WHEN NEWS BREAKS

Lin’s memoir chronicles a long career in American television journalism.

The author grew up in suburban Los Angeles; her parents were born in China. When she expressed to her mother, at an early age, that she wanted to be a journalist, she recalls that her mother “spat as if I aspired to be a prostitute.” Nevertheless, she earned a political science degree at UCLA, interned at a fledgling CNN, and landed on-air positions throughout the country. Along the way, she met Will Robinson, whom she later married. As she appeared on screens in bigger markets, she writes that “people genuinely thought I was Connie Chung.” Eventually, she landed back at CNN, reporting live on-air when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001. As the American invasion of Afghanistan approached, she traveled to a region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan to interview a tribal leader. She had some security as a CNN correspondent, but she also realized that “The global post-9/11 headlines about the vulnerability of the United States were all a terrorist could wish for.” Back in the United States, she became pregnant; shortly thereafter, Will was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. The memoir digs into the ups and downs of journalism and includes unexpected, sometimes humorous, details. (For instance, the author and Will attended a session with a marriage counselor that included unruly therapy dogs ostensibly “trained to stimulate a more open dialogue.”) The author provides behind-the-scenes glimpses of the unglamorous realities of being a live news broadcaster—at one point, Lin had to pretend to eat a Thanksgiving meal on-air, only to reflect later that “spending two hours on television before seven million people was the loneliest I’d ever been.” While the opening chapter meanders a bit, once the work finds its footing, the author has many engaging stories to share.

A personal, funny, and touching account of a life in broadcast news.