Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai podcast. And in this episode, I have a special guest with me, Anahad O'Connor. And I didn't realize, Anahad, you have a Wikipedia page. So I'm going to read it to you really quickly. Born May 23, 1981, is an American journalist and staff reporter for the New York Times.

Well, he was for 20 years. He joined the Times in 2003 and writes about consumer health, science, and national issues. He's also a bestselling author. He went to Yale. His book, The 10 Things You Need to Eat, made the New York Times bestseller list. And now he is a part of the Washington Post.

So welcome to the Financial Samurai podcast. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for that nice introduction, although I think that Wikipedia page needs updating. Yeah, that's pretty cool. You got one on. I don't think I have one. Maybe I can try to create one on my own.

I don't know how that works. Yeah, I'm not even sure who created that. So. OK. So for 20 years, you've been writing about health. Yes? Health and fitness? Yes. So I started at the New York Times actually right out of college. I graduated in 1999, joined the New York Times in the science section, did several years there.

And then I moved around to some other desks, the Metro desk. I covered national news, breaking news. But health has always been my passion. And so I made my way back to covering health after a brief detour. Got it. And also on the Wikipedia page, it says he was part of the first class of the New York Times College Scholarship Program in 1999.

What is that or what was that? Yes. So the New York Times College Scholarship was started in 1999. It was basically started by the publisher and some top editors at the Times as a way to provide college scholarships to promising young New York high school students. And I was in the first class.

There were six of us. And they actually wrote an article about us in the New York Times. So that was the first time my name appeared in the New York Times, is when I won this inaugural college scholarship. And it became it got such great positive feedback. It became so popular that people wanted to support it.

And all this money and donations poured in and they were able to award 15 other scholarships that year. So it grew from a class of six high school students to 21. And basically high school students born and raised in New York, high school students from New York City who overcame challenges and showed promise.

That is actually how I ended up working for the New York Times because I got an internship as part of the college scholarship program. And I wanted to go to college and become a doctor. And so I asked to become to be an intern in the science department because I grew up reading Science Times.

And so I started as an intern in the science department. And then I kept coming back year after year. And then I eventually joined the New York Times as a cub reporter and then became a staff reporter. And so as you can see, I gave up my dreams of becoming a doctor and became a health journalist because I felt that I could have a much bigger impact in the world of health by doing this journalism.

Mad Fientist Well, it must not have been easy getting that scholarship. Do you mind sharing, is it possible, what kind of financial aid that was? And was it implicit that if you did well in college, you would be able to get a job at the New York Times afterwards?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani It wasn't implicit. So the scholarship was $48,000 at the time. Mad Fientist Wow, that's great. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, over the course of four years. So it was $12,000 a year. And back then, college was very expensive but not as expensive as it is now. I think tuition was maybe like $230,000 and $3,500 a year and I got accepted to Yale.

And so I applied that to Yale. I think for the purposes of your podcast, I can say that it was one of several scholarships that I got for private scholarships because I grew up in a very poor neighborhood in New York City. I was one of seven children raised in a single parent household.

And you know, I remember reading when I was young that college was very expensive and I knew I wanted to go to college and I had dreams of becoming a scientist. First I wanted to become a nuclear chemist, a physicist. And then when I got to college, it was my dream was to become a doctor.

So I kind of changed along the way. But I knew that, you know, you know, my mom told me from a young age that we couldn't really afford college. So when I was in high school, I decided I got to figure out a way to pay for college. You know, and I just saw the price tag and thought this is, you know, a year of college is more than my mother makes in a year.

So how am I going to pay for this? And so I made it my job at that time to find private scholarships. And so I got the New York Times scholarship, which was $48,000. And then I also got another scholarship called the Ron Brown Scholarship Program, which was $40,000.

Wow. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's a lot. So I ended up racking up over $100,000 in private scholarships. And so college was all paid for. Wow. Congratulations. Did you get the scholarships before or after you got accepted to Yale and other colleges? I got it before. Before. I see.

