>> charlie: welcome to the program. tonight, all about radio, specifically radio love fest. we talk to ira glass, robert krulwich, jad, kurt anderson and karen brooks hopkins. >> it's a time when, unlike when rather was the king of television and the rest, audiences have been fracturing and getting smaller and smaller over the last 20 years in media, in general. so, on the one hand, a radio show, a very successful radio show that has a mall or 2 million people listening, 25 years ago, that would be a piddling little audience. today, that's as big as a successful television show. so in addition to all the quality and this smart audience that's now defines themselves because they listen to american

life or radiolab or whatever, that is part of their self-definition, it now feels in the culture, generally, i think, like this is the big leagues, because what used to be the big leagues have shrunken a lot. so now we're kind of on not only in audience terms at an equivalent place, but public radio and everybody in it, sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they are all trying to make stuff that they think is great and they think their audience will think is great without any other imperatives getting in the way. >> a lot of listeners to the american life have told me, like, there's a wave of shows that when they heard them for the first time they didn't realize radio could do the things that we do. you know, like, i'm told often, like, by people -- the first time they heard this american

life, like, they didn't think a radio story could be good, could have characters and emotion and you stick around because you want to find out -- you get caught up in it -- you know, that you would get caught up in it because you wanted to know what was going to happen and could deliver all the feelings that drama does and be funny and emotional. >> charlie: the love of storytelling and radio next for the hour. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of

accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. captioning sponsored by rose communications >> chicago, it's american life. you're listening to radiolab. a day in studio 360... (intermittent radio snip snippe) >> i don't know how to explain it but something happened about

15 years ago. it miffed something to do with hip-hop or just because that particular musical form is kind of wordy and performance-oriented or something, or maybe it was just npr grew to a size that it became sort of part of everybody's texture. i don't know precisely what happened but i know what you can feel, that more and more and more people were sort of married to it at just different points in their day, in the back seat of their car with their parents and then they graduated to other things that they found and they began to own the things that they found. you know, here's the weird part, in 1971 or 1972 when a gzé@a of people got together and said let's make serious newsmaking radio, that was a time when walter cronkite and dan rather were kings on television. cbs was the tiffany's network, "new york times" had the pentagon papers and bernstein

with "the washington post," so if you want to be a serious reporter, you do that. casey kasem radio was countdown to music, and linda and "ray and these people walk in and they go, all right, let's be like the "new york times," it was, like, stupid and silly and crazy. now you look at these people, like the linda worthheimers, when i left npr and went to television, i noticed the people in television had a thing, they had a swagger, and you could feel it. and the radio people are all sort of mousy and quiet, self-effacing. and then there were these tv people. then you go to npr or even wnyc -- hello! these are people! and it happened, i think, for a combination of reasons, but suddenly closing your eyes and

hearing something became totally not just a thing that people want to do but, for some reason, it's a thing people seem increasingly to prefer. but the perspective of 30 years of watching it, you were there at the beginning. i mean, radio has a number of qualities, i think, that -- like a lot of listeners to the show i do, this american life, they've told me there are a wave of shows that when they heard them the first time, they didn't realize radio could do the things we do. i'm told often by people, the first time they heard this american life, they didn't realize a radio story could be good. you got calling up in it and

wanted to deliver the feelings that drama does and be funny and emotional. you know, for a lot of people, that's news and they want more of it. then i feel like there's a whole generation of us making this stuff where it feels like this -- where it feels weirdly although it's the oldest electronic medium, it feels like there is so much stuff to do nobody's tried. it feels like everything is new, there are all these young people getting into it, who are just, like, let's take this baby out for a spin and see what it can do. it's a really particular moment. >> charlie: kurt, you're coming late to radio. >> yes, i am. they allowed me in late. and part of the thing in addition to what robert and ira said, it's a time unlike whenñi

rather was the king of audience and the rest. audiences have been fracturing and getting smaller and smaller over the last 20 years in media and in general. on the one hand, a very successful radio show that has a million or two million people listening, 25 years ago, that would be a piddling little audience. today, that's as big as a successful television show. so in addition to all the quality and this smart audience that's now defines themselves because they listen to this american life or radio lab or 360 or whatever, that is part of their self-definition, it now feels in the culture, generally, i think, like this is the big leagues, because what used to be ththe big leagues have shrunkena lot, so now are we not only in audience terms on an equivalent -- at an equivalent place, but public radio and

