When you left magazines, as an editor, did you instantly miss it–the deadlines and the monthly cycle of renewal?
I didn’t. Lord knows, if there’s a magazine that wants me to be the editor, or I have an idea for a magazine in two years or eight years, maybe I’ll do that again, so I don’t feel like “I’m out, it’s done.” I didn’t miss it. I felt like I had an incredibly fortunate run of going from never having been an editor, or working my way up through various senior editor jobs. I went from just being a writer to being an editor of a magazine that I loved. And then got to be the editor of this other really cool magazine, and so I had 10 years of being an editor in a very spoiling way, so now, I didn’t miss it. If I hadn’t had the pleasure and the good fortune to do the fun things I’ve done afterward, I might. I would miss having fun and doing good work, but I have not missed magazines specifically. You know, working at the New Yorker was fun, and being part of that brain trust. I think if I were just sitting home writing books, and the very occasional piece of journalism, and didn’t have the collegial, collective experience of the radio show–I mean, I think in my ideal world, being in your own head for five hours a day, and then having water cooler interaction for a few hours most days is a great combination.
I would certainly miss sitting down at the end of each month and holding the new issue in my lap–that new thing each month, that thing with some gloss and some heft in my hands.
Yes. Yes–in real terms, as I’ve turned down a couple of monthly magazine jobs over the last eight years, I had to ask myself these questions, about how much do I want that specific thing in my life. In those cases, it seemed like it would be settling too much, having been able to do it where I did it. To some degree, I got spoiled by my luck in magazines, and so rather than staying in magazines for the sake of magazines, I went to other realms.
New York of all places is the hardest place on the planet to dabble across media, unless you’ve reached the top of the heap in the meritocracy. The distraction of making ends meet there is onerous, to say the least.
I think you’re right. In that sense, I lucked out. One of the other ways I’ve been lucky is that because I’m older, it was not as onerously expensive in 1976 and 1981, as it is now. One has on
e’s financial ups and downs, but that has never been a huge problem, you know, I had rent-controlled apartments and all those lucky sorts of things. But in terms of crossing from thing to thing, you know, the default system in all professions is to not allow that to happen very much. I guess my hunch is that it has become more normal and more possible than it used to be. I never sought that out, per se. This has all been a sort of retroactive figuring out a story, rather than having a plan and executing it.
You’re a print guy through and through, an ink-stained wretch, a writer. How did you end up in radio?
It is like print in a way, and more like print than most print that I’ve done, in that it is about telling stories, at least the way we do it. In a funny way, having started writing fiction and then gone to radio was good–because it’s more about storytelling. What it reminds me of about print is that experience I had especially at Spy, of having this really intimate relationship with readers. The readers who loved Spy really loved it, and really felt like this was their thing and it’s speaking right to them. And I’ve had very much that experience with this show, more than with the New Yorker or the New York Times magazine, New York magazine. I’ve had much more that kind of intimate, passionate audience connection. Being “the star,” being “the talent” is different than anything I’ve done.
Why do you think radio connects with people that way? You can work at a national magazine and print a million copies and get fewer than a dozen letters to the editor.
Absolutely.
But radio seems to resonate with people. Why? And given that it does, why isn’t there more quality radio like Studio 360, This American Life, Prairie Home Companion, Joe Frank–more storytelling radio?
I agree. Part of it is that public radio in its odd confederation, monolithic but not monolithic way, has sort of cornered that market on a certain level. So, if somebody has an idea for another kind of interesting radio, it would be hard frankly at this point to do it outside of the public radio system.
The emails we get from listeners–it’s almost too much of a burden of worshipfulness, which feels great. The true cliché that I encountered as I entered this world, and talked to people in it, was that radio is an intimate medium. OK, fine. Everybody says what they want about their medium. But I guess that’s really true. I guess it’s that you’re alone in your car, alone in your kitchen, the voice is coming to you, and has this kind of humanoid person-to-person quality that print doesn’t have. I mean, I have that with certain writers and certain print pieces. TV doesn’t have that, by and large. I think radio is more like print than TV, which seems counterintuitive because they’re both electronic, but television to me is less focused, and the way people experience television is more voyeuristic. You’re looking at the woman giving the news, rather than listening to what she’s saying.
I have nothing against public television, I think it’s great. However, it’s become less singular in the world of television. That hasn’t happened in public radio. So I think as the rest of commercial radio becomes more Clear Channelized, and similar in the same commodity crud that’s on the airwaves, I think public radio in its way, with its various quirks and ups and downs, is the place that provides this stuff that aspires to excellence.
There’s a certain lunatic fringe who complain about public radio getting too conservative and moneyed, considering its humble, lefty origins in the 60s.
It is the mainstream. I heartily agree–when I hear Ira Glass at public radio conventions sort of light into the audience saying, “You’ve become conservative, you accept mediocrity.” I say hear, hear. You know, you look at history, you look at any revolutionary movement in the arts and culture in countries, and there is that moment, once they win, essentially, the tendency is there to become less innovative and less hungry. They become the establishment. As Thomas Jefferson said, new revolutions are required every so often. You know, my self-critical faculties never go away, and I could certainly give you a powerful critique of public radio, where its not perfect and not magnificent. On the other hand, compared to what? You don’t want to set the perfect against the good.
You’re certainly in a good position to help keep them honest, given your status as a kind of outsider coming into the medium.
And that they were open to me doing this show. So yeah. I mean, I’ll let you say that we’re an example of how public radio can renew itself. Because it would be unseemly for me to say it.
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