Robert Sherman: Being on the ground in Ukraine for the first time — that was the day in which I realized I have so much more to learn about the world. If you don't put yourself in these pretty intense situations, learn more about those people, then you don't have stories to tell. What really matters is home. Concepts like that. Family. Time. Extremely tumultuous situations, you're in a bomb shelter. Like, why?
Nate Spangle: From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get IN — the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here. Today I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Before we dive into today's episode, a quick shout out to our friends at NCW — the team that's been building one of the fastest growing staffing and recruiting companies in America for over 25 years. They specialize in the skilled trades, but here's the thing: they're also growing their own internal team. If you or someone you know is interested in recruiting, sales, or just making businesses run smoother, you'll want to check them out at teamncw.com. And this isn't just any job pitch — NCW has been voted a top workplace by the Indy Star, landed on the IBJ Fast 25 list, and made the Inc. 5000 list multiple times. I've got plenty of friends who work there and they all love it. Go check out teamncw.com. Now let's get into the episode. My guest today is a very special one. I am joined by Robert Sherman, a foreign correspondent for News Nation who previously worked for Fox News. He graduated cum laude from DePauw University — he was a year older than me when he went through. Robert knew he was gonna be on the news, on TV, from the time that he could walk. This guy lives it, he breathes it, and he has been doing insane things. His book is coming out — "Lessons from the Front: A Rookie War Correspondent in Ukraine and Israel." It chronicles his journey covering conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. I'm so excited to learn about this DePauw Tiger and how you've been going all around the world covering some of the most insane news. Robert, welcome to the show.
Robert Sherman: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's so good to be back in the great state of Indiana. Come back home again — let's go.
Nate Spangle: This is a wild story. The first time I met Robert was on the set of D3TV in Greencastle. And this guy rolls in with a full suit jacket, pressed pants — and I'm rolling up, I was throwing my shirt in the dryer to get a couple of the wrinkles out, and you're just the most put-together college kid. I remember thinking, oh man, this guy means business. You delivered every story with such vibrato. So when did you know you wanted to be on TV?
Robert Sherman: I knew it from a pretty early age. In high school I thought it was gonna be in sports. I actually remember watching — I think it was the Indiana versus Iowa football game on TV — and I was sitting in my living room, turned the audio off, and started doing the play-by-play of the game. And I'm like, I love this. I love bringing the imagery, I love painting the picture, telling people the wind is blowing 12 miles an hour out of the southwest, the uniforms are black and gold. I love doing it. That's a big part of the reason I went to DePauw — the opportunity to be involved at the radio station, at the TV station, to really try and carve a space, especially with DePauw football and basketball. I ended up doing that for a couple years.
Nate Spangle: What was the first game you got to be on the call for at DePauw?
Robert Sherman: It was DePauw versus Sewanee. It was my first weekend at DePauw, and everyone's like, are you excited to go to the tailgates? And it's like, I'm going to the press box today — that's what I'm excited for.
Nate Spangle: That's crazy. You're a freshman in college, everyone else is going to tailgate, get a good buzz on — and you're like, nope. You're so committed to this goal that you're like, I can skip the beers, I'm going up to the press box.
Robert Sherman: It was never even a thought in my mind. This is what I know I wanna do, and these are the steps that need to be taken.
Nate Spangle: How were you learning about those steps? What was your goal when you stepped foot on campus?
Robert Sherman: When I was in high school — I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio — almost all of the local anchors, I would go into the phone book and look up, you know, Fred McLeod, who was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Oh, here's his home phone number, let me call him. And I get his wife on the phone and she thinks I'm some stalker or something. It's like, no, I was just wondering if Mr. McLeod might have some advice.
Nate Spangle: You did that?
Robert Sherman: Yeah, I would do that all the time. I was like 14, 15. And it's actually amazing — part of it's being a kid, people give you a pass. People tend to be pretty generous with giving advice for people who go out and try and hustle. People will give you 30, 45 minutes of their time. Sometimes people will reach out and they won't get this profound wisdom they were looking for, but what they will get is — if you call up one of those anchors and say, hey, I'm gonna be in Cleveland, I'm interviewing for a job — they're gonna remember that kid that they met with, and they'll be willing to make an introduction, open a door, or even just vouch for you.
Nate Spangle: Everything moves the ball forward, right?
Robert Sherman: Thomas Edison was asked, you failed 2,000 times to make a light bulb, and he's like, no, I found 2,000 ways to not make a light bulb work. I stole that line from National Treasure — I'm not that profound with quotes off the top of my head — but it is true. It moves the ball forward, and figures out what you wanna do.
Nate Spangle: So when you showed up on campus as a bright-eyed freshman, did you know what you wanted to do?
Robert Sherman: I thought I did. I wanted to go into television, and I thought it was gonna be in sports — working for ESPN, that was the laser-sharp focus. And then I spent two summers in Kenosha, Wisconsin doing radio and TV play-by-play for a baseball team. I loved it. But I got to the end of it and realized, I love baseball and I love sports, but I don't eat, sleep and drink sports in the way that you need to in order to do justice to the fans — the fans who are ride-or-die loyal to their teams.
Nate Spangle: And you can't fake that either.
Robert Sherman: You can't fake the Kenosha Kingfish season ticket holders up there. They're gonna know by the end of the second season — oh, we gotta get a new guy in here, his heart's not in it.
Nate Spangle: So was that where you transitioned out of sports?
Robert Sherman: Yeah. And then I started to keep an open mind. I interned at a TV station in Texas for a semester for my Media Fellows internship, and then ended up moving over to news.
Nate Spangle: So by the time you were a senior at DePauw, did you know that news was probably gonna be more it?
Robert Sherman: Yes. I thought there was good opportunity there. I also thought there was a lot of bad journalism going on. You could tell what people's view of the world was, what they thought of — pick a politician, a political side, right or left. So there might be an opportunity for something more down the middle.
Nate Spangle: So what was the last game you ever called?
Robert Sherman: It would've probably been DePauw women's basketball — DePauw versus Oberlin or something like that. The DePauw women's team — no joke, a unit. A dynasty. Unbelievable. Chris Huffman has done such an excellent job there. And getting the opportunity to travel around, see the whole state of Indiana, see the Midwest, and tell all these players' stories — that's what I love the most.
