It's been a busy year, and KUT's
multimedia team has been capturing
the moments that defined Austin in
2025, so which one
stood out most?
KUTs visuals editor Deborah Cannon
takes us through the year in photos.
And the Paramount Theater is known
for hosting unforgettable events,
but have you ever wondered how
audiences find their seats
in the rush before showtime?
Well, Austin High School student
Rivers Newsome shares what it's
like to work behind the scenes as
an usher.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Miles Bloxson.
The year is winding down, but we
still have songs for you.
This time around, our technical
director, Rayna Sevilla, shares her
top song of the year.
We'll hear more coming up
right here on The Austin
Signal.
Hey, hey, Austin, it's Friday,
December 26th.
Hope y'all are having an amazing day
and that you enjoyed the holiday.
This is Austin Signal.
I'm Miles Bloxin.
Well, it has been another busy year
for the KUT Newsroom and our
multimedia team has spent
2025 documenting Austin
to help bring our reporters'
stories to life and to tell some of
their own.
KUT's Jennifer Stayton sat down with
visuals editor, Deborah Cannon,
to talk about some of those photos.
So before we get into specifics
about your pictures of the
year, I kind of want to take a step
back and if you could just describe
for us what makes
a good photo for
news coverage.
Well, ideally our news photos
will help connect the reader in
a different way to the story
that is published on our website.
A great photo, you're gonna have an
emotional connection to it.
It's going to help inform the story
in a difference way than just words
can, and so it just brings a deeper
meaning to the pieces overall.
Great photos have three things.
They have great moments, good
light, and good composition.
And ideally you get all three, but
most of the time you hit around two,
and that's a good place to be.
But to make a good news photo,
what you wanna do is inform your
viewer. You want to add depth
to it in a way that they're not
getting by just reading the story.
You want them to have an emotional
connection with the moment, and
our photographers really do that and
they knock it out of the park a lot
of the times.
Photos.
Actually have a pretty heavy lift,
like they do a lot of work in
the web posts that KUT
reads. See when they go to the
website.
They do and we take it really
seriously here.
We have three visual journalists
full-time on staff and we
have some interns as well who go out
and make photos and videos and we
love what we do.
I'm the editor and so I don't get
out that much but I love seeing the
work come in and I love
seen how our
visual journalists connect with
the subjects and how they
tell these stories in a way that
just words can't do.
You It really is true,
and there's a reason why people say
that. New sort of innovative.
Itself is it's unpredictable, you
may not know what's happening, but
there sometimes can be an element of
planning as far as location.
So how do you figure out how
you're actually going to cover a
news occurrence or event?
Visually?
Well, there's a lot of thought that
goes into that.
Sometimes it's breaking news and you
don't have a lot time, but we
do have experienced visual
journalists on staff.
So if there is a wildfire,
if there's is a protest
that suddenly broke out that we
weren't expecting, if there
something else happening like
that where you didn't know you were
going to that when you woke up in
the morning, our team is prepared.
We've done the work beforehand.
We know how to approach these
situations.
It's hard, but it's
important.
The other kind of news that we cover
is stuff that we work in tandem with
with reporters.
So editors, the visual journalists,
we all get together.
We talk about what the story is
going to be like.
We do some ideation.
We find out what are the important
points of the story and we have
really good long discussions about
that before we ever step foot out
and go into the wild.
That said, as soon as you show up,
everything changes.
So that's where our photojournalists
and their experience really comes in
handy because even though you may
have discussed something, and you
think you know what the story's
about. A lot of times you show up
and it's something totally
different.
We're really good at like pivoting
and making those meaningful images
in whatever situation there is.
Well, and that sounds like life in
general, right? It is, it is.
You show up to something and things
can change and you sometimes don't
know what's gonna happen.
I'm curious when the person or
their scene is important to tell
the story, how do you work with
people so that they feel comfortable
and feel like they can participate
in helping to tell that story?
Well, you know, there are a lot of
different situations.
I always tell people, if you don't
look good, we don't look good.
And that isn't about making people
pretty, but that's about making true
images that are a slice of life
that tell their stories.
And we are very, very serious
about making connection with our
subjects, about honoring who
they are, where they're at in
that moment of their life.
You know, we take pictures of people
sometimes on the worst day of their
lives. That is really hard.
