Podcasts about storycorps mobilebooth

Our country is deeply divided and we often do not trust one another these days. Ken talks first with Francis Fukuyama, political scientist and author of the 2018 book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, about identity and tribalism and how we got here. He then talks with Dave Isay, founder and president of StoryCorps, about how to heal that broken trust through storytelling and listening. The alumni testimonial features Eleanor Vassili, a former facilitator with StoryCorps’ MobileBooth.

Bill and Dina Butcher gave much to their adopted state of North Dakota. Dina served under governors John Hoeven and Ed Schafer, and headed up the North Dakotans for Public Integrity. Bill was a Navy man who rose through the ranks of the FBI. They’re longtime friends and supporters of Prairie Public. Bill passed away April 5 at age 79. In an excerpt from a visit to the StoryCorps MobileBooth in July 2018, Bill talks with his daughter Marnie Piehl about his love of sailing and what it was like working as an FBI agent in Minot in the 1960s, a notorious chapter in magic city history. A memorial service will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 11 at the Elks Lodge in Bismarck. His ashes will be spread on the waters of Lake Sakakawea.

Dr. Wayne Sanstead served as North Dakota Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1985-2013. In this segment from his visit to the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck, he speaks with his son, Jon, about his career, military service, meeting President Truman, and how he'd like to be remembered.

Herbert Wilson is 97 years young. After spending a childhood up and down the eastern seaboard, Wilson joined the air corps during World War II. His wife of 73 years served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. They survived many missions, but that all takes a backseat to his family. In this excerpt from their visit to the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck, Kelly Suchy talks to her grandpa about how he stays in the lives of his grandkids and great-grandkids.

Your childhood shapes you, for better or for worse. Tina Dietz visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth with her partner, Patrick Conteh. In this excerpt, we learn about the lives that shaped hers – most significantly, her great aunt Shirley. StoryCorps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by Prairie Public. Thanks Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck for helping sponsor the StoryCorps visit to North Dakota. Ashley Thornberg edited this excerpt.

In the north, we have a short growing season. Cousins Michael and Jason Tomanek make the most of it. In this excerpt from Michael and Jason's visit to the StoryCorps MobileBooth, they talk about growing up in the gardens of their grandparents, and how they carry on their family food traditions. StoryCorps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by Prairie Public. Thanks Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck for helping sponsor the StoryCorps visit to North Dakota. Ashley Thornberg edited this excerpt.

On the political maps of today that show the nation’s urban/rural divide, North Dakota shows up solidly red. And after the drubbing Democrats took here in November, Republicans now hold all major offices in the state, and now exclusively make up North Dakota’s congressional delegation in D.C. But it wasn’t always that way. In this excerpt, hear from former Democratic North Dakota agriculture commissioner, Sarah Vogel, who scored a huge legal victory that saved many farmers from financial ruin. She tells her friend, Karen Ehrens, that she worries that some of the dangerous trends that existed during the farming crisis of the 1980s are repeating themselves today. They discussed this, and more, in their visit to the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck. StoryCorps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by Prairie Public. Thanks Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck for helping sponsor the StoryCorps visit to

Families come in all shapes and forms, whether it’s through blood or circumstance. For two free-spirited North Dakota women, a pairing, a breakup, and a Queen song cemented their ageless friendship, cut through strong political convictions and made them, in essence, family. Elizabeth Schuh and her "step mom" and dear friend Lois Steffes Ternes visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck to talk about their love of Queen, sewing, and each other. StoryCorps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by Prairie Public. Thanks Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck for helping sponsor the StoryCorps visit to North Dakota. Ashley Thornberg edited this excerpt.

Parents have many hopes and fears for their children. Health and happiness are near the top of many lists. For Loah Clement, that health and happiness is not tied to things. She visited the visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck this past July with her son Jason where they shared their fears about the current political climate and the future of the environment. StoryCorps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people. Excerpts were selected and produced by Prairie Public. Thanks Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck for helping sponsor the StoryCorps visit to North Dakota. Ashley Thornberg edited this excerpt.

You don’t have to listen to Prairie Public for very long before you hear News Director Dave Thompson. He’s known as the dean of the North Dakota press pool and he’s infamous for his puns. Dave visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck with his Prairie Public colleague, Lowell Loritz. In this excerpt from their conversation, we learn about Dave's lifelong love of radio, the beginnings of Prairie Public's radio service, and how the radio industry has changed.

They say a rising tide lifts all boats. For Barnie Botone, the great-grandson of a famous Kiowa chief, the Civil Rights Movement and an unlikely change agent helped pave the way for a fulfilling and pioneering career. But why were the tears flowing from his grandmother’s eyes not happy ones? Botone spoke with StoryCorps facilitator Savannah Winchester at the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck.

Those who work to revitalize Native American languages often find it challenging to reach the hearts of young people. But for one Lakota father and daughter, language has always been at the center of their lives, their bond and their purpose. Manny and Claudia Iron Hawk recently visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck to discuss family history and the Lakota language as a healing force.

Deep in the heart of the sauerkraut triangle, you know your bratwurst from your bockwurst, and strudel from your streusel. And you know your polka from your two-step. Victor Schwahn has been playing the accordion for 73 years. He visited the StoryCorps MobileBooth in Bismarck with friend Harvey Schilling to talk about how he got his start.

This week a conversation with StoryCorps Associate Director Jordan Bullard, who along with WUKY is bringing the StoryCorps MobileBooth to Lexington in March.

