In “Reinventing Radio: An Evening with Ira Glass,” the award-winning radio broadcaster spoke about how he and his reporters find stories and played clips from throughout the history of the program.
When Ira Glass mentioned his degree in semiotics, he was surprised to be answered by enthusiastic cheers from the audience.
“That’s the only time anyone has ever said ‘woo’ after the world ‘semiotics,' ” Glass said. “Is it possible that you were at Mill Fest before this?”
In “Reinventing Radio: An Evening with Ira Glass,” Glass, the host and executive producer of the NPR program This American Life, spoke to a nearly full Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium audience Saturday night, discussing topics including party schools, Donald Trump and animal attacks.
During the event, Glass touched on how he and other This American Life reporters find their strange and previously unheard stories. In one example, Glass played clips from when reporter Alex Blumberg spoke with a woman who stocks vending machines on the USS John C. Stennis, a warship stationed in the Arabian sea during the Afghanistan war. Glass contrasted the unusual story with reporting from media outlets such as CNN, which Glass said have the tendency to focus on the broader and more serious picture.
“We consciously go out, look for those moments, cultivate those moments and when those moments arise we pounce on them,” Glass said.
In addition, Glass discussed how the program tends to ease into the introduction of a topic, instead of outright stating it at the beginning of a broadcast. With topics such as climate change, Glass said, most people already know where they stand and won’t feel inclined to listen to an hour broadcast about it.
Glass mentioned one story about Guantanamo Bay, in which two men were sent to the detention camp in Cuba for making a fake bounty of $113 for Bill Clinton, the president at the time. The fake bounty was in response to the bounty placed on Osama bin Laden, but they were nevertheless held and interrogated for three years before it became apparent that they were joking.
“I say this with pride,” Glass said. “We have the single funniest hour on Guantanamo in American broadcasting.”
Steve Beha, an audience member from the Albany area, came to the event with his daughter, Miranda, who didn’t originally enjoy broadcasts like This American Life.
“I relate to the young lady who spoke earlier who was not interested in podcasts because her parents listened to it,” Miranda said, referencing an audience member’s question from the Q&A session. “When he would drive us to school every day, NPR was on, so I was adamantly against it.”
Steve said he enjoyed Glass’ demonstration during the show of how background music influences the reported sound clips by drastically changing the mood depending on what was chosen to be played. To prove his point, Glass played humorous music behind the story of a man recalling his father pouring gasoline into a hornet’s nest, lighting it on fire and running away while the nest erupted into flames.
“Just to sit all day and try to figure out what music you’re going to put behind something like that — that would be amazing to do,” Steve said.
Glass placed a particular emphasis on journalism students in the audience, asking them to raise their hands, which quickly prompted him to realize they were mostly concentrated in the cheaper, balcony seats.
“I couldn’t afford seats down here until I was like 35,” he said.
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In the Q&A session, Glass only fielded questions from students in the audience.
Sean Fen, an audience member from Columbus, said he enjoyed the event, but felt it was more focused toward journalism students.
“I find the show really interesting and sort of genuine,” Fen said. “I think that 'Snap Judgement' is a little too produced, same thing with 'Radiolab.' ”
Glass discussed the topic of party schools — especially relevant the day of Mill Fest — which was humorously portrayed in the episode on the antics of drunken students at the No. 1 party school at the time, Penn State. Afterward, he admitted his own enjoyment of the stress-relieving substance.
“When you have a lot of stress you have two options: religion or alcohol,” Glass said.
@seanthomaswolfe
