Tape

Sayre Quevedo is a producer at VICE. “I'm not like a cinephile at all but in a movie nobody says, ‘And then he revealed to me a deep, dark secret.' You discover the deep, dark secret as the main character is learning it. And I just feel like there's something so much more engaging for me as a listener to feel like I'm discovering at the same time as the person who's doing the reporting than feeling like you're just describing the process of discovery. I just need things to feel like they did in real life. I don't want to recreate things."

Bianca Giaever is the host of Constellation Prize and a producer at The Daily. "My favorite radio stories are ones that were passion projects to begin with, that would be un-pitchable from the start because the idea sounds so mundane. .... Boy talks about anxiety as I feel anxiety would have been the logline for the Scared is scared. Holy Cow Lisa would've be like I want to make a movie about my heartbreak, like every other fucking person on planet earth? ... Terrible pitch! But the person I was talking to happened to be a great talker, an amazing character. ... So I've never really been afraid of the un-pitchable story. And it's actually the type of story that intrigues me the most." If you like the show, and want to keep tape alive, please support us at patreon.com/taperadio.

Wendy Zukerman is the host and executive producer of Science Vs. "There is an expectation that if you have a platform you have an agenda. And whereas — for better or worse — me, personally, I don't have particularly strong opinions about things that I don't know about. It's what makes the show possible. I'm terrible at other things in life, but when it comes to issues, I'm pretty good at knowing, oh, I actually don't know anything about that. I shouldn't be having an opinion. And I just want to know the facts."

43: Nadia Sirota Nadia Sirota is the host and co-creator of Meet the Composer and an acclaimed violist. “I actually feel like somebody being joyful about something in their life is wonderful. ... There's this temptation when you're in college, and definitely when you're in conservatory, to try to find the right constellation of things to hate. That will make other people think you're smart. And it's really tempting, and it's really easy, in some levels, to sort of fall into that kind of negative world. In classical music, God knows there's so much tearing down of people and of technique and of whatever. ... It's so boring, and it's fascinating to listen to people talk about stuff they love because it requires a little bit of vulnerability. And also that's the kind of excitement that brings you to love something yourself.”

Avery Trufelman is a producer of 99% Invisible and the host of Articles of Interest. “The literal battleground of interior and exterior forces in your world is what you’re wearing.”

Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of This American Life. “It’s not an accident I made a radio show where I am having intimate conversations with people on tape. ... Like the only person who would go to the trouble to invent something like that is somebody who has difficulty with intimacy, you know what I mean? And I think that I totally was inventing a thing to do in conversations with people on tape that I was having so much trouble doing in real life.”

Julie Snyder is the co-creator of Serial and S-Town. Prior to that, she was the senior producer of This American Life. "So the original conceit [of This American Life] was using the tools of journalism to [tell stories from] everyday life but then I felt like we flipped it back. ... Like why can’t we take then the same sort of narrative tools that we have, that people use to just talk ... and apply that back to things that are traditionally topical stories and news stories?"

Robert Smith is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money. "I've done [radio] for 30 years. I don't want to come in and do the same story every time. Like I want things to be challenging. … And it's solely for myself. It's solely so I don't sound like a lot of NPR reporters — they've been there, they've seen it, they've done it. ... Even ones who are really good. They're just like, "I am good at this, I am doing what I always do." And so if the very least thing that comes out of [experimenting] is, "My God! That reporter sounds excited to be in a place, that reporter sounds engaged with people, that reporter feels like he or she is present, is listening," it's exciting! And so, that may be the only thing that people hear, is that — "Wow! You know, Robert seems like he really likes his job."

Alex Blumberg is the co-founder of Gimlet Media. Prior to that he was a producer for This American Life. "A big lesson for me is that there aren't really rules. If [the radio story] is really fun, and you really love it, it's probably going to work. ... And if it doesn't, if it drags, then you should come in with script. ... In the beginning, I was always asking myself, here's this like 3 minute piece of tape in my story — and every other piece of tape had been like 30 to 45 seconds, and here's this one that's a 3 minute chunk — but I think I like it at 3 minutes. Can I do it at 3 minutes or do I have to break it up? And the answer is yeah, if it works at 3 minutes then you can do it at 3 minutes. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't. And the more that happens where I am like my whole story was a piece of teaser tape — 12 seconds of tape here, and 12 seconds of tape here — and then 5 minutes where everything happens, that's fine. If it works, it works."

