A little announcement: I’m making a move to a new job next week!

I am departing MSNBC and The Dylan Ratigan Show to join the team at The Huffington Post — I’ll be a Segment Producer on their new streaming network, Huff Post Live.  (You can check out more about the new network here, which is set to launch later this summer.)  Huff Post Live is an incredibly innovative project — it has the potential to redefine how we synthesize the worlds of news production, streaming video on the web and audience interaction in a way that has never been done before.  I am thrilled that I am going to be a part of the team there.

(Feel free to stop here. That’s the news. Below is the extended version.)

I wanted to take a look back at the last year.  As far as my career goes, it was one of the most transformative years I’ve had.  Here’s what I had the opportunity to be a part of, and a little bit about what I learned.

First, how it all started: After a few great years helping launch and produce shows on Oprah Radio, I was hired as the EP of Joe Scarborough & Mika Brzezinski’s syndicated radio show, which they hosted daily after Morning Joe.  The show often took them across the country, and so back in New York, Dylan would fill in for them when they were on the road.  From day one he was awesome on radio — never at a loss for words, DR was a natural in front of the microphone.  

I had a million ideas on what we could collaborate on, and so I pitched one — “how about doing some podcasts?”  He agreed to it, and we were off and running. The project started off small: recording using nothing more than my trusty MacBook, some inexpensive editing software and a makeshift radio studio on the third floor of NBC that we borrowed to record in.

That project turned into something pretty amazing. Over the course of the year, we ended up producing almost 100 interviews, covering in-depth some of the most critical economic, political and structural issues our country is facing right now.  But rather than just rehashing the same tired problems and playing the typical Left-vs.-Right Blame Game, we made a conscious decision to shine a light on solutions.  

Some of my personal favorites: we learned about the destructive nature of a a political system with two sets of rules, how we could create a new measure of economic growth that actually measures the health of our economy, dug into the often-overlooked history of the financial crisis, and explained how our rigged tax system encourages extraction rather than productivity and growth.  (We’re incredibly proud of these podcasts, and they’re all here if you want to check them out.)

Meanwhile, we revamped our approach to social media on the show: adding original editorial to DylanRatigan.com, doing partnerships like Auction 2012 with The Huffington Post, and creating an engaging, fun and educational social media presence for the show on Twitter and Facebook, and integrating social media into the broadcast when it made sense.

Then, Occupy Wall Street began. After being glued to Twitter and Al Jazeera for months and watching the events in Tahrir Square and around the Middle East unfold, I decided to throw myself into covering the events at Zuccotti Park, covering it as much as I could on my Twitter feed and in photographs.  It wasn’t always for the show — for some reason, I just had to be there and document everything in the ways I could best.  Some highlights: my photos were run by The Atlantic Wire, and some of my recordings at Gothamist. I witnessed the first OWS wedding ceremony, kept an eye on the NYPD via social media more than once, built my first mobile reporting kit, and got locked in a french restaurant by the NYPD while President Obama was holding a fundraiser in Midtown.  

The icing on the cake of Occupy coverage was getting to know some amazing reporters, citizen journalists and livestreamers who were down there day after day: Anjali Mullany (formerly of the NY Daily News, now at Fast Company), Reuters’ Anthony DeRosa, NY’s most essential ‘citizen witness’ @Newyorkist, ANIMAL NY’s Bucky Turco, fearless independent livestreamers Luke Rudkowski and Tim Pool, Rosie Gray (formerly at Village Voice, now at BuzzFeed) Ryan Deveraux of The Guardian, Jamie Kilstein of Citizen Radio and Free Press’ Josh Stearns.  (Apologies if I forgot anyone!)

Then came the book — a whole new challenge.  Writing began on Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry   I got to help with research on our banking, tax and education chapters, fact-checking and editing along with DR and our awesome editors at Simon and Schuster.  

After lots of work, the book was a huge success. Dylan visited everything from the Today Show to WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show to Bill Maher, and Greedy Bastards spent five weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.  We successfully launched GreedyBastards.com, where people could learn about the topics in the book in a visual, interactive way. (All credit for that goes to my amazing colleague Brendan Crane.)  

For me, working on the book was an advanced-level crash course in how to write about, present, and produce compelling content on some of the most difficult, complicated issues facing our country. Also, I gained newfound respect for people who write for a living.  (Sidenote: it’s not easy.)

We took the show on the road for the “30 Million Jobs” tour, honing in on entrepreneurship and new methods of collective collaboration in cities across the country.  I was on the full-time road team as a field producer, covering the tour on our blog, all our social media channels, and planning live events with fans of the show on the road.  As we visited almost every corner of the country, we got to support some amazing independent bookstores, meet with entrepreneurs in Miami, learn about the true cost of oil in Austin, and had some off-the-charts amazing visits to Columbus, Lexington, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley. (One of my fave photos from the trip…)

Not a bad year, right?

That’s why it’s hard to leave a job like this.  The team at the DR Show talks to the most brilliant minds in economics, banking, trade, entrepreneurship, and political reform, day in and day out — and often, these are voices that you don’t hear anywhere else on cable television.

But more importantly, they are on a fierce editorial mission: to shine a light on complicated, difficult issues that are dragging our country down from competing in the global economy.  And then, to add an extra bit of challenge: to do it in a way that people will watch and learn from — that means producing content that is accessible, solutions-oriented, and smart.  

Explaining the “so-big-they’re-overwhelming” problems in a way that people can relate to on a micro level is a gargantuan task.  But I learned from the best, and I hope to keep doing just that throughout my career — learning from people around me, putting together amazing projects, and constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to creating compelling, important content.

Last but not least as I wrap up this little essay: big thanks to Dylan Ratigan for taking me, a former radio producer, on to be a part of his amazing television team.  Dylan is not only a great person to work for, but also an advocate for change and a fearless journalist. He’s also one of the best “teachers” I have ever had in my career.  He taught me that when you care intensely about the issues facing our country and want to help find solutions, as so many of us do, that good journalism can be a weapon for transparency and change.  That’s something we should all be aiming for, I think.

It’s amazing to think that this all started not so long ago in the “little radio studio on the third floor,” and has launched my career into a direction I never imagined. The lesson? Work with good people when you can.  Work hard.  Make the most of the place you’re in, and always stay true to what you care about and what’s important in your heart.  Do those things, and the world is yours. :)

Onward!

Meg

Union Square, 11:48PM on March 22, 2012. 

The entire set of photos I took tonight is here.