When Kenneth Cummings joined Mayor Scott Conger’s team at the City of Jackson in August of 2019, a little more than a month after Conger first took office, his role was to tell the story of the City of Jackson.
“[Conger] and I talked about different things I could do to tell that story, and we had plans to do different things,” Cummings said.
Different things like the COVID-19 pandemic put some of those plans on hold for a few years until things settled down so those plans could come to fruition, and one of those plans is beginning to happen now.
“When I worked at [The Jackson Sun], we were already doing different things and trying new things out with video and podcasts, and that was something I wanted to build on when I made the move over here,” Cummings said. “So yeah it might’ve taken nearly five years, but I’m excited about what we’re ready to roll out now.”
The new venture is called East Main 101, which is a new podcast Cummings is hosting. The plan is to be a weekly podcast that’s typically between 30 and 40 minutes long with someone with the City of Jackson government.
The first episode will launch on May 9.
“The address of City Hall is 101 East Main Street, and the objective of this podcast is to be educational for anyone wanting or needing to know about how the City of Jackson works,” Cummings said. “So I just said let’s play on that and call it East Main 101, where we’re giving the listeners and viewers the basic education about the City similar to the basic education you get in English 101 or Math 101.”
Mayor Scott Conger is the inaugural guest, and Cummings is excited about one of the items discussed in the podcast that he gets to use for an online teaser.
“For most people like [Conger], we can plan on discussing a few things in deep detail and fill 30 or 40 minutes with no problem,” Cummings said. “And one thing we discuss in this is Airways Boulevard.”
Whenever Conger has done a Facebook Live from his office or from his campaign headquarters, the surface of Airways is usually one of the topics he’s asked about most frequently. While that item has been discussed in public a number of occasions with local media or during campaign forums or public meetings, Cummings said he thinks interested people will want to hear what all is said by the Mayor while they’re on the topic.
The studio for the podcast is in the public affairs portion of the third floor at City Hall, which was formerly the workout center for City employees that was hardly used and eventually used as storage.
Cummings, Community Relations Coordinator Christiana Gallagher and other employees involved in the City’s public affairs team have repurposed the area for their office space, and Cummings was able to use one of the side rooms for the studio, complete with a City of Jackson logo on the wall that serves as a backdrop for those who watch the podcast on video.
The podcast is available for subscription at Spotify as well as the City’s website.
“We’ll publish them each Thursday, and we’ll have shorter teasers from each conversation to have for that episode that will come out throughout the week,” Cummings said. “And since this is a class, there will be homework.
“Nothing too complicated, I don’t think. Like this week is to simply checkout the City of Jackson website. So we hope this will help the people of Jackson learn more about its government and the people that make it up.”
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