everybody in it, sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they are all trying to make stuff that they think is great and that they think their audience will think is great without any other imperatives getting in the way of, oh, well, 18 to 34-year-olds like this or middle america like or not like this? it has from its beginnings when it was sort of opening off off-broadway in 1971 been about trying to do the best it can and, even though it's now swaggery and has the large audiences, by modern standards, it is still more than, you know, most commercial broadcasting is motivated by people wanting to create good things for -- >> charlie: it was attractive to you because you thought you would have more freedom to do more interesting things? >> it was attractive to me because for some strange reason out of the blue they said, hey,

do you want to help create this new show? i said, for sure. you know, having been a radio listener and not even dared to dream dreaming to be a wannabe, but they said we think you would be good at hosting a shows r show about arts and culture. >> eth completely freedom in everything you've done. so why radio? >> well, one thing, because i hadn't done it. you know, here we are at b.a.m. of all the things i hadn't done and haven't checked off my list, dance wasn't going to be one of them. (laughter) >> you never know! so radio -- i mean, because i was so attracted by what -- by 1999 when they came to me and what was being done, i

that's what you do when you have a job at a magazine. but sitting down with idols like mine or whomever and spending an hour talking to them, it was a thing i'd never done and the fact that they, i and my producer could shape that into radio, there's nothing like it. >> charlie: did you find it easy? >> no, i didn't find it easy, although i think the dirty secret of radio compared to, say, writing books is it's easy in that there are other people, in my case -- these guys actually know how to make radio, i just have producers -- after i have an ecstatic conversation with one of my heros, they turn it into radio. >> yeah, it's really easy. damn you, kurt (laughter) >> but the craft of having, as you know better than any of us,

charlie, or as well, of having a conversation rather than doing an interview is a matter of trade craft and learning. fortunately, you know, we had a year to figure this show out and to get me to at least an unembarrassing level of skill before we went on the air. >> yeah, what was the attraction for you? >> it's hard for me to say. it's everything that's been said, already. but more personal, en. for me, it was something about -- it's this mixture that radio can provide. it is ultimately about the voice. so it's about somebody speaking to you in the dead of night and that relationship you can have with a disembodied voice where they somehow seem to fill everything. andeth so authentic, you kind of connect with that person. i loved that. i loved the radio for that reason. but then i also -- and maybe it was around the time when i started listening to ira's show, there was something else almost

the opposite of that. it's like you hear these voices and they're so particular and intimate and unique but they're telling you stories which feel epic and large with the sweep of the best movie you've ever seen. so somehow it's a marriage of the authentic voices but with just the feeling and emergent of a movie. so that's what i want from radio, i want to meet real people but i want them to tell me stories that are big -- >> charlie: but the essence of what you all do is storytelling? >> it is. again, i think, again, what everybody has been saying is the opportunity to, yes, tell stories, compared to television, in a relatively unadorned way. it's i have this idea, i'm going to talk to these people and then make that into story. there's less tech knoll and stuff between you and that

happening. >> and no adult supervision. very little adult supervision. the degree to which each of us are given our heads to do what we want and abandon things that are working well to do something that we don't know if it will work is incredible, is amazing. >> it is true. there is actually an advantage in working in a medium that is forgotten and often declared dead is that you have sort of a benign neglect. eaux kind of just play around and do stuff. >> does podcast add to it somehow? because it's when you want it. it's literally in your head. so you get these earbuds and stick them in and the rest of the world is blocked out and it's just you and ira, just you and kurt. so there's something -- there's something intimate about that. the other forms, you address a box, it's a box that's sort of 18 feet away from you. there's a cat, a woman, there's

