Podcasts about New Orleans, Louisiana

Three days after Saints Block Party Podcast posted Ep 276 - "BEAT THE FALCONS" Saints vs Falcons Week 4 Preview, the Saints lost 24–45 to Atlanta at the Superdome on October 5, 2026. That gap between hope and scoreboard is the loudest sound in New Orleans podcasting. Football and basketball talk here includes argument: about Alvin Kamara, about Kellen Moore.

Past the scores, another question keeps surfacing: who is responsible for holding things up. Floodlines asks it of the officials of 2005. Behind The Lens asks it of the state legislature, and Biz Talks asks it of the agency that maintains the West Bank levees. In Floodlines, a woman who has become her family's cornerstone turns it around: "who responsible for Leanne?" The city has its own version. On September 22, 2026, Mayor Helena Moreno proposed a $1.47 billion budget for 2027 that would eliminate 152 full-time positions. It was a proposal, and the argument over which services to protect stayed open.

What New Orleans is

New Orleans sits on the Mississippi River and functions as a port and trading center. Its estimated city population was 362,154 in July 2025, compared with 383,997 at the 2020 census. Music, Creole cooking and Mardi Gras are its defining cultural associations. According to the city's tourism marketing organization, conventions are an important part of its visitor economy.

Saints and Pelicans, argued out loud

The Saints shows divide by temperament. New Orleans Saints collects radio interviews, and its summer titles trace one dispute from Bobby: Don't be shocked if Alvin Kamara gets cut this offseason to Deuce: I'm a fan of keeping good players, and AK is still a good player. In the second, Deuce moves the debate from depth-chart labels to touches and to a veteran's judgment about which sideline hit to avoid. New Orleans Saints Podcast, with John DeShazier and Erin Summers, is warmer. On Super Bowl LX Radio Row, in Demario Davis & Cam Jordan | Saints Podcast on Super Bowl LX Radio Row, Davis warns that "New Orleans will riot if Drew Brees is not a first ballot Hall of Fame."

The shows trade polish for company. Saints Block Party Podcast, with Adam and Ryan, records with a live chat and is profane, digressive and well informed. In Ep 234 - Saints Thrift Shopping Thru Remaining Free Agents they savor the news that Tyler Shough and Zach Wilson share a 2018 recruiting class. An interviewer raises the same coincidence with Wilson in New Orleans Saints' Zach Wilson: I'm looking forward to working with Kellen Moore and a younger QB room. Straight Up Saints, hosted by Chris Rosvoglou, reads viewer comments aloud. Its LIVE REACTION POSTGAME SHOW: New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons tallies the points the kicking game left behind and borrows Ted Lasso's line that "it's the hope that kills you." NewOrleans.Football: Saints Podcast, with Nick Underhill and Mike Triplett, fills out the field.

On basketball, Locked On Pelicans - Daily Podcast On The New Orleans Pelicans discussed the coaching search. In DEFINING MOMENT: Pelicans’ Next Head Coach Decision Will IMPACT Zion Williamson and Franchise FUTURE, host Jake Madison argued that a team developing young players should pass on veterans like Darvin Ham, Kevin Ollie or Jamahl Mosley. By May 20, Straight Up Saints was running Jeremy Brener On The New Orleans Pelicans Hiring Jamahl Mosley. Polk and Kush, with Andrew Polk and Scott Kushner, lowers the temperature. In Zion: The Most Relatable Basketball Player of All Time, a report that Zion dislikes the grind draws a shrug: "I can say that I like basketball and I don't like work."

The flood, the levees and the question of blame

Floodlines, from The Atlantic and hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II, refuses to settle on a single villain. Reckoning sets Sandy, who noticed television framing Katrina as an act of God, beside engineer J. David Rogers, who the narration says has "like a million ways to describe mud." It also places archival reporting on Tom DeLay blaming local government beside the Army Corps' denials. The Wake gives Michael Brown room to reject any suggestion that race shaped FEMA's decisions, and the narration concedes there "wasn't going to be an easy answer no matter how long we talked." In Rebirth (2025-08-01, 40 minutes), Leanne is renting in Pontchartrain Park with her mother, Patricia, after living in New Orleans East in 2020. The fear of the water is explained plainly: "We below sea level."

