Hello and welcome to Metaviews, recorded live in front of an automated audience.

I'm your host, Jessie Hirsch, and I'm incredibly privileged today to have what I think is a fantastic guest, Ronnie Robbins, who's going to be talking about her novel Hands of Gold.

But of course, as with all episodes of Meta Views, we really like to have a dynamic way of engaging our guests and allowing our listeners to be.

We have a bunch of different segments that we like to go through and in particular, we always like to start with the news because I think the news these days are important.

And of course, at Metaviews we've got a newsletter and one of our big stories of the last little While has been TikTok, who we're still waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether TikTok is banned or not.

And that's been something here at Metaviews we've been watching very closely.

Now I often like to turn Ronnie to our guests and ask them if they have any thoughts.

Now we are going to talk about your journalism career, but before we get there, I'm kind of curious.

Do you have any thoughts on what's happening right now with TikTok?

Do you have any sense of which way this might go?

This is news to me about TikTok.

I'm not a big user of TikTok.

It's a younger media.

I think I'm sort of an old fashioned journalist.

But I did have my son do some TikToks about my book.

So I am on TikTok.

So I have to say that I'm ignorant about what's going on on TikTok.

I thought it was doing well.

I thought people liked it.

I thought the bigger issues were on X and, you know, the blue sky, switching to blue sky and people were all up in arms about Twitter, slash X.

And I'm thinking people are getting frustrated with social media, period.

I'm finding that people are turning to other media.

So.

And I would say, can I say LinkedIn and you know, I use Facebook and maybe that's.

My generation uses Facebook and LinkedIn is getting a lot of attention, but I don't know about.

For the young people, they still like TikTok or are they moving to blue sky?

I don't know.

There seems to be a lot of frustration about social media in general and whether you should even disconnect from everything.

My son is 27 and he's like, I gotta get off of this.

You know, I'm.

I don't know.

You know, he's done A little bit.

But Instagram I should mention too, people like Instagram, that's my world.

But I'm, I must be ignorant about TikTok.

Well, let me ask you a follow up question.

You know, assuming that you are a news consumer, where do you go for your news?

What's your kind of regular source to try to stay informed of what's happening?

Well, I don't want to give away too much politics here, so I'm all over the board, right?

So I'm cnn, I'm, I'm Washington Post, you know, mainstream media, I go to mainstream media.

I am a product of mainstream media and I trust mainstream media because they came from the same education that I came from in journalism back when, you know.

So all other media I don't trust.

Everyone's got an opinion, everyone puts it out there.

You got to check what if they're legitimate?

I mean, you can get it from all angles.

But for me, I still turn to mainstream media with the thought that those are trained journalists who are unbiased.

No, everyone will argue about this, but.

Let me ask you a follow up.

And here at Metaviews, we're very open and respectful about politics.

So I understand your point about not wanting to divulge your own leanings, but are there any particular journalists, are there any particular mainstream media people who you think are, let's say, more trustworthy than others, the ones who you tend to turn to?

And I ask this because one of our missions really at Metaviews is describe exactly what you described.

Finding those people we can trust, finding those people who kind of provide the signal amidst the noise.

And I think this is where you and I share a bit of a professional bias in terms of how the news industry, how journalism as a profession kind of creates not objective but credible commentary and reporting.

So I'm just curious, do you have any folks who come to mind that you like, that you trust, that you'd recommend to our audience?

Just gonna again reiterate.

Mainstream media, I don't want to call out anyone because, you know, I'm, I don't want to offend anyone.

I don't, I would just trust, I would, I would make your own judgments about who you trust.

You know, and it also depends, are you going to get confirmation of your own political feelings or not?

Are you wanting unbiased reporting?

From my vantage point, daily newspapers and the classic newspapers, there aren't very many of them, but those that have weathered the storm of all the competition that's come our way since everything went online and since the pandemic and in recent years, politically, you know, do you want unbiased reporting or do you want to just get confirmation of your own political leanings?

Well, and let's use that to kind of segue into our journalism theme, because I'd love to kind of ask you to reflect on both, if you don't mind disclosing kind of where you got started, right.

How you got into the industry.

But the question in particular that I'd love to get your reflection, your wisdom on is the contrast with now, how much has changed since when I assume you were young or relatively young and kind of getting into the business, because this is where I think a lot of young people don't have that perspective.

They don't have the especially because history, unfortunately, is no longer a subject that gets the attention it deserves.

But I want to hear your perspective on that contrast on kind of what you in your lifetime, the changes you've seen that has really, I think, both threatened the journalism as a profession, but are also putting pressures on it to either evolve or get back to its roots when it comes to the way in which it was practiced.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts of reflections on.

