The Documentary and Journalism ‘What the Hell is a ?’ It’s a familiar question. Now here are some answers.

By Stephen Smith

was interviewing a man in Tennes- mentary possesses a depth of research In a stunning piece of historical docu- see this year, a well-educated pro- or proximity to its subject that distin- mentary, producers Christina Egloff Ifessional in his 60’s and a devoted guishes it from a long feature or enter- and of the “Lost and Found listener to public radio. I introduced prise story. Length is not the defining Sound” project used audiotapes made myself by explaining that I’m based at quality; a documentary can last hours by a soldier named Mike, who died in Minnesota Public Radio and make docu- or five minutes. Documentaries con- Vietnam, to tell his story: “I have the mentaries for National Public Radio vey a rich sense of character and de- recorder here, and I’m going to try to (NPR). He cocked his head and eyed tail—or a substantial body of original keep it elevated off the ground and me funny. “What the hell is a radio investigative material—that simply away from everything here. I’m going documentary?” he said. I get that ques- aren’t heard in the majority of public to try to keep it up in the air because tion all the time. radio news reports. everything I touch here eats through Unlike television and film viewers, At the heart of the documentary my skin or bites me, or rots, some- most radio listeners don’t identify an style are moments recorded on tape in thing. This is, this is something else. investigative story or intimate human which the story unfolds in front of the The grass will cut you. The mud will rot portrait they just heard on public radio listener. These scenes function like a your skin. This is something else.” as a documentary. To them it’s just a photo essay or a film documentary, Time spent in the field is often what program, a piece, a story, a write-up, or where events play out in real time. For distinguishes a radio documentary from even an “article.” example, there is a scene in an Ameri- a feature or enterprise report. The piece Yet an increasing flow of documen- can RadioWorks documentary on child feels lush, more active. At American taries is pouring out of American radio poverty, “The Forgotten 14 Million,” in RadioWorks, we encourage producers speakers. They come almost exclusively which the mother of a family in Ken- to revisit their subjects time and again, from public radio stations but also, tucky, Janet, lectures her son Jim about to document the story over months, if occasionally, from commercial news the perils of getting married too young. not years. These kind of character- stations. Some are an hour long, others driven stories are a powerful way of 10 to 20 minutes. The best can often be Jim: “You’re allowed to get married exploring larger social themes. Some heard within NPR news magazines such when you’re 21.” producers pride themselves on never as “” and “Week- Janet: “Yeah, you’re allowed to get quoting experts in their documenta- end Edition”—producer Joe Richman’s married when you’re 21, but where ries because conventional news reports chronicle of the lives of prison inmates you gonna take her to?” tend to rely heavily on academics and through their audio diaries—or David Jim: “I don’t know.” government officials as on-mike Isay’s portrait of a City flop- Janet: “Without the money and with- sources. At American RadioWorks, we house, or the work of the Kitchen Sis- out a home, you gotta have the money try to weave the larger social context ters in their “Lost and Found Sound” and you gotta have a home to take her into a compelling, character-rich story. series. There are also documentaries to!” When we get it right, the flow of an heard on our rival network, Public Ra- Jim: “Yeah, but I’m gonna get me a engaging narrative helps carry the dio International (PRI), in programs home first.” weight of figures and facts. The trick is like “Marketplace,” “The World,” and Janet: “There ain’t no way you can choosing the right subject. ARW covers “.” get married at the age of 18 and think a mix of domestic and international American RadioWorks (ARW) makes that you can go through college, get a subjects, from global public health to documentaries that air within the ma- job, and support a family, and get war crimes, from the American prison jor NPR news magazines, but we’ve your own home and everything else. industry to the history of segregation. also made a priority of producing hour- You can’t do that. That’s what Mommy Narrative documentaries are far long special reports distributed directly and Daddy’s been a-trying to tell more common in public radio than to public radio stations nationwide. youn’s. You get your education and investigative projects, in part because These specials air in virtually all the everything, then you can get you a investigative reporting devours time major American cities. woman. Other than that, if you don’t and money. Most radio news organiza- Neither length nor audience define go through all of that, then you ain’t tions simply can’t afford it. But in Feb- radio documentaries. Ideally, a docu- gonna have nothin. And you know it.” ruary, American RadioWorks broke the

6 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet story of how Serbian security forces employment opportunities. Only a people a week tuning in to the presti- serving the regime of Slobodan handful of radio producers in the gious PBS TV documentary program Milosevic burned hundreds of bodies actually make a living “Frontline.” of slaughtered Kosovo Albanians in an from documentary work, and they don’t I like to think that the future is industrial furnace to cover up poten- earn much money. Most producers also promising for audio (not just radio) tial war crimes evidence. This story was work as journalists for local stations, or documentaries. The Internet has al- the result of nearly two years’ work hold down editorial posts at NPR or ready created new venues for audio researching war crimes in Kosovo. PRI, or toil at an unrelated day job. work, though the audience is uncer- Do listeners want these documenta- American RadioWorks, the largest docu- tain and work suffers from the squishy ries? If you ask many program direc- mentary production unit in public ra- sound of Web audio. There might be tors—the gatekeepers to local airtime dio, has nine people on staff. other ways to distribute audio docu- on more than 600 stations nation- Still, the near future seems promis- mentaries in the multi-media future. wide—the response is mixed. Some ing for documentary radio. An excel- Some day, we might get our radio sig- insist that long-form work is at the lent radio program can be made for a nals from satellites instead of towers heart of public radio’s mission and fraction of what a quality independent and be able to chose the “all documen- distinguish it from all the brainless film costs: As a rough estimate, radio tary” channel while driving to work. chatter elsewhere on the dial. Others documentaries can cost anywhere from We might even be able to chose pro- say documentaries are a ratings killer. $20-80,000 or more per hour, com- grams on demand, á la cable television. They point out that the average com- pared to a documentary film, in which This could mean a bigger market for mercial radio listener tunes in for only the budget might start at $100,000 and audio docs. 15 minutes or so and that longer sto- soar past one million dollars. Founda- In the meantime, keep an ear open ries won’t help lure these listeners to tion and government funding for radio for the radio documentaries already our side. On the other hand, time spent documentaries, while not simple to beaming through the atmosphere. ■ listening to public radio is more like an obtain, does exist. And when a piece hour per occasion, and documentaries airs on an NPR newsmagazine it reaches Stephen Smith is managing editor recently aired within NPR’s “All Things a large, influential audience. For ex- and a correspondent with American Considered” have been among the most ample, more than 10 million people RadioWorks, the documentary popular pieces that program has aired. listen to “All Things Considered.” That’s project of Minnesota Public Radio Although documentaries are alive in a far bigger crowd than watch most film and NPR news. public radio, it’s hard to argue that the documentaries and a healthy figure genre is healthy, at least in terms of when compared to the four million ssmith@mpr Radio Diarists Document Their Lives These ‘reporters’ capture moments journalists never could.

