Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140825

That is part of their selfdefinition, it now feels in the culture, generally, i think like this is the big leagues because what used to be the big in audience terms at an radio and everybody in itnrco sometimes they succeedntrcor sometimes they fail, but theyco are all trying to make stuffnino that they think is great and they think their audience will think is great without any other imperatives getting in the way. A lot of listeners to the American Life have told me like, theres a wave of shows that when they heard them for the first time they didnt realize radio could do the things that we do. You know, like, im told often like, by people the first time they heard this American Life, like, they didnt think a radio story could be good, could have characters and emotion and you stick around because you want to find out you get caught up in it you know that you would get caught up in it because you wanted to know what was going to happen and could deliver all the feelings that drama does and be funny and emotional. Its about somebody speaking to you in the dead of night and the relationship you can have with a disembodied voice where they somehow seem to fill everything, and its so authentic, you kind of connect with that person. I love that. I love the radio for that reason. But then i also maybe it was around the time when i started listening to iras show. There was Something Else that was almost the opposite of that. You hear the voices that are so unique, but theyre telling you stories that seem epic and large in sweep with the best movie youve seen. So its a marriage of the authentic voices with the feeling of a movie. Charlie a celebration of radio when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. I dont know how to explain this, but something happened about 15 years ago, it miffed something to do with hiphop or just because that particular musical form is kind of wordy and somewhat performanceoriented or something, or maybe it was just that n. P. R. Grew to a size that it became sort of part of everybodys i dont know precisely what happened but i know what you can feel, that more and more and more people were sort of married to it. At just different points in their day, in the back seat of their car with their parents, then they graduated to other things they found, and they began to own the things they found. You know, heres the weird part in 1971 or 1972 when a group of people got together and said lets make serious newsmaking radio, that was a time when Walter Cronkite and dan rather were kings on television. Cbs was the tiffanys Network New York times had the pentagon papers and bernstein with the washington post, so if you want to be a serious reporter, you do that. Casey kasem radio was countdown to music, and linda and ray and these people walk in and they go, all right, lets be like the new york times, it was, like stupid and silly and crazy. Now you look at these people like the linda worthheimers when i left npr and went to television, i noticed the people in television had a thing, they had a swagger, and you could feel it. And the radio people are all sort of mousy and quiet selfeffacing. And then there were these tv people. Then you go to npr or even wnyc hello these are people and it happened, i think, for a combination of reasons, but suddenly closing your eyes and hearing something became totally not just a thing that people want to do but, for some reason its a thing people seem increasingly to prefer. But the perspective of 30 years of watching it, you were there at the beginning. I mean, radio has a number of qualities, i think, that like a lot of listeners to the show i do, this American Life, theyve told me there are a wave of shows that when they heard them the first time, they didnt realize radio could do the things we do. Im told often by people, the first time they heard this American Life, they didnt realize a radio story could be good. It could have characters and emotion and you would stick around because you got caught up in it because you would want to know what was going to happen and could deliver all the feelings that drama gives, you know, and be funny and be emotional, and i think, for a lot of people, you know, for a lot of people, they got the news and want more of it. And i feel like theres a whole generation of us making the stuff where it feels like this it feels weirdly, although its the oldest electronic medium, it feels there is so much tough to do nobodys tried, weirdly. It feels like everythings new, all the young people are getting into it saying, lets take this baby out for spin and see what it can do. Its a really particular moment. Charlie kurt, youre coming in late to radio. I am, they allowed me in late. In addition to what robert and ira said, its a time unlike when rather was the king of television and the rest. Audiences have been fracturing and getting smaller and smaller over the last 20 years in media and in general and, so, on the one hand, a radio show, aer are successful radio show that has a million or 2 Million People listening, 25 years ago, that would be a piddling little audience. Today, thats as big as a Successful Television