Lu Olkowski, an independent radio producer, is the host of CBC's Love Me. "You spend so much time with people and I just think it's so shitty to suddenly — the story airs and you — disappear. ... I think that's terrible. And I just don't want to do that."

Lewis Wallace was a reporter for Marketplace. "I think our listeners and audiences are strong enough to hold that I can have a credible voice in reporting a story, and a truthful voice in reporting a story, and also have a perspective."

Julia Barton is a freelance editor who edits for Revisionist History, The World, and Studio 360. She reports for Radiolab, Marketplace, 99% Invisible, and more. "If people think they might want to be an editor the first step is to pitch to places that have good editors and get edited and really pay attention to that process. ... But also the second thing is to just listen to work — work that you like and work that you don't like — and figure out how are you reacting to it. Like where am I bored? Where am I confused? Where am I checking Twitter? Alternately, why am I unable to do what I thought I was doing because the story is so damn good that I can't do anything but listen to it?"

Mike Pesca is the host of Slate's The Gist. "There was a time when the most intelligent guy in your town was just the guy who knew the most — he knew the family genealogy, he knew facts. We've gotten away from that. The facts are there on a computer. So I think the definition of intelligence has a lot to do with synoptical connections — the ability to make connections, the ability to make analogies. So I have these conceptual scopes — I find a way to tie seemingly disparate things together. This is how my mind naturally thinks, but this is also — since I have this show I know that I have to turn out content for it — this is how I've conditioned my mind to think."

Sruthi Pinnamaneni is a producer at Reply All. “It’s almost like me and the other person were learning about each other. And I don’t ever think about it like oh this is what makes this person weird or this is a weird moment. It’s just like moments where a thing feels real. You hear somebody tell you something and you feel like they’re telling it for the first time, and you just can’t get that quickly. It just takes time.”

Jonathan Menjivar is a producer at This American Life. "When I started in radio I imagined myself on the radio more. But I've come to a place where it doesn't matter to me. I just want to make stuff."

Emily Botein is the Vice President for On-Demand Content of WNYC. "I feel like as a producer, the whole goal is to have someone become more human, reveal something more personal, say something surprising. So it's your job to make an unrealistically good situation — everything has to be perfect for the host, you want the host to be super comfortable, whatever the host likes. And stupid things, from like what they want to drink, to how they want the mic positioned, to where they want to sit, to anything. It's like you want to make a heightened version of life because you're trying to create a moment. You're not just trying to go gather a story. Something is supposed to happen on the tape. So you need to do everything possible to think about what can happen, and how can you try to trigger it."

Jessica Abel is the author of Out on the Wire. "The group edit format, while emotionally difficult, actually is an incredibly efficient tool. In an hour, two hours, you can get the intellectual work done on a piece that could take weeks without it.”

Tim Howard is the senior producer of Reply All. "You can do radio stories without stakes they just have to be really fun."

Jacob Goldstein is a reporter for NPR's Planet Money. "I've never been that interested in the classic investigative story — here's this victim and here's this villain, and implicitly, I, the reporter, am the hero. ... They were never the kind of stories I wanted to read, they were never the kind of stories I wanted to write. I like profiles of weirdos and stories about systems."

Audie Cornish is the host of All Things Considered. "I ran a gauntlet of people who underestimated me. Every subject is like, "Are you the intern?" Every lawmaker is like, "I don't understand who you are?" People don't see me so when they finally meet me they're not sure what to think. And I think the only way you can get through this job, or any other job where people will underestimate you on arrival, is to just not on board it. Like I can't collect it. And so, maybe it means I've been successful because I can't remember any [moments of microaggressions]."

Sean Rameswaram is the host of sideshow. "On the outside, which I was on the outside for a long time, I thought public radio takes itself too seriously. My favorite moments in public radio are when Scott Simon interviews Ke$ha. We don't need to be highbrow all the time and it's actually endangering our medium."

Note: This episode is explicit. Kaitlin Prest is the host and creative director of The Heart. "My whole thing about making stuff is I want it to *feel* like the thing. If you're making a show about love, I want to feel like I'm falling in love when I listen to the show."

