Journalist Ashley Fantz on Co-Creating the #1 Podcast in the World After Having Open-Heart Surgery
On the day that “Suspect II: Vanished in the Snow” rose to top of the iTunes and Amazon podcast charts, co-creator Ashley Fantz was rolled into an operating room at Stanford for open-heart surgery.
In this episode, Andrew Vontz and Ashley explore her journey to, through and beyond open-heart surgery and her experience creating the #1 rated podcast in the world. They talk about parenting, stress management, the creative process, the impact of operating in the true crime space and more.
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Ashley reported, hosted and co-wrote the show that explores the facts behind the case of a child who was abducted and murdered in 1984. Before her work with Campside Media, Ashley’s award-winning investigative journalism was featured in the likes of CNN, the Oxford American, Salon, and Newsweek, garnered widespread accolades and created real change in the world.
To learn more about Ashley, listen to a 2019 Choose the Hard Way episode where she shares the behind the scenes experience of being a CNN reporter.
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Choose the Hard Way is a podcast where guests share stories about how hard things build stronger humans. Sign up for the newsletter to get the story behind these stories updates and more. If you’d like to suggest a guest or say hello, DM @hardwaypod on social or send an email to choosethehardway@gmail.com.
Host Andrew Vontz has spent more than 25 years telling and shaping the stories of the world’s top performers, brands and businesses. He has held executive and senior leadership roles at the social network for athletes Strava and the human performance company TRX. His byline has appeared in outlets like Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, The Los Angeles Times and more.
Today he advises and consults with businesses and nonprofits on high-impact storytelling strategies and coaches leaders to become high-performance communicators. Find him on LinkedIn or reach out to choosethehardway@gmail.com
In This Episode:
Ashley Fantz Twitter | Website
Suspect II: Vanished in the Snow
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Andrew Vontz 2:36
Why do you think people have such a strong interest in true crime?
Ashley Fantz 2:41
Um, I think so much in the true crime genre allows people to gawk. And, you know, we, they, they love to unravel a mystery. They think they're gonna solve something by you know, reading about it, watching, listening. But I think also we're just as human beings attracted to things that are lurid, and extremely scary. We'd love to scare ourselves.
Andrew Vontz 3:15
It is someone we talked to us about this a little bit the last time that you were on the show, but as someone who's been involved in hardcore investigative reporting related to crime for most of your career, what do people who are gawkers? Or who are consuming True Crime content? What do they perhaps not understand about the criminal mind or about the nature of these cases?
Ashley Fantz 3:42
Well, I think what we tried to do with my podcast, I should say our podcast because it was an absolute team sport to do suspect was that, you know, that this is really about somebody who lost their life or somebody who was victimized and all of the people outside of that person, whether it's their immediate family, or the friends that they knew. That's really where the story lies, the story really should not be focused, I feel strongly you should not be focused on the person who committed the crime. You know, sometimes you have people who committed crimes who are so complex, and so, so interesting that you do end up focusing a lot of time on them, and we did do that in this podcast. But I'm very uncomfortable with a lot of people who were say their true crime fans because that to me, says, okay, they're just seeking out this content rather than Okay, is this a good story well told, versus Mr. Just interested in the gory lurid nature of it.
Andrew Vontz 4:53
We gotten into this a bit in the last interview that we did, but something that I personally They can't consume this type of content, particularly when it relates to children. And you're a mom. And I would like I would love to talk about that a little bit. But I'm just curious, the more you go into this, and particularly with this project, and the fact that the victim was a child, how does that impact you as a mother? And how? How do you navigate that emotionally?
Ashley Fantz 5:31
Sure, so So suspect the story is about a 12 year old girl who disappears from her home in 1984. And it's a big mystery as to what happened to her, but it's pretty quickly deduce that she was kidnapped from her home in 84. And this was like the era of Stranger danger. And her I'm not giving anything away, because you hear this right away. In Episode One, her body was found by some oil and gas workers digging a pipeline in 2019. So you're, of course, you know, it did land differently to me doing this story, having become a mother three years ago, because I started to focus kind of on this story. Three years ago, when my daughter was just born. I have kind of an opposite reaction to some people who say I can't consume or I can't report that kind of content. It's an extension of my mama bareness to get even more angry that someone would hurt a child. I mean, I would say my entire career is driven by outrage gets, so I take it so personally, which isn't necessarily healthy, when I feel like people have been hurt, especially children. And a huge chunk of my career has been spent focusing on kids who have been hurt, either by an institution or an individual. I mean, I covered foster care and state welfare in Florida for four years. So it's I felt drawn to Janelle who is the 12 year old who is kidnapped and killed that we tell her story and suspect. Because I had a daughter because Janelle was adopted, my daughter is adopted. It only strengthens my connection to these stories rather than repels me.