show. So in addition to all the quality. In addition to this smart audience that now defines themselves because they listen to this American Life or radiolab or whatever, that is part of their selfdefinition. It now feels in the culture generally that this is the big leagues, because what used to be the big leagues have shrunken a lot, so we are now kind of not only in audience terms on an equivalent at an equivalent place, but public radio and everybody in it, sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they are all trying to make stuff that they think is great and they think their audience will think is great without any other imperatives getting in the way of, you know, oh, well, 18 to 34yearolds like this or middle americans like this or not . It has from its beginnings when it was opening off broadway in 1971 been about trying to do the best it can, and even though its now swaggery and has these large audiences by modern standards, it is still more than, you know, most commercial broadcasting is motivated by people wanting to create good things for charlie it was attractive because you thought you would have more freedom to do more interesting things . It was attractive for me because for some strange reason out of the blue they said, hey, do you want to help create this new show . I said, for sure, you know, having been a radio listener and kind of not even dared to dream being a wannabe, but they said we think you would be a good person to host the show about arts and culture. Youve always take advantage of complete freedom in all your work youve cone, magazine, everything youve done. So why radio . One thing, because i hadnt done it. Here we are at bam. Of all the things i havent done, dance wasnt going to be one of them, okay . You never know i mean, because i was so attracted by 1999 when they kime to me and what was being done, i thought, you know, this is an amazing opportunity to have the freedom to talk to people and tell stories in different kind of ways. I had started magazines and written books but i had never just interviewing, i had never been a real journalist. I would interview people because you have to do that when you have a job at a magazine, but sitting down with people who were idol it is of mine, whether frank or susan or whatever, and spending an hour talking to them is a thing i had never done. The fact that i and my producers could shape that into radio, theres nothing like it. Charlie did you find it easy . No, i didnt find it easy, although i think the dirty secret of radio compared to, say, writing books is it is easy in that there are other people, in my case these guys actually know how to make radio, i had producers, after i had a delightful conversation with a hero, goes and turns it into radio. Charlie yeah, yeah. Yeah, its really easy, but damn you, kurt. laughter the craft of having, as you know better than any of us or as well, of having a conversation rather than doing an interview, that is a matter of trade craft and learning. Fortunately, we had a year to figure this show out and to get me to at least an unembarrassing level of skill before we went on the air. Charlie what was the attraction for you . Its hard for me to say. Everything has been said already. But more personal. For me, its this mixture radio can provide. Its ultimately about the voice, so its about somebody speaking to you in the dead of night and the relationship you can have with a disembodied voice where they seem to fill everything and its so authentic, you kind of connect with that person. I love that, i love the radio for that reason. But i also maybe it was around the time when i started listening to iras show, there was something also almost the opposite of that. Its like you hear these voices and theyre so particular and intimate and unique, but theyre telling you stories that are opinionic and large and in sweep with the best movie youve ever seen. So somehow it was the marriage of the authentic voices but with just the feeling and emergent of a movie. So thats, for me, everything i want from the radio, i want to meet real people, but i want them to tell me stories that are as big as the early charlie but thats what you all do is storytelling, isnt it . It is. Again, i think what everybody has been saying is the opportunity to, yes, tell stories compared to television, its only this relatively unadorned way. Theres not so much stuff in between. If i have this idea, ill talk to these people and make it into a story. Theres Less Technology and stuff between you and that happening. And no adult supervision. Very little adult supervision laughter the degree to which each of us are given our heads to do what we want and abandon things that are working well to do something that we dont know if it will work is incredible. Its amazing. Thats true. There is actually an advantage in working in a medium that is forgotten and often declared dead is that you have a sort of benign neglect. You can kind of play around and do stuff. Charlie does podcast add to it because, somehow, its when you want it . Its literally in your head. You take the earbuds, stick them in and the rest of the world is blocked out. Its just you and ira, just you and kurt. Theres