Podcast Junkies - Storytelling Interviews & Conversations with Podcasters Podcasting Passionately · Harry Duran

365: From Beauty Queen to Environmental Crusader: Jordan Gass-Pooré’s Inspiring Journey

·59 min·3 clips

At age 8, Jordan told her family she wanted to be the female Stephen King.

1. Podcast Junkies episode 365 centers on Jordan Gass-Pooré, an environmental journalist and podcast host discussing her route from Texas to New York City. 2. Host Harry Duran introduces Jordan as the host of Hazard and Fumed and as a reporter who has covered hazardous sites for years. 3. The episode asks how a girl from Seguin, Texas, turned horror fandom, local journalism, and college radio into environmental reporting. 4. Jordan says Seguin is about 45 minutes south of Austin and describes growing up in a town that was not walkable. 5. She remembers moving to Long Island City in Queens for her eighth year in New York and noticing the neighborhood's money and density. 6. Jordan contrasts that with Texas, where she left home at 18 for college and moved out of the state at 25. 7. She says Austin changed from fields along I-35 to apartments, big-box stores, and rising traffic by 2014 and 2015. 8. Jordan points to Rainey Street as a place that shifted from cute houses and bars to heavy redevelopment and sky rises. 9. She describes small-town Texas life as one where teachers, parents, and classmates already knew each other, sometimes across generations. 10. Jordan says her interest in journalism began with horror, Stephen King, and wanting to be the female Stephen King. 11. She names FernGully as an early environmental influence and recalls a children's anti-whaling pop-up book with a whale and a seal-clubbing figure. 12. Jordan says her junior-year pageant answer was 'deforestation,' while other contestants chose teen pregnancy. 13. She explains that by middle school she was contacting the Seguin newspaper and KWED, an AM Christian station, to do reporting work. 14. Jordan says KWED gave her a column in the Seguin daily news supplement and let her talk on air and learn the board. 15. She recalls getting $25 for a movie review of The Family Stone and treating it as serious money. 16. Jordan says she started The Fourth Wall at the KTSW radio station in 2008 and ran it for four years through college. 17. She explains that the show let her cover Texas filmmakers, attend South by Southwest, and stay friends with one Irish actor she first interviewed. 18. Jordan says she wanted a podcast rather than a radio show because a radio segment disappears after it airs, while a podcast can stay online. 19. The conversation has a conversational, reflective style with Harry Duran prompting memories about Texas, Queens, and the changes in journalism. 20. Listeners interested in environmental reporting, Texas growth, and early podcast history will get the most from this episode.

As heard by us

A quiet origin story about curiosity, persistence, and a path still coming into focus.

Jordan Gass-Pore's episode feels less like a polished profile than a candid look at a creative path that was still taking shape. She talks about studying electronic media, finding no mention of podcasting in class, and deciding radio felt too fleeting for the work she wanted.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how a college-era search for podcasting turned into a real career, with an environmental thread running through it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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