By Joe Richman

hat made Josh Cutler a great [See Josh’s description of his work for The fact that Josh could not always radio diarist was that I never “Teenage Diaries” on page 8.] He control what came out of his mouth is Wknew what he was going to brought the tape recorder to school a kind of metaphor for this type of say. Sometimes he didn’t, either. Josh (reluctantly at first), kept an audio jour- documentary journalism. The process has Tourette’s syndrome, a neurologi- nal, and recorded all the sounds of his of going through hours and hours of cal disorder that causes involuntary daily life. Josh documented his tics, he raw audio diary tapes is like mining for verbal and physical tics. I first met him taped himself doing everything from gold. Ninety percent is junk, but then in 1995 when he was in the 10th grade. preparing breakfast to making prank every so often there are little magical I had just received a grant to produce a phone calls, and he recorded one amaz- moments that are completely unex- series called “Teenage Diaries” on Na- ingly intense and honest conversation pected. Things emerge about people tional Public Radio [NPR]. The idea with his mother that became the cen- that, in an interview, I would never was to give tape recorders and micro- terpiece of his audio diary. All together, have known to even look for. phones to a group of teens around the he collected more than 40 hours of With all the diarists there comes a country and help them report about tape, which was edited into a 15-minute point, maybe after the first month of their own lives. radio documentary for NPR’s “All recording, when they get bored with Josh recorded for more than a year. Things Considered.” the process. That’s what I’m waiting

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 7 The Documentary and Journalism

A Tape Recorder Becomes a Connecting Thread this process a step further. It’s like bringing the microphone backstage, to a place where truth and understanding By Joshua Cutler are found not just in words but be- tween words—in the pauses, accents, in the sighs and silences. I went to a small high school where Teenagers make good diarists be- everyone had some vague notion that I cause they have an abundance of time. had a disease called Tourette’s syn- It’s also an age where people are just drome. But very few students really beginning to discover themselves and knew what that meant and even fewer their world. And unlike many adults seemed to care enough to find out. teenagers simply have an inherent be- That was until I brought the tape re- lief that whatever they say is important corder to school with me. and people should be listening. When At first, I was absolutely mortified at I ask a teenager to carry a tape recorder the idea of actually interviewing any- around for six months, they don’t think one. I was in 10th grade and, back I’m crazy. then, I used to dread going to school Radio is the perfect medium for these every day. I was already enough of a diary-style documentaries. The equip- social outcast because of my condition, ment is relatively inexpensive and easy which causes me to sometimes move to use. A microphone is less intrusive or speak involuntarily. I was terrified than a video camera so people can be that shoving a huge microphone in more natural, more themselves. Most somebody’s face would cause me to be Joshua Cutler. Photo by Kate Burton. importantly, radio is intimate. Great the victim of further scorn. I was wrong. radio sounds as though it’s being whis- When I took out the tape recorder “People are always taught to think before pered right into your ear. and explained what I was doing, there they speak. Everybody has deep dark things For these reasons, I believe some of was a huge commotion. Soon, I had at that they don’t want people to know they’re the best first-person documentary work least a dozen students waiting to be thinking about. The bottom line is some- is found on the radio. David Isay’s interviewed. During this lunch period, times I actually have to teach myself not to “Ghetto Life 101,” in which two young I became closer to my classmates than care. I can’t care because most of the time I boys in a Chicago housing project were I had in the several previous years. can’t control what comes out of my mouth. given tape recorders, and Jay Allison’s Recording these diaries made me I control what comes out of my ass better on-going “Life Stories” series were both realize something important: I’d never than I control what comes out of my direct inspirations for our “Teenage really talked to anyone at school about mouth. But the last thing I want people to Diary” series. And during the past five Tourette’s. Talking in this way now think is, ‘Oh, poor Josh.’ It’s not like I’m in years the public radio show, “This showed me that people were inter- a wheelchair or I have snot dribbling down American Life,” has reinvented and re- ested and did care. After my story aired, my chin. I really just don’t want anyone to invigorated the form. even complete strangers from around be feeling sorry for me. This is not a Sally “Radio Diaries” is a small, nonprofit the country went out of their way to Struthers commercial.”—From the “Teen- company—me and associate producer, drop me a note. My well-wishers ranged age Diaries” series. Wendy Dorr. Since Josh’s story aired in from ordinary people, to a man in 1996, we have produced more than 20 diary-style documentaries for NPR. The prison in Texas, to a young lady named Joshua Cutler graduated in June “Teenage Diaries” series has included Emily, who also has Tourette’s, and 2001 from Vassar College. When he diaries from a teen mom, the daughter with whom I still correspond. was in high school, he reported two of an evangelical minister, a gay teen- The lesson I learned from docu- stories about his life and struggle ager, an illegal immigrant, and the run- menting my experience is that in some with Tourette’s syndrome. ways the cold, cruel world is not as cold ning back for an Alabama high-school and cruel as I used to think it was. ■ [email protected] football team. Other projects have in- cluded a 30-minute diary-style docu- mentary from residents of a retirement for. They’re no longer trying to sound tary journalism is time; spending home and, more recently, we produced like Tom Brokaw. They’re not perform- enough time for people to trust you “Prison Diaries,” a series of stories from ing, so they’re less self-conscious. They with their stories, hanging out enough inmates, correctional officers, and a relax and become themselves. It takes so that you’re there when things hap- judge. a lot of practice to be natural. pen. By turning the tape recorder into Diarists have to play two roles, both Of course, the key to all documen- a constant companion, the diarists take subject and reporter, and negotiating

8 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet the two can be tricky. So the rules—my ‘It was just me and the recorder.’ rules, anyway—are different from tra- ditional documentaries. I give each dia- rist final editorial control over their By Cristel story. I also pay most of the diarists a small stipend for their work. In this way, the relationship is closer to the I had been incarcerated at the Rhode model at NPR and other news organi- Island Training School for three years zations: The diarist is the reporter and when I met Joe [Richman]. He asked if I am the producer—although by the I wanted to carry a tape recorder around time a diary airs on the radio, my job the training school for a few months feels more like that of a midwife. and record my life. I told him yes. But The “Prison Diaries” series, which at the same time I was wondering why aired on NPR in January 2001, was in the world would people be inter- certainly the most difficult project ested in someone that’s not famous at among the diaries that we have under- all. I mean, what’s the point? taken. After spending more than four That was 1999. Three years earlier, months trying to gain access to pris- when I was 15, I cut a girl many times ons, we found two institutions willing on her face with a razor. The judge had Cristel and daughter Rayonna. Photo by to participate. One was an adult prison locked me up for six years. I didn’t Sue Johnson. in North Carolina for 18-22-year-old think anybody would want to hear from inmates. The other was a juvenile facil- a criminal’s point of view. I figured radio. But when I heard it, I began to ity in Rhode Island. We gave tape re- people would hate me for what I did, understand why people might want to corders to five inmates, four correc- or at least they wouldn’t be interested. listen to somebody that’s not famous. tional officers, and a juvenile court At first it was strange to carry the I guess it’s so you’ll know about other judge. For six months, the diarists kept tape recorder around, but it also made human beings that you may not know audio journals and recorded the sounds me feel special. There were times when about, and hear their stories. ■ and scenes of their lives. At the end of I had no one to speak to. The recorder six months, we had 250 hours of tape. became my friend and social worker. It “Sometimes, you know, I just look out the Eight or 10 months after that, we had was like I was keeping a verbal journal. window and I just sit here and think like four half-hour documentaries for NPR’s I knew that one day, millions of people something I decided in 10 minutes changed “All Things Considered.” would hear my story. But I never pic- my entire life. Not even 10 minutes. I mean Along with the radio broadcasts, we tured it like I was talking to the whole three years gone by, and I’m still sitting here. also teamed up with an innovative world. I felt like I was just talking and What would I be doing if I was out? What online documentary project about the nobody’s listening. It was just me and would my life be like? Would I have finished criminal justice system. Called the recorder. school? Would I have settled down? Would I 360degrees.org, it allows visitors on I remember one time I stayed up all have done something worse? I just look out their Web site to enter and move around night in my cell to watch the sunrise. I the window, and I think about all this the diarists’ environments while they hadn’t seen it in a long time, and I told stuff.”—From “Prison Diaries” series. listen to their audio diaries. [See story the tape recorder how one day I was about 360degrees.org on page 10.] going to see the sunrise from a better Cristel was released in early 2000 “Prison Diaries” was the first time view. And that’s what happened. Soon after being incarcerated for three inmates have been given tape record- after that night, the judge decided that and a half years. Now 20 years old, ers to document their lives in this way. I was rehabilitated and let me out three she lives with her boyfriend and two The series tested the limits of what this years early. daughters and still carries her tape form does well but also exemplified I was scared to have my story on the recorder with her. how it can fall short. When a topic is so emotional and complicated, the ab- sence of an “official” narrator poses a difficult problem. In choosing inmates, our listeners could invest emotionally the quiet, intimate sounds, and not it was important to find diarists who in the story if they didn’t like the dia- just the traditional slamming of cell could own up to their crimes and their rist. On the other hand, so much of doors. lives, who could somehow address the what happens in prison is normally out “Prison Diaries” was also challeng- skepticism and questions of credibility of our reach, and this method allowed ing for the diarists. One thing correc- that listeners would naturally bring to listeners unprecedented access. We tional officers and inmates share is the stories. I also grappled with the wanted to document a side of prison they have to always maintain their game issue of empathy, wondering whether life that people rarely hear—including face. Honest, vulnerable moments are

