Praise for Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound “Somehow in this manic digital age, Reality Radio—a mere book! —is more relevant than ever. Form and function manifest, here is the story of contemporary documentary audio, thoughtfully composed and offered straight from its most respected producers. Reality Radio is required reading for anyone at the beginning of her audio career. Or in the middle. Or finishing up. And for all invested listeners. This is radio canon.” —Julie Shapiro, executive producer, Radiotopia from prx “The essays in this book were written by people thinking with their ears.” —rick Moody, author and audio maker “[Biewen] offers a lively history of creative documentary radio in his introduction to [twenty-five] passionate, instructive, and unex- pectedly moving essays by innovative audio journalists and artists who use sound to tell true stories artfully. Invaluable and many- faceted coverage of a thriving, populist, and mind- expanding art form.” —Booklist “What is striking about this collection is how clearly the reader can ‘hear’ the diverse voices and stories, despite the print medium. A wonderful and accessible read. Highly recommended.” —Choice “An incredibly important contribution to the field of public media, one that will invite introspection, spark creativity, and hopefully teach people that the first step in learning is listening.” —Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0 “The producers who wrote these essays prove that there’s nothing more moving than real, truthful radio. I read a lot of the book in bed and soon heard the voices whispering in my ear: ‘Get up. Go record something. Now.’ You will feel the same.” — NeeNah elliS, independent radio producer and author of If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians “In [these] highly autobiographical essays . some of the finest practitioners of broadcast aural storytelling describe and celebrate their craft. Though not every documentarian profiled in the book provides equally useful guidance to oral historians interested in transforming their work into aural narratives, they all provide plenty of inspiration and useful general principles.” —Oral History Review Reality Radio Documentary Arts and Culture A series edited by Tom Rankin and Iris Tillman Hill Reality Radio Telling True Stories in Sound SecoNd editioN Revised and Expanded Edited by John Biewen and Alexa Dilworth Published in Association with The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University by The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill © 2017 The Center for Documentary Studies All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America deSigNed by boNNie caMpbell Set in Joanna and Officinaans S by Rebecca Evans The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. Cover photographs by Harlan Campbell Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Biewen, John, editor. | Dilworth, Alexa, editor. Title: Reality radio: telling true stories in sound / edited by John Biewen and Alexa Dilworth. Other titles: Documentary arts and culture. Description: Second edition, revised and expanded. | Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press; [Durham, N.C.]: in association with the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, [2017] | Series: Documentary arts and culture Identifiers:LCC N 2016049006 | iSbN 9781469633138 (pbk : alk. paper) | iSbN 9781469633145 (ebook) Subjects: lcSh: Documentary radio programs. | Documentary radio programs— Production and direction. | Community radio. Classification:LCC pN1991.8.d63 r43 2017 | DDC 070.1/94—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049006 “Every one around You Has a Story the World Needs to Hear” is adapted from Dave Isay’s ted Talk at the 2015 ted Conference. Reprinted with permission of ted Conferences LLC. docuMeNtary artS aNd culture In a time when the tools of the documentary arts have become widely accessible, this series of books, published in association with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, explores and develops the practice of documentary expression. Drawing on the perspectives of artists and writers, this series offers new and important ways to think about learning and doing documentary work while also examining the traditions and practice of documentary art through time. This book was made possible by grants from the Wyncote Foundation. ceNter for docuMeNtary StudieS at duke uNiverSity documentarystudies.duke.edu radioed with a grant Figure Foundation parting the story This page intentionally left blank For my children, Harper and Lucas. There are no voices I’d rather hear.