Pt 3: Create Change by Hearing the News With Compassion

I've never felt burned out by what I hear on the news. I always feel myself putting energy in it that will improve someone's circumstances.

As NPR's Morning Edition Host for 22+ years, Donna Apidone spent several hours every day in the thick of the day's news. Yet, she still strongly believes in the power of connection and staying compassionately present with every news story--to make a real difference in the lives of those involved.

PROLOGUE:

Aloha, Colleen Akiko here. Welcome to episode eight of the We Be The Change Podcast, Create Change by Hearing the News With Compassion. This is part three of the series Connecting with Donna Apidone. In this conversation, you'll hear how Donna cultivated real connection with her NPR Morning Edition guests, even when she thought she didn't like them. That purposeful compassion also infuses how and why she still listens to a lot of news every day.

How much of myself can I give? I think I can give all of myself and more that I didn't know I had, when I hear those news stories. Rather than burn out on them, for me, if I am truly compassionate, I can give everything. 

Colleen:

Would you put some words around the connection that happens between my head, my heart, my deeper self, that enables me to have that connection with one other person, which can then be multiplied exponentially. How do we self connect in a way that enables us to show up at that level?

Donna:

It's bigger than what I'm going to say, of course, the two things that come to mind are, well, the biggest one is just connection. The other one is opening up, maybe. If I'm willing to be vulnerable, then you can feel comfortable with me. If I'm willing to be enthusiastic, then you might mimic that too.

You know, we're always sort of mirroring each other. So I have to be open and set a tone that you would want to follow--If you want to follow it. You could disagree with it, too, but it's something you can relate to positively or negatively.

So there's that connection. I think that's the biggest part of it. I said it was going to offer two things, but I think they all rolled into connection. Yeah. That openness is directly related to connection for sure. You know, without that openness, there is a blockage--yeah., that willingness, I think more than anything else.

For me, it had to be intentional. There are other people, you know them, I know them--you're actually one of them, Colleen. There are some people who don't have to be intentional about it.

It's just so naturally a part of you to connect with other people and to relate to them, and so they warm up to you immediately. I had to learn it. It was a process for me to learn it. Now it feels very comfortable, but it didn't always.

Colleen:

Well, it is just a constant fascination, isn't it--all the different ways that each person is designed, And without me feeling a wholeness in myself, I don't notice it. I'm just too wrapped up in my own stuff and I'm like, Okay, this is my stuff; that's your stuff; let's just go on through the day. And then we have pretty shallow lives.

But that's not what the times are calling for now. And that's not why we're here.

Donna:

You know, there's something else that was true on air and it's true when I speak to groups now, too., (and I speak to groups, not just in congregations, but other places as well). Just every once in a while, say something to throw it off kilter a little bit.

It was really easy to do that on air because I was only talking for 30 seconds at a time and I could always throw in a long line that would make people say, "What?!" So it would show them a sense of humor. It would show them, you know, I'm not stuffy, you don't have to be either. You know, show all of those things.

And the same thing happens in person in presentations too. Just that one little thing. It's not authentic like, Oh, here I am. I'm so open. It's not that. It's authentic like, Hey, you know what? I'm a smart-ass. Okay, I just gotta tell you this one. And then you say, Oh, yeah, I am too. All right. Yeah.

Colleen:

I'm picturing as you're talking, kind of doing a little elbow jab in someone's side, you know, a little wink... And that's very connective, isn't it? Because our guard is down and we're like, Oh, again, you know, you are me and I'm you, and here we are together having this conversation.

The Role of Compassion in Journalism

Donna:

It's all through compassion. And that was part of the intentional change in my profession that I had to make, and it's extending to all other areas of my life, too. It's so easy. I hear people all the time say, I can't listen to the news. It's too sad. It's too ugly. It's too awful. I've got to turn that off.

I never had that opportunity. I had to stand in that room for six hours every day with headphones on listening to the news. Couldn't turn it off, couldn't walk away from it, five days a week. And I didn't want to become numbed by it. I didn't want to mentally tune it out if it was too hard to listen to.

