500. Halfway To Episode 1,000; Kat Downs Mulder Redux

It is kind of a big deal if you think about it. With a lot of dedication, blind faith and a great deal of luck, we’ve produced 500 episodes of the weekly It’s All Journalism podcast and in August we’ll be celebrating our 10th anniversary.

While I’ve been the only constant on the podcast since it began, none of this could have happened without a lot of help.

These are all the people who directly contributed to the making of this podcast every week for nearly 10 years: Jolie Lee, Megan Cloherty, Anna Miars, Julia O’Donoghue, Sean McCalley, Ellen Kortesoja, Amber Healy, Nicole Ogrysko, Emily Kopp, Nick DePrey, Nick Hunter, Amelia Brust and Steff Thomas. Thank you for all your time, talent, sweat and enthusiasm.

Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to receive the support of two organizations specializing in promoting great journalism, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the American Press Institute, the latter of which is our partner in producing the Better News podcast. (The first episode of Better News’ fourth season is coming soon.)

Our podcast also got a lot of behind the scenes help, especially during the early days, from Federal News Network. Likewise, we’ve benefited from our association with WTOP, Hubbard Broadcasting and PodcastOne, which hosts our podcast feed. Thank you for giving us room to do our work and providing technical assistance whenever we needed it.

To the many working journalists, educators and media thought leaders who graciously shared their time and knowledge as podcast guests, thank you. Every conversation I’ve had has been a joy and remains the most rewarding part of producing It’s All Journalism.

As a celebration of the release of our 500th episode, we will be recording a livestream interview on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT with Kat Downs Mulder, the chief product officer and managing editor at The Washington Post. You’ll be able to view it live either on our Facebook page or via Zoom. Details are below.

Kat was one of the guests we interviewed in the first year of the podcast. Way back then, she was a designer in the Post’s graphics department. Now, she’s the third woman among the news organizations four managing editors.

As we were planning the livestream event and identified Kat as the person I wanted to interview, the IAJ team decided it would be fitting to post our 2013 interview with Kat, in which she talks about how the newspaper covered the arrest of the Boston Marathon bombers the week before.