The Lead Podcast Launches 13th Season

The Lead podcast has returned for its 13th season led by new student host Jacqueline GaNun.

The first episode of the new season posted Sept. 7 featuring an interview with Melissa Lyttle, a freelance photojournalist. Lyttle worked at newspapers in Florida for 15 years before freelancing with support from organizations like the Pulitzer Center and the International Women’s Media Foundation. She talks about her personal philosophy of not taking “no” for an answer and also discusses her international reporting and her project “Where They Stood,” which documents what happened to many of the Confederate monuments after they were taken down in recent years.

GaNun, a fourth-year journalism major at the University of Georgia, recently completed a summer internship with NPR and will use the podcast to continue developing her audio storytelling skills.

“I’m incredibly excited to serve as the host of The Lead this season and bring even more meaningful conversations to the show,” she said. “I’ve learned so much already about what it takes to succeed in the journalism industry just from working on the first few episodes, and I can’t wait to develop the rest of the season.”

This season, Charlotte Norsworthy, who hosted The Lead for four seasons and served as executive producer during Seasons 9 and 10, is returning to the position of executive producer.

“I’m thrilled to be back working with The Lead where my love for audio storytelling was founded,” Norsworthy said. “Getting to work alongside a fantastic journalist such as Jacqueline means we are going to have an incredible season.”

GaNun is the seventh host of The Lead, which is a student project sponsored by UGA’s Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership. GaNun succeeds Kyra Posey, the show’s host for the previous two seasons. Daniel Funke launched The Lead in fall 2016 and hosted the first and second seasons. Seasons three and four were co-hosted by Nate Bramel and Noelle Lashley followed by Norsworthy and Caroline Odom, who also hosted for two seasons.