My name is is joe vogel. Im a state delegate here representing, the great city of gaithersburg. And it is my pleasure to introduce all of you to the city of gaithersburg. I am so thrilled this morning to be introducing ari shapiro as he his book, the best stranger in the world stories from a life spent listening. When i first saw that this book would be presented at the book festival and before i was given the honor of introducing the session, i took note of the book i screenshotted the cover of it to add it to my reading list. Not only because i am an occasional listener, of all things considered, but also because of my own interest in listening to strangers for as long as i can remember, i have been fascinated by strangers. The very idea of a stranger. Right . What is a stranger . Its. Its pretty wild to me. And while others shy away meetings, speaking with and listening, strangers like ari, i aim to, whenever possible, do the now as a state legislator listening to strangers, turning strangers into is quite literally my job. But my intriguing strangers has deeper roots than politics. And i found myself reflecting on the origin of this while reading aris book, just like ari, i grew up as a gay jewish teen living in the suburbs. Of course, they made me introduce them today. You know. Well, well, it gave me the honor of doing so know. And while my stories and with my stories and identities, i was, quote unquote, an outsider in almost every room i walked into. Ari talks about this in the book. He says it felt like a superpower. The ability to move between worlds, the boundary skills that i had picked up as the jewish kid in fargo and the gay teen in portland could serve me as a reporter. I found a career where i could perform those acts of translation and be a liaison for groups to which i had no personal connection beyond my journalistic interest, my microphone and headset served as a snorkel and mask when i strapped them on, i could enter hidden worlds that were invisible to people on the surface. I dont carry around a headset, a microphone, but i go around listening and seeking to understand, not for the sake of reporting like ari, but to turn that understanding of peoples realities, their challenges and their hopes into policy to make their lives better. It especially to see aris commitment to turning his Life Experience as an outsider into a superpower, to enter peoples worlds and make a profound impact by sharing their story this superpower has led shapiro to become one of the hosts of all things considered, nprs Award Winning news show ari has reported from above the Arctic Circle in aboard air force. He has covered wars in iraq, ukraine and israel, and he has filed stories from dozens of countries and most of the 50 states. He has one to edward are mirror, mirror awards won for his reporting the life and death of Breonna Taylor and another for his coverage of the trump administrations asylum policies on the usmexico border. Thank you for listening. And and please welcome ari shapiro to. Theater. Its so good to be with you all here today, and especially with clay, who is a recent year and a half ago arrival to the d. C. Area, who now serves us in the country at the library of congress, where hes doing incredible work. And im looking forward to talking to you all. Thank you so much. Im glad to be here and joe was like he took the screenshot he was so happy to introduce you. I woke up this morning and i saw that theres a new documentary on hbo about donna summer. And i thought her rashida talked to ari shapiro or watch the donna summer stuff about her. Yeah its a its well its very i assume you watched it on your way here in the on your phone just like, you know, it. Why choose . Thats my life motto. Yeah. Why choose . And i think im probably the only literary director in the history of the library of congress who writes his questions in the back of the book. But thats what do, too, when im prepping for interviews on all things considered, i take all my notes in the back of the book. Yeah, and it works for me. So. And then when i give it away to somebody else later, know what interested me about the book, right. So i want to ask first about this, this very strong thread that runs through the book, which is about sort of pursuit of, you know, reporting the news, lets say, in a more sort of human way. And in almost every chapter in this book that is about reporting that that that theme sort of arises. Tell us about the story of the syrian refugee that you there many refugees that you could have chosen to follow. And you interviewed him repeatedly, but then colleagues at npr. Yeah, he was this guy named monzer omar. And met him in the coastal turkish city of izmir. And i had flown there. I was based in london and i was a Foreign Correspondent and i was traveling all over the world covering different stories. And the syrian refugee crisis was sort of at its peak. We had somebody based in eastern bull. So my editor said, why dont you go to coastal, which is kind of pardon me, jumping off point for people to try to reach europe and. I realized when i got that i our listeners and americans generally were so in and dated with stories of the syrian refugee crisis that it almost just became background noise. And so i was trying to find a way, in addition to turning around the daily news stories that i was reporting while i was there, to kind of break through that background noise quality and connect with listeners and help them appreciate the specificity and humanity of people who were experiencing this. And so i decided i wanted to find one person whose story we could follow. And there were thousands of syrians in