This American Life’s Ira Glass Speaks at Brown, Talks to GoLocal
Monday, April 11, 2011
Glass returned to his alma mater, Brown University, to speak at the MCM@50 conference, a celebration of the Modern Culture and Media Department’s anniversary.
During a conversation at Paragon before the panel on Saturday, Glass told GoLocalProv about the delights of interviewing, why his work will never get easier—and why that’s the best part.
GLP: This American Life takes stories from the everyday, stories that could be boring, and makes them interesting. Tell me about how you do that.
IG: The design of the show is to go after some story that contains something we haven’t heard before. Part of this is aggressively searching for stories. We want there to be a plot with surprises in it, as well as unique thoughts about the world.
GLP: So how do you prepare to get this story out of someone?
IG: After we choose a topic, we brainstorm before the interview about what this topic really means. Then, we run ideas around the person, hoping that they will say something interesting.
Generally, any interview that’s good is going to be surprising. I opened my most recent show by saying that a surprising thing had happened during the interview. I was ready to talk to this guy about poker, and he was ready to talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
GLP: How do you select your stories after you have chosen a theme?
IG: Another big trick is that we kill a bunch of material. Like half. Everyone has a story to tell, but not necessarily one that’s good enough to put on the radio. When we choose a theme, we will end up with 3 or 4 stories, but we start with 15 or 20. Sometimes on the day of we aren’t sure which ones we are running.
GLP: What is it like to be back at Brown?
IG: It’s lovely. My work for This American Life is a lot like being an undergrad—it’s always more work than I can do. It’s an overwhelming dread, where you can have the chance each week to prove to the world you’re stupid. It leads to questioning: have I done everything I can to make this spectacular? Were our premises right? Did I think this through? We can always do more work to make things better.
GLP: And this was how you felt at Brown?
IG: When I was at Brown, I was a bit of a drudge. I was a super hard worker, very serious. I got a lot out of it. But, one of the things I wish someone had told me as an undergrad, it’s important to amuse yourself at your job. People tell you that it’s important to be serious, but it’s just as important to be amused and have fun in your work.
GLP: You have been working for radio for more than 30 years. How has your work changed?
IG: Radio work doesn’t seem easy, but when you are a student you assume that when you get to a certain point in your career, you’re good. But that doesn’t really happen. There is stuff that you do well, but you realize that there is always stuff you don’t know how to do.
GLP: Is there anything specific that you learned recently?
IG: I have been working on this investigative piece for six months, on this judge. I’m not an investigative reporter–and it’s hard. I felt lost while working on part of it. But that’s what makes it interesting. It’s the bad and the good together. That’s the most terrifying and most satisfying.
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