So I just said one day, What if I looked at that person, who I think is a jerk, who's a newsmaker--could have been any number of people; I'm not naming names. But what if I look at that person with compassion? And what if I say, It's a rough day for him or her, or that was a big decision he or she had to make. What if I look at it that way and see that that person is just like me, in some way-- if there's no other way than a child or a parent or a person trying to find a way in the world,.

Maybe it's just one thing that we have in common. And maybe that's kind of thin and thread bare, but it might be one thing. So that helped me get through that job. But it also helps me get through life now that I don't have that job any more

Donna's News Consumption and Perspective

Colleen:

Do you still listen to the news a lot?

Donna:

I listen to different news. Mm hmm. I listen to different news. And that started because when I left Morning Edition, I knew that show inside and out. I knew everything about that show so intimately that if I had continued to listen to it, I just would have heard the mechanics of it. And I would have heard anything that I thought my successor was doing wrong, I would not have been a news consumer, I would have been a critic.

So I stopped listening to that. My news consumption now is more national and international than it is local, but I do consume a fair amount of regional news too. I watch and listen and read BBC and the German news network as well. And PBS. So those are the primary places where I'm finding news.

A lot of it is online, but carefully chosen online. Not just everything gets thrown in front of my face. So yeah, I'm still very interested in it all.

When I left, in my farewell interview, I said, I will never be as well informed as I have been for the last 22 years. And that's true. There's no way I can keep up with what's happening in the world at the same level that I heard it. But I'm still very interested in it and follow it fairly closely.

Colleen: 

I remember a minister saying, listen to the news as if you are putting together a prayer list--a list of what you want to pray for. Okay, and so I do keep that in mind as far as why am I giving my time and attention to this horrible thing?

Just yesterday, actually, my husband was reading an article out loud that was starting to get into the details of this and that, and I had to leave the room. I didn't want to be too abrupt, but I guess I was just at my saturation point. And I wonder if it's internalizing what we hear if at some point, we need to know--and yet how much of myself do I give to getting the nuances of the complete picture? And knowing how it affects this, and the connections to that, and at some point I lose myself in it. And so I have to be really careful and yet compassionate.

. . . if I were that person in that war zone, whose family just died, and I knew that you turned me off-- "too much for you," that would be a very bad thing. So I never want to disconnect. I never want to let that person down by saying it's too much for me. That's a first world problem. I will never let it be too much for me.

Donna: 

I hear that from people a lot. and not being you. I can't, I can't say anything about how you handle that. But here's how I handle it. And here is something that I ask people to consider.

You said, how much of myself can I give? I think I can give all of myself. And more that I didn't know I had, when I hear those news stories. Rather than burn out on them, for me, if I am truly compassionate, I can give everything.

As regards to the prayer list. I think that's true. I am a person who doesn't do prayers in a pre-written way. But I do believe that we have a collective consciousness, and so when we pray or meditate or, you know, whatever word you use for that, we're creating a space that's bigger than us, the more of us who there are in that.

So the minute I walk away from a news story, I've taken myself out of that collective. I'm not part of that collective, and who suffers because of that? And who on the other side of that prayer, good wishes, energy, doesn't get as much as they could have if I would stay in it with them?

It's like a friend who's in crisis. You don't walk away. Stay with them. And so I look at everything in that cycle that way. Not that it's going to deplete me, but that I am adding to myself by being part of the collective and being part of everybody else's energy. It's feeding me as much as what I'm giving out. And I also think if I were that person in that war zone, whose family just died, and I knew that you turned me off-- too much for you, that would be a very bad thing.

The minute I walk away from a news story, I've taken myself out of that collective. . . And who suffers because of that? And who on the other side of that prayer, good wishes, energy, doesn't get as much as they could have if I would stay in it with them? 

. . . And so . . . I am adding to myself by being part of the collective, and being part of everybody else's energy. It's feeding me as much as what I'm giving out ... I will never let it be too much for me. 

