Travers Mackel anchors WDSU News at 4 & 5 PM Monday through Friday and moderates the WDSU ‘Hot Seat’ segment Sunday night at 10:30 PM.

A mainstay at WDSU since 2003, Travers has played a role in covering every major news story in the area for over a decade and says he truly loves what he does.

A winner of multiple regional Emmy awards, in 2016, Travers was named “Louisiana Newsperson Of The Year” by The Associated Press and in 2014, was named "Reporter Of The Year" in Louisiana by the same organization.

He's either won or been a part of WDSU’s winning submissions on four regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and was part of the WDSU News team awarded the National Murrow Award in 2018.

Travers has also, twice, been the recipient of a prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. One for WDSU's 2012 coverage of the Hubig's Pies fire in the Marigny and another in 2015 for WDSU’s documentary on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. He’s also won a National Headliner Award -- one of the oldest and largest annual national awards recognizing journalistic merit. Travers and WDSU received the award for spot news coverage. In 2015, one of Travers’ investigative stories was cited as a key component in WDSU receiving the national Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in political journalism.

Travers has extensive experience covering high-profile public corruption and criminal trials.

He served as the station's point person for the federal corruption trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and was the only television reporter to secure an on-camera interview with the former mayor since he was indicted, convicted and jailed. He also covered the federal corruption case of former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard and the murder trial of the man who was convicted of shooting and killing former New Orleans Saints star Will Smith.

In 2009, Travers spent several weeks in the Washington D.C. area covering the bribery trial of former Louisiana congressman William Jefferson.

Travers reporting has also taken him abroad.

He travelled to Brazil and South Korea as part of the Hearst Television team assigned to cover the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio and in 2018 in PyeongChang.

In 2015 Travers was part of a WDSU news crew sent to upstate New York to assist Hearst television station WPTZ with their continuing coverage on the Dannemora prison break.

In 2016, Travers travelled to Daytona Beach, Florida to cover Hurricane Matthew and in 2018 he was in both North Carolina and South Carolina covering Hurricane Florence.

Travers has appeared on CNN numerous times, as well as MSNBC, including appearances on "The Rachel Maddow Show." He played himself in an episode of the HBO series "Treme," which was shot in New Orleans, and appeared as a reporter in the New Orleans shot movie "This Is The End."

The biggest story of Travers' career was covering Hurricane Katrina in the summer of 2005. He was one of only a handful of journalists to ride out the storm in the Louisiana Superdome and offer live, firsthand reports as parts the Superdome roof were ripped off. Travers was also on a police boat, bringing viewers the story of rescue attempts hours after the levees broke in New Orleans, when much of the city was under water. He anchored much of the station's round-the-clock coverage in the weeks following the storm and was featured in the documentary "Seven Days That Changed New Orleans."

Prior to coming to WDSU, Travers worked as an anchor and reporter in Monroe, La., at KTVE-TV, and he spent almost three years reporting for WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss. Travers is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans. He played shortstop on Loyola's baseball team while in college. Since Hurricane Katrina hit the area in 2005, Travers has won nearly a dozen awards from the Press Club of New Orleans and The Associated Press of Louisiana.

Travers is the son of the late Frank Mackel, a longtime New Orleans golf professional. His twin brother, Fletcher, is a sports anchor and reporter at WDSU.

You can follow Travers on Twitter by following @TraversWDSU or email him at Tmackel@hearst.com.