Cathy Wurzer passes the mic to Nina Moini, new Minnesota Now host

CATHY WURZER: Well, friends, this is my last Minnesota Now program. It's true. I'm stepping away. I'm going to focus on Morning Edition, get up at 0 dark 30 every morning. I'm going to hand the mic over to the amazing Nina Moini. Nina is in studio, ready to take the mic over. Hey.

NINA MOINI: Oh, hey, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Congratulations.

NINA MOINI: Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

CATHY WURZER: You know, I'm not sure if people know about your background, and you have an amazing resume.

NINA MOINI: Oh, well, thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. I mean, you've spent a long time reporting here in the Twin Cities. I met you back when you were at WCCO-TV.

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Which you also worked there, too. That's so funny. Yeah, yeah. First of all, just thank you so much for giving me this time. Thank you for everything you've done getting Minnesota Now started. I'm happy for you that you're going to be able to just focus on one show and all the other hours that you do. It's really amazing. And yeah, I just wanted to get on today and say hello to everybody.

I've been here for seven years as a reporter, but in case folks haven't caught me or heard me, just wanted to say I know that consistency and comfort and trust is important to our listeners, and I just wanted to say hello. And I've been around for 11 years now, reporting across Minnesota, the first four years with Channel 4, and of course, the last seven here at MPR News. So thrilled to be able to sit in that host chair and just spend an hour with everybody every day, talking about Minnesota and Minnesota news. It's an amazing gift.

CATHY WURZER: You've done a lot here. So you have been a reporter, a news anchor-- let me see, just hang on-- an editor, and now a host, right?

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: A lot of different things. And I remember you did the podcast after George Floyd's murder, In Front of Our Eyes. That was excellent.

NINA MOINI: Thank you so much. It was obviously a time filled with so much going on for us here in Minnesota, so many emotions. But it was also obviously a big national and international story. And one of the things, Cathy, that stuck out to me during that time was that even though it was such a big international story, people were turning to us as local journalists who know this community, who work here.

And I think that that's an example of just the power and the magic of local news, that I know that you care so much about the people of Minnesota and their interests, and that you do so much for them. We're all just working to try to serve Minnesotans. So it was amazing to see us in that coverage, and that people from across the world were coming to us. It meant a lot.

CATHY WURZER: Exactly. Say, people might remember The Warming House.

NINA MOINI: Yeah!

CATHY WURZER: That was a fun show, and you were with our friend Sean.

NINA MOINI: Sean McPherson.

CATHY WURZER: He was so much fun, and you guys were great together. What did you learn from doing that show?

NINA MOINI: Well, we started that during the height of the pandemic, winter 2020, 2021. Yeah, we planned it over Zoom, got a show started. You know something about getting a show started from starting this one, Minnesota Now. But an incredible experience in that just, we know the news can be tough and a lot's going on, but there's also a lot of amazing things going on.

So we had Sean's expertise in music, we had trivia segments, we were talking to different business owners. And again, just like how you touch on so many great parts of life during this program, we were doing some of that back then. So it's amazing to be able to continue that on, because we know there's joyful things happening. We know there's difficult stuff happening we have to dive into, and we have a space to do all of that.

CATHY WURZER: Well, you have a space now. You have an hour palette that you can paint on.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: What is Out to Lunch? Now, I understand you're going to do something about out-- you are not out to lunch. But, I mean, there's--

NINA MOINI: Figuratively speaking.

CATHY WURZER: Exactly.

NINA MOINI: Well, since this is the noon hour, we thought it would be fun to ask different newsmakers and interesting people in the community to come and have lunch with us somewhere that works for them. So we're going to go out into the community, somewhere they pick, and then we're going to come back and air it for our audiences once a week. So please have lunch with me.

CATHY WURZER: Fun!

NINA MOINI: If you know people doing good things in your community, you don't have to be super famous or anything. We just want to feature people. And you do this all the time already on the show, but we want to be talking to people about what's important to them and getting a little bit deeper.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, exactly. Glad to hear that. By the way, I am fueled-- I was very excited when you came in the door, because yesterday was a really long day--

NINA MOINI: I know.

CATHY WURZER: --for both of us. Thank you for bringing in the Diet Mountain Dew. I have to say, the nectar of gods right there.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, before it was a thing for Governor Tim Walz, it was our thing for a long time, and it started for me when I was a morning reporter. And I was pretty young at the time, and I didn't even really like coffee yet. So I turned to soda, and I crack one open at 2:00 in the morning. Maybe the same, a similar thing for you.

CATHY WURZER: Sadly, it is. I'm sorry.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So fueled by Diet Mountain Dew. You can definitely trust us.

[LAUGHTER]

But the producers were like, why don't you turn the tables, and you can ask Cathy a few questions?

CATHY WURZER: Oh, great. Sure.

NINA MOINI: And I know that that's not our favorite thing, to talk about ourselves, but it's important to acknowledge again all that you've done for the state, this show. You really did build this with the producers from the ground up, because you wanted to give people even more, more, more, more Minnesota news.

CATHY WURZER: It was fun, really fun.