So they say, if you get into college, we will help pay this amount. And then during your application to college, do you say, I got this scholarship? Because I would think that that would look pretty good too. That was part of the, I think it was all happening at the same time.

It was all in senior year. And so I remember when I was doing the final interview, I had to do several interviews for the New York Times scholarship program. And when I got it, I had not yet been accepted to college. I think the acceptance was starting to roll in a little bit later.

But I'm a big believer in, I remember, I went out and got a book from my school library that was all about private scholarships, academic scholarships. And I just went and was doing research during all the free time that I had. So during my lunch period, after school, I was just in the library researching scholarships and applying for everything.

And I ended up getting six or seven of these private scholarships, but I must have applied for like 100. Oh, wow. So you were very intentional. So this is really important for listeners and parents is that you have to be intentional if you want to get the scholarship. It's not just going to fall in your lap most of the time.

You've got to apply, you've got to research, see what's most relevant. It's kind of like applying to college, but for scholarships, it is kind of like a full-time job. Absolutely. And the great thing is that a lot of my, I had sort of like a bunch of essays that I used to apply to different colleges.

And I could also take them and then make tweaks to them to apply for these scholarship programs because they were personal essays. So you apply to college and when you apply to a lot of scholarship programs, they want a personal essay. So you just can take it and tweak it for a college or for a scholarship.

But you have to be very dedicated and definitely putting your research. But the good thing is that there are just many, many scholarships out there. And so many of them that a lot of people don't know they're out there and you might apply. A lot of people apply for the big ones, but then they overlook the ones that are like $5,000, $10,000, $7,000, $2,500 that are only getting a few applicants.

Right. So 20 years at the New York Times, I'd love to ask you about that experience and what listeners and readers get wrong about the media. Because since 2016, I remember Trump was talking about fake news and all that. And I feel like there was like a big rift in society once he became president.

There was a lot of talk about the media and whether we should believe them or not. What are some misconceptions readers and listeners have about the media that you can kind of break down and clarify? Yeah. So I think that the media has been under attack, obviously, in recent years.

And I think some of that is due to demagoguery. I mean, I think that there are a lot of politicians who don't want to be held to account. And so, you know, rather, you know, when the media is reporting on politicians and on institutions that may be involved in corruption or potentially, you know, telling lies, one way to, you know, to sort of counter that is to undermine, you know, the media that is trying to expose corruption among institutions, for example.

And you know, that's not to say that the media is perfect. You know, obviously, as reporters and as journalists, you know, we make mistakes, but your obligation as a reporter is if you make a mistake, if you report something that's inaccurate, then you run a correction, you know, correct the record.

So the media is not obviously perfect. You know, we do make mistakes. I occasionally, you know, publish things that I get wrong, and then we have to run a correction, you know, the next day we have to. That's our obligation to our readers and to the public. I think another misapprehension is, you know, people have a very conspiratorial perspective of media.

They think that, you know, a lot of journalists, that all journalists have an agenda or that are, you know, that if you work for The Washington Post, you work for The New York Times, then your editor tells you what to do, tells you what to write, and you're just a sort of puppet.

And that's not the case. A lot of reporters, you know, we are just people doing a job like anyone else, you know, and our goal by and large is to just seek out the truth and report on the truth. You know, and we are people who, you know, most of us have a lot of integrity and just want to inform the public and hold, you know, speak truth to power.

Right. No, I hear you. It's a good point on if you're going, if you're trying to uncover the truth about someone who might have done something wrong, it seems logical to try to attack the institution that's trying to go after you. I mean, that makes perfect sense. In terms of the editor and journalist relationship, who decides the title of the article?

And does the journalist, the writer, actually have a say in what that title will be? Because there sometimes is a mismatch. Absolutely. And that is something that is, I would say, a lot of journalists, something we have to deal with that can be a bit of a nuisance at times is that if you work for a big news organization, especially a print organization or a large digital news operation or TV operation, you typically do not write the headlines on your story.

