Sonali Basak: The Bloomberg TV Anchor and Reporter on her approach to interviews, mid-day runs, “mapping out” her source list, and a whole lot more

What's their story?

Sonali Basak has rapidly made her mark at Bloomberg, interviewing industry titans and breaking stories. On this episode of Press Profiles, we talk to Sonali about ditching medicine to follow her passion as a reporter, her crazy schedule at Bloomberg (kept in check by four different calendars), building and maintaining an impressive source list, what makes for a great interview, taking advantage of social media metrics, and a whole lot more about the life she calls “a beautiful mess that’s still being untangled.”

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Sonali Basak

This is Sonali Basak, Global Financial Correspondent for Bloomberg Television and you are listening to Press Profiles.

Russell Sherman

Well, welcome back everybody to Press Profiles. We are sitting down with the top reporters, anchors, editors in the business world to hear the story behind the story. Who are they? What makes them tick? Their favorite memories? I like to call it turning the tables. They usually get to ask all the questions, now they're answering them. Today we are sitting down with Bloomberg TV anchor and reporter Sonali Basak. She is one of the rising stars at Bloomberg, anchoring, reporting both TV and print. She's landing big interviews, covering big stories. We're going to talk about how she got where she is, her approach to covering the news, the Bucknell Bison, why her mid mid-day job causes fits for the makeup people at Bloomberg, her dog Loki… all the important things, we're gonna cover it all. Here now is Sonali Basak on Press Profiles.

Sonali Basak

How do you even know that? Did I tell you that? You're good at this.

Russell Sherman

We do a lot of in-depth research here.

Sonali Basak

No kidding.

Russell Sherman

I've been interviewing the makeup room at Bloomberg.

Sonali Basak

That has been a bit of a thing.

Russell Sherman

We'll get to that. Something really important – I always say Sonali, but sometimes when I hear you pronounce it, I hear a little ‘Shonali’.

Sonali Basak

It's Shonali. It's because the name is Bengali. It's actually not an Indian name, it's a Bengali name. That's where my parents are from, and so there are Sonalis in India, but I'm Sho-nali.

Russell Sherman

Shonali, okay. So, despite the spelling, we're gonna go with Shonali. Are your parents first generation?

Sonali Basak

They were both born in Bangladesh, and they lived in India in their teenagers and adult lives and then I was born in New Jersey.

Russell Sherman

Well, welcome to Press Profiles.

Sonali Basak  

Thank you.

Russell Sherman 

It's good to have you here. So, what are you covering today? What did you work on?

Sonali Basak

Today, it's Friday, so it's my newsletter day, but I start it the night before, I consult with different reporters and editors, I have my own ideas on what I want to write, but I sometimes check in to see if there's something we missed or something we left on the cutting room floor or something to highlight. Today I'm writing about Apollo and the acquisition of part of Credit Suisse's – it’s a trading desk – a securitized product group, and I felt like it was under covered yesterday, and the main day that Credit Suisse was announcing a big restructuring plan and so I'm figuring out, it was a scant announcement, but it is a big deal and there are no prices set behind it yet. But, I think in my newsletter is where I can put context around that on the second day and into the weekend to think about.

Russell Sherman

So, the newsletter, it's circulated via LinkedIn?

Sonali Basak

It’s circulated via LinkedIn, you could actually also subscribe on the terminal, and then my personal favorite is all the people that I email directly. It's not a secret listserv or anything, it's BCC’d from my inbox, and the reason I like that is because I send it on Friday and Saturdays, I get tons of emails back. It's supposed to feel that way. It's supposed to be really interactive. I always ask for tips and opinions and ideas and people to interview, and so it's really become my little community that I've built. It really started as an email for me and my sources about six or seven years ago. It's funny, I'm on television for Bloomberg, but it's very frequent that I will go to something and people are like, ‘you're the newsletter girl’. And so, it’s really like a cool experience for me, because it's a very, very personal way to interact with everybody I cover.

