Last week, Batya Ungar-Sargon debuted a new weekend show on NewsNation, with her program, Batya, airing at 4 PM ET.
In the first edition of the show, Ungar-Sargon spoke with Megyn Kelly about the death of Charlie Kirk, as well as the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel.
What a time for a first week.
But the cable news show from Batya Ungar-Sargon has been a long time coming. She said there were several things that made now the right time for her to join the upstart cable news network.
“NewsNation is the fastest-growing cable channel with a diverse viewership that looks a lot like the American people,” she said. “In an age of polarization, NewsNation is bringing people together by creating content for the vast majority of Americans who aren’t extremists, are sick of the rage bait, and want us to find common ground as Americans.
“NewsNation somehow manages to reproduce the intimacy of local television but for a national audience, which, together with its commitment to fairness, is where the trust from its audience comes from,” Ungar-Sargon continued. “I could not be more honored to be a part of the NewsNation family.”
NewsNation has billed itself as a non-partisan network in an attempt to differentiate itself from the cable news competition. That distinction was an imperative one to the new host.
“It is extremely important to me to be able to speak to people who agree with me as well as people who don’t, so I’d say it’s really important!” she shared.
Ungar-Sargon is no stranger to the media space. She’s previously served as the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek, as well as working as a contributor at outlets like The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and The Free Press, among others.
Additionally, she’s written a pair of books, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women and Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy.
After getting the debut program under her belt, including the wide-ranging discussion with Megyn Kelly, Batya Ungar-Sargon says she has a firm grasp on what qualities she hopes the program imparts to viewers.
“Civil discourse and vigorous debate in the pursuit of common ground,” she stated, adding that “More unites us than divides us as Americans, and we have to keep that front-of-mind.”
The first show of any new program, whether it’s a radio show, podcast, YouTube video, or a cable news program nationally televised, is always a difficult thing to tackle. And that initial episode already has Ungar-Sargon thinking about what she learnt from the hour-long episode.
“(I learned) how important your team is,” she said of her colleagues at NewsNation. “They are the real magic here!”
She added that she’s identified what some future challenges might be for the program going forward, as well.
“I think finding the right balance between serious and fun segments is going to be the main challenge,” she said.
In the book “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville, the titular white whale serves as an elusive creature. Not easily caught, the character is often used as a metaphor for something that one aspires to eventually reach or catch.
In media, nearly every host or interview has a “white whale” guest they dream of landing, whether it be for selfish reasons — like being a fan of that person’s work — or the hope that they can extract some nugget of information no one else has even been able to get out of them. Others, meanwhile, might view that elusive interview subject as wanting the chance to interview an enigmatic figure that could potentially be misunderstood by others.
But the point remains: everyone has that one person they’d like to interview someday.
When asked who her “white whale” guest is, Batya Ungar-Sargon had a succinct answer.
“I’d really love to interview Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