We respect where people are,
and we want to make sure to meet
them where they are, and to be
mindful of whatever
they're going through.
And it's a very serious thing what
we do, and we take it seriously,
and you know, we have compassion for
our subjects, and we make the
important images that we need to
make, but we also want to be
sympathetic and empathetic to the
situation that people are in.
So let's get to some of those images
then, Deborah.
Tell us about maybe three
of your favorite pictures from 2025
and why they
landed in that category for you.
What did you think was so compelling
about them?
One of the first images I wanna talk
about is one from our
multimedia journalist, Patricia Lim.
And it's just a wonderful slice
of life moment from Sunset Valley
Elementary.
You know, Sunset valley's been in
the news a lot lately because it's
one of the schools that slated to
close. The story was reported,
it's about their cheer squad, and it
was reported earlier in the year
before all of that came out.
And it just, it just this wonderful
image of a girl doing a tumble.
Her face is towards the camera and
it just captures this moment that I
just feel like.
When I see it, it just feels
like childhood, right?
And I hope that our readers connect
with it in that way, where they see
their children doing things like
that, or they remember doing that
and being happy about it.
And it's just this really cheerful
thing. And now the fact that the
school's closing, it feels
like it'll
be wonderful to have these special
memories in a way
of a school that's no longer gonna
be there. Okay, what about some
other photos?
Other photos. So we do a lot at
ACL Fest.
A lot. We take photos, we make
videos for KUTX.
You can go to our KUTx
Instagram website and see some of
those videos.
Our sister music station, KUTX, yes.
Yes, exactly.
We made some great photos this year.
We put out a couple of photo pages.
And one of my favorites was from
Lorianne Willett, who's one of our
new multimedia journalists.
She just perfectly captured what
it's like to be in the audience
and you're just in the moment
and you are feeling the music.
She is a woman who's up on someone's
shoulders and all you can see from
everybody else, they have their
hands up, they've got their There's
smoke in the air, you can see.
A little bit of some city lights in
the background and you just feel the
moment. And as you really captured
the feeling of being in the
crowd and just loving
where you are and what you're
listening to.
The last photo I wanna discuss is
one from our senior multimedia
journalist, Michael Manassi.
And it's from a reporting trip he
did with Texas standards, Michael
Marks. They did a story on
Mason Brick-Ledoux.
He was working in the music
world and he was working with Post
Malone. He discovered that he really
wanted to work on a ranch.
And so Michael and Michael went out
to the ranch.
So the photo I really love from this
reporting trip is one that Michael
made that is, it's a closeup
shot. And it really
shows the old world and the
new world of the subject in
a way that came together in this
wonderful moment.
And what you see is you don't even
see the face.
You see this cowboy hat and it's
turned down. And then you have these
hands that are completely covered in
tattoos. Right, so it's speaking to
the old, but he's got
a rope and he's like working on
his roping and you have a closeup of
that. And it's just this sweet
moment that I think just
shows the old world and the new
world all in one image.
And that's what a great
photojournalist can do, right?
You look at that picture and you
spend a few minutes with it.
You see the history,
you see the future, you see it
all kind of encapsulated in this one
image and It's
just a really, really nice one and I
really like it.
We look forward to many more images
from the KUT multimedia
team in 2026.
Deborah Cannon is KUT's visuals
editor. Deborah, thank you so much
for walking us through some of your
favorites from 2025.
Thank you for having me.
You can keep up with much more work
from Deborah and the KUT
visuals crew at KUT.org.
If you've ever been to the Paramount
Theater in downtown Austin,
you probably remember the artists on
stage, the historic paint work,
the plaster molding and the
chandeliers of our downtown gym.
But do you remember how
you got to your seats?
That's where the volunteer ushers
come in.
During a summer journalism workshop
at the Austin Public Library,
Austin High School student Rivers
Newsome wanted to know what
it's like to usher at the Paramount.
So she went straight to the source,
and here's what she found out.
My name is Felicia Williams.
I am Thomas Minor.
My name Lois Goodman and I'm
an usher at the Paramount.
When I moved here in
81, I bought
a season ticket
package at Zach
Scott Theater.
And it was $20 for five shows,
and I just thought it was
outrageously expensive.
When I was there, somebody said, you
could usher here.