So what you do is you, you know, I have an assignment editor who I talk to pretty regularly and I tell her, you know, what I think is going to be a story. I tell her what news I'm pursuing, what stories I'm working on. You know, she gives me feedback.

We talk about what the story is going to be, what I'm finding or what I'm going to go out and report on. Then I write the story and then I file it to her. She edits it, asks me questions, you know, tries to see if there's any inaccuracies or anything like that or make sure everything is clear, does her editing, and then she writes the headline.

Or a copy editor, who is a second editor, will write the headline. And back in the day when I first started, a lot of times I wouldn't even see the headline before I went into print. So sometimes, occasionally, I would see a story in print and I would see the headline and think, "Yeah, I don't really agree with that headline.

I don't think it really sums it up." Maybe it's too suggestive. And a lot of times I would get emails from people who just read the headline and didn't read the actual story. Right. I mean, that's very common. And then wrote to me complaining that, you know, that my story was all wrong or that I don't know what I was talking about.

Or I was like, "I didn't write the headline." And if you read the story, like that's, you know, the headline is five words and the story is like, you know, a thousand words. Right. Where I go into the nuances and the details and give, you know, it's very balanced and I'm interviewing one side, then the other side, or describing a study and it's, I discuss all the details and nuances.

And it's very difficult. You know, I don't blame the editors who occasionally misinterpret a story and maybe don't put the best headline on it because you're trying to sum up a, you know, a thousand word story or 2000 word story in five words. And it's extremely difficult to be that concise.

And also you want it to be compelling so that people see it all and think, "Oh, this is an interesting story. Let me read through the rest." But we live in this, you know, this environment nowadays or this media culture where, you know, we're just deluged with headlines and we have our iPhones and you're constantly getting news updates and news alerts.

And I, you know, I listen to lots of podcasts, yours included and many others. And there's just so much media to consume that a lot of times it's hard to sit there and read a full article because we have short attention spans. So oftentimes the reporters don't usually write the headlines, unless it's a blog that's run by like, you know, one or two people.

But most large news organizations, you have editors who write the headlines. Got it. So a lesson learned, folks, is to look at the headline. Maybe it'll catch your attention. I think that's part of the big reason why there are catchy headlines. But to spend time reading and delving into the content of the articles, I have the same problem with Financial Samurai as well.

I write probably too long articles, like 2,500-word articles and it loses people. But it's just me trying to be balanced and, you know, I got to be more concise. I don't have the luxury of having a nice editor. But I also have to figure out what is a proper headline as well.

So just spend some time digging deep because chances are if you read one more paragraph, you might find a more balanced perspective and the answers to your questions. And I will also say that, you know, journalists, we're just people. You know, we write stories we want people to read and we want to engage with the public.

And so occasionally I'll get an email from someone who maybe just read the headline, you know, and got really upset and sent me an email calling me an idiot or something and just sent me a nasty email. And I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm not going to respond to that person." But then there are people who write to me, who send messages that are like, "Oh, great story," or, you know, "Hey, you know, I read your story.

I thought the headline didn't quite get it right, blah, blah, blah," and they're civil. And then I respond. You know, if someone sends a civil message to me, even if they disagree with something I wrote, if they're civil, then you'll get a response. And, you know, I've often – I've had long correspondences with people, with readers who maybe didn't agree with everything, but they sent me a civil message and we ended up having a great dialogue.

You know, and we have a discussion and it's great. And I do the same. You know, occasionally I read something in other news outlets that I disagree with and maybe I'll write to that person and just be civil and you will get, you know, a response and feedback and perhaps start a dialogue that way.

Mad Fientist So given you're a health reporter, things must have been crazy wild for you once the pandemic began. Because I remember in 2020, I would see a lot of stories, unfortunately negative stories, about people who died from COVID complications. And one of the most consistent variables that I noticed were that these folks had comorbidities or were overweight.

