#eij16

Nearly 10 years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall, increasing in danger and wind speed like an imposing turbine in the skies, and flooding New Orleans.

The hurricane killed an estimated 1,835 people, destroyed about 300,000 homes and wreaked over $96 billion in damages.

In 2015, when the historic 10-year anniversary approached, Eve Troeh, the news director for the New Orleans NPR affiliate WWNO, decided it was time for a podcast to reflect on how the catastrophe had changed and shaped her community.

Troeh, along with producers and reporters in her newsroom, recapped in an 11-part series how the community dealt with emotional trauma, reconstruction, new safety measures and other changes brought on by the hurricane. They played rap music from school children who saw their homes and everything they associated with daily life sucked into a gargling void.

“There’s still a lot of stuff to deal with — debris,” Troeh narrated in the pilot. “So we’re picking up some of it.”

Sunday, as one of the first breakout sessions in the Excellence in Journalism 2016 conference, Troeh hosted the breakout session “Will it podcast? Audio content development for all.”

Not every town has a Hurricane Katrina. But every regional news outlet, whether radio, newspaper, TV or multimedia, responds to unique concerns and challenges, Troeh said.

“This is a change to express what might not be relevant in a traditional news story,” Troeh said.

Among the tips:

Start with at least six if not 12 formed ideas of successions to the pilot episode, before rolling out the podcast. If a newsroom is planning a podcast, it should be something with ongoing leads or relevance. Otherwise, after the initial roll-out, the production might fall flat.

Provide an outlet to be real and human to those consuming the news, and in the process, explain newsgathering. The latest data from the Pew Research Center shows that, while it may be part of a larger trend, faith in the media is at an all-time low. Podcasting offers a news consumer a glimpse at the ideas and process behind the people creating the news. How extensive was the research for an investigative story? How do the people creating the news communicate in an impersonal atmosphere? “People feel involved,” Troeh said. “We don’t make our perfect diamond and deliver it to the audience anymore.”

Know what you hope to achieve. “My biggest question is — why did you want to make a podcast?” Troeh said. Podcasts have different tones. Investigative, lighthearted, story-driven — take time before you develop your offering, Troeh said. It’s your brand.

Avoid the one-person show. Many professional news-based podcasts are cohosted or include multiple audio clips from interviews, sometimes with reporters chipping in to discuss stories or report on the theme. Regardless of who hosts, long podcasts take hours to produce, and experience from sound engineers. “I’ve seen relationships fail because of the one-person podcast,” Troeh said.

The breakout session was a reflection of a larger shift, as podcasts continue to expand into traditional newsrooms. In 2016, the Pew Research Center reported that 21 percent of Americans 12 or older listened to a podcast in the last month, versus 12 percent in 2013.

Large newspaper outlets like the Wall Street Journal already offer podcasts. This August, the New York Times rolled out their own political podcast, The Run-Up, to cover the election season.

As national outlets begin to set new goals in the digital landscape, small newsrooms like WWNO, which produced “Katrina: The Debris,” have gained confidence from podcast trials and are continuing to develop their brand of audio.

A collaborator with their public radio station, Eve Abrams, recently produced a podcast on the community’s large incarceration rate, and how it affected the community, in “Unprisoned: Stories from the System.”

Troeh said as a result of the storytelling, the newsroom has begun to take a harder look at the surrounding prison system, taking stock of Louisiana’s reputation as the incarceration capital of the world.

“It’s part of our mission to tell New Orleans stories to the world,” Troeh said. “[Podcasting] is helping us do that.”

Eve Troeh is the news director for NPR affiliate WWNO, in New Orleans. Her podcast series on the residual effects of Hurricane Katrina can be found here.

Rebecca Landsberry, Executive Director of NAJA (Courtesy: Rebecca Landsberry)

The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) is teaming up with the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for the first time during the Excellence In Journalism conference next year.

One major factor in the decision to partner with EIJ16 came about when it was announced that UNITY: Journalists for Diversity conference would not gather next year.

“UNITY was a great teaming of all the diversity organizations,” said Rebecca Landsberry, executive director of NAJA. “This [EIJ] was kind of a natural fit for us.”

Many of NAJA’s journalists deal with a different set of challenges on the job. Most Native American publications are owned by tribes, and therefore Native American journalists may not have access to free press.

“That’s probably the main thing that distinguishes Native media as far as the challenges go,” said Landsberry. “Reporters may be controlled by their tribal governments and may not be able to report on the things that are important to the Native community because of that hold.”

Members of other groups think it’s important to learn about problems that other cultures face, and EIJ gives them a place to do that.

“As a journalist, the more you know and the more you can understand, the better off you are,” said Joe Skeel, executive director of SPJ.

Skeel said that every year when a different group is featured, there’s some fear mixed in with the excitement of learning something new.

“I think it’s going to be great for our members who work in those areas to get some exposure to things they’ve never had before,” he said.

NAJA comes with a membership of 500 people, and its’ numbers have doubled since 2013. Skeel said that bringing more people to the conference offers more opportunity for networking and support.

“Let’s be honest, it’s a pretty tough industry,” he said. “When you come to a conference like this, and you see 1,500 people who are like you, it’s almost like a support network.”

  The 2016 EIJ Conference will be held at the Sheraton New Orleans.