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Ready to celebrate the magic of live music?
South by Southwest Music Festival returns to Austin, Texas this March 10th through the 15th with a fresh lineup of legendary and rising talent.
Join a global community of music lovers, artists, industry professionals, and creatives at the 2025 South by Southwest Music Festival With hundreds of showcasing artists performing across six days in over 50 venues, Discovery is right around the corner at South by Southwest.
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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning. This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's episode is going to be a longer one, part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they might have for the rest of us.
So today I am delighted to welcome Deirdre Fitzpatrick to the show.
She has spent 25 years as the weekday morning news anchor for KCRA TV, which is the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, California.
She's also the host of the Dying to Ask podcast.
So Deirdre, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me on.
I appreciate it. Yeah, so I'm excited to hear about your daily routines and how you manage your life.
I understand that part of the job description of being a morning news anchor is that you get up very, very early.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, I mean, back in my college days, I would have said it was very late.
You're just staying up the whole night.
Yeah, pretty much. I've just kind of completely flip -flopped.
So yeah, so my responsibility at KCRAS, I'm a morning news anchor.
And our morning news goes from 4 a .m.
until 10 a .m. So there's a six -hour morning news block.
I'm responsible primarily for our 5 a .m.
to 7 a .m. news. So I get up, depending on the day, anywhere from about 2 a .m.
to 3 a .m. That's pretty early.
It is pretty early.
Well, and that's because you also have, you're responsible for the news reporting.
I mean, you're choosing some of like how you're presenting some of it and what stories you're doing.
So you actually have to work before you go on air.
Yeah. So it's interesting, you know, a lot of times you can kind of cruise into your day and kind of amp up.
I have to start like my sharpest time of the day is between 3 and 6 a .m.
is when I really need to be at my best, which is problematic for somebody who gets up at that hour because, you know, as humans, we're not really wired to do that kind of on the regular.
So my job in the morning is we have producers who put together the news all night long.
My job is to come in and be, I always say, like the eighth grade English teacher who comes in with the red pen and goes, yeah, yeah, you can't really say that.
Or that's not correct.
Or we could do this a little bit better.
And then so I copy edit, I try to make things sound a little bit more conversational so that somebody who's in their bed trying to wake up at 6am and just turn the news on can really kind of process it in a certain kind of way.
So we write the news in the morning a little differently than we would say in the evening.
People process information differently at different times of the day.
So my first hour or two, I actually work from home for the first hour.
I get up, I have some coffee, and I get right into our computer.
I catch up on what's happened overnight, read a couple of newspapers online, and then I'm right into scripts.
And I'm messaging our producers and suggesting things or rewriting things.
Sometimes they'll say, hey, could you write this for me?
So my job is very, very hands -on for the first hour.
Okay, so the whole team is working at 2 .30, 3 a .m.
while you are going with this.
And then And what time do you go into the studio?
So I typically get into my car at around 4 a .m.
I live about 12 minutes to the studio.
So you can see everything is down to the minute.
Yes, definitely. Because there's a process.
There's a routine wellness.
There's not too much traffic at 4 a .m.
There is no traffic at that hour.
It's actually not too bad.
So I go in, and then I quickly get myself ready.
It takes me about, you know, 20, 22 minutes to get the makeup on, do the hair.
And then I walk into our studio at about five minutes before five o 'clock.
and then we're on for the next few hours.
Yeah. And so you are on air till 7 a .m.
more or less, right?
More or less. More or less.
What happens after that?
So after that, I work on other things.
So sometimes I might be filling in on other hours of our news if somebody is out or if something else is needed.
But for the most part, I shift into the second part of my day, which is where I work on more project stuff.
So I work on the podcast that you mentioned, Dying to Ask.
I work on special projects.
So I work for Hearst Television.
That's who owns my station.
And for the last 11 Olympics, I've been covering the Olympics for her.
So I help create Olympic content for 30 television stations.
And then I've actually traveled to the Olympics every two years to go follow athletes for these stations and work on stories.
So I have a very self -managed project list.
When you've been in a place for that long, if you're known as the one who's really good of just getting stuff done, people tend to go hands off and say, hey, when do you think you'll have that ready?
So I keep myself busy, which I think if you're going to stay in a job for that long is really crucial because it's really easy.
If you've been at least on the surface in the same job for a really long time, it can get very road.