And so that kind of scared me into trying to – thinking about my fitness more, about trying to eat better and protect my mental health and all that. How was COVID like for you as a health reporter? And why – do you feel the nation got healthier during this time as a silver lining because we were so scared of this potential virus that could have negatively affected our health?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yes. So I think that that's a – you raise a great point. We did see, if you look at the data, that there were a lot of people who got healthier who decided, you know, I want to – I'm seeing all these people die and they have these comorbidities, you know, the leading comorbidities for, you know, risk of death from COVID or hypertension, diabetes, obesity, you know, heart disease.

So a lot of people saw that and thought, you know, I want to get healthier. And a lot of us started working from home and so you had the ability to cook your own food. You had the ability to maybe go out, spend a little more time exercising because you weren't commuting in the morning and afternoon.

But I will say importantly, and I'm still trying to track down all the data on this, but I think there's a class divide when it comes to that. I think that the people of higher socioeconomic status could, you know, work from home during lockdown and who, you know, could afford to go on Amazon and buy, you know, workout equipment and set up a gym in your garage or in your backyard.

Dr. Abdul Latifov: Yeah, those $3,000 Peloton bikes. That was crazy. Like, are you kidding me? I can't afford that. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, exactly. So expensive. Now you can get them for like $500, I think. Yeah, that's another story. You know, I went online and I bought, you know, gym equipment from my garage during COVID because I couldn't go to the gym and, you know, I started cooking more from home.

But I think the people who have higher socioeconomic status were the ones who maybe were more likely to get healthier during the pandemic. And then people who, you know, are more working class, it was harder for them. You know, you maybe maybe you lost your job, maybe you had to get two jobs.

I mean, I think those are the people where it was more of a struggle. I think COVID might have exacerbated the class division. But that's just my sort of my educated guess, I would say. Dr. Abdul Latifov I see. Yeah, one of the blind spots that I had before having children was being a little bit judgmental to the families that brought their kids to McDonald's to eat all the hamburgers and Big Macs and I was like, that's not good for you.

But now that I have children, three and a half and six, I understand why not only from a cost perspective, but from a let's load up our children with some calories so they don't starve because they're such picky eaters. You know, you have to have a balance between are you going to eat this?

Are you going to starve? It's kind of like a dichotomy that and I'm like, okay, well, the cheeseburger you want cheeseburger, okay, just not too much. But here's the cheeseburger. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, 100%. I have two children and my son Parker was four and then my daughter Isabella who is one and a half.

And yeah, there are all these there are all these funny memes that I see online occasionally that I agree with where it's like, you know, someone before, you know, they have kids, they're organic, you know, cage free, no sugar till they're five, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, after you have kids, the parents is like, okay, if they can just take one bite of this cheeseburger, then we'll be okay because it's not only like getting, you know, the calories into a kid who's a picky eater, but I don't know if you have this issue.

But you know, my son, if he skips his lunch and he does, he hasn't eaten, you know, he gets hangover. Dave Asprey Yeah, hangover, grouchy. Dr. Justin Marchegiani It ruins his whole afternoon if he hasn't had food and then you get, you know, some chicken nuggets or something in him and he's like, totally, you know, different kid.

So yeah, you know, you're like, oh, you know, if we can just get get him to eat this slice of pizza, hey, you know, it's got tomatoes, that's a vegetable. You know, we try very hard to give him nutritious food. But it's difficult when you have kids, you know, sometimes you just have to let go and be like, okay, you know, they want to have pizza for dinner.

That's fine. You know, or, you know, he wants to have a cookie, like, okay, you got to pick your battles, right? Dave Asprey Right. So over the coming 12 months or 24 months, in terms of health, is there is there some specific issue of health that you're trying to pursue and elucidate to the readership at the Washington Post?

What is something that's driving you the most? Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yes. So I will say that during the pandemic, you know, I was working for the New York Times and then the Washington Post decided to launch what's called the Wellbeing Desk because it saw a lot of people were interested in wellness.