Russell Sherman

That feedback loop has to be more rewarding. It's almost like the difference between a television or movie actor and a theatre actor. Theater actors love it because they have that immediate feedback. You're on TV very often but there isn't that feedback loop. I'm sure when you send out the newsletter, all those emails that come in on that Saturday, are rewarding in a way.

Sonali Basak

Yeah, we really do get ideas and sometimes people who don't think that things should be covered a certain way, but you do get a lot of immediate response, and people giving me new ideas, but the interesting thing you mentioned about TV, these days, it is more interactive. The other day, just Tuesday, we interviewed Matt Levine, for example, of Bloomberg opinion, on television with us, and we asked our Twitter audiences and our folks on the terminal to just instant Bloomberg us, instant message us on the Bloomberg terminal, and we had tons of people interacting with us. So that was really fun and cool because it's live television. It should be more interactive when it can. Me and Keiley Leinz who were anchoring the show that day had our Twitter up and our IFBs up and we would ask questions that the audience was asking also, which is pretty cool.

Russell Sherman

I know Friday’s newsletter day. Take me through a normal day. In terms of where you are putting out content, when you are typically on the air. How does it break down?

Sonali Basak

The way I split it up is, a few times a week I try to commit to doing our Early Show, so that's 5AM, it seems like that’s the earliest it's reasonable to do from the United States, but it is a fun show to do because a lot of executives watch that show. I do hear back routinely from them, and also it crosses US in London hours. Think about the person that is just starting their day, going to the gym and they are watching 5AM Bloomberg often, or going on the home treadmill or whatever. I commit to that a few times a week because I think it gets me exposed to s new audience sometimes, it gets me in the flow of the earliest stories of the day. Sometimes things break the night before that we then bring into the 5AM show the next morning. Good example of that was when the Carlyle CEO stepped down this year. The news broke late on a Sunday night, I helped report on it on on the Sunday night, and I got up at four in the morning and I was in by five reporting on that. What I've learned in the last, it's been five years on television, it's just helped me report at a much faster velocity. That's been really fun. Three times a week I'll get in at five, three to four times a week I stay through six because tech is in the afternoon so that's a whole different audience.

Russell Sherman

Do you like the flexibility, or does the constantly changing schedule make it difficult for you?

Sonali Basak

You were making fun of when I fit in my run in a day, I think that's the hardest thing for me, but otherwise, it's better to be flexible, because you can't control when news happens, and Bloomberg really does make it very easy to have that flexibility. If I'm home for whatever reason, and I can't come in the office, I'll take a phoner and phone in on a big story. Ideally, I'm here. Television I think is best live, which is really hard during the pandemic. You can't beat being in person and telling the story as viscerally as possible. Yeah, so the flexibility is everything.

Russell Sherman

Just to fill people in – so, you need your daily run or every few day run, and if it happens in the middle of day, that means you've already been probably on TV and you need to go on TV later, so you're coming in for a quick touch up again in the makeup room.

Sonali Basak

Yeah, and you can't go for a full run because that's taking off all the hair and makeup and that's another half an hour you're sitting there again to get everybody, it's just inefficient. So, I try to get that in at the 5AM, before work starts on the days that I'm not in at five, and the days I'm in at five I do it at night.

Russell Sherman

So, there are levels of runs. There's the quick run, there's the just a touch up makeup run, and then there's the full hair and makeup run. Okay. I'm learning so much. My fantastic colleague, David Wells interviewed you a few years back at an event, and I heard you say that you learned a long time ago is advice passed on to you that every reporter is only as good as their Rolodex and their calendar, which I thought was a great line. I'm curious, what do you do every day to build that Rolodex and fill that calendar?