And to not get like that, especially in a job that for me is as performance -based as it is journalism -based in terms of the preparation, the presentation, you have to stay engaged.
And so having all these other projects, for me, kind of feeds the creative part that I love about being a television journalist.
Yeah. And how do you come up with your ideas?
Oh my gosh. I'm thinking of like three things just while we're talking.
I mean, ideas are everywhere.
It's kind of like, it's like writing, Laura.
I mean, where do great ideas come from?
They come from really quiet moments.
They might come when you're out on a run and you notice something happening at the corner that you didn't notice the other day.
Sometimes people are emailing you and they're suggesting ideas.
Sometimes it could be just within your own local community.
I mean, I have kids, I'm in schools, people are telling me about things all the time.
I went to a presentation at my son's high school last night, and I think I walked away with at least six story ideas from it, you know, about a subject I knew nothing about before I walked in.
I thought, I got to file that away.
So ideas come from everywhere if you are open enough to see them.
Yeah, wonderful, wonderful.
So, and when does a workday sort of end for you?
So the workday technically ends, I'm usually done by about lunchtime.
So about 11, 12, I've put in my eight or nine hours, you know, on the clock.
The reality is that with a job like this, probably similar to a job like yours, you never really done done.
There's always that straight email that probably needs to be looked at.
And because I work these kind of off hours, I like to stay in touch knowing what I'm heading into the next day.
So you try to be careful about how much you're doing that in the afternoons.
But I would say that I probably work a little bit more than I should once I leave.
I was wondering because, yeah, I mean, because if you have started working at 3 a .m.
and you're, you know, a normal workday would be done at noon, but the rest of the world is not done working at noon.
i would imagine you have to actually actively put in some boundaries in order to create some personal time in you know i i've gotten better about that i think like most women once we get to be of a certain age you start realizing that's not a great idea to continue doing that so so i do so i i will set
like i will purposely not take my two different phones i have a personal phone and i have a work phone and i will leave the work phone if i don't think i need to have it i'll leave it at home while i'm out running errands in the afternoon but i might check before I go to bed just to make sure that something
hasn't changed. So I think, you know, it's really easy and we all definitely fell into this during the pandemic of doing things all the time.
The truth is that that's not really good for anyone.
So I try to be really careful.
The weird thing I run into is that, you know, my workday starts at 3am and I will send, I'll respond to emails at that time.
But for people who don't necessarily know exactly what I do in the hours that I keep, it comes across as very aggressive.
So I have recently been told that I should really think about sending those emails later.
So I don't know what the like fine line is because it's really clear on my work email what I do for a living.
But that was a new one that kind of came at me this year.
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and I will be back with more from Deirdre.
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so i am back talking with deirdre fitzpatrick who is the morning anchor of kcra tv the nbc affiliate in sacramento uh we've been talking about how early she has to get up in order to be on air from five to seven most mornings um but with that i imagine you have to go to bed pretty early to be up at 2
30 or 3 in the morning what does that look like for you It doesn't look like what it should.
I mean, if you back time to get the recommended eight hours of sleep, I should be in bed at dinnertime, but that's not terribly practical.
So I try to protect sleep as much as I can, particularly these days, because I used to be able to muscle through and power through anything.
And that just stopped working at a certain point.
So now I'm a little bit more careful about it.
I always say if I wake up and I've got a six in front of it, I feel pretty good.
And then on the weekends, I'm really good about getting an eight in front of that total sleep, maybe even pushing a nine on the odd day.
I probably go to bed, I would say, by about between eight and nine.
I prefer to go to bed around eight o 'clock.
But, you know, I have teenagers, they don't ever want to talk to you until it's late and inconvenient.
And so I've had to shift that a little bit over the years.
Yeah, I was going to ask about that.
Because of course, teenagers have the total opposite schedule, like they might stay up until 2 .30, 3 a .m.
And so you would completely be ships passing in the night in your house.
Or even just if they have events in the evening, you know, that the school concert gets done at 9 .15 or whatever it happens to be.
I'm curious how you sort of work that into your life, knowing that you do have to be up.
Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question because it's not just me, obviously.
I mean, my job comes with a certain kind of lifestyle and it's not a lifestyle that's really for everyone, But for my family members, it's the lifestyle that affects them as well.
So, you know, my husband and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary.
