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Lost in Austin, Found in Rhinebeck: A Conversation with Our Own Alex Hannaford

Episode 228: Lost in Austin, Found in Rhinebeck: A Conversation with Our Own Alex Hannaford

Journalist Alex Hannaford on death row reporting, his book on Austin's transformation, and building a youth sailing program in the Hudson Valley.

Show notes

Norm sits down with Alex Hannaford, a London-born, dual U.S.-U.K. citizen journalist who covers America for foreign publications and whose writing has taken him from the death rows of Texas to the pubs of east London. Rhinebeck's own, Hannaford traces his path into journalism through a gap year teaching sailing and an internship at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where he found his voice as a features writer.
The conversation moves from pub culture and Indian food to the weight of capital punishment, including Hannaford's firsthand account of witnessing an execution in Oklahoma amid growing controversy over lethal injection drugs and the systemic failures, racial bias and inadequate legal representation, that plague the system. He also discusses making the animated documentary "The Last 40 Miles," which follows the transfer of a condemned man from Texas death row to Huntsville.
Closer to home, Hannaford talks about volunteering on Thames RNLI lifeboats, launching a youth sailing program in the Rhinebeck-Kingston area through Culture Connect and the Hudson River Maritime Museum, and his book "Lost in Austin," a ground-level look at how climate, explosive growth, and cost-of-living pressures have transformed one of America's fastest-changing cities.

Produced by Norm Magnusson, Jennifer Hammoud, and Matty Rosenberg @ radiofreerhinecliff.org

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Alex Hannaford

Alex Hannaford

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