Andrew Vontz 7:24
Why this story is specifically of all the stories that you were probably exploring at the time, or all the different ways that you were thinking about creating content about next why this story.
Ashley Fantz 7:37
So in 2019, I caught the news, I was I was on maternity leave, and I caught the news that this girl had been found. But then if you fast forward to 2020, I'm at work at CNN at the time. And I'm in between stories. And I'm just looking at the news. And I see a headline that says two time gubernatorial candidate arrested for decades old Cold Case. I mean, that's a hell of a headline. And I thought, Oh, what's that? I get so many of my stories from I see larger stories in smaller stories almost all the time. And so I thought, well, let me I have some time. Let me pull this indictment, and see, you know, how they got this guy. And it was the most unusual indictment I'd ever read. And I've read, you know, hundreds of indictments over the years. And it just listed all of these instances in which he had tried to get the attention of law enforcement, but he was ignored. And I thought, oh, there's a big story here. And I became, you know, kind of obsessed with it. And immediately, I think the same day must have filed at least 10 records requests and ended up finally, at least, I don't know, probably 30 or 40 more records request to figure out this guy's paper trail, like just dig into everything. And I did that all on my own time. By the way, I did not do that on. I mean, it wouldn't have been a big deal. If I did it on CNN. Last time, I was looking into a story but I mean, I just I spent my free time what little I had event 20 doing that.
Andrew Vontz 9:11
What are the specific elements? You've named a few of them, I think, but when you kind of break down okay, what is the equation that makes this a standout or unique story? What are the other elements in the mix?
Ashley Fantz 9:23
Well, I found the suspect at the core of our podcast, fan fascinating and complex and twisted. So you have to so all the characters in the story were rich and interesting. And I say characters let's not forget the real people with real lives. But also that I thought it could maybe teach us some universal truths about what we think danger looks like, and how wrong we can be when we make assumptions about People, you know, do we miss things that are right in front of our face? Sometimes it had all of these themes that I thought were really interesting. And of course, I was attracted to it because there is a storyline involving Geno's adopted family and her birth mother that I felt personally connected to. Each story is different. But it's funny, Andy, I really don't ever think about this kind of thing. I just know when a story is going to be a good story. I don't really try to think Oh, does it check all my boxes?
Andrew Vontz 10:36
That's I mean, that's interesting, because I would assume that underneath that, there's probably there must be like a proprietary Ashley algorithm did consciously or subconsciously is putting together like all the different elements of the story that would make it something compelling that you want to spend several years of your life on? I'm making an assumption, but
Ashley Fantz 10:58
no, that's right. I mean, in with our previous episode, we talked about the rape kit project, which showed that law enforcement across the country was were trashing rape kits. 90% of them not tested even just a couple of weeks or a month or two after victims reported. That was a project I did for CNN, I think the more that I dug into that story, again, the angrier I got for those rape survivors. And I was kind of angry for the police who had never been trained properly, and how to investigate sexual assault. So I can be very intense probably to work with I think anybody would tell you that. But but you know, had to see that through no matter how complicated it got.
Andrew Vontz 11:44
So it was a three year process more or less from when you first had the idea until the podcast dropped.
Ashley Fantz 11:53
Oh, no. For the for the podcast? No, I would say, Well, yeah, he was arrested in 2020. And I started doing work on my own. But I didn't leave CNN until the spring of the next year and 21. And that's when, you know, Matt, and I started talking about, you know, what are the potentials here for this podcast? Who is going to what company is going to bank roll it? And wondery came through in a wonderful way, Amazon and wondery.
Andrew Vontz 12:25
I was gonna say, actually, for people who don't understand, or are not conversant in that side of the process for how the show's come to life, the development process, how does that work? And how did you transition from doing the type of reporting and producing the work product that you did to becoming somewhat involved in podcast world and having a number one hit?
Ashley Fantz 12:46
Yeah, it's been nice to see the podcast and number one for a while. Well, let me just preface this by saying this is just my experience that I'll describe because I'm still very much an infant in the world of podcasting is my first experience. And this is the way it was done. You know, for me at Camp side media, which is such a juggernaut in podcasting, because they're staffed by experienced long form journalists. And that's why their storytelling is so much higher quality than the majority of the crap that you're going to get so much in the podcast base today. So my experience was that we, we did some reporting and that reporting, recording, I should say, reporting and recording went into a trailer that we made for what we thought the show could sound like. And then the trailer went out to potential buyers like Amazon wondery. I think actually, they bought it right away is my understanding. And we didn't go to other places like Sony or some other people in the podcast space, but in general, my understanding is that is how it often works. You will do a trailer you will see who's interested in buying it. Then I have my shout out to Nancy Prager, my incredible entertainment attorney is such such a great person, you know, helped me understand the contract process. And then a team is put together a team was put together at Camp side with Matt shear, Eric Benson, Ashley and Craig bond, Ciara Franco, my really the the biggest, you know, help that I had with writing by far and away was Matt shear and Eric Benson, who have had so many hit podcasts and Matt shear was the host of season one of suspect. So they were they taught me how to write a podcast. It's such a different medium is such a different medium than magazine writing, which is what I had done traditionally
Andrew Vontz 14:59
What was new and different about writing for podcasts versus magazine or feature writing?
