The Lead Podcast
The Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership at the Grady College prepares students and professionals for leadership roles in the news media. The Lead Podcast, now on hiatus, captures these conversations to share.
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The Lead: UGA’s Carlo Finlay on Sports Media in the Digital Age
Carlo Finlay knew he wanted to work in sports from as early as he can remember. As the associate director for UGA’s Carmical Sports Media Institute, he leads students through hands-on experiences in broadcast, digital content, media relations, reporting and more. In this episode, we talk about athletes’ presence on…
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The Lead: Trusting News’ Joy Mayer on Rebuilding Audience Trust in Media
Joy Mayer works to help journalists and news organizations reclaim the public’s trust. As the person behind Trusting News, she guides newsrooms in transforming their reporting approach. With two decades of experience in journalism and academics, Mayer promotes an active cultivation of reliability and audience connection within the skepticism often…
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The Lead Bonus Episode: Introducing Alexis Derickson as Host
In this season 16 bonus episode, outgoing host Jacqueline GaNun passes the mic to Alexis Derickson. Alexis tells us how she plans to use her previous journalism experience and what she hopes to learn — and bring to listeners — as host of The Lead. Guest: Alexis Derickson Host: Jacqueline…
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The Lead: Alex Crevar on Finding a Travel Journalism Niche
Alex Crevar moved to the Balkans in the 1990s and has been reporting from there ever since. His vivid and insightful travel stories are published in outlets including The New York Times, National Geographic and Lonely Planet, but his focus isn’t on filling a résumé — it’s about traveling genuinely…
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The Lead: Scripps News’ Alexandra Travis on Telling Black Stories on Screen
Alexandra Travis works to tell stories that have gone uncovered. As a documentary producer at Scripps News, she creates long-form, in-depth video journalism focusing especially on the experiences of Black people in the South. In this episode, Alexandra — who’s also a Grady College alum — talks about what it…
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The Lead: Kelsey Coffey on Knowing What Drives You
Kelsey Coffey gets up at 2:30 a.m. every day to deliver the morning news as a broadcast reporter at WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated from the University of Georgia in 2020 into uncertainty from the pandemic and protests for racial justice across the country. But today, she knows…
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The Lead: UGA’s Dodie Cantrell-Bickley on the Bright Future of Broadcast Journalism
Dodie Cantrell-Bickley was taught the importance of a free press from her mother, who grew up in Nazi Germany and saw how crucial journalism was. Cantrell-Bickley pursued that passion for more than 30 years as a broadcast reporter and president of multiple news stations. She was a leader during the…
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The Lead: Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Savannah Sicurella, Tyler Wilkins on Starting Out in Business Journalism
Savannah Sicurella and Tyler Wilkins are both recent UGA journalism alumni, making careers in business journalism soon after graduating college and entering the job market. In this episode, they debrief about what drew them to reporting on commercial real estate and development, and how they managed to navigate the learning…
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The Lead: The Current’s Margaret Coker on reviving an investigative news desert
Margaret Coker has covered stories from 32 countries on four continents, working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets. In 2020, she returned home to Savannah, Georgia, to found The Current, a nonprofit news source dedicated to filling the vacuum of high-quality investigative news on…
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The Lead Special Episode: What the Hackathon, Featuring Adam Levin
Misinformation. Deepfakes. Scams. None of these are going away, and we need tools to figure out what’s true. This special episode of The Lead brings you into the What the Hackathon at the University of Georgia, where students learned in real-time how to navigate our disordered information ecosystem to produce…