Matt Gutman on the LA fires, his news coverage, and his book
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.4 • 602 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zibby welcomes back award-winning reporter and author Matt Gutman to discuss his firsthand experience covering the devastating California wildfires. Matt, who previously opened up about his struggles with anxiety in NO TIME TO PANIC, shares how high-stakes reporting in crisis zones—from Gaza to LA—puts him in a rare state of clarity. He explains why, in moments of real danger, his anxiety dissipates, replaced by hyperfocus and adrenaline. Matt recounts the harrowing days spent on the ground as entire communities burned, including his own family's home, and the lasting imprint these traumatic events leave behind.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com |
| 0:38.7 | and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.2 | Matt Gutman is ABC News' chief national correspondent. |
| 0:49.6 | He was on this podcast for his book No Time to Panic, |
| 0:52.9 | but I wanted to have him back on because I was |
| 0:56.0 | watching his footage and coverage of the fires in Los Angeles the whole time from my couch |
| 1:01.6 | and just couldn't believe he was out there, risking his life to report on what was going on |
| 1:07.4 | and informing the rest of us about it. So I wanted to ask him about it. That's what |
| 1:11.1 | this episode is about. Yes, it's about his anxiety, which he wrote about in his book, but it's |
| 1:16.6 | about how he navigated that and everything that was going on in the world as a reporter and how he |
| 1:22.7 | feels about L.A. now. Listen in. His bio, Matt Gutman, is ABC News's chief national correspondent. A multi-award |
| 1:29.6 | winning reporter, Gutman contributes regularly to World News Tonight, 2020, Good Morning America, and Nightline. |
| 1:35.4 | He has reported from 50 countries across the globe and is the author of The Boys in the Cave, |
| 1:40.1 | deep inside the impossible rescue in Thailand. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. |
| 1:45.2 | Welcome back, Matt. Thank you so much for coming back on last time you were here to talk about |
| 1:50.0 | your book, No Time to Panic. And we talked all about your panic attacks and different remedies that |
| 1:56.0 | you tried and ways you've come to manage it and to put it into sort of national historical context and all of that. |
| 2:03.0 | So I knew all of that. And then I watched you on TV dealing with all of the fires in California. |
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