something intimate about that. In the other forms, you address a box. Its a box thats sort of 18 feet away from you. Theres a cat, theres a woman, theres a child. Other things happen. But when its in your ear, its just you and them. When walker was interviewing me for this gig she said, radio is a very intimate medium. I said, mmm, i know that i had no idea what she meant, but its exactly this, it is this Single Person directly and almost unmediatingly speaking to you that its as close to a book, to reading a book by an author that you think youre really in her head, to the Electronic Media world. Thats why people respond so enthusiastically when you do it decently. Weve added this live medium bringing these shows to the stage at bam, it feels from talking to each of you its inspired a different kind of creativity or even more creativity as you think about what youre going to bring in terms of your show to this venue, and then it changes up again. Yeah. The interesting thing for me, at least, when we started performing on stage is its like a giving yourself permission kind of thing. There is kind of the sense that, in radio, youre in a little airless booth talking to people who you assume are out there but you never quite see them. Theres sort of a learned humility that comes to that, like you never want to speak outside your norm. But theres a way in which radio has grown up, so walking on the stage and confronting live human beings in the audience is about dreaming slightly bigger for what we do. For me, i thought, okay, this is for real, now, that there are real people there. Never mind that when youre on the radio, youre probably talking to 30 times charlie so how did you two come together . Oh, i think it goes back to 2001, maybe. Yeah, something. He was still a tv guy, or just a tv guy. I was work charlie just a tv guy. I didnt mean to say that laughter i was trying to be as neutral as possible when i said that. I was sent to record a promo for a bunch of people for the station. He was last on the list. Everyone else i had handed to scripts to read it very sort of charlie professionally. Professionally. He i dont know if this actually happened, but in my memory, he rips it up and throws it into the air like confetti and turns around and writes some crazy, off the top of his head thing about alien cults and oil tycoons. I dont know what it has to do with wnyc, but it was amazing. And sober and reasonable, im sure. I was, like, wow, thats interesting. Then we started talking and within five or sixments figured out we had five or six spooky symmetries. I went to overland after him, working at npr at the time, he started at npr, i did a stint at wbai, he was there. It was, like, i was this echo of his life 25 years ago. So we just decided we had to have breakfast. How is that going to work out for jad, robert . laughter what happens is we start having breakfast and im opining and being old and grand laughter at one point, jad brings me his wares. Says, heres what i have been working on. I put this thing on and i thought, oh, no this is completely new, it is gorgeous, it is strange, it is beautiful, and its new in the world, and i said, okay, this is going to sound dumb, but instead of me going, blah blah blah blah, why dont you go blah blah to me because you seem to know stuff that i dont know, and i kind of reversed roles from mentor to whatever ive become laughter in doing this, if you want to stay in the future and you want to stay in the action, you have to sniff for beauty wherever you go and, wherever you find it, even in this odd form, you just say, yes because, otherwise, you just miss out. Charlie thats my philosophy, too. Ira, i think you once said the importance of using the techniques of fiction and radio, themes, interesting characters and narrative threats. I mean, the things were doing on our show, its plotdriven storytelling and stories that live or die by whether theyre surprising and their characters are characters you can engage in, and like in the last few years, like, some of the stories have been developed people try to develop them into movies which never get made or tv series which almost never get made but i get to spend time with actual professional screen writers and i think, oh, we are speaking the same language when we talk about what a story is and how to shape it and make it. I think radio is just immensely powerful for that kind of thing. I feel like when the medium was new, it was generally understood that this is an amazing medium for telling stories, and then that kind of all went away. And, so, like the first time i heard somebody tell a story on the radio, i remember as a Production Assistant at npr and i was working on a show for joe frank who would do these monologues and had actors do stuff, and i remember i was in the control room and he was telling a story and i thought, i dont know what this feeling is butteth amazing and this is what i want to do. I think i mean, its weird that that went out of fashion for so long. And its interesting the show has evolved when it started, we were just doing personal stories, really. And now its evolved and we tried to do the news. You know, well send reporters into iraq for a