a child, there's -- (laughter) -- other things happen. but when it's in your ear, it's just you and then. >> and walker who runs wnyc was interviewing me for this gig, she said, you know, radio is a very intimate medium. i go, mmm! i know that! i had no idea what she meant. but it's exactly this. it is this single person directly and almost unmediatingly speaking to you. it's as close to a book -- to reading a book by an author, you feelly feel that you're in her head, that it know about in the electronic media world, and that is, i think, part of the reason people, when they respond and do it decently, respond so enthusiastically. >> we've added this sort of live medium, now, bringing all these shows to the stage at b.a.m. it feels from me from talking to

each of you that it's inspired even a different kind of creativity or even more creativity as you think about what you're going to bring in terms of your show to this venue, and then it changes up again. >> yeah. i think part of it, the interesting thing for me, at least, when we started performing on stage, it's like a giving yourself permission kind of thing. it's kind of the sense of, in radio, you're in a little airlift booth talking to people you assume are out there but you never quite see them, and there's kind of a learned humility that comes to that, where you never want to speak outside your knowledge. and there's a way radio has grown up. so walking on stage and confronting live human beings in the audience is dreaming slightly bigger for what we do. for me, i thought, okay, this is for real now, that there are real people. never mind that when you're on the radio you're probably

talking -- >> charlie: so how did the two of you come together? >> oh, jesus, , jeez, i think is back to 2001, maybe. he was still a tv guy. i was working at wnyc -- >> charlie: just a tv guy. i didn't mean to say that. i was trying to be as neutral as possible when i said that (laughter) i was sent to record a promo with a bunch of people, a 30-second promo for the station. he was last on the list. everyone else that i handed the scripts to read it professionally. he -- i don't know if this actually happened but, in my memory, he rips it up and throws it into the air like confetti and turns around and writes some crazy, off the top of his head thing about alien cults and oil tycoons. i don't know what it had to do

with wnyc, but it was amazing. >> and sober and reasonable, i'm sure! (laughter) >> i thought, wow, that's interesting, who is this guy? we started talking and within the first five minutes figured out we had five or six spooky symmetries. you know, i went to overland 25 years after him, i was working at mpr as -- that were as a freelancer and he started at that were. i did a stint at wbai and he was there and it was, like, whoa! i was this echo of his life 25 years ago. so we decided we had to have breakfast. >> so how is that going to work out for jad, robert? >> what happens is we start having breakfast and i'm pining and being old and grand. at one point, jad brings me his wares, like, here's what i have been working on.

so i put this thing on and i thought, oh, no! this is completely new, it is gorgeous, it is strange, it is beautiful and it's new in the world, and i said, okay, this is going to sound dumb but instead of me going la la la la, why don't you do that to me because you seem to know stuff i don't know and i kind of reversed roles from mentor to -- whatever i've become. (laughter) doing this, if you want to stay in the future and in the action, you have to sniff for beauty wherever you go and wherever you find it, even in this odd form of some -- you just say yes! because otherwise, you just miss out. >> charlie: my philosophy, too. >> yeah! >> charlie: ira, you once said, i think, the importance of using techniques of fiction in

radio, putting interesting characters in narrative threads -- >> i mean, the things we're doing on our show, i mean, it's pot-driven storytelling and stories that kind of live or die by whether they're surprising and whether the characters are characters you can engage in. like in the last few years, like, some of the stories have been developed for -- people try to develop them into movies which almost never grade get the made or tv series which almost never get made. but i get to feel time with actual screen writers and when i do that i feel like we're speaking the same language when we're talking about what a story is and how to shape and make it. i think radio is just immensely powerful for that kind of thing. i feel like, when the medium is new, it was generally understood that this is an amazing medium for telling stories, and then that kind of all went away. so the first time i heard somebody tell a story on the

radio, i remember as a production assistant at npr, and i was working on a show with joe frank who would do these monologues and had actors do stuff, and i remember i was in the control room and he was telling this story and i said, i don't know what this feeling i'm having is, but this is amazing, and this is what i want to do. and -- i don't know, i think -- i mean, it's weird that that went out of fashion for so long. and it's been interesting as the show has evolved, when it started, we were just doing personal stories, really. and now as it's evolved, we really try to do the news. we'll send reporters into iraq for a month. we'll sent three reporters into a violent high school for five months. >> charlie: five months? yeah, five months. yeah, this school which had 29 shootings in the course of a

