This week, a podcast I created with Tenderfoot TV finally launched.

But I don’t know what to say about it yet. Here’s why.

You can listen to The Vanishing Point on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

When I started covering stories about missing and murdered people in the Hoopa Valley, I didn’t envision where exactly those stories would “end up.”

As a contributor to Hoopa’s local newspaper, the Two Rivers Tribune, I’ve always felt like the cases we were covering were going straight to the “right space.” I want people who live in Hoopa (many of whom are members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe), to know that these unsolved cases were being taken seriously by their local news publication. Community news should reflect the celebrations, milestones, concerns and crises of the local community.

After a few months of covering these stories (almost all the missing people I’ve covered in Hoopa are Indigenous), I decided to find a podcasting platform who would agree to make a series specifically about the missing Indigenous folks in Hoopa. There is a crisis of missing (and murdered) Indigenous people in North America, and it’s a movement that’s been gaining traction across various types of news outlets in recent years – mostly thanks to Indigenous activists who have pushed incredibly hard to have their voices heard.

What we created at Tenderfoot TV is a contribution to this conversation about missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP). The podcast, aptly entitled The Vanishing Point, launched this week across Apple and Spotify — it features five missing people from the Hoopa area.

The Vanishing Point’s reception has far exceeded my modest expectations. I didn’t want to think too much about what might or might not happen when it finally went live. My goal was to keep my word to the families and friends of the missing folks, and to complete the project as quickly as possible.

A few days after launch day, I still don’t have any way to properly describe a) how I feel about the positive reception (the podcast is ranked #15 on Apple’s true crime chart after four days) and b) what I plan to do next to continue being (hopefully) helpful within the MMIP movement.

When faced with this type of conundrum, I ask myself what I would tell one of my students if they came to me with the same question.

I would tell them to let it “cook.” Let the podcast do its thing. Let people listen to it. Don’t look at the reviews. Don’t look at the comments. Don’t engage with needless online conversations with people who might not have the nicest things to say. Turn off your email for the rest of the weekend. Focus on the MMIP families as the week goes on and do your work as a journalist. In a world where people love “hit reply”, “tweet” and “dislike” the moment emotion takes over, rather than slow critical thought, refrain from responding and let your thoughts formulate slowly with care.

So, on that note I’m logging off, and going for long walk in silence.

You can listen to The Vanishing Point on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.