StoryCorp is an organization that aims "to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives." Featured stories are broadcast nationally on NPR. StoryCorp has published more than 50,000 interviews with almost 100,000 participants since they launched in 2003. A small to mid-size non-profit organization, StoryCorp's interviews are logged in the Library of Congress, and over the years they have created new and ingenious ways to enable story telling. There are recording booths in a number of cities throughout the country where anyone can go and record and interview or story. The first was in Grand Central Station, though it's since shut down due to budget issues. However, booths are open in Atlanta, San Francisco, and Chicago where anyone can make a reservation to record. They also have an Airstream trailer that travels the country and records interviews all over the place. Creating ways for people to share stories is the heart of StoryCorps mission. [caption id="attachment_12144" align="aligncenter" width="752"] The StoryCorps MobileBooth. Credit: StoryCorp Flickr[/caption] One WordPress developer that worked on the StoryCorp project told me, "I cry almost every time" as they listen to StoryCorps on their local NPR station every Friday morning. The stories to tend to be very powerful. I was nearly brought to tears by one where a lady hugs her son's murderer. Another moving story (from my hometown no less), features a father that comes to terms with his daughter's homosexuality. Or there's one where President Obama interviews a boy who overcame adversity to join My Brother's Keeper. Record stories anywhere The latest initiative for creating ways for people to share their story is via StoryCorps.me, a website and companion apps that make it easy for anyone with a smartphone to record an interview and publish it. StoryCorps.me is built on WordPress, and utilizes the WordPress REST API to enable access to a customized content architecture. The StoryCorps app utilizes the API to consume data and publish stories from the app back to the website. I interviewed Dean Haddock, Director of Digital & Technical Innovation at StoryCorp, about how the idea for the app came about, how they use and think of WordPress, and other insights from their short three month development period. A national day of listening Dean says he thinks the StoryCorps app really dates back to a program they ran three years ago called A National Day of Listening, where instead of shopping on Black Friday, they hosted an event where people could tell stories. Dean's team expanding on the idea, and the event turned into a micro-site using SoundCloud's API that made that process easier. That project eventually expanded into the idea that would become StoryCorps.me. Funding for the app The StoryCorps app was funded thanks to StoryCorps founder Dave Isay winning this year's TED Prize Winner. He gave a TED Talk in Vancouver just a few weeks ago, where he shared how everyone has a story to tell. [caption id="attachment_12145" align="aligncenter" width="752"] Dave Isay at TED[/caption] The TED Prize is awarded to an individual with a creative, bold vision to spark global change. By leveraging the TED community’s resources and investing $1 million into a powerful idea, each year the TED Prize supports one wish to inspire the world. - TED Prize website His wish after winning the TED Prize was to "to grow this digital archive of the collective wisdom of humanity." During the TED Talk, he noted that StoryCorps is "the single largest collection of human voices ever collected." The new app makes this mission even more plausible, by having almost no barrier for interview creation. The $1 million TED Prize made it possible. Development of the StoryCorps app With "one tap", interviews can be created and uploaded to the StoryCorps.me website and the Library of Congress archive. Dave shared some of his vision for the app during the TED Talk: Imagine, for example, a national homework assignment where every high school student studying U.S. history across the country records an interview with an elder over Thanksgiving, so that in one single weekend an entire generation of American lives and experiences are captured. Development of the app was managed on three levels. The StoryCorps team did project management, communication, and handled RFPs for app and website development. They also ensured that everything fit the StoryCorps model, and ensured that the new website and app talked to existing StoryCorps software and APIs properly. 10up built the website infrastructure, manages scalability issues, and managed the integration of the WordPress REST API. MAYA design designed and built the app for the end-user, utilizing PhoneGap so that the app could be launched simultaneously to both iOS and Android platforms. [pullquote align="right"]"We knew we going to use WordPress before we started looking for partners to help us build this thing."[/pullquote] As a "small to midsize non-profit," StoryCorps has few resources. StoryCorps.org has been on WordPress, and they wanted to use WordPress for StoryCorps.me as well. The development phase was quite short: from funding to launch took only three months. They launched at TED after receiving the funding last October. For public facing web technology, WordPress is so flexible and so malleable and amenable to whatever we need to do with it, that it really wasn't much of a question whether this was the right platform. What their real question was, Dean shares, was how WordPress could scale if and when they hit a million users, and that's why they brought in 10up. What they learned They are really pleased with how the project has gone so far. However, not everything was a success. They had to pivot and make adjustments as they went along and learned new things and requirements. Dean noted, [pullquote align="right"]"You have to be willing to completely submit to the process."[/pullquote] He says it wouldn't have succeeded if 10up and Maya weren't committed as StoryCorps to the success of the project. They also learned what Dean calls "more tangible" things, like the usage of PhoneGap. Without using a tool like PhoneGap, they wouldn't have been able to "get to market as soon as possible." However, he admits the app could be slightly better if it were built in a native platform to either iOS or Android. Powerful stories I really enjoyed digging into StoryCorps mission and the new StoryCorps.me project. I'm addicted to their stories, and some of the stories that have been uploaded -- such as those in the audio intro -- are really endearing. While there may be an element of noise to the StoryCorps.me archive, it's already evident that many gems will emerge, and who knows what ideas people will come up with for creative ways to perform interviews and record stories. The apps are available on Google Play and in the App Store. It'll be improving over the next weeks and and months. If you're excited about technology at StoryCorps, you can reach Dean at dhaddock@storycorps.org or you can also report issues or ask questions about the app at contactus@storycorps.me. StoryCorps is a great testament to WordPress and its ability to be an infrastructure to an app at scale, while also enabling efficient development cycles. This is probably my favorite utilization of the new REST API yet.