year, and we wanted to understand kind of what they know at that school. and it's all the same things. it's much harder in a way to find characters in scenes in a surprising story when you're taking on climate change, and i feel like one of the problems -- i don't know if you feel this -- as somebody, like, doing stories on tv and doing the news, i feel like there's a whole class of topics that, as soon as you open your mouth, everyone is tired of the topic. you know, climate change, the republican versus democrat fight in washington, abortion, there's a whole list of things that we go, i don't want to think about that. i don't want more details on climate change, i know where i stand on this. guantanamo, i feel like i'm very interested in guantanamo but i feel there's a whole class of things where we all know where we stand and i think, as

journalists, it's hard to know how to actually bring up the subject in a way that you can even make somebody want to listen or watch for a few minutes, and it takes such cunning, i find, and often we'll totally disguise what the stories are about for a really long time because we're, like, let's just get some characters going, and i feel like understanding narrative, like understanding plots, understanding characters is just such an enormous tool to try to bypass that problem, and i feel like, as the longer the show is going on, the more interested -- it turned out to be this incredible tool, like i started the show as kind of a refuge from the news. i had been working on "all things considered" the morning edition before then and doing stories that were opining the tools -- applying the tools of journalism that were so small and personal that journalists would never touch them and then gradually i and the entire staff, we just came back to actual let's take on the budget

deficit, housing crisis, mortgage-backed securities but only in our style and find characters and scenes and things that could pull people in the way somebody like michael lewis can in one of his books where you're looking for just exactly the right situation and characters that you can tell the story of something as complicated as high-frequency trading which he does in his latest book and people stay with you because it's, like, these characters are amazing. so... >> and that, i think, is really where the renaissance comes, from collective cunningness. like that wit and that seduction and all of the things that ira has to do to wea win you eithero global warming or his dancing and everything in between, that's someone who is restless. jad, jimly, he will in-- jad, similarly will invent and invent

only to catch your attention and hold it. and the tv world, there was a time in the early '70s when public television came in, in my sense of things, there was a rush of excitement early on when public television started, there was all kinds of experiments and public television just settled. these are the unsettled people who won't settle and that's why it's doing well, because it keeps scratching at every itch it can find, and that's really interesting. >> that res naidz united states wit-- that resonates with you?>. ira talking about convincing people to listen to this unfamiliar thing, we did this american icon series where we take the most familiar american cultural things that people think, oh, yeah, i know all about that, and then, by

spending hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to make a document rithat tells you -- a documentary that tells you about this thing that tells you what you know that reveals to you how little you know and interesting depths and things about it you don't know, that is the great challenge, to make athwhat could otherwise be, oh, it's broccoli, eat it, it's good for you, into, no, it's candy, give me more! it's fantastic! what you want to do is, ultimately, you're trying to do these worthy things that aren't done otherwise, but to not do them in this kind of school, mistressy, know this but a it's good for you way. do it in this fresh and entertaining way and that's always the challenge. >> charlie: when you looked at

these four guys, did you think in terms of unsettled and cunning as you looked at what it is that made them what you wanted on the stage at b.a.m.? >> well, they kind of share a kind of humanity. it's not rushed. you know, television, film, these are things that are sort of, cut, cut -- >> charlie: can i get a job in radio? >> but i think it's kind of not rushed. they have the ability to sort of hang in with it and take it where it wants to go. and that also really lends itself to the medium of live theater, and the idea of fest festival, you know, what we try to do here is not just look at something in a quick hit and you get it and you go. what we try to do is look at a body of work. when you look at these guys, and you look at public radio, it's a body of work that comes together over a long period of time.