Sonali Basak

It's so funny, you mentioned that because before this interview, I was thinking of that, that was my first boss at Bloomberg, my first boss on a beat gave me that advice. And every time I feel lost, I go back to that advice. Who was that? Dan crowd, he was the head of the insurance team. And under him, I covered AIG throughout an activist campaign, I took on all the investment banks, my colleagues make fun of me because I have four calendars. And because there's the Bloomberg calendar, there's the Google Calendar, there's a written calendar so that I can visually see what I'm doing for the next three months, where I have space, you have to bake in a lot of flexibility for the new people that you don't know, you have to make sure you're keeping up with the people you have known. And then the people who might be in the heart of the story, for whatever reason, time is the biggest finite asset you have. So that is especially when you're on air and you can't physically be somewhere. I plan minimum three months out with a media calendar, realistically what we're talking now at the end of October or November, for planning all of our events into next year. There are certain things on the calendar, you know, you know that earnings are coming up, you know, annual meetings are coming up, you know, proxy seasons coming up, you know, certain corporate events might be coming up that are planned for corporations. So it does help to know what is when, because then you know who you're going to see when and the types of news you might get coming up.

Russell Sherman

Do you think for calendars?

Sonali Basak

I have my Bloomberg calendar, which is what we have on our system here, I have a Google Calendar also, because the reality is, you were asking about calendars, I also fit in source meetings two to three times a week at night, social calendar and stuff like that. The Bloomberg calendar, my personal calendar, and then I have two written calendars as well. One at home when at work, because you could forget what you're up to. So literally, I memorize what I do. And I could do that. That's a bit neurotic. I know. It's super creepy, but it does keep me organized. And it keeps my team around me organized as one of how many reporters 2500 around the world. So it keeps my managers organized on where I'm physically going to be at any given time. Good.

Russell Sherman

How are you building your sources? I assume it gets easier over time as you've been in the business, but talk about building your sources.

Sonali Basak

Another editor of mine, David Dunn, who is sort of the times that works here Second legendary editor, I think anybody who's worked for him knows what it's like to work for Galen. And so when I started, he made me read the art of feature writing early in that they tell you to think creatively about sourcing, where and accompany your sourcing in the interests of everyone involved and making sure you see it at all angles. And so that's definitely how I tried to source across the firm. If I'm covering a bank, or another company, I triangulate all the parties involved. That's the board or the clients or the investors, I make a map, I make a physical map, and I map out who has an interest in whatever I'm covering. Every day, I sit there and think, Okay, who do I already know, who do I not know. And I make sure that I'm developing both sides. Because I think that's how you get a balance of a story. I think it's how you see things wholeheartedly. The regulators are another party to that, too. That's how I go about my sourcing process. It never gets easier. I don't think anybody in reporting will tell you that. It's not always a grind, or people that trust you more over time as you build credibility. But the story's changed, people change that or at the firms that we cover, the firms that we need to cover change. And so definitely never gets easier. But you know how to do it better. And you also get less sensitive about it as time goes on. And you realize that you will get more people over time, as you go along.

Russell Sherman

I heard you say that you like to talk to the company's customers, because they're, they're always the ones that will give you the most information and probably give you the information ahead of when it's actually news.

Sonali Basak

They're the ones being impacted the most.

Russell Sherman

You also try to talk to lawyers and CCOs, do you find them willing to engage? They're not necessarily the money managers are the people that are used to being on the front line? So do you find them willing to engage even on background conversations?

Sonali Basak

Yes, I think background is really important because you give people the opportunity to be open with you as much as they humanly can be very much. So it's funny, because everyone knows this to cover a beat a general counsel so often is the entryway into a company. They're the person that is protecting the CEO, it's a confidant. And I've often made that my first meeting because it's somebody that I'm able to get a lay of the land of early on with and then how that company relate what the sensitivities are, how they relate to the rest of the world. Funnily enough, sometimes that leads to awesome stories to that laid out. One of my favorite is the top lawyer at Morgan Stanley, we wrote about once, who was essentially starting his own political party, I got to know him because I've heard of him before. And he's well known in the legal world, former Davis Polk, which is a close friend of Morgan Stanley. He was wearing an American flag cufflink. And so I asked about it. And it turns out, he was starting political party, and it ended up being a Businessweek story, wrote me and Max Abelson about how Morgan Stanley's top lawyer was trying to upend the political system. And yeah, sometimes they do become stories themselves. But it generally has helped me a lot and my job lately that's been covering the midterms. From the vantage point of these large banks and private equity firms, it's super important to build that relationship early on, because you're gonna find a lot of filings, you're gonna have a lot of questions. And so that relationship is so so important.

