The Hidden Third Journalist Jacob Soboroff on Family Separation, ICE Raids, and the LA Fires | The Hidden Third with Mariana van Zeller
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In this episode, I sit down with MS NOW correspondent and bestselling author Jacob Soboroff for a candid conversation about what it takes to report on the stories that shape our country, and the personal cost that comes with it.
Jacob shares why he became a journalist, the biggest lessons he's learned in the field, the toll his work has had on his family, and even some secrets he's never divulged publicly.
We talk about his groundbreaking reporting on the Trump administration's family separation policy – what he saw firsthand inside migrant child detention facilities and what went into writing his book Separated. Jacob reveals what has stayed with him long after the headlines moved on, and warns that families are being separated at an even bigger scale during the current immigration raids.
Then we dive into his latest bestseller Firestorm, his firsthand account of the devastating January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Jacob reported live as his childhood home in the Pacific Palisades burned to the ground. He describes these fires as "the fire of the future" – not an isolated tragedy but a harbinger of America's new age of disaster driven by climate change, failing infrastructure, and political dysfunction.
If you care about journalism, immigration, climate disasters, and the human stories behind the headlines, this conversation goes deep.
ABOUT THE HIDDEN THIRD:
From Emmy and Peabody Award–winning journalist Mariana van Zeller comes THE HIDDEN THIRD, a weekly dive into the underground markets that quietly power a third of the global economy. Every episode, Mariana sits down with people who know these worlds firsthand - the hustlers, smugglers, scammers, kingpins, and those trying to shut them down. The series reveals how they function, why they endure, and the profound ways they impact us all.
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