Alisyn Camerota

I began writing 'Amanda Wakes Up' in 2012 as an outlet for frustration over what I was seeing in TV 'news' at the time. The novel was supposed to be satire, not a Book of Prophesies.

Nothing substitutes for the field. We anchors think we know everything because we read a lot and we research. Things are so much more dimensional and complicated when you see them for yourself.

Look, I'm no stranger to covering tragedies. I've done this my entire career.

Since 2015, I've listened closely to Trump supporters' feelings and motivations. I've drawn insights from every one of my panelists on the appeal of Donald Trump as a disruptor, how they believed he was 'a fighter' for them, how they believed his success in business would translate into lifting the U.S. economy.

My favorite Shrapnel show happened one cold Christmas night when I was 16. It was a midnight show. Now if going to a punk rock show at midnight doesn't sound like a traditional Christmas, keep in mind, the guys in the band were from our tiny hometown, making even our parents proud, so we were allowed to break with tradition.

Digital tools and 'create a fake' websites make it easy for anyone to falsify or manipulate an image, social media posts, news reports, videos - really, just about anything.

I bought an ovulation kit and realized that I wasn't ovulating. I went to the doctor, who said I had hypothalamic dysfunction. My hypothalamus wasn't kicking my cycle into gear, so I wasn't producing enough estrogen to ovulate or get my period. I would get my period very sporadically - several times a year - certainly not every 28 days.

I always had irregular cycles, but I dismissed it - I didn't know what a huge part that would play in my fertility.

Like a lot of women I thought, When it's time, I guess I'll just have a baby.

Yes, Roger Ailes did sexually harass me.

Women need to stand up for each other.

If a hotline is secret, it doesn't work.

I've always admired the fine work of the journalists at CNN and I'm honored to join their ranks.

From the moment Jeff Zucker shared his vision for innovative storytelling at CNN, I wanted to be part of it.

I'm living proof that in the fertility world, anything's possible.

Not all information is created equal, which means kids need to learn how to recognize quality journalism that meets certain standards, such as having multiple sources and verified facts, being balanced, being fair, avoiding bias and putting information in context.

By the time I graduated with a journalism degree, there was a general understanding that women in TV news were on borrowed time. Though it wasn't explicitly spelled out in job interviews, we all understood we had a shelf life and somewhere in our late 40s, we'd hit our expiration date.

There are very few people you meet in life who have had the exact same work experience of getting up in the middle of the night and going to work. That's a weird routine, so when you meet somebody else who's had that experience and then is liberated from that experience, it is an instant bond.

I'm a big proponent of therapy. It helped me in my thirties develop tools to cope, change my perspective and get a handle on all my demons.

Life can be anxiety provoking, and the more we talk about mental health, the more we normalize it and help remove the stigma.

I think it's normal to have mental health struggles.

Between celebrities such as Michelle Obama, Amy Schumer, Gabrielle Union, Brooke Shields and others sharing their stories, it seems the shame of infertility is slowly fading away.

I vowed to do whatever I could to help other people with infertility feel less alone.

In 2005, IVF finally worked, and my twins were born. Thirteen months later, an even bigger shock: I was pregnant with my third child - naturally.

As newlyweds, my husband and I struggled for three years to get pregnant.

Roger Ailes ruled with an iron fist, and he wanted us all to fall in line and have his world view and say the things that he wanted us to say on Fox News.

Roger Ailes was - could be charming. He could be quite charismatic. He could be uproariously funny. He could also be a bit of a bully, and mean. And he also was often kind of grossly inappropriate with things that he would say, and I think that many of us experienced that.

Women in TV news had to make a choice, it was said: family or career. And in the 1970s and '80s, the rigors of breaking into journalism and field reporting did force many women to forgo having families.

When I was 15, I had my own epiphany about how cool TV news looked.

Whenever people ask me about the moment I decided to become a broadcast journalist, I explain that it happened in utero.

Call me old fashioned, but I like hearing viewers' real thoughts, not the ones special interest groups pay them to tweet.

I prefer my real friends over fake humanoids run by computers and true trolls filled with genuine venom.

Guys, it turns out, do love cookies.

Like many 20-somethings, I had had a string of boyfriends and yearlong relationships that I thought would lead to marriage but never did.

Many special people have had an impact on my life. But when I thought about what changed my life the most, I realized it was getting married and having kids.

Kids, like adults, need to have a balanced news diet - one that challenges their own world view and encourages them to be skeptical.

I hear women say, 'It's so hard to be a working parent because you can't give 100% to everything.' And I say, 'So what. Who cares?' I'm a big proponent of the Good Enough School Of Parenting and the Good Enough School Of Journalism.