Shefali Luthra and Alice Miranda Ollstein on covering abortion rights in a post-Roe nation
Reliable Sources
CNN
3.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Shefali Luthra of The 19th discuss their roles as health care beat reporters in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. They tell Brian Stelter about coverage priorities; different types of stories about abortion; and sudden spikes in interest about reproductive rights. "I think what's been so deeply important to me has been trying to prioritize the voices of people who are affected," Luthra says. "I just feel a lot of responsibility to rise to this moment and do the the best and most responsible and hardest hitting reporting I can," Ollstein says.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the summer Roe v. Wade was overturned, the summer of state-by-state fights about the future of abortion rights. |
| 0:09.0 | The story is just beginning. So who should reporters be talking to? What stories should they be telling and how? |
| 0:19.0 | Those are a couple of the questions for this week's Reliable Sources podcast, so let's cue the music. |
| 0:31.0 | Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our chance to go in depth with media leaders and newsmakers. |
| 0:39.0 | Talking about the story behind the story, the landscape for abortion rights in America is changing in some cases by the day or by the week. |
| 0:48.0 | And it is now a priority for many news outlets to be covering the changes, the political fights, but also the healthcare realities for countless individuals. |
| 1:00.0 | So with abortion becoming a kind of state-by-state story in the U.S. more than before and with so many people wondering what's going to be changing in the months and years to come. |
| 1:11.0 | I asked two top reporters on this beat to join me here on the podcast to talk through how they approach the subject, how they find people to interview, how they make sure they prioritize the voices of those affected by laws. |
| 1:26.0 | The result was a really interesting conversation with two of the top beat reporters who cover this subject. |
| 1:32.0 | Shafali Luthor is a gender and healthcare reporter at the 19th news. You can find her work at 19thnews.org. |
| 1:39.0 | And Alice Miranda Olstein is a healthcare reporter at Politico can find her at Politico.com. |
| 1:45.0 | All right, so let's get to it. Shafali Luthor, welcome to the Reliable Sources podcast. |
| 1:50.0 | Hey Brian, thanks for having me. |
| 1:52.0 | And Alice Miranda Olstein, welcome to the program. |
| 1:54.0 | Great to be here. |
| 1:55.0 | So let's get started with a little bit of background. |
| 1:57.0 | I'd love to know what brought you both to this beat, to this topic area. |
| 2:02.0 | First of all, Shafali, I sometimes describe as the abortion beat. |
| 2:06.0 | I don't know if that's the best phrase or the best term. |
| 2:09.0 | How do you describe your beat and what you do at the 19th? |
| 2:12.0 | The way my beat was technically defined when I came on board. |
| 2:15.0 | And what I think it's still fundamentally is the intersection of gender and healthcare, right? |
... |
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