My friend and colleague Laure Quinlivan has gone from TGI Friday’s waitress to NY PR assistant to local TV reporter to national award winning journalist to Cincinnati city council member. Quite the career and it’s not over yet! She’s still making great video and hosting a yoga studio and being a gramma!
I worked with Laure in Nashville at the ABC affiliate (WKRN) in the 90’s and let’s just say we each have enough stories about the other that we’re very selective in bringing up the past! To start dishing dirt on each other would be mutually assured destruction! 😉
I sat down with Laure face-to-face last year looooooong before this year’s election and we talked everything from her growing up in a working class suburb of Toledo to getting sacked after getting pregnant and having a baby at age 47. FORTY SEVEN! Laure and I both won some of the same awards and both worked as investigative reporters and both got sacked and both filed lawsuits.
I heard stories from her in this week’s podcast that I’d never heard before:
- About how Matt Lauer of NBC Today show fame/infamy helped her get her start
- About what Jerry Springer taught her about politics and winning over a tough crowd
- About how she got elected to Cincinnati city council and how she got thrown out
When you get to be our age (she’s actually a bit younger than I am) you start to tell the truth in a more blunt way. She ran and was elected as a Democrat but she’s the first to say there’s a lot of BS on all sides. Her biggest legacy in politics may well be doubling the term of office for city council in her Queen City from two years to four. (I think that’s actually a good idea for MY Queen City – Charlotte.) She says lengthening terms takes a little pressure off local pols to constantly be running for reelection (and fundraising towards that end – eating up time that could be used in service of the general public and not just fat cats.)
Laure and I reminisce about the heyday of local TV news when the owners often lived in the towns their stations covered and how it has changed for the worst. We also talk about why that happened (hint: $$$) and how the relentless drive to appease Wall Street and shareholders has abandoned the public that TV was supposed to serve.
But fear not – this is not a bunch of whining! With age comes perspective. I learned a lot from Laure while working with her. I followed her career in and out of TV as a friend and a fan. And you can count me on Team Laure to this day. Now she’s a gramma (I’m jealous) and we spoke candidly in her beautiful Cincy home as only two old pals can. I hope you enjoy listening to Laure as much as I did speaking with her! She speaks mostly but I pelt her with questions a fair amount. Sorry bout that. Occupational hazard! Lemme know what you think, OK?
The @Manlistening #Podcast with Laure Quinlivan drops this Thursday, October 29, 2020.
You can holler back at Stuart on most social media @ManListening Thanks!