(gentle music) - [Narrator] Sometimes life gives you an opportunity to reflect on what you would do with a clean slate.

Our guest on this episode is Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

♪ But I've thrown away my compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ Looking for direction, a northern star ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ I'll just step out ♪ ♪ Throw my doubt into the sea ♪ ♪ For what's meant to be will be ♪ - [Narrator] The honorable Patricia de Stacy Harrison is an American public relations executive and government official currently serving as the longest tenured president and chief executive officer of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which serves as a steward of federal funding for more than 1500 public radio and television stations and producers throughout the United States.

She has received numerous awards and recognition for her work and engaged well-known public figures in support of public media.

Most recently, she received the Cavalier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the David Lynch Foundation Lifetime and Service Award, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor Award.

Harrison, in addition to being CPBs longest serving chief executive, served in the US State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and is acting under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Born and raised in Brooklyn.

She is chairman of the Board of the National Italian American Foundation.

She has also received great recognition, including from the White House for her work and education, journalism and diversity.

As a published author of two books and sought after speaker regarding leadership and opportunity for women, Ms. Harrison has a strong record of support for the advancement of women in business.

In 2022, Harrison was named the Arts and Culture Council of America 250 to affirm the critical role of arts and culture, including public media in shaping the American experience.

In addition to an accomplished public career, Patricia Harrison continues to be an amazing family leader and a passionate Italian New Yorker.

- Wow.

Pat, this is such a treat for me to have you in Nashville.

Thank you.

- It's more of a treat for me to be here, really, Becky, wonderful to see you again.

It's so great to see you.

And of course, you know, we're so grateful the leadership you've had at the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and continue to have you are the best without a doubt.

And I recently heard you share about your civic spark and what that meant to you to really have this life in public service.

What is your civic spark?

- Well, before I answer that, Becky, I think, you know, we wanna talk about, it's something I think every American has.

We don't pay enough attention to it because people do this as a normal thing.

They help their neighbors or their teaching, or they join the military.

And if you say, "What is your civic spark?"

Someone might say, "I'm working 24 hours a day, I don't have time for a civic spark."

Then you find out they're coaching little league or they're doing a lot of different things that they don't feel elevates it to a level to talk about.

But it is really the essence, the DNA of the American spirit.

It's how we were founded.

That feeling that one must view someone else as their neighbor, help their neighbor, be involved, give back.

And we're seeing the civic spark is coming alive, I think.

And we'd like to know more about, as your viewers are watching, to really know what is their civic spark, what motivates them to do something good for the community.

So, my civic spark, and I really didn't think about it at all.

You just go to work, you do what you do.

But when I was honest about it, I had time to think about it.

It started when I was really young and I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

I'm Italian/American.

And our family moved from what I would say is a predominantly Italian American neighborhood to a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

I don't know.

I was nine, I was 10.

And my new friends had something in common, not something really great in common.

None of them had any relatives.

And so this is different from learning about a cataclysmic event from a book.

So here I am making these friends they did and grandparents and, you know, from my Italian family, that was so essential to my life to have that extended family.

And so I started asking questions and I would go home and ask my parents, "Well, you know, Linda doesn't have any...

This guy, he murdered them.

The Hitler murdered all the..." And my parents and my Uncle Joe, I remember, "What's the matter with her?

Why is she focusing on this?"

And they were concerned that I was obsessed with finding out the who, the why, the how.

And they wanted me to basically stop.

And what they told me was, "Don't worry about it, it happened, it's not gonna happen again."

I thought, "Well, how do we know that?"

And what I didn't realize what was really bothering me, I didn't learn until years later, Nibero said it.

You know, and I'm going to just put in other words here, but basically the sentences that connect to all of this, you know, when they came for the Catholics, I didn't care because I wasn't Catholic.

Whatever you wanna put in there.

When they came for the Methodists or when they came for the immigrants, I wasn't an immigrant.

So I didn't care.

And then when they came for me, there was no one to help me because they were all gone, because I didn't care.

And that's what I was feeling without putting it into words.

And I think that was the original motivator for me because I began to think that each one of us has a responsibility.

And you start thinking that you can do things before they happen.

You just have to be observant.

One thing led to another, here I am.

(both laughing) - Well thankful.

I'm so thankful for that.

And clearly your upbringing really was crucial in your... - It was.

- Search for public service.

- It was, and I lived in such a vibrant community.

A lot of people, as I said, whose experiences were tragic, they were focused on education.

And it was a time when if you came home with let's say a B plus, your parents wouldn't pat you on the head and, you know, give you a gift.

They'd say, "Who got the A?"

I was like, "I can't do anything.

I can't please anybody here."

But it was this insistence on education.

And my grandfather was an immigrant from Italy and he owned a barbershop and he used to cut hair for free for the young boys who were dropping out of school because they had to go to work.