Russell Sherman

You have such a nice personality. The question I'm curious about is, do some of these relationships get contentious? And do you stand your ground? What's your approach when things because a lot of stories you're covering might not be so positive, and you do have sources over times, take us inside a little bit when things do get contentious, and how you react in those situations.

Sonali Basak

It's funny, you mentioned that because I just made fun of somebody the other day, they told me they didn't trust me because I was so nice. And like, I just don't believe you get points in heaven for being a jerk. So it's not about being nice. It's about being professional. To your point, potential stories. No one, I have had tons of really tough stories on the firm's I cover. But the thing is, it's a matter of fairness. And when things do get contentious, my default is to stay quiet and listen, because what my job is to make sure that I'm understanding everything at play. It's not about me or my personality, or even how I react to things. But I do think that inclination to just listen, whether it's contentious or not, it's a really important quality to have when you're interviewing folks.

Russell Sherman

I think that's our quote of the day you don't get points in heaven for being a jerk. Let's talk about your journey. You grew up in New Jersey, as we talked about good student, you go to Bucknell University, you're gonna be a doctor. That was the idea. You're gonna go back now and be pre med but you ended up majoring in English and econ. Tell me about the fork in the road. Why you chose not to become doctor Bassick.

Sonali Basak

So my mom's a doctor. And it's a big story of our family. A lot of our family's doctors. She was an early A woman to become a doctor in her medical school in India. It was really a woman thing. Frankly, it meant a lot to her meant a lot to me. I actually almost finished my pre med curriculum. I think I might have actually, in high school, shadowed somebody, I shadowed a woman who started a paper in northern New Jersey in Bergen County called the county seat. I didn't get the Bergen record. I was initially a little bummed about that. But what happened was I met an entrepreneur I met this woman who started her own business. I thought it was so cool. Do let me write. In high school. I was a paper girl. I was physically delivering papers. To businesses around the county. My first beat was covering the Hoboken Housing Authority, which also was very near and dear to me because my dad had gone to school worked a little bit in Hoboken before he just remembered it when it was really in a tougher space. Now if you go to Hoboken, it's really much more built up than it used to be. So it was a really interesting beat to cover. But what happened was also I didn't know I wanted to be a reporter necessarily. I've written since I can hold a pen. By the time I was at the end of college, I had interned at CBS local on CBS national and my first day at CBS national was Scott Peles. First day at CBS. I love news forever. I still watch 60 minutes. A lot for fun.

Russell Sherman

So when you say you're interning you're interning locally is that in New York City or in Lewisburg, PA.

Sonali Basak 

in New York City for a couple summers so locally, but I mean, locally at CVS to local and then the national broadcast, national broadcast and the National broadcasts, like the internship program is really cool, because you do get a chance to take turns at almost all the shows. I had a lot of exposure to CBS This Morning. At the time, I had exposure to it six minutes a little bit Evening News, and it was magic.

Russell Sherman

Did they let you go to Letterman, or at least didn't go to let

Sonali Basak 16:50

him in. But also that's the thing. I never watch TV, I only watch the news, the super weird, or maybe er, when I was growing up, my mom didn't. The news was always on our house. It still is. It's funny because I go home. And it's always on, especially the feature shows on Fridays on the weekends and stuff. So I've always loved news

Russell Sherman

for you at a loss for all the 90s TV references. Other TV Roberts a complete loss

Sonali Basak

100% not watching it on Netflix. Now 60 minutes was what I enjoyed watching, it's really fun that my career had come around this way.

Russell Sherman

So you go to Medill Northwestern journalism school. And then financial journalism becomes the thing that you gravitate toward. And I guess it wasn't a very crowded major or a crowded field that people were looking to pursue.

Sonali Basak

Not at all. And honestly, Northwestern is cool, because the newsroom is right around the corner from the Board of Trade. So my first beat was investment banking options, derivatives. And it was super fun to cover there because the pit was really transitioning into less human place. I mean, everything is electronic. But Chicago has some of the most amazing trading technology companies because of the options hubs in the country. So it was really cool way to start my career covering financial news. And I already had some of the ICO background from before, and then I later on, went back and got my MBA to upon the finance part.

