Vargas takes the tough road
Journalist says investigative work vital, despite U.S. President Trump’s hostility
Elizabeth Vargas likes to hit the ground running.
The veteran anchor of 20/20 announced she would be stepping down from ABC’s flagship news magazine after 14 years and she’s signed a production deal under the A&E Investigates banner.
“I said goodbye to ABC on Friday, May 25, and my first projects on A&E aired on Monday, May 28,” says Vargas with a laugh, a few hours before she received the A+E Inclusion Award at the Banff World Media Festival. “So it was a very quick transition from one to another ... and very exciting.”
Her early days at A&E have so far included a two-hour special titled Casey Anthony’s Parents Speak, which found George and Cindy Anthony opening up to Vargas about the disappearance and death of their two-year-old granddaughter Caylee 10 years ago and the sensational trial of their daughter Casey.
The same day, A&E aired the first part of a nine-part series called Cults and Extreme Beliefs with an examination of NXIVM, the headline-grabbing “self-help” organization that has been accused of sexual assault, forced branding and even slavery, leading to the high-profile arrest of founder Keith Raniere and his associate, U.S. actress Allison Mack.
The series is also investigating Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and United Nation of Islam, among other groups.
“I think there’s a certain misconception, or preconceived notion people have about those who might join cults or extreme groups of some kind, that they are gullible and not very bright,” Vargas says. “In fact, we showed by doing these interviews with all these people that many of them are exceptionally bright and very altruistic and well-meaning.”
While this sort of work is certainly timely, it also represents the sort of deep-dive investigative journalism that Vargas says wasn’t always possible on 20/20.
The hallmark of programs that fall under the A&E Investigates banner will be “how deep we dig into the stories and what we’re able to reveal by the intense reporting that we’re going to be doing,” Vargas says.
“This is not quick reporting, this is documentary investigative reporting,” she says.
It’s the sort of journalism that Vargas sees as vital, even as the press continues to be publicly pilloried by U.S. President Donald Trump on a seemingly daily basis.
“Listen, the founders of the United States Constitution knew the importance of a free press,” Vargas says.
“And President Trump isn’t the first American president to become annoyed or irritated by critical reporting of his administration. It is incredibly important that journalists continue to do their work and ask the tough questions, do their homework, dig hard and tell the truth, regardless of what that means and regardless of who might be bullying them into not telling the story. It also means if we make mistakes, we need to own them, correct them and apologize for them. Unlike others, reporters are held to a standard. We have to get our facts straight. Facts matter. The truth matters. I think journalists across the country are dedicated to doing their job even though, right now, they may be doing it in a very hostile atmosphere.”
Vargas became the story a few years back, when she was “outed” to the media after seeking help for anxiety and alcoholism. She says the invasion of privacy was devastating, but it did lead to the 2016 memoir Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction (Grand Central Publishing, 2016).
“I think everybody should have the opportunity to recover from any type of illness with privacy,” she says. “So, it was deeply painful that that was taken from me. But, I thought, I might as well take the lemons and make lemonade. I knew how alone I felt when I was in the midst of my illness and I thought maybe writing this book would help somebody else feel less alone.”