This is very good news for North Carolina journalism. @lauraleslie.bsky.social brings deep knowledge, journalistic instincts, toughness, and compassion. #ncpol
Freelance journalist in North Carolina who writes longform stories about political, social, and environmental issues. Web site: http://barryyeoman.com. Newsletter: http://barry-yeoman.beehiiv.com. Teaching: Duke, Wake Forest.
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This is very good news for North Carolina journalism. @lauraleslie.bsky.social brings deep knowledge, journalistic instincts, toughness, and compassion. #ncpol
Thank you so much for sharing this, Jesse.
"Almost all the hard-earned acreage that Black Americans acquired after the Civil War has been forced from them by mob violence, bank and government discrimination, and harmful inheritance laws." Reporting from @barryyeoman.com and John Noltner from "Still Here"
MY LATEST: Louisiana attorney Ebony Woodruff combined her passions for food and civil rights—and found her calling fighting Black land loss. Her work focuses on inheritance laws that enable predatory developers to force land out of family hands. This is Part 3 of our "Still Here" multimedia series.
I just started listening to this podcast series, and it's very good. Timely, too.
Thank you so much, David. Both interviews moved me a lot, and I'm glad they made for good listens.
My Labor Day/Katrina anniversary listening is the first episodes of this new podcast from @barryyeoman.com, the master of reporting on the Louisiana coast apeaceofmymind.org/2025/08/21/s...
A poignant story by Steven Kurutz.
Trump admin says everything is hunky-dory at the VA. But we found that the number of doctors at VA has dropped each month since Trump took office. Nurses are way down too We got the records. www.propublica.org/article/vete... by @davidarmstrongx.bsky.social @vernalcoleman.bsky.social and me.
Thanks for your overwhelming response to my interview with Kristian Bailey, the young indigo grower in Louisiana who talks about farming with tenderness. You can find it at apeaceofmymind.org/2025/08/28/k... or by looking for A Peace of My Mind on your podcast app. Here's a 100-second video preview.
A great primer from veteran journalist Phoebe Zerwick on go-to North Carolina news sources, including @bradydennis.bsky.social @lisasorg.bsky.social @byjordangreen.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social @nchealthnews.bsky.social @ncnewsline.com @ncrabbithole.com @bryanranderson.bsky.social #ncpol
"There’s something full circle about my hurricane baby protecting swimmers in the Lower 9th Ward from deep water." By Katy Reckdahl.
Today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall. One last thing I wanted to share is this video we did as part of Crash Course Black American History that examines the storm and its aftermath. Thinking about all my New Orleans people today. And always. youtu.be/VmqZvlj07-w
Bravo, Eric.
On this 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in New Orleans, here's an essay on how America's amnesia about the race and class issues unearthed by that tragedy led us to where we are today. https://loom.ly/L60-CV0
It's so good.
Thank you so much. We all came away from that interview feeling a little more encouraged.
MY LATEST: Louisiana indigo farmer Kristian Bailey talks about farming with tenderness. He says that Southern land carries wounds—his own farm is on a former plantation site—and part of his job is to help heal those wounds. Episode 2 of Still Here, a multimedia collaboration with A Peace of My Mind.
Oh yeah. I'll be thinking about this article for a long time too. The narrative podcasts it invokes—Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo, The Shrink Next Door, S-Town, Wind of Change, Serial, Shell Game—are evidence of the public hunger for the format. We should be able to find a way to make it viable.
Apparently being in the middle of fighting a wildfire is no protection from border patrol www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
"Pham headed to a courthouse to watch immigration hearings. He wore his clerical garb and a silver cross necklace, serving as a silent reminder of human dignity that he hoped would be comforting to migrants and thought-provoking to masked agents, gov't lawyers, judges and, eventually, the world."
I've been donating to KUCB in Unalaska, Alaska because my friend Andy Lusk was a reporter there. Now it has lost $289K in federal funding and its manager doesn't know how it will keep reporting in the event of a tsunami, flood or volcanic ash fall. @mmineiro.bsky.social @haiyun-jiang.bsky.social
“At some point, they just feel like they’re invulnerable, and they don’t need to hide as much, maybe, as they once did,” said Bob Hall, a longtime state government watchdog and the former executive director of @democracync.bsky.social. By @jeffreybillman.bsky.social. #ncpol
The Governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, turns to address "members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country." (Via @hcrichardson.bsky.social ) heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-25-...
“The department does not typically take down art without already having a proposed replacement, Trương said. She said that, in her experience, this process has never involved input from University administration.” www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025...
Four journalists were killed by an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital today, including Mariam Dagga, a freelancer with the @apnews.com. She has a 12-year-old son, who was evacuated from Gaza earlier in the war. She was a true hero, like all of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza. tinyurl.com/3cn5c9vb
A video preview of my interview with Chief Devon Parfait, who is helping his tribe navigate the existential issues facing the Louisiana coast. The full interview is packed with wisdom and storytelling. Listen at apeaceofmymind.org/2025/08/21/c... or find A Peace of My Mind on your podcast app.
