CNN Reporter Sara Sidner Cried on Live Television. She Wants You to Know Why

The pandemic in the United States is almost 11 months old, and reporting has shown that people are growing numb to the realities of the virus. To those on the front lines, however—from doctors to nurses to journalists—the threat is omnipresent and gut-wrenching. 

CNN correspondent Sara Sidner was talking to host Alisyn Camerota about what she’d seen while reporting from a hotspot in South Los Angeles when she started to get emotional. “I apologize. I’m trying to get through this,” Sidner said, her voice breaking. “This is the 10th hospital that I have been in, and to see the way that these families have to live after this, and the heartache that goes so far and so wide…. It’s really hard to take.” 

A day later, Glamour sat down with Sidner to hear more about her reporting on the pandemic, her experience in war zones, and her fears about where this country is headed. 

When the pandemic broke out in the United States in March, I wasn’t on the coronavirus beat. I had spent a lot of time covering far-right extremism and the racial divide in America, and that was the beat I was on when all of this started. But I ended up in Seattle and stayed there for a month and a half, just reporting on the people inside this one nursing home who were getting sick and in danger of succumbing to the virus. A lot of them did. 

I have reported from dangerous places, but this was one of the first times I felt real fear because we still didn’t know how the virus was spread. We weren’t even all wearing masks back then. We were still shaking hands. But I just felt like these were stories I couldn’t let go of, so I tried to juggle both beats. 

It is relevant here that I am a Black American. I understand the social justice movement and the threat of white supremacy on a personal level. I have also come to know coronavirus on a personal level. I have family members who have been in the hospital, and I have now spent intense periods of time with doctors and nurses and people whose loved ones are sick. When I do these stories, I liken it to when I was reporting from war zones. You make an immediate and close bond both with the people you work with and the people whose stories you tell. It’s just an immersion that happens fast. Part of it stems from the fact that in a war, there’s no real escape. And this is a war that’s happening here. There’s no leaving it behind. You take it home, and it’s impossible to hide from it. It’s in the air. It is so oppressive. 

When I broke down in tears, it was obvious I had reached a limit that I hadn’t realized I had. I couldn’t fake it or pretend it was fine. It all came to a head as I watched the crisis unfold in the Capitol at the same time as I was watching the crisis unfold with this new coronavirus spike. I just got so upset hearing people react with, “I had no idea this was possible.” 

My producer and I have been doing stories on the far right and these conspiracies for years, and it felt like nobody listened. I had this moment of feeling like, I guess none of what I put out there was heard. And that was problematic for me because I knew it was going to be bad. I used to cover ISIS and al Qaeda, and I reported on how those groups radicalized people. What we are seeing now is a similar radicalization. So I knew this would be a dangerous period. And at the same time, I had no idea how bad coronavirus was going to be at this moment. The combination put me over the edge. It was just like a fissure and an explosion and rage at what we’re doing to each other in this country, from coronavirus and not wearing masks to the insurrection and killing police officers.

Right after I cried on live television, I cussed. And I’m so glad it wasn’t on the air. The wonderful executive producer Javier Morgado said in my ear, “Don’t worry. That was good. I know you’re upset, but that was good.” 

He was right that I was upset. At first I felt ashamed, but I realized later that what I had actually been feeling was rage. Those things—the pandemic, the riot—made me feel rageful, and it just came out in a flood of tears. It was probably 80% rage and 20% sorrow, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was so furious in the moment that I’d broken down. I’d been taught as a woman in this business, which used to be so male-dominated, to be hard-scrabble. You don’t want to be talking about bunnies and ponies and cooking segments. You want the real, hardcore news. So you can’t get emotional. I was told, coming up, “Never let them see you cry.” And I almost never had. So it just shocked me that I couldn’t keep it together.

Within minutes my phone blew up. My social media blew up. At one point I turned everything off, put my phone down, and cried some more. It was emails and calls and texts and there were people from high school calling me asking if I was okay and people who I talk to more regularly too, of course. The outpouring was almost embarrassing to me—there was just so much kindness. But I tried to just accept it. This was a moment to remind me that I am not a robot. I am a fully functioning human being, and I am deeply terrified about what is going on in this country.

I wish journalism was one of the pieces that could help bring people together or at least help people understand and listen to each other better, but we’ve been doing this for a long time, and the country has fallen apart in some serious ways. I do think that we are going to have to listen to each other. Compassion is going to have to rule the day. Empathy and understanding is the only way we get out of this without blowing up our nation, but to get to the point where you have people who believe in the most outlandish conspiracy theories? And who are willing now to hurt and kill people over those? I don’t know what to do about that and that’s why I was and am so upset. I don’t know what to do to try to fix this.

What these people are trying to do—it’s not only destructive to the country; it’s destructive the soul of the nation. I have been to Libya. I have been to Afghanistan. I have been to these places that have fallen apart. And when that happens, it is hard—not for the left or the right. It’s hard for everyone. Everyone suffers. 

In the midst of all of this, I know I need to take care of myself. I don’t love running but my brain loves it and needs it. It forces me to concentrate on my breath. So I do that. I try to meditate, although this year it has been nearly impossible to get myself to sit down. I am increasingly grateful for the people close to me—my husband, my mother, and most importantly in this period my girlfriends. The women who are in my life have been absolutely and utterly guardian angels throughout all of this. I could not have made it without them. They are the loves of my life too. We don’t think of friendship in those terms. Romantic love is the thing that everyone ogles over, but the truth is I don’t know what I would do without these women. 

I have been coming back a lot to the idea of fear and how it motivates people and divides people. Even folks that won’t wear a mask, that’s about fear. They’re afraid to admit there’s something out there that might take their lives and that no one can control. I think one of the things that 2021 is going to be about is conquering fear. So that’s what I’m trying to do too.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Mattie Kahn is the culture director of Glamour. 

Originally Appeared on Glamour