Laura Coates’ Ascent to the Anchor Chair at CNN Started in a Panera Bread

Laura Coates, the former federal prosecutor, CNN host and best-selling author, joined Mediaite for a wide-ranging episode of The Interview where she spoke about her career, her new show, and the cable news industry writ large.

Coates, who serves as CNN’s chief legal analyst, was recently appointed to the helm of her own program, Laura Coates Live, which debuted in October and airs weeknights at 11 p.m. EST.

Her rise from prosecutor to the anchor chair at CNN, she told Mediaite, started at a Panera bread.

“My kids are only 18 months apart,” she explained. “And I remember parking in a Panera Bread and saying, I gotta figure it out, saying this to my husband at the time, who fortunately is a very thin man and really enjoyed ramen noodles a lot.”

“I want to retire what I’m doing and I’m going to bet on myself and I’m going to give myself one year to try, and at the end of it, if I know that I have left it all out on the floor and whatever it is has not become that which it will be, I’m happy to go back to any open door or create something different,” she said. “And I sat in the Panera Bread nursing like the cup of water with the tea and an orange scone in front of one of their fireplaces and just began to write and process and document and think about what it is I wanted to say now the muzzle was gone. What information could I provide? And that’s where it began.”

Coates eventually landed her own show at SiriusXM and a contributor job at CNN, before guest-hosting on high-profile shows. The Minnesota native said her success was a pairing of “serendipity and grit” — and whatever was in her Panera scone that day.

“It was never on my personal bingo card that I would do this work that I was planning to go into journalism,” she said. “Really, it sparked because as a prosecutor and as a lawyer, fundamentally what was so appealing to me and what I feel was really my calling was the storytelling aspect, being able to be the person who can tell another person’s story and then champion them in that way to give them a voice, to have them feel as though they were a full and active participant in their lives and the world around them.”

Now based in Washington D.C., her new show for CNN takes inspiration from Larry King Live, which was once the longest running and highest rated show on CNN. Her show presents a more deliberative and analytical pace than some of CNN’s hard-charging breaking news programming, but Coates is still not afraid to hold feet to the fire.

When asked if she planned to carry on Larry King’s legacy of breezy interviewing, Coates said she likes to strike a balance of tough but fair discussions.

“I’m no shrinking violet,” Coates said, but “I certainly do not believe that you’re going to extract the most information by having the person only on their back feet… I don’t think it’s productive if you come with the approach of I’ve invited you to speak to then take the opportunity to grandstand. For me to use that as, ‘Hey, I only had you here so I could bully you –’”

She continued, “– They’re shutting down. They get no information. And guess what? And your audience doesn’t have information. And all you’ve proven is that you’re able to talk to a wall. Well, I can talk to a wall. Not particularly interesting.”

Before Coates had her name on her own show, she frequently guest-hosted for former CNN star Don Lemon. The two remain close friends.

“I am close with Don Lemon,” she said when asked about his ouster from the network. “He is a wonderful person. He still is a dear friend and a mentor. And I will tell you, in a business that’s not always kind and welcoming, he was the exception to that rule when others perhaps did not want to extend an opportunity for me to fill in. He was somebody who would put roses practically on the seat to let me know that I was welcome. And he wanted to be able to have a hand in my success. And I am so grateful to him for that. He didn’t have to. And he did. And that says a lot about him and his character and that he didn’t feel in any way as though he would be less if somebody else was more. And I thought that was such a wonderful thing. I’m really sad that he’s no longer able to do on a daily basis, which I believe is his true calling, which is to be a voice, which is to be a champion and to be somebody who is a conduit of information. But knowing someone like Don, he will land not only on his feet, he will thrive in whatever he does next.”

CNN has gone through tremendous turmoil over the last two years, which included the ouster of star hosts like Lemon and Chris Cuomo, the defenestration of longtime network chief Jeff Zucker, and then the ouster of his successor Chris Licht. Coates spoke about her impression of Licht and where he went wrong in his stewardship of the network.

Now, network insiders believe the new chief, veteran news executive Mark Thompson, who ran both the BBC and the New York Times, is well positioned to turn things around. Coates said he is a “journalist’s journalist.”

“He is outstanding,” she said. “I think he is a journalist’s journalist and I think he likes to roll up his sleeves. He is not in a Golden Tower. He is in the newsroom.”

“And I think that is laudable and also essential. And from what I have seen so far, his primary objective. Is the news. And it’s about ensuring that people understand that the only news you cover ought not to be what’s happening in the District of Columbia or what’s happening in Manhattan. It’s a very big country and also a bigger world. And I really appreciate being somebody who was raised in Minnesota, not from Washington, D.C., not from New York. Before that, I lived in Massachusetts, in Worcester, Massachusetts, to be exact.  He does not have any interest in treating those places like flyovers in the country. He wants people to understand that the news is supposed to be for everyone. And we have to be very broad and nuanced about what we cover to ensure that everyone feels connected and seen.”

Despite how far she’s come, Coates holds on to one tradition from the dawn of her media career: to this day, she returns to Panera Bread when she needs to contemplate any big life moves.

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