So I started out, I went to journalism school in the south and I grew up in the North.

So I should tell you that I grew up in New York.

So I actually started on my high school newspaper, my high school yearbook in New York, on Long Island.

And so I went through journalism school.

Now, journalism school would have been at that time, and I was at a major university.

So at that time, we would have been trained to work on daily newspaper print journalism.

And so much has changed now.

Everything was online and everything was different, and there was so much more you had to learn about journalism, about how journalism was evolving.

So I had to evolve with journalism as it turned more to online reporting.

And so those journalists that are trained today are trained digitally.

They are trained digitally.

They're not trained to write for a print newspaper that you got and received at your home.

And so much attention has gone online and since the pandemic, even more so, you know.

And so I've been able to weather the storms that have come to journalism in general, and everyone being online claiming to be a journalist or claiming to be a writer and vying for your attention, you know, as podcasters do, as, as authors do, as everyone does.

I'm presently working for a newspaper, a daily newspaper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I am a Freelancer.

And I am also freelancing for a major global, all online publication, which is Medscape, which is sister of WebMD.

And the WebMD office is who used to pay me and now they pay me.

But I'm a freelancer.

I was an editor there.

So I am the real deal in terms of having gone through the changes from print to online.

So what has changed?

Everyone is out there being a journalist.

Everyone is out there vying for your attention, claiming to have the news, giving you the news with their own leanings, perhaps, you know, their own perspective.

Unbiased journalism, you know, I hope it's still how journalists are being trained.

So I would definitely look into the background of whoever you're getting your journalism from, whoever you're getting the news from, because we were trained to be unbiased and keep your biases out of the news.

And I strongly hold on to those ethics.

I cannot tell you who else does whatever, so that's what you'll get from me and those that were trained to like me back in whenever that was the 80s, the 90s and previous to everything going online again, there's journalism school students coming out.

Hopefully they're being trained the same way to avoid what's now known as fake news.

Everyone will label it fake news no matter what I think.

Well, and there's two kind of key takeaways from that.

One, that we shifted from gainful employment to precarity, right?

Where people would have jobs to.

Most people have to be freelancers now, right?

So they have to hustle to try to get that work.

And then to your second point, that I think your ethics is sadly becoming the minority, right.

That it is almost not yet a scarce ethics, but a diminishing, retreating ethics, which another episode, another time, we would talk about how to change that, right?

How to bring that ethics back.

But I want to talk about your book and in particular I want to talk about your book because your point about the loss of objectivity.

I kind of feel good about subjective stories like this and the way in which it allows, in your case, a family story to become more than that for other people who are not necessarily in your family.

And for me, the word grandfather is zeta.

I called my grandfather zeta.

And I tend to refer even to my gentile or non Jewish friends.

I tend to refer to their grandfathers as their zeta because I like to normalize my culture.

You're zeta.

What was it about his story that inspired you to write this?

And I don't want to get too much into his story.

Because I want people to buy your book.

I want people to really experience it in what I think is the intimacy of reading a book, because you experience it in a much different way than you would a podcast or a TikTok or a video.

But I'm curious, on an inspiration level, what was it about your Zeta that motivated you to do this?

So it started with, literally, the romance of his life, the fact that he died on the same date, a year apart from my grandmother.

The date is coming up January 31st, but I don't know when this podcast will release.

But to have that kind of a romance, that you die a year apart from each other, that anniversary is so powerful.

That was the first literal spark that it seemed very special to me, very loving, very romantic.

So there was that.

They were married 65 years, but they had to endure sickness and health.

He was told he was terminal with tuberculosis at 26, and he lived till 86.

But the way he did that was he was a test case, a clinical trial patient for streptomycin, which is still used today.

And people think that Covid is the largest infectious disease killer in the world.

Cause we're going through it.

Cause we went through it.

But tuberculosis is still the largest infectious disease killer in the world.

And his experience and his work with testing out that experimental treatment at the time paved the way for medicines that are used today.

And streptomycin is still used today, although there's better treatments, too.

So it was a game changer at that time.

So he was making history.

He also was involved in a workplace shooting spree in which he saved people from a gunman.

He actually talked to the gunman, talked the gunman down.

So there was.

And this was recorded in history.

So a lot of my stories within the larger hands of gold is based on real facts.

Plus, they lost all their family in the Holocaust.

And just experiencing life, my grandmother had to be the breadwinner of five children.

What is all that like in a.

In a lifetime to.

To go through that all together?

And, you know, we say sickness and health and, you know, good times and bad, but this.

They experienced all of that.

Maybe we all do.

So it can be every man's.

Every person's story, every person's ethnic journey from Europe or wherever they came from to America.

