it's so hard because you don't recognize it either. You feel entirely right. And it's like, you're going to be so much happier when you calm down and just let this stuff go water off the duck's back. How do you think you're going to feel about, you know, your kids reading your work 15 years from now? Have you thought about that at all?

I do. I think about that all the time. I mean, the last book I wrote was on, I've only written two books, I sound like, the last book, one of two. No, that's two more than most people, Robin. Two more than I thought I would write. Yeah, it's called Had It Coming, and it's about Me Too, and the Me Too movement. Yes, yes. That's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Looking for the gray in so many of these complications.

complicated things like me too is the you know these issues are often framed as black and white and they're complicated and some of them are complicated and you know I thought a lot about them when I was writing the book because one of the things is we talk about um talk about victim blaming a lot that you know when I was looking at sexual when I was investigating sexual assault for the globe and then ultimately doing this book kind of bridging off of that work um

You know, if a woman is raped and people are like, oh, was she drinking? What was she wearing? All of these things that we understand are really problematic. You don't do anymore. And at the same time, I am thinking of my girl's

being teenagers and going to parties, I'm absolutely going to tell them, you know, like, don't get super drunk. You know, don't wear too super revealing clothing. It's going to make you a target. Like, and, and, and that's, you know, trying to embrace those two things and understand how those two things can be real at the same time. So I do think about stuff like that when I, when I write.

Well, you're exceptional. And Robin Doolittle, I wish we had, this is the show. Can you believe how fast this went by? No, I can't. That's insane. Well, it's because you and I are vastly interesting. We're obviously going to be best friends. Thank you. Thank you for taking time for us. And I hope I can drop in on your life again. And I wish you such continued success. You're fiercely talented. We need your voice, not only in this country, but globally, you know, representing the

things fairly and having that gray approach to finding out, you know, how these stories are put together and the emotional side

I think the emotional part of these stories that plays into it so much. Look after yourself, enjoy your summer, stay safe. You too. I hope to see you in person soon for like an iced tea. I'd love that. And I'll be your source in the music industry. Anytime Robin Doolittle, I will be your inside source. I'm going to slide in your DMs. Oh, I got Sarah McLaughlin stories. That'll turn, you know, turn you upside down. Look after yourself. Okay. Thanks everybody. Thanks everybody. Toodly-doo.

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