Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, my friend, and welcome to Catch Up with Louise Makshari. This is the podcast where I do my best to keep you caught up with what's going on in the world. And today is Friday, which means I'm interviewing someone interesting who has something interesting going on.
And today's interview is extra special for me because it's someone who I have long admired and respected, who has been given a huge opportunity. I'm talking about Jackie Fox, who has been announced as RTE's new Washington correspondent. Jackie and I work together in Ortiz, although in different buildings, as you'll hear.
Chapter 2: Who is Jackie Fox and what is her new role?
And I was just like genuinely so thrilled to have a chat to her ahead of this huge opportunity that she'd been working towards for so long. I hope you enjoy this chat. Jackie Fox, I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that you had been appointed as Ortiz's new Washington correspondent.
This might feel weird, but like I remember my early days of 2FM, you used to be doing the news and you were the only news person who ever like was nice to me.
Oh, really? Yeah, nobody else ever. We used to do the weekends together. Yeah, we used to do the weekends together. And Christmas Day. Yes. I remember we did Christmas Day too.
And so honestly, like I feel like I was in the trenches with you. But the weird thing about RT is that the news is in one building and the radio stations are in a different building. So we were never physically in the same place.
I always loved to talk to presenters like yourself afterwards. And it's something that I always want to do because it's important. I think it is too. It links people.
the program absolutely as well and you're always so good at that on Saturday and Sunday mornings and a lot of the time you know I'd be talking to you at like 8 a.m yeah I was just coming off an overnight shift so it wasn't me starting yeah we would do overnights from 12 to 8 a.m and you know you're in your early 20s they're a great learning ground because you're reading on 2fm and radio one you're figuring out your scripting but at the same time when that
It was like so tired and you're just like, just get through this bulletin and then you can go home to bed. It's funny.
I just always remember you being so lovely. And I remember thinking we're in the same boat because you were obviously trying to build your career in news and you were doing those hard shifts. And like the Christmas days, I was doing them as well. And I was just like, I'll do anything that I'm asked to do because I have goals here.
And, you know, like I'm not naughty anymore, but I'm very happy with where I am. And I think all of that hard work did pay off for me as well.
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Chapter 3: What experiences shaped Jackie Fox's early career in journalism?
I was like, really? He's like, yes, write down everything you do, every person you speak to, categorize them because you never know when you'll need that number again. And it's something I still do to this day because you change phones, your email could get wiped, but having that hard copy of information is invaluable. And I have notebooks going back now since 2010.
12 and with this move going to DC I have them all in a box and I haven't looked at them yet but I know someday I'll look back in five ten years I go oh my god remember when I did that story yeah remember I spoke to that person it's a great record to have but also if I need somebody in the future I know I could go back to that moment and find them in my notebook
Wow. Well, look, I want to talk, obviously, about your years in RT and the kind of the path that's gotten you to this new gig. And obviously, we're going to talk about the job itself. But before we do that, I would love to get to know young Jackie a little bit more. You're from Galway. Tell me about growing up there. It was amazing.
I absolutely adored growing up in Galway. And I think I've romanticized it a bit. So it was during the Celtic Tiger years that I was a teenager. And Mary Harney, the former Minister for Health, had injected loads of money into this youth cafe in Galway. And it was where a lot of alternative people like myself. So you had your emos, your punks, you know, people with your metal heads.
They all converged on the same place, even though they had very different tastes in music. We were all dirty moshers, basically. And sorry, I cannot see that. That is so funny to me that that's that's who you were. Oh, yeah, totally. And it's still I still have it. You're still there. Oh, I'm still there. I'm still there.
So, yeah, you know, during those years when you're like 12, 13, you're like finding out who you are, what you like. And a couple of us not came across this cafe, but we saw people there that were like, oh, we are on a similar wavelength here. And my whole teenage years were spent there. So it was a place you could go. You felt safe. Kerrang and Scuzz were on the telly.
You could do band practice upstairs. There was a support network for the teens who were there too. There was a nurse on site. You could work in the cafe that they had, you know, but the teas and coffees were free if you wanted some.
Sounds amazing.
And then around, you know, 2005, 2006, obviously YouTube was blowing up. So they got a couple of computers in and you could watch your music videos on broadband rather than dial-up. So it was a really safe space for everybody, but it was brilliant. We had so much fun. I met the most incredible people during that time. We organised battles of the bands.
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Chapter 4: How did Jackie Fox navigate her journey to becoming a Washington Correspondent?