So I think that a lot of people can relate to it.

It's universal.

Well, and it's incredibly inspirational to your point about the kind of.

For lack of a better word, the ethic of survival that your family had.

And as Jews The Holocaust, obviously, is a part of our kind of culture.

It's a part of how the generations after have really grown up.

Do you think that his obviously traumatic experience, but at the same time his resilient experience as a survivor, do you think that then influenced the empathy, the compassion, the.

The connection with the world?

Your point about him talking down the shooter is, on the one hand, it's kind of Jewish, that our secret weapon is our ability to speak and our ability to reason with people.

But it's a lot of courage.

Do you think there's a correlation from that?

That he survived this incredibly traumatic event and yet it seemed to give him a kind of resilience, a kind of, again, for lack of a better word, capacity to survive.

That is truly inspiring.

I think we all have the capacity to survive.

Maybe not what they had to endure back then.

So we should be very appreciative if we have good health or if we do, you know, haven't experienced that kind of trauma of losing family to.

In major tragedies.

But we think it's back then, but it's now.

What's happening in Israel, what's happening in Russia, Ukraine, what's happening elsewhere around.

Those are just two examples of what's.

Happening in Los Angeles, for example.

Right, right, right.

You know, we'll put this episode out probably today.

And the fires in la, they're saying now it may burn for a month.

And you're right, there are all these really scary conflicts going around all the world in which survival is literally the ultimate thing you're doing every day.

Absolutely.

But we should also remember here in North America, like the Hurricane Helene and it really hit North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, and, you know, even we're taking for granted how survival is becoming, and I don't want to fetishize it, something that we need to be thinking about as a community, that we need to be thinking about as families.

So I'm curious, you know, in terms of the way in which your grandfather's story, the way in which this book, I think, inspires people, and you were just getting into it, so I kind of want you to elaborate to what extent is survival not just an individual act, but something that we do with our family, that we do with our community, that we do with the people we live in, because I almost feel that we've forgotten that in our kind of North American individualist culture, especially if you look at the kind of nuclear family, as the size of our families have kind of gotten smaller and smaller.

And that also makes survival a little Difficult.

So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that, on aspects of your family story that you think give people the kind of lessons, as you were saying, for where we find ourselves right now.

Well, you bring up some interesting topics.

And I actually have to tell you that I have family in Asheville, North Carolina that survived the, the.

The major storms, the flooding.

They were fine.

They were elevated.

They had to boil their water for a long time.

They, you know, they.

So they had a lack of, you know, electricity and water.

Water was probably the biggest issue.

I have a son in Los Angeles.

I mentioned that he did my TikTok.

He is in.

He is an actor.

He is in the entertainment world.

That whole entertainment world has gone through so much in the past.

They.

We had Covid, okay, that was a blip now then they had the.

They had all the strikes.

Right, Right.

So he's been hit several times.

Maybe this is my hands of gold.

This is my experience.

You know, this is bringing it back to reality.

I don't know why my family has to get hit in all directions, but I'm doomed to be a survivor too.

I don't know.

My family is doomed to be.

To have to go through things.

But we've, you know, people lost in Covid.

People lost family members and, you know, so it's one big struggle after another to get through whatever it is.

And we have the capacity to endure.

You know, my mom is 81 and we're going to be 81 and she had to go through these flood situation in Asheville, North Carolina.

And her attitude is, what is your choice?

What is your what, what are you going to do?

You know, what, what is your option?

You have to survive.

So it's constant.

You never know when it's going to hit you.

You got to be prepared.

My grandfather in that generation was prepared.

They went through wars, they had the holocaust.

Our holocaust is going.

Israel has been going through a mini holocaust.

Life repeats itself, history repeats itself.

But you still have to live your life.

You have to be positive.

Because what is your option?

What is the alternative?

And let me take something you said there and kind of flip it around.

Do you have a kind of, for lack of a better phrase, survival strategy?

And I say this in the abstract in that clearly continuing to practice journalism is a form of survival strategy.

Right?

Because you're keeping your brain active, you're keeping your skills active, you're still practicing your ethics in terms of it, it may be in a minority position, but it's, I think, a mitzvah to do that kind of work.

Beyond that, how do you maintain, in spite of all these troubles, in spite of all these challenges, in spite of all these crises, how do you maintain that attitude?

Perhaps it's pointing to your Zeta, but what is your strategy when it comes to surviving what may be a turbulent future?

I don't know about as far as environmental, because we've been talking about environmental.

How do you survive?

How do you weather the storm?

So it took me some more than a decade to get a professional publisher, a traditional publisher for my novel.

On a smaller scale, I lost my journalism job because we didn't talk about that.

But there's been a lot of downsizing because of all the competition.

