Anna Sale is the creator, host and managing editor of WNYC’s podcast, Death, Sex & Money, a biweekly show featuring intimate interviews with both celebrities and commoners alike, that has risen to the top of the iTunes charts. She’s a public media veteran who covered the 2012 presidential campaign and has contributed to This American Life, NPR, Marketplace, Studio 360, PBS Newshour, and Slate. In this episode, Anna talks about her West Virginian (or Appalachian) roots, being a self-proclaimed “honorable detector of snobs”, coming into journalism as an activist, landing her first job, coping with divorce, the art of the interview and the challenge of telling stories that aren’t often featured on the front page. You’re in for a real treat. Anna has a special gift, a voice made to be heard. You can hear the smile in her voice.
Name: Anna Sale
Current City: NYC
DOB: 1980
What are you listening to? D'Angelo's Black Messiah
What film/book/show/piece of media changed you? There are so many. A recent favorite was the film, "Stories We Tell" by Sarah Polley.
Who is your career role model? Terry, forever.
What is a tool you can't live without? ProTools, Google Docs, My worn-down, audio-in-one-ear tangled earbuds.
How do you take your coffee? Black, mostly. With soy if I'm in a fancy place.
What’s your spirit animal? A mule. I was getting a massage in Tampa in 2012, just after the Republican National Convention, and this sweet masseuse--young guy, bleached hair, pierced face--told me that was the essence he was reading: Wild and free like a horse plus a pleaser/hardworker, like a donkey=mule.
“When I was putting together Death, Sexy & Money I wasn’t thinking of it as a women’s show or a show where we talk about women’s stories or the women’s view on things. Because I think no matter what your sexuality or your gender, there’s a lot happening that’s shifting the ways that we think about what the stories of our lives are in the U.S. So, I want to do both. But I think just making the base assumption when you’re doing a story that the details of this woman’s story is important. Given the history of women in this country in the past 100 years, that’s still a radical thing. So it feels good to be a part of that.”
CLIPS FEATURED IN SHOW:
DS&M: How to Be a Man With Bill Withers
DS&M: I Killed Someone. Now I Have 3 Kids.
DS&M: Ellen Burstyn's Lessons on Survival
DS&M: The NFL Made Me Rich. I Won't Watch It Now.
DS&M: Dan Savage Says Cheating Happens. And That's OK.
DS&M: Jane Fonda After Death and Divorce
DS&M: This Senator Saved My Love Life