We welcome two new producers to our team next week. We even re-painted the office to prepare for their arrival! Still looking for some fun art for the walls, but if we're being honest with ourselves, it's going to be more books and bookshelves adorning the empty space. You know us all too well.
Today, we bid farewell to Alexandra Hall, an investigative journalist for Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. She's been collaborating with us on an audio documentary based on her reporting on the Proud Boys, a very unique sort of men's club. More on them later, but Alex's piece on them is excellent if you're looking for some weekend reading.
Speaking of that, here are a few other bits of writing that have stuck with me personally as I brainstorm ideas for our pitch meetings.
- This pair of New York Times piece on impromptu homeless shelters — one in the basement of a New York bodega, the other in a garage of a Chicago resident — made me appreciate the complexity of homelessness as a national issue. This reporting showcases the good intentions that leads people to housing people in their basements and garages, as well as the safety issues that a quick fix solution like that is liable to create, putting a vulnerable population at risk.
- Apparently the XFL is returning? That makes it a great time to watch this 30 for 30 documentary on the weird history of the alternative football league that entangles extreme sports, the WWE, and Donald Trump. I'm not really a sports guy, but I'm a sucker for weird pop culture ephemora, and until this week, that's what the XFL was. Now it's the future AND the past.
- Who decides the cultural ownership of food? Gentrification is a topic I've touched on through the arts, but the idea of food gentrification seems worth exploring more deeply.
That's all for now. We're running another old favorite episode tomorrow, but look out for a big brand new episode next weekend.
—Mark