and that implies a certain kind of commitment and a certain kind of depth. that's really what we're about is trying to show that kind of depth through the live experience and, also, i think to have the audience right here, to have people respond is a very immediate and exciting thing and the ability to sort of jump from radio to this and then back again -- >> i think the way that i took the mandate is you have to invent something. it's b.a.m., you've got to invent something. >> charlie: is there a tension between the two of you? >> yeah. >> charlie: tension in that you see things differently? >> yeah. how many hours have you got? (laughter) well, of course there is because, if you grow up listening to things -- you hear machines, music, jokes, ads -- there's a life in you and you're full of sound and your job is to

make sounds, the only sounds you have are the sounds that are here. well, if you grew up in the '50s and the '60s, i have a completely different set of sounds. he's afraid that at any moment i'm going to suddenly burst into over the beautiful morning... (laughter) >> has to be in your show. because that's happened? well, you know, now -- like, if you were in the studio today -- (laughter) -- i suddenly burst into a westside story song today just to get him angry. >> so you're like a married couple? >> a little bit that way. (laughter) >> charlie: did it get you angry? >> that particular -- i think he won the fight with westside story as an exclamation point, so it got me angry just because i lost the argument. (laughter) but, also, we're filled with different music, that's for sure. it's just a generational thing. but it's also that we -- more

and more, we're choosing ideas which don't have easy answers. we're, like, you are literally of two minds about something, and it's really useful to have somebody there who's also of two minds about that same thing because we begin to sort of orient in opposition to each other, and if i'm feeling slightly more one way, it's instings chiewl at this point, he kind of goes the other way, and that becomes a way to explore this two-sided or three-sided issue. >> you know how amazing it's getting now? he wrote -- my wife doesn't have magical thitk'ng. like, we're doing a piece about things, and things are infused with all kinds of memories and things that you -- you know, if i have an extraordinary experience with a girl and i pluck some blade of grass during that experience, i put it in my pocket, i can take that blade of grass up the next week, and i can use the blade of grass to go back to that day.

okay. my life, nothing like it. so i take my wife to the explorer's club on 70th street and i show her incredible things including a flag left by neil and buzz on the moon and picked up off the moon, and it was from the very first trip, of course, and she's being allowed to touch it. i said, took, a tamar, if you touch this thing, you're where neil and buzz and our species was when we came off of -- and she's like, i don't know, can i go now? and we're now at the point y where jad wrote the tamar part, wrote my part. so when we got in the studio, we were sort of -- because we have all the tape -- he had -- oh, it's so -- >> did he have to write lines --

no, he -- you and your wife were having a fight, a fight i'm very familiar with, throwing you as long as i have, so i just wrote both parts of the fight (laughter) i mean, i'm in your head, i'm in her head. >> he nose. yeah, so that's just weird. but, yes, it's sort of -- it's strange. it's strange to meet somebody and -- and, you know, i'm actually very friendly with this guy, also. the thing is, when you do this for a living, you develop a body of work, of course, and you can be proud of it, of course, but it's not a big industry, and you just find yourself a little bit in love a lot of the time, and these are -- these are your competitors, these are your comrades, but these are also the people who are sort of watching your back and people who you sort of belong to. i think when people listen to these radio folks, they feel a

kind of warmth and a kind of sense of, ooh, that seems like fun, and they seem to be having a good time, and they're giving off an animal instinct called -- (growls) >> -- and people want to sit next to that and touch it. the neat thing is they're full of animal spirits, really, and that's very, very, very, very viral, and that may be, to answer your first question, like what's going on, the people smell a good time and they want to sit next to it. >> i think that's a very good point. >> charlie: i do, too. we all love when the great oddity happens and we keep it in the tape, on the air, when the interview is theoretically over but they suddenly shout and go, wow! whatever it is, the strange little moments, whether an

encounter in the field or something that happened in the studio, the sense that there is fun and quirk and non-cookie cutter-ness as sort of an m.o., i think people really respond to that. by the way, since we're all gushing over how great public radio is, you know, we are members of the cult, but i think one of the good things about the cult is it is highly self-critical. ira, for instance, when i first got into it was dragged into public radio and i heard him give an amazing talk how public radio was failing to be innovating or interesting and was settling, which i thought was inspiring. and when we talked about pitch a story or this or that, the thing any of us on our staff can say to kill it is, ooh, just so public radioy, which is the bad version of public radio which exists. so i think as much as we all