Ashley Fantz 15:05
Well, I mean, you have to let the audio lead the way, which sounds like a big dub. But that's very hard to do. I mean, in writing, you can create any scene that you want, of course, it has to be based, in fact, and then you can introduce whatever somebody happened to say, but you have to write around the audio. And if you don't have keen audio, crisp, colorful audio, you cannot, obviously just can't do a podcast, you can't fake it. So you have to make sure that that is together. And also, you know, don't step on the tape. Don't write something that feels redundant to what your audio is actually telling people. And try as much as possible to get out of the way and let the audio tell the story.
Andrew Vontz 16:02
When you were capturing audio, did things always go as planned or did anything unexpected happen?
Ashley Fantz 16:10
Well, I often worked with a producer, Sara VITAC, was a wonderful producer that I worked with in Colorado, so I let her handle the recording. And that is, I can't speak to the way it works elsewhere. But that is often the way it works with capsid. Because capsid is working with journalists kind of print journalists often. Because we do know how to tell a long form story. But they're not relying on us to be Tech Wizards and record everything perfectly. That would be disastrous. So I didn't have anything really go right. I have much more confidence that I could record in the field now. But I did not have that in the beginning.
Andrew Vontz 16:53
How about just just from a reporting point of view? Were there any dead ends were? Were there ever moments where you had to pivot to story that you plan to tell? Or did this unfold kind of the way you thought it was going to unfold?
Ashley Fantz 17:07
There's no story unfolds the way you think it's going to unfold? Ever. I mean, there were a ton of dead ends, I would say the biggest obstacle that we faced was that the suspect in our show, he was tried in October 21 for murder and kidnapping. And the end of that trial was a mistrial. So that's very difficult for a reporter because, you know, while the trial is going on, we're not anticipating a mistrial, whether he's found not guilty or guilty. All the parties, the cops, the prosecutors, the family, the witnesses, they've all agreed to talk to me, you know, but then when that Miss trial happens, what happens, they need to shut up, they need to not talk to the media until there's a second trial. And that second trial isn't coming for another full year. So you better find a way to tell this story without 90% of your characters without talking to the police directly. And I was I was totally scared. I think any other media company would say we can't do this podcast. But Matt shear and Eric Benson said, Yeah, of course, we can tell this podcast, we're moving forward. And I was so heartened by that. And the way that we did it was we used a lot of audio from that trial that we recorded. And because I somehow got people who were witnesses in the second trial, to talk to me, and I was stunned. I'm always stunned when people talk to me when they I mean, maybe they really shouldn't, because they were going to be witnesses. And that could really impact their ability to be witnesses in the second trial. But nevertheless, they talked to me gave me great stuff.
Andrew Vontz 18:51
How did you get them to talk to you?
Ashley Fantz 18:54
I don't know. I mean, I, what helps me is I can show them a body of work that says that I'm a serious journalist, and you know, so that I think they trusted me after they saw some of my previous investigative work. But also, I think every journalist needs to go to the trouble to explain your fact checking process, how stories are, go through a legal process, because we take for granted as journalists that people understand that they don't, they don't know how that works. And I said, I will tell you exactly the audio that we use. In the podcast. I'm a big believer as an investigative reporter, and there being no surprises no surprises. If you're accusing somebody in a story as we did with the rape kits project, the police of destroying evidence wrongly, the all every single Police Department knew exactly what we were going to say. And we actually asked them to fact check our own work and calculations and how many kits they destroyed and why I mean, I just think that's, I just think that's the best practice and not a lot of too few journalists do it.
Andrew Vontz 20:10
In those conversations, or when you were approaching people to interview them for the show, what is a conversation? Like that? Like, what do you actually say to people? The first call or the first contact?
Ashley Fantz 20:22
Yeah, maybe you just very clearly explain what you're doing. And then you say, I understand if you don't want to talk right now, can I send you an email explaining who I am? You know, you can check me out if you'd like. But, you know, whether it's I want to talk about Janelle, your experiences, you know, with her growing up. Or I want to talk about how the police handled or mishandled is more appropriate. The investigation for years, people are smart they can they make their own decisions as to whether or not they want to talk. If somebody tells me Look, I do not want to talk, then that's it. I mean, you don't call them back. But, you know, there's ways to have very genuine exchanges with people. You know, it's to sort of get them to the table to get them to talk. And that is not about manipulating people. But just if you have a genuine interest in telling a story, people read that. They understand that. And I think they respond to that. Well,
Andrew Vontz 21:31
I think that's part of what I was curious about. So it sounds like for these interviews, subjects who become have become part of the story, part of it is they feel your intent in what you want to do and that you're not there to manipulate them or to bamboozle them into some outcome.