Nate Spangle: Now, the interesting part about media is — usually you get a gig, there's like 210 markets. Local news in the United States — you start in Terre Haute, or Birmingham, Alabama, and you slowly crawl up the chain based on how good you are. So you get your first gig in Birmingham. You leave school, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ready to conquer the world, and you're like, here's a one-way ticket —
Robert Sherman: To Alabama. Which was a great opportunity, because it was market 43 or something like that coming out of school.
Nate Spangle: Oh wow, that's a good start.
Robert Sherman: It's a huge start.
Nate Spangle: What do you credit to getting a start in a top-50 market job?
Robert Sherman: Every experience I had here at DePauw is what did that. There are some schools out there — Syracuse is considered the school where they pump out all of these talented people, and Syracuse is an excellent program, but it can be cutthroat to get opportunities. DePauw offered so many opportunities — calling football and basketball and baseball games, working at the radio station, working at the TV station. I'd pretty much already worked a couple of years.
Nate Spangle: By that same token, if you are willing to do it — that's the other piece. You had to forego a few Saturday morning tailgates, or Thursday nights, to get this opportunity. But if you're willing to do that — or do the 2 a.m. shift at the radio station — there's no shortage of opportunity to be had. We all start somewhere.
Robert Sherman: Nobody who ever made it in a space like yours did it just by walking in and not making any sacrifices. You've gotta make the sacrifices at some point.
Nate Spangle: So you get this job in a top-50 market in Birmingham. A little bit of a culture shock?
Robert Sherman: A little bit.
Nate Spangle: You're gonna cover just local news in general.
Robert Sherman: One of my first stories that went crazy there was a dog that was left in somebody's car on a hot day, and they ended up saving the dog, thankfully. But the state of Alabama lost it over this. And that's local news.
Nate Spangle: It's hard. It's the old story of "if it bleeds, it leads." Was it ever sad? A little depressing — the dog doesn't always get rescued at the end of those stories.
Robert Sherman: The most impactful story I covered in Alabama was this girl named Kelsey Starling, who on the 4th of July got into a boating accident and went missing. She ended up dying on this lake, but it was a multi-week effort to find this girl's body and bring it home so her family could lay her to rest. The whole state is watching, and we're putting out content every day to gin up support for the GoFundMe so they can buy an underwater drone to find her in this lake that's 200 feet deep. They end up finding her. It's a horrible story, but I do take pride that some of the work we do does lead to tangible positive outcomes for individuals.
Nate Spangle: That's the hard part with local news — the stories that people can't take their eyes off aren't necessarily always the happy stories. How long did you spend in Birmingham?
Robert Sherman: I was there for about a year and a half. And then I went to Fox News right after.
Nate Spangle: So, 18 months in Birmingham. Did you feel like you were getting pushed toward any of — hey, we can't do that many happy stories, we gotta talk about what's gonna get people to watch?
Robert Sherman: It's also what serves the community. It'd be nice if every day we're doing a story on the new gelato place that opened up, but sometimes the stories that serve a community the most, they don't necessarily want to hear. Sometimes they're tough stories, but they have an impact.
Nate Spangle: Were you loved in Birmingham, or disliked? One part of being on local news is everyone's got an opinion.
Robert Sherman: I was still pretty unknown in Birmingham, still a smaller player, just being a reporter. I never became a lifelong household name like James Spann or any of those people, because I was only there for 18 months. But I love Birmingham. I love the city.
Nate Spangle: Where did your next opportunity end up taking you?
Robert Sherman: It ended up being at Fox News. I was based out of Florida for them, but I wasn't really there that often. The whole premise of the job is being boots on the ground at national stories across the country.
Nate Spangle: So you kind of get out of local news. This is your first break — the climb of that ladder would've been to go from a market in the forties to the twenties, or the teens. Where did you make the distinction that you wanted to get out of local news?
Robert Sherman: It's something I always wanted to do, but sometimes you have to cut your teeth, pay your dues in local news to work your way up. I was able to skip a couple of the jumps — to Detroit or Cleveland or Phoenix — and then skip the next level, which might be Los Angeles or Chicago or New York, and go right to national news. Which I was very thankful for.
Nate Spangle: What got you that opportunity?
Robert Sherman: I had this spreadsheet of like 600, 700 names, and I would just go through and hammer all these people. I'd get up at five o'clock in the morning and send these networking emails, spray and pray, and maybe only a few got back to me. But one person I made a good connection with was a Fox News top executive in New York. Stayed in touch, and the opportunity ended up coming through.
Nate Spangle: What were those emails saying? What could people take away from this — whether you're in news or whatever it is? I think sometimes people overthink what to actually send.
Robert Sherman: I always lead with: I'd be grateful for advice and constructive feedback. Nothing else. You never ask for a job directly.
Nate Spangle: And you're cultivating it — you could have done that the moment you hit boots on the ground, and not been looking directly for a job. Too often people need the network when they need to change ASAP, versus if you cultivate it. It's like the giving tree.
Robert Sherman: Don't be the little boy that just takes all the apples out of his tree and gets left with a stump. You're constantly watering and growing this network.
Nate Spangle: And the other piece is, even if they say the meanest thing — I just don't think this is that good — you have to say thank you.
Robert Sherman: You have to have thick skin. Especially in the space you're operating in right now — there can be some mean people on the internet. It's never been easier to be a faceless, mean person on the internet. KittyLovers6245, thanks for telling me I'm the worst thing that's ever happened to Indiana. Appreciate you.
Nate Spangle: So you get this opportunity — your first break, with Fox News. What was it called?
Robert Sherman: It was called a multimedia reporter. I would travel with my own camera, I would shoot video.
Nate Spangle: By yourself?
Robert Sherman: By myself.
Nate Spangle: I think people forget this — you're toting a camera around. And this is not a phone, it's a big one.
Robert Sherman: Oh yeah.
Nate Spangle: How old are you at this point?
Robert Sherman: I would've been like 23, 24.
Nate Spangle: You're 24, traveling the country. Give me an example — what's the first thing you get called out to?
