Each week, the award-winning program “This American Life” airs on more than 500 public radio stations across the United States. The hour-long show — a journalistic non-fiction program that debuted in November of 1995 — is heard by more than 2.2 million listeners, as well as another 2.5 million who download the show as a podcast.
In Baltimore, “TAL,” which is produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, airs on Sundays at noon on WYPR-88.1 FM.
Ira Glass, the longtime host and executive producer of “TAL,” is a Northwest Baltimore native and 1977 graduate of Milford Mill High School. Jmore recently spoke to Glass, 59, a cousin of acclaimed composer Philip Glass, about his life, career and the overall message of “TAL” in a fast-paced, increasingly acrimonious world.
Jmore: Your fondest Charm City memories?
Glass: I spent my entire childhood in Baltimore, so I have a million memories. I remember very clearly being an usher at Center Stage, where I got to see plays for free. That was very influential. Another was I was in the mail room at Maryland National Bank, and I learned to tell the postage needed for an envelope simply by picking it up in my hand.
I have very fond memories of my rabbi growing up, Rabbi Seymour Essrog, at Beth Israel Congregation [then in Randallstown, now in Owings Mills]. I don’t think I’ve ever been to services as an adult that were as interesting and entertaining as his services and his sermons.
There are rare times now that I actually go to synagogue, because I don’t believe in God. But whenever I’m at a synagogue, two things happen. I’m deeply disappointed that all the tunes I knew have changed since I was a child. I totally understand that people who go to synagogue all the time want to change the tunes. But as an occasional synagogue-goer, it’s hard to find that the songs have changed.
The other thing is I never have found somebody who was as funny and thoughtful and emotional in their sermons as Rabbi Essrog. I was always looking forward to his sermons and thinking that that would be a great job, to be out there once a week and talk for a while in front of people and tell some stories. Then, when I’d been in this job for a period of time, I thought, “Oh wait, in a different context I’ve created a version of that job for myself.”
After more than 650 programs over nearly 23 years, what’ve you learned?
Each story is such a miniature, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. But I am constantly struck by how decent and smart and funny people I talk to are as I’m traveling around the country, and how well-meaning people are. We hear about people supposedly hating everyone else. But even people who believe things that are factually untrue, they almost invariably seem like lovely people to get to know.
What’s the value of “TAL” in this warp-speed world of instantaneous news and dwindling attention spans?
The thing we’re doing that’s different from breaking news is narratives, stories with characters and plot. That’s a very specific kind of thing where you get to gauge people’s feelings in a very different way. So much of the news we get is a kind of shorthand, and especially in the last two or three years, the news has gotten so polarized. We do a lot of stories that say, “Here’s where these ideas came from, here’s how they’re playing out in people’s lives. Here’s what it would be like for you if you were this person.”
Why’s that important?
A couple of weeks ago, we did a story about a conflict on campus where a conservative undergraduate set up a table on the quad [at the University of Nebraska], and a graduate student who was also a teacher there started screaming at her. The student videotaped it, it went online, and because this is 2018, that caused lots of things to happen. For example, the state legislature got involved.
Where everything is usually brief, never explained, this [“TAL”] segment got inside each person’s motivation, offered a more dimensional feeling, giving information that’s usually not out there, of why people are doing what they’re doing.
I personally don’t know how I feel until I do some of these stories. In this case, the grad student teacher doesn’t look good nor does the undergrad, but I had sympathy for each of them. Getting past the glib political narrative to the reality that underlies it is, I think, still important. Not a quick labeling and dismissal of things all the time.
How do listeners react?
Liberal listeners complain to me that they’re hearing too many conservatives on the show. A woman in a very beautiful home in the Chicago suburbs, a wonderful woman, recently talked to me about a show we had done on [Arizona Sen.] Jeff Flake. She said she thought we were trying to humanize Flake. I said, “We weren’t trying to humanize anyone. He is a human. It’s totally fine to disagree, but you should understand the reality of what’s motivating him and not be so dismissive of people who are different from yourself.”
We live in this moment where it’s boring that people are hating other people all the time. Attributing the worst motives to everyone who is different is boring.
What’s one of the most difficult subjects covered by “TAL”?
Immigration is one difficult subject. Last year, I spent eight months working on two episodes about immigration. In one part of country, they talk about undocumented workers taking jobs away. In another part of the country, they talk about welcoming people.
Rather than talk about it in the abstract, we wanted to make it fact-based reporting. We went to Albertville, Ala., and we talked about that town with [U.S. Attorney General] Jeff Sessions, one of the architects of our immigration policy, [about] why he opposes the undocumented workers today. What happened to jobs, what happened to crime? And how he was influenced by what happened over 20 years ago as undocumented workers came into town? He answered the questions telling us what really happened. It’s different from the ways this is discussed most of the time.
Some of these stories take months to put together, so I’m glad we now have the experience and money to do them.
What are some of the big untold stories of our time?
The number of men who are involved in raising their children now is every man I work with under 40. These men just assume they are going to be active in rearing their children. When I was growing up in Baltimore, men didn’t consider it their job. Women are still carrying a much bigger weight, but it’s radically different now. And these kids are growing up to be such different people because of it.
Can lovers and haters of President Trump communicate better with each other?
One way is they can avoid talking about Trump. It depends who the Trump lovers are and who the Trump haters are. It’s not possible all the time, yet it is possible some of the time. I think people have a lot more shared values than they realize.
Peter Arnold is an Olney, Md.-based freelance writer.
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