Brooke Baldwin Dives Deep and Shows Us the Beauty of Vulnerability
Brooke Baldwin
Brooke Baldwin. Photographed by Stephanie Diani. Hair & Makeup Claudia Pedala. Fashion Stylist Casey Trudeau. Coat Louis Vuitton. Dress Self Portrait. Boots Saint Laurent.
Brooke Baldwin Dives Deep and Shows Us the Beauty of Vulnerability
BrookeBaldwin
Brooke Baldwin. Photographed by Stephanie Diani. Hair & Makeup Claudia Pedala. Fashion Stylist Casey Trudeau. Jacket Balmain. JeansFrame Jeans. Necklace Jennifer Fisher.
Brooke Baldwin Dives Deep and Shows Us the Beauty of Vulnerability
BrookeBaldwin
Brooke Baldwin. Photographed by Stephanie Diani. Hair & Makeup Claudia Pedala. Fashion Stylist Casey Trudeau. Dress J. Crew. Bodysuit Wolford. Earrings Jennifer Fisher.
Journalist Brooke Baldwin has always dared to be outside the box. As a teenager she was an accomplished athlete when girls were expected to be most concerned with being attractive to boys. She set her goal as a television newsperson early on, working as a reporter with local news stations, but always with her ultimate goal in mind, that of being on CNN. Once arriving there, she established herself in various roles until she was named anchor and had her own slot. We became very interested in Baldwin when we reviewed her recent book “Huddle.” We are honored to have her as our cover interview for this issue of Felix Magazine.
We began our conversation with her by discussing the impact Covid has had upon both our lives. Baldwin did battle Covid in April 2020 and it deeply taught her about the gift of connection. Both of us are now fully vaccinated and have taken the available booster. As our conversation proceeded Brooke addressed the unique opportunity the shut-down period offered for her own self-reflection.
“When Covid happened I found that I was really forced to take a deep dive into who I really am, what do I truly want my legacy and my purpose to be? Those are big, really over-arching introspective questions. I’ve never not worked except a short vacation of two weeks to get married and have a honeymoon. But this shutdown meant having six whole months to sit with deep friends, to meditate and to go on a wellness spiritual retreat, to have deep conversations with my husband, my agents, and to have really deep reflections on what I want to do. In that process I came to that moment, that aha moment realizing that what I want to do is an unscripted TV series and to produce other content, whether a docuseries or a documentary, that’s my next chapter.”
Baldwin explained further, “It’s as if I’m delving deep into my reporter roots. I’m going to go out, to cover a story, to get all the elements, to interview all the people involved; you get the “B” roll, and now, I get to tell the whole arc of the story. This won’t be a 2-1/12-minute news story. This will be a half-hour episode that will then, hopefully, live on a streaming network. I think the future is streaming whether its Apple, or HBO Max, or Hulu, or Netflix; that is where I want my content to live. So many people, myself included, are just binging content on streaming services. There is always a need for content, quality content, so now I want to play in that sandbox.”
We wondered with so much content out there, with so many people hungry for it, how would she know what’s working?
“There is a lot of content, but what I’m interested in is quality content. When I look at how many millions of eyeballs are on some of these shows, that tells me there is a demand for quality content. They exist for a reason.”
We noted that some of her audience will be built-in, because her long-time audience is waiting, eager to see what it is she’s going to do; to know what she has to say. We wondered if some of the things Baldwin will be exploring might make people uncomfortable? She responded:
“That’s where substance is to be found. I don’t want to do television that’s safe. Producing quality television is a combination of things.
I want to make a list of things that make me feel very vulnerable. If I feel vulnerable, chances are, that’s where others are feeling vulnerable, and that is where I want to be; to bring that to the forefront, creating a cultural moment or creating a water cooler conversation, I think that’s a good thing.”
Like most individuals we expect to see the immediacy of the story on the news, but the event, is only part of the story. Clearly, Baldwin is excited to go beyond that, to be examining the fallout of what’s beyond. She explained further:
“It is exciting. I want to not just cover the thing while it’s happening, not just what’s happened in the moment. I’m very interested in young people and in why some women want to look thirty years younger than they are. I want to explore the fallout from the Facebook Whistleblower who came forward.
I also want to move, not just into the obvious headline, but to cover the headline under the headline. I’m most interested in race and gender stories. I want to go into those things. In my book I wrote about a group of 19 black women who were elected as judges. They are all now up for re-election! I’m always hearing from people who feel that’s one of the favorite huddles in the book.”
We agree. On the day of our interview final details of where we will find Brooke’s new work had not yet been announced, but we at Felix are eager to know and we promise to keep our readers informed.