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 9 The Documentary and Journalism

hard to come by. Yet what many of the ther of the girls could sleep, so for 10 Joe Richman is the producer of the diarists appreciated about the project minutes they sent each other synco- “Radio Diaries” series on National was the opportunity to let their guard pated rhythms back and forth between Public Radio. He is also an adjunct down. One inmate later said he had the cell walls. After a while the knock- professor at the Columbia University never in his life talked to anyone the ing stopped. Then Cristel picked up Graduae School of Journalism. way he talked to the tape recorder. the tape recorder, walked over to her Radio Diaries Inc., a nonprofit Buried in those 250 hours of tape from window and brought the microphone production company in New York prison are many intimate and magical close to her mouth. City, recently published a guide to moments. On one cassette, Cristel, an To hear Cristel speaking quietly into making radio diaries, the Teen 18-year-old girl incarcerated at the a tape recorder late at night, it’s almost Reporter Handbook, available for Rhode Island Training School [See possible to enter into her world, to sale and on their Web site: Cristel’s description of her work for imagine ourselves there behind the www.radiodiaries.org. “Prison Diaries” on page 9.] was re- microphone. What radio diaries can cording late one night when she heard do well is to give us all glimpses into a [email protected] a faint knock from the wall of the cell different reality and to document the next door. It was a 13-year-old girl who moments of lives that can’t be told had just recently been locked up. Nei- except by those who live them. ■

Using the Web for an Interactive Documentary Project At 360degrees.org, the U.S. criminal justice system is examined from many perspectives.

“My name is John Mills. I’m 21, a black male…in prison. I wanted to be a police officer, you know what I’m saying? When I was smaller, I used to think about that all the time. All the sirens and loud noises and blue lights. It was just something I always wanted to be. But now I hate the police. I know my life just took a big turn some- where. I just don’t know where. My mom always predicted my life: ‘You’re going to be just like your daddy.’ He went to prison. I think he pulled like five years in prison. ‘Just like your dad.’ She’d say that all the time.”

By Sue Johnson John Mills is serving seven to nine years at Polk Youth Facility. From the documentary, 360degrees.org. Photo by Sue Johnson/Picture Projects. ohn Mills is one of 1,100 young men ages 19-21 who are incarcer- Jated at Polk Youth Facility in North communities. Each story, and there We launched 360degrees.org in Carolina. His story is part of an ongo- will be eight by the end of 2002, ad- January 2001 in conjunction with Joe ing series called “360degrees: Perspec- dresses a new theme—the juvenile jus- Richman’s “Prison Diaries” series on tives on the U.S. Criminal Justice Sys- tice system, prison towns, children of National Public Radio. [See story by tem.” This Web-based documentary incarcerated parents—and is told Joe Richman on page 7.] We spent attempts to put the recent growth in through first-person stories, data that several months doing interviews to- the prison population into historical can be examined in different ways, an gether. While Joe focused exclusively perspective and examine the impact it interactive timeline, and online and on John’s story for a 30-minute broad- has had on individuals, families and offline discussion. cast, we interviewed two correctional

10 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet

A panoramic photograph of the intake process. On the Web site, 360degrees.org, the visitor can pan around this photograph by moving the cursor while hearing stories from the correctional officers who work in intake. Photo by Sue Johnson/Picture Projects. officers, the warden, and John’s mother what is available, in order to generate tailed the ineffectiveness of tough-on- and stepfather. We edited these inter- accurate comparisons or calculate risks crime measures through a combina- views, along with John’s, into short and odds. To develop this, we’ve tion of anecdotes and statistics. It chal- audio clips for 360degrees. The site worked with a number of criminolo- lenged us to think about how we could uses streaming audio and navigable gists and researchers at the Bureau of illustrate—using interactivity and mul- 360 degree photographs to create a Justice Statistics. Currently, the site timedia—the rapid growth in America’s “sensurround” simulation of each offers two quizzes: “Are You a Crimi- prison population since the 1980’s and person’s environment. While listening nal?” and “What’s Your Theory?” In its impact on our daily lives. By this to each person’s story, visitors to the time, we’ll offer interactive maps of time, our multimedia documentary site can pan up, down and around the neighboring communities showing the group, Picture Projects, had already storyteller’s space—prison cells, recre- number of people going into and com- collaborated with several photojour- ation yards, living rooms, and judges’ ing out of prison and money spent by nalists, filmmakers and cultural insti- chambers. the criminal justice system in each tutions to create interactive documen- From this story section, visitors can neighborhood, and we’ll launch three taries including “akaKURDISTAN” with go to an interactive timeline that shows new dynamic data scenarios by the end Susan Meiselas, “Farewell to Bosnia” the evolution of the criminal justice of the year. with Gilles Peress, and “Re: Vietnam: system from 601 AD to the present. The idea for the project originated Stories Since the War” for PBS online. Beginning with the Code of Etherlbert, in 1998 when my partner, Alison 360degrees.org, as we envisioned which placed a monetary value on each Cornyn, and I read “The Real War on it, was larger in scale than any of these body part, the timeline conveys the Crime,” a report from the National projects. It would require a significant cyclical nature of the system by high- Criminal Justice Commission that de- team of advisors, producers and pro- lighting theories and prac- grammers and, of course, a tices that have gone in and much larger budget. As with out of fashion throughout our past online projects, our the years. The dialogue area goal was to capitalize on the is a place for open discus- assets of the medium: its sion, e-debates between in- capacity for quick computa- vited guests, and small tion, motion graphics, and closed discussion circles. the integration of audio and The dynamic data area is video, as well as the oppor- a place where we have ex- tunity to cross over geo- perimented with visualizing graphic boundaries. We and animating statistics, wanted to reach new audi- charts and graphs. This ences, primarily high school work has been conceptu- and college students, that ally difficult and the pro- have had little exposure to gramming very intensive. the criminal justice system Each interactive exercise re- or to those who had come quires a significant amount Screenshot from the online documentary, “360degrees: Perspectives into contact with the sys- of data, often more than on the U.S. Criminal Justice System,” by Picture Projects. tem but wanted to know

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 11 The Documentary and Journalism

A panoramic photograph of John Mills’ cell. At 360degrees.org, the visitor can explore Mills’ surroundings while his audio story plays. Photo by Sue Johnson/Picture Projects.