Ashley Fantz 21:50
Absolutely. People are savvy, if you're just out there to get your story, then, I mean, I would never talk to a journalist who I felt thought that they own the story. This is not my story. This is really Janelle story, her family's story. And it's also the story of the people around the person who kidnapped and killed you know.
Andrew Vontz 22:13
And when the podcast dropped when it came out, where were you?
Ashley Fantz 22:22
Well, the day before the podcast came out, I was in the hospital at Stanford University, because at the same time, I was reporting suspect, I learned that I had a rare and dangerous congenital heart defect that necessitated open heart surgery. So, you know, Andy, you and I have known each other for a really long time since college, and I know how athletic you are. And I have been a distance runner since my late teens. And so it was a big shocked to learn that I had this defective ticker. So anyway, the day before the podcast, I was actually meeting with the surgical team at Stanford, and they were going through all the potential complications with me about what could happen during or after my surgery. So honestly, I guess the silver lining is I wasn't stressing out about how my podcast was going to do. This more interested in was like going to live.
Andrew Vontz 23:32
What were some of the complications or potential outcomes of the surgery? Well,
Ashley Fantz 23:37
I should say that I went to arguably the best surgeon in the world, I had the privilege of being able to do that. So I did have complete faith in him. I have complete faith and very few people. But you know, there's something called a phrenic nerve, which kind of runs sort of behind you down your spine, and it goes very close to your heart and it controls your diaphragm. And if that gets torqued or damaged, you can just stop breathing. You know, you can't live without your diaphragm. You know, he had to, I have an anomaly. I had an anomalous right coronary artery, which means my right coronary artery was in the wrong place. And he was transplanting it into the correct location. So he has to punch a hole in the right side of my heart. And I remember very vividly one of the doctors saying if he's off just a little bit, you'll have problems for the rest of your life. And I said, What is problems? It's like, Oh, lots of surgeries. No. Okay. Well, let's hope that he punches the hole in exactly the right place. I think we would have been there all afternoon frankly, if they would have been telling me every single day potential disaster.
Andrew Vontz 25:02
Yeah. And a glimpse into life behind the podcast, we had a conversation before you had the surgery. I'm glad to hear it sounds like you were very optimistic and relaxed. Personally, I was like, Okay, there's a nonzero chance Ashley might die. I was I was upset. I thought about that I was very, you know, you're here. So it worked out, thankfully. But you're going in there. You have the surgery the next day, and, and the podcast comes out. And as you said, you had bigger things to think about. But subsequently, a lot has happened with the podcast, and with your heart as well. So what happens on the other side of the surgery, you wake up, like what's going on?
Ashley Fantz 25:46
I do want to take a moment here, though to say talk about behind the podcast, all of your listeners need to understand what an incredible friend you were and are to me. And you know, you were there for me every second, whether you were sending me some funny audio text or asking me how I'm doing and, you know, you've really, we've always been good friends, but you've really stepped up in a way that was so touching, and I will never ever forget it. So all of your listeners need to know that you're not only a great podcast, er, but you are such a genuinely loving. Good, good person. I'm just so grateful for you. Okay, now, let's put that aside. Yeah, so I really, I mean, the truth is, I wasn't really thinking about how well suspect was doing on the charts. I should say at the time it was released, it was behind a paywall. It's no longer behind a paywall. So when I woke up from open heart surgery, I will the one thing that happens to you is you're really thirsty, so thirsty as you've ever been in your life. And that's a result of anesthesia. And I was just super out of it. I you know, I was I was on narcotics. One thing that they have to do to you, within 24 hours or shortly thereafter is you have tubes connected to you have wires connected to your heart, and you have tubes connected to your lungs that are draining fluid. And so when you're awake, they have to pull the wires out and they have to pull those tubes out. So I before the surgery, I looked at every YouTube video of what happens after surgery to prepare myself. And so I was ready. It wasn't a surprise to me. And to be honest with you, I was so grateful that to have woken up that I was like, whatever, there's nothing they could punch me in the face. I don't care what happens. I'm fine. I'm good. I mean, my husband took a video of me the moment that I woke up giving a thumbs up like a maverick Top Gun. Like it's like yeah, it doesn't matter. I'm I'm alive. Anyway, two nurses stood on both sides of me as my recollection anyway, and yanked all that out of my abdomen. And I mean, it hurt for sure. But it actually felt good. It felt actually really good. Because I felt like I really earned that pain. And I kept you kind of saying to my husband, are you getting this? Are you rolling on this?