And that wellness was, you know, obviously playing such a big role in the pandemic. Because as you said, people with comorbidities were at a higher risk of having severe or fatal COVID. So the Washington Post launched this new Wellbeing Desk and brought me on as a columnist to write about nutrition.

And I've been very focused, you know, I joined last year, and I've been very focused on writing about the quality of our food and the role it plays in health outcomes. And one thing I'm one thing I've focused on a lot is ultra processed foods, which are, you know, these foods that are, you know, highly processed, they're typically very low in fiber, they have a lot of additives, things like sugar, salt, artificial colors, flavorings, preservatives.

There's been a lot of research lately around the world, showing that the more ultra processed foods you consume on a daily basis, the higher your risk of these comorbidities we talked about from heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, to, you know, cancer, and even cognitive decline and dementia. So I've been writing about ultra processed foods, and I'm doing a project now, sort of digging into what it is about these foods that seem to cause do a lot of damage to our to our health.

And I will say that, you know, this is another issue where there's a class divide, because people of lower socioeconomic status tend to eat higher amounts of these foods. Because for a lot of reasons, they tend to be very cheap. So they're very, you know, economical. They're long lasting, because they're highly processed, the fiber is removed, you know, they're shelf stable things like breakfast cereals that have a lot of sugar added to them.

You know, things like frozen pizzas, frozen entrees, you know, chicken nuggets. You know, these are things, you know, canned foods that have a lot of salt and preservatives added to them. These are things that won't go off in a couple days. Things like fresh fruits and vegetables are very good for your health, but they go off or fresh meat, fresh seafood, you know, these things tend to go off pretty quickly.

So people who are, you know, maybe lower income working class, they need foods that are going to be shelf stable, that are inexpensive, that are easy, that are tasty, that their kids will eat. And so they tend to eat, you know, the highest levels of these foods, but also have the worst health outcomes.

So that's something I'm reporting on now. Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, that'd be great if you can help report on that and also find some solutions because in my mind, it's very simple. And it's probably not easy is to cut out the refined sugars and processed foods. But then like you say, the shelf life, the expense of that, and I just think about it for my kids now, like, how much is too much.

So this is definitely an issue that I hope we can be more aware of because there's this whole school of thought about, well, healthcare costs are so expensive per capita. Why don't we focus more on preventative healthcare because we all want to live healthier and longer. So I think you reporting on that is gonna be great, because hopefully, it'll make people more aware about the food that they consume.

Dr. Scott Zuckerman Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's so many issues tied up in it. It's you know, how it's impacting our health, but then you know, that is very costly to the economy because it costs the federal government and insurance companies billions and billions of dollars a year to you know, pay for these medical conditions that are also the leading killers of Americans, you know, the leading causes of death are preventable diseases that are in many cases, diet related diseases, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, hypertension.

So it's what it's shortening our lifespans, and also increasing the costs to the government and the health insurance system hurting our pockets. Yeah, it's right, really wide ranging effects. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Right. I know you've got to go soon. So I just have a last question. And I'm just curious to know about your views on the relationship between journalists and bloggers.

Because for me as a blogger, I can write about whatever I want, there's kind of no real consequences. I got to I can come up the wackiest title and say the most inane things. And if it's to try to get clicks, well, I guess I can do that. But I'm just trying to be thoughtful about stuff I write.

And then for you as a journalist, you know, you have strict rules of engagement, you've got an editor, how do you see that relationship? And do you ever say, Oh, I would like to actually just do my own thing on my site. I'm just curious to know your thoughts and perspectives.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, I think it's, it's tricky for journalists because for someone who works for a large news organization like the Washington Post, because as you said, you know, we have, I have freedom to pursue, generally speaking, the stories I want to do. But you know, I have an editor who I go to and I say, Hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing.

And we kind of work together on that. And you know, so there's some limitations, you know, I have someone who, you know, can push back against me, whereas you have complete autonomy. I love the autonomy. It's much more difficult. But then, you know, you know, so I love financial samurai.

