If it were a broadcast television network, a commercial network, there would be a very expensive firm organizing a response, getting spokespeople on the air, getting people who were friends of the network going on the air, and there would be a pushback.Īnd the whole thing was being done in a kind of amateur-hour kind of way, where it lacked the scale, and it lacked the ferocity of the kind of response that it should have.Īs an American, I can say, I spent most of my time in public broadcasting feeling so jealous of the CBC. ![]() Public radio is a multi-million dollar business, 500 radio stations, you know, millions and millions of dollars worth of shows. There was kind of a right-wing, organized campaign, where it was a talking point of the right in a lot of different venues-on television, in Congress, and a bunch of other places-where people were attacking public radio at a time when our funding was up for grabs. And also here's the other thing about it: public radio in the States is not organized to fight a fight. And instead NPR gave a rather tepid defence. I felt like they should come out punching. On NPR's 2011 response to accusations of liberal bias from the right You know, like, Ira should definitely contribute, and obviously he has a very good vision for this, but who's the host really going to be? And honestly, I couldn't have afforded anybody who could have done it, so I was stuck with myself. I had been a reporter on national programs here in the States, and they'd say, well, Ira's a very good reporter, a good producer, but like, when's the adult going to show up to produce the show? And it's a lot of stations, it's a big country. And so one of the comments we would get back at the beginning was, people knew me. The way we do it here, you have to talk each program director into picking up your show. (Monty Brinton/Showtime/Associated Press) ![]() This American Life host Ira Glass brings his live show Reinventing Radio to Vancouver Saturday. The way the American system works, there's not a network boss the way there is at the CBC. But when we tried to sell it to other radio stations, then there problems. I didn't have trouble at the radio station I was at. It will be funny and it will have feeling and you feel it's just documenting some aspect of what it's like to be a person, in addition to covering the news, that's the thing I'm talking about.Īnd then I thought there was a style of presentation on public radio that was more formal, and even maybe a little corny, that it seemed like somebody could change. Like on As It Happens sometimes, you hear an interview and you just cannot believe the way the person's character unfolds. Sometimes people achieve it with a really beautiful interview. ![]() These kind of driveway-moment stories, that keep you in your driveway. On public radio in the States, there would be one story like that every day or two, and I just thought, well, these are the stories that everybody remembers and loves, and you could just do a whole show out of those. And it's the kind of feature story that you would hear on the daily news shows, where there were characters and scenes and feelings, and there was just space for things to happen, and for the characters to feel three-dimensional. "There was a kind of story that I really loved. ![]() The conversation ranged from Glass's earliest vision for This American Life, to the changing landscape in public media. Glass made the comments earlier this week in a CBC Radio interview with On The Coast's Stephen Quinn. "And partly it's just an excuse to play a lot funny clips." "Basically I wander around stage with an iPad, and I can play clips and music and sound, and recreate the radio show around me as I speak," says Glass. Ira Glass, host of NPR's wildly popular program This American Life, will be stepping out from behind the studio mic and onto the stage at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver on Saturday.
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