Cardinal News is launching a weekly podcast in response to requests from people living in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
“The Cardinal: News of Virginia” begins Jan. 8, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday. Cardinal’s development director, Dutchie Jessee, will host the podcast.
Jessee, who has worked as a public radio journalist, also hosts the Cardinal 250 podcasts. She’ll be talking to members of the news team, and sometimes the newsmakers, to delve deeper into Cardinal’s stories.
The debut episode features founding editor and political columnist Dwayne Yancey offering a preview of the Virginia General Assembly session that also begins Jan. 8.
“The thing about our news coverage is, you see only what ends up in the final article,” said Jessee. “You don’t see all the behind-the-scenes efforts, or things that may have been interesting but just didn’t fit into the article. The podcast is a great opportunity to hear directly from our reporters. They’re the ones who have spent the time, sometimes literally months, digging into the subject.”
The Jan. 15 edition of The Cardinal is a good example of that. Education reporter Lisa Rowan will be talking about cellphone policies in public schools, an ongoing issue that she’s been covering for months.
Other January episodes will feature health care reporter Emily Schabacker discussing maternal health care issues she’s covering for a special series, and technology reporter Tad Dickens talking about Roanoke’s reputation as a “tech town” in its efforts to expand the region’s biotech sector.
“The Cardinal: News of Virginia” will be available wherever listeners get podcasts. It can also be viewed on this playlist on Cardinal’s YouTube channel.
The podcast is an additional way to listen to Cardinal’s news coverage. Last month, Cardinal added a feature to all of its news stories that offers a play widget to allow readers to listen to stories.
As with all of Cardinal’s products, the podcast is free to access so that price is not a barrier to independently gathered information. Cardinal thanks 5Points Creative for its initial sponsorship of the podcast.
