Earlier this year, Tulane hosted what is rapidly becoming the impressive New Orleans BookFest, celebrating learning, reading, and scholarly debate. As their slogan boasts, the event is a ‘Mardi Gras for the Mind.’ Award-winning authors, journalists, and public figures attended the event in March, drawing incredibly long lines from tourists and locals. Few of the events were easy to get entry into, with crowds lining up hours before program start times. By some miracle, though, I was able to snag a seat and attend a profound conversation with Ford Foundation president, Darren Walker.
A radically honest social justice aficionado, Walker spoke about his career as the president of a 16 billion dollar philanthropy, intertwined with his identity struggles as a Black man from Louisiana. What stuck with me most were Walker’s sentiments about Americans’ news engagement. Unlike others who often highlight generational differences in news consumption patterns, Walker paid attention to education levels and affluence instead. He spoke critically about where we, as Americans, get our news, arguing that how we choose to engage with news is informed by our complex identities. To prove his point, he asked the audience in the B school lobby to guess who the readership of The New York Times might be. Or The Washington Post. And The Wall Street Journal. As a college student, nearly everyone I know follows at least one prominent source on Instagram, and many have their notifications turned on with constant headlines splashing across their phones. What I hadn’t considered, though, was Walker’s point that these sources—which I thought everyone considered the holy grail of professional journalism—are actually catering to a specific audience and excluding the majority of others. To summarize his message, why should a young person living in rural Louisiana care what is happening in Washington, D.C., or Hollywood, CA if a pressing issue is consuming their small town and impacting their family? Walker urged the audience to show more love to local news sources. These larger media conglomerates, which my counterparts and I have long considered as an obvious choice for news updates, are producing stories written predominantly by the elite for the elite.
I left the BookFest program thinking about the consumption of news media in a way I had never before. Walker’s words stuck with me long after I left that crowded B school lobby, and over the following months, I found myself completely rethinking my news habits. Who owns the media companies I like? Are the reporters I trust diverse? How can reading the news take less effort? It is exhausting keeping up with the news in our current political climate, making it easy to tune out and silence those NYT notifications. However, I am here to argue it is a privilege to be able to do that, and instead of avoiding the real world, what if we all created a recipe for staying up to date that is sustainable?
What if even on your busiest day, when your roommate left dirty dishes in the sink, you have an accounting midterm to prepare for, and you are three days overdue for laundry, you still find ten minutes to catch up with world events? Or even local news in New Orleans or your hometown? I find listening to the news as a podcast to be the best practice for my busy schedule. Like me, maybe you can find time to listen while taking care of other tasks like brushing your teeth and washing your face, making your bed, en route to class, at the grocery store, in line for lunch in the LBC, or while walking in Audubon Park. Brushing up on current events is the perfect way to pass those awkward in-between moments that aren’t long enough to do much else other than scroll. So, why not scroll on a newspaper’s website (or put your phone down) and concentrate on a journalist talking through your headphones?
If ten minutes per day feels doable to you, the next step is to pick your sources. Some of my favorites are daily short-form podcasts that give you the highlights and send you on your way. All of these shows are accessible advertisement-free if you log in with your Tulane email address. Through trial and error, I’ve found three podcasts that consistently deliver better than my Instagram algorithm can, without overwhelming me.
The Washington Post’s “The 7” morning briefing brings listeners seven straightforward stories in roughly nine minutes every weekday. My favorite thing? The host, Hannah Jewell, ends each show with an uplifting story to curveball whatever depressing headlines the show started with. If you are looking for a longer, more comprehensive listen, check out “Post Reports,” where in 15-30 minutes, the hosts expand on one story from the morning debrief or “Impromptu,” for your daily dose of opinions.
National Public Radio (NPR)’s “Up First” offers three big stories seven days a week in ten minutes. With fewer stories, listeners get a deeper understanding of the headlines for the day, without taking up too much time. If Darren Walker’s words resonate with you like they did with me, NPR’s morning podcast lineup has local offerings as well. Check out the New Orleans shows or search for your hometown here.
The New York Times’s “The Headlines” allows listeners to catch up on important stories in about ten minutes every weekday morning. The writers do their best to provide as much insight as they can squeeze in. For a longer-form listen, the NYT is known for its show, “The Daily,” and my personal favorite, their “Opinions” podcast, with the tagline “you’ve heard the news, here’s what to make of it.”
Beyond the nitty-gritty of daily news, podcasts are an excellent way of learning from storytellers you might never have access to otherwise. The best part? You can listen while doing just about anything else. Walker was right: we are what we consume, informationally speaking. So why not upgrade from a morning routine in silence or doom-scrolling to a quick habit that might help you hold your own at family dinners—or at least understand why everyone else looks so stressed all the time?
About Hannah Levy
Hannah is a senior, studying Philosophy of Law and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is from Los Angeles, CA, and couldn't help but wonder... what would happen if she collected stories from her and her friends' lives to share here with you? In her free time, you can find her at hot yoga, listening to podcasts, enjoying happy hour, and searching for treasure on depop.
Hannah is a senior, studying Philosophy of Law and Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is from Los Angeles, CA, and couldn't help but wonder... what would happen if she collected stories from her and her friends' lives to share here with you? In her free time, you can find her at hot yoga, listening to podcasts, enjoying happy hour, and searching for treasure on depop.