Russell Sherman

Very cool. Over the years, you've had some terrific interviews, David Solomon, a number of times, just recently did one with David Einhorn, Cathy wood, I know what makes a good interview for you. And what sort of clears the bar for someone that you're going to take the time and energy and to put in the effort to actually do the to do the interview.

Sonali Basak

You and I talked about this once because we were interviewing Greg Johnson over at Salt and I listened to all of the interviews that people have done or as many as I can before I interview, you know, I'll sit at home and cook dinner and listen to interviews. So as much lead time as you couldn't have is nice, because you hear how people communicate and how they talk and what they've said before. And I think for me what's important one of my managers had once put it this way to me, it's not your job to tell anybody how to think it's your job to tee up the ideas. I love that because for me that's made my goal to the extent that someone will think differently or feel differently or see something a different way coming out of this interview based on whatever the topic at hand is. How can I get there? How can I make sure that we're just not saying all the things that has been said before? And how are we making sure that we're maybe having somebody to react to things that are happening in the world that are just significant? So I'll give you this is a small example of this but just this last week, I interviewed John Gray, the President and CEO of Blackstone every quarter, and this quarter. He was about to go on television with us. And Liz trust stepped down as the UK Prime Minister within the same three minutes John Gray

Russell Sherman

getting bumped

Sonali Basak

it was a really interesting moment because As I wanted to historic moment in the UK, I didn't want to not do the job interview because of that Blackstone is in the process of building a new headquarters in the UK. And what we did, I was amazed by the force of Bloomberg at this moment, because in that three to five minute timeframe, we moved over, and they redid the programming to focus on trash. Did John at the same exact time we were going to, but we did it as a tape. We ran the tape out within 15 minutes, immediately. And we had headlines at the same time because they ran on the terminal and the reporters were able to listen to it. He was the first person to respond to trust from the financial community because of that. And so I loved that, because we talked about all the Blackstone things. This was a particularly tough environment for everybody. Their stock is sold off more than 30% this year. But also, when you look at the UK, they had been buying a bunch of assets dumped by pension funds in the middle of this turmoil. It was a really nuanced conversation, we got a lot out of it, it was immediately responsive to both the earnings as well as the news. It was great. 15 minutes, but we got it all out and also made it to the newsletter at the end of the week. A good pivot. Yeah. Wow.

Russell Sherman

As I say, talk to us a little bit about social, you're active on social, obviously, we talked about the newsletter that's available on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, I don't know if you're doing tick tock these days, everything was about using all the different vehicles that you have at your disposal, and how you have made the most of it.

Sonali Basak

I think it's really important that you meet the readers, viewers, listeners audience where they are, because you can't expect that they're always going to want to read a 40,000 word story or whatever it is, how do we communicate the different venues. That's been a lot of my time here. I started here doing TV, but I joined formally about five years ago. At that time. Also, soon after that into the pandemic, right before the pandemic, I joined our streaming service QuickTake as well. And I helped to anchor a show from through through their streaming service, which also brought me into all those other social media platforms. And now I do produce, even for television, I produce a lot of stuff that goes straight to social right after it's done, or I'll cut off separately and do it for Instagram, and Tiktok as well. When I started in journalism, we were at Northwestern like you were saying, you learned about social and that meant something very specific before but platforms change platforms are always changing. I think it's really important. I experiment a lot. I hope that the people around you think that when they're experimenting with new platforms on the first clubhouse, I was doing stuff routinely on Twitter spaces. I just like toying with stuff. You don't know who's listening to what or how they're listening. One thing I think about when I'm doing these things is alright, how is somebody that is watching something on tick tock? How would they watch it differently than the watch on live television? What kind of information are they looking for, that I can bring to them? It's always a work in progress. But it's been super rewarding.

Russell Sherman

And I know you're into metrics. So tell us about what the metrics that you're tracking on each of those. And you're probably getting pretty up to date information in terms of the attraction that you have.

