Neil A. Carousso produces NewsNation original “Kurt’s Country” – a celebration of country music and a slice of Americana with host Kurt Bardella.
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Week In Sound: NY COVID Shutdowns and White House Superspreader
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — President Donald J. Trump recovered from COVID-19 at The White House this week while top aides and staff tested positive for the virus. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down non-essential businesses, schools and restricted all gatherings in neighborhoods where the COVID-19 positivity rate is surging. This sparked outrage among members of the Orthodox Jewish community who felt their religious freedom was under attack by the safety restrictions.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/week-in-sound-ny-covid-shutdowns-and-white-house-s
Neil A. Carousso produced our Week In Sound audio file as heard on WCBS Newsradio 880 for the week ending Friday, October 9, 2020. Hear it on the media player above.
You can listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez Friday nights at 7 PM ET for a deeper dive into the top local, national and international stories of the week, featuring interviews with newsmakers and the Week/Month In Sound audio file.
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Week In Sound: POTUS Positive, NY COVID Upticks and Debate Melee
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19. The President has been hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The COVID-19 infection rate is rising in Brooklyn, Queens, Rockland, Orange and Nassau Counties as New York City completes its phased school reopening. President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden squared off in a frequently interrupted Presidential Debate in Cleveland, OH.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/week-in-sound-potus-positive-ny-covid-upticks-and
Neil A. Carousso produced the Week In Sound as heard on WCBS Newsradio 880 for the week ending Friday, October 2, 2020. Hear it on the media player above.
You can listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez Friday nights at 7 PM ET for a deeper dive into the top local, national and international stories of the week, featuring interviews with newsmakers and the Week/Month In Sound audio file.
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Month In Sound: September 2020
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The United States reached the somber milestone of 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19 this month, challenges for reopening schools and lack of preparedness garnered attention, along with an increase in coronavirus cases in some neighborhoods of New York and indoor dining returning to the Tri-State. Plus, the nation is mourning the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and New York Mets legend Tom Seaver.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/month-in-sound-september-2020
Neil A. Carousso produced the Month In Sound as heard on WCBS Newsradio 880 in September 2020. Hear it on the media player above.
You can listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez Friday nights at 7 PM ET for a deeper dive into the top local, national and international stories of the week, featuring interviews with newsmakers and the Week/Month In Sound audio file.
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I’m Listening: Family finds mission in NY doctor’s death
Shining the spotlight on mental health needs of health care workers
This interview is part of Entercom’s “I’m Listening” Campaign for Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention. If you are in a crisis or have a family member or friend who needs help, you are not alone: Call 800-273-8255 or text TALK to 741741 for immediate help.
According to Jennifer Feist, her sister, Dr. Lorna Breen was in the middle of “a firestorm of illness” in March and early April dealing with COVID-19 at her Manhattan hospital and simply “couldn’t do it anymore.”
Dr. Breen’s suicide in late April grabbed headlines in The New York Times, shining a spotlight on the crisis of physician suicide, a crisis her sister said she never knew existed. As a result, Feist, a Charlottesville, Virginia attorney co-founded (with her husband Corey Feist) the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, dedicated to protecting the well-being of physicians and health care professionals.
The foundations website says Dr. Breen spent her career in practice at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan and became the director of the emergency room at the Allen Hospital in 2008. It was in that same emergency room, early in 2020 that the COVID pandemic hit hard. Dr. Breen’s father, also a physician, told the Times how his daughter described for him “an onslaught of patients who were dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances.”
Feist sat down for an interview with us for the Entercom “I’m Listening” program, aimed at removing the stigma of asking for mental health help. Dr. Breen’s family had no idea she was struggling so badly early in the year. They knew the pandemic was beginning to arrive and they knew Lorna was working almost nonstop. Dr. Breen had no medical history of mental issues, no challenges that anyone knew of with anxiety and depression. Her risk factor for suicide was “she was a physician.”
Feist said it was the perfect storm.
“She was an emergency room physician in a global pandemic in the worst place in the world to be doing the worst job,” Feist said. In the middle of her work, Dr. Breen even contracted COVID-19, but was back at work within days of having been cleared to return. The spiral seemed to continue for Dr. Breen. She took a leave of absence and traveled to Virginia to seek help there. She died by suicide in late April.
Today, Feist and her husband are advocates for mental health care for front line medical professionals.
Related:
- Suicide Prevention Awareness Month: Resources for Those in Need
- Listen To the 2020 Edition of ‘I’m Listening’ – Talk Has the Power To Save Lives
- I’m Listening: How To Deal With Mental Health When Your Parents Don’t Understand
- I’m Listening: Falcons’ Hayden Hurst Recounts Isolation and Pain During College
- I’m Listening: Asking for help is not a weakness
- ‘America’s psychologist’ Jeffrey Gardere and Pastor Rasool Berry talk racial justice, mental health
“This is a real crisis and I didn’t know about it until my sister died,” Feist said.
