Sticky Wicket

If you’re like us, climate change leaves you with a lot of questions, and they’re not about the rate of ocean warming — they’re about practical things that affect our everyday lives. So, for us and for you, we created a podcast about it.

Kathleen Babineaux Blanco: a carpet cleaner’s daughter from New Iberia turned school teacher turned stay-at-home mom turned…Louisiana's first female governor. In 2003, her focus was on education reform, juvenile justice, and economic development. And halfway into her first and only term, it looked like she had a good chance at re-election. But that all changed, with Hurricane Katrina.

In 1979, Ernest "Dutch" Morial became the first black mayor of New Orleans. He won the election with 95% of the black vote, and just 20% of the white vote. He campaigned on a platform of police reform, but it wasn’t just Dutch who wanted to re-organize the NOPD – they were organizing themselves. They wanted a union, pay increases, and better working conditions. Soon after Dutch took office, the police wasted no time. They staged their first strike, in history. Their bargaining tool? Mardi Gras.

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963, people around the country quickly rejected their government's conclusion that a sole assassin committed the crime. A slew of conspiracy theories took hold, but only one conspiracy theorist transferred his theories into actual arrests. Jim Garrison, District Attorney of New Orleans, was media savvy, and skillfully attracted TV cameras, reporters, and supporters with his giant claims. In 1967, the world watched Garrison insist that he had “solved the assassination.” But who was at fault?

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Sticky Wicket: Louisiana Politics Versus the Press is a new mini series out of WWNO New Orleans Public Radio and WRKF Baton Rouge Public Radio that takes on four historic clashes between Louisiana politicians and the media, one at a time. These relationships have always been love/hate in the Pelican state.