The Gabby Petito case made him a must-read. But NewsNation's Brian Entin was always a newshound
As high-profile journalists were getting glammed up for the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend, and cable network personalities were analyzing Donald Trump's first 100 days, Brian Entin was packing for a cross-country road trip in a leased RV.
'Would rather be doing this,' he posted on X.
A senior national correspondent for the cable news network NewsNation, Entin, 40, has built a career, and a large social-media following, by going where news happens, even though that means he doesn't sleep in his Fort Lauderdale home as often as he'd like.
He is a self-described 'newshound' who idolized local TV broadcasters when he was a child and was equally obsessed with the TV show 'America's Most Wanted.' He now has a job that combines those interests, as he frequently reports on crime.
Entin was already an accomplished broadcaster when Gabby Petito went missing in 2021, but his coverage of the case made him a must-read reporter after he camped out for weeks on the lawn next to Brian Laundrie's house.
He later spent months in Idaho reporting on the murder of four University of Idaho students.
To many of Entin's 465,000 followers on X, his feed is the place to go for breaking news on high-profile crimes. But the four-time Emmy winner was also one of the first journalists to interview Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman who goes by 'DataRepublican' on social media, before her identity was revealed.
He has also traversed the country talking to ordinary Americans about Donald Trump, just as he has been doing this week for a road trip that will eventually end in Salt Lake City. Highlights of the trip will be featured on a 'Cuomo' town hall airing at 6 MT April 30.
The road trips were Entin's idea.
'I had gotten really bored with seeing the same talking heads on TV – you turn on all the cable channels and it's the same people in DC or New York City or the big cities on the coast, telling you what everyday Americans think and how they feel and what's going to happen," he said. 'I talked to my boss and said, 'Why don't we do something different and actually go talk to real people?'
'Luckily, she loved the idea, so we rented a Ford Expedition and we drove I-80, started in New Jersey and ended in San Francisco, and we did stories all along the way. People had perspectives that were unexpected,' he said.
On the latest trip, Entin said, he traded up for an RV, but made it a point to re-connect with many of the Trump voters that he talked to last fall to see how they're feeling now.
Entin spoke with the Deseret News a few days before he took off from Nashville in the RV. He talked about the Petito case, the future of news and how his father's career as a criminal attorney influenced his interests, as well as the surprising way that he connected with 'DataRepublican' Jennica Pounds.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: Megyn Kelly spoke at Yale recently and said that the future of news is digital and relationship-based. People may not trust news organizations, but they want to get news from 'trusted sources.' You're a good example of a trusted voice in this new environment, but you're still connected to a news organization. How do you see the future of news unfolding?
Brian Entin: I do think people these days connect more with individual personalities than with overall brands. I think it has to do with trust, and people not necessarily trusting the media overall. If they can connect with a person, they feel like they have that relationship. I think that's one reason I have been successful.
I'm happy to talk to anyone from any walk of life and listen to their side. And I go in with that mindset — sometimes to my own detriment. I've had producers say, 'You're just too trusting. You trust the bad guys.' … I don't trust the bad guys, but I am willing to give them a voice. I think that's really important in this day and age, and I think people can sense that through my stories. I give a lot of credit to NewsNation for giving me that platform and being open to try things in a different way.
I have friends who work at the other big networks, and they've sort of got a formula for the way they do things, the way they think it's been successful in the past. And the thing about NewsNation is, because it's a startup, they're open to different ideas, that I'd probably get laughed at at other places. … even letting my stories go longer.
There was this woman I met in Michigan before the election. She works at Ford, she's worked there for three decades building Ford Broncos. Really nice lady, her name is Misty. Huge Trump supporter — she was a lifelong Democrat. I met her (before the election) and we met up at the inauguration, and I met her again now as part of this series 100 days in. She had some really interesting perspectives a hundred days in — she actually cried at one point.
I'm able to play out her interview, long segments of it, so people can really understand where she's coming from, because it's complicated. She loves President Trump. She's glad she voted for him. But she has some things she's upset about. And at another network, that would just be spliced into a quick soundbite in a very short news story. Whereas when you actually let people voice their full opinion -— beginning, middle and end — I think people appreciate that, and you get a sense of how people are really feeling.
DN: You don't seem to be a political person, at least I can't detect any partisan leaning on social media.
BE: Definitely not. I try not to be biased or let my own feelings come into any of this. I'm not into politics, truthfully — I'm not a political person. I really don't like Washington, D.C. I've joked in the past, I do not like interviewing people who are wearing a suit and tie. I usually find those kinds of people to be boring. I really like everyday, real people. I just have a genuine curiosity and like being out in the nitty gritty of things.
DN: Was there one point at which your social media blew up, or did it just grow organically over time?
BE: I think I had about 20,000 followers on X when I had just started on NewsNation and started (to cover) the Gabby Petito story, thinking it was going to be like any other story: I'd be there a couple of days and maybe they would find her; I was hoping that it was a hoax or something.
And I ended up getting really invested in the story and staying there about six weeks and really becoming somewhat obsessed with the story .. there were so many strange things that Brian Laundrie and his parents were doing. So I ended up camping out on the lawn of Brian Laundrie's parents' neighbors' house. I had never done anything like that for a story before. ... I had become friends with the neighbors, and they said, 'Oh, you can stay on our lawn, that way you can keep track of everything that's happening at the house in case she comes home or if there is an arrest or anything.'