NINA MOINI: And so we're going to take a look back here at some of the memorable moments. Something listeners might not know is that you are passionate about talking about grief, caretaking, and the end of someone's life. You have a nonprofit that's wonderful called the End in Mind Project, and a really powerful segment you did last year actually won a big first place award. It was about a woman who chose to hasten her death after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, that's right.

NINA MOINI: So she voluntarily stopped eating and drinking. This is tough stuff, but you handled it beautifully. Let's take a listen to the clip of the interview that you did with her daughter.

CATHY WURZER: You're a professional who walks with people and their families through life's last chapters, and I think every death can teach you something. What lessons did your mom's death teach you that you'll take with you?

WENDY BROWN: [SIGHS DEEPLY] That's a wonderful question. It really is about living life until the last breath. I mean, yes, as a death doula, we say you're actively dying, but you're also actively living.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. So true. What Wendy said really is right, and that's what I try to teach at End in Mind Project. It underscores that we're alive until we're not. Even with a terminal illness, there are moments of joy and meaning, and Wendy and her family made sure that their mother lived her life until the very end of it.

Because we get-- and I think this, and I don't know about you, Nina, but I think that we tend to get caught up in the mundane stuff of life. We forget to live every moment that we have. And because life is so very short, it's a realization that really spurs me to do all that I do in my life.

NINA MOINI: And what a beautiful thing, to talk about things that can be difficult. Because when we don't talk about it, then people are left more isolated.

CATHY WURZER: Right.

NINA MOINI: So I appreciate that. And we also want to talk about, again, the variety of topics here, from a more serious thing to really fun guests. And you got to talk to actors and writers involved with the hit show Reservation Dogs.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, gosh.

NINA MOINI: So we're going to listen to a clip there.

CATHY WURZER: How did growing up in Minnesota play into your comedy, in your storytelling?

DALLAS GOLDTOOTH: I grew up both in the south side of Minneapolis during the summers, with my dad and Migizi and everything. But then the school year, I lived down in southwest Minnesota. And I mean, yeah, a lot of our comedy is heavily influenced by how we interact with the greater settler society. I mean, I grew up around farmer kids. It was a bunch of Indians surrounded by a bunch of white farmer kids in southwest Minnesota.

And the constant interaction with "Minnesota nice," and how uncomfortable white folks get in Minnesota about certain issues, is hilarious to me. And I think that it has influenced me, and it has encouraged me to always be willing to push the buttons, because I imagine what would make a white Lutheran in central Minnesota uncomfortable, and let's go for that.

[LAUGHTER]

CATHY WURZER: And they tried pushing my buttons, but I'm a southsider.

NINA MOINI: OK.

CATHY WURZER: Right? And so I grew up in the same neighborhood that these guys came from. So it was-- but it was a fun interview. It was.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, a lot of personality, and just talking to people again about what's important to them. And of course, you love to feature local music, Minnesota artists here. A fan favorite, and one of your favorites, Cathy, and mine too, is Nur-D. So let's take a listen here.

CATHY WURZER: And you're one of the only people who understands, really, the allure of professional wrestling, because I'm a pro wrestling fan myself, so I'll admit that.

NUR-D: Oh my goodness, did you see that MJF promo just the other day?

CATHY WURZER: Yes. What'd you think?

NUR-D: Mm-hmm. I mean, if it's a work, that's a pretty bold work. It was pretty impressive. It reminded me of the pipe bomb that CM Punk did all those years ago, when he sat down on the stage, you know what I mean?

CATHY WURZER: Oh my gosh. Now, my listeners had no idea until we just talked that I actually loved-- I love pro wrestling, and I'm sure I just shocked a bunch of people out there by admitting that, which is fine.

NUR-D: Yeah, no, hey--

NINA MOINI: A woman of many talents.

NUR-D: --we're all-- we're in a cool club.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, pro wrestling and country music. I just raise my hand on both of them. I know.

NINA MOINI: I love that. Why not?

CATHY WURZER: What the heck. Well, why not, you know? Riding horses and fishing and--

NINA MOINI: A woman of many talents and interests. And again, just so grateful to you for everything that you will continue to do here and have done for us. I admire you greatly personally--

CATHY WURZER: Oh, you, now.

NINA MOINI: --have learned so much just listening to you do the job. So thank you, and thanks to everyone who listens, and we hope you'll stick around with me.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, they will. For goodness sakes, they will, absolutely. You're going to have a ball. You're going to have a ball doing this show.

NINA MOINI: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: It is fun. It's a whole hour of you can do whatever you want.

NINA MOINI: Amazing.

CATHY WURZER: Think about that. It's a gift, truly.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely.

CATHY WURZER: It's been a gift being with a bunch of really talented producers, too. I'm looking at Alanna and Ellen and Gretchen and Aleesa. They're all waving at us from the control room. Alex, thank you for hanging out with me. Alex, of course, is our steadfast technical director who puts up with my ridiculousness every day.

NINA MOINI: It's a great team.

CATHY WURZER: OK, I'm not going away. I'm going to do Morning Edition. I mentioned that before. So I'm going to just focus on the one show. Nina's doing Minnesota Now, and we're out of here, OK? So I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the day. In case you missed all of this, we've got the podcast. Check out the podcast wherever you get your pods. Thank you so much for supporting Minnesota Now here on MPR News. Have a great rest of the day.