love this institution and the set of institutions and what we're doing, we're not oh, ga-ga, everything on wnyc is everything we've heard. we're full of -- we see how much better it could be in so many ways. >> i think it's true. but with our journalistic colleagues who work in other media if they understood the curb situation we're in, they would want to dom over. you're in a situation where you get to do what you want on a bunch of different networks and shows so you're unusual. unlike people on tv, there's not ratings pressure at all. there's nothing. there's nothing like that. then unlike people in the newspaper or print business, like, the economic model of what we're doing still works and, so, we're not in this constant free-fall panic of how long will we have our jobs. >> charlie: the test is how creative you can be. >> yeah. >> charlie: can you satisfy yourself. >> and you want to satisfy an

audience and the audiences are really large. it's, like, a million, two million, three million people will hear everything you did which is crazy, and, like, you know, and, you know, the money isn't perhaps as good as network television, but totally sufficient to have an apartment, you know. and own a car and, you know, raise kids, whatever. it's totally fine. >> charlie: so when you're creating a piece, how do you know when it works? all of you? what's the test? >> it's why it doesn't work for a really long time and you get it to work. >> charlie: it doesn't work till you make it work? >> right. in my experience, most things are trying to be crap and it's only through an act of will that you make them not bad. >> charlie: you go from crap to not bad? >> yeah, like, you get to a point where you cannot be embarrassed and hate yourself. >> as a writer, that's all i

knew is you start out typing whatever you type and go, ooh, let's rewrite that and do it again and again and that's exactly what applies to a radio piece is taking it from the raw crap in which there might be a shimmer of possibility and try to extract that shimmer. >> it's like very different shows, like one thing in the process that we will edit the stories over and over again. if i write a story, we'll go through it, and to edit it, i read the script, we play the tape, and each time we do a pass, we bring in one person who hasn't heard it yet. so by the time it's done, if it's not going well, there will be a room of eight or nine people and every time eve guy gives notes. it's a process, especially where you don't know how to shape them because you've never done it, nor has anyone, like those kinds

of stories which are, fortunately, like a decent number of stories. >> charlie: i read somewhere where you kill a third or half of all the stories. >> easily. yeah. that's crazy. you kill half the stories? does it really get to that? half? are they bitle baby -- little baby stories that haven't grown and you murder them or are these fully adult stories? >> if we get three or four stories that are good enough to be in the show, we will often make ten or 15 stories, but that's just looking at or getting a phone call. then we go into production seven or eight. then we spend a lot of money on them. >> on seven or eight. yes, seven for three. seven for three or four.

and we do interviews and just run at stuff. in the ones where we're not pegged to the news, there's no reason to listen to the story unless it's super sparkly. you're saying, how do you know if it's good? it has to have a surprising plot and drive to an idea that isn't surprising. it has to be a story, somebody has a new idea in their head as a result of it. it should be extra points for funny for sure. you want it to have emotion. so you have to start making it. sometimes, it's going to be the easiest show we'll ever do a couple of weeks ago called i was so high. we're, like, let's get started. people tell funny stories about getting high. we have to fill a show. we put a thing on social media, send us your stories. we thought it would be the easiest picking. we got 2600 stories, and four of them were good.

we learned something, which it says that listening to people's getting high stories is like listening to their dreams. they're really not good stories at all. even the four of us, a little bit of a stretch. so, you know, that's, like, three people, days to go through 2600 submissions. >> have you ever killed an entire fully-made hour of radio? >> not a full hour, but we have killed stories that were done and ready to go. it's been a while. it's been a while. but, yeah. >> have you cut a full hour? no. god, no. (laughter) but we've killed pieces. >> that's kind of, like, knowing something's going to die -- >> we would put it out of its misery earlier. >> sometimes it will be friday before we finish the show and we won't know the lineup.