how their experiences fit into a broader database programmers, Flash anima- ferent environments, and in different picture. (We knew we were headed in tors, audio editors, photography re- ways. So it is vital for us to create a the right direction when The New York searchers, and writers. The other half “stickiness” between the stories, keep- Times reported that criminal justice goes toward the cost of outreach and ing visitors curious enough to con- was the fastest growing major on U.S. marketing. tinue exploring the site. Our goal has college campuses.) More importantly, We developed the site independent been to construct the overall narrative we wanted to tell a compelling story, of an online distributor so we’d be free by collecting many—sometimes hun- one that fully engages the audience to experiment with the technology, the dreds—of first-person stories. One of through their actions on the site, and narrative structure and, most impor- the advantages of working in this me- one that ultimately gets people think- tantly, the content. This, of course, put dium is the ability to change the site in ing about the efficacy of our current the task of audience building in our response to viewer feedback. The policies and alternative approaches to hands, which has been costly, but the downside is living with the feeling that crime control and incarceration. result has been a series of enterprising the project is never complete. Built We refer to 360degrees.org as an partnerships and collaborations. The into the architecture of our sites is the interactive documentary. When people site averages about 5,000 hits a day and space to play with different methods hear this, they want to know how long closer to 10,000 during the related for storytelling. it is. Of course, its length is determined NPR broadcasts. Adrienne FitzGerald, These large-scale projects can only by how the user travels through the a former social worker with a degree in be accomplished through collabora- site. The combination of high-end new media, has been working with us tion; they can be costly and incredibly graphic design, storytelling, to bring 360degrees into high schools time consuming. We have been en- interactivity and the nature of the sub- and universities. She created a pilot couraged by the growing community ject matter positions 360degrees.org program called the Social Action Net- of filmmakers, writers, photographers somewhere between art, documentary work, where students talk with ex-of- and journalists willing to pool their and activism. The site has been fea- fenders, judges and lawyers in a guided, experience and resources. It is a criti- tured at documentary film festivals, four-week program that takes place cal time, as the Web becomes increas- galleries and at new media trade shows. both online and offline. We are seeking ingly commercialized, to carve out a It has also been nominated for journal- funding to make this a national pro- space online for experimentation with ism awards. The blurring of the lines gram in partnership with several edu- these new forms of documentary. ■ has made it difficult for us to get fund- cational organizations, including a ing, yet a handful of foundations in- criminal justice textbook publisher. Sue Johnson is a documentary pho- cluding the New York State Council on 360degrees.org is in many ways an tographer and cofounder of Picture the Arts, Creative Capital, and the Cor- experiment in how far we can push the Projects, a new media production poration for Public Broadcasting came medium (and our resources) and how company specializing in Web-based on board while the project was in its much an audience is willing to engage documentaries. Picture Projects’ nascent stages. The budget for the site with a story. In this non-linear Web work can be found at www.picture- resembles that of a low-budget docu- environment there is less narrative con- projects.com. mentary film with half of the resources trol. Visitors to the site will listen to going toward our production team of characters in a different order, in dif- [email protected]

12 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet Radio Documentaries Take Listeners Into Dark Corners

David Isay is the founder of Sound getting into dark corners of this coun- tapes. I mean, making these programs Portraits Productions. Its radio docu- try and telling stories that can’t be told is all about finding tape that’s on fire mentaries profile the lives of men, on film. and stringing it together in a cohesive women and children living in com- way. So that was great. And doing the munities often neglected or misunder- ML: Why is it a great medium for interviews when you’re talking about stood. During the past 13 years, Isay’s telling the kind of stories you want to the kind of stories that I’m drawn to, work has won nearly every award in tell? it’s kind of a cross between, I don’t broadcasting, including three Peabody know what it is. I’m uncomfortable Awards, two Robert F. Kennedy Jour- Isay: Well, it’s cheap. And a lot of kind of labeling. But, it’s sort of part nalism Awards, and two Livingston the stories that interest me are about journalism, part like social work. When Awards for Young Journalists. He was people who are living on the margins. you’re doing an interview, it can be this recently awarded a MacArthur Fel- Our mission is to tell stories of people very intense sort of verbal exchange. I lowship. Included among Sound Por- who are outside of the mainstream. A come from a family of therapists. And traits’ documentary work is “Ghetto lot of times people don’t want photo- that’s enjoyable to me. Life 101,” “Witness to an Execution,” graphs, don’t want their faces shown. “The Jewish Giant,” “The Sunshine Many times they communicate best ML: What’s the part of it that you Hotel,” and “The Executive Tapes.” Isay through talking. think relates to journalism? was interviewed by Nieman Reports editor, Melissa Ludtke. ML: You’ve spoken about finding a Isay: That it tells the truth. The kind place where the concentric circles of of radio stuff that I do is close to narra- Melissa Ludtke: Can you describe what you do well come together. Could tive journalism. It’s about a kind of why you chose the radio documentary you share what you feel are the ingre- total immersion in a topic and bringing as a way to tell the stories and reflect on dients of those intersecting circles? you into a place. If you look at some- social issues? thing like the Sunshine Hotel, it’s a Isay: It’s everything from techni- matter of going into a dark place and David Isay: Well, I didn’t choose it. cally—it is not rocket science to use doing a lot of recording and then creat- It was a series of strange circumstances audio equipment, and technically I ing this space through audio where and twists of fate that kind of led me enjoyed doing it. It was just the right people can step into this other world. into making radio documentaries when amount of technical stuff so that it I was 22 years old and headed to medi- didn’t distract me. I like asking ques- ML: A journalist who goes into the cal school. It totally kind of exploded tions. And I love editing. I love hearing Sunshine Hotel and does interviews my life and sent me in a whole might ask the same ques- new direction. So I wasn’t tions you do, or might drawn to the radio documen- not. Might get similar an- tary; it just kind of hap- swers to what you get. pened…. I wasn’t a journal- But, if that person was ist. doing this as part of a I’d never taken a journal- news story on radio, then ism class. I never listened to there’d be other compo- public radio. I mean, I knew nents and responsibili- nothing. And I certainly ties. To the best of their could have ended up going ability, they would have in different directions in ra- to check out the story that dio, or leaving radio and go- they were told, to see ing to some other form of what was true and what storytelling…. And it just so might not be true. happens that it was the me- dium that was perfect for tell- Isay: And that’s sort of ing the kind of stories that I a fallacy about the work. care about. Radio is a won- Of course we do that, the derful medium to tell emo- kind of research that goes tional stories. That interests into doing a story like this, me. It’s a great medium for On soundportraits.org, visitors can learn about David Isay’s work. even though there’s never

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 13 The Documentary and Journalism

been an expert in a piece that we’ve ML: Where there is another overlap about seeing the humanity in others. done in nine years. When we do a with the role that the journalist plays in Again, it’s hard because it’s so easy to story, we’ve got cubic inches of infor- reporting a story is in the fact that get kind of clichéd. But, that’s what it mation. Every expert that could be you’re making obvious editing deci- is. The guys who do the executions in talked to has been talked to. I mean, it’s sions about what voices to include, Texas, you know, they’re decent like jazz in the sense that you can’t what sounds to make prominent, and people. The kids who live in the ghetto improvise until you’ve got the basics the order in which the story will be or the guys in the flophouse—what- down. So when we go in we do the told. ever. I do stories about people that I basic journalistic work, the research, like, who are for the most part prob- the background, the digging, talking to Isay: Sure, absolutely. The bottom ably either ignored or misunderstood people, getting to know them, and line is that hopefully I can look the or not thought about. It’s just about checking their stories as best we can. people with whom I’ve worked in the humanity. It’s just about introducing eye and not feel embarrassed about people to people. And again it’s corny, ML: But that’s not transparent in the what we’ve done together…. I like to but just seeing that everybody is sort of work you do. think that these are places that are the same. important for people who don’t live in Isay: Absolutely. But, hopefully, [them] to experience. And for people ML: I’d like to go to your experi- when people hear the work they’ll hear to meet people living these lives that ences, particularly looking on death a solidity to it. And if it’s on public are different than theirs. Because the row, where you’ve spent a lot of time, radio, they’ll understand that it’s not eight million listeners to public radio whether it was in the jails of Louisiana done lightly. If this had been done as a are typically middle class, upper middle or more recently bringing to light the straight reported news piece, the re- class, you know, people driving to or tapes from the death chamber in Geor- search that would have gone into it, on from work. I mean, that’s who you’re gia. There’s been a lot of reporting any of these pieces, is much less than playing to. My goal always is to kind of examining the death penalty from a lot what we end up doing. We spend a sneak up behind people and almost of different angles, whether it’s the long, long time doing these pieces. like quietly lift them up into this story. racial fairness angle or the question of And that involves checking it backwards And I try to carry them for 22 minutes whether there should be a death pen- and forwards and upside down. I think without them even knowing it. Not alty. What do you think your work it’s very similar to the long-form New give them the chance to turn off the illuminates that isn’t part of the tradi- Yorker sort of journalism or any other radio, if it’s successful. And then 22 tional or mainstream journalistic cov- sort of immersion journalism. It’s just minutes later quietly put them down erage of the death penalty story? that the narration is usually in the hands and walk away. That’s sort of the image of someone who is in the place that in my head of what I’m trying to do. Isay: Again, I’m not consciously we’re working. That’s what makes it thinking like “What story can I tell that different. And that’s part of what differ- ML: You want to have left them at nobody else has told?” or “How can I entiates radio from print. that point with an emotional experi- do something different?” I was in a ence primarily, or with an experience situation in which I was doing a story, ML: Your work often airs without a that could be defined as one that in- and it just kind of occurred to me, narrator’s voice per se. creases their knowledge? “What is it like for these guys who do these executions?” And I didn’t know if Isay: It always has a narrator, be- Isay: It’s an experience where it was going to turn into a five-minute cause it’s impossible to tell a story they’ve gone some place they wouldn’t piece or a no piece. And it just kind of without a narrator. And that’s great if otherwise have gone. And if it’s emo- opened up. It was just being curious you didn’t realize that someone was tional for them, that’s great; if it’s not, and then following the path and seeing narrating. There’s always a narrator. that’s fine. Whatever that experience where it leads. And these guys who we But the narrator is not us. The narrator is. But it’s a matter of leading them into interviewed, for the most part, had is someone who is from the place where a world that they would not otherwise never been asked these questions be- this documentary is taking place. In the know of or experience, and letting fore. The warden hadn’t. None of the documentary about the executions in them meet people who they otherwise people who worked in the prison had Texas, the narrator is the warden. In wouldn’t have met. been asked what’s it like to do these “The Sunshine Hotel,” the narrator is executions…. Again, it’s as much as the guy who runs the flophouse. ML: And is there a purpose in your possible trying to be the vehicle through mind beyond the transporting of some- which people can tell their stories. ML: He’s also a character in it in one to a different place? That’s what we’re trying to do, trying to some ways, too, isn’t he? be the translator to the larger world of Isay: Yeah, because I like all the some kind of insular group or what- Isay: Yeah, he is. people that I do stories about, and it’s ever, some group of people, and to