So I never want to disconnect. I never want to let that person down by saying it's too much for me. Oh, yeah, that's a first world problem. I will never let it be too much for me. If I don't hear or don't listen because I don't quite understand them, or I went shopping that day and missed the news or, you know, for some other reason I don't connect with it or don't have access to it--those things happen. But for me, I, I don't turn it off, not because I want to be inundated. I've never felt burned out by what I hear on the news. I always feel myself putting energy in it that will improve someone's circumstances.

Colleen:

Yes. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And I don't mean to be walking away as if I'm not responsible. I have to walk away sometimes to get my bearings so I can totally be present with that horrible thing that's going on, and know that at some core level, I am responsible, as you said, in the collective. I have found ways to feel that pain and trauma that is going on and, I can offer the compassion that goes where it's needed. I feel, and I love, and yet, it just floors me sometimes, honestly. I have to go pick myself up off the floor and say, Whoa, what happened here? What have I experienced on a minuscule level that I resonated with that just kind of hit me out of nowhere? I need to address that and we're all together in it. Somehow we all help each other out.

Donna:

it may not be that it's too much for you. It may be that it hit you in a way that you can appreciate them a little bit more and be present with them. Maybe they're being present with you in some energetic way. You know, maybe that's when it feels like too much. Maybe that is just enough.

Colleen: 

I feel like if I listen to the news with just my head, it's almost degrading to the people that are in harm's way. I can't show up that way. And so if I can't show up in a deeper way, then I need to go do what I need to do inside myself, so I can.

Donna:

Exactly. And you used the term earlier, being present with that person, that situation--and that's really what it is.

Colleen:

There's a lot to be present with these days. Are you finding it more intense these days than when you started in this realm, or is it just more exposed?

Donna:

Having been with NPR stations for so long, like since early 80s, in one capacity or another, there was always in depth news there.. So it's coming at us from a lot of different sources now than all those years ago. But you know, you can go back to Adam and Eve, you can go back to dinosaurs, you can go through history through Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan, and always, there have always been people in the world who are nasty, who are doing stuff that we consider wrong. It's just that we didn't know about them.

We didn't hear it, it wasn't coming at us from all angles. So yeah, some of the things that are happening in the world now seem like, that's never happened before. But maybe it has, and it just wasn't public. Maybe these things have always been going on, and we, or the people before us, just weren't aware of them.

Finding Quality News Sources

That's part of it too, you know, finding a quality news source. And there are ways to find quality news sources. Not just finding what you agree with, but finding sources that are considered credible by scientific standards.

Colleen:

I like the media bias chart--is that what it's called? Media bias chart, yeah, that has helped me a lot. And I even find that sometimes there will be a news source that has several different outlets, and the different outlets are in different parts of the chart. And so, it calls on me to just notice these things, but still tune in, if it seems like this is the flavor of the day, when there's a purpose in listening to or reading from this source that is not exactly where I am personally, but they're all part of the family. Or, as I remember someone saying, everybody has their place at the table.

Donna:

Yeah, exactly. For somebody who's listening, who doesn't know, if you Google or research media bias chart, just those three words, you'll come up with it.

And it's interesting. It is literally a big chart with all the little names and logos of pretty much all the news organizations. And it is more than just left to right, which is liberal or conservative left or right, but it's also top to bottom. Are they considered very credible by fact-check, or by other standards,? Then they're close to the top.

And if they're way, way down on the list, then it's probably more of a gossip column than it is a news source. It's invaluable.

And there are always surprises there. I've never shown that chart to anyone that they haven't said, Oh, wow, that's who's front and center. Never would have thought there were surprises in there. But surprises that benefit our knowledge.

Colleen:

Yeah. I'm grateful that we have tools like that, because there is so much to filter through and only so many minutes and hours in a day.

EPILOGUE:

I am glad you could join us for this great conversation Create Change by Hearing the News With Compassion. Coming next week is the continuation of this series with episode nine of We Be The Change, a delicious podcast segment called TransForMission and Drive Time Meditations: Centering on Your Purpose.

Again, we'll close with a tasty morsel from one of Donna's brief Drive Time Meditations*. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again soon!

✨ (To listen to this podcast episode, click HERE)