izmir. How do you find one who you will follow for . I didnt know it then, but it turned out to be years. And so i was, you know, walking down the sidewalk on this very hot day and people were sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes. And i was striking up conversations with, various people when i met this guy, monzer omar, who was in his early thirties, he was an english teacher in syria. He had left his wife and kids behind with his parents, was trying to make the journey to germany and hopefully bring his family after him. And its this kind of cold, inhuman calculation of is the person im going to follow. Will i just use a quote from this conversation and in a short news spot and move along and you dont know what the future is going bring. You dont know whether his journey will be successful. Ultimately, i did decide to follow him and had to enlist so many of my colleagues who were correspondents across europe to track every step of his journey. And i told him, were not going to be able to help you on this journey, but well be able to at least tell people what youre going through to hopefully help people understand your and and we end up following him for years as he made his way to germany, as he settled in germany, as he tried to bring his family over the the embassy here to the United Nations under actually plays a role on this story. It ended up sort of twisting and evolving ways that i never could have imagined and im glad to say it has a happy ending. But ill let you all read the specifics in the book. But but thats the title chapter. And the you know, the title the best strangers in the world comes from a work of art that a friend of mine, cassidy duhon, created that has sort of hung in my house forever. But think the concept captures so perfectly the strange vulnerability, intimacy of the conversations that i have with people who are often experiencing the worst day of their lives, whether its a war, a natural disaster, or a mass shooting, people confide me and open up to me and are vulnerable with me. Person theyve never met. And then we go separate ways and may never see each other again. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about ukraine in that context, because you said, you know, speaking about the coverage of syria, you know, how do you find a story that allows your listener to have compassion . You know, and i can just to you know, i read the news all the time. And but but there is so much that is happening in ukraine. I think just yesterday the news was the President Biden has sort of allowed in a kind of roundabout way for f16s to be kind, sold to ukraine. And i confess to sort of being a little worn out, you know, absolutely. Yeah. Im more now like the people who are in ukraine are are suffering, but much, much worse. But, you know, if you were in ukraine before for this most recent war. Yeah, i was in ukraine when russian backed separatists star to taking over in the east. I went to kiev intending to report feature stories and just happened to be there when what became the war in ukraine started bubbling up. And so its a really different perspective now, looking at the war today and, having been there when those seeds started to sprout. But sorry, go ahead. Well, just i mean, if are there reporters out there who you think are in ukraine and who are doing great jobs of conveying the sort humanity and a more human. Yeah, i mean, like not to toot our own horn, but joanna kakissis, my colleague, who reports for npr, had based in greece and was making trips into ukraine and was recently hired to be our correspondent based there tells the most beautiful, vivid and memorable stories that go so far beyond, you know, the u. S. Is authorized the sale of this kind of weapon. I mean, im thinking about a story she told about borscht. I love telling stories through food. I think its such a useful tool because wherever you go in time, in any place, in any stratum will find food. And that food tells you something about the place and time youre in. And so i can remember vividly one story she told about the war in ukraine through borscht and i think shes done a beautiful job of telling stories about war that forced you to listen that you cant turn away from that. Dont just blend into the background. But it is really challenging when on all things considered, we have to fill 2 hours, five days a week and there is a strong gravitational pull towards incremental ism and repetition. And so our challenge day after day, week after week, especially as a war drags on for more than a year or as there is yet another mass shooting or as it is the whatever month of our president ial campaign weve been covering every day is to say, how do we tell these stories in a compelling way . How do we engage our listeners . How do we add something new to the conversation when when things do so often, repeat themselves . Yeah. How do you sort of reinvent story when youre not necessarily being new information . Right. Thats really. But that desperation can can sometimes lead to insight like there is a story. When i was the White House Correspondent covering the obama administration, i dont write about this one in the book, but it was the fiscal cliff which bore. A lot of similarities to the debt limit fight that were dealing with now and i was so frustrated with telling all of these incremental stories about the fiscal cliff day after day that, i decided to do something which this audience might appreciate, which was the fiscal cliff for english majors. And so i went to somebody at the Folger Shakespeare library in a fords theater in all these other places. And i asked what the great works of literature