Lede New Orleans: Newsroom Equity
Saturday, July 11, 2020
Jen Larino, upper left and E'Jaaz Mason (bottom) with students from Lede New Orleans.
It was right in the middle of the 2019 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival when the staff of the Times-Picayune learned that their newsroom would be shutting down. At the time, Jennifer Larino was lead reporter at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, and within months of the layoffs, she had founded a community-based journalism nonprofit with New Orleans-born filmmaker and teacher E'Jaaz Mason.
Lede New Orleans works to build skills in young journalists and artists with the goal of increasing equity in the journalism industry in newsrooms and producing news coverage that more accurately reflects the authentic character of the people of New Orleans.
In our conversation, Larino and Mason talked about the Times-Picayune layoffs (2:00); inequity in media (7:00); how mainstream media miss the point of the Second Line (11:00); launching a journalism nonprofit in the middle of a pandemic (15:50); and the somewhat shaky future of New Orleans (22:00). After the interview you'll hear an excerpt of the song "Qiuck," by New Orleans band Tank and the Bangas, and the host's episode essay, focusing on contact tracing (27:45).
Podcast theme music by Matt Jenson.
Related Links
Poynter Institute: newsroom closings page
Pew Research Study on news staff layoffs
Katrina Babies (film in production)
Music Recommendations from the Lede New Orleans cofounders