In Biz Talks, from Biz New Orleans magazine, the levees are a maintenance job. Episode 280: Another Hurricane Season is Coming – How Protected is the West Bank? hosts Jesse Noel, regional director of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority West. By the host's count, the authority protects more than 250,000 residents and $41 billion in property. Noel cites an average perimeter elevation of about 12 against a design grade of about 10 and a half, and says of the system, "It was a Cadillac when it was turned over us." This is an agency describing itself. Heard after Reckoning, that confidence is worth weighing.

Courts, the Capitol and true crime

Behind The Lens is the weekly podcast of The Lens, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, and is hosted by Carolyne Heldman. It makes local power legible. Consolidation or retaliation? Republican lawmakers move to eliminate the job Calvin Duncan won in a landslide election explains how Senate Bill 256 would merge clerk offices and could keep Duncan from becoming clerk of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. Supporters cite efficiency; critics warn the bill is likely to override voters. Reporter Bernard Smith traces Duncan's legal self-education from the Angola law library to exoneration. When the reporters go quiet, the commentary is owned openly: "I understand you guys are journalists. I get to be the one to editorialize." Other episodes reach statewide, and the Louisiana page is the place to keep going.

New Orleans Unsolved, an independent narrative true crime podcast with investigator and producer Anna Christie, is slower and heavier. In S2 Episode 41, Follow The Money (2025-12-18), Christie recounts years of database searches tied to Troop 137 and a meeting with a state police detective. The case involves alleged harm to children and remains unresolved.

Business, over lunch

It's New Orleans: Out to Lunch seats Tulane finance professor Peter Ricchiuti at Columns in Uptown. Catching Up recalls skeptics in 2011 asking what the show would do after six weeks, then revisits early guests: Kenneth Purcell of iSeats, and Catherine Todd, whose online gallery became Where Ya Art Works. In John and John, a guest admits he wanted to rename the Brandy Crusta "the Santini" until his co-founders insisted on its history.

The city's own stories

Beyond Bourbon Street, an Insider's Guide to New Orleans treats its title as a premise. In Tenth Anniversary Show, the host, who grew up here and is raising kids here, says the city is more than national news shows. In St. Roch Market, Kevin Peto, who took over the food hall when it neared closing in 2023, explains that its bar is named for the patron saint of the wrongfully accused. He answers the gentrification charge by saying the market is "doing a terrible job at that."

History arrives as testimony. LAST CALL: NEW ORLEANS DYKE BAR HISTORY PROJECT documents a disappearing bar scene. In S3 Ep3: From Fire and Ashes, A Trans Phoenix is Born, an organizer explains why they held a playful sports day at the capitol instead of an action that might undo Baton Rouge organizers' work. At the far end of the dial, WRYAT New Orleans Public Radio satirizes public radio. WRYAT S8E6 - WRYAT presents The End of WRYAT sponsored by WRYAT (83 minutes) is profane and jokes about grief and suicide, so choose it knowingly.

Where to start

• For civic reporting: Behind The Lens, Consolidation or retaliation? Republican lawmakers move to eliminate the job Calvin Duncan won in a landslide election, which follows a state bill into a city office.
• For the long view: Floodlines, Reckoning, where competing explanations of the levee failures meet.
• For a Saints argument with context: New Orleans Saints, Deuce: I'm a fan of keeping good players, and AK is still a good player, 15 minutes on the Kamara question.
• For the economy behind the postcards: It's New Orleans: Out to Lunch, Catching Up, which shows what years of lunches add up to.
• For something to eat: Beyond Bourbon Street, an Insider's Guide to New Orleans, St. Roch Market.

With more time, play Floodlines' Rebirth and listen for who Leanne holds up, and who holds her.

The New Orleans feed on this page plays clips from these shows.