help us understand about the political that barack obama and john boehner were engaged in. And so it was purely out of my frustration and exhaustion with the repetition of the story that i desperately reached for something new and came up with this thing that i thought actually turned out to be very elegant and insightful and different from other stories we had told about that. Well, you do write in the book about, you know, being being assigned to the the white house beat and feeling conflicted it because you didnt, you know, in the white house coverage you just get like very specific info fed to you. Yeah its sort of the pejorative phrase is stenographer to. Mm hmm yeah. And so the challenge as a White House Correspondent and the reason that i first actually declined the position is how to find stories that are new. You know, when youre surrounded by some of the best journalists in the world who are all receiving the same information, youre receiving, what value added can you bring . And thats thats real challenge. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you mentioned a little while ago that that sort of intimacy of your work and trying to convey report on those intimate situations where youre in. You know, theres something very interesting to me about radio versus say like being a broadcast journalist where i think that that human voice connection, where i mean, youre out on stage more than most journalists, but nonetheless singing. Yeah, you, you know, not all of your listeners have seen you in a setting like this or or are you all surprised to hear my voice coming out of a strangers face . Is that a thing youre experiencing now . You know, so theres that intimacy between listener and and radio reporter, right . Yeah. Did did that make you feel like that gave you sort of a window or a portal to being more sort of revealing in this, more youre absolutely right that i know as a listener there is this incredible level of vulnerability, intimacy, just sort of personal connection with people who spend time with us on the radio like i am with people in their cars, in their kitchens, in their showers, in their earbuds as theyre walking the dogs like. And there are people who spend every single day with me. And so i want to be a companion to them, but also they didnt choose me. I might not be their cup of tea. And so while i want to be my full real on the radio, i kind of want to be a cipher and i want listeners to allow themselves to imagine they are in my shoes. Whether im on the border of poland or coastal senegal or the white house, i want them to imagine they could be. Theyre asking the questions. Im asking. And so i want to be real. And i want to bring my full self. And i also kind of want to fade into the background if somebody comes away from a story ive done thinking primarily about me that ive done it wrong. And so when i set out to write this book, the big was to find a level of, a level of comfort in centering myself in these stories. And i think of the memoir as a combination of an of the way the person i am has shaped the stories. Ive told. And conversely, the way stories that i have told have shaped the person that i am and. The note that i got most frequently from my editor as i was sending him draft sets of chapters, was now lets put a little more of you in here, you know, and that was stretch for me and that was a learning curve. And i actually found as i as i wrote chapter, the first draft of each one sort of started off as this happened, then that happened, then the next thing happened and i would set it aside for a while and come back to it, reread it and realize that this chapter is actually about democracy or identity or, whatever the case may be. And then i would rewrite the chapter and try to sort of tease out that and wrestle with those larger issues a bit more deeply, which i hope this book has meaning beyond sort of chronicles of a journalist, chronicles of somebody touring the world with a band. I hope it has deeper thematic meaning. And if so, thats why. Because i would sort of go through after each chapter been drafted and say like, okay, heres actually what i want to excavate here. No, well, lets take one of those stories that does put you front and center, which is for those of you who havent read the book, theres this cuckoo bananas story of him filing a story literally at the very last second from the air force. One could could you just talk about that . Well, the key detail youre leaving out about this cuckoo banana story of my filing a piece on air force at the last second is that i was on the toilet toilet on air force one, putting you. Thank you. I appreciate that, clark. Its very considerate of you to give me the punch line so it was this top secret trip to afghanistan. Obviously, the president is going into a war zone. They dont advertise it. And so we flew taking off from andrews in the middle of the night, landing at the Bagram Air Force base in afghanistan 13 hours later in the middle, the night we were on the ground for maybe 3 hours, and i had worked out this plan with the one editor who i was allowed to tell about this trip where, you know, i would file from the ground when we were in afghanistan. And then the story that was going to air the next morning on Weekend Edition saturday with scott simon, i would write in the first leg of the journey home, then we would refuel at ramstein airbase in germany when i would edit and file it because we didnt have wi fi in the air and then we would take off from germany to d. C. It would air while we were flying on a Weekend Edition. So we were scheduled to be on the ground for 30 minutes, which was enough to edit and file