"The Gondolier"

Back in 2017, reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad came to us with a story that dug into the difficult and often dark places discrimination creates. We start in Venice, Italy, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon. 

We circled back to Alex in 2026, to find out where the canal of life ended up leading after our initial reporting, and we’ve included some heartbreaking and heartwarming updates on Alex’s life at the end of this episode.