He's never, like, seen me on a Tuesday at 10 p .m., like, to have a conversation.
So it is a bit of an adjustment.
And I've talked to people in other fields who work, say, in emergency medicine, where it's also very common to work these odd shift hours.
And it does take a lot of flexibility from the other family members.
Now, there are advantages for those family members too because if somebody needs to go do a doctor's appointment in the middle of the afternoon, I'm your girl, right?
Somebody needs to go run to Costco or pick up the dry cleaning, I'm available to do those things.
However, doing something at 9 or 10 o 'clock at night is not really conducive to me being able to do my job at full capacity.
So not only does it take a lot of cooperation, I think, from your family members and discipline for everybody, I really rely on my parent network too.
I have a group of moms who know that for sports pickups and drop -offs, I'm great to go take the kids wherever.
But if there's going to be a pickup at eight o 'clock, nine o 'clock or later, I really need some help with that one if my husband's not available to go pick up my son.
So there, it takes a lot of planning, obviously, but also I think a lot of flexibility with the people in your life.
Absolutely. Well, I'm curious.
I mean, one of the bits of sleep advice people always have out there is like trying to maintain something near the same schedule into weekends.
And I imagine that that's also just not something that would really happen.
I have known people who do.
I've known people who do that.
And I don't know how that flies with their spouses.
That would not fly in my house.
But I'm not that far off.
So if on a weekday I might go to bed at eight o 'clock, I mean, honestly, Laura, I want to go to bed by 10 on a Saturday night.
Well, you're probably tired.
I mean, I'm exhausted.
Yeah, yeah, I've been working all week, yes.
Yeah, but I'll probably still like to get up early.
I mean, I still, I like mornings.
Yeah, are you a morning person?
I mean, I imagine with your line of work, you kind of have to be, but are you?
You should be. Not all people are, but yeah, I am.
I love the quiet of a morning.
I love the freshness.
I love that nothing has gone wrong when that alarm clock goes off.
Like nothing has ruined the day yet, right?
It's all just fresh, full of possibility.
I love the quiet. My favorite hour of the day.
I used to really hate when that alarm went off and I got up and I was walking around, I was really resentful of it.
And then I started looking at it as, wow, this is completely my time.
And now on the odd occasion that somebody is awake at my house, I'm kind of annoyed by it.
Like, I don't wanna talk.
Like, what are you doing?
What are you doing in my time?
Why are you here? This is my time.
Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I'm very curious because a lot of people who exercise seriously do that in the morning.
And I know that you are a competitive athlete.
You've done Ironman, ultramarathons, all that.
I don't believe that you are training at 2 30 a .m.
for those things. So when does that fit in?
I'm not necessarily training for for those things at that time, but I do get a little bit of movement in the morning just to wake my brain up.
And I listen to before breakfast because it's kind of I'm not kidding you.
I go into my gym in the garage.
We've got a garage gym.
And I have for years, I've listened to you.
So you're actually oddly one of the first voices I hear in the day.
But, you know, just like a couple of minutes.
And I think especially for working parents who are really busy, even if you're not working odd hours, I think getting a couple of minutes of exercise throughout the day is what gives you that energy to go deal with whatever schedule you have to deal with.
So I do a little bit of that.
But my time is really after work.
I like a reset because sometimes the news is really, it's not all happy, right?
So I love that little sweat it out, get it out session.
So second I'm done with work, I either change at work into the workout clothes.
So it's a lot harder to talk yourself out of it when you get home.
Or I change instantly when I get home and I walk out the door.
so I'm a runner I run the neighborhood so I do those things almost instantly and they're non -negotiable they must happen and about how much time are you devoting to that not as much time as you would think I think a lot of people think it would take hours you know I like I do marathons I do not do the amount
of training you should be doing I am not somebody you want to come I do not what I do though is I do try to maintain a certain level of fitness so that if there is that race or a project or a girlfriend calls and says, we're going to go up to the mountains, we're going to do this, come do it, then I
can pull it off. So am I going to win it?
Absolutely not. Am I going to hang in there till the end?
Absolutely. And I'm probably going to have a pretty good time while I'm doing it.
Because I do, when you have that time to go and exercise or be with your friends or just have that free time, I really have learned to enjoy it and be in the moment.
I used to be terrible about that.
and I am not anymore.
I really, really am there.
If I'm there, I'm there.
Well, what's the longest race you've done?
