Welcome to episode 68 of From Front Porch, a collection of conversations on books, small business, and life in the South.

I'm Chris Jensen, a PhD student at Florida University and a bookseller at The Bookshelf.

And I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia.

Today we're joined by Bookshelf Staffer and News Nerd,

Sterling Ivy. We'll be chatting about our preferred news sources, the morning show showdown,

and of course, what we're reading right now. Let's get started. Hi, Sterling. Hey, Annie. Hey, Chris.

How's it going? Pretty good. Welcome to the podcast. This is your first episode with us. It's my grand debut. And this is shocking to me. I did not know that you had never been on the podcast before. I've been a devoted listener over the last, I think, at least 20 or 30 or so. How many? All right. Yeah, we're on episode 60. That's pretty good.

Did you start working at the bookshop in August? I was trying to remember when you came on board.

I think technically training was last week of July and...

Okay.

So you've been listening ever since. That is a loyal listener.

Can I say? I devour news and as you alluded to earlier.

That's right.

Sterling is our kind of resident news junkie.

And I actually remember, this is one of the very first things I learned about you,

because when I interviewed Sterling, he's one of the only people I interviewed that actually came prepared with questions for me, which I appreciated.

And we both slightly bonded, although I think Sterling is way more

knowledgeable than I am, sadly. We bonded a little bit about journalism because I was a

journalism major in college. I think I knew that going into the interview, so I was like,

oh, I got to ask, I got to show my chops. Well, you did, and now you are here to talk about

the news. So we are going to chat, I think, and now you are here to talk about the news.

So we are going to chat, I think, just about news and news in pop culture a little bit.

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