month. Well send three reporters into a violent high school for five months. Charlie five months . Yeah, five months. And, yeah, the school which had 29 shootings in the course of a year, and we wanted to understand kind of what they knew, that school. Its all the same thing. So its much harder in a way to find characters and scenes in a story when youre taking on climate change. One of the problems, i dont know if you feel this, as somebody doing stories on tv and doing the news, i feel like theres a whole class of topics that as soon as you open your mouth, everyone is tired of the topic. Its like climate change, the republican versus the democratic fight in washington, abortion, like theres a whole list of things that we all hear and go, i dont need more details about climate change. I know where i stand on this one. I feel like guantanamo. Im interested in that. But i feel like theres a whole class of things where we know where we stand and i think as journalists its hard to know how to bring up the subject in a way that you could even make somebody want to listen for watch for a few minutes, and it takes such cunning, i find, and often well totally disguise what the stories are about for a really long time. And well be, like, lets just get some characters going, and i feel like understanding narrative, understanding plot, understanding characters is just such an enormous tool to try to bypass that problem and i feel like the longer the show has gone on, it turned out to be this incredible tool. I started the show as a refuge from the news. I had been working on all Things Considered morning edition before then and doing stories that were applying the tools of journalism to things so small and personal that journalists would never touch them then, gradually, i and the entire staff came back to actual lets take on the budget deficit but our style, housing crisis and mortgagebacked securities but in our style and find characters and scenes that could pull people in the way somebody like Michael Lewis can in one of his books where youre looking for exactly the right situation and exactly the right characters that you can tell the story of something as complicated as High Frequency trading and people will stay with you because these characters are amazing. And that, i think, is really where the renaissance comes, from collective cunningness. You know, that wit and that desuction and all seduction and all the things ira has to do to win you either to Global Warming or to his dancing and everything in between, thats someone who is restless. Jad, jad will invent and invent only to catch your attention and hold it did. And the tv world, there was a time in the early 70s when Public Television came in, and my sense of things, there was a rush of excitement early on when Public Television started and there were all kind of experiments, and then Public Television just settled. These are the unsettled people who wont settle, and thats why its doing well because it keeps scratching at every itch it can find, and thats really interesting. That resonates with you . Oh, completely. And when ira was also talking about the difficulty of convincing people they should listen to another story about this familiar thing, one of the things weve done with 360 is this American Icon series where we take the most familiar American Culture things the great gatsby, moby dick, appalachian spring and people say, oh, yeah, i know all about that. Then by spending hundreds and hundreds of hours on trying to make a documentary that tells you about this thing that you think you know and reveals to you how little you know and how many more interesting depths and byways and things about it that you dont know, that is the great challenge, to make what could otherwise be, oh, its broccoli, eat it, its good for you, into, no, its candy, give me more its fantastic what you want to do is, yeah, ultimately youre trying to do these worthy things that arent done otherwise, but to not do them in this kind of school, you know, know this because its good for you way. Do it in this fresh and entertaining way and thats always the challenge. So, karen, when you looked at these four guys, did you think in terms of unsettled and cunning and all that as you looked at what it is that immediate them the people you wanted on the stage at bam . Well, they kind of share a kind of humanity, an its not rushed. Television, films, these are things that are sort of cutcut can i get a job in radio . laughter but its not rushed. They have the ability to sort of hang in with it and take where it it wants to go, and that also lends itself to the medium of live theater. And the idea of festival you know, what we try to do here is not just look at something in a quick hit and you get it and you go, what we try to do is look at a body of work and when you look at these guys and public radio, its a body of work that comes together over a long period of time, and that implies a certain kind of commitment and a certain kind of depth, and that the really what were about is trying to show that kind of depth through the live experience. Also, i think to have the audience right here, to have people respond, its a very immediate thing, a very