I’m practically a ghost on social media.
For someone who works in this business in 2026, that requires an explanation. People ask if I’m taking a break, or gently suggest I might want to be more active online or start my own podcast.
And some day, I might. But right now, I’m on the radio at WWL, and that's plenty.
When I turn the mic on, people actually hear me. Not “the algorithm had to test this with a small group first” hear me or “based on your browsing habits this is what we think you want to hear today” hear me. I mean real humans, my neighbors, in cars, kitchens, hospitals, job sites, offshore, on the porch and in traffic across South Louisiana and the Gulf Coast mostly all hear the same thing at the same time - because they like what they hear. It’s either on or it’s off. Your car radio does not try to make the decision for you. There’s no room for AI here. There’s no room for bots. There’s no algorithm.
That difference matters more than we’re used to admitting.
One of the most useful things I read recently helped put language to something I already felt: social media doesn’t function like a public square. It functions like the media, specifically editorial media with filters, priorities, and incentives to create a profit - except that process is automated, invisible, and almost completely unaccountable to the people who rely on it.
What rises to the top on social media isn’t what’s most true or most useful. It’s what best serves the system underneath.
Of course, talk radio is editorial too, we’re just honest about it. We don’t serve the system, we serve the audience.
When things go sideways, that difference shows up fast.
When the terror attack happened on Bourbon Street last year, people didn’t need hot takes from SEO-goosed influencers like Hasan Piker or LibsOfTikTok. They needed answers. What’s happening? Am I safe? What do we actually know right now?
So they turned on WWL, expecting to hear voices they knew and people they trusted. They heard trained professionals, sharing information being confirmed, corrected, and updated in real time. Where there was uncertainty, it was acknowledged, not filled in with speculation. No automated ranking system quietly decided which version of reality to deliver based on what it thought the audience wanted. Just live local radio doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
The same thing happens during hurricanes. Forecasts change at the last minute, power goes out, roads close, buildings come down, rivers flood. In those moments, algorithms basically ensure that rumors will outrun facts. In those moments, it becomes clear that radio is so much more than “legacy media.” It’s critical infrastructure.
Radio has directors, editors, anchors, producers, hosts, engineers. People whose judgment you can see and hear and understand. If something goes wrong, the audience can’t blame an algorithm, because real people made the decision, and they have to own it.
A lot of modern platforms sell the idea that if you just show up, follow enough accounts, post enough, and “engage,” then that means you’re participating in public life. I think that’s BS. On algorithmic media, visibility is conditional according to what keeps you scrolling and profitable to Zuck and Musk. And speaking doesn’t always mean being heard, because you are always submitting your voice to someone else’s priorities.
Radio is honest about what it is. It’s pure, it’s personal, and it’s immediate. Hosts and anchors have to live with what they say, often in the same city as the people hearing it. We might run into them at Rouses. Or Jazz Fest. Or be stuck next to them at the Punishment Light at City Park and Canal. We are you. You are us.
When something big happens, people need to stop treating information like disposable content and go looking for orientation, confirmation, and shared reality. That’s why even among all the shifting media landscapes, WWL is as relevant as ever.
None of this means I’m anti-internet or anti-social media. I read it. I use it. I pay attention to how these systems shape what we see and think. I just don’t confuse being online with being heard. I don’t confuse engagement with trust-building. And I don’t believe more reach means less responsibility.
For me, the broadcast is the thing. Everything else is an echo.
So as the calendar flips to a new year, I might expand my set of tools to reach my audience - but for the most part, I’m sticking with a medium where editorial power is visible, accountability still exists, and when you speak, people actually hear you. I want to work in a field where there are still consequences for getting things wrong, and especially for deliberately misleading people.
I don’t know what the future holds for newspapers or television, but I think radio is eternal. It’s one of the last real public squares we have. It is not a fake public square designed to extract value by colonizing your attention, by monetizing your grief, your curiosity, your fears, your shame, your loneliness and selling it back to you.
Later this summer, I’ll have spent 20 years at WWL. And in a world that increasingly rewards noise over truth, I’m grateful to still be doing work that comes with consequences - and committed to what comes next.
Stay tuned…