And then when I was ushering,
someone said you could also usher at
the Paramount.
Then I don't have to pay for the
shows.
My girlfriend.
She was an usher here.
I had retired,
so she suggested to me
that if I wanted to,
I could usher her.
Then you're allowed to sit down if
there's seats available or go in and
watch the show, which is part of
the perk of ushering.
You get to see the show.
We get to ensure that the patrons
are having a great time, and we
also get to have that same
experience, and that's one of the
hardest parts of being an usher,
is that we have to not get caught up
in our own fun and make sure that
we're doing what we're supposed to
be doing.
The Paramount has a community
engagement and education program
and I've been lucky
enough to partner with them
to provide and expose
youth and others that don't
normally come to the theater with
opportunities to come to the theater
and sometimes it's their first time
ever to the Theater.
You see their eyes light up and
they're just looking all around,
I say we're changing lives one
ticket at a time.
What was my favorite show?
Recently, I was
ushering The Water Boys.
And I gotta say, that was one of the
most fabulous shows that
I ever ushered, that people were
really great.
When you're an usher, seating people
and being polite, no matter
what the situation might
be or circumstance that happens
there, is to make sure that you
kind of wow the customer
and make sure they're happy and they
come back.
The best story ever
was that the Coen
brothers were in here being
interviewed, and there was
nobody here yet.
Joel Coen walked into the
theater and started
asking questions about
the theater, and how old it was, and
I got a little personal tour
with him.
I think the atmosphere here
has stayed the same and that people
come here to kind of get away
from everything.
It's a peaceful, relaxing place
and where people can
be on one accord despite
what's going on, despite the
differences in the world back
from 1915 to now.
I've been here for over 40 years,
and every time I come in, I still
pinch myself that I get to work in
such an incredible place.
There's nothing changed in this
grand old lady.
I mean, she's been around for 110
years and it
is the same, the original.
If you look around, it even has
some say, the hauntings of
past shows that are floating
around here.
And the pictures on the wall tell
the story of everybody that's been
here, so.
Down here on Congress and Sixth
Street, the venues and
the places that you can view music
have changed constantly,
but there's only one constant And
that's all for this video. At the Paramount
Theater.
This story was produced with help
from the Texas Standards, Sarah
Asch.
There's more Austin Signal coming up
right after this.
Stay with us.
You're listening to the Austin
Signal.
My name is Rayna Sevilla, and I'm an
audio engineer for KU-TX.
I'm also the technical director for
the Austin signal.
One of my favorite songs out of
Austin this year is Dog in the
Street by Stab.
I found out about this band when I
was working at my college radio
station not too long ago
and they were the first local
awesome band I would follow wherever
they played around town.
They have this amazing live presence
and every show I've gone to always
feels so intimate and DIY.
It is my destiny
Whether it's on a random bridge or
in a tunnel somewhere in Austin, or
just a small dive bar, I always find
myself having so much fun in the
crowd at their performances.
They've got a really cool heavy
Midwest emo thing budding right
here in Austin alongside a lot of
other Texas rock bands and I'm
so here for it.
All I am is
They've been building a community
and picking up a lot of fans on tour
in and outside of Texas as well.
One word I would use to describe
their vibe is lit.
I am Rayna Sevilla and I'm an audio
engineer for KUTX.
You can find more of our favorite
songs from 2025 at KUTx.org.
This is the Austin Signal.
This is The Austin Signal.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Great news for Austin.
There is more local news coverage
coming to the city with the launch
of Austin Current, a
new local newsroom connected to the
Texas Tribune.
KUT News is going to be in
partnership with Austin Current.
Host Jerry Quijano sat down
with the managing editor of KUT
news, Ben Philpott, and Austin
Current's editor-in-chief,
Melissa Taboada.
To learn more about what this
new collaboration means for local
news coverage right here in Austin.
Melissa I want to start with you.
You're coming to the Austin Current
from the Boston Globe having spent a
few years there But you have a deep
connection to the austin journalism
scene for our listeners who might
not be familiar Can you just tell us
a little bit about your background
and your connection to this idea?
Right. I was at
the Globe for four and a half years,
but spent most of my journalism
career in Austin.
I was the Austin American
Statesman for over 21 years
and covered everything
from county government,
city government, education, and
then eventually became an
editor there.