Downsizing is a big issue for journalism.

So, yes, there are a lot of people online freelancing, and there's competition for that, but I've managed to keep my hand in it.

I kept my hand in it all throughout when I was writing my book.

I never gave up on a dream.

Is that the motivation?

Is that what keeps us going is get through, to be able to do what we want to do yet again.

Our passion for life, what it is we're here for, our goal, whatever it is.

My grandfather's goal was to provide a nice life for his family in America and escape what was going on or his limitations in Europe that he saw for himself.

That wasn't always antisemitism.

It was just.

He was going to be a farmer and he wanted something better.

That golden Medina, if you know that term, the.

The golden land, the paradise that they thought existed in America.

And in some ways it does compared to other countries.

How good we have it here.

So the finish line, the goal, the what's next.

Survive this, and then what, what, what, you know, what is the next challenge to be met?

Does that.

Is that.

Is that summarizing in.

In terms of survival?

Yes, I am a survivor, but I.

Think that's both a brilliant and beautiful way to frame it.

And again, in respect to your Zeta, I happen to be personally living one of my dreams, which is to have a farm, a very modest farm here in Canada.

It's very cold at the moment here in January, but nonetheless, I think that is an absolutely beautiful vision to have.

Have goals, have desires.

I often describe it as imagining a future where you're happy, imagining a future where you're active.

And that's the survival strategy, where you may never get there, the present may never live up to that, but as long as you're pursuing that, it's a phenomenal opportunity.

And my Other dream, of course, has always been to make media, to make radio, to make television, to talk to smart and interesting people such as yourself.

Now, our last segment is always shout outs.

And here's where I'm going to shout out my Bubby and Zeta, my grandparents who left this world quite a long time ago, but they've had a huge impact on me and my desire to tell stories and share stories.

And that's kind of why I was really interested, Ronnie, in your story.

Because as I mentioned earlier, I feel that our attention deficit society means that we're losing touch with our past, we're losing touch with history, we're forgetting the people who came before us.

So I love stories like this.

I love promoting stories like this.

So I encourage my readers, my listeners, my viewers at home to check out Hands of Gold.

But before we sort of give you that last moment to, you know, plug anything beyond your website, do you have anyone you want to shout out to that you want to send good words to?

You kind of indirectly already shouted out your son a couple of times, which is pretty cool.

Anyone else you want to let them know that you're thinking about them?

Well, my mom, she's about to be 81 and she's the one who passed me the cassette tapes that my grandfather left the family about his adventures and near death experience experiences in Europe and America.

And she, I don't think she intended or knew that I would create a novel for it, but I don't think she's totally surprised by it either.

I think she knew I might, you know, I would appreciate the story and, and I was a writer and, and that maybe I would do something with it, of course, my grandfather for leaving the cassette tapes and.

But they got into my hands, my golden hands.

And I think that was smart, actually, that they did because they might have just been cassette tapes that got destroyed someplace.

Instead, they became a beautiful story that I can share with the world.

So his legacy lives on and I think he's worthy of that.

And both my grandparents, but my mom, because she has such a beautiful attitude about life and maybe she got that from her father and she's the matriarch of the family and she deserves that title because she's the one that's continuing, continuing to lead in a Jewish way and as the, as the Jewish matriarch of our family, she's the one who started it all in terms of passing on the Jewish culture and the strong faith that my grandfather had.

So she is the one that's doing that for the entire family, I think, and I think everyone would agree about that.

And hopefully I'm doing that for my family.

Family in some way because so many are losing that.

And it really is a, a beautiful faith system and of strong values and, and being good to people.

Those, those kind of ethical values are important to pass on.

Right on.

Right on.

Thank you very much, Ronnie.

I think this has been really quite a fascinating discussion.

If you want to learn more about Ronnie, check out Ronnie Robbins dot com.

Let me pull your website back up here again.

Is there anywhere else that people could.

Should connect with you?

Any social platforms that you prefer?

I'm, I'm on Facebook.

I've got several Facebooks.

Ronnie Robbins, Ronnie Kane Robbins, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

So hopefully people can find me just by Googling my name.

Right on.

Where the book is located and elsewhere.

Right on.

Very cool.

All right, thank you very much, Ronnie.

This has been another excellent episode of Meta Views.

We love to talk to people who have interesting ideas, interesting books, interesting concepts.

Please get in touch and if your grandparents are alive, give them a call.

Go visit them, go spend some time with them if they're not alive, tell their story.

Let people know about the impact that they had on the world because we need that sort of thing.

We need more respect for our elders and we need to understand the wisdom that they've left for us.

So it's Jesse Hirsch saying goodbye and we'll see you soon.