How Journalist Matt Katz Uncovered His Own Story

For radio journalist Matt Katz, a seemingly routine DNA test raised more questions than it answered.

Katz, who grew up in a Jewish family, married a Jewish woman and is raising their two children in their faith, was astonished by the results. They showed he was half Ashkenazi Jewish — and half Irish.

A subsequent DNA test by his mother confirmed her Ashkenazi background – and their shared connection — and set him off on a six-year journey not only to identify his real father but to uncover his origin story.

"My Spidey sense was up, and for the journalist in me, it was hard to let this go — I had to figure out how this happened," says Katz, a WYNC News reporter and Peabody Award-winner for the station's work in investigating the Bridgegate scandal and then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

It turns out Katz's mother and her first husband – the man he thought was his father — sought fertility treatments in 1977. Katz eventually confirmed that he was conceived through donor insemination and discovered he had half-siblings.

The results of this investigation form the basis of Inconceivable Truth, an eight-part podcast that places his personal story in the context of the largely unregulated fertility industry and its impact on thousands of adults who, like Katz, have since uncovered their true identities.

In an interview with Next Avenue, Katz talks about being the reporter and the subject of the podcast, why biology isn't necessarily identity and what drove him to want to know the truth.

Next Avenue: As someone who usually tells other people's stories, did you have any concerns about sharing your own history?

Matt Katz: This is the convergence of memoir and journalism. Once I started getting into it, I realized how much memoir was involved. My qualms became how do people whose opinions I value and are close to me feel about this and how it affects them?

I didn't want to screw up my real-life relationships with my immediate family, my wife and kids and new half-siblings. There were judgment calls along the way and communications throughout, so no one was surprised by it.

Has it changed how you approach reporting other people's stories?

I think it reminds me of the ways that publicly telling stories affects people's real lives — their names are out there in perpetuity and their loved ones are reading things. For Episode 4, I interviewed a woman with a pretty shocking donor story. I emailed her afterwards to check in on her. I'm more hypersensitive about how we put stories out in the world and how people feel about things.

For a reporter, it's a juicy story alone to uncover the unregulated practices of the fertility industry in the 1970s but it also intersects with how you came into the world.

It became in my wheelhouse once I was able to figure out the larger context. That's where the journalism comes in, explaining this thing that people don't know happened and has all these ramifications today.

It's amazing to hear that the lack of paperwork was deliberate to protect the identities of the donors and shield them from legal responsibilities. Yet there seemed to be little or no thought of the ethical considerations of multiple children from the same parent perhaps meeting in the real world and not knowing it.

It is still woefully under-regulated. There are still no limits on the number of donations you can make. There are no geographic limits and no mandates on the kinds of medical screenings that are necessary.

I was born the same month the first IVF baby was born. Until IVF, donors were the only options for straight couples to get pregnant. Since then, donors have become mostly used by single mothers of choice and lesbian couples.

Identity figures heavily in this story and getting a DNA result can disrupt your sense of self, such as the Jewish woman you interviewed who found out her father is Black and who has no other connection to the Black community. How have you processed this new information about your father?

I don't feel any less Jewish. I think the experience has clarified what I identified with regarding my Jewishness in the first place, and that was the tradition that connected me with ancestors from long ago. I talk about this in Episode 4, where I explain how my son had a bris long before I knew I wasn't 100% Jewish. We did this bris because I loved the idea that he was doing something that I did, and that his father did, and that everyone up his paternal line going back generations did. Yet, it turns out no one up his paternal line had a bris, beyond me.

But I don't regret it at all. I think any traditions that help me put life and family in the bigger sweep of context, that help me see myself as part of a larger chain rather than someone random just passing through, is meaningful and important. And it doesn't matter the specifics of those religious or cultural traditions. 

Along the way, you tap different communities for assistance, including the so-called "search angels," volunteer amateur genealogists who help people search their family trees.

They were a total surprise — they're mostly women, and they've done this for their own families. They see it as something of a calling that people need to know these things. There are some barriers of entry of how to unlock some of these puzzles.

Once you know the tricks of the trade, it can be endlessly fascinating. There's so much out there — you can trace going back five, six generations with a couple of clicks. If you understand the basics of a family tree, if you have a second cousin, you have the same great-grandparents, etc., and you can go from there.

What were those a-ha moments like for you?

These familial ancestral pulls are very mysterious and powerful. It's hard to understand exactly the dynamic that's happening in those moments, but it feels very real to me.

You talk on the podcast about how your search isn't driven by feeling like something's missing in your life. Can you explain then why it matters to know the truth?

Part of it is the journalistic curiosity — it's in my DNA, so to speak. It enabled me to search stuff out and find out more information. It was almost like a reflex to look for my father because I had wondered about him from such an early age. I was curious about history and where people lived when they came over from the old country, understanding that pursuit of the American dream and how my family fits into that story.

Even though you had a mostly happy childhood with your mom and stepdad, you also had a very conflicted relationship with the man you thought was your biological father. He was mostly an absentee father and even withheld basic information, like his address and phone number. Yet, you wanted to feel some connection to him and see some part of you in him.

I didn't know this guy — he was this blank slate that I could attribute any qualities that I couldn't ascribe to my mom to him. That's what's made the last few years confusing. My mind would go to him, and I would say I'm actually not related to him.

I realize how often I and most people have those fleeting thoughts — I'm doing that with my face, that's like my mom. Or you say something to your kids – I sound like my father. We constantly have our brains going a mile a minute thinking about ourselves, who we are and why we do things. We're looking for a deeper understanding about why our brains work the way we do. You make references to your biology and your parents in both positive and negative ways, whether you speak those references or just think about them.

How do you feel now that you know this man was never your father?

I feel liberated. It was a pain point, and now it's something considerably less than that. I was searching for my father my whole life. It felt familiar because it's a state of wondering where this person was. The second search — it felt like déjà vu.