Okay, now you are the editor in
chief of Austin Current.
What is the Austin Current?
Austin Current is a
new non-partisan,
non-profit news organization.
We are really going to be focusing
on collaboration with other
news organizations, including KUT,
to bring the best news,
the best information to
our audience, to readers,
to listeners, just to
try to reach as many people as we
can.
And with your decades of experience
here in Austin, what are some
of the needs you're hoping to fill
with Austin Current? How do you
think this outlet could be better
serving the community?
Well, I think maybe
what's missing in some
news landscape is
the explanations as
to why things happen, not
just that news is happening,
but the reasons behind it.
And we're hoping to bring some light
to that, some long-form stories,
short-form stories,
explainers, just everything that
we can to, you know,
give our audience
a understanding of what's
happening.
In Austin and what they can do about
it to let them have
some agency in
the world that they live in, in the
city that they live.
We're in the last week right now of
2025, when is Austin
current? When do you go live?
We have started our
newsletter that started in November,
but our first stories will start
rolling out January 12th.
Okay and some of those stories are
going to be in partnership with the
KUT newsroom.
For that I'm going to bring in Ben
Philpott, again the managing editor
of KUT News.
Ben, so let me ask you simply
enough, how did this partnership
come about?
Well, you know, KUT and the Texas
Tribune have had a long partnership.
I mean, from day one, really,
I was brought on as a
kind of joint reporter with KUT
and the TeXas Tribune when they
first launched years ago.
And, you, we have a lot of
similar goals, right?
We are both two nonprofit
news organizations in the city
wanting to do the
work that sometimes is
getting lost in commercial
journalism.
Do those explainers, you know, let
people know exactly why they should
care, how things are affecting them.
And so when the Tribune decided
they were going to go into local
newsrooms, they've got one in
Waco, we also have one here in
Austin, we just knew we wanted to
be a part of that.
That's a really good point about the
long-standing relationship between
the two newsrooms.
I feel like if you read the website,
you know about that a lot.
You see a lot of Texas Tribune
articles.
Should we expect more radio stories
possibly in connection with
the Tribune as well?
Some of the stories that they're
working on, perhaps?
Well, we don't want to scare off the
Austin Current staff.
I mean, they are coming on as
mostly print journalists.
But yes, we very specifically
want to be able
to have their stories reach our
audience, whether that's on our
website or on Austin Signal.
Obviously, they can come on and do
exactly what Melissa and I are doing
today, talk through those stories
with you.
And I'll turn it back to you,
Melissa. How do you think this
partnership, I kind of asked you
this already, but how do you the
partnership between KUT, between
Austin Curran is gonna benefit
Austin and its citizens?
Helping them, sounds like what
you're saying, helping them to
figure out how to do something about
what's happening, not just to take
in what is going on around them.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, we will be pulling our
resources, we will be sharing our
story budgets.
This allows both KUT
News and Austin Current to
broaden our reach,
deliver more comprehensive coverage
than we could as standing
alone.
And, you know, just jumping into
that real quickly, you know,
KUT has one
education reporter,
Austin Current has one education
report. Well, that's even those
two together aren't really enough to
cover K through 12 and
higher education in Austin.
But we are going to be very
specifically working together with
those two reporters, you know, to...
Work on the basics, not duplicating
efforts, digging into bigger
stories.
We're actually gonna be meeting
together, having those two reporters
come together and have a little meet
and greet soon on that.
Well, I think two reporters might be
enough, Ben. I don't know if you've
been paying attention to the news,
but it's been a quiet year for
education here in Austin.
So I think to reporters should do
the job.
We've been speaking with Ben
Philpotti as the managing editor of
KUT News and Melissa Taboada.
She is the editor in chief of
Austin Current.
Thank you both for your time.
Thank you. Thank you
That's it for us here on
Austin Signal.
Thanks so much for hanging out with
us on this beautiful Friday.
Special thank you to KUT's Deborah
Cannon, Melissa Taboada from
Austin Current, and Rivers Newsome.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director, Kristen Cabrera is our
managing producer, and we've got
more about the show in our podcast
notes at kut.org.
I'm Miles Bloxson and for my friend
Jerry Quijano, I hope you have
a wonderful weekend and be safe
out there.
This is Austin Signal.