14 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet help them use this medium to tell their that you so much wanted to bring out “This American Life.” Letting people story in a way that they feel is true…. and use as documents. Instead, you see what radio could be, can be. And I’m in a really fortunate circumstance brought this consortium of stations maybe some of the work we’ve done. of getting independent funding, and together to air this, which you thought But it’s totally changed. The New York being able to do whatever I feel pas- was very important for people to hear. Times is reviewing radio documenta- sionate about, and then slamming it ries. They regularly review radio now. onto the air whichever way I can…it’s Isay: I still do. I think it’s the only We couldn’t get an intern six years ago, about not letting stories be watered document we’ll ever have of modern- and now we have the best and the down. day American executions. brightest coming out of the best Ivy League schools, lining up to do this ML: Your work, like any work, is a ML: And why do you think it’s im- stuff. People are seeing what a power- product of its time. The way that you portant for Americans to hear? ful medium this is. It’s a very exciting approach your subjects, and the way time technologically, too, because any- you approach the telling of stories has Isay: Because this is an act that’s one can take a $700 i-Mac computer something to do with the times in which being done in the name of American and have an incredibly powerful edit- we are in, with the progression or citizens. And I think people have a right ing system. You can download free change of style in terms of how the to know what’s going on…. software, and you can be at a console documentary is used. In the past, there which is a thousand times more power- seemed to be a particular sort of style ML: In terms of building this new ful than the fanciest studio was six and purpose to the documentary that consortium of public radio stations, do years ago. And you can buy a mini-disk might have changed over time in terms you think that experience will lead to player for $197, and a microphone for of the way that we, as Americans, or we, any new ways in which documentary $100 bucks, and you are a walking, as an audience, take information in. radio producers can have their stories 35mm film production studio. I mean, You may be a product of a different era aired? Or was this sort of a one-time you can’t do better than that. The po- in terms of how you go about present- situation? tential is limitless. So the dream is a lot ing stories. If you were doing “Harvest of people start picking up tape record- of Shame” today what you might do is Isay: I think that the radio docu- ers and interviewing people and play- have the migrant workers be the only mentary is vastly underutilized. A lot of ing around and adding music, and voice, as opposed to literally be stand- people should be making a lot of docu- doing all kinds of cool stuff. That would ing in the field, were you Edward R. mentaries. And there should be a lot of be the dream…. I think there’s nothing Murrow. It’s just a different style. ways to get them out there. With NPR, wrong with having a lot of great radio it’s kind of a complicated story the way journalism documentary stuff happen- Isay: Absolutely. But there were al- this happened with the decision not to ing. I think that would be the best thing ways people doing oral histories. I do broadcast the Georgia execution tapes. that could ever happen. think that doing the kind of hard hit- But I think that as much good stuff ting journalistic stuff, I mean, certainly should be able to get out there in any ML: Because we are living in an era the investigative stuff is a little bit apples way that it possibly can. All I really care where, at least, when one talks to me- and oranges with this kind of docu- about is that good stuff gets on the air dia specialists they say, “Short is better. mentary work, because usually these and gets heard by as many people as People’s attention spans aren’t there.” pieces are about kind of talking to possible. And whatever way that needs Yet this advice runs counter to what people who haven’t been talked to to be done is good with me. I think it’s you are saying. before to reveal the humanity that’s more an issue of making more people there, as opposed to uncovering hard understand what a great medium radio Isay: I think you can have a half- news. It does uncover injustice, but in is to tell stories in and getting more hour piece that seems like one minute a more roundabout way. I mean, as great stories, as opposed to there be- and a two-minute piece that seems like opposed to investigating some actual ing all these great stories that are some- seven hours. It’s about doing good single wrong that has been done. And how being kept from the public. I see work. And certainly if the stuff can with the execution tapes, that was more more that there aren’t enough. And sustain, then people will listen and similar because it’s uncovering docu- there are a lot of reasons. Because it’s appreciate it. It’s all about doing good ments that have been withheld or get- hard to make a living. But you know, stuff. ■ ting into a place that’s been routinely that’s changing, because I think we kept from the American public. So that have entered this little renaissance for would be more in that tradition. radio documentaries.

ML: National Public Radio [NPR] ML: Why do you say this? declined to broadcasting those tapes from the Georgia execution chamber Isay: I think a lot has to do with

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 15 The Documentary and Journalism Radio Storytelling Builds Community On-Air and Off ‘The journalist must be facilitator, fact-checker, ethicist, but not puppet-master….’