because it isn't clear how much time each thing will be. and it's, like, should we make everything shorter or just take one story out and use it next week? if you go carefully through the lineups of our shows, you can tell which is the story that was actually made for the theme before. (laughter) like, you have to be a super fan to want to do that but you can totally tell that is not the theme. (laughter) they're just acting like it's this theme. >> charlie: you once said what you have to do is go find somebody with a lot of knowledge and just ask them why. >> did i say that? i think that's true. i think you ask them why and then you get an answer and then you get another answer. you ask another person why. i think the most interesting thing about when you know it's good is when you feel that, given what you -- what talents you have and what time you have,

whether you are not embarrassed -- the ira test? jad's case, sometimes -- it's been amazing to me, we can sort of agree at the same time we passed the test. do you know what it would be like if you and i were in the flower business and i said, i have three irises, you have three roses. it's going to be a three flower vase. i go, you go. no. i go, you go. no, you go -- and if we argued, we'd never finish the vase. luckily, we argue, then yes! then we go home! >> it's true. >> charlie: is that called collaboration? >> it's called finding beauty. agreeing. >> it's very humbling, too, because you spend -- you know, a lot of the work is extremely

collaborative and a lot of it is solo, just you locked in a room wrestling with something, and you get to a point where you think, this is good, i'm hot! i think this is amazing. and i'll send it to robert and he'll send me these classic seven-page e-mails where he points out, he brutally, with fierce insight, point out exactly why it's not working. and if i could bottle the feeling of reading those e-mails, it would be perfect for your fear show (laughter) but it's very humbling when you feel like you've got it and you realize you don't have it. but someone else needs to complete it. but then it's quite beautiful, i find, when you kind of walk across the line and you realize, we actually have something that none of us could have done alone. and as an only child, i find that mystifying. i continually find it mystifying. >> another thing should be said probably about our three shows

is they're all weekly or less. and which gives us all the luxury of having the artisnal, kill pieces, getting it just right approach. >> charlie: the experience i don't know. >> i don't know about that, but we are not doing daily shows, which is a whole different beast. >> charlie: tell us about the fear series. >> well, it's actually the show we're doing right here at b.a.m. >> charlie: i know. and because these guys invented the idea of themes. we said, we should do a theme for our show as well, and fear is a capacious theme that drives artists to create art and all of us to do things wise and foolish in life and it seemed like a good theme to propel our show, the show which has this

incredibly reflective cast next week of andrew berg, the musician, and novelist jennifer egan and others, so, how else are we going to tried to make a -- try to make a coherent scheme of this rather than apart from establishing a theme and when we said to each of them, how about fear? i can't tell you how quickly each of them said, yep, i'm down with fear! so i guess we discovered the universal feeling and fear is it. >> will there be a point in the fear show where the audience will be afraid? >> they will be very afraid, yes. >> charlie: are the things you can do on radio you can't do in writing? >> the real conversation -- well, you can do it in writing. you do it especially in fictional as opposed to

non-fictional writing, but having the moments, the pauses and inflections and tone of voice in conversations, for instance, that -- >> charlie: you can't do -- you can't do in magazine writing. you can't convey that this real sense of what this rapport or loolack of rapport is really lie in writing, because, also, the description required to convey it in writing would be greater than the thing itself, whereas the spoken word is just -- it's this conversation. it's this highly edit, constructed conversation, but nevertheless a conversation in which the listener can sense exactly what's going on if you do your job well. >> what are you most proud of that you created for radio? >> it's not a particular show. it's just -- like, when i

started the show almost 20 years ago, i don't think -- i didn't have the power to imagine what it would be today that i would be working with a dozen producers who are so skilled and interesting. like, other people weren't doing these kinds of stories and every person who i hired -- like i started the show with three other people and me and every person i hired had to train to do these sorts of stories. then the thought that now i work this the most amazing people. like, i feel -- i know it's corniest thing in the world to say, but i feel just proud to be their peer, and often i'm not the loudest or brightest voice in the room at all, you know, and i feel proud of that. i feel proud of them, actually. i have to say, i have this whole conversation feeling like -- and

the most we describe it we're more like artisnal chefs that work at a restaurant that put out one meal a week and we have the gal to talk to you in this very day. it's a typical wednesday. you did two hours of live feed this morning. you did a half an hour about president obama on television. and we're like, oh, we turn out, like, a show a week... we go over and over it. your experience of this whole thing, do you just feel like -- >> we sons of bitches! yes, thank you! and i don't want you to feel like you're in a position to lie or be nice to us. do you feel just like, oh, thank god i don't do that! it's so much more fun to be like prepping and doing the thing