And he's like, I don't want to take a video on like, take off any. Anyone. That's really what I mostly remember when I woke up.
Andrew Vontz 28:48
I feel like the behind the music on this is gonna be incredible. I mean, I don't know if the Docu series is underway. But the yeah, there could be something about the making of the making of it would be pretty incredible. I think. So you you've lived that's a good news. And you're an incredible person and I'm lucky to have you be my friend and I care deeply about you. And I was I felt really fantastic when I got the Carebear network or there's this special private social network if anybody out there has had a loved one. Friend family go through a procedure these days. There's a private social network,
Ashley Fantz 29:30
and then caringbridge it's called caringbridge
Andrew Vontz 29:33
Yeah, it's called Carebear Karianne. Yeah, also known as Carebear. And so you get you get the update. So I saw the you know, video of Ashley doing her Top Gun Maverick thumbs up, which was incredible. And then they kind of had you propped up like Frankenstein. I don't know actually, I don't know if you're propped up at that point later. They got you up to 45 degrees and I remember you telling me before the surgery, you know, I'm gonna be sleeping it 45 degrees. And I thought privately like Frankenstein for like six months, but you progressed much faster than that, which we could talk about. But on the other side of that, and you're an intense person, I would say you're a very focused, goal oriented person watching you go through this experience, from initially, when you started to have some things going on with your heart, which you shared with me at the time, and then you went through this whole process. And as an outsider, and as your friend, I was, like, you're just so methodical and goal driven, and not, at least, as an observer, you did not get jammed up and the potential of things going wrong, or in a highly emotional state, that's what it felt like from the outside that you were, you know, navigating it in a very logical way. When you did wake up, though, and you were conscious, you're like, I'm alive. This, at least works to this point. Did you feel relieved? Did you feel like, Oh, this is about what I expected? How did that feel?
Ashley Fantz 31:13
I was really surprised that I didn't, I wasn't feeling any pain. Of course, it's, it's strange, because you also you also have a line into your carotid artery. And I was prepared for that as well. I do want to say, though, that, you know, when I was diagnosed, I did spin out for a solid two or three weeks. So everyone should give themselves permission to lose it. And, you know, I've certainly I've cried to you, I cried to you, during the process, you I definitely tried to be in touch with those emotions and not pat them back. But I get a lot of strength from gathering information. That's just my personality. And so I went to town and the more information I gathered, the more I knew that the outcomes of the surgery were very good. So, you know, I don't know if I would have been as calm without that, or without this, actually a support group on Facebook that, that I joined people who were a wealth of information, so I felt very supported to be on my friends and family. So anyway, I I'm trying to think back and those first couple of days and how I, how I felt. I don't know, I also was super arrogant that I was just looking back on it now. I was pretty arrogant and thinking, Yeah, cool. I'm done. They're done. I can just get up and walk out of here. And that is not my body was like, oh, no, you're not you are, you're gonna be really messed up for a pretty long time.
Andrew Vontz 32:58
Can you describe what being messed up for a long time has felt like so far?
Ashley Fantz 33:03
Yeah, sure. I mean, the first month, you're just very, very exhausted. All you want to do is sleep even though that's not what you should be doing. You should be getting enough rest, you should be constantly be walking. You know, my one thing that was very uncomfortable is that my resting heart rate prior to the surgery was about 55. And after the surgery, because your sinus node is kind of rung, like a bell during surgery, that is that governs your resting heart rate. My resting heart rate jumped about 40 points. So that's very uncomfortable to go from 55 to like 95. And just the first couple of weeks after the surgery, we stayed in California, we my mom, Husband, Daughter and Sister in law in best rent. We brought a whole crew of people out there, and I just walked around the parking lot of our long terms, stay hotel with my mom very, very slowly. I mean, I'm very fortunate to have a mother who mothered me for two and a half weeks back in Atlanta, two and a half months, I should say. And I couldn't I couldn't push or pull anything. I couldn't lift my arms. I couldn't lift my arms out that way. I was just like this. I couldn't pour my own cereal. I couldn't. I definitely couldn't pick my kid up. It was I did lose it when we came back here one day because my husband was outside with our daughter and my mom had taken a walk. And I was alone. And I just felt like a total invalid. I couldn't do anything. And I just I got so angry. I just started slamming everything down. I took a dish outside and I broke it in the driveway. And I was crying and I was screaming in side, no one was in the house. My husband didn't notice that I was breaking a dish in the driveway, even though he was outside. It was, it's really hard. And people go through depressions after open heart surgery, which before I didn't really understand, because I thought, why would you be depressed? You're alive, but I've had bouts of that.