By Jay Allison

hat separates radio documen- made hundreds of radio features, docu- dential, lends itself to scribbled notes, tary from any documentary? mentaries and series. For much of that fragments and whispered entries at WAnd what separates public time, I’ve also been loaning out tape night. The technical inexperience of radio journalism from any journalism? recorders and tools to others, encour- the diarist doesn’t show as clearly as it Radio gets inside us. Lacking earlids, aging citizen voices on the air, repay- does in video, or even in print, and we are defenseless, vulnerable to am- ing and replaying my own start. therefore doesn’t get in the way. As the bush. Sounds and voices surprise us In an age of corporate consolidation eventual producer/editor, you are from within. As radio documentary of the press on one hand and cheap there, but you disappear. The journal- makers, we have this tactical advantage bogus Internet journalism on the other, ist must be facilitator, fact-checker, ethi- over our colleagues in print, film, tele- it is more important than ever to bring cist, but not puppet-master, allowing vision and photography. Our tool is a range of voices to the air in a sane and the listener an authentic, direct, aural story, the most primitive and pow- respectful way. The public radio jour- empathetic encounter with the teller. erful. Invisibility is our friend. Preju- nalist can assume a shepherding role. dice is suspended while the listener is Lost & Found Sound blind, only listening. Life Stories www.lostandfoundsound.com Perhaps this distinguishing trait lies www.atlantic.org quietly near the heart of public radio Our series “Lost & Found Sound” journalism, close to the utopian ideal My first batch of tape recorders went (produced with the Kitchen Sisters, that we use these airwaves to share our out beginning in the 1980’s with the Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson for NPR’s stories as we try to understand each series “Life Stories,” which sought out “All Things Considered”) offered an- other better, to not be afraid of each stories that seemed best told from the other tool to the citizen storyteller— other, to come a little closer together. source. (A six-hour collection aired on voice mail. We asked listeners to call We’re not regular media, after all, or NPR stations this summer.) It’s hard to and tell us about precious audio arti- even regular journalism. We have a say how I found the storytellers, but facts they’d saved. In my role as “cura- calling to mission and public service once I declared I was interested, they tor” I poured through hundreds of that exists outside the marketplace and seemed to cross my path. I equipped these messages, and in virtually every squarely in the civic realm. We can them, instructed them in the use of the case the phone message itself became serve that mission through traditional gear, and worked with them editori- the spine of the piece. In the message reporting and documentary, but we ally, often bringing them to mix in my was the story, the link between the also help citizens speak for themselves, home recording studio. caller and the sound. to one another, directly. The grown son of concentration The callers, in telling of their trea- I got into public radio because some- camp survivors accompanies his par- sures, seemed to be in the presence of one at NPR loaned me a tape recorder ents on their visit to the Holocaust the past. The voices they described and microphone. It was the mid-70’s Museum; he hopes they’ll talk to him were in the air around them, true and NPR was just inventing itself, al- about their experience for the first time ghosts, filled with breath, as real as a ways a good time to join an enterprise. in his life. He asks for a recorder. A lock of hair. Some of the recordings I used the recorder as a passport into young woman wants to revisit the were intensely personal—the lullaby every part of life that seemed interest- scenes and characters of her hospital- of an immigrant grandparent, the an- ing. I could find out about anything I ization and near-death from anorexia swering machine message from a child wanted. Amazing. At the beginning, I 10 years before. She needs the pass- given up for adoption. Others fell at was simply a citizen, suddenly armed port of the recorder to enter her own the intersection between the individual with the tools of production and a past. These sorts of stories cannot be and history—a family’s recording of an means of distribution, an independent told best from outside. They are better ancestor’s eyewitness account of the journalist being born. By apprenticing lived and narrated by the principals, Gettysburg Address; reels of tape made at the news shows, reading everything the main characters in the stories of in the fighting holes of Vietnam, I could get my hands on, and prodding their lives. brought to us by the platoon mate of my elders with questions, I learned the Radio is well suited to the “diary” the 19-year-old Marine who recorded trade on the fly and in the next 25 years form. It’s inherently intimate, confi- them and died there.

16 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet

In every case, the direct connection nity, they actually build it. We live in a Each month a new special guest of the living citizen to the sounds of the place that is geographically fragmented writes a “manifesto” and hangs around past was the key. We called it “the (islands, after all) and each region feels the site, critiquing new work and mak- universal ancestor effect.” A itself to be more “special” than the ing conversation. Recent guests: Tony grandfather’s voice, enhanced by the others. Yet the radio signal extends Kahn, , Paul Tough, The love of the grandchild who tells us across them all, disrespecting the Kitchen Sisters, , Studs about it, then shared on the radio, is boundaries. We have feuds and jealou- Terkel [See accompaning excerpts from somehow transformed to become sies, political division, parochial igno- the Web site on page 18.] Editors, pro- everyone’s grandfather. In the absence rance (Is it so different from anywhere ducers and managers throughout the of a concrete and distancing visual else?), but these stories tend, almost public radio system read and listen to image, an invisible human link is made miraculously, to break those down. this work and participate in these con- and, for that instant, nationalities and When a story begins, we don’t know versations, but they are also there for races are joined through voice and where the teller is from, so we listen, anyone to read, listen to and join. memory. All the dead are one. Your without judgment. We like what we Producers and citizens gather at mother is mine. Only radio, and only hear. But then, when we discover the Transom.org to talk about radio docu- public radio at that, has the uncanny teller is not from our island, we must mentary and to try their hands at it. means and the actual calling to make decide how to incorporate the contra- Subjects of documentaries talk with that happen. diction that may lead us, helplessly, to those who made them and to listeners acceptance. “Well, I guess they’re not about editorial and stylistic choices. WCAI & WNAN all bad over there,” we think. And, The site encourages an interactive, self- www.cainan.org eventually, we may even come to think correcting, open-eared, civic journal- of their stories as our stories. ism made possible by the Internet and We have brand new public radio extended to public radio. stations here on Cape Cod, Martha’s Transom.org The site represents virtual street- Vineyard, and Nantucket in Massachu- www.transom.org level access to national air, as most setts, the newest in America. We wanted Transom stories end up adopted by a them to sound like here, not just any- Finally, the Internet. If there’s de- national program. An on-air mention where. A place defines itself by its sto- mocracy in storytelling, it’s here. If of Transom.org drives listeners back to ries, and we have chosen to broadcast there’s an openly accessible way to the Web, making a creative circle be- our citizens’ stories on and off all day, pass on what we’ve done before in tween the traditional media and the unexpectedly—portraits, oral histories, public radio and to try to make things new. At Transom.org, we have a voice poems, anecdotes, memories, frag- better, it’s here. Our current attempt is mail line to collect stories, we loan out ments of life overheard. They pop up Transom.org (a project of Atlantic Pub- tape recorders, and we broadcast Tran- during every national show around the lic Media). We call it a showcase and som pieces locally on WCAI and WNAN. clock, short bursts of life as experi- workshop for new public radio, and So, everything ends up tied together. enced or remembered by all of us who we premiered the Web site in Febru- Journalists help citizens reach the live here. They are the thread in the ary. It’s a combination library, master air, to tell of their lives. Public radio fabric of our broadcast day. class, and audition stage. carries the voices out and back, across The effect is startling, unexpected. The site showcases new work from a borderless country populated by the You are listening to news of the world first-time producers and unheard work living and the dead. Citizen stories are and then, during a pause, an unher- from established producers. As I write shared out loud, journalists mediating alded speaker—a local elder or high- this, the featured piece is a 40-year-old, the exchange, partners in the mission. school kid or sandwich maker or scien- and utterly contemporary, documen- Somewhere between the din of the tist—pops in. The voices of our neigh- tary from , which never Internet and the drone of corporate bors, surprising us, are given equal received a national broadcast. Last media is a place for these voices, testi- weight with events on the world stage. month, it was a documentary from a fying on their own behalf. ■ The concept has become wonder- first-time producer in Seattle using his fully popular here. Learning from “Lost mini-disc recorder, and skills he picked Jay Allison is an independent broad- & Found Sound,” we’ve also installed up at Transom, to craft a remarkable cast journalist living in Woods Hole, voice mail where people can tell us story about his friend’s suicide. Massachusetts. He is founder and about something that happened years Transom holds or links to virtually executive producer of WCAI/WNAN ago, or that morning. Learning from all the tools—technical, editorial, philo- and Atlantic Public Media. His radio “Life Stories,” we buy old cassette re- sophical—people would need to tell documentaries air often on NPR and corders from eBAY to loan to whom- their own radio stories. Encouragingly, his solo-crew video documentaries ever promises to use them. quite a few high-school and college on ABC News “.” Listeners have said that these little students are frequenting the site and breaks not only contribute to commu- their work has been featured there. [email protected]

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 17 The Documentary and Journalism Listening to Radio Talk At Transom.org, the conversation is about documentaries and public radio.