And he would say, "Go back to school, you have to stay in school."

And I never knew he did that until I had a conversation with my mother years after.

So your neighborhood forms you, your experience forms you, but you always have a chance to do something no matter what forms you or doesn't.

- Well, I kinda think being Italian's kinda like being southern.

Don't you think?

- So, I think you're at home here.

- Oh, so much at home here.

I love it here, I love Tennessee.

- We love you.

- I'll follow you anywhere, Becky.

- Thank you, thank you.

And same here, same here.

Speaking of that.

- Yes.

- You have mentored women as long as I have known you.

And what is it about really being a champion for women that has been part of your career?

- Well, before I had daughters, certainly now that I have daughters, it's more of an impetus, but I just didn't know anything when I was starting out in my so-called career there really wasn't anyone to guide me in any way.

And I remember when I first went on a board, a very prestigious board, and there was only one other woman on the board.

And we turned out later to be very, very good friends.

But her initial reaction was, "Oh my God, I don't know this woman.

If she's gonna mess up, it's going to reflect on me."

So, you know, at that period of time when you were the only woman, there was a lot on your shoulders.

- Right?

- And then of course, as women have gone through business and, you know, balancing family and career and all of the things that one has to do, especially more complicated today, the thing I saw as the connector was this universal feeling.

I'm not worthy of this or someone else has more credentials than I do.

And I would watch the guys who would be offered a job, sure, I'll take that.

And the woman would say, and this is a while ago, you know, "Well, I really need to get my master's or my PhD."

Rather than, "I'll take it and I'll learn on the job."

So with young women, and especially after Covid, I just see, I would say a lack of confidence.

They've been online for the last couple of years and living online is not a life.

Even though you can use, of course technology as a tool.

And what I would say to a young woman today, and it goes back to something that may sound like I'm a Luddite, "Get a pencil, get a pen, get a notebook."

I'm not talking about journaling.

Write down, "Who am I?

What do I like?

What would I do?

What would I not do no matter how much money I got?"

- Right.

What would I do for no money?

And start figuring out who you are and develop this kind of moral compass, a GPS for your life.

You know, you're going to need that inner strength as you go through this curvy little thing we call career, marriage, kids or just career climbing up this ladder, that ladder.

I remember when I was writing my book A seat at the table, Lily Tomlin said, "I don't want any part of the rat race because even if you win, you're still a brat."

Not sure what that means, but you have to figure out how to have a part of yourself that nobody else gets, no matter where you go or who you become or how much you achieve.

And I think that's our day-to-day job.

Because at some point all of the awards go away.

The achievements are faded, somebody else is achieving.

And if you don't know who you are, you're really in a bad way.

You're left with l-zippo, I think.

So, it's important to take care of yourself mentally, physically, but most of all to really believe in yourself, whatever that takes.

- You have been so successful at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

You have made such a difference for public media stations, both radio and TV and producers.

What do you think is the key to your success?

- Well, as I said before, I love public media.

You can't be successful if you don't love what you do because you won't have the stamina or the energy to even get up in the morning.

It's like, "Oh, I gotta go in and do that."

That's another good question.

If you're saying that to yourself, "Don't go in, quit 'cause you're in the wrong path."

Public media is such a mission-focused organization system.

It involves every American, from every walk of life, every state, community, and what are they gathering together to do to really help the American people understand what it means to be a citizen in a democracy.

And it's what Franklin said when he came out of the convention and they said, "What have you been doing in there?"

And he said, you know, "Creating a republic."

If you can keep it, if you can keep it, we can do this.

But can you keep it future generations?

So it gets passed to each subsequent successive generation to keep it.

How are we doing so far?

- It's a little scary right now.

- Could be, except, you know, the highest office in the land is for us in America is citizen.

But you have to know what your responsibilities are in addition to the privileges you have.

And voting is diminimis.

You must vote, you must participate.

If you look at examples where people just put themselves in such danger to vote, they will do anything to have that vote.

We have it.

We have to support free and fair elections.

If we're listening to David Chak Talking about letting others create the narrative for our lives.

We're bombarded with such negative every single day images that were at each other's throats that were divisive, that we're losing our democracy.

And in the meantime, there are millions of people every single day doing something for somebody else.

- Right.

- We need to celebrate those stories too.

And what I have found is, you know, past couple of years, people were giving all of these examples about gathering around the table at Thanksgiving or wherever you have a family meeting and half the table is supporting one political party, the other half.

Instead, if you ask them what's your civic spark?

That changes the whole conversation.

And you find out that no matter what party they're affiliated with, they're good people doing good things.

And we have to focus on that, not because it's some nice hallmark thing to do.

It's essential to the survival of our civil society.