Anshuman Iddamsetty is Hazlitt’s art director and audio/visual producer.* "I stare at waveforms constantly. So like I'm staring at the layout of the waveforms more than anything. There is a sort of visual component to how the show finally comes together, right? I can tell how many — again I understand how out to lunch I sound now — but, if i’m being honest, I can kind of tell, “No, this sounds right because I can see the ratio of the a person’s cut up voice to the music to the sound effects to my voice, and the sort of compression of the guest coming in at certain points, or like how quickly a guest’s voice turns the corner." (*This episode is guest hosted by Ethan Chiel)

David Weinberg, a former Marketplace producer, is part of KCRW's Independent Producer Project and the creator of Random Tape. "I felt so trapped before I found and decided that radio is what I wanted to do. I placed a lot on this as being the thing that was going to save me. And so there was this huge amount of fear that like if I don't do it well then I have nothing. ... And so recording my life all the time was a way to be like, 'Oh, I'm not a bum bumming around with no plan. I have a plan. I'm working on it.' And the longer you do that, the longer you put off actually making something for the first time, the harder it gets. And I was just stuck in that period for many years. ... When I look back at it now, I'm like, 'You idiot. Why were you wasting all this time when you could've been getting better at making stories?' But I was so afraid to do things out in the open."

Nate DiMeo is the host of The Memory Palace. "I struggled a lot when I first got into journalism because I knew every Q&A I edited ... something would get cut. And that the person interviewed would not be entirely represented the way they wanted to be. ... So the best way to honor that person and to get at the heart of it was by writing really well. If their literal voice didn't carry and didn't get enough airtime the spirit of what they were saying was effectively and pointedly articulated by me as a writer."

Scott Carrier is an independent producer and the host of Home of the Brave. "It's what makes us human, is our storytelling ability. Animals can't do that. They can communicate. They can talk to each other. They understand, they know what's going on, and they can play. They have rules. They can make the rules, and change the rules, and break the rules, but it's always present tense for animals. But we can talk about the past, we can talk about the future, and that's what makes us so different, besides just our shape."

Dana Chivvis is a producer at Serial. "I thought it was important to be really devoted to your medium. ... I thought I have to love video. And what I realized is that it didn't matter to me what medium I was working in. It mattered what story I was telling, and how I was telling it, and who I was telling it with."

Lulu Miller, a former producer at Radiolab, is the co-host of NPR's Invisibilia. "I think there's this thing that goes hand in hand with journalism, or with radio, which is that professionally, you're an amateur, so you have to ask, and with not knowing, there's always discovery."

Alix Spiegel, a former producer at This American Life, is the co-host of NPR's Invisibilia. "I always want to understand like why? What do you know that I don't know? What is your life? And how do you see the world? And that's it."

Andrea Silenzi is the creator and host of Why Oh Why?. She's also the Senior Producer of Slate's The Gist.* "I listen to a lot of radio and there's so much of 'This person wrote a book.' 'This person has a project.' 'This person has been working on this for years.' And I just think that I much prefer conversations where people have a personal connection that's at stake. ... Like I always get the pitch of I want to do speed dating and it's like no one I've ever known has actually sincerely ever done speed dating. So If I were to do a show about speed dating it would be the most inauthentic thing possible." (*This episode is guest hosted by Avery Trufelman.)

Hillary Frank is the host and creator of The Longest Shortest Time. "I hate small talk, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I don't know how to do it well. I want to have a real conversation with a person."

Lynn Levy is a producer at Radiolab. "Sometimes if you’re interviewing an author they’ve already worked out the best way to tell the story. They’ve been through all the options in their head, they figured out what to omit and what to get rid of. And often times, even though they’re not reading from the book, they’ll literally be saying the words that they wrote down. Like you’ll hear phrases from the book in what they’re telling you. … And it can be really seductive when you’re interviewing these people because they’re giving it to you. You’re just like, well this is going to be very easy to edit. Thank you. The thing is when you actually do go to edit it it doesn’t have anything. It doesn’t have any tension, it doesn’t have any pathos, it doesn’t have any like… um… It doesn’t have any um! It doesn’t have any moments where you can hear somebody working things through. And I think one of the things that radio producers kind of know is that it’s a better story if something happens. You want to go out in the field and something is going to happen and you are going to record it and that’s going to make a better story. But that’s even true about interviews. You want something to happen in the person who’s talking while you’re talking to them. You want them to figure something out or work something through or confront something, if possible. … They think they know how the story goes and you have to convince them otherwise."