Andrew Vontz 35:26
And you didn't mention this, Ashley, you had a choice whether to get this procedure or to just continue? Correct?
Ashley Fantz 35:36
Yes. What's so tricky about these anomalous coronary arteries is, if they're found in children, the general rule is, it's good to get it surgically fixed. If you've made it to adulthood, there is a kind of mentality in the medical world that just leave it alone. You've made it this far. But because of the contours of my particular anomalous artery, it was made pretty clear to me by Stanford that, sure you could live but you could also dropped out, you know, you have an option, you can roll the dice and see if you live. That's true. And we're not going to force you to have this surgery, we don't think you're going to die right this second. And it's just an impossible place to be in. I mean, when I was diagnosed, I was suddenly afraid to be alone with my three year old. Because what if something happened to me? You know, so I would only take her in public places, knowing that someone would help her if I dropped. When my husband had to go out of town, once I had friends come over, I mean, that's just, it's just not the way to live. It makes you feel very incompetent as a parent. Even though your rational brain is like, That's ridiculous, you didn't cause this, this is not your fault, you're trying your best. You know, even just this weekend, even though I'm three months out from surgery, I can't really wrestle my three year old very well, it's hurts. So she was throwing a fit in a toy store. And I normally would just like, bear hug her and take her out of there, but I couldn't do it. And it was getting so out of control that all I did was just slumped down in the store and started crying and called my husband. And I was upset for hours. So it can be, it can take away your sense of agency and your sense of the control you might think you have over your life.
Andrew Vontz 37:58
How has it shifted? If it has your relationship to your body generally, or how you think about being an embodied consciousness?
Ashley Fantz 38:09
Yeah, I think I had, you know, before, I really didn't think too much about my health other than, you know, going to an annual physical and being told I was fine. I also made my body do hard things with long runs. By the way, I mean, you and I both feel like endurance, sports are often very damaging to the heart. But I did a lot of them. I know you did, you know, in our 30s and 20s. Now, I see how quickly things can turn. Even now I'm having a complication related to the surgery where I thought, oh, after open heart surgery, I'm going to be fine. I'm back. I even feel good enough to run. And now you know, I just learned that I have a I think I've had it since the surgery was over but a partially collapsed lung and a messed up diaphragm because somebody did. Either somebody or somehow during the surgery, my phrenic nerve was damaged. That's going to heal and I think I'm going to be fine. But I think about death more often than I would guess most 46 year old sick about
Andrew Vontz 39:30
has that shifted how you think about how you spend your time today. Now what you want to do in the future?
Ashley Fantz 39:36
Absolutely. I mean, in terms of in terms of work, I'm never going to do something that I don't want to do again, ever. And I totally recognize that. I'm financial financially in a situation where I can say I have the privilege to say that but you know, like I'm never going to win work with another mean Editor again. You know, like I did in my last like year at CNN. I'm not going to put up with witnessing people being nasty to each other and not intervening. There's just certain things that I have no tolerance for any more. Yeah, and I, I mean, I always spend a lot of time with my husband and daughter, but seeing friends, you know, I think maybe before I would have been like, oh, I don't want to get on a plane. It seems like a lot. No, I'm getting on every plane I can this year and going to see everybody including you. Are you thinking about what we're gonna like? Do? Yeah, the pause, know what the pause is like fishing or whatever you do in Maine?
Andrew Vontz 40:48
Yeah, the pause. I'm thinking about how it's going to be negative 16 degrees this weekend, which, you know, that could be a different kind of life experience to have that. You probably didn't have that in Missouri. I don't know if you've had that in other places. I'm just thinking about all that Maine has to offer. The halfpipe in the backyard. You could skate?
Ashley Fantz 41:10
Absolutely. Look, I'm looking to get any kind of traumatic chest injury I can this year, so put me on a chest or put me on a halfpipe, or, you know, definitely do some rollerskating. Hang gliding, bungee. It's all on my calendar this year.
Andrew Vontz 41:28
We've got it all here in Maine, actually come on down. So So while all of this is going on, I am curious what your experience has been like have you know if anyone listening to this is following you on Twitter and Instagram, you of course have now had the experience of people probably have this fantasy of like, what if the thing that I do is it's it's on it's a giant billboard in Times Square, or like it goes to number one you've you've had those things happen to you in the past couple of months. And they're things that most people realistically aren't going to experience in a lifetime. I believe every person can have those kinds of experiences. And that's part of what this show is about. But you've now actually had them with this project. Yeah, what does it feel like?