Sonali Basak

All the platforms offer different metrics, and you see them typically look at an Instagram video, it tells you how many people are viewing that video similar for LinkedIn, you know exactly how many people are viewing it. All it tells you is exactly what you would think if you post something on LinkedIn is somehow you have tons of I'm a banking reporter at the heart of it, or a private equity reporter at the heart of it are now hedge funds more and more. So people that work at those firms are liking and doing it. And so that's the kind of data you get from LinkedIn. And it's for everybody is that way, you're getting what you think you would get. And then you lean into that more. I posted a picture for example, or videos a 92nd video I posted on LinkedIn on the week of earnings. I love earnings because I love numbers. And I posted 92nd videos, just to try it out. See what happened on LinkedIn. And those got insane engagement and I got emails back about it. And I guess it just really helped people absorb what was going on really quickly in 90 seconds. They didn't need to read the release. They didn't know what was going on with the competitor. 90 seconds the only commitment they needed to make.

Russell Sherman

That's great. And I know you feature your dog occasionally on Instagram, as well. Loki is making appearances is he getting insane followers as well.

Sonali Basak

It's funny you say that because I really want him on Bloomberg Television. That's going to be a work in progress. I think he has to bring something to the table for us. He's still only been nine months at home. What type of dog I rescued from this organization called Korean canine rescue. They bring in dogs from Korea who had been abandoned and and kill shelters. I bought him home in January and I was a little nervous with the TV schedule what that could look like. I am walking with Loki in my neighborhood and everyone knows Loki and nobody knows me He sees all of these with his dog walker. And so

Russell Sherman

little humbling. Oh,

Sonali Basak

it's been fun for me. I live near Central Park. It's been almost 10 years in New York. I feel like I'm finally a New Yorker. I think 10 years is what they say. And so you are one it's a fun way to experience New York with my dog and it's also gets me outside in addition to running a hike a lot too. So look, he's a hiker with me. But yeah, Loki social media presence is limited. He's actually on his dog walkers, Instagram. He's much more famous.

Russell Sherman

We'll keep an eye out for it. Should we finish off with some quick hits? Sure. Allow people to learn a little bit more about you. Favorite sport? Or sports team? I know you like watching football. Well, you said the news but you apparently also love football, baseball, basketball. And I saw this above all Spanish Soccer.

Sonali Basak

Because I lived in Italy when Spain won the World Cup. It was super fun to watch that happen. I liked the Blackhawks for hockey because I live in Chicago from Northwestern. They went to Stanley Cups around that time. Yes, yes. I'm a Knicks fan. I was born and raised around here. Yeah, like Spain as a country when I was watching the World Cup football team

Russell Sherman

jets are giants.

Sonali Basak

Giants fan. It's controversial around you.

Russell Sherman

You told us the hockey one first, so you're close to my heart. That's good. Favorite music or favorite musician? I don't know that I have a

Sonali Basak

favorite. To be honest with you. Actually, I'll tell you what I love John Mayer reincarnated to the Grateful Dead. Love it is everything we've all been waiting for.

Russell Sherman 

Good choice. I'm so curious to hear what what are you streaming these days in your home? I wonder if it's some of those older TV shows that you never got a chance to watch before.

Sonali Basak 

I do like old movies older than old TV shows. Roman Holiday kind of stuff. In addition to journalism, I do obviously love the art of video. You know the other stuff I love. I like everything Reese Witherspoon makes I think he's just so fascinating because I do keep up with a book club. I do watch how the stories are translated. Because I think it's so cool that you read something and you feel differently when you see it.

Russell Sherman 

So do you enjoy the morning show on Apple TV?

Sonali Basak 

I loved the morning show.

Russell Sherman

What are your favorite things? I would think

Sonali Basak 

Apple TV has been interesting. Honestly, too. Speaking of news, reincarnated, the other thing I have been really enjoying watching is the Jon Stewart. The problem with I think it's been really fun to watch how he interviews people. Give you an example. He interviewed Bob Iger on the news. It was such a great interview, just because how can have traditionally comedian would interview somebody who's differently than somebody who would be in the news interviewing somebody. So that was fun for me to watch.