It's a thankful blog. I've been reading it for many years. You do great work. You know, and I think there are so many blogs out there that do such a great job, especially covering like really niche areas. But you know, it's it's I think it's harder as as a blogger, because you don't necessarily have not you specifically, but you know, some bloggers, you don't necessarily have that security, right?

Like, no, there's no security. Yeah, there's a nine to five I have insurance, you know, I have, you went straight to the top. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, you have the you work that the most one of the most prestigious platforms and a huge platform. Whereas for bloggers, we got to like, scrape and crawl and go through the mud to try to build something of our own.

And it takes can take years. I mean, it's been over 14 years now with financial samurai. Yeah. And then you have to go out and find, you know, advertisers. And you know, if you take a day off, like, you know, you it's it's your operation, you're essentially self employed business owner.

Whereas for me, if I take a week off, you know, there's 500 other reporters who are going to be stories in the Washington Post, right? There's trade offs. Sure. Say, yeah. I mean, I'm not a blogger, but but yeah, there are, I guess, you know, there's pluses and minuses.

Yeah. Well, here's an interesting perspective. So I don't think I'd ever be able to get a job at the New York Times or the Washington Post. I'm just not qualified, even though I've written 2500 articles, and I've built my own brand. But you have the ability to start your own blog or website and talk about whatever you want.

So it's something for listeners to think about, as you go on your path and do something, you know, there's there's the route. I joined Goldman Sachs out of college. So that helped boom, in inject me into this institution that had some good prestige and reputation at the time, at least.

And then I could do something else. So there's two ways to go about things, folks, you can build it on your own the hard way. But I think I think it's strategically better to join an organization, learn as much as possible build those skills. And once you have that financial buffer and confidence to go out on your own if you want to.

Yeah. I would say, though, that I wouldn't rule it out completely for you, because you have such an extensive background in writing about personal finance. I could see a news organization hiring you as a personal finance columnist, you know, someone who's giving his own opinions on personal finance. It would be more it'd be more difficult to, you know, to write to be a straight news reporter writing about the economy or finance or covering Goldman Sachs.

But there are a lot of personal finance columnists. I guess I guess you're right. And I can think of one person when I was at the Times, Brian Stelter, who was at he actually started out as a blogger covering the TV news industry. I think his blog was called TV Newser, I want to say, breaking so many stories on his blog.

He was eventually hired by the New York Times. Oh, he went on to CNN. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the show Reliable Sources. He eventually left CNN last year. But now he's back out there. I see writing articles for different news organizations, but he started as a as a blogger.

Interesting. Well, I like to count myself out. And part of the reason I like to count myself out is so that I don't have these options to go do something else because I want to stay independent and just do my own thing. It'd be harder for you to go from having all that autonomy and freedom.

It's being inside a news organization where you have an editor saying, "No, I don't like that idea." Yeah, that would piss me off. I would really push back. I'm like, "No, no, no, I'm the boss. I'm the captain now." Yeah, and you turn in a blog that's 25 or a piece that's 2,500, 3,000 words and your editor is like, "Okay, we got to cut this down to 800 words." Yeah, you're like, "What?

No, no, I totally hear you." Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, it's been great talking to you. Anahad, if listeners want to read more about your work and also your guest hosting the podcast, please share where they can find you. Yeah, so you can go to WashingtonPost.com/WellBeing, which is the homepage for the WellBeing Desk at the Washington Post where you can find my columns on nutrition and news articles and columns by my other great colleagues on the Washington Post WellBeing Desk.

You can find me on Twitter @AnahadO'Connor. That's A-N-A-H-A-D-O-C-O-N-N-O-R. Yeah, those are usually the two best places to find me. Awesome, and I'll put it in the show notes so it's easy for people to find. All right. Well, thanks for connecting. Maybe we'll connect again when you get some more time.

Let's do it. I would love to. Thanks for having me on. Great to talk to you. You too. (gulps)