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FactZone's Five Most-Memorable Interviews

February 11, 2011

On the fifth anniversary of FactZone, we look back at our favorite interviews:

5. Jim Davis: In 2006, Garfield creator Jim Davis stopped by the FactZone studio to promote the movie Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties. Co-host Tucker Hope later described the experience of meeting Mr. Davis as "Like meeting Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and an angel combined into one being."

4. Vladimir Putin: In 2008 FactZone host Brooke Alvarez reduced the Russian leader to tears with her intense questioning. Putin later described looking into Alvarez's eyes as akin to staring across an endless expanse of barren, frozen Russian tundra.

3. Dr. Cornell West: The esteemed philosopher, author, and civil rights advocate stopped by FactZone in 2008. Dr. West was put into the zero-gravity "Floating Fact Chamber" where he answered viewers' Tweets about his opinion of Justin Bieber and his favorite animals.

2. Brooke Alvarez: Through the use of advanced holograph technology, Brooke Alvarez was able to interview a digital version of herself in late 2010. Never one to pull her punches, Alvarez grilled herself with tough questions about rumors that she had taken corporate bribes.

1. Elaine Coughlin: Brooke Alvarez's 2009 interview with distraught mother Elaine Coughlin, whose daughter Rachel was missing and feared kidnapped, marked the first time a FactZone guest ever vomited live on-air due to pure emotional turmoil. This segment is also notable for including the highest number of times of the word "rape" had ever been uttered by Brooke during a single interview: 48. That record has since been broken twice.

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Anchor Bios

  • Brooke Alvarez

    As the host of FactZone, Brooke Alvarez is one of the world's most recognizable news figures. Growing up in Russia, Brooke dreamed of being famous and powerful. She emigrated to U.S., erased all trace of her Russian accent within three weeks, and began her systematic ascent to the top of the news industry. The details of this rapid climb through the various lesser networks to end up at the Onion News Network was the subject of "The Devil Incarnate" a book refuted by Brooke as "the pathetic scrawlings of a bitter and jealous acne-scarred half-reporter."


    A prolific Twitter user, Brooke tweets 20 to 40 times a day, often while her guests are talking. She's appeared as herself in more than a dozen motion pictures although there is some debate whether she understood that the words on her teleprompter were fictional and where they would eventually appear. Brooke owns five corgi dogs, her favorite food is kale, and she is married to author Thomas Pynchon.


    Brooke is active in charity work, having formed a foundation to teach newscaster dialect to young urban teens. She's politically motivated as well, publicly campaigning against wind farms whenever her schedule allows.


    While the media has made much of her long-standing feuds with both Wolf Blitzer and Yo Yo Ma, Brooke insists she is easy to get along with as long as everyone understands their place.


    Brooke stays healthy and happy by swimming 20 miles each day in the resistance pool in her office.

  • Jim Haggerty

    As co-host of the Onion News Network’s top-rated morning show, Today Now!, Jim Haggerty is no stranger to adventure. On the show, Haggerty has entered NASA simulators, sky-dived into the Grand Canyon, and chewed coca leaves with a group of Peruvian folk musicians who had appeared on the show. Haggerty’s busy schedule doesn’t stop him from pursuing side ventures. He has his own line of men’s fashions, is the spokesman for the EZ Car Vacuum Kit and authored "The Gentleman's Guide To Backyard Grilling." Haggerty studied Psychology at Arizona State University and spent his summers working at a local Renaissance Fair. After college, he moved to New York City and enrolled in a night-school program in broadcasting. His first big break was hosting the Onion Broadcasting Channel talent competition, "Dance, Dance, America, Dance."

  • Shelby Cross

    Former prosecutor Shelby Cross takes no prisoners in her quest for justice. Whether she's berating a grieving mother for allowing her infant son to get murdered or advising viewers on how to make themselves unappealing to date rapists, Shelby Cross has your back.

  • Tracy Gill

    As the co-host of the highest-rated morning show on the Onion News Network, Tracy Gill has interviewed thousands of celebrities, public figures, and newsworthy widows. Listed as one of Forbes’ Fiftysomething Most Powerful Women In Television, Gill founded the charity "Umbrellas Of Love" which seeks to spread the word about the dangers of flying debris through ad campaigns and educational programs. (Gill's own childhood friend was killed by an errant piece of plywood while waterskiing.) In order to meet the demanding schedule for Today Now!, Tracy generally only sleeps three hours a day, rising at 2 a.m. to begin the drive to the Onion News Network studios. Gill is the subject of an in-depth biography, “Over the Flames an Eagle Soared: The Tracy Gill Story,” which addressed media claims she is a cutthroat opportunist. In defense of Gill, the author likens Gill to an eagle -- a beautiful and respected figure, but one that must protect itself to survive. Gill is currently married to wealthy television mogul Bob Johanson.

  • Tucker Hope

    Co-hosting FactZone is a dream come true for Tucker Hope. Not only does it give Tucker the chance to work side-by-side with the most respected name and most beautiful face in news, it provides the opportunity to use the touchscreen manipulation skills he has been honing since junior high on a touchscreen set up in his family's living room. In fact, Tucker was home-schooled to allow him to focus on perfecting his pinching and zooming and practicing his pronunciation of "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." In order to be at the ready or perhaps to keep an eye over his touchscreen, Tucker never leaves the studio, sleeping on a cot he set up behind his Recon Wall. Due to a contract stipulation created by Brooke, Tucker doesn't get paid by the Onion News Network but receives whatever the gracious FactZone host herself feels like he earned that week.