Transom.org, an online project of At- the best technique would be the old trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.”—David lantic Public Media in Woods Hole, one of recording everything on reel-to- Clark (writer) Massachusetts, provides tools for pub- reel analog tape. This has one great lic radio production and features advantage (assuming, of course, you “Nailing Jell-O to the wall isn’t as original work from first-time produc- were not silly enough to make a backup hard as you’d think. Getting your ers. It also hosts forums for the gen- dub): at some point in the editing you mother to appreciate it is much eral discussion of public radio jour- will lose the tape…. It will vanish; or harder.”—Andy Knight (listener, critic) nalism and storytelling. What follows you’ll step on it by mistake and crush it. are a few excerpts from the Transom Then, fate having made these deci- “Radio is like food. You spend days discussion boards. Some exchanges sions for you, you just work with what’s and months and hours gathering the are sequential. Most are not. The fol- left.”—Larry Massett ingredients, cutting, mixing, making it lowing comments were selected from cook. The minute it hits air/the table, recent conversations on the general “We work in documentary because it’s gone—but it’s transformed. The themes of radio documentary and the we don’t have enough money to hire memory of it lingers, almost like a role of public radio. Transom is fre- good actors.”—Scott Carrier dream.”—The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki quented by seasoned journalists, be- Silva and Davia Nelson, independent ginners and listeners. The happy “It’s one thing to write a piece of radio producers) equalizing effect of online conversa- fiction and say, at the end, well, okay, tion is that it matters less who you are that sure didn’t turn out exactly as I “Throw out all the good tape. Keep than what you have to say.—Jay imagined it would, and quite another only the great tape. Invent some arti- Allison to sit down to write about, say, grandma, fice to string the disparate pieces of and have grandma come out looking great tape together into something that like nothing so much as a wet card- sounds like a story. Invent many ex- “It was slowly discovered that there board box filled with old issues of cuses to tell NPR why this works so well can be no such thing as an objective Reader’s Digest, a sewing machine, and and not even a second can be changed. documentary. However, it’s such an a pot of boiling cabbage.”—Paul When NPR tells you to cut it to half the attractive illusion that documentarians Maliszewski (writer) length, throw away all the great tape are always finding new ways to fake it. and keep only the absolutely stellar That’s our job.”—Larry Massett (inde- “Sometimes I feel like I’m so much tape, then repeat above steps.”—Barrett pendent radio producer) more manipulative on the radio. I know Golding (independent radio producer) how to use my voice to make you feel “I’d say that what’s left out is at least a certain way. And that’s not writing— “We are committed to never altering as important as what’s put in. This is that’s acting. I get tired of acting some- the spirit or intent of what someone where the tension comes from. And if times. Which is why it’s nice to be able says, but we do cut the hell out of the overall tension of a story is just to go back to the cold old page. Also, them.”—The Kitchen Sisters right, then it stands on its own, like a real time is an unforgiving medium.”— tensegrity structure—tension and com- Sarah Vowell (writer, editor, “This “I strongly believe that everyone has pression, strings and rods. If there is American Life”) a story to tell. I also believe some are too much or too little of one or the unwilling and others are unable to tell other, the thing falls apart.”—Scott “Think of comedic timing, where a their story.”—Andy Knight Carrier (writer, independent radio pro- pause after the punch line allows the ducer) audience to process the joke. Then “Look for the people in the funny think of some nervous humor-impaired hats. With some people, it’s apparent “Reality is just a bunch of raw friend who can’t tolerate that tiny si- that they have stories they want to tell. data.”—Carol Wasserman (“All Things lence and jumps his own joke with With others, you have to find out where Considered” commentator) premature explanation.”—Carol they keep their hats.”—Jay Allison Wasserman “For newcomers struggling to edit “People tend to spill their guts on their tape down to manageable size, “Reading most long sentences is like long drives.”—Scott Carrier

18 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet

“It’s hard to find unprocessed voices “I still maintain excellence shows the responsibility, the challenge of that are coherent and honest and up more often in public radio because public radio.”—Studs Terkel (writer, clear.”—Paul Tough (story editor, The no one owns public radio, except the oral historian, radio host) New York Times magazine) public.”—Ian Brown (radio host, “This Morning”) “What would your ideal radio day “Listening to the radio every day for be?”—Sydney Lewis (oral historian) an entire year was a prison sentence. It “The BBC is like a beacon, it can was the most depressing, annoying, turn a cool beam of light on a story “I’d want the human voice express- debilitating project I have ever under- anywhere in the world and people see ing grievances, or delight, or whatever taken, and I have a master’s degree in what’s going on. American public ra- it might be. But something real”— art history.”—Sarah Vowell dio is more like a campfire, where we Studs Terkel like to swap personal stories and feel “Public radio has always felt like the like we’re sharing the experience and “I still believe in public radio’s po- lecture hall of the world’s greatest free the understanding.”—Tony Kahn (ra- tential. Because it’s the one mass me- university. You still need to get your- dio host, “The World”) dium that’s still crafted almost entirely self dressed and down to the library to by true believers.”—Sarah Vowell ■ do the reading, but you can show up “You hear stuff you haven’t heard for the talks in your jammies. Which is before, from a stranger or from some- a great convenience.”—Carol one you know, and you think, ‘Yeah, I Wasserman am connected.’ I think that’s the goal,

First-Person Narratives on Radio Document Historic Memory While emotionally powerful, their production presents journalistic challenges.

By Sandy Tolan

ome stories are so good you just Holocaust, arrived in Ramle, now an 43-minute radio documentary broad- want to get out of their way. Or so Israeli city. Dalia would later be told cast on “Fresh Air” for the 50th anniver- Sit seemed with “The Lemon Tree,” that she was the only one on the boat sary of Israel’s birth and the 1948 war. a documentary that captured, with two who didn’t get sick. Israeli resettle- The story chronicles a slice of Middle deeply personal stories, a slice of the ment authorities gave the family a stone East history through a difficult friend- last 50 years of Middle East history. home in the center of town. ship, which began when Dalia invited In July 1948, at the height of the For 19 years, Bashir’s family lived as Bashir in with the words, “This is your Arab-Israeli War, Bashir Al-Khayri, six refugees in the West Bank, always home.” years old, fled with his family from dreaming of the future, when they’d This was precisely the kind of story their stone home in old Palestine. The return. Dalia’s went about forging a my Homelands Productions colleagues family made its way on foot from Ramle new society, always haunted by the and I were seeking when we embarked to the tent-covered hills of Ramallah in past, which they’d barely survived. on “World Views,” a series of first- the West Bank. They were among the In the summer of 1967, just after the person documentary narratives for 700,000 Palestinian refugees in a grow- Six Day War, Bashir decided to try to public radio. Frustrated with the rise of ing Middle East Diaspora; they lived in visit his house—for which his father, corporate infotainment, my colleagues shelters and crowded into relatives’ now blind, still had the key and the and I were looking for a way to cut living rooms, determined one day soon deed. Bashir made his way to Ramle through the stream of information and to return to the family’s home. and to the front step of the family’s dehumanizing images absent of mean- Three months later, Dalia Ashkenazi, home. ing, understanding or deeper context. six months old, embarked on a journey Bashir rang the bell. Most absent, it seemed—and what ra- to the new state of Israel. The family, Dalia answered. dio was best at providing—was voice: Bulgarian Jews who’d escaped the Thus begins “The Lemon Tree,” a stories told by ordinary people from