50 kilometers. Okay, so that's about 30 miles, right?
Well, it's supposed to be about 31.
They're rarely measured exact, so it can vary a little bit.
And what is, I am very curious mentally, like what you're doing during the 31 miles where you're running and trying to keep yourself moving forward.
Do you know what I'm doing?
I'm talking. I'm talking nonstop because I run them with my girlfriends.
Okay. So I have a couple of girlfriends who live in different cities.
We'll meet up, and that's the time that we have together.
So our joke is the longer we take to do this, the more time we get together away from the children.
We have no responsibilities out here.
No responsibilities.
Unless you're like a super serious person, you're in it to win it, you're in it to finish it, which means that when you're coming to a steep hill, you're really hiking it.
And out here, I live in Northern California.
I mean, it's very, very beautiful.
So these are just these like incredible vistas and mountains and you're in nature.
And it's just like a really lovely moment.
So even if it's a really long day, it still ends up being really fun.
Yeah. Well, more power to you.
I think I might enjoy the beauty for about three miles and then be done with it.
You know what? With the right people and the right snacks, I think you could do it.
You could do it. Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break and I'll be back with more from Deirdre.
Ready to celebrate the magic of live music?
South by Southwest Music Festival returns to Austin, Texas, this March 10th through the 15th, with a fresh lineup of legendary and rising talent.
Join a global community of music lovers, artists, industry professionals, and creatives at the 2025 South by Southwest Music Festival.
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well i am back interviewing deirdre fitzpatrick for before breakfast she has told us that she listens to this show in the morning so that is very exciting to hear um so i want to hear a little bit more about your olympics experience because you have been doing this for a great many years you fly off
you cover what's going on with there i wonder if there's a particular memory or two that was formative of those experiences that you'd be willing to share?
Yeah. So I started doing this back in 2000, almost 25 years ago when we started doing it.
We launched this project in my company and we send, every two years what we've done is we've sent a small team, eight to 10 people to the Olympics to do what we call group coverage.
So it's a small amount of people reporting and producing content for lots of different stations.
And there are three reporter photographer teams.
And the illusion for all of these stations as you do live shots for them is that I'm there just for you.
When in fact, I'm actually there for 30 stations.
So you really get a chance to cover and interact with athletes from all the different sports and really from all over the country, which has been super fun.
I would say like, honestly, my favorite thus far would be the Paris Olympics.
And I think it's because, you know, we had this gap of two Olympics.
being just so unbelievably weird during the pandemic.
Those are the ones I did not travel for.
And to be in Paris this past summer with these athletes and doing these stories and with the Eiffel Tower behind me as my office was like a pinch -me moment all day long because it was so joyous.
After really difficult years for a lot of people, there was so much joy every day no matter who you met of people who were so grateful to have this experience.
I've always loved the Olympics, the wonder of it and the magic and the underdogs and the people who, you know, literally dedicate their entire lives for a couple of seconds of opportunity.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
And I've always just absolutely loved it.
So to be in that environment after COVID, after the pandemic, and to be in this international experience where people were really in a great mood every single day was like this unbelievable professional gift.
And I love the the weird sports.
Oh, I like the ones that you're what's your favorite like of those.
I don't know. But I mean, I just like the random things that you don't even hear about for four years.
I mean, like in the the winter ones where they're doing the luge or something like that.
And it's like people dedicate their lives to sledding.
I mean, I love that.
I love that fact. competitive sledding exactly so i i've been down the olympic bobsled track in park city twice and how was that the first time was absolutely awful they give you the safety lesson i did not pay attention and i suffered for it because if you don't sit in the bobsled and do certain things
it's like being in a car accident over and over and over again second time not only did i listen I was like in it to find out like, could I be good at this?
No, I could not. That's not going to be your next career.
But I slightly enjoyed the experience a little bit more.
But I had that same realization.
I'm like, wow, somebody does this every single day to be the best person on the planet doing this.
How amazing. And something just like terrifying.
Like throw yourself down a hill like that.
Or the ski jump. Face down, if you're on the skeleton.
Yes, yeah. I'm just like, oh, the physical courage is amazing.
and I'm sure that you have many stories of covering that.
So you also read a lot, I understand.
You sometimes make time in your busy schedule to read.
When does that happen?
So I read, you know, kind of like I do everything, a little bit here and there all the time.