because we -- i did daily broadcasting, you do daily broadcasting. you must thirks thank god, it's not me! when you hear us do this! (laughter) >> charlie: no, i just don't have the luxury of making it perfect. i mean, i don't. >> but you are a bill moyers baby. >> what do you mean? en he started, bill moyers puts his hand on charlie and says, "go with my blessing!" >> the thing about this business is, over the course of your career, you can choose different rhythms. >> charlie: exactly. there are jock reporters, wake up in the morning, with have a press conference. some lady on the 104 bus, not a reporter, but sits in the back of the bus and announces this

morning, today i will be at the press conference of the city council vice president, and when you watch evening television, she is there. she is in the background! she is the star of her own show! she's sort of just bringing up the rear everywhere in the audience! (laughter) i think it's kind of neat. but, of course, as i was suggesting, it should be acknowledged that there are people who go to work and they want to tell you this just in and want to get it right and fast. >> charlie: but i'm not doing that. >> no, there's the one extreme and then there's bill moyers. >> if you look at what we do here, we have to put it in the context of a whole season. you have theater, dance, music, opera. you have to, you know, have blockbusters, you have to have discoveries, celebrities, you have to find new, you've got to figure it all out and then how do you pay for it? i mean, there's these thousands of challenges. but it's really interesting that

being mere in brooklyn, when we kind can of -- when harvey, my predecessor started, this institution was old, had been there a long time and no one wanted to come to brooklyn then, particularly, so in a certain way it was very liberating because we could do whatever we wanted if we could figure out how to pay for it. so in a way it allowed us to invent an institution rather than have one imposed on us, and that spirit still exists now which is how we ended up with this particular program, and there is something great about that. i love that! >> brooklyn is a thing. now it's a thing. you said you met brooklyn people and i took that to mean not geographically from brooklyn but a state of mind. >> no, they're from brooklyn. is the pressure different for you now?

>> yeah, it's different but it also, you know, instead of hearing people complaining all the time about coming here, they are here, and, so, in that way, it's a lot easier. but now we have to keep up the momentum, keep up the momentum and really try to deliver a great product all the time and to keep all a these different parts of it going. so, in many ways, it's sort of like what you guys are doing but it's also very different given that, you know, things come, they go and they're gone. >> let me ask all of you this -- is this american life becoming something different? is it evolving toward -- i mean, how do you see the evolution of it? >> i mean, i think it is. i feel like it's a very show than it was ten years ago. >> charlie: so where is it going? >> i don't know. >> charlie: you don't know. i don't know. >> charlie: that's part of the excitement for you, the continued attraction is -- >> yeah, of course. truthfully, we're talking about starting another show in the next few months. >> charlie: yeah.

and coming into the podcast business with a bunch of other projects. >> charlie: finding your own distribution and all that? >> yeah, yeah. but, you know, it's, like, the most interesting stuff we get to do is the stuff we never did before. >> i am really loving the science part and jad is, like, okay, that's good, we've done that. >> you are totally leaving science. >> we're not totally leaving. we're just -- >> stepping out on it. his thing is he wants to -- so what you do is -- it's like what i was saying, you can't answer the question where are you going except you answer it by saying, well, i'm not staying where i have been. that's pretty much the answer. and you see what happens. >> no, i mean, actually, you have to keep it interesting to yourself and hope that that makes it more interesting to

listeners. it's a zero sum game here. >> charlie: they give it up and you take it on. >> a little bit. we've started doing these hour-long decrementries that i mentioned about specific works. >> charlie: like moby dick. we said, hey, listeners, make us a 30-second horror movie and we'll have wes craven judge it. we had 300 people make incredibly time-consuming, production-intense horror movies. so we do more of those, bringing the listeners and keep it interesting. >> charlie: on that, keep it interesting. thank you all of you very much. (applause) captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh

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every single bite needed to be -- >> twinkies in there. it's like a great big hug. >> about as spicy as i can handle. my parents put chili powder in my baby food. >> french fries all over the table. >> a lot of chewing.