and after id edited the piece, i started tracking, which is what we call when we record the script. Weve written, and there was somebody chattering next to me. So i moved to a different seat. And again, i should have like today at this point in my life, i would say, can i just have 5 minutes of silence, please need to record this. People would have been very but i was like, oh, no, i got to, you know, i dont want to interrupt them or be rude. So i was like the one quiet place i can find is the bathroom. So i went into the bathroom on air force one, in the press cabin, locked myself in, put down the toilet, started recording my tracks and i started to feel this rumbling. And i thought, no, no, no, no, no. We have another 10 minutes on the ground. Were not this plane is not moving. And then it became unmistakable that the plane was moving at accelerate and i had not yet finished filing my story and once we got through the clouds, we would lose all contact with the outside world. So trying not to let the panic in my voice as im recording this story i sign out i stop the recording i go back to my seat where my laptop was. Of course id just like been knocked off the wifi. So im like reconnecting to the wi fi as air force one is hurtling down the runway in germany the nose is in the air. As i reconnect and im like uploading my tracks, its like, you know, 32 uploaded and 57 uploaded. Were in the air. And finally it says 100 upload it. And i was like and i shut my laptop and i ordered a gin and tonic tonic. But the thing that i say in the book about those moments, which i think is really important for younger journalists and we were actually just talking about this yesterday, theres this nice tradition ever since the pandemic started, and there was a small crew that works on site on all things considered, that on fridays we have an after work happy hour on the on the patio of the npr building. And so yesterdays show was a little rough going for reasons i dont need to get into. But when we were having drinks afterwards, i saying to some of the younger journalists on the team that like the stakes are so like were not emergency room doctors, nobody is an operating room table. Its radio. Like, if my story did not get filed, they would have figured something out. Its okay and so thats what i try to remember in those moments of the, oh my god, crisis yeah, yeah. Well, its a great story. Thank you. I were were all book lovers here, right . And in fact, actually, when the shuttle brought me here this morning, came across a guy who is a shirt that says, i closed my book to be here. Oh, thats so good. So love that. Hats off like best t shirt at the 4 00. Best. But of course i love your chapter about fiction and a chapter for the book lovers yeah yeah and you write about this sort of this feeling of apocalypse that we have in our world, or at least like every question that we seem to be confronting as a society, seems pretty existential. Climate change, war and you youve found i dont know if is the right word, but you have a beautiful moment where youre interviewing the the famous sci fi and kay jemison and shes sort of not exactly put you in your place but gave you a perspective. Absolutely. And think about it and ill quote it all the time and the larger lesson of this chapter is that understand the worlds better through fiction than i do, through interviews with politicians, ceos and other leaders, and actually example i gave about the fiscal cliff for english majors, i think is is a perfect case study where like, you know, shakespeare and the other writers who i quoted that story gave me insight into the fiscal cliff that i didnt get from talking to john boehner. But the jamieson quote that i thought was just so brilliant and i think about it all the time was i asked why she starts so she won the hugo award. Yes three years in a row for three books in her broken earth trilogy. Shes the only author ever to have done that. She was the first black woman ever to have on the hugo award for novel. And so i asked her why she wanted to begin this trilogy, kind of the end of the world, the apocalypse and her main character lost, a child at the very beginning of the book. And she said well, for that character, the apocalypse was when her child died and and she was interested, she said, in a subjectivity of what we consider apocalypse and that what many of us think of as apocalyptic has been the reality for other people for a very long time. And so when i think about Climate Change or, black lives matter protests, you know, as i was writing, i was in california where there huge wildfires that were blotting out the sky or we were in the middle of the pandemic with the lockdowns. And so these things that feel epochal to us might actually have been the reality. Other people for a very long time. And our perspective depends on where we sit. And that was an insight i gained through a conversation with a Science Fiction writer that applies so many stories that i tell in the world when im going out and talking to people are living through these times that may feel apocalyptic. How do you when you and you write in the book that when you interview a on the show, you always read from the first to the last page. And you know dirty little secret like that. That doesnt always happen when when the journalist is interviewing someone. As ive found on this book tour. How can i just tell you that my chapter about, pink martini, is titled geneva traviata, which is i dont want to work, which is the chorus of their most famous song and pink martini is this band that i sing with. And so i did one interview on how can i call out the person . And theyre not