Because, you know, when you're...
into alternative music and something a little bit different you want to find your people and you want to find people on a similar wavelength into similar music who you go to house parties with and you feel safe doing so and that was the space for us yeah and we still talk about it yeah and the opportunities that we had because of that yeah I was in a couple of bands I will not mention um their names because I think there's still some evidence on YouTube somewhere um
But, you know, you just meet such fascinating people and you get to express that creativity that you may not get the opportunity to do in school.
Yeah. Wow. And so when did you start to think that maybe journalism might be something you'd be interested in?
I think it was something I was always interested in. I had... That current affairs and news awareness and brain, even going back as far as like fourth or fifth class, it was something that I was incredibly engaged in. And I said it in my interview for the Washington Correspondent role that I remember seeing, you know, like Mark Little and Carol Coleman, especially on the news. And...
you know it is cheesy to say it if you can't see it you can't be it but I saw that and go that is something that I'd be really interested in doing because it was after 9-11 there was a lot of talk about the United States this wave of anti-Americanism I was really getting into like punk music and what brought me in there was like Green Day's American Idiot that was like the foundation and
And then I was able to deep dive from there. So there was this so much talk about politics and how you intertwine that with music and everything that was going on with Iraq and Afghanistan. So I was very politically engaged. I always knew I wanted to be a journalist. Did I think I'd ever be one?
Yeah.
No.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Jackie face while balancing work and motherhood?
And it was a fantastic year socially and professionally. And once I got into RTE, I just saw this as such a huge opportunity, especially at the time. It was just after the crash. There were barely any jobs in the media. So to get in there on an eight week placement, it was two months, I said.
I'm sacrificing my social life for the summer it's one summer and I just want to learn everything that I can while we're there while I'm while I was there and I did that and I just if people wanted scripts printed you know as intern slash runner. Anything that I could do, I offered myself up, but I also wanted to get advice from people.
And even having those chats, it established relationships that I didn't know that I was doing. You know, making people a cup of tea while I'm doing that, then asking them a question, how do I do this? How do I do that? Or would you like me to do this? But it was constantly...
building on those relationships so then the opportunities started to come in or if there was a story about something I was like well I do a vox pop on that run into town deliver it and it was just a fantastic summer of learning I really relate to that what you're talking about because I remember when I went into Newstalk I was on work experience it was supposed to be for two weeks I ended up doing it for six months
And I just didn't want to leave. I was so excited to be there and so excited to learn and to do literally anything that was asked of me. And to the point that then when I was going on holidays and they were like, who are we going to get to fill in for Louise? And I was like, sorry, just a reminder, I'm actually here on work experience.
Yeah.
I was like, this isn't a real role. And, um, and they were like, oh yeah. Um, but I had made myself valuable to the team, you know, I was working on a program and then, um, I was actually working with, um, former colleague of yours, Paul Taney.
Oh my God.
Yeah, who sadly is no longer with us and who was an amazing person to learn from.
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Chapter 6: What insights does Jackie have about the current political landscape in the U.S.?
I've said it before. Like Carl Mullen obviously has done so well and he presents The Breakfast Show in 2FM now. When I, in my early days of my time in 2FM, I just remember Carl being, I wasn't sure what his job was, but he did everything. He was out doing Vox Pops. He was doing silly things that were embarrassing.
He was doing like, you know, he was giving people a dig out of whatever they needed. He just had such a great attitude and that hunger and like, look at him now, you know? And I just really think that's a, that's a really good thing to kind of get across is that, you know, you do, if you keep your ears open, if you volunteer to do the extras, it can really pay off. And it's okay to do it. Yeah.
It's okay to have ambition. Yeah. It's okay to be hungry. It's okay to put your head down and focus on something if you really love it to get where you want to be. Absolutely. So you've been there ever since.
I've been there ever since. Yeah. And tell me about that kind of time and working your way up because this role is like a prestigious and very important role. And I know that didn't happen overnight, obviously. And I really feel like you've made this happen. So I'd love to hear a little bit about the journey.
So when I came back that Tuesday, I think it did hit me that Washington correspondent, it was always, it was always a dream of mine. It was always something that I wanted to do. And the fact that I got my foot in the door, I said, you know what? I could possibly make this happen now. So let's knuckle down.
let's get the experience let's just figure out and I knew that it wasn't going to happen overnight yeah it's a bit of a long game that you have to play so for a couple of years as we were talking about earlier I read the news on 2fm I did the overnight shifts I did the Christmas days but what a learning curve it was and where the 2fm desks were situated at the time in the
You were kind of sandwiched between Morning Ireland at News at One. So you're constantly like talking to the team, getting to know the team. And then suddenly I was pitching radio reports.
