A MAGAZINE ARRIVES quietly. It slips into a mailbox, lands on a coffee table, waits on a kitchen counter and asks for the one thing almost nothing gets anymore: real attention.
That matters.
For decades, Preservation in Print has helped the Preservation Resource Center tell the story of New Orleans — its buildings, neighborhoods, people, craftsmanship, threats, victories and complicated beauty. It’s given PRC’s work a record. A voice. A place to slow down and look closely.
I’m excited to expand that voice.
I come to PRC from a world of newsrooms, digital media, video, deadlines, audience strategy and the daily miracle of trying to make people care before they scroll, click away or get distracted by literally anything else.
That world teaches you one thing fast: Nobody owes you a read. You have to earn it.
That’s the energy I’m bringing into this role. PRC has a powerful mission, an extraordinary history and stories all over this city worth telling. Because good work doesn’t speak for itself. It needs a voice. It needs shape. It needs rhythm. Sometimes it needs a headline with a little bite in it.
The way people find stories has changed. They meet organizations in their inboxes, in their feeds, in group chats, on their phones between errands, meetings, school pickups and cups of coffee. They meet us through a video someone sends with the message, “You need to see this.” They meet us through a photo, a caption, a podcast, a reel, a TikTok, a newsletter, a magazine — and, every now and then, an actual human conversation.
PRINT
gives us depth
SOCIAL
gives us momentum
VIDEO
gives us emotion
AUDIO
gives us intimacy
Nobody owes you a read. You have to earn it.
The Central Idea:
The front door is everywhere now.
And that’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity — a big one.
In the months ahead, readers will see PRC tell its stories with more voices, more angles and more personality. Expect more people. More faces. More craftspeople, homeowners, renters, architects, advocates, neighborhood leaders and residents doing the work long before anyone thinks to act.
And expect even more heartbeat.
You will see us expand our presence with intention. More short-form video. More social storytelling. More ways to make preservation visible to people who may not know PRC yet, but already care deeply about this city.
That includes newer platforms to get the messaging out. Not as a gimmick. Not as a desperate attempt to look cool in sunglasses indoors. But because these are real civic spaces now — strange, fast, loud, occasionally unhinged, and undeniably powerful. They are where people discover what matters, share what moves them and decide what deserves their attention.
Print gives us depth. Social gives us momentum. Video gives us emotion. Audio gives us intimacy.
Together, they give PRC more ways to meet New Orleans where it is.
And we will meet more of New Orleans.
We need everyone to achieve our mission: the longtime member who has supported PRC for decades; the next homeowner who does not yet know what questions to ask; the young renter who loves their neighborhood but has never thought of themselves as part of a preservation conversation; the student wondering whether the building trades could become a real future; the contractor who wants to do the work right; the person scrolling on their phone who suddenly realizes this city’s built environment is not just scenery. It’s inheritance.
Our job is to make that inheritance visible, useful and urgent.
This work is not about nostalgia. Nostalgia wants the past to sit still and behave itself. Preservation is far more interesting and important than that. It asks what’s worth keeping, what needs fixing and how a city moves forward without erasing the things that make people fight for it in the first place.
That is not a niche conversation. That’s a New Orleans conversation.
And PRC is going to tell it with range, energy and nerve.
Preservation has always been a fight against disappearance. Our communications have to fight disappearance, too — not by shouting louder, but by showing up in the spaces where that conversation is happening in the moment.
On the page. In the feed. In the inbox. On video. In your ears. All around the city.
The front door is everywhere now.
My job is to help open it wider — so more people can see, understand and take pride in the work we do every day for New Orleans.
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Enjoyed this story? It originally appeared in Preservation in Print, PRC’s magazine exploring the people, places and stories behind New Orleans’ historic architecture, neighborhoods and culture.
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