John Hammontree

Background

About John Hammontree

As the head of podcasting for AL.com, I am responsible for developing and producing podcasts and video series across the AL.com newsroom, including our flagship daily news podcast “Down in Alabama.” I developed and launched “Beat Everyone,” an Alabama football podcast which reached #12 on the Apple Podcast charts for all football podcasts. With narrative series, I either pitch an original idea to a member of our news team, as was the case with this series and our Murrow Award-winning series, “Unjustifiable,” or work with a team member to develop and produce their idea, as was the case with “Panther.” I am responsible for assembling the team of hosts, producers, sound designers, editors, composers, and artists to build the podcast from start to finish. I join our reporters in the field to conduct interviews. I work with them to storyboard, write and edit scripts, and I work with our sound engineers to ensure that our vision for the podcast is fully realized. I also coordinate marketing and promotion for the launch of each series. In addition to my duties as a producer, I am also a fill-in host and writer for our daily news series, “Down in Alabama.” I also have reported, written and directed short documentaries for our video team.