Transcript of Subscriber Bonus: Q&A with Aaron Katersky

Hello, everyone. This is Deborah Roberts, and you're listening to 20/20. Today, I have an episode for you that is unlike anything I've shared before. As you may have heard by now, here at 20/20, we've got a new program for our listeners called 20/20 True Crime Plus. It's designed to give you, our most engaged fans, access to even more of what you love from 20/20. When you subscribe to 20/20 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts, you can unlock ad-free access to all of our episodes, early access to new true crime podcasts, and hundreds of extra episodes from our 2020 True Crime Vault. And guess what? You're also gonna get monthly bonus episodes where I sit down and take questions from you, our listeners. So today, I'm sharing the first few minutes of our very first Q&A episode with my colleague and friend, Aaron Kuterski. We had a lot of fun in this conversation, and I can't wait for you to hear it. So take a listen to this preview of the start of our convo. And if you wanna hear the rest and unlock more Q&As like this one every month, and even submit your own questions for future episodes, all you've gotta do is make sure you subscribe to 20/20 True Crime Plus.

Just click the link in the episode description. Now, here's this exclusive preview of my chat with Aaron Kuterski.

It's good to have you here.

I'm excited to be here.

And let's take a break from all the crime for a second. Yes, let's do it. And let's, like, take our first question and hear what it is you all wanna know. And hopefully there are no major trick questions here.

Big budget show, you've got an actual fish.

That's how we operate around here.

What happened to the fish?

Yeah, well, you know, that's another story. That's a story for you to cover another day.

Okay. Oh, this is nice.

Oh, good.

You're gonna like this.

Okay, I hope so.

But it's, well, what's the best piece of advice you ever got from a colleague at ABC News?

Oh, I do like that.

Thank you. You dispense so much advice to so many of us.

Well, nobody wants to hear it, but you know, I do. I would say, I wouldn't know I don't know that there was one single piece of advice, but Barbara Walters, of course, had a huge impact on my life because I worked with her here at 20/20 when I first arrived. And I think Barbara basically, essentially, even if she didn't say this to me, she lived it out, sort of, you know, sometimes you just outlast your detractors. You know, sometimes things don't go well for you at work with someone you're working with and what, but just hang in there and hang in there. And that sometimes you wind up getting whatever it is you're looking for, whatever report, whatever assignment, just hang in there. Many of us get discouraged along the way when we're working in this industry, very high pressure. But just sometimes things come around for you later on. And so I think I learned that from Barbara Walters back in the day.

What about you?

Wow. I started to think about it as you were answering, and I have so many here, but one is, is actually quite recent and from David Muir.

Uh-huh.

And his mantra for World News Tonight is, "Just say it. Just say the news. Forget the rest of it.

Just get to it." Just get right to the point.

Just get to it. And I think that serves us well. Just say what it is.

Just get right to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause we like to do the flowery language and the writing and the prose and all of that, 'cause you and I are steeped in that. But his point is, get right to the point.

Get on with it.

I like that.

I do too. I've really come to adopt it.

Okay, good. Well, that's why your reports are so searing and so great all the time, 'cause you give us the info pretty quickly and we know what you're talking about.

Trying to get right to it. Although the flowery is nice sometimes too. Sorry, dear.

All right, let's see what else. Let's take another look.

All right. Can we get a bigger font next time we do this? Oh, this is, what was one of the most memorable stories you've worked on in your career?

I don't know if I've been asked this, but I will go back to the one that, I reported on years ago, right after my daughter was born. I was called last minute to run to Africa, to Ethiopia, to do a story. And it was a very unusual story that I don't know if it was sort of just something that came together quickly, but it was a young Ethiopian American woman who had made her way to the States. But she was born in the, what's the word? The hinterlands, basically, of Ethiopia, outside of Addis Ababa. And she wanted to go back. She wanted to find her mother. She had been adopted by some people to missionaries essentially at a school. She'd been given up because she had been injured and her mother, her parents couldn't afford to take care of her. So they gave her up to these missionaries to help raise her. She wound up getting an education, something she would not have gotten from sort of the bush in that area. And then wound up in the United States and got her education here and was doing very well. She always wanted to know her origin story.

So she was on her way and I got a call, would you wanna go join her? And I had a 7-month-old child, but I was like, yeah. So I went off and it was this adventure because we didn't know what we would find. We didn't know if we would find her mom. And keep in mind, this is long before, of course, social media or even Waze and GPS and all of that. So we just were kind of going out on an adventure for the story to see, will she find it? What will it be like? I had never traveled to this region before. And we jumped on a little prop plane with this guy. Let's see what happens once we got there. And we did, and he landed and we had to go through these like rutted roads and almost broke the truck to try to get there. Finally get there late at night in this little village where she's from. And ultimately her mother had heard through word of mouth, village after village, that her long-lost daughter was coming back to town. And so all of these folks from her tribe came with her.

And it was the most majestic, amazing, heartwarming experience I've ever had. And she was reunited with her mother and there were tears. And her mother always believed that she was okay, but never knew what happened. And so it was just this beautiful story, the kind of things that we don't really get to do much anymore. And without all the conveniences. Let's do a part 2 on that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Lydia. And we still stay in touch.

Yeah.

Lydia. Yeah. And so that was probably the most memorable story because it wasn't predictable in any way, shape, or form. And we didn't know what we were going to get. And we came back with this magical story that won us an Emmy Award, by the way.

Congratulations.

Understandably.

Deservedly so, I'd say. Yeah.

So you didn't even know about that story.

I did not.

Yes, exactly. So that's—

I wanna hear more.

Yeah, exactly. Well, we're gonna talk more afterwards, but that's the story I think that I will always carry with me here from 2020, because what other opportunity would I have to do something like that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just this quest to go find. And then this woman got answers and she's, she's back in the States and lives here, but she was able to stay in touch and her children were able to know her homeland and her country and her mother. And there was something just beautiful and satisfying about that. How about you?

Top that, why don't you? Seriously? I never get the happy ending stories.

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Get your tickets now for The Dog Stars. It's no surprise how fast civilization can disappear. Go out there, kill or be killed. Jacob Elordi. There are people out there, they need our help. Josh Brolin. Shoot first and inquire afterward. Margaret Qualley.

Ow!

Okay, tough guy.

And Guy Pearce.

Arm up!

The Dogstars, directed by Ridley Scott, in theaters August 28th. Get tickets now. Rated R. Under 17 not admitted without parents.