On this episode we're joined by Nicole Carr.
Nicole is a journalism professor at Morehouse University and author of the new book, The Price of Exclusion, The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation.
She's previously been a TV reporter in North Carolina, and in Atlanta, where she won four Emmys. And she was an investigative reporter for ProPublica.
I read her book. It's very good (read my review here)
Nicole and I talked about her book writing journey and why she wrote it. She explained how she linked past to present with the story of her great grandfather's becoming a doctor and his work as one, in conjunction with an explanation about the shortage of Black doctors in America. We also touched on a memorable article she wrote for ProPublica about a Black school administrator who took a new job and was run out of town by anti-CRT parents.
For those of you who were fans of the podcast Longform, I think you will like this interview – this is probably the closest I've come in 280+ episodes to replicating that excellent podcast.
This is one of our longest episodes (45 minutes) and for good reason. There was a lot to get to. I've abridged some of this excerpt for clarity and length as I always do. There is much more to her answers than what you see here. And that's intended in the best possible way.
How do you view your purpose as it relates to being a journalist and writing this book?
I really see myself as operating in the spirit of the Historic Black Press. I think that some of what we work on and research and write in real time, it's not necessarily seen as objective. I say that because we have a, a, you know, tendency to lean into both sides-ism, meaning that everyone has equal side on an issue.
I'm 42 years old, been in the business since I was 21. What I know for sure is that what we deem as objective in real time, we end up apologizing for in hindsight, reckoning with in hindsight. I am not objective when it comes to matters of humanity.
What I hope that I've done with the book and what people can see is a clear pathway to how we come to be, and also that we have a choice in where we land.
And if our choice is rooted in humanity, the outcomes can serve a greater good and a greater population. Many matters that we call political are really rooted in a caste system. And America in its very young self, she's just turning 250 years old. She's very young. She's an infant in the world. America's foundation, her origin story, is built upon a caste system. The caste system is dependent on the definition of race. We're all on the race beat.
And, you know, it's an uncomfortable thing. It's like, you know, are we to assume people are bigots? Are we to assume that racism is everywhere? And I'm like, "Hey we're to assume that foundationally our laws and our ways of being are based on a constructed idea of race. And in this constructed idea, Black and brown people are at the bottom of the caste system.
This book really solidified for me where I stand in my, my truth-telling and the narratives that I wish to leave behind for those who come after us.
Your book may seem far-reaching to a college student. This book is something that they would aspire to. What are some of the things from the research process that you encountered that would be educational for people?
I found my great-grandfather referenced in probably 300-plus news articles but not referenced by the same name. So, there were variations of his name, about a dozen variations of his name.
So, it could be L. St. C. Ferguson. It could be L. S. C. Ferguson. It could be Lawrence St. C. Ferguson.
That's a lot of search terms.
It's a lot of search terms. And what I learned once I understood that was that the quotation marks and the search terms, they matter.
I learned that history is not so far behind us. One of the key players in my research, and I could not have guessed this, was former Vice President Kamala Harris' father.
I was sitting at a sports event in Atlanta (Celebration Bowl- Howard vs FAMU), and vice-president Harris at the time was there representing Howard University, and I just happened to look back at her in the like the VIP box.
And I said, "What part of Jamaica is her family from?" When I got home, I started my Google search and saw her father had attended the same high school that my grandmother had, and in the same parish that Dr. Ferguson had served in, and he was still alive when Dr. Harris went to school.
I just decided to write him, and I was like, "I don't think this man deals with journalists. I don't think he's gonna write me back," It took him some time. I later found out that he had really vetted me.
He wrote back and said, "I did indeed, you know, know your great-grandfather, not that well. But guess what? I have somebody who did. My childhood friend was a patient of his." He connects me to someone in DC, and this man, Dr. Basil Cannon, is able to describe my great-grandfather in a way that only those who had lived, who had witnessed him, who had interacted with him could do.
I was also able, through Ancestry and a particular photo, to connect with a distant cousin who remembered summers at the estate where the doctor lived. And then I found that one of his last visits to the United States was with a family in which had a household who served as a White House butler, and he was also you know, a stowaway from Jamaica who had landed in America the same year as my great-grandfather. I then end up finding photos of my family in Smithsonian collections that, you know, if, if it had not been for this book, I wouldn't have even thought to have.
