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Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of the year. Jason Ball sits down with longtime TV journalist and beloved morning-show personality Lisa Breckenridge to talk about what happens when the newsroom chapter ends, but the storyteller isn’t finished. Lisa opens up about her unexpected exit from Fox, the identity shift that comes with leaving television, and the advice Maria Shriver gave her in a makeup room that helped change everything.

Lisa shares how the very thing many journalists once resented—social media—became her new platform, her new community, and a real business. From cold-DM’ing brands like she used to mail out tapes, to building a content mix rooted in her personal “pillars” (inform, educate, entertain, inspire), Lisa breaks down how she turned Instagram and TikTok into a money-making career with more freedom and a better quality of life.

Along the way: a viral on-set scooter crash that landed on TMZ, a candid conversation about reinvention at midlife, and why she created “Happily Lisa” after years of covering difficult, sometimes haunting stories in news.

In This Episode

• The shock of being “restructured” after 18 years at Fox and what it does to your sense of self
• The Maria Shriver advice that reframed social media as something you own, not the station
• How Lisa learned to monetize: media kits, engagement, and outreach (and why brands now come to her)
• What “Happily Lisa” is really about: choosing joy after seeing the darkest parts of humanity
• Building a sustainable creator business: long-term partnerships, UGC, and doing the work yourself
• The unglamorous side of entrepreneurship: invoices, tracking deliverables, and learning the business muscle
• The Good Day LA era and why that time in television felt like “lightning in a bottle”
• The infamous live-TV scooter crash (and what happened after)
• What’s next: long-form writing, newsletters/Substack, and getting paid to travel (Africa + dream-train goals)

Memorable Moments

• “This is your platform. It’s something that’s yours.” — the Maria Shriver turning point
• Lisa’s honest laugh about midlife, reinvention, and building a career on her own terms
• The scooter crash story: live TV chaos, concussion, and an accidental viral moment
• The shift from hard news to “sharing the happy” and why that choice mattered

Connect with Lisa

• Instagram / TikTok: “Happily Lisa” (search @HappilyLisa)

More from Jason / Life After News

• Follow the show for new episodes and behind-the-scenes updates
• Jason’s newsletter (Beehiiv) + Palm Springs-focused writing

Closing Notes
Jason closes the episode with an open invitation: Maria Shriver, if you’re listening, come on the show. And next week, Jason’s taking a short break to visit family in Arkansas—expect “greatest hits” from the last year of Life After News while he’s away.

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Let Life After News inspire your next chapter. Because leaving the news doesn’t mean the story’s over—it means a new one’s just beginning.

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In the final episode of the year, Jason Ball takes a moment to look back not just at 2025, but at a life shaped by big transitions, many of them coinciding with presidential election years. From high school to his first job in television to becoming a news director, to finally stepping away and building something new, this episode is about evolution, reinvention, and what comes after the headlines.

Jason reflects on launching Life After News and Desert Dispatch, joining the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation, becoming managing editor of Oasis magazine, and what it’s like to build momentum in a second (or third) act. He also shares updates on several past guests and their own Life After News journeys from creative breakthroughs to retirement, travel, new babies, and new chapters.

Then, Jason is joined by friend and former TV journalist Dorothy Lucey to talk about their newest project, Chasing Faith with Dorothy Lucey, a podcast born out of conversations about faith, purpose, community, and doing good over chasing ratings. Together, they discuss what faith means now, the guests who’ve inspired them most, and why making change where you are matters.

This episode is a year-end check-in, a celebration of growth, and an honest look at what it takes to keep going even when reinvention is uncomfortable.

In This Episode:

• How major life changes have aligned with election years
• Launching Life After News and Desert Dispatch
• Staying connected to journalism after leaving the newsroom
• Why most podcasts don’t last and how to fight “pod fade”
• Updates on past guests and their Life After News chapters
• The origin and mission of Chasing Faith with Dorothy Lucey
• Faith, purpose, and choosing impact over metrics
• What might be coming next

Links & Mentions:

• Subscribe to Desert Dispatch: https://desertdispatch.beehiiv.com/
• Follow Desert Dispatch: @DesertDispatchPS
• Follow Jason on Instagram: @MrJasonBall
• Follow the podcast: @LifeAfterNewsPod

Listener Note

Jason wants to hear from you. What’s working? What isn’t? Who should be on the show next? The best way to reach him is via Instagram DMs.

Let Life After News inspire your next chapter. Because leaving the news doesn’t mean the story’s over—it means a new one’s just beginning.

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Life After News has some big updates, and this episode is a perfect example of why. You never really know where this road leads until you look up and realize someone took a local TV segment, turned it into a digital brand, and then turned that into a full-blown cookbook.

Lora McLaughlin Peterson is back, and she’s pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to get a cookbook from idea to your kitchen counter. Spoiler: it’s not “throw some recipes together and send it to a printer.” It’s a year-and-a-half grind, recipe testing, precision measurements, outside editors, photo shoots that feel like movie production, and a full marketing rollout leading to publication.

Plus: another former Life After News guest makes a major announcement. Byron Lane is launching a new project inspired by Carrie Fisher’s iconic advice: take your broken heart and make art.

In this episode

🍳 Lora McLaughlin Peterson: LORIFIED: The Cookbook

Lora shares the wild behind-the-scenes reality of cookbook publishing, including:

• How the book deal came together through a network of supportive women in publishing
• Why she had to develop a 100-recipe proposal before anyone could even bid
• The slow, meticulous pace of publishing compared to the newsroom “right now” mindset
• What it’s like having an outside tester recreate your recipes (and ask, “Wait… what is orange fluff supposed to be?”)
• Why “measure with your heart” does not fly in a cookbook
• The full-on production process: food stylist, set stylist, photographer, studio days, and shooting at her house
• Her approach: approachable meals, recognizable ingredients, minimal fuss, and giving people time back

📸 A cookbook where every recipe has a photo

Lora insists on zero guesswork. Every recipe gets a picture, so you know exactly what you’re aiming for.

🎁 Holiday sanity tips from Lora

For anyone spiraling two days before Christmas:

• Use gift bags. Stop trying to make wrapping your personality.
• Don’t cook everything from scratch.
• Make the one or two things your family truly cares about and outsource the rest (Costco/Sam’s/deli trays are not cheating).

🎄 Lora’s traditions

• Red velvet pancakes on Christmas morning
• Prime rib (smoked on the Weber) as a once-a-year holiday flex
• One gift on Christmas Eve
• A full house, chaotic energy, and leaning into the “realness” of it

Major Life After News update: Byron’s announcement

Byron shares a new creative pivot rooted in something Carrie Fisher told him—and everyone—over and over:
“Take your broken heart and go make art.”

He’s launching a project called Byrontology, designed for people who are creative (or existentially exhausted) and want to turn rejection, despair, and career heartbreak into meaning and momentum—with some humor along the way.

Links & where to follow

Pre-order LORIFIED: The Cookbook

• Go to lorafied.com and hit the pre-order button
• Available through major retailers (Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and more)

Follow Lora

• Instagram + TikTok: @lorafied
• Watch for recipe rollouts starting in the months leading up to the book launch

Byron / Byrontology

• Find Byrontology via Byron’s link in profile (as mentioned in the episode)

If you liked this episode

• Rate + review the show
• Subscribe so you d

Let Life After News inspire your next chapter. Because leaving the news doesn’t mean the story’s over—it means a new one’s just beginning.