Wisdom Teeth, a 28-Day Job & Best Local Podcast: Hanna O'Reilly on Talkin' too Much

Hanna O'Reilly hosts the weekly podcast Talkin' too Much with Hanna O'Reilly and runs social media and content for Discover Lehigh Valley, the tourism organization for her corner of Pennsylvania. Before that, she spent years in TV news. Logan is a regular listener, and he admits at the top of the episode that he was a little starstruck. He also credits her show as the final push that got him to start recording solo episodes of Your Morning Drive.

Report cards that all said the same thing

Hanna has never lived outside Pennsylvania. She was born in the Lehigh Valley, went to St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, lived for a while in the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre area ("if anyone's an Office fan"), and now lives back where she was born. She's the oldest of three sisters and talks to the other two, one in New York and one in Boston, almost every day. In high school she set herself a goal of having at least one conversation with every person in her class of about 200. She hit it, and she was also student body president and homecoming queen. She ran for president partly to knock a friend off his throne; he had won class president every year. The name of her podcast goes back further than that: her grades were always fine, but nearly every report card had the same teacher's note. "She talks too much. That's our only issue with her."

The wisdom teeth surgery that started a career

Hanna started at St. Joe's in the business school, took one look at accounting, and switched to English, the closest thing the school had to journalism. The student paper turned her down. Her break came from a bad wisdom teeth surgery over Christmas break of her sophomore year, which left her with lockjaw, an infection, "anything they warned you about." All the follow-up appointments put her in a waiting room, where she picked up a copy of Lehigh Valley Style magazine and saw an internship listing. She got it, freelanced for them through school, and got her first bylines. This year, readers of that same magazine voted Talkin' too Much the Best Local Podcast in the Lehigh Valley for 2026. As an intern she had framed the winners' awards for the magazine's party. This time she was one of the winners.

Fired in 28 days, then faking it on the sidelines

Hanna wants new college grads to know that career paths aren't linear. After graduation she spent about a year working at her dad's office before landing an entertainment reporter job at a digital news site. She was let go within about 28 days. The site wanted her to write negative restaurant coverage, and restaurants are her family business's clients, so she said no. Next came a behind-the-scenes job at a station in Scranton–Wilkes-Barre. She kept asking for on-air work, and when the high school football sideline reporter left, she took the job despite knowing nothing about football. Her method was to fire up the cheerleaders and the student section, memorize the players' names, have the camera stay on the players, and read her questions with their stats. "Big win for you guys tonight. How we feeling?" She figured it was the one time she didn't want the attention; it belonged to the kids, whose parents would be clipping it for Facebook.

What TV news taught her

At 69 News WFMZ, the Lehigh Valley's only TV station, Hanna covered a lot of crime, politics, and school board meetings. She loved festival days because she could joke around on air, but most days she felt she couldn't be fully herself, and early on her producers told her to tone down her hand movements. She talks about a few hard stories, including a long day at a lake during a search for a missing child and walking through the rubble after a row-home explosion, and how reporters learn to separate themselves from the work so it can get done. Those stories also left her with a lasting sense that any day could be the last, and they made her a little more protective of her family. Her one viral moment was a happy one: Barstool shared her interview with a very funny Phillies fan at a World Series game.

Hot takes, the fly, and faith

On the podcast, Hanna gets to say what she couldn't say on the news, and Logan loves her rants. The take that got her the most heat was her defense of the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle "great jeans" ad as just a clever play on words. A couple of people even sent the episode to her employer. Regular listeners also know about the fly that shows up in her house every summer whenever she records. It's now a recurring character, and it stayed away for this whole conversation. The thing Hanna says would surprise people most is that she's pretty religious. She went to Catholic school her entire life and had planned to keep religion and politics off the show. Faith kept coming up anyway, and listeners have reached out to thank her for talking about it.

What keeps her going

Asked what gets her up in the morning, Hanna points to the people who came before her: both sets of grandparents came from other countries with no money, her mom stayed home with three young girls, and her dad left in the middle of snowy nights for service calls. "I have no choice but to reach for the stars," she said. She also knows not everyone gets the support she had starting out on a news salary, and if she wasted that chance, someone else would gladly take her spot. That's also why she has no patience for victim mentality, including her own. On bad days she tells herself, "No, this goes against our brand. Get up."

Listen to the Full Conversation

The rapid-fire round covers Bride Wars, He's Just Not That Into You, and Grown Ups (Logan is a proud Grown Ups 2 apologist). Her dream festival lineup is Michael Jackson, the Jonas Brothers, and Justin Bieber. Her go-to appetizers are spring rolls, boneless wings, and chips and guac, and her ideal day off is a long walk, a facial, and a shopping spree. Her sisters tease her by calling her "investment banker" whenever she says she has to edit. Talkin' too Much with Hanna O'Reilly comes out every Tuesday on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and Pandora. Follow her on Instagram @hanoreilly. Catch the full episode below.