You know, there are these pockets, like I do have highlighted through the time logs, there are these pockets of time in your day that you don't even realize you have.
So if I'm in the long line at the grocery store, I've got a book in my backpack, I will pull out a book standing in the grocery store line and get through a couple of pages.
I am, probably because of my job, a very, very fast reader.
I can take into information very quickly.
So I will, I really try to default to a book over scrolling my phone, always.
I love going to the library, love the library.
There's nowhere more fun to me than going to the library on a Friday afternoon, I'd love to do that.
And so I've always got a book and I'm always trying to sneak it in.
I just, I feel better.
You know, even as a kid, that was always the thing that got my brain going and and helped me think of those new ideas and really calm me down, too.
And so I sneak the reading in like I sneak a workout in or like you sneak anything for yourself in when you're a working mom.
Well, I love the idea that if you are mostly done for the day with work at noon, the library is still open.
Oh, yeah. The other upside of this schedule.
is it's funny. People always wonder, like, how do you do things when you work that schedule?
I look at people who work a traditional nine to five.
Yeah, because you're going to six.
You can't go to anything, right?
Whereas you've got the afternoon.
I mean, you're up. There's some flexibility.
You might feel a little jet lagged at times, but there is at least some flexibility to do things.
Yeah. So, Deidre, one question I always ask guests is, What have you done lately to take a day from great to awesome?
From great to awesome.
Anything that just made a day a little bit better?
You know, I have this year, my first kid went to college, and that's a really, you haven't had that yet, right?
You still have one in the school?
No, my oldest is a senior, so next year will be that exciting.
Okay, so I'll give you something that happened this morning at 3 a .m.
with my college kid.
He happened to come home last night.
He had to drop off a car back at our house.
He goes to college in the Bay Area.
So he drove the car back home.
I thought he was bringing one friend with him.
Well, as it turns out, when I woke up this morning at 2 a .m., he had brought four friends home with him.
And they were here for, like, mere hours, Laura.
And so I wake up at 2 a .m., and there are five college kids, five college freshmen, crashed out in my living room while I'm trying to get ready for work.
And he says, we need a ride to the train station at four.
Is that okay? It's on your way to work.
And I said, sure. I'm really learning to go with the flow.
And that opportunity to take these kids, literally just driving them to the train station, could have been a nothing burger, right?
Instead, I chose to just really, really enjoy the spirit of a 19 -year -old who thinks that it's a great idea to drive two hours at 11 p .m.
the night before, only to get up a couple hours later to take a three -hour train to go right back to where they started.
And it put me in the best mood this morning because I got to be around and suck in some of their energy at a very odd time of the day.
And that took me from good to great in a very unexpected way.
Because I can tell you, when I went to bed last night, I did not see that coming.
That was not on my bingo card for today.
Not on the bingo card.
I love that energy, too.
I mean, they're kind of nuts, But, you know, it's good.
It's good. Maybe they need less sleep than the rest of us.
But yeah, I think they do.
Well, Deirdre, thank you so much for joining us.
Everyone who is listening to this, you can catch her on KCRA in Sacramento if you happen to live around there.
Or you can listen to the Dying to Ask podcast if you'd like to hear her talking with various guests, talking about self -improvement in general.
And if you have feedback on this or any other episode, You can always reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at laura at lauravandercam .com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ready to celebrate the magic of live music?
South by Southwest Music Festival returns to Austin, Texas this March 10th through the 15th with a fresh lineup of legendary and rising talent.
Join a global community of music lovers, artists, industry professionals, and creatives at the 2025 South by Southwest Music Festival.
With hundreds of showcasing artists performing across six days in over 50 venues, Discovery is right around the corner at South by Southwest.
Explore the lineup at sxsw .com.
Hey listeners, have you heard about Hill House Home?
I absolutely love them.
They created the viral nap dress, and it is the most flattering and comfy fit ever with their signature smocking.
Celebrities like Taylor Swift and Mindy Kaling are fans, too.
What I adore about Hill House dresses is their versatility.
Wear one for errands by day and parties by night.
Plus, they offer more than dresses.
Think gorgeous bedding, soft bathrobes, and cozy pajamas that make you feel amazing.
Hill House makes fun fashion that makes you feel good.
So go to hillhousehome .com and get 15 % off your order of $100 or more with code BREAKFAST15.
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