—JB This page intentionally left blank Contents foreword Starlee Kine xi iNtroductioN John Biewen 1 are we oN the air? Chris Brookes 13 that Jackie keNNedy MoMeNt Scott Carrier 25 talkiNg to StraNgerS The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) 34 variatioNS iN tape uSe aNd the poSitioN of the Narrator: alix Spiegel’S practical guide to differeNt radio techNiqueS Alix Spiegel 42 No holeS were drilled iN the headS of aNiMalS iN the MakiNg of thiS radio Show Jad Abumrad 54 harNeSSiNg luck aS aN iNduStrial product Ira Glass 64 oNe Story, week by week An Interview with Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder 77 Story tiMe at the azteca boxiNg club Daniel Alarcón 90 coveriNg hoMe Katie Davis 97 what did She JuSt Say? damali ayo 106 out there Sherre DeLys 116 cigaretteS aNd daNce StepS Alan Hall 126 uNreality radio Natalie Kestecher 138 fiNdiNg the beatS Glynn Washington 146 fiNdiNg the poetry Dmae Roberts 154 everyoNe arouNd you haS a Story the world NeedS to hear Dave Isay 166 diarieS aNd detrituS: oNe perfectioNiSt’S Search for iMperfectioN Joe Richman 175 liviNg hiStory Stephen Smith 182 the voice aNd the place Sandy Tolan 194 croSSiNg borderS Maria Martin 204 adveNturerS iN SouNd Karen Michel 212 Salt iS flavor aNd other tipS learNed while cookiNg Emily Botein 218 afterword: liSteN Jay Allison 225 About the Contributors 239 Editors’ Note: Hearing the Work 247 Acknowledgments 249 Foreword Starlee Kine there’S a dreaM that some of us have . maybe you’ve had it. You’re walking through your home when you notice a door. Behind this door is a room. The details of the room vary, but they tend to match up to what your heart feels is most lacking in its waking life. High ceilings. Storage space. Once I pushed open the door and discovered a swimming pool. The thought you have is not how did this room get here. By the logic of dreams, the room was always there. Instead you think, If only I had noticed this door earlier. That’s how radio stories feel to me. They’re always there. It’s the door that can take a while to discover. The idea for my first This American Life (tal) story coincided with another milestone: my first funeral. My aunt’s dad had passed away, and he was being buried at a cemetery in Hollywood. Everything was going along pretty much like I’d seen in the movies . until a wall opened up and a screen appeared and a movie about my aunt’s dad started playing during the service. It even had a soundtrack—“Mem- ory” by Barbra Streisand. Along with a burial plot, the cemetery provided, for an additional fee, an in- house video production facility. I told tal (where I had just finished interning) about all this, and they confirmed that this didn’t happen at every funeral (this was in 2000). I bought a Marantz cassette recorder off eBay that was the same model the show used and flew out to Los Angeles with my producer for the story, Nancy Updike. We spent several days collecting tape, and with each inter- view, the story resembled my pitch less and less. Not in that thrilling, a smaller- story- turns- out- to- be- a-bigger- one way. No, the problem defi- nitely wasn’t that it was too big. Our best interview was a guy walking us through, step by step, how to assemble a digital slideshow. Then on our final day, during our final interview the owner of the cem- etery, Tyler, was flipping through a photo album. Or, as he saw it, flipping xi xii Starlee Kine through reference material for the biopic of his life that would one day play at his own memorial. It didn’t hurt that Tyler happened to look like a 1950s movie star. He comes across a photo of him and his dad on a boat, smiling to the camera. He tells us it’s a “before” photo. Like those “before and after” weight loss ads, except real. The picture captured the moment before his dad asked him whether he was gay. And then, without prompting, using the photo as a springboard, Tyler tells us how it was he came to be sur- rounded by the dead. His father ran a funeral business, but as a young man, Tyler wasn’t inter- ested. He wanted to be among the living. He moved to New York in 1988, during what turned out to be the height of the aidS epidemic. Everyone in New York’s gay community was affected; everyone had a friend or partner who had died. And after an adolescence spent watching people mourn, Tyler was surprised to discover different ways of expressing grief. The funerals he attended in New York felt more like parties. They broke form. He decided he wanted to bring that same spirit back home. That was Tyler’s origin story. As text, it doesn’t have the same impact. The reason it made for good tape was the way it unfurled. It was active. There was movement both in the narrative and in the scene. The turning photo album pages functioned like a motor, advancing Tyler’s life and the story forward. It seems small, but it made such a difference.