Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn't sound like some news robot but in fact sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.
— Ira Glass
I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot.
In some theoretical way I know that a half-million people hear the show. But in a day-to-day way, there's not much evidence of it.
You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.
Just when did I get to the point when staying at a hotel wasn't fun?
When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny.
But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you're being sincere all the time.
But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake.
I suppose I shouldn't go around admitting I speak untruths on the radio.
One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.
We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.
It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.
Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question.