exciting thing, and the ability to sort of jump from radio to this and back again i think the way that i took the mandate of being at bam is to invent something. Its bam, you have to invent something. Charlie there a tension between you and two . Yeah. Charlie tension in that you see things differently, whether you oh. How many hours have you got . Well, of course, there is, because if you grow up listening to things you hear machines, you hear music, you hear jokes, you hear ads theres a life in you, and then youre full of sound and your job is to make sound, the only sounds that you have are the sound that are here. If you grew up in the 50s and 60s, i have a completely different set of sounds. Hes afraid that at any moment im going to suddenly burst into oh what a beautiful morning. laughter thats going to be in your show. Because thats happened . Well, you know, now we were in the studio today laughter i suddenly burst into a Westside Story song just to get him angry. Oh, so youre like a married couple. You could look at it that way. Charlie did it get you angry . That particular i think you won the fight with Westside Story as an exclamation point but it got me angry because i lost the argument. But were filled with different music, that the for sure, its just a generational thing, but its also, more and more, were choosing ideas which dont have easy answers. Were, like, you literally are of two minds about something, and its useful to have somebody there whos also of two mind about the same thing because we orient in opposition to each other and if im feeling slightly more one way, its instinct chiewl at one point he goes the other way and that becomes the way to explore this twosided or threesided issue. Do you know how amazing its getting now . My wife with doesnt have magical thinking. Like, were doing a piece about things, and things, of course, are infused with all kinds of memories and things. You know, if i have an extraordinary experience with a girl and i pluck some blade of grass during that experience, i put it in my pocket, i can take that blade of grass out and use it to go back to that day. My wife, nothing like it. So i take my wife to the Explorers Club on 70th street and i show her incredible things, including a flag left by neil and buzz on the moon and picked up off the moon and it was from the very first trip, of course, and shes being allowed to touch it. I said, look, a tamar, if you touch this thing, youre where buzz coz, neil was and our species was and and shes like, can i go now . I know. And were where jad wrote our parts and when we got in the studio, because we have all the tape, he had oh, its so he wrote lines for no, he didnt have to write lines. You and your wife were having a fight, and it was a fight that im very familiar with, knowing you as long as i have. So i just wrote both parts of the fight. Because somehow, im in their heads. Charlie and he knows yeah, so thats just weird. But, yes, its sort of strange. Its strange to meet somebody and, you know, im actually very friendly with this guy, also. Charlie yeah. The thing is, when you do this for a living, you develop a body of work, of course, and you can be proud of it, of course. But its not a big industry, and you just find yourself a little bit in love a lot of the time. And these are your competitors, these are your comrades but these are also the people who are sort of watching your back and the people you sort of belong to. I think when people listen to these radio folks, they feel a kind of warmth and a kind of sense of, ooh, that seems like fun, and they seem to be having a good time, and theyre given off giving off an animal instinct growling and people want to sit next to that and stuff it. Part of the thing is theyre full of animal spirits, really, and thats very, very, very viral, and that may be, to answer your first question, like, whats going on . It made the people smell a good time and they want to sit next to it. I think thats a very good point. Charlie i do, too. And we all love linda grays oddity happens, and we keep it in the tape. We keep it on the air. When the interview is theoretically is over but they suddenly shout and go, wow whatever it is, the strange little moments, whether an encounter in the field or something that happens in the studio, the sense that there is fun and quirk and noncookie cutterness as a sort of m. O. , i think people really respond to that. By the way, since were all just gushing over how great public raideradio, you know, were mems of the cult but the cult is highly selfcritical. Ira, when i was first dragged into public radio, i heard him give a talk about how public radio was failing to innovate or be centering and was unsettling, which i found inspiring. When were thinking of stories or pictures of this or this, the thing that anyone on the staff is say to kill it is, ooh, just so public radioy, which is the bad publi version of public rad. As much as we love the institutions, were not just georgia, oh, everything you hear on wnyc is the greatest thing youve ever heard. We all see how much better it could be in so many ways. Thats true. But if our journalistic colleagues who work in other media understood the curb situation