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WRKF's News Team

Ashley Westerman
Ashley Westerman
Host and Reporter
Elizabeth Eads
Elizabeth Eads
Host and Operations Director
Kelly Connelly
Kelly Connelly
Government & Politics Reporter
Amy Jeffries
Amy Jeffries
News Director

Culture

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Music Interviews
3:46 pm
Thu May 2, 2013

Natalie Maines On Motherhood, Eddie Vedder And Leaving Country Music

Credit Courtesy of the artist
Mother is the solo debut of Natalie Maines, former Dixie Chicks frontwoman.
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By editor

Originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 5:22 pm

Natalie Maines is a small woman with a really big voice. Flanked by Emily Robison on banjo and Martie McGuire on fiddle, Maines powered the Dixie Chicks to some 30 million records sold. And then came the collapse — after what the band calls "the incident."

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Code Switch
11:03 pm
Tue April 30, 2013

On 'Hicksploitation' And Other White Stereotypes Seen On TV

Credit A&E
Some of the cast members of the reality show Duck Dynasty find themselves handcuffed to one another.
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By editor

Originally published on Fri May 10, 2013 7:10 am

On cable TV, there's a whole truckload of reality shows that make fun of working-class, white Southern culture. They are some of the most popular and talked about new shows, too, such as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.

MTV tried cashing in on the redneck TV trend with its own hyped-up platform for young Southern kids behaving badly, Buckwild. It played like a Southern-fried version of Jersey Shore. Its stars were a dimwitted crew of young people in West Virginia drinking hard and riding pickup trucks through ditches filled with mud.

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Interviews
4:56 pm
Tue April 30, 2013

'Wait, Wait' Host Talks of Bombs and Laughter

Credit NPR
Peter Sagal
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As the host of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, Peter Sagal, makes jokes about the news every week.

Game show hosts are typically not supposed to be part of the news.

But Peter Sagal ran the Boston Marathon as a guide for a blind runner, and a strange thing happened on the way past the finish line...


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Culture
2:28 am
Mon April 29, 2013

A Grieving Brother Finds Solace In His Sister's 'Small Town'

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Credit Courtesy Rod Dreher
Brother and sister Rod Dreher and Ruthie Leming grew up in a small town in rural Louisiana. Dreher left the tightknit community to pursue a journalism career but returned home after Leming died of lung cancer in 2010.
Credit Debbie Elliot / NPR
"People waited for hours for her wake to come in and pay their respects," Dreher says of the United Methodist Church where his sister was buried. "It was a moment of intense grace."
Credit Debbie Elliott / NPR
Ruthie Leming's friends and Rod Dreher (right) gather for a crawfish boil at Ronnie Morgan's camp by the Starhill Riviera. "When I'm gone," Morgan says, "the only thing that's going to show up to say I was here is the people I left behind."
Credit Debbie Elliott / NPR
The Drehers — Lucas (from left), Rod, Matthew, Julie and Nora — sit on the side stoop at their new home in St. Francisville, La.
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Originally published on Mon April 29, 2013 11:21 am

When he was a teenager, journalist Rod Dreher couldn't wait to escape Louisiana. Now he has found his way home again in grief — after his sister's death from lung cancer. It was "in light" of that tragedy, Dreher says, that he discovered the value of community. It's the subject of his new book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life.

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Music
1:00 am
Thu April 18, 2013

New Artists, New Sound, Still Authentically Louisiana

Credit The Oxford American
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Festival season is upon us and there are plenty of opportunities to boogie down to Louisiana music - both old and new. Some new artists bringing a different sound to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this year are Luke Winslow-King, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and Alexis and the Samurai.

Alex Rawls, a New Orleans-based writer and editor who runs the music and culture website MySpiltMilk.com, was the guest editor of The Oxford American magazine’s 2012 Southern Music Issue, which was entirely dedicated to all things Louisiana music. He also helped put together its accompanying album.

And Rawls tells WRKF’s Ashley Westerman that even though this new music comes from a younger generation and may sound a little different - it is still authentically Louisiana.

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