Ashley Fantz 42:18
It's super satisfying. I mean, I have to temper any kind of rah rah for myself with two things. You know, I worked with the best people in podcasting, a capsid media and to, you know, we had the marketing machine of Amazon and wondery. Behind the show, the shows a great show. I'm very, very proud of it. And I'm proud of the work that I did on it. And I hope that Geno's family is happy with it. i They are, I've been in touch. But I also think it is a lot of luck that I happened to have this random conversation with Matt share that led to this podcast that led to wondering and Amazon. Yeah, having a billboard in Times Square for your show, for your first podcast. It's very heavy. It's pretty cool. I wish you know, I could get up to New York and see it people friends have gone by and excitedly taken videos for me. And to have the show, you know, be the number one show, you know, in the States. And I still think it's number one and true crime for at least a couple of weeks is is also mind blowing. I mean, I couldn't be happier. But I also don't want to get overly confident I'm working on the next show now. And, you know, you just have to keep your head down and focus on the journalism and not think, oh, yeah, this is gonna be my second hit. Not at all. You know, it's like, now it's time to get to work on the next one.
Andrew Vontz 43:51
What kinds of stories do you want to tell going forward? I mean, you talked a little bit about some of the environments or situations you don't want to be in, from a work point of view, on the other side of this heart experience or while you're still you know, it's going to be an ongoing thing for the rest of your life. Right. Having had the experience with this show, what types of stories do you want to tell next? And was there anything you learned from this experience that you're looking forward to applying either on the reporting side, the storytelling side, the scope of what you wanted to do?
Ashley Fantz 44:25
So the next, the next thing that I want to work on, and I can't talk too much about the next show, but it will explore the death industry. So funeral homes. What I'm fascinated by is, you know, 100 years ago or more, We buried our own dead. It was an intimate experience. And we as a culture, we're comfortable with death. We didn't have any other choice. And then, you know, during more than 100 years ago, then way more than 100 years during the Civil War or embalming was invented. And so Lincoln was the first president to be involved so that he could be kind of paraded around the country. And embalming was great because families could see their past soldiers, right. And you know, how how have we become a society that turns away from death, because we have a lot of hinky feelings about it. And I'm fascinated with that. And I hope the next story explores that I must say, I think that's true for a lot of journalists is true for me, I tend to choose stories that do speak to whatever I'm going through in my own life. You know, I do have the opportunity to choose the stories I do, I don't have an editor necessarily assigning them to me. But even if an editor was assigning stories to me, I would find some way because you can't tell a story. Well, if you don't personally connect to the material, I think that's true.
Andrew Vontz 46:06
Now that you have a deeper understanding of the mechanics of podcasting, and what works best in an audio first format, has that shaped how you're thinking about approaching this story.
Ashley Fantz 46:18
I learned so much on that first show. And yeah, certainly, when I go in the field and do reporting for this second show, I'm going to be getting sound that maybe was not, I didn't know that I needed to be getting the second time around, I think I'll be shutting up a lot more. When you listen to yourself, interviewing somebody, it's very cringy. It is for me anyway, because I could really be quiet more often. Lean into the silences of interviews that you're doing. That's kind of what I hope to do.
Andrew Vontz 47:06
Can you say more about silence and the role that it plays in interviews? Because I've I've deployed a quite a protracted silence. At one point during this interview, I thought it was incredibly effective. But what do you what do you find to be effective about silence? And when and where should it be deployed when you're interviewing people?
Ashley Fantz 47:26
Silence is so important, because I think we're all uncomfortable with silence. If you're quiet as an interviewer, the person you're interviewing is going to fill that space. Now, I've interviewed people who are knowledgeable about the pregnant pause, and they're not going to play that, they'll just sit there and stare at you. Which I kind of love because I think, Oh, I'm interviewing somebody who's pretty sophisticated, and is not just going to run their mouth. But generally, it works pretty nicely. And it does create an intimacy. Because I think if you're uncomfortable with another person, just for a moment, not in a rude way, it can really bond you. So if you're going to use the silence, use it sparingly because it can make somebody truly uncomfortable. And then you won't get what you want. Use it when you need somebody to open up who you think is probably not going to open up.
Andrew Vontz 48:45
Here's some silence. Right now.
Ashley Fantz 48:49
I'm a professional, I'm not falling for it.
Andrew Vontz 48:55
Yeah, I mean, you describe kind of the the train that you're navigating with the next show. Just from a story discovery point of view, which you talked about as well, that you're doing a lot of reading, and you see certain stories or elements of stories that have this potential to be much bigger stories. Does that continue to be the case or as you were exploring, and had your feelers out and a discovery mode for what the next project might be? Was that newer different from what you've been doing? From like a print or fee tree approach with the written word? Or is it kind of the same process?