Really the most serious thing we could do is to be an active citizen.

And that's what public media does and helps us to do that.

- You concentrated and I love this at CPB on digital, dialogue and diversity.

- Yes.

- And how did you narrow in on those?

- I really had a wonderful chairman of the board, Ernie Wilson.

And we were looking ahead at our country and also looking at the fact who owns public media.

The American people.

So they pay about, I don't know, approximately a $1.60 less than a latte, farmer nutritious for public media.

They own it.

Well, they wanna see themselves, they want their stories represented that they don't wanna be missing.

They wanna be seen and heard.

And in a good way, it enhances all of us when we are connecting to all these stories.

So, that's diversity.

Diversity isn't something scary.

It means bringing together the best of us that forms who we're gonna be 'cause our country is evolving toward a more perfect union.

It doesn't say we are a perfect union.

No other country has that as their guiding strategic framework.

We're constantly evolving toward, we know what's right.

We don't always do it.

But that's the goal.

And it takes citizens to get us there.

So my feeling was, okay, in order for public media to be relevant, the lives of the people we serve, our bosses, basically.

We have to look at an increasingly diverse America.

And what does that mean?

Diverse in gender, geography, point of view, race, heritage, all of it.

All the ways people are diverse.

And then in terms of digital, digital is sort of just a standing for where we have to be.

Because when I was a kid, I was on that couch at a certain period of time watching my favorite television shows.

Or even my radio, listening to the radio.

I knew exactly when they were coming on.

We had something called TV guide.

And my father would circle the things that he wanted to watch, which meant no one else got to watch anything at that time.

So, the people who were sitting on the couch, all of a sudden they got up and they're running out and they're getting content here and here and here and here.

So you don't wanna fight, you know, is it a choice between the horse or the car?

No, we wanna be where our bosses are, the American people.

So digital, get out there, be where they are.

The content is the important thing.

The platforms are gonna continue to change rapidly.

But dialogue is no, we wanna listen to you.

You're our partner in this.

You own public media, we work for you.

So how do you have more dialogue to listen to ideas, to understand what is it this particular community needs and how do we make that happen?

You can't do that from a mindset of outreach.

You just can't, it doesn't work.

So then I thought, and I worked with Ernie on this, well, I can't, if I'm going to say, really dialogue is engagement, but that's an E and I've got digital and diversity, so I need a D because no one's gonna remember it.

I'm gonna be given this speech like 4 million times.

- Right?

- And I need a shorthand.

So when everybody hears it, they go the three D's So that's what dialogue is really engagement with your community.

- Well Pat, you know, the premise of this show is what would you do with a clean slate?

And that could be personally or professionally or maybe even for the community.

What would you do?

- I don't want a clean slate.

I spent too long on this slate.

I love this slate.

Also, I do think if we really think about it, and I've thought about it a lot, you get a clean slate every single morning when you wake up.

We're living in a country that's defined by whether you own a business or not, entrepreneurism.

And what does that mean?

Today I think I'll open a cookie factory, or today I'm gonna do this.

And people encourage that.

Our culture encourages it.

Now you have to do a lot of hard work and you have to do research, but it means every day you can question yourself, "Am I doing what I wanna be doing with my life?"

That's your given clean slate.

That that's the gift you get every single morning.

If you're getting up, if you know, and if you think of it that way, then you can also make that decision.

Yeah, I am doing what I, you know, for now, for today, this is what I wanna do.

Now I'm really happy with the slate I happen to be managing right now.

My life, my personal life and the work I'm doing.

- I know you're a family leader.

I know you have a wonderful family.

What have you instilled in your family that you feel... - Oh, they're very annoying.

They don't listen to my advice anymore.

They are a lot of fun.

They are up for adventure and we have enormously wonderful times together and I'm so fortunate.

I have a son and two daughters and grandchildren.

And I have to say each one of them has a civic spark.

So that makes me very, very happy.

But, I'm just so fortunate, really, they're great.

- You mentioned David Chak, who is our Vanderbilt fellow that's been at NPT this season.

It reminds me, his story reminds me of the important work you've done when you were with the State Department.

- [Patricia] Yeah.

- You were the Assistant Secretary of State and you made lots of opportunities for young people both in education and career.

Is there something that just sparks about that, that you remember from that period?

- Oh, I loved that job.

I just loved it, loved it, loved it.

I got to work very closely with General Powell and occasionally, you know, I'd mess up and he'd be on the phone talking to then, you know, she was in the White House, Condoleezza Rice saying, "I got Harrison here doing pushups about this latest thing."

And I was like, "Mister.

Secretary, I'm so thrilled you think I could do pushups."

He said, "You're in trouble."

But he was very interested, of course, in youth all over the world and helping young people.