Pejk Malinovski is a poet and a radio producer. "I feel like when I make structure it's not a traditional Hollywood storyline where there's a beginning and a middle and an end and a conflict and resolution I think it's more about tension and release. I think it's more about composing musically basically."

Michael May, a Third Coast Gold Award winner, is a freelance radio and print journalist. He teaches radio documentary at the Salt Institute. "I'm not interested in doing stories where I just label somebody some clinical label — a misogynist, sociopath. It's so easy to dismiss people, it's much more difficult to understand them."

Stephanie Foo, a former producer at Snap Judgment, is a producer at This American Life. "I think everybody has a story that is worth telling, but I think most people don't know what their best story is. At all. They'll think that it's their most life or death moment or that it's the moment that they feel changed them the most, but sometimes it's the most surprising little moments that really touch people. And I don't even know necessarily what those moments are in my life."

Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt are the creators of TLDR. "The internet can feel like the same thing over and over again, and sometimes that's because the internet is the same thing over and over again. But sometimes it's because you've hemmed yourself to a boring internet by just paying attention to people who are much the same as you. So to the extent that we can get out of that, it gives our show more longevity."

Tamara Keith is NPR's White House Correspondent. She also co-founded B-Side Radio. "There's drama in the human experience, and if people are willing to share that, there's a way to make it into a good story... says the person who only does stories about the White House and Congress."

Ann Heppermann, a Peabody Award winner, produces Slate's Culture Gabfest. She teaches radio writing and radio drama at Sarah Lawrence College. "I don't think you want all crappy tape, but there's something about texture of crappy tape and Skype tape. If you think about sound as a palette, I kind of like phone tape and I like how it adds an element of grit to it."

Jeff Emtman is the creator and host of Here Be Monsters. "You can think of your memory as a box full of photographs, like the ones your parents have in your basement. Just like old glossy prints. ... And unfortunately, when you pick up an old photo print, what happens is you always leave a thumbprint on it, and overtime your memories become more and more thumb-printed. So if you pull up a memory enough times, you’ll just be looking at your own unique thumbprint."

Zoe Chace is a reporter for NPR’s Planet Money. "A lot of times people don't pay enough attention to their voicing at all. They don't realize that their story doesn't exist, unless people are grabbed by their voice. The story literally — like practically literally — is not happening. People are just missing it, so I always thought voicing is key, it's central. You have to grab people. And I had a real approach where I was almost trying to scream out of the radio, 'Listen now!' And, 'Listen now!' And, 'Listen now!'"

Ellen Horne is the Executive Producer of Radiolab. “When you’re trying to create something new, that kind of risk-taking has to happen in a low-stakes environment.”

Eric Mennel is a producer for WUNC and Criminal. "People pooh-pooh the idea of logging like it’s the worst thing in the world. Some of the best techniques I’ve learned, in terms of interviewing, was from logging good interviewer's tape. ... Listening to Alex Kotlowitz conduct an interview was like it’s own class on how to make radio."

Sean Cole, a producer at This American Life, has also reported for Radiolab, Marketplace, and 99% Invisible. "Journalism is a translation of madness, and poetry is a transcription of madness."

Stan Alcorn, a freelance multimedia journalist, is a contributor to WNYC and NPR. “I love stories but I’m very interested in how they pertain to some larger truth that you’re not going to know without quantifying it.”

Jennifer Brandel is the Senior Producer of Curious City. "I don't think that soft or fluffy news should be given such a bad rap. When you have a question that ignites someone's curiosity and gets them interested in thinking about the world in a different way or considering things they haven't done before, that is important. If you can accomplish that in your stories, they're not fluffy — they're interesting."

Ben Calhoun is a producer at This American Life. "The nature of covering politics is one where often people don’t want to say to you the things that they are feeling or thinking. ... You can create the diorama of that action in a way that you couldn’t if you weren’t willing to make them a character — founded on things that they said and beliefs that you know they have — than they’ve done for you on tape."