Robert Sherman: First thing I got called out to would've been the election — the Iowa caucuses and stuff like that.
Nate Spangle: So you go from reporting about a dog trapped in a car in Alabama to now your boots are on the ground at the Iowa caucus.
Robert Sherman: Yeah, exactly. 2020. I had the 2020 election, which was a big one. They're all big ones now.
Nate Spangle: Local news might have this perception of "if it bleeds, it leads" — similar thing, pick your national news outlet. You're working for Fox News, and that has a tendency to lean toward one side of the political space. Were you getting feedback that way too? It's almost like being partisan, or being in the middle, being non-biased. Was there a feel that way?
Robert Sherman: I was never pushed in any direction personally, but there always was this sentiment. What is a story on one network is not a story on another. One of the first stories I did at Fox News was about the Second Amendment — certain cities that were putting Second Amendment restrictions in place. That is right in Fox News's wheelhouse, because it's what their viewers care about. Another subject matter might not be a story.
Nate Spangle: I feel like this has been a constant — you're hearing about it in the background for the last decade: this news organization is really far this way, and that way. And at the end of the day, who's reporting the facts? So how long were you with Fox?
Robert Sherman: I was there for two years. And I don't have an ill thing to say about Fox. It was a great opportunity for me to really launch.
Nate Spangle: Where you're going from Iowa caucus — where were the other places? I feel like I see you starting to get some real crazy opportunities.
Robert Sherman: It was like six hurricanes over those two years. Wildfires in California. Went up for the Derek Chauvin protests, and when those protests turned to riots in Minneapolis, I was at those. US-Mexico border was a good amount. Every week was a new time zone.
Nate Spangle: I remember seeing some wild shots — around this time you started posting on social media. I remember you at the border, right next to the wall where the wall stops. It was just like, what? Where's Robert Sherman? You were all over the place. How does it feel when there's a hurricane and everyone else is getting sent away, and it's you with your camera — you just go into the middle of it, solo?
Robert Sherman: For something like a hurricane, you would have a team that would go with you, because safety was always first. But it is a weird feeling when everyone is on the highway getting out of town and you're the only car going into town. I've seen that play out a few times — the Middle East, Ukraine — where it's like, wow, maybe we should rethink this.
Nate Spangle: Which hurricane is the most memorable that you covered?
Robert Sherman: Laura was a category four, and I was in Lake Charles, Louisiana for that one.
Nate Spangle: So you're in Louisiana, Hurricane Laura is coming, everyone else is leaving, and you're going in. Do you ever sit there and think — I said I wanted to be on ESPN, and now I'm going into the eye of a hurricane?
Robert Sherman: It is one of those things where it's like, I can't believe I'm in this situation right now. And that cuts both ways. Some days it's, I can't believe I'm here in Lake Charles, Louisiana as the wrath of God is about to rain down on the Gulf Coast. Other days it's, I'm in a canoe with Dog the Bounty Hunter looking for Brian Laundrie in South Florida.
Nate Spangle: Wait, is that a true story?
Robert Sherman: That is, yeah.
Nate Spangle: That's pretty crazy. We might need to unpack that one next.
Robert Sherman: There's videos of me and Dog the Bounty Hunter on these islands off the coast of Tampa looking for Brian Laundrie. It's crazy.
Nate Spangle: So what happens — how often are they tapping into you? You're in Louisiana, and they're coming live to you there.
Robert Sherman: Every 10, 30 minutes. We were feeding all the Fox affiliates — Atlanta, Minneapolis, all of the owned-and-operated Fox TV stations. So every 30 minutes, every 20 minutes or so.
Nate Spangle: And then at some point are they like, hey, we can't be out here anymore?
Robert Sherman: There is a point. When that happens — hey, this is the last thing.
Nate Spangle: And then what do you do, you just go seek shelter?
Robert Sherman: The nice thing is that a lot of those hotels down there are built with the intention of withstanding hurricanes. It's not their first rodeo. So you're hanging out in this hotel room like, hope this works out this go-around.
Nate Spangle: So at some point who makes the call?
Robert Sherman: Usually the call is made by us, because we have to make the choices with the knowledge that we have, based on how dangerous the situation can be. So it's usually our authority on that.
Nate Spangle: So you make the call — okay, this is gonna be our last hit. And then you go back to the hotel, hunker down.
Robert Sherman: And then maybe you get a little opportunistic when the eye of the storm is over you and it's calm very briefly. You run out and see, okay, what's the first thing we see. And then you go back in when it gets bad again.
Nate Spangle: Was there ever a moment in any of those — you covered six or seven all in all — where you were like, I don't want to be here anymore, I want to go home?
Robert Sherman: I never actually felt that in danger, because I've done it enough that you kind of know what you need to do. Now, some people have not had that experience and have put themselves in dangerous positions. It's always the hardest seeing the aftermath, because that's when the human stories become front and center. You see these towns that are just ravaged — Lake Charles got hit twice in six weeks by two different hurricanes, Laura and Delta. It just pounded again and again. It's hard to see those communities where people have done everything right — they started a business, made the sacrifices — and weather is what took their business out. That's always a hard one for me to get through.
Nate Spangle: So for two years you end up traveling the country, covering everything from wildfires to hurricanes to politics. Was there a moment where you just looked around like, how did I get so fortunate, this is a crazy opportunity?
Robert Sherman: The Dog the Bounty Hunter thing was definitely one of those — I cannot believe I'm in this situation.
Nate Spangle: So take me through how this ends up coming about, where you and Dog the Bounty Hunter are in a canoe.
Robert Sherman: It was a huge story — the Gabby Petito story down in South Florida, where this girl and her boyfriend go out west, she doesn't come back, and it's like, what happened to this girl? And then Brian Laundrie, her boyfriend, disappears into the woods. So we're down there in the woods where all this happened — in the swamp. Gators. We do have a team with us. And then all of a sudden — we're camping out front of Brian Laundrie's parents' house.
Nate Spangle: You're camping. Like in a tent?
Robert Sherman: We rented somebody's front yard. There's a tent there. We're watching the house 24/7.
Nate Spangle: Someone has to be watching the house 24/7 for any developments. So someone from your station calls up the neighbor and says, hey, can we rent your front yard?