DN: Were you the only reporter doing that?
BE: In the beginning I was, but later there was a reporter with the Daily Mail who also got a spot on the lawn. And it just so happened that the nation became obsessed with this story right around the time I was doing that, and I was doing live reports on X and on NewsNation from the lawn constantly, and that was when my social media blew up. I think I went from 20,000 followers to about 300,000 in a week or so.
DN: You still have a relationship with Gabby's parents?
BE: As time has gone on, I've stayed in touch with them, I've been to their house and hung out with them. Which kind of goes back to old-school journalism versus today. I have sort of struggled with some things, like, how close are you supposed to get to people while you are being professional? But at the end of the day, for me, you just can't help but be human. They obviously didn't do anything wrong, and I've become friends with them at this point. Last time, I went to their house, I showed up with a bottle of tequila and we just hung out. For me, the reporting is pretty much over for the most part. Sadly, we know what happened. But I like to help them with their foundation in any way that I can. They're doing a lot of really good work in trying to change domestic violence laws.
DN: You describe yourself on X as a newshound, and for a lot of people, that might be hyperbole, but a Vanity Fair piece about you said that as a child, you would want to go out on set with (broadcast) reporters.
BE: Oh, yeah, I grew up obsessed with the local news. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, so it was the Miami market, and to me, as a kid, the people on the local news were famous. And I've just always been interested in people. My mom said that even going out to eat, as a kid, I would always ask the waitresses questions about their life. I just have this natural curiosity about people.
My dad was a criminal lawyer, so that may be one reason I grew up interested in crime, too. A lot of stuff that freaks other people out doesn't freak me out. My dad is still a criminal lawyer, although he's in the process of retiring now, and he had murderers he was representing, and a lot of drug dealers in the '90s in Florida, so there would always be drug dealers around, and that kind of thing.
I was just telling a friend the other day, now that I own my own house, I need stuff done around the house, and I will ask my dad, how did we get this done at our house? And it turned out he did a lot of trade with these people, when they couldn't pay their legal bills. They would build us a new kitchen, or put a sprinkler in. Or we'd have an extra car because the person couldn't pay their bill. Looking back, that seemed normal when I was a kid. … It sounds strange, I know.
DN: You've traveled all over the United States, seen some of the most beautiful places, but you bought a house in Florida. Why?
BE: Because my parents are here — being close to them.
I'm on the road, pretty much every week. There is something nice about, when you're on the road so much, coming back to a place that feels like home. Even when I land back in Florida, I always get a weird feeling when I look out the window, kind of like, this is home. And Florida fits my personality. It's kind of a weird place. There are a lot of characters here.
DN: You were one of the first people to get an interview with Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman who goes by DataRepublican on X and has been helping Elon Musk and DOGE. How did you connect with her when no one knew who she was?
BE: That goes back to what we were talking about, about being open minded, talking to people. I had become really invested in the North Carolina Hurricane Helene coverage … I always try to do stories that other people aren't doing, first of all because they're interesting, but also when there's a really important story that's not getting enough (news) coverage, and that's how I thought about the North Carolina hurricane. For a while there, people were just cut off from the world and weren't getting any help and the media weren't covering it. Lucky for me, NewsNation footed the bill and I probably went there 8 or 10 times, almost every month for a while.
Long story short, I met a guy there named Sean who was helping a lot of people. .. I think he was from Tennessee, but he came in and he knew how to build houses and clear debris, and so we became friendly. And, small world, a few months later, he said, 'I know DataRepublican and she really wants to do a real interview with a real journalist and really explain what she's trying to do.'
Who would have thought this guy that I met in North Carolina would know DataRepublican? So of course, I was super interested, and we set it up and I ended up flying and meeting her in California, because that's where her translator lives. And Sean set the whole thing up.
That's kind of how things work out for me. You know, people have the big Washington D.C. sources and secret FBI sources, but most of my tips come from people I have just met along the way that other people might think, 'Oh, why stay in touch with that person? How are they going to help you?'
DN: X has become a place where news breaks, which is a pretty dramatic change in the media landscape. Have you ever had to correct something because of the speed in which you were reporting in real-time?
BE: That's a really good question, because I am competitive, and you don't want to get beat. People want information right when it happens. You don't want to sit back and take your time. You want to be quick. But you have to be careful because if you make a mistake, people will remember that.
I'm sure I've made mistakes, 100%, but nothing bad comes to mind, nothing like I've put the wrong suspect out there. I've had little typos here and there, just in the rush to tweet something out. ... And if something is wrong, I will say that it's wrong, and not try to change it. And I think that is the future of news, too. People understand. Just explain it. Then they feel even more trust with you because you explained what happened.
I would love people to give NewsNation a shot. We're still sort of a start-up and we're trying to do things differently and be fair and old-school in that sense, but not stick to the formulas that the old-school networks stick to it. Give us a shot. And send me story ideas. I get story ideas from all over the country and some of the best stories I've had have been from people emailing me.
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