Ashley Fantz 49:32
It's definitely the same process. I mean, I have a stable of sources. It's a very long list of people but I tend to kind of if, if I'm running dry, and I don't have a story idea, I just start to call them and that's sometimes a month long process because you're having hour hour and a half long conversations. And just doing that after suspect ended was great because, you know, I have four there are four show ideas that I think are really quality that I got from, you know, calling, I don't know, I probably only call 15 people this time around, but really, really good stories that, you know, once I'm done with this next show, then, you know, maybe I'll tap into those story ideas or pass them along to a colleague or something. But they're, they're all really great. So it's not, there's not a big difference. Really?
Andrew Vontz 50:27
Have you thought past the next show to the bigger arc of where do you want to go with your storytelling? Or what you want to do? Are you pretty focused on this next show right now,
Ashley Fantz 50:37
I'd love to work on a television show. I'd love to work on a television show, even you know, on a very, very low level, just to see how how that works. I'm in an MFA program and narrative nonfiction. And my mentor, one of my mentors, has written several hit television shows. And I feel like I just learned so much from him already. And I'm so interested in that medium. You know, I would I would love to do that's kind of a pie in the sky idea, but why not?
Andrew Vontz 51:11
And when you say television shows what type of television shows?
Ashley Fantz 51:15
Well, I'm talking about the smarter television that's on, you know, working on, you know, kind of a true detective type of show would be incredible or something on FX or HBO, something that's high quality, definitely not the Lifetime Channel, women who snap whatever. Not interested in that.
Andrew Vontz 51:37
Okay, so you want to do narrative fiction? Television now you'd like you don't want to do a nonfiction or Docu series type of thing.
Ashley Fantz 51:45
I would love to do an adaptation. Well, of course, I would love to do an adaptation of this show that we're getting ready to start work on. So a show that is actually grounded in nonfiction, but that, you know, we can sort of, yeah, that we can add elements to that. That brings it out of the pure Docu series format.
Andrew Vontz 52:10
And make believe doesn't hold appeal for you.
Ashley Fantz 52:14
I've never, I am terrible. I mean, I know you're a talented fiction writer and a writer, great writer in general, I, I've just never been good at writing fiction. Not my thing.
Andrew Vontz 52:29
So if you were able to create any TV series, and you might not want to talk about this, but do you like do you have like a fantasy of if I could do any TV series? This is the thing I would do?
Ashley Fantz 52:41
Well, you know, I did mention True Detective. I'm a big fan of that. And I'm super excited that Jodie Foster is playing the detective and season four. I do, I am still very much attracted to the criminal world and telling stories in that in that medium. I'm also a big fan of you know, six feet under any any of these television shows that show us a world that we didn't know anything about before. And kind of break down all of the ideas we might have had about them. I love those.
Andrew Vontz 53:19
And what's next for your heart?
Ashley Fantz 53:22
Well, I mean, I have this partially collapsed lung and lopsided diaphragm. So I don't know, I'm going to see more specialists. And nobody. I will say this now I'm never having another operation. No, thank you. Because, you know, I now know that no bad things can really happen after operations. And I'm, I'm not not going there. Unless it's like so dire. But I feel like after open heart surgery, I mean, bring it.
Andrew Vontz 53:55
Yeah, it would be a bit tougher to be more intense than that. Well. Yeah. I mean, here's to hoping that it's all up into the right from here for the heart for the career for the TV series to come. Right.
Ashley Fantz 54:08
I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. And I just hope that I can, you know, still be a good parent and a good partner. You know, I spent so much my life focused on my career and got married very late when I was 40. And, you know, I would happily
put my career aside to focus on you know, my kid, I really would, I think that would make me a pretty uninteresting person. And I think, you know,
I don't think a kid wants you to devote your life only to them. Seems like bad parenting, don't you agree?
Andrew Vontz 54:46
Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah.
Ashley Fantz 54:49
So So and add one our I want our kids to get together because I mean, my God, they're the same age. It's ridiculous,
Andrew Vontz 54:56
right? And the same name One of them. Yeah, yeah, about that.
Ashley Fantz 55:03
I know I've been very careful with her privacy and not saying her name. I'm just, it's out of out of respect for her and my husband and also but also her birth mom. So it's an interesting thing to try to navigate if you have a public facing job.
Andrew Vontz 55:29
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And on the public facing side, this is the best transition ever. So Ashley, if people want to find out more about you about their show about what's next, where should they go?
Ashley Fantz 55:42
So I would say to go to Ashley fonts.com. And my last name is spelled F as in Frank, a n t is in top Z as in Zebra, Ashley fonts.com. That's
my website or you're just hit me up on Twitter. I think Twitter is just it's just a soupy landscape of just nastiness. But go ahead. A Fontes is my is my handle
Andrew Vontz 56:07
all the actions on mastodon? All right. Well, Ashley, thanks for coming back on choose the hard way. And thanks for everything that you share today. I appreciate it.
Ashley Fantz 56:18
Always. Thank you for having me on again.