Robert Sherman: Can we rent your front yard? I have no idea what the going rate of a front yard is in North Port, Florida.
Nate Spangle: A couple of people made off, made a couple bucks. So you're in a tent, and all of a sudden it's a real-life stakeout. Dog the Bounty Hunter shows up.
Robert Sherman: Is that Dog the Bounty Hunter? No way, that's Dog. He just walks right up to the Laundrie family home, knocks on the door —
Nate Spangle: Did someone answer?
Robert Sherman: I don't think anyone answered. But he came back to talk to us, and he's like, I'm gonna find Brian Laundrie.
Nate Spangle: And you're like, can I tag along? Can we come?
Robert Sherman: And it's just like, sure. Next thing you know — I was working at Fox at the time, and they loved it, and they were like, wherever he goes, you go. All of a sudden you're riding in the sidecar for Dog the Bounty Hunter. Can I rent a boat? You can rent a boat — go follow Dog the Bounty Hunter wherever he is. It was crazy. I've just never done anything like that.
Nate Spangle: So how long do you end up following Dog the Bounty Hunter?
Robert Sherman: It was a couple of days that we were out with him.
Nate Spangle: Any hot leads?
Robert Sherman: Not really. We went to a couple of islands, looking at places that Brian Laundrie could have been. It ended up being that he was in the woods the whole time — that was his final resting place, ultimately. So never really any hot leads. But it was just like — how did I, a kid from Cleveland, Ohio, who went to college in Indiana, end up in this boat with Dog the Bounty Hunter?
Nate Spangle: That's kind of crazy. But that's just — you get these opportunities. The average person who wants to be asleep at 10 p.m. and go to the studio and come home every day doesn't end up with those opportunities. So being willing to be a little crazy, in the good sense — it's the power of saying yes.
Robert Sherman: It's the power — you don't know what you don't know. And then when opportunity comes knocking, opportunity almost never comes at a convenient time. But you still have to say yes. There were other things going on in life I could have been doing — could have been at a bar with friends watching some football. I could've turned it down. But it's like, no, I'm gonna go follow Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Nate Spangle: And you end up getting your next opportunity and leaving Fox News. Talk to us about what ends up pulling you into News Nation.
Robert Sherman: My boss's boss at Fox, Cherie Grzech, she left to go run this new network. She's now president of News Nation, and someone who I really admired — I believe she's the greatest mind in cable news today. So it was an opportunity to go work for her again. And it was a cool opportunity because there are a lot of stigmas about the media landscape today — leans to the right, leans to the left. What I love about News Nation is the motto is "news for all Americans." It's really bringing it back to kitchen-table issues — the economy, the cost of groceries — really focused on the heartland.
Nate Spangle: Did you get negative feedback? Fox News gets pushback all the time. Were you getting beat up on the internet from that?
Robert Sherman: No, no. In fact, News Nation had just started — people were more likely to be like, where are you going? I've never heard of News Nation before. Which was fair, I hadn't either at the time. To see how much it has grown over the last couple of years — people like Leland Vittert, Chris Cuomo, Dan Abrams is still with us to some capacity, Elizabeth Vargas — all these people who have come to this team, focused on the heartland, America first.
Nate Spangle: Did you get beat up while you were at Fox, though? Were people talking, this stigma?
Robert Sherman: Oh yeah. You would put something on social media — "thousands of people attended this Trump rally today." First comment is, "thousands of people? I bet it was 20, you're such a liar." Then the next comment is, "thousands of people? It was millions of people, you're such a liar." You can't win.
Nate Spangle: You can't win on the internet. And those were all probably faceless accounts.
Robert Sherman: Exactly.
Nate Spangle: So going to this new kind of startup network is a cool, exciting opportunity. When they tapped you to come over there, what was the job?
Robert Sherman: It was originally going to be focused on covering the US-Mexico border. That's where I thought I'd be spending all my time, because it was a huge story impacting Texas and Arizona.
Nate Spangle: This is not a politics podcast, but you are there at the border. What's life like on the border of Texas and Mexico?
Robert Sherman: It totally depends where you are. There were some parts of the border, when I started there in 2022, that were pretty freaking lawless. In some of these places, violence against Border Patrol agents was a huge problem. Gang members coming from not just Mexico —
Nate Spangle: And you're just sitting there with your camera out.
Robert Sherman: And you never know who's gonna run past. There were times when we would see cartel members across the Rio Grande, because it's not a wide river.
Nate Spangle: How do you know that they were —
Robert Sherman: They were taunting us. Sometimes they'd put up their hands — money, money, money.
Nate Spangle: What? Are you worried? Are you scared at all?
Robert Sherman: There were times when it was like, I probably shouldn't go to Mexico. Because the cartels are smart. They know who we are, they know the networks that are down there, where reporters are. They would probably never hurt any of us because it's bad for business for the cartels to cross an American reporter. But it's a different world when you're talking about the US-Mexico border. Then there's the other element, which I emphasize — the humanitarian crisis of a woman and her children who have largely walked from South America through Mexico all the way to the US-Mexico border. I cannot imagine what that journey is like. There are some networks that might only tell one side of that story, just the humanitarian element, and you don't hear about the cartel criminal element. Then there are other networks that'll tell you about the cartel criminal element but won't highlight the humanitarian issues. Our focus has been to cover everything.
Nate Spangle: And at a time when there's never been more skepticism of news, hearing both sides of these stories is important.
Robert Sherman: It is.
Nate Spangle: It's a cool opportunity to be there and not one way or the other — hey, this is happening, and this is happening, and that's the news.
Robert Sherman: And this is a big part of my book project as well. It's really changed my calculus and my views of the world. I used to be at DePauw with you and have such strong opinions — I think the world is this, I think it should be like this. The more you see, the less you know. The more people you come across, it's like, wow, this is a really complicated world. You go into college and Greencastle is easy — I should have been stressing about that econ exam.
Nate Spangle: Where in the journey — from Alabama to Louisiana and the hurricanes to the Mexican-American border — where along that journey changed you personally the most?
Robert Sherman: The place that changed me the most was probably arriving in Ukraine. Which would've been February of 2022.