“Physician suicide is at a crisis point in this country as is nurse suicide,” Feist added, pointing out that the rate of burnout anxiety and depression self-reported are “off the charts.”
The Feists’ are working with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine on a bi-partisan bill in the U.S. Senate called the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act. A companion bill for the House is also in the works. Both bills are aimed at preventing physician burnout, suicide in the medical profession, and providing mental health care for professionals who need it in the health care industry.
Feist said, “I believe there is a culture stigma in the community that says ‘you have to be tough, you can’t be a snowflake to get in here. Don’t say you need help. Don’t say you are scared. Don’t say you are worried.’ That’s got to change.”
The foundation is also focused on reforming the culture in medicine, including the licensing and credentialing process for doctors and residents.
“There is no shame. This is part of life,” says Feist. “It’s important what we learn and what we do about it.”
We asked what we all could do to help our health care providers. Feist said it could be as simple as reaching out to your own doctor or health professional to ask them how they may be doing in this stressful time. She says she often wondered what would have happened if someone would have asked that of Dr. Lorna Breen when they noticed she was struggling.
Feist says you can also help by supporting the foundation at www.DrLornaBreen.org and use the #StandWithLorna hashtag on social media.
https://omny.fm/shows/880-weekly-rewind/how-talk-has-the-power-to-save-lives
“I’d like to see health care organizations; I’d like to see hospitals; I’d like to see the hospital where my sister worked; others like that to provide mental health support, not just when there is a crisis and the house is on fire, but before there is a crisis,” Feist said. “Let’s provide the support for these people that they need.”
Neil A. Carousso executive produced Entercom New York’s video content for “I’m Listening LIVE,” which aired and was published across the digital platforms of WCBS-AM, WFAN-AM & FM, WCBS-FM, WNSH-FM, WNEW-FM, WNYL-FM and WINS-AM.
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Retailers Find Pandemic Success In Livestreaming E-Commerce
In Best Of, Entertainment, Featured, Guest, Interview, Latest, News Stories, Technology, The World, Top NewsBy Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Livestreaming e-commerce is the new hot trend that is changing the way retailers sell now and it’s leading to profitability for some business owners who had been struggling to survive.
“They can sort of take consumers inside their brand,” said NTWRK president Moksha Fitzgibbons on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by BNB Bank.
He told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso that his video app became a marketplace for retailers small and large to become what “Shark Tank” investor and FUBU founder Daymond John called a virtual “events space” on WCBS 880.
“NTWRK became, really emerged, as that place that consumers can go every day to be entertained, to be educated and get access to that highly desired product,” Fitzgibbons said.
The startup doubled its sales from March to April and he expects growth of 600-700 percent year-over-year after seeing the value of connecting brands with willing buyers that purchase products on the NTWRK app as they watch and interact with owners and influencers live.
NTWRK was founded in 2018. Fitzgibbons joined the company in October 2019 after a couple stints at Complex Networks where he served as chief revenue officer before moving to Valence Media as CRO where he played an integral role in the merger of Media Rights Capital, Dick Clark Productions, The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard.
“Millennials have the most wealth of any generation before them, they aren’t embracing more expensive responsibilities like home ownership and things of that nature, so they’re spending on consumer products, and we’re connecting with them in a medium that’s endemic to them,” said Fitzgibbons.
It’s not only a pandemic pivot, but also a way to grow a retail business – an industry that’s been battered by the growing convenience of e-commerce, the health crisis and recession.
Fitzgibbons, who will lend his expertise to business owners of various industries on the WCBS BNB Bank Virtual Business Breakfast on Thursday, October 15, told Connolly and Carousso about how one Manhattan designer, Jeff Staple, has benefited from using NTWRK the past six months.
“What we offer him is an opportunity for him to reach a massive audience outside of New York City, which is his core, and introduce the brand to new consumers and ultimately drive new revenues for him,” he said.
This speaks to customer behavior over the past decade that’s been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic and its related retail shutdowns. Fitzgibbons told WCBS 880 he saw engagement with younger customers, who are willing to spend, increase since March. He believes that could be credited to how customers have been trained subconsciously to buy necessities on e-commerce websites like Amazon for convenience rather than go to the store.
“The same will be true with NTWRK, although, we will be curated and have a point of view and sort of be that Barneys/Dover Street-type of experience for this demographic,” he said.
Business owners are encouraged to make their own video content out of their home or store, but NTWRK also offers a video production team and a studio where they collaborate with social media influencers and celebrities to endorse products on a livestream that is watched by prospective customers whom the video app service finds for the retailer.
Moksha Fitzgibbons will share how any business owner can earn a substantial return on investment through livestream e-commerce at the WCBS BNB Bank Virtual Business Breakfast on Thursday, October 15 at 9 AM. Share your questions for Moksha, Joe Connolly and the panel by leaving a message on our listener line at (877) 987-WCBS, and follow the prompts, and we may use your question during the event.