even in the d. C. Area. Its fine. But they said i was interested that you titled one of your chapters of a travaille, which means i dont want to work because you do work hard. And i said, well, as you know from reading the chapter about pink martini, and thats the chorus and im sorry. Yes, i read every book beginning to end before i do an interview. So but you must get a ton of submissions like how do you decide which writer. There are a million great books that we dont feature on all things considered, not a book program. The hours a day that we put are maybe 8 minutes devoted to books and takes me time to read a book. And im also for interviews with a striking hollywood writer and a senator and, you know, so i dont pretend be the authoritative account of books that a person should read and its a collective effort. So theres a whole team of producers and editors on, the show, the hosts and everyone is always getting pitches from book and authors and. I try to keep a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I try to select books that the world as we live in it, in all of its complexity from, Artificial Intelligence to history, to great literary fiction like the new book by Abraham Verghese is so good. Its 700 pages and i couldnt put it down. I want to do Something Like that alongside. Id just before i interviewed Abraham Verghese, i interviewed paul chari, whose latest book is about i am the future of war, so i want to have a mix, the kinds of authors i interview, the kinds of books i feature. And i also let go over the pressure to do it right because is no right way to do it. And another dirty little secret, not book that i do an interview about on all things is a book that i would recommend. There are a lot of nonFiction Books i think make for great conversation, even Fiction Books that make for great conversation that i dont necessarily think are a great read. But im not reviewing the book on the on the air. Im talking to the author of the book. And the other thing is in every one of those conversations, im aware that because the conversation is airing on publication day. Nobody listening will have read the book. And so i want the to have value as a conversation and not just as a promo for the book that the vast majority of people will never read. Yeah, yeah. I want to ask you about objects, and this is the last question for me. So i have time for some questions. You all so be thinking of your questions. It looks like the microphone is there in back. You, you know, in in journalism circles, especially since george floyd this question of objectivity has really come up and you dont go you dont attack objective body in the book. But you you have this sort of interesting moment where when were reporting on the Israeli Palestinian conflict a listener wrote in and said, well, you know, can he really report fairly on that since hes jewish and you write this interesting. You have a sort of interesting that none of us. An absence of identity. Yeah. That we are all human beings in one way or another. And and have our histories. Could you just talk about that a little bit about the sort of, you know, humanity not only that, you want to bring to your job, but you have to. Yeah, this is actually a good example of what i was describing earlier that a chapter starts out as this happened. Then that happened. And then i step aside and i come back and realize oh, this chapter about israel is actually about objectivity and and identity. And in many of the i tell the most salient part of my identity is not my status. A marginalized group like when im reporting from the fact that im white is the most relevant detail. When im reporting from northern on the war against isis. The fact that american is the most important aspect of my identity. But part of the identity of every one of us here is that we pay taxes so whos going to report on changes . The tax code because we all have a stake in it. And so if if you if you the way i type of a question like should a be able to report on israel as well should somebody can get pregnant be allowed to report on abortion rights . Should a person of color be allowed to report on Racial Justice . Should a person who pays taxes, be allowed to report on changes to the tax code . Obviously, the answer to these questions is yes. You should be able to report on those things. And so then the question becomes, well, do we pretend that our identity doesnt exist . Do we push it to the side do we bring it to bear . How do wrestle with that . And i do think that objectivity is a worthy goal. And i also think that we carry our stories, our identity our history, our experience with us wherever go. And those two things can exist in tension. Some times. I dont believe that there is such a thing as the view from nowhere, which is the phrase that an older generation of journalists and to a certain extent the current generation of journalists, although its less in vogue these days, used to describe as kind of the ideal of report. But i think its naive of us to presume that we are all the same and that there is some aspirational ideal identity, less journalism that can descend from the heavens as the one accurate account of a thing and another example of this that i explore in the book is when i went cover the pulse nightclub shooting in orlando, florida, which was at a gay club, i think my experience going to bars, going to gay clubs made my reporting better. That was a place where my identity i think added to the value of my reporting. And frankly, another one of my colleagues, adrian fiorito, who went to cover the shooting as well, who is latino and a fluent spanish speaker, was also able to richer, deeper