My former student Nina Moske writes about a library of Black and African history that became a beloved multigenerational gathering spot until Hurricane Milton blew its roof off. With Black history being targeted, the library is needed but could take $1 million to repair. @tampabaytimes.bsky.social
My God, Tom Junod can write. This story will stick with me for a long time, and I don't even follow high-school football.
This is where I grew up. My family (liberal democrats) lives here. My mom and aunt are still working for the school system. I know Katie Kimry, the fantastic teacher pictured below. I get when people say "too bad, that's what they voted for." But my god, that's so trite. ⬇️ Gift link. Please read.
Montgomery County NC voted 68% for Donald Trump in 2024. That didn't protect its school system: The feds have clawed back a $21 million award—equal to half the county's operating budget—that it planned to use to provide bonuses and training to lure and retain teachers. @benbrasch.bsky.social #ncpol
"Many applicants will come from rural areas, where numerous stations have long relied on government funding. One of the stations, KUCB in Unalaska AK, relayed a tsunami warning to listeners even as the Senate was debating federal funding cuts." KUCB is one of the imperiled stations I donate to.
Photographer John Noltner and I woke up at 4 a.m. to catch the good light in Dulac, Louisiana. His photos made it worth it. www.instagram.com/p/DNsyQ1B4p53
An impressive honor. Of the 14 awards for small digital organizations, four went to @statnews.com, produced by Boston Globe Media. Two went to @themarshallproject.org, a nonprofit that does stellar coverage of criminal justice (with an $18M budget). And two went to @theassemblync.bsky.social.
The Assembly is hiring! Learn more about the following positions and apply at the link below. - Higher Education Reporter, The Assembly - Product Manager, City Guides & Newsletters – Cary & Triangle - Government Reporter, CityView www.theassemblync.com/assembly-job...
The weight of lies. By Sarah Treleaven.
Freelance journalists: @wudan.bsky.social challenges the convention wisdom about simultaneous pitches. "I like describing it as selling a house. I’ll put the story idea on the market, and everyone who is interested can give me their best offer." Makes a lot of sense in today's media environment.
duke libraries told their staff that the department of slavic and eurasian studies is being eliminated. that's not true. but all their staff were cut. join me on a journey through the misinformation of budget cuts at duke indyweek.com/news/durham/...
Thank you for this reporting, Matt.
Chief Devon Parfait became a climate refugee in 2005 when his family lost their home to Hurricane Rita. Now, at 28, he leads the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw and is working to protect and restore coastal Louisiana. My interview with him: apeaceofmymind.org/2025/08/21/c...
First up: Chief Devon Parfait, a climate refugee who is using his science background to lead the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw. You’ll want to listen as Chief Devon tells his story of exile, survival, and resolution. apeaceofmymind.org/2025/08/21/c... (4/4)
Their hard work, and the work of others like them, are key to the region's survival and a model for the rest of the country. We hope you’ll dive into their stories Published by A Peace of My Mind, a non-profit that uses storytelling to bridge divides. The podcasts are on all the platforms. (3/4)
So are local grocery stores, neighborhood music clubs, affordable houses. And yet. We met people who have planted their stakes in that marshy ground, saying: We’re still here. We’re not going away. This place is too precious to abandon. (2/4)
🧵 MY LATEST: Still Here, an eight-week multimedia series of stories from a fragile coastline. During our nine days in South Louisiana, photographer John Noltner and I heard a lot about disappearance. Not only are wetlands vanishing, but so is Black-owned farmland. (1/4)
Democrats swept the town board of Huntersville, a Charlotte suburb, in 2023. So why is a proposed ordinance that protects against discrimination on the basis of gender identity, race, religion, and disability, now all but dead? @jimmorrill.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol
Great story by my friend Nick de la Canal on a treasure of old tapes that document a Charlotte gay bar in the AIDS era. www.wfae.org/arts-culture...
Podcast recommendation: Charlie’s Place, the story of Charlie Fitzgerald, whose Myrtle Beach nightclub became an unlikely site of desegregation in the 1940s. Needless to say, this violation of Jim Crow norms sparked blowback. Reported/hosted by Rhym Guissé. Gorgeous sound design. @atlasobscura.com
I learned a lot about Mahmoud Khalil by listening to his interview with Ezra Klein. There's a lot of nuance in this conversation.