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 19 The Documentary and Journalism

the depths of their experience. Our Homelands documentaries had scribed the outlines of Dalia and We started thinking about a series of taken this more standard approach, be Bashir’s story. In 1987, at the begin- stories to be told directly by the people it with street kids in Rio, an Amazon ning of the Intifada, Dalia had written in the midst of the news. These would chief in Bolivia, farmers in India, or an open letter to Bashir in the Jerusa- be perspective-based narratives getting while “interviewing” penguins in Ant- lem Post on the eve of his deportation beneath the surface of daily events, arctica. from Ramallah. (Bashir was suspected telling the story from a deeper place With a first-person story, especially of being an organizer of the Intifada than conventional reporting could. At controversial ones or those narrated and deported to Lebanon.) Dalia had this point (1993) there were a few by someone with a strong point of urged the Israelis not to uproot Bashir examples of this emerging in public view, issues of balance, representation a second time, while also urging Bashir radio—Jay Allison’s “Life Stories” se- and context emerge. What about the to moderate his political views. From ries, Dave Isay’s “Ghetto Life 101,” along other side of the story? What is being exile, Bashir had written a response, with public television’s “P.O.V.” and left out that would ordinarily be filled published in Arabic and eventually in the BBC’s “Video Diaries”—but our in by a reporter/ narrator, and how can Hebrew. Lamis knew Bashir and idea was to get reports from the ground, we put that context back into the piece? thought he’d be willing to talk to me. throughout the world, as stories un- What happens when someone wants One night, over dinner in Jerusa- folded and historical events were re- input, or even editorial control, in the lem, an Israeli filmmaker told me the called. telling of his own story? (For example, story again. It was a powerful story, she We imagined, for example, a Cuban in adapting a writer’s work for broad- agreed, but she didn’t think Dalia would narrating her story from a raft bound cast.) And how, ultimately, do you find agree to talk. Dalia, she said, felt used for the United States. Or an African a story that is both particular and meta- by people trying to frame her history to American traveling to the old slave phorical of a larger reality? suit their political purposes. house on Senegal’s Goree Island, re- For “The Lemon Tree,” balance was The next day Lamis and I ran into versing the journey of his ancestors. Or not an issue. In their own ways, Dalia Bashir on the street. Sure, he said, he’d a Moscow investigative reporter, one and Bashir represented the fears and be happy to sit for some interviews. of the first to write publicly about the aspirations of their peoples. Far more And though he hadn’t seen Dalia in KGB, telling a personal history of the complicated—for an assignment to years, he thought she would be, too. dissident movement in the former So- identify a story that was somehow rep- Bashir was right, and over the course viet Union. Or a Ukrainian nuclear resentative of the 50-year struggle be- of the next three weeks I shuttled from physicist recording an audio journal of tween Israelis and Palestinians—was Ramallah to Jerusalem and back, re- day-to-day life in the aftermath of in determining this was the story among cording five sessions with each, per- Chernobyl. Or a New Delhi poet and many to tell. haps 15 hours of tape in all. I envi- an “untouchable” rickshaw driver de- For the first two weeks, on the sioned simply intercutting the stories: scribing their chance encounter across ground in Israel, the West Bank and Bashir’s invitation to Dalia to visit his vast barriers of caste, culture and life East Jerusalem, I did no recording. family in Ramallah (nearly unprec- experience. (Some of these ideas were Instead, I read and listened to history, edented in 1967); Bashir’s father’s sub- inspired by experiences of my 1993 including Israeli military accounts, Pal- sequent visit to the house in Ramle and Nieman colleagues.) estinian oral histories, Israel’s “new” the tears streaming down the blind But what we didn’t anticipate was historians (who challenge the tradi- man’s face as he touched the family’s how much the series—indeed the en- tional Zionist accounts), the heroes of old lemon tree; Dalia’s shock at Bashir’s tire genre of first-person narrative— what the Israelis call their War of Inde- imprisonment in Israel on charges he would present significant challenges pendence and the sons and daughters had helped plan a supermarket bomb- not to be found in the standard news of what the Palestinians call their Naqba, ing in Jerusalem; Bashir’s revelation documentary. In the traditional form, or catastrophe. Soon I began record- that his own fingers had been blown the reporter (and/or producer) inter- ing similar accounts, considering the off as a child, picking up a booby- views, records sound, writes and nar- chasm between them that had scarcely trapped mine in a field in Gaza. (Bashir rates, balancing the story with compet- narrowed in the last 50 years. But still had managed to hide this from Dalia ing perspectives. From Edward R. I searched for the story and characters for years, his left hand always in his Murrow forward, this has been the that would connect the narratives and pocket.) style of choice for many an aspiring tell the larger truth. I felt as much like In the end we decided that these radio journalist. The style itself need a casting director as a journalist. stories, powerful as they were, could not be dry, especially when accompa- Earlier my wife, Lamis Andoni, a not be sustained for 43 minutes. I ob- nied by compelling interviews, vivid Palestinian journalist who covered the tained archival tape (early radio ac- writing, a strong sense of place Gulf War for The Christian Science counts from the 1948 war; a CBC broad- (Murrow’s London rooftops come to Monitor and the Financial Times (and cast in the wake of the supermarket mind), and evocative use of sound. was a 1993 Nieman Fellow), had de- bombing) and approached a pianist to

20 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Radio and the Internet compose music to use at key moments. This gave breathing space between the A Festival to Celebrate Radio words, varying the aural images and allowing time for the words to sink in. To add historical context and move the Documentaries piece through time, and at the urging of Danny Miller, executive producer of Organized by Chicago Public Radio, it happens in “Fresh Air,” I added snippets of narra- tion at several points in the story. October. But what made the narrative work were the voices that mined the history: Dalia’s, in evocative English, and By Johanna Zorn Bashir’s, read by a native Arabic speaker, Walid Haddad, so as not, literally, to Imagine a Sundance Festival for radio 150 entries, our final tally is more than lose anything in translation. and you start to get the idea of what the 300 from a dozen different countries. These voices speak to the potential Third Coast International Audio Festi- There is a renaissance of interest in the of first-person narratives for radio. val is all about. This festival is designed documentary form in print, film and in Though they can be fraught with com- to honor and enrich the world of docu- radio. , host and producer of plication, and the producers must of- mentary audio and create new oppor- “This American Life,” recently explained ten struggle with issues of balance, tunities for extraordinary work to reach it this way: “At this odd cultural mo- historical context, and the ethics of audiences. It’s a competition with ment, when we’re inundated with sto- who gets to tell the story, first-person monetary support going to the win- ries all day long, it’s still remarkable narratives can cut through the sludge ners. It’s a weekend conference, Octo- how few TV shows, movies, songs and of endless information to the truth as ber 26-27, magazines it’s felt on the ground. In this way they in Chicago. actually cap- hold promise to be a democratizing It’s a pro- ture what force in media. gram to be our lives are Of course it also helps when you hosted by really like. have a narrative vehicle as powerfully Ira Glass We hunger simple as the one I encountered in and featur- for some- “The Lemon Tree”—a stone home of ing the thing that shared memory. This is the house that award-win- puts our Dalia, after the death of her parents, ning works. lives in per- declared should be dedicated to the It will be spective. common history of the Ashkenazis and produced That’s what the Al-Khayris. Today the place is called and distrib- documen- Open House. During the day, it’s a uted by Chicago Public Radio. And it’s tary is for.” kindergarten for Arab children in Is- a Web site (www.thirdcoastfestival.org). The Third Coast festival is a new rael. In the evenings, it serves as a Chicago Public Radio created this opportunity to celebrate the audio house of encounter for Arab and Jew: a festival because there is a bounty of documentary form, revealing the power place to discuss history and to look for engaging work being produced today of radio and the Internet to document a way forward. ■ on radio and the Internet. Documen- our world.■ tary programs are emerging from the Sandy Tolan, a 1993 Nieman Fellow, networks (National Public Radio and Johanna Zorn has worked as a is co-executive producer of Home- Public Radio International) and also producer/director at Chicago Public lands Productions, based in from stations (Chicago’s “This Ameri- Radio for 20 years. For the past 10 Gloucester, Massachusetts. Among can Life,” WBUR’s “Inside Out”), from years she has produced the nation- other awards, “The Lemon Tree” won independent radio producers and in- ally acclaimed series, “Chicago the 1998 Overseas Press Club Award creasingly from people who never Matters.” As part of this series, Zorn for best radio news or interpretation thought of themselves as “producers.” has had the opportunity to work of foreign affairs. Tolan is currently Writers, artists and others in the last with many of the nation’s top docu- working on “Border Stories,” a series group share a fondness for radio and mentary producers. of documentaries for public radio often have a powerful story to tell. about the U.S.-Mexico border. I suppose we should not have been so surprised when, instead of receiving [email protected] [email protected]

Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 21