University of Alabama students interested in podcasting got tips from two veterans in the field. Award winning journalists Becca Andrews and John Archibald shared stories about their series titled "American Shrapnel." It’s about bomber Eric Rudolph and his attacks, including Centennial Plaza during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Richard Jewell was initially accused in the attack, but even though Rudolph pleaded guilty for the crime, the two journalists recalled how average Americans still mistakenly link Jewell with the attack. The conversation at the University of Alabama’s Digital Media Center was moderated by UA instructor Chip Brantley. The point was to focus on the process of how American Shrapnel was made, and how its hosts turned years of research into a narrative that approached difficult subjects, and built a story that connects past extremism to the present.
“A lot of people are really divided on this,” podcast host Becca Andrews observed on what drove Rudolph to violence. "So, you know, you'll, you'll talk to people who are like, oh, like he did all this because he hated cops and he hated the government. I think that's true, I think, and also, he really hated women. So if you look at this like the vast majority of his targets were women.”
Rudolph attacked a Birmingham women’s health clinic in 1998. The bombing killed off duty police officer Robert Sanderson, who was working as a security guard at the facility. Nurse Emily Lyons was critically injured. That was his last attack. The three previous bombings were at a abortion clinic and a lesbian bar, both near Atlanta, and the one at the site of the 1996 Olympics. John Archibald says he can’t believe 2026 is thirty years since that crime was committed.
“We set out to tell this story on the 25th anniversary of the Birmingham bombing, which was (19)98 so we missed it by a little bit,” Archibald. “ But 30 years (since the Olympic attack)? That’s an awful long time. This is exactly what I was looking for.”
Archibald won two Pulitzer Prizes and wrote the critically acclaimed memoir "Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution," which NPR named one of the best books of 2021. The graduate of the University of Alabama says producing podcasts represented a renaissance for his career after AL.com went digital. He was wondering what direction his career might take in the changing world of newspaper publishing. Archibald says he took inspiration from younger co-workers.
“They didn't know what we couldn't do right as newspaper people. And so they said, We can do anything. And so we started doing videos, started doing podcasts, started doing video essays,” Archibald recalled.
During the presentation, University of Alabama students got a behind-the-scenes look at making podcasts. That includes the thirty or so interviews and years of research that went into producing “American Shrapel.” Both Archibald and Andrews addressed how podcasting is more profit driven. But, Andrews says what makes podcasts worth doing is still there.
“I think the future of storytelling is bright. I really believe in the power of storytelling no matter the medium. I think different people respond well to different mediums, which is why Archibald and I both are so invested in telling stories and a lot of different ways,” she said.
Andrews has written for such publications as Mother Jones, The Guardian, WIRED, Jezebel, and Rolling Stone. A journalism professor at Western Kentucky University, she is the author of “No Choice: The Destruction of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect a Fundamental American Right.”