Nate Spangle: Do you get pulled off of the border and sent —
Robert Sherman: Went right from the border to Ukraine.
Nate Spangle: How did that call go? Who calls you and says, we're sending you into an active war zone?
Robert Sherman: We were really hoping that a country doesn't get invaded, so we were like, we don't think this is going to happen. And sure enough, the invasion started, and it was like, we need to be there. My now-boss and mentor Cherie Grzech was the one who called me — we need somebody over there immediately. You wanna go?
Nate Spangle: Was it a question?
Robert Sherman: I had floated the idea — this could be kind of interesting, if you ever need someone to go. I kind of volunteered in a half-baked way, not thinking there'd be any consequences to that volunteering. And then the next thing you know — I hadn't been out of the country in years. Honestly, Nate, that day I could not have told you where Ukraine was on a map. I had no idea. I had no curiosity about the world. And then you have to learn really quickly. Being on the ground in Ukraine for the first time, that was the day I realized I have so much more to learn about the world. I thought I knew so much covering politics, thought I knew so much being a good student at DePauw, graduating with honors. I thought I was really smart. And then you realize — wow, it is a wide world, it is a complicated world. It was the first time I started to ask questions like — is part of this our fault in the United States, that a country overseas got invaded? Are we a force for good, are we not a force for good? Just a lot of an internal audit of, I have no idea.
Nate Spangle: So you get on a plane that takes you from the border. Where do you drop into Ukraine?
Robert Sherman: We fly into Warsaw, because they shut down the airspace in Ukraine — it's still closed today to commercial flights. So we fly into Warsaw and we hire a crew that is on the ground. There's someone called a fixer — someone who speaks all the languages, fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, knows exactly where to go, where the military positions are, what is safe, what is a hot zone, what to avoid.
Nate Spangle: That's someone's job. Who's hooking you up with a fixer?
Robert Sherman: Thankfully I went with a producer who knew what he was doing — Bartley Price.
Nate Spangle: So you have someone who's been around something like this before.
Robert Sherman: I think it was Iraq when he was in a Humvee and got hit by an RPG, covering — I think it was Fallujah. Some crazy stuff. He's spent a whole bunch of time in the Balkans, Afghanistan. He knew what he was doing. I had no idea what I was doing when I got there. Our first day on the ground in Ukraine, we get buzzed by a couple of jets. And Bartley is diving out of the room — get down on the ground — and I'm looking out the window like, oh, it's the Blue Angels. It's like, oh, okay. Not supposed to do that.
Nate Spangle: So where do you end up in Ukraine?
Robert Sherman: First city we were in was Ivano-Frankivsk.
Nate Spangle: And what's the day in the life look like?
Robert Sherman: It was crazy, because during the day it looked like it could have been any European city. The cafes are still open, the bakeries are still open, they're still making cakes, still brewing espresso. And then all of a sudden the air raid sirens go off and everything changes. This is the first couple of days after the invasion — people head underground and take shelter, because at that time Russia was bombing pretty much every corner of Ukraine. Every airport, big or small, they were hitting, because the battle lines weren't drawn. Kyiv was surrounded at that time. It was intense.
Nate Spangle: So what's it feel like when you're in a town, in a city, and it goes under attack? What's going through your mind?
Robert Sherman: The first time you hear those air raid sirens go off, you're like, what do we do? So you go run for shelter. The shelter is full — there's too many Ukrainians there — so now we've gotta improvise. And it's a constant game of problem-solving. You have no idea how much time you have until missile impact, or jets buzz overhead.
Nate Spangle: When that happens, how often are you on camera?
Robert Sherman: When that happens, we're just kind of running for it. At that point it's like, okay, when we get to a safe place we can go back on TV, but right now we need to run.
Nate Spangle: I think some people don't realize you're in legitimate danger.
Robert Sherman: Especially in the early days of the war. In the early days of the war, all bets are off.
Nate Spangle: Where was the moment that — was it the first air raid siren, and you're like, oh, this is real?
Robert Sherman: The first time I was actually really nervous — we were sitting in a cafe in Ivano-Frankivsk. We don't have our translator with us, I think he was out with his dad. And all of a sudden these eight guys dressed in all black walk in, and they make eye contact with us immediately and surround Bartley and my table in this cafe.
Nate Spangle: Are they talking?
Robert Sherman: They're saying something in Ukrainian — we can't speak Ukrainian, they can't speak English. Then one of them reaches inside for a g*n, inside of his jacket, and we're like, what is going on? They're making us put our phones in the middle of the table, our laptops in the middle of the table, and they yank us out of this cafe. And I'm like, what is happening? We're waiting an hour or so for someone to be a translator to show up. And finally — I call him Jack in my book, he's got the mannerisms of a Bond villain — he's like, you are suspected of the crime of espionage against the state of Ukraine, and we will investigate this. Someone has called us in, thinking we're not Ukrainians, we're foreigners, thinking we're spies. So they're investigating, and we have to give them all of our documents. What's your purpose in Ukraine? We're American journalists who are here. And he's like, that's a convenience — we arrested six Russian spies with American press credentials this morning in Ivano-Frankivsk. It's like, that's it, we're toast.
Nate Spangle: What?
Robert Sherman: He's going through all of our documents. And finally, after being detained in the freezing cold — the Ukraine winter — they determine that we're not spies. And we're like, what exactly led you to believe that we were spies, and what would've happened if they would've got that wrong?
Nate Spangle: It's kind of like guilty until proven innocent at that time. But they're in a war, they're getting their homeland jacked up.
Robert Sherman: Totally. You would drive through the country and get stopped at these checkpoints where they're looking for Russian spies and saboteurs, and they're not run by the military — they're run by Joe Schmo in his local town. That's where tensions can really flare, because it really is guilty until proven innocent. And if you screw that up at a checkpoint, that might be your countrymen who die if you let a Russian spy get away. So that was the first time I've ever been involved in something where the stakes are so high. People believe that they are fighting for their existence.
Nate Spangle: And you get out of there — are you more fired up to tell these stories, or are you like, what the hell am I doing here?