And so, the big thing is you don't know what you don't know, and you have to be open to the archives, to history carrying you in whatever direction it carries you in.
What tips do you have for someone that's interviewing someone that's in the fourth quarter of their life?
Their memories are sharp. I found that in speaking with people, it was either you're far gone or you're right there. We come from a generation that is so entrenched in digital memory and screen grabbing things and capturing proof of something. Whereas these folks, their minds are very sharp. If they're healthy, they're very sharp, and it makes you question your mental capacity today, right? How do they remember all these things? Their minds are the digital repositories that we have today.
We can exclude the things when trauma is involved, we can exclude certain parts of a story and, you know, our memory fails us. Whatever tradition they come from, we need it in this generation
When you teach journalism at Morehouse (as well as students from Spelman and Clark-Atlanta), what are the points of emphasis that you make about being a journalist, and the most important things that journalists need to know in 2026?
I insist on this teaching of history of the Black press.
America does not have a full accounting of herself without the pages of the Historic Black Press.
Meaning, if you were an alien to drop down on Earth, you pick a year let's say 1942, and you look at A1 of the Historic Black Press, and A1 of the mainstream, AKA white press, you would have to pick your reality. They would not reflect the same reality on A1. And perhaps throughout the newspaper.
The language and the narratives of the oppressed in a society matter and offer us a full accounting of ourselves. So that's number one. It's very important for my students to see this, because they must see themselves in the work.
Black journalists, as of recent, have only accounted for 6% of those working in newsrooms, but that would have you to believe that we never innovated or practiced the ways of journalism that are valued today. Meaning data journalism, investigative journalism. I'm big, not on just Ida B. Wells, but the Charles Loebs of the world, the Charlotta Basses of the world.
What Robert Abbott and the Chicago Defender, what all of these folks have, have built over time, if you're talking about audience engagement, combating censorship, facing the arrest of journalists, figuring out ways to investigate narratives and bring them to a fuller truth, then you must understand the Black Press.
My students must see themselves as entrepreneurs in a way because when the mainstream structure fails you, how can you still commit to truth-telling and getting the information out and distributing it, and making a living from it in those ways? All of the issues that we touch on today, they matter.
In social justice journalism, I came up with the saying that facts are non-negotiable, but framing is a choice. We make choices in journalism. We make editorial choices every day, even though we'd like to say, "We just throw out the facts, and then we step back and let you decide."
No, we make very important choices about how we approach stories, through what lens we tell them. And if you center people, and most importantly, if you center the most affected people, and if you hold power to account, you can never go wrong, and that's a framing choice.
When I do a review of a book, I will typically at the end of the review say something along the lines of, "This book is appropriate for this person.
If you like this, read this book. If you want to learn about this, read this book." What are the answers for your book?
If you want to understand how we come to be, read this book. If you want to understand why saying it's just politics does not suffice in our answers today, then read this book. If you want to understand policy as an entity of generational impact, read this book.
E-mail me at [email protected] if you have any thoughts on the podcast. I’d love to hear from you.
In 2025 we had a new episode each week and featured more than 60 guests. I don’t know that we were the most diverse journalist interviews podcast out there, but we certainly tried to be.
We look forward to bringing you more journalist interviews in 2026 but we can use your help. Tell a friend, a relative, a colleague about us and let them know that our episodes are worth their time.
A reminder to professors and teachers
You can find episode guides that you can use if you wish to integrate the podcast within your classroom. There are more than 50 available. Each one has suggested questions for discussion and activities a class can do.
I’m also happy to help you find an episode that would be appropriate for what you’re teaching. Reach out to me at [email protected].
Additionally, I’ve curated some of the 2025 episodes into groups. If you’re teaching a class or unit in any of these subjects:
- Investigative Journalism
- Feature Writing
- Covering government policy
- Social justice, immigration, and identity
- Local News
Check out the sets of episode guides that would be useful to you. I don’t have a good term for them, so I’m borrowing from Bluesky and calling them “Starter Packs” - sets of 5-8 episodes in each category that may be useful in your classroom.