Daryn Kagan left Phoenix Channel 3 for CNN. Then it all changed again

Daryn Kagan has some specific memories about her time at Channel 3 (KTVK) in Phoenix.

“I was a reporter at that time,” Kagan said. “If you're blond, you're an anchor.”

Kagan is a brunette.

She did manage to become an anchor, though, first as a weekend sports anchor at Channel 3, then at CNN, where she worked for 12 years, first as a sports anchor and later a news anchor. She left news in 2006, when CNN declined to renew her contract — something about which she is remarkably sanguine (though it has been a few years).

Maybe that’s because of all she’s done since: gotten married, written a couple of books, launched a website, created content for several companies, produced a documentary and a lot more, including her current work with the Just One More Foundation.

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Of course, she wouldn’t have done any of this if she hadn’t lost previous jobs. Funny how that works.

“It's not to say that I have not been sad when things end, you know,” Kagan said, from her home in a remote area off the Georgia coast. “I’ve had my sad, and I can just see that the things that have come wouldn't have come if those other things didn't end.”

Kagan spoke the day after Donald Trump was indicted. It’s been a while since she was behind an anchor desk, but is there any part of her that wishes she could jump in on a story like that when it breaks?“Zero,” she said.

At least not for that specific story.

“I mean, that's not a good example of a story that I would say I would want to be part of,” Kagan said. “I don't think politics ever really kind of floated my boat. … Sometimes, like a natural disaster can kind of get my blood flowing a little bit. But the beautiful thing is, you know, back in the day when I was doing traditional news, that was the only way you could do any kind of storytelling. And now there's so many ways to tell stories and be a part of things that you don't have to have that.”

That’s the unifying principle in Kagan’s career: storytelling.

“I mean, yeah, that's what I like to do,” she said. “And that's what I'm good at. And I've been lucky enough, post-CNN, where the people and the companies I'm working with, they all have really positive stories to tell.”

And Kagan has used several of the alternative methods she alluded to. She’s planning a podcast for the Just One More Foundation, for instance, in addition to the work she is already doing there. It’s an organization that awards grants to people and nonprofits with plans to overcome obstacles.

The group’s founder, Richard Rogers, reached out to Kagan to help spread its message. Kagan, understandably, had a lot of questions of Rogers — who wanted her to come up with the answers.

“He basically threw it back me and said, ‘You go figure it out,’” she said. “And I knew nothing about the nonprofit world. But when you're a journalist, that's just another assignment, right? Go, go find out how that works.”

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You could look at Kagan’s life as a series of, if not second chances, new ones. She’s had high-profile jobs and relationships — she dated Rush Limbaugh for a time — but she seems genuinely content with where she is in her life and career.

And she’s glad it played out the way it has.

“Things are definitely calmer now,” Kagan said. “I'm married to Trent (Swanson), who was not in my life at all when I was doing any of my high-profile media stuff. I tried to explain to him, like, you wouldn't want to be around that, right? It's not even about, like, can we plan a vacation? It's like, I can't promise I'll be here at 4 o'clock to pick the kids up. So it's a whole other kind of priority of how your life has to run. So I'm really thankful I was single through all that.”

She’s also thankful for her time at Channel 3 — more so now than then, it sounds like. She signed a five-year contract, “with no outs and no money, so I wasn’t going anywhere. … It forced me to stay put.”

In the long run, that might not have been such a bad thing.

“It felt restrictive at the time,” Kagan said. “But the truth was, there was no reason for me to go anywhere. Everything I needed to grow and learn was right there. We traveled all over Arizona. And then they at the very end, they started loaning me out to ABC News to kind of do some reporting.”

If it sounds like a lot, that’s because it was.

“It was everything,” Kagan said. “It was graduate school. And to be in a great town. It's not like I was living in, like, South Dakota or something.”

Then it was on to the next thing, as always.

“Every opportunity that comes up, whether it's a personal opportunity, or a professional opportunity, I just really appreciate it will end,” Kagan said. “I'm not saying that to be cynical. Just, it just makes it sweeter. Appreciate things and people while they're here, because none of this is forever.”

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