Robert Sherman: I would say I was more fired up, because now all of a sudden my curiosity for the world was humming in a way that it's never hummed before.
Nate Spangle: How long did you spend in Ukraine?
Robert Sherman: I was originally there for like two months, and then I just got back actually a couple of weeks ago. So all in all I've probably spent like five months in Ukraine. The rest of it has mostly been in the Middle East.
Nate Spangle: Did you know much about the history behind that conflict?
Robert Sherman: Nothing going in. You know the American perspective — Russia's perceived as being this boogeyman. It's the West versus the East, the Cold War renewed. I had this idea that the world is black and white, it is a good-and-evil kind of world. I'm going into this war thing like, okay, the United States, we are the West, we are the force for good, we are aligned with the Ukrainians. But then you start to realize, it's just not that simple. There are a lot of circles that I haven't squared yet about the situation between those two countries. I'm asking questions like — NATO expansion, did this play a role in all of this? I don't have a deep understanding of Russia's view of the world. But one thing you start to take away is, everyone believes that they're a force for good. Everyone believes they're on the right side of history.
Nate Spangle: It's hard to believe that someone who says, oh, we're invading a place, but we're on the good side —
Robert Sherman: But if you change the word from "invading" to "liberating" —
Nate Spangle: Oh — we are doing something good.
Robert Sherman: Give you an example. When Russia, in the first couple of days of the war — Putin was talking about, we need to liberate these ethnic Russians who are in the Donbas. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, but that was part of it as well. And to "de-Nazify" Ukraine, the Nazi influences that exist in Ukraine. I initially hear that, and it's like, okay, that's gotta be Russian propaganda. But then we crossed paths with some of these guys who had these allegations of Nazism — they are there in Ukraine, and there was a time when the United States was trying to make them foreign terrorist organizations, give them those designations. And I'm looking at these people face to face — these are real people. So the United States was trying to make this group a terrorist organization, but Russia says they're on the right side of history because they are liberating Ukraine from any of these neo-Nazi influences. Where is the truth? Now all of a sudden it gets complicated. And that is the sentence that I found myself saying again and again — it's complicated.
Nate Spangle: Was there a specific story that you put out that picked up a lot of traction?
Robert Sherman: One of them that wasn't war zones was the papal conclave earlier this year. After Pope Leo XIV was elected, I was the first American reporter to get a question in to him, as he was walking down the aisle, and asked him if he had a message for the United States. And he looked at me and said, "many" — for the United States. It was a pretty loaded response. It got picked up by People Magazine.
Nate Spangle: Were you rehearsing that?
Robert Sherman: A hundred percent. In your head you're like, okay, don't butcher this. This is your moment, Robert, do not blow this. The Pope is about to walk by you. It sounds like a simple question, but he's walking by you, so you get a second or two to get a question in. So — what's your message for the United States? And he stopped and turned, and he was just like, "many." I have many messages for the US.
Nate Spangle: There it is. One word has never meant so much. What about from your time in active war zones?
Robert Sherman: We were embedded with this Ukrainian unit in the Donbas, with one of their drone teams. They took us to an undisclosed location, a couple miles away from the front lines, into one of their drone labs, their workshops — and this is where warfare is advancing by the day. Yes, there's missiles, tanks and jets that still make up the battlefield, but right now the weapon of choice are these drones. Like what a hobbyist might pick up at Walmart for a hundred or 200 bucks, rigged with explosives and then flying them at people. That has totally changed the battlefield. So we're looking at this technology as they're redeveloping it. You put a drone in the air and it gets jammed by Russia — okay, you need a way to not jam it. So let's hardline this drone with fiber optic cabling that goes 25 miles or so. They're putting Starlinks on these things. It was pretty unparalleled access, to see how the fight is really happening and how it's advancing so quickly.
Nate Spangle: Where do you end up transitioning from Ukraine — and then you become basically a full-on war correspondent, which was not the initial job you signed up for.
Robert Sherman: I was on vacation with my parents in London at the Tower of London doing the Beefeater tour when October 7th happened in 2023. All of a sudden our phones start going off. I'd been to Israel once before, so I knew there was always the possibility of flare-ups, but this was clearly pretty big time. The next thing I knew I was on a plane from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv. Getting into Israel was an absolute mess — I had to go through Istanbul in order to get there. And that's when you are face to face with people in their darkest hour. We were at the Istanbul airport, and almost every flight was getting canceled to Israel. There's thousands of people in the corner of this terminal, but there's only one plane and there's a hundred seats, and they are giving them out first come first serve — to whoever's passport they get first. You have all these people who are begging to get on this plane. They all want to go back, because their hometowns have been attacked. They don't know where their loved ones are because they've been taken hostage. There is all of this uncertainty, and you have people who are just sobbing in the Istanbul airport with photos of their loved ones — I haven't heard from Yael since Friday, I have no idea where she is, I think she's been taken hostage. And that was when the meaning and the promise of home really came close to me. That was the first time I ever considered just how important home is, because I saw all of these people who lost their homes, didn't know if they would have a home to return to, and would do anything. I remember looking at this woman who was sitting in a wheelchair, and she was trying to rock out of the wheelchair just so she could get her passport into this guy's hand so she might be able to go home. She could have flipped her wheelchair over — the pain and humiliation she was willing to suffer in order to have a shot at going home. All of a sudden it's like, wow, that's what's important. That's one of the things I talk about in this book project — what really matters is home. Concepts like that. Family. Time.
Nate Spangle: Where did you get the notion to write this book?
Robert Sherman: I wrote almost every word of it on airplanes. I started it on the plane ride home from Ukraine. Initially it was going to be a gift to my future self — I wasn't even going to publish it, just something to keep all these memories that have really changed my life. And then the situation in the Middle East happened, and I started writing more of it. My whole perspective of life has just totally changed. It used to be all ambition, work, hustle. And then all of a sudden, when you're running from rockets and you've got eight seconds that makes a difference between living and dying, you can't look at your clock the same way ever again. The concept of time means something new to you. When you have taken home for granted for all these years — coming back to Indiana, when you've taken that for granted — and then all of a sudden you see all these people who just lost their home in an instant. People from Mariupol or Melitopol, Ukraine, who can't go home because it's occupied. Or people from Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel, or people from Rafah in Gaza who have lost their homes. Now all of a sudden home has a different value to you.