I spent a night in a field an hour outside Kitchener getting an up-close look at the worm industry. Our tiny corner of the province exports all of North America's bait worms: it's a curious business run by families and powered by immigrant labour, and every fact I learned enchanted me a little more🪱
#ncpol
NEW: Two US citizens jailed in LA ICE raids speak out. Andrea Velez + Adrian Martinez were both grabbed outside their workplaces + say agents refused to believe they were citizens. Andrea was unsure the masked men were officers as they dragged her into their car: “I thought they were kidnapping me”
"Not only does soup tether us to the world; its chowders, stews, chilis and dals deepen our awareness of one another and of our traditions, the fragile boundaries between the past and present, our earthly abundance." A lovely meditation by Major Jackson and a quiet rebuke to a certain Fox News host.
“For decades, American Judaism, built on the liberalism of the diaspora, has been interwoven with Zionism. What happens when the ideals of the one become incompatible with the reality of the other?” Really excellent column by @ezraklein.bsky.social Gift link 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/o...
Audra D.S Burch writes about the Confederate monument in Tyrrell County NC. It contains the words, "In appreciation of our faithful slaves." And it was erected in 1902, during one of the state's most brutal periods of anti-Black violence and disenfranchisement. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/u... #ncpol
A fine two-part podcast series that explores the century-old bond between the petrochemical industry and Louisiana’s flagship university. What is the price of oil-and-gas money? @halleparker.bsky.social @piperhutch.bsky.social @pradtke.bsky.social @wwno.org @floodlightnews.org @lailluminator.com
From @wholiverang.bsky.social's @newyorker.com article on the deep congressional cuts to public broadcasting: "The ironic part ... is that the hyperlocal content is going to go away, and the cheap NPR content is going to take its place."
"The experience definitely left a lasting psychological impact of anxiety and a constant sense of looking over our shoulders," I told @liamjscott.bsky.social about our family's experience of having violent Nazis show up at our house. Several journalists I admire and count as friends featured here.
People are making fun of this @nytimes.com article, but it was genuinely interesting to learn what some disabled New Yorkers think of these janky ramps.
Rosina Philippe is an elder in the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha Tribe and lives in Louisiana's Grand Bayou Indian Village. The community is based in water and accessible only by boat. I interviewed her for Still Here, a multimedia series in collaboration with A Peace of My Mind that debuts Aug. 21.
A little on the nose, via @lisasorg.bsky.social indyweek.com/news/durham/...
Democratic voters have said they want a fighter, and now they might have one in Jasmine Crockett, @elainegodfrey.bsky.social writes. She spoke with Crockett about testing out the coarse style of politics that the GOP has embraced.
A team of journalists from the US and Venezuela talked with 9 immigrants whom the Trump Administration shipped to CECOT in El Salvador. There, they were beaten and humiliated until they were returned to Venezuela in a prisoner swap. @propublica.org @texastribune.org HT @thesundaylongread.bsky.social
What a story. I had never seen the photo before.
I looked into the most hardcore hurricane picture in North Carolina history. See that guy walking in the floodwater in front of that burning house? Turns out he'd go on to be the man who made it possible to watch the first moon landing live on television! www.ncrabbithole.com/p/north-caro...
A stirring poem on #stuttering by my friend Adam Giannelli.
Honored.
Finally, check out Erika Hayasaki's Q&A with @alexcarp.bsky.social, the fact-checker who worked on the article. It's called "In Praise of Fact-Checkers," and I share the belief that these are the hidden heroes of longform journalism. (3/3)
...I knew she would take me somewhere unexpected. As always, she delivered. I found this @nytimes.com magazine article challenging, given my fear and conviction that Generative AI will cause us great harm as a society. But I also don't want to be closed off to other people's realities. (2/3)
🧵Find the journalists you trust, and read/watch/listen to everything they produce, no matter what the topic is. Normally, I would have skipped over an article about a college student's relationship with a Ninja Turtle-themed chatbot. But when I saw Erika Hayasaki's byline... (1/3)
I try to read everything Burkhard Bilger writes. His @newyorker.com article on Molar City—Los Algodones, Baja California, which has over 1,000 dentists in a total population of 5,500—is a master class: elegant structure, friendly writing, rich description, accessible science, personal narrative.
i got one of those low effort spam texts from "Indeed," offering a low effort, well-paid remote job. I spent the last two months working in a Filipino clickfarm, for a very disappointed woman named Cathy. slate.com/technology/2...