And you know, ones that would be interesting to people in their 20s, whether it's music festivals coming or something happening in music or the arts, playing to my strengths at the time and something that I was interested in. And before I knew it, it was around 2014 and I was getting more shifts on the likes of Morning Ireland on Radio 1, the 7 to 9 program than I was on 2FM.
And suddenly there was this kind of like migration happening towards that because they knew I'd built up the scripting skills, how to put stuff together so they could trust me to carry me over there. So a lot of my time was spent on Morning Ireland, on the likes of News at One. So it was radio researching. It was hours that were four to midnight, 6am to 2pm. So really unsociable hours.
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Chapter 7: How does Jackie plan to connect with diverse voices in America?
Yeah. And by 2018, I was on a full time contract. I'd moved to the foreign desk. I got to travel to Dominica in the Caribbean, Strasbourg, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, eventually cover the US election in 2024.
But it was great advice in playing the long game and somebody who had been there for 30 years to see these opportunities will be here for you if you want them, but you just need to stick it out. So eventually after Morning Ireland, a place came up on the foreign desk and they moved me there. And I was so happy to get to that point because then I was able to thrive.
And everything that I'd learned in college, everything that I learned in Morning Ireland, all of that scripting that I'd done on 2FM, And the broadcast experience, it all just came to a head on the foreign desk. And I think that's really where I was able to come into my own.
Yeah. Wow. And, you know, are there any particularly memorable stories from that time? I mean, covering the election in 2024 must have been wild.
It was intense. It was very intense. But you have to remember, I think it was the run up, even just to rewind back to 2020 first, because back in 2020, the whole podcast scene was emerging and I was on the firing desk at the time. And I said, this election is going to be crazy between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Brian O'Donovan was in Washington.
I didn't really know Brian that well, but I had a good relationship with him. So I pitched the idea of doing a US politics podcast, an election series. And we did a pilot and the head of news loved it. And we just went for it. So it was every Tuesday, I want to say at the time. And then COVID hit. Yeah. And we're sitting here now in your home recording a podcast.
It was very difficult to do that even just five years ago. We didn't have Zoom. You couldn't record on Zoom. I had to get somebody who was in the office to kind of patch us through on the same channel so we could record.
But it was incredible over the process of like four to six weeks during COVID that technology had just advanced so much that we were getting more opportunities, but also people were available.
Yeah.
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Chapter 8: What are the major cultural events Jackie is excited to cover?
I think I could bring X, Y and Z. We have the podcast. We could bring it on the road. I'm very self-sufficient. You don't need anybody else. And one of the managers said, you know, you had to raise your hand during that. We have so much ourselves going on that sometimes an opportunity comes and we just...
you know you miss it and you pick a person and we don't know that you want to go people have their own stuff going on so you need to put your hand up and it's okay yeah to put your hand up I think sometimes as women we find that particularly difficult um I think it's hard sometimes to say hey I'm good at this and I'm up for it um even though I'm good at it part I think it's hard for people and I had just come back from maternity leave yeah so I had my second baby in September 2023
And I came back on maternity leave around July the next year and the election was in November. So sometimes you do have that inner feeling that you do need to put your hand up to show where you are when you come back from maternity leave. Yeah. And that's OK, too. It's your choice.
I felt like wildly and intensely motivated after having my first baby. Oh, my brain needed to be scratched. Yeah.
So badly.
And I and I really kind of I think almost like had like an inner rebellion happening against motherhood, which is not great. And I've adjusted since. But I think at the time I wanted to be like, no, I am not. I was I think I was really worried about being pigeonholed as like just a mom. Not that I'm using air quotes, not that like there's anything wrong with being a full time mom.
I think that people who do that are absolutely incredible. But for some reason, I was really worried about being put in a new category that I didn't feel ready for or comfortable with. And so when I went back to work, I was dying for work. Like I started a podcast when I went back to work as well. I totally get that kind of motivation.
And I feel like when you have a kid, I've two sons now, they're four and two. Pre them, we were talking about that hunger earlier. I was so hungry and so determined, you know, on your days off, you're thinking and you're working and you're, figuring out different ways to get into stories and around the stories. And there is a new pacing that has to happen when you become a mom.
And I wanted to be present for my kids, but I also wanted to move on in my career. And it's adapting, it's reconfiguring everything. And the way I eventually got to what we call the home desk in RTE, which is kind of generic reporting. So you're doing TV, radio, online for any story that may come your way. But we work something what's called a seven day fortnight. So it's 12 hour shifts.
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