Carol Daniel Feels Liberated by the Freedom of Nine PBS

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Carol Daniel

In May, KMOX newscaster Carol Daniel shocked the media world when she announced her retirement. But just four months later, Daniel started a new gig — as senior producer and host at Nine PBS. Her new podcast, Listen, St. Louis, dropped its first episodes late last week.

Daniel joined us to discuss why she quit journalism, her speedy return and why she may end up being the Joe Rogan of public television podcasts.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You were one of the most prominent voices on the Voice of St. Louis. Why leave KMOX?

I had been thinking about retirement for a long time. I'm 61. Work was just taking a toll on me and trying to be in that sandwich generation. It was the tightest squeeze of a sandwich I could feel — helping to care for my parents, caring for my kids. My husband's a small business owner. The stress of talk radio during the Trump administration. I was looking to hang it up, put those headphones down for a while. 

My husband is from the Virgin Islands, and I went to St. Croix to visit my mother in law and my brother in law, and while I was there, I just had this epiphany while the ocean breeze was washing over me. That's when I just had this thought, “OK, I can do this. And I think I need to do it.” It was an answer to a prayer to be in that mental space and that spiritual space that I could walk away. I didn't know what the future held, but I knew I would be OK.

Yet you picked those headphones right back up.

Someone asked me, “Well, what would you love to do? What would the dream be?” And I said, “To tell the stories of Black St. Louisans, to tell the stories of people who are making change, to tell the stories of the issues we face and who's facing them and what we're getting right and what we're getting wrong.” And when that question was asked of me, the first entity I thought of was Nine PBS. 

I have known Amy Shaw, the CEO, and Aja Williams, the vice president of content, for over 15 years. We've always wanted to work together, but there was never an opportunity. And so I reached out to Amy and then Aja and boom. I mean, boom.

Was it somewhat bittersweet not to get that retirement?

Yeah, but I will tell you that I've talked to people who have worked in public broadcasting. One said to me it was the most freedom she'd ever had. There is such a freedom. And the overarching foundational principle here is purpose; there's just such great purpose in what we're trying to do. And so that's something that I definitely can jump into.

How is Nine PBS different from KMOX?

My husband goes, “You sound so relaxed.” I don't even look at the clock. At KMOX, there was a clock five feet from me where I paid attention to the second hand all day long. And now — I just realized talking to you right now, there's no clock on the wall here.

When you’re actually taping the podcast, do you need to pay attention to the clock?

Well, I don't pay attention to the clock, and I predict that I will be getting an email — a gentle reminder that you are not Joe Rogan, you cannot go on for three hours. I predict that's coming. 

But it may or may not. I've listened to the very first one that will drop, and that's with the president of the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber [Marvin Steele], and it's about 52 minutes.

You would never be able to do that on commercial radio.

Never! I was listening as I was driving home, a 25-minute drive, paused it, got in the house, started cooking, listened to the rest of it as I was cooking. And if St. Louisans will engage in that way, 45, 50 minutes, we're good. 

We'll go, always, at least 30 minutes. I want to have the conversations that I want to hear when I'm in my car. And these are conversations we aren't having in depth. We're getting 90 seconds, or if we're lucky, we're getting two or three minutes. And it's so much deeper than that. And so I'm so, so grateful to be able to do this now in this way.

I’m intrigued by this idea of you driving home listening to your own interview. Are you able to listen to yourself and enjoy it, as if you were a stranger?

That’s a great question. Growing up, I was told that my voice was too deep for a girl and I sounded like a boy. I would answer the phone and more than once I would hear, “Son, can I speak to your mother?” And that was always a blow to my femininity, my sense of my womanhood, that I sounded like a boy.

So I did not listen to myself, because I didn't like the way I sounded. I only started listening to myself in my late 30s and 40s. Listening to that podcast, on my way home that day, I could listen to that podcast as if it wasn't me. I was listening for enjoyment. I was listening for information. I was listening for enlightenment. I was listening for joy. 

And when I can get to the point that I forget that it's even me? That happened. That's a great feeling.