Russell Sherman 

Where are you getting your news these days?

Sonali Basak 

My colleagues make fun of me too, because I subscribe to everything and I pay for it. And so I wake up and I read obviously Bloomberg edition of Bloomberg. I read everything I read the times I read the ft. I read the journal, I read sub stacks, lots of sub stacks as well. I enjoy them. I think that they bring different perspectives to news. I try to also start off by morning with analyst notes too. And I have a weird array of stuff in my inbox. It's everything from that classic Goldman macro note that you get or I have sources send me different prime brokerage notes across the street. Also, Galaxy actually Mike Novogratz is from have come out with interesting crypto research notes that tend to the macro also. Obviously, I love economics and finance. So it's really fun to see it talked about and dissected in different ways like that.

Russell Sherman 

Go to restaurants in New York City.

Sonali Basak

Oh, that's a good one because they love restaurants you want Here's mine. Before I go to restaurant, go to bar, Peter McManus. It's one of the oldest bars in New York. Nothing beats like an old school, Irish Pub. Literally. I'll go walk and sometimes I'll see my sister who lives in Brooklyn, but it's also going there.

Russell Sherman 

We'll take that as the answer. That's my

Sonali Basak 

go to.

Russell Sherman

We always ask potential employees if they ever had a dirty job. That's a great question. I'm kind of curious. What's the dirtiest job that you've had? You did mention delivering papers. What's the dirtiest job that you've ever had?

Sonali Basak 

This wasn't a full job. But I spent more time than you could imagine shadowing my mom at work, which is probably what turned me off of being a doctor. Watching people's intestines being taken out will do that for you. Nine years old.

Russell Sherman 

You might have just captured that dirtiest job that we've heard.

Sonali Basak 

I grew up in hospitals.

Russell Sherman 

Intestine removal might be at the top of the list.

Sonali Basak 

I've seen a lot of people's innards.

Russell Sherman 

Drop the mic on that one. Another question. You've had a lot of success in your career. But what's the biggest setback? So far? Has there been a disappointment that you've had to bounce back from?

Sonali Basak

Yeah, I would say, you can't really map out your career, you don't know what opportunities are ahead of you. My first job was an insurance reporter. That was the job that was most wanted and open when I started. And I will admit, at the time, I was sad, I was frustrated, because I didn't think it was gonna be a high profile. It was gonna get me into big stories. But it did. And I think that, you know, if I had to, like, give someone advice, I do get to mentor a lot of people here. It's my favorite thing. Because it's journalism. There's setbacks every day, there's stories you're gonna miss, you're gonna get scooped on things. Other people might be chosen to be the front of the story. There are million stories out there. So you can't lead every story, obviously. But my first job I think was the hardest because I was really struggling with how I was going to make something that seemed like frankly, asleep db to be much more significant and interesting. And once you open your eyes for a second, you realize it's a $40 trillion pool of capital around the world. And we quickly made insurance into pensions and sovereign wealth and family offices. And we made it in an institutional investing meet, but it was at 24 years old. That was not apparent when I was walking into Bloomberg. Most people who start out in journalism have a hard time. The first beat is the hardest, because it usually is not the hottest beat out there.

Russell Sherman

You certainly turned that into a positive. All right, final question. We all like writing and thinking of headlines. Give us the headline on your career. How would you sum it up so far? Obviously there's a lot more to come. What's a headline that captures who you are?

Sonali Basak

Yes, hard questions. I would say it's a beautiful mess, but still being untangled.

Russell Sherman

Beautiful Chanel, it has been great to have you. It was a lot of fun.

Sonali Basak

Thank you.

Russell Sherman

Good luck. Keep doing what you're doing.

Sonali Basak

Thank you. Thank you.

Russell Sherman

We'll keep watching on Bloomberg. That is Bloomberg anchor reporter shonali Bassick. She is just one of the exciting, interesting, intriguing guests we've had on press profiles. And of course, you can find all the episodes on press profiles podcast.com or an apple and Spotify Google. Sign up for our LinkedIn newsletter. You'll get all the transcripts of each episode and thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.