So one of the things that I think I'm most proud of is that an initiative we created together called Culture Connect.

We had wonderful people like Doris Roberts at the time.

Everyone Loves Raymond was very popular.

Frank McCort, who wrote "Angela's Ashes."

We had Yo-Yo-Ma.

And what I asked them to do is just focus on youth in different countries.

And I remember Frank McCort was talking to a group of and Israilian/Palestinian kids, and he comes in with this great Irish accent.

He goes, "So you think you've got a lousy childhood?"

And they were just blown away.

But he immediately established that he came from this horrible, horrible situation.

And don't focus on that.

If you can, this is what you're interested.

Write about it.

Here's how you can, you use art to really as a survival piece, but also to elevate what you wanna do.

And all of these people gave their time.

They're amazing.

Yo-Yo Ma, I can't say enough about him.

So that, that was a education for me, just to see the depth of these human beings and how they could connect with such warmth and sincerity.

Very authentic.

- Well, I've seen you bring that same kind of attention and caliber of talent to CPB and to our public media family.

You've been a champion in education and journalism.

It feels like probably now more than ever, we need to continue that focus.

- We do.

I mean, one of the pillars of our democracy, a free press, a free independent press, able to speak truth to power.

And so anything we can do to increase the number of journalists and of course PBS and our reporting and our journalists are trusted.

And if you look at what recently happened, it was so wonderful that, you know, Frontline received an Oscar for the documentary "20 Days in Mariupol."

And why was this so important?

Because Rainy Aronson has made it a point from the very beginning, after David Fanning left Frontline and she took over to open up the books, let you see where all the information is coming.

Total transparency.

You say this here, "Well where did you get that from?"

Facts.

facts, facts.

And so we had this wonderful, courageous video journalist who is Ukrainian working for Associated Press, who was in Mariupol when the Russians invaded and saying they weren't invading.

He was in the hospital when they're bombing the hospital saying they didn't bomb the hospital.

And he's trying to smuggle out these tapes.

And I would advise everyone to watch it "20 days in Mariupol."

And he felt extremely guilty that he got out of the city before it was too late.

And he said, I wanted this story to make a difference and I hope it's not too late for this story to make a difference because this is factual.

And when people look at what he went through, you know, you are watching the truth.

So that kind of reporting is essential to a free society.

And I'm very proud of our, let's say, the support that CPB has made in local and regional journalism collaboratives and supporting this fact-based approach to telling, I think it's so odd now you have to say fact-based.

- Yeah, right?

- You used to be able to just say journalism or reporting.

- Well, I am grateful for that.

I'm grateful for everything you've committed to and I am so sad we're out of time.

- No.

- But, I know, right?

- And I did all the talking.

- No, well, as you should, is there something that I didn't ask you that you wish I had?

- Yes Becky, you didn't ask me to ask you, what is your civic spark?

- Oh, well I think, you know, my civic spark was an opportunity to be in public media.

I grew up in Cookville, Tennessee.

I was pursuing a degree in education.

In fact, I had a BS in education and then I was working on my master's getting ready to, and I had two female mentors, the dean of of the graduate school, Rebecca Quattlebaum and my own advisor, Dr. Mary Ayers.

And they said, "Hey, did you know that they're gonna open up a PBS station here in Cookville?

- [Patricia] Wow.

- Which is amazing when you think about it.

- [Patricia] Yes, truly.

- And I had the opportunity to do all my coursework.

They set it out for me to become the station's first student intern and get my master's degree in education and create a documentary on early childhood education.

And that moment was so inspiring and I was just smitten to pursue this life in public media.

- Well what you've done is remarkable.

And I remember visiting Cookville and the Station and those two sisters.

- Yes.

- Frankie and Patricia who relied on all that early childhood content for themselves and their grandchildren and what it meant to them.

And you made that happen.

- Well, it was... You made that happen.

- That was so exciting friend to meet them.

- Yes.

- Yeah and they test... - And they watched on an antenna like so many of our viewers do right now.

They watch on antenna and we are children's first preschool.

We're also that rocked piece of democracy that should always exist.

- Yeah, well it will, it will.

We will prevail.

- I believe it, I believe it.

Thank you my friend.

- Oh, thank you.

This is great.

- It is great.

Alright.

- May not go back to DC.

- Just stay with.

- We'll see.

♪ But I've thrown away my compass ♪ ♪ Done with the chart ♪ ♪ I'm tired of spinning around ♪ ♪ In one direction ♪ - Pat, I know you're a big fan of country music.

- Mm-hmm.

Do you have a favorite country music performer?

- I do.

It was Toby and it still is Toby Keith.

But my favorite favorite is Brandy Carlisle.

- Oh boy, you can't get any better than that.

- The best.

- Yeah, absolutely.

(upbeat music)