For me, it was a gig. For other brilliant and mission-driven journalists, it's their full livelihood. If you want more convincing, listen to this brilliant episode of @natedimeo.bsky.social's podcast The Memory Palace. (9/9)
The money for our Gulf Watch paychecks flowed from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Louisiana Public Broadcasting to KRVS to us. (8/9)
We visited Indigenous communities, a shrimper's boat, a Black oystermen's marina, and the home of a Vietnamese-American oyster shucker. We interviewed scientists, a charter-boat captain, and a musician. Our reports brought listeners close to people impacted by the spill and coastal land loss. (7/9)
This funding is critical for democracy. It produces important work. After the BP oil spill, for example, Richard Ziglar and I received a public-radio grant to produce 14 stories for a series called Gulf Watch. (There's an episode listing at barryyeoman.com/radio/. Here's one I'm proud of.) (6/9)
There is a helpful website for finding how much money each station loses. It's adoptastation.org. Not only can you look up individual stations, but you can ask the site to randomly generate a hard-hit station to support. (That's how I found the stations in New Mexico and Alaska above.) (5/9)
If, like me, you live in North Carolina, the hardest hit stations are are at two Historically Black Colleges and Universities: WNCU (N.C. Central University, Durham, 50%) and WRVS (Elizabeth City State University, 71%). wncu.org/about-us/ www.ecsu.edu/radio-tv/ind... (4/9)
Some stations have been decimated. KSHI in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico is losing 96% of its funding. KUHB in St. Paul, Alaska is losing 97%. www.kshiradio.org kuhbradio.com (3/9)
Not every station is suffering equally. Some are losing a small fraction of their income and have affluent audiences that are making up the difference. (2/9)
🧵 With federal support for public radio severed, where should you donate, and why? Some thoughts: (1/9)
Gift link: www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...
From the Wall Street Journal. "The firm’s lead lawyer is working with developers to create an app with a panic button that will automatically transmit his clients’ locations if they are detained, so he will at least initially know where they are." By Ruth Simon, Elizabeth Findell, Tarini Parti.
Before there was Lucille Ball, there was Gertrude Berg, the real inventor of sitcoms. Her McCarthy-era fall was a cautionary tale for today. By @emilynussbaum.bsky.social.
If you're looking for a new podcast, I hope you'll subscribe to A Peace of My Mind. On Aug. 21, John Noltner and I will launch a series called Still Here. These are rich conversations from the Louisiana coast with people working on climate resilience, healthy local food, and cultural preservation.
EPA killed Solar for All & NC is out ~$155m to provide solar to low-income folks, to launch a pilot program pairing solar and battery power for people who use medical devices, like electric oxygen tanks. You know, so they don't die during a power outage. insideclimatenews.org/news/0708202...
NEW: Since the start of the second Trump administration, information on hundreds of government websites focused on environmental regulation has been changed or even removed. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...
“Are they still taking water?” one woman asks. “Yes, they are still diverting water,” Garrett replies.
* ...big policy change...
This represents a bit policy change for Valerie Foushee (@foushee.house.gov), the congresswoman representing Durham and Chapel Hill. #ncpol
One of my favorite moments from the Louisiana trip: Bruce Sunpie Barnes, a naturalist and musician, tells a story about the connections he sees between the rhythms of nature and the rhythms of his music. Then he picks up his harmonica. We will start sharing interviews the third week of August.
Last month, we profiled JJ Ficken, a Colorado farmer whose life was upended by Trump's policies. Four days later, the USDA called: The grant money he feared would never come was on its way. Checks for dozens of other desperate farmers should soon follow: wapo.st/3ISIUDu
A sneak peek at my latest project: Still Here, a multimedia collaboration with photographer John Noltner. We'll tell stories from Louisiana's coast, featuring tribal leaders, scientists, conservationists, an indigo farmer, a musician, a fishmonger and more. Rollout begins the third week in August.
Sometimes the writer doubles as a light holder. www.instagram.com/p/DMnnTrqsmlE/
"At some point I forgot exactly what it was that John had said, but I never forgot how he had made me feel—that what I wanted was important, and was important simply because I wanted it." @lisabubert.bsky.social goes looking for the man who changed her life. longreads.com/2025/07/24/t...
Today, photographer John Noltner and I explored the southern end of the Mississippi River with coastal scientist Alex Kolker, who is studying how a large natural breach called Neptune Pass is depositing sediment and rebuilding delta land. More from John: www.instagram.com/p/DMgwsXAMfE2/
Scenes from today's interview with Kristian Bailey, who grows natural dye plants and African diaspora-centered plants at Orais Hand farm in Lower Coast Algiers outside New Orleans. Thanks, John Noltner, for letting me be part of this project, and for these photos. www.instagram.com/p/DMY-rkAMvA...
Grateful to be traveling in Louisiana with photographer John Noltner, whose project, A Peace of My Mind, uses storytelling and art to bridge divides and build communities. Here's his report from yesterday, when we interviewed land-justice advocate Ebony Woodruff: www.instagram.com/p/DMWp-prsA5...
For the Vitals, a Haitian family in Springfield, Ohio, the house on Chestnut Avenue represented their future in this country. Then cracks began appearing, and now they’re wondering what can be salvaged. By @daniellepaquette.bsky.social and Obed Lamy in the @washingtonpost.com. wapo.st/4kXkeak
Deeply compassionate and eloquently written, John, As always.