Nate Spangle: The interesting piece is — you go from a very historic conflict, there's lots of history between Russia and Ukraine, and you go to the Middle East, where there's even more historical turmoil and countless layers. How do you even start to begin to understand the complexities going on there?
Robert Sherman: October 8th, the first day that I was there, was one of the most overwhelming days of my life. As an American, you kind of paint the whole world as — okay, the Middle East, it's all kind of the same. No, not in the slightest. Israel is its own country, and there's political dynamics ongoing in Israel, and then there's the West Bank. Is the West Bank similar to Gaza? No, it's two political groups — you have Fatah, and then Hamas. And then you look around the region — you have the Houthis in Yemen. You just have to be obsessive. I've never crammed harder for an exam in my life.
Nate Spangle: How are the people who are there treating you?
Robert Sherman: First day there, it was the first time we were bombed in Israel. We were staying in a hotel, and the shelter in the hotel was a stairwell. We hear the explosions going off in the sky above, and there's probably 15 people inside this bomb shelter. One guy starts yelling at me in Hebrew, and I have no idea what he's saying. He's like — why did you come here? You American journalists, you don't like us, you love the Palestinians, you don't love the Israelis, you hate all of us. And it's like, I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand this as much as possible. And a woman is in that shelter with me, and she just says, "tell the truth." And it's like — I don't even know what the truth is. I don't even know where to begin unpacking thousands of years of history. So I just made a promise to myself: I'm only gonna tell people what I know for sure, I'm only gonna show people what I see, and just be honest about what I don't know. That is the mindset I've tried to take into this — this humility of, the world is an extremely complex place. I am not an expert. I will never feel confident being an expert in anything on this subject matter, because it is so complex, so dynamic.
Nate Spangle: Who are you with on this one? Do you have a team?
Robert Sherman: One person is with me, and then we would hire crews when we would go out and about. There was one other guy from News Nation, Will Bodkins, who I've pretty much lived with the last two and a half years or so. We've been all over the world together now.
Nate Spangle: Why put yourself in these extremely tumultuous situations, extremely dangerous — you're in a bomb shelter — why?
Robert Sherman: Because I don't understand the world, and I am trying so hard and so desperately to make sense of the world. That kid who got on that plane to Ukraine in 2022, who thought he was so smart and was so sure of himself and thought he had the world figured out, is gone. The person who I am today — I am just so curious about the world, and I wanna understand why the world is this way. And I also believe that the work being done is very important, because especially in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, you had two groups of people, the Israelis and the Palestinians, who fundamentally believed that they were on the verge of extermination as a people. That's how high the stakes are with some of these stories. So I just believe it needs to be done with fastidious care. It is my life purpose now to try and tell the stories of people who are involved in all of this. That arrogance, that hubris that I had a couple years ago has been squashed, and it's now just a humble kid from Ohio who is educated in Indiana, who's trying to make sense of the world.
Nate Spangle: You're there getting yelled at in Hebrew and in languages you don't understand, for problems you'll never comprehend. And then you have to go on TV and you're trying to make us back here in the States understand what's going on. What can people expect from this book?
Robert Sherman: I believe this is the most relatable book on the subject matters of Ukraine and Israel and the Middle East that people are gonna pick up this year, because it is not written by an ex-military guy, it is not written by a geopolitical expert. It is written by a then-25-year-old kid from Cleveland, Ohio who is just trying to make sense of the world. It's self-deprecating — I make fun of myself — but the subject matter is serious as well. The stories of the everyday Ukrainians and Israelis and Palestinians who we cross paths with, those are all real. I also look at the tension and the divides taking place in our political ecosystem today. People are more than welcome to have their own takeaways and view the world however they want. I believe the first step toward bridging these divides is through humility and recognizing what we don't know. Because my whole takeaway from seeing all this craziness over the last three years is — maybe I don't even know that much about the United States. Maybe I don't know that much about my neighbors. Who am I to say how someone should be living if I've never sat at their kitchen table before?
Nate Spangle: It's interesting that the best storytellers also happen to be the most curious, the question-askers. The stories you could tell and the news you get to share come from being able to get conversations started and learn about people. If you don't end up in the boat with Dog the Bounty Hunter, you don't have a story to tell there.
Robert Sherman: Totally. And now I see it everywhere. I can't quell the curiosity anymore. I'll give you an example. For anyone who wants to do traveling in the coming year — I had no idea that, as an American, I assumed that World War II was over. But there are so many unhealed wounds and tensions from World War II that exist in Europe to this day that I had no idea about. Go to Hungary, go to the Czech Republic and see that.
Nate Spangle: What do you mean? How did that present itself to you?
Robert Sherman: I viewed travel in my personal time as part of my education, trying to see new places. One of the places I wanted to go was Hungary. You learn about 1945 and the Holocaust that had taken place there. But you also see how World War II ended, and some of their land was given away after World War II because they were aligned with the Germans. Who did that land go to? The Soviet Union. Where is that land today? Ukraine. All of a sudden the Hungarians don't feel so bad for the Ukrainians, and believe there's some unresolved tensions there. So that's a microcosm of — whoa.
Nate Spangle: And it goes back to your statement of, everyone thinks they're on the right side of history.
Robert Sherman: A hundred percent.
Nate Spangle: And if you take that away — it doesn't matter what someone is doing, if they're screaming at someone in a Walmart over their political views, or saying something on Facebook — just remember that everyone is coming, in their heart, from a place of believing they are on the right side of history. They believe they're doing good with the information that they have.
Robert Sherman: And that's what makes the storytelling so powerful. Now, people can be misguided — people can mean well but say the wrong thing. But 90% of people, not just Americans, but Ukrainians, Israelis, Palestinians, British, French, Kiwis, Aussies — they all believe they're doing good. They're good people, and the things they believe, they have goodness at the forefront.
Nate Spangle: What do you believe the biggest misconception is from the American perspective?