stories. The shooting happened on latin night because. He was able to connect with that community on a different, deeper level because of his identity and history. In the same way that i was able to connect with Queer Community on a different, deeper level of mine. Yeah, lets see, what do we have any questions back there . This one over here is another question. Give ari a heart attack. The good news is theres an ambulance right there. So that is we do love a dramatic finish. Yes, thats my for you guys when going to those places and talking to people and live not like living their lives but like being in their lives for that time what would you say is like have noticed thats hard sometimes to separate yourself it comes to leaving those areas just even talking them and being there. Whats like have you ever noticed any hardships in separating at times . I mean like, you know, this is just like my job and i am leaving here, if that makes any sense. Yeah. I mean its been said. Everybody i know sorry. Could all hear that. Yeah. So how does it is essentially and correct me if im wrong, but how a journalist after having made these sort of intimate connections with the sources how does the journalist leave the story or the place its such a part of the fabric of my life for so long that this is what i do that generally speaking ive kind of come to love the ability to dip into a world and dip out of it. And for the most part i dont generally find it challenging to like that was an experience i had and there it shall stay now ill go someplace else and do else. But there are exceptions that so there is a story i tell in the very last chapter of the book about a nonprofit in the city of yogyakarta indonesia, where this one transgender woman who is sort of the matriarch of the Trans Community in indonesia, has created home for people with hiv. And she made such an impression on me that five years after i visited, which i arbitrarily decided was an adequate amount of time, i decided to just start donating to her organization, which i wouldnt have done while i was reporting on them. Obviously, im not going to give money to somebody who im reporting on, but i thought five years after the fact, if i was thinking about the work she was doing, i would become a contributor. And they dont, as far as i know, have any other american donor. But every month i send them a check. Yeah, great. Okay. Who has worse than mike . Okay, other questions. Weve got the volunteer back to hand them to somebody in the very front row. Theres someone here right in the front room. And this is the beginning of this. But how was it . Oh, lets just wait for the microphone for second, if you dont mind. Go ahead. Im sorry i missed the beginning of this, but how was it for a jewish young man to up in fargo is a funny thing. When i was a kid had not one but two synagogue and dont know if youve heard its like one of the oldest jewish. But im going to just tell abbreviated version of it, which is that this jewish guy got stranded on a Desert Island and years later, when hes rescued, hes giving his rescuers a tour of everything hes built on the island. And he says this is the city hall and this is the library and this is the synagogue and this is the other synagogue and. They say, wait a second, youre the only person on this island. Why are there two synagogues . And he says that one i would never go to. So, fargo, two synagogues and might have two gay bars there. I didnt even know if it had one. I left when i was eight and i my family kept kosher. Our our meat would arrive once month on a freezer truck from chicago, and we put the meat in like deep in our garage. And my mother would make dollar every friday and it was great. I and, you know, every december my older brother and i in, our Elementary School would go from classroom to classroom, a menorah and a dreidel, telling kids what hanukkah was. And as describe in the book, that was my First Experience as being a public speaker and sort of an ambassador, showing people that that might seem foreign and strange is actually they could relate to. So fargo worked out. Yeah. What other questions do we. Does our volunteer have the microphone. Okay, you must have questions for ari shapiro. Well, let me ask. Okay. Weve got one over here. Oh, theres someone on the aisle right here. Also, i know either, right . Yeah. Oh, just in my guess. Its on. Yeah. When you started when you graduated from college and somehow got to be on npr, can you tell the story because its an interesting one. Yeah well i i was finishing college and had no idea what i wanted to do with my life. So i applied to everything i could think of i applied for a job at club med, i, i applied for an npr internship. I got rejected for literally everything, including the npr internship. And so i think this is important if people feel like theyre failures, thats remember. Nprs ari shapiro got rejected for an npr internship. And then i found out that nina totenberg, the legendary Legal Affairs correspondent, hires her own interns. Separate from the npr internship program. So i applied to her. She offered me an opportunity and ive never looked back. Ive been in npr ever since. And nina remains a great friend and mentor. And i would also recommend her book, which came out fall dinners with ruth, about her friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that generation women in washington. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Weve got one over here. I think she has the mic. Oh, sorry. Youre the moderator. No, no stealing shot. Its just naturally to me. Well, this is about this is about me. Oh, great. So i am a person like. I love talking to strangers and meeting people. And i just want to say that now you have inspired me to start writing about these. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Oh, im so glad to hear it. My dirty little secret is that i will not talk anyone on an airplane because its. You know, the thing about being a journalist is you can always walk away on an airplane. You cant walk away. Yeah. So i think we dont want over here and then well see if anybody has one over on the other side. So i listen to npr a lot and till i cant anymore honestly say how the world is so dark and theres so many stories from your perspective, doesnt this depress you . Can you give us any message of hope that . Theres any way were going to get out of the mess . Absolutely. All right. Im going to take this in day after day. Part number one is that on all things considered, within the last year, weve made a really active effort to in every half hour include some moment of humanity, optimism, hope, joy, delight, because life is so much more than the worst things that happen in the world. And so hopefully youve heard a change because weve definitely been very about making that shift. So thats thing number thing. Number two is theres the sort like bill gates way of looking at the world, which is more people have access to clean water than ever before. Fewer people are living in poverty than ever before. Fewer babies are dying in childbirth than ever before. More young women are being educated than ever in human history. So actually, the world is a better place to live in now than it has ever been for all of human existence. So thats a ray of hope, right . And then the third thing is that the person i quote than anyone else in the world is the writer and performer taylor mack. And taylor was shortlisted. You familiar with taylor . Okay. So taylor was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for piece that that debuted in 2016, which was called the 24 decade history of popular. And it told the story of the United States of america from 1776 to 2016. Every hour was decade, and it was a 24 hour performance from noon to noon. And so i said to taylor, when you tell the story of country from slavery to the trail of tears to japanese camps and on and on and on, and you see all these dark chapters, what context do you get . What larger lessons do you take away . And taylor said, as tell these stories, you find that things these things go in cycles and i dont know why but they do. But as tell these stories you also find the stories of people who are trying to make life better for those around them and all that any of us can hope to do is be one of those people in whatever time and whatever place we happen to find ourselves. Right. Question. Yeah. Taylor mack, that thats another favorite. Taylor quote is perfection is for. Are in your life as a journalist has listened always been a trait that youve had from the beginning or how have you evolved as a good in your life as a journalist . Its yes. And i think if you practice something day, you get good at it. You know, you practice the piano every day. Youll be a decent pianist. If you cook every day, youll be a good cook. And so i love listening. I love storytelling. I love those activities. And i, i probably was like predispose to be better than average them, but also having a job where i do it every day for, a living, and then i get to hear the broadcast and register the moments that i missed an opportunity to a follow up question or i phrase something in a way that somebody or, you know, like its a constant process of learning and improving and practice ing. And so having done it for 20 years. I think ive gotten better at over time. But its also that i think is innate. So, you know, my grandmother was a fortune teller, worked in carnivals and she read cards and something that terry gross asked me in the fresh air interview that didnt make the edited cut was do you think she was psychic or do you think she was a fraud. And like my grandmother was this amazing woman and i was so stumped by that question. But where i ultimately came down, was that what she did as a fortunate has something in common with what i do as a journalist, which is youre picking up on subtle cues and youre perceiving things that are present but might be missed by others, and youre teasing out those and seeing what they lead to. And so in that sense, i think listening is a skill that you can build, but its also like any skill, a thing that some people are innately better at than others. I think weve got time for one more question. Okay. Back there in the back section and anybody who didnt get to answer the question can please follow ari to the to his signing over here and the people behind you in the signing line will be really grateful if its a multipart question that takes a long and precise question and theres no wi fi on air force one. Hows that possible . There might actually, at this point be, when i was covering the white house, it was the obama administration. And so at this point, things may have changed, but i wouldnt be surprised if it has not because theres so much security around air force one. The technology is so specific to an aircraft that carries the president , the United States that if prevent people in the press cabin from openly communicate their location. It wouldnt surprise me. Mm hmm. Also known as welcome the federal government. Yeah. So lets take our blackberries in. The federal government. Did they issue you a blackberry . No, actually, have a palm pilot. I have a real. Plane. Thank you so much. This has been so fun. Ari. It is an for me to introduce professor today. Sanshiro has recently become a