Alisyn Camerota made a name for herself with years of hard-earned experience at FOX News Channel and CNN. These days, she says, “I’m playing by different rules.”
Camerota, who leaves CNN at the end of 2024, will join Scripps News as a special events anchor and is launching a new six-episode series for the streaming outlet. “Connected with Alisyn Camerota” features 30 minutes of in-depth interviews with people who have found themselves in interesting and even emotionally draining situations. Her guests include former CNN colleague Don Lemon. Everclear frontman Art Alexakis. Judge Esther Salas, a federal judge whose only child was killed in a targeted attack. and Gabby Giffords, a former U.S. representative from Arizona who was seriously injured by a gunman in 2011.
The show will premiere on Friday, March 27 at 8 p.m. and will be executive produced by Jon Lieberman, a veteran media producer, correspondent and executive who has previously held positions at CNN, America’s Most Wanted and SiriusXM, and Alexandra Zuckerman, Director of Operations and Features at Scripps News.
“People are hungry to lift back the curtain to see who someone really is, so the people we booked, the guests for this first season, are certainly people that we know well, but we don’t necessarily know the breadth of their backstories,” says Camerota. “There you can have a 30-minute conversation, unfiltered, uninterrupted. I think it’s the deepest, deepest conversation I’ve ever had on television.”
Scripps News added Camerota’s program to its lineup as its parent company sees opportunity in free, ad-supported streaming. At Camerota, we hire veterans who have worked in various areas of the industry and have earned a reputation as solid interviewers who can handle both light and tough interactions. At CNN, he played opposite Chris Cuomo, the talkative morning anchor, and also worked in prime time as Warner Bros.’ Discovery Network experimented with its evening format.
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Lemon will talk about his departure from CNN and his recent arrest by the U.S. Department of Justice for covering Minnesota protests against ICE. Alexakis spoke about his battle with multiple sclerosis.
Mr. Camerota is likely to be an empathetic interviewer. Her husband, Tim Lewis, passed away in 2024 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, and Camerota devoted her time to caring for him during his final years at CNN. She has also watched her children go to college while finding their way in the rapidly changing media industry. “While the past 18 months have been a period of deep despair, there have also been some moments of joy,” she says. “And I’m learning that that’s kind of the duality that I’m going to live with.”
She brings her recent experiences to the show. “One of the characteristics of journalism is that you’re not part of the story, you take yourself out of the story. And given everything I’ve been through in the last 18 months, people come in for interviews, people I don’t know, people I don’t know or friends with, and they hug me and ask, ‘How are you doing?’ And I choose to be there with them,” she says. “Grief comes up a lot in this first season. There are a lot of people who struggle with grief, some of whom are very public about it, and I’m very interested in how they’ve worked through it and what coping strategies they can share with me and the viewers. So I’m not trying to insert myself into the story, but I’m also not combative about removing myself from the story.”
Like other anchors and video journalists, Camerota is seeing how traditional news content is changing as more people gravitate toward podcasts and new forms of interviews. “The good thing is that we don’t have to be an anchor in an ivory tower. We can just be like the voice of God and be completely deadpan and stoic. And we’re allowed to connect more, and I think people appreciate that,” she says. “On the downside, lines have blurred and rules have been relaxed, leaving many people confused about what journalism is.”
Still, Camerota says this will be a news program. “I don’t think anyone will be confused about what this show is,” she added. “Viewers will be looking for deeper conversations than ever before.”