Robert Sherman: I just think the black-and-whiteness of the world does not exist. That was the kid getting on that plane to Ukraine — okay, there's good, there's evil, there's the West, there's the East, everything is aligned pretty tightly. Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel just got off the phone with Russian president Vladimir Putin the other day. There are dynamics that exist between Israel and Russia. There are dynamics that exist between Israel and the United States. None of this is simple. And I promise you, if you've come up with a simple solution to thousands of years of tension, I guarantee you someone's already thought of it before. My whole thing is just — be curious and ask questions, and seek to understand before being understood. Because it is a wide world, and it is a complicated world.
Nate Spangle: When your time in front of the camera is over — let's say 50 years from now — what do you hope people think about the work that you've done?
Robert Sherman: I hope that people will always say, Robert was fair, Robert was honest, and Robert really cared about the people at the heart of those stories. That is what I'm hoping people will be able to take away from my career. Every day is a work in process to that point. And I hope it does make a difference, and that people come away with some degree of understanding of the world — that I'm able to help guide people as they search for answers. Because if you're thinking that you're paddling in the river of uncertainty, brother, I'm in that canoe with you. It's you, me and Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Nate Spangle: Let's go, man. This has been an awesome conversation. I think it really shows an arc — from local news, which gets a tough perception of "if it bleeds, it leads," and then you get to polarizing — Fox News is seen as one way, and other news stations the other way — and then you go to News Nation and you end up in the middle of real peril. And how you've profoundly changed over the last three years, and your commitment to chasing curiosity, is so impactful. There's that quote from Ted Lasso — well, Ted Lasso quotes someone else — "be curious, not judgmental."
Robert Sherman: Walt Whitman. I believe Walt Whitman. I think that was who Ted Lasso quotes in his show.
Nate Spangle: It's like a Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott. But — be curious, not judgmental. And wonder about these individuals who are on the other side of that story, and what would get them so fired up about their side of things. I think the work that you're doing is very impactful. And it comes back to the power of the word "yes," because none of this would've happened if that phone call had come and said, do you have interest in going to Ukraine, and you'd said no.
Robert Sherman: I'm a better person and a more humble person because I said yes to that phone call. And it is amazing what happens when opportunity presents itself, sometimes in a way that you didn't expect — you say yes.
Nate Spangle: We talk about that — singular conversations that have changed your life. A singular conversation, that you might have said in passing — when you talk about, oh, I'll go over there — you had no idea that that would shape the next X amount of years of your life. If people want to pick up the book, where can they do that?
Robert Sherman: At normal places where books are sold — Barnes & Noble, Amazon — you can order directly through Bloomsbury as well. It should be releasing December 11th. "Lessons from the Front: A Rookie War Correspondent in Ukraine and Israel."
Nate Spangle: We'll link it down in the show notes as well. We do have our final same three questions that we ask every guest. You spent four years in Indiana, just a kid from Cleveland, Ohio — you and Travis Kelce both. You've spent a decent chunk of time here in Indiana, and you've obviously seen a lot of the world. What's something that the world needs to know about Indiana?
Robert Sherman: I think of the Indiana perspective every day. I don't think there is a population that is more grounded in what is important than people here in the Hoosier State. People here are very in tune with what is important in their lives — their jobs, their homes, their family. Some of the best people in the world live in Indiana. I say that so sincerely, and I think of them every day, because they seem to be in tune with what's really important and what should be a guiding light in so many people's lives.
Nate Spangle: When you've seen a lot of things, that's something we can take for granted here in Indiana — we don't realize that not everyone is that way. Good intentions and being grounded, and what some people might call a slower pace of living, can actually be a great place to live and grow and raise a family. Okay, this is an opportunity for you to share a piece of the Hoosier State that you love that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Robert Sherman: The Greencastle High School gymnasium. Really, the arena. I walked into that thing for the first time at WGRE 91.5, covering a Greencastle Tiger Cubs basketball game. That is an arena.
Nate Spangle: It's awesome. It's like a dome type.
Robert Sherman: It's good size. I think the story is that they may have hosted the state tournament there, or at least one of the major levels of the state tournament. I was not expecting that.
Nate Spangle: So, back when Indiana was one-class basketball, the sectional and the regional used to be these — you would have thousands of people show up to an arena, because it wasn't based on size, it was based on proximity. So you imagine South Putnam, North Putnam, Cloverdale, all coming to take down Greencastle. So usually around one per county, you'll find a bigger-than-average-sized arena, because basketball in Indiana was so big. And then with class basketball, you started getting the 1A schools having to travel to find the other 1A schools. So instead of just going one place and watching it all, you have to pick and choose. It really affected attendance when they went to class basketball. But that's a little class basketball history for you. Either way, the deeply rooted culture of hoops in this state — wild, right? People weren't messing around.
Robert Sherman: Yes sir.
Nate Spangle: Okay, finally — this is where we get new guests, or people that have ties to Indiana. Whether or not you might be born a Buckeye and now a citizen of the world, you spent time in the Hoosier State. Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar — someone who's doing big things?
Robert Sherman: You know him, I know him — he is my good friend Peter Schilo, who's now in Miami. I've never met someone with such an in-tune business mind, the way that he is advancing and developing, with Brock Buckles. He is going to be such a huge player, and you're going to be seeing his name so far and wide. So that is someone who I really think is gonna be heavily invested here. And he is a proponent of Indiana, of the Hoosier State.
Nate Spangle: Love it. A hundred percent. That's a great one — Peter. I know that he's gonna watch this one too. So shout out to Brock, BC Brokers — those guys are killing it. Robert, I appreciate you coming on, and I appreciate you taking the time to share a little bit — but not too much, because everyone needs to go pick up the book — of your travels and your insights from spending time in some of the most intense places on the planet. It's been an honor to follow you, and to get to sit down and chat. If people wanna follow you and learn more about the work you're doing — where can they see you?
Robert Sherman: Social media, all of it, is at Robert Sherman TV. There's my website, RobertShermanTV.com, where I aggregate a lot of this reporting as well. And also News Nation — America's fastest growing cable news network.
Nate Spangle: There we go. Robert, appreciate you stopping by, man. We'll talk to you soon.
Robert Sherman: Thank you so much, Nate.
Nate Spangle: This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hoosier State great. We'll see you next time here on Get IN.