were in, they would want to come over. Youre in a situation you get to do what you want on a bunch of Different Networks and shows but youre unusual. But unlike tv, theres no ratings pressure. Theres nothing like that. But people in newspaper who print this, the economic model still works, so were not no the constant freefall panic of how long will we have our jobs. Charlie so its how creative you can be and can you satisfy yourself . We want to satisfy the audience, and the audiences are really large. Theres is million, 2 million, 3 Million People will hear everything you did, which is crazy, and, you know and, you know, the money isnt perhaps as good as network television, but totally sufficient to have an apartment, you know. laughter and own a car and, you know, raise kids, whatever. Its fine. Its totally fine. Charlie when youre creating a piece, how do you know when it works . All of you . Whats the test . It doesnt work for a long time until you get it work. Charlie it doesnt work till you make it work. Yeah. In my experience, most things are trying to be crap and its only through an act of will you make them not bad. I agree. Charlie you go from crap to not bad. Yeah, you get it to a point where you cannot be embarrassed and hate yourself. laughter as a writer, thats all i knew is you start out typing whatever you typed and go, ooh, lets rewhere that and do that again and do that again, and thats exactly what applies to a radio piece is taking it from the raw crap in which there might be a shimmer of possibility and trying to extract that shimmer. One of the things, well edit the stories over and over again as a group. On American Life, ill write a story, well go through it, then to edit it, i read the script, we play the tape, and each time we do a pass, we bring in one person who hasnt heard it. And by the time its done, if it isnt going well, each time everybody gives notes and we work it over and over. I dont know the process on your show. But especially the things you dont know how to shape them because no ones done it before, like these kind of stories which are a decent number of stories. Charlie i read somewhere you kill a third or half of all the stories. Easily. Thats crazy, half . Is it half . It should have been 20. laughter are these little baby stories and you murder them or are they fully flenld adult stories and to get three or four stories well often work at ten or 15 stories. Its like making a phone call, then go into production on seven or eight. So thats typical. We spend a lot of money on them. We just run at stuff because especially in the format, the ones where were not pegged to the news, theres no reason to listen unless its super sparkly. How do you know its good . It has to be someone to relate to, it has to have an idea you havent heard of. It has to be a story where someone has a new idea in their head as a result of it. It should be funny. Extra points are funny, for sure. You want it to have emotion. So you have to start making it. But sometimes we did a show that would be the easiest show wed ever do a couple of weeks ago called i was so high and it was people telling stories about getting high, we have to fill a show. So we put a thing out on social media and we asked, send us your stories. It was the easiest picking. We got, like, 2,600 stories, four of them were good. laughter we learned something which says that listening to peoples high stories is like listening to their dreams. They near to good stories at all. You know, even though theres four of us, it was a little bit of a stretch. That took three people days to go through 2,600 submissions. Have you ever killed an entire fullymade hour of radio . Not a full hour, but we have killed like, we have killed stories that were done and ready to go. Its been a while. Its been a while. But yeah. Have you cut a full hour . No. God, no. laughter weve killed pieces. We have enough stuff going that if something is going to die, we would know it. Put it out of its misery earlier. Often it will be a friday, which is when we finish the show, and we actually wont know the lineup of the show because it isnt clear how much time it will be. Its like make everything shorter . Or should we take one story out and use it next week. If you go carefully through the lineup of the shows, you could tell which is the story actually made for the scene before. laughter you have to be a super fan to want to do that, but you can tell, that was not the scene. Were just acting like its this scene. Charlie you once said what you have to do is go find somebody with a lotto knowledge and just ask them why. Did i say that . I think thats true. I think you ask them why and then you get an answer and then you get another answer. You ask another person why. I think the most interesting thing about when you know its good is when you feel that given what you what talents you have and what time you have whether you are not embarrassed, the ira test in jads case, times its been amazing to me, we can sort of agree at the same time we passed the test. Do you know what it would be like if you and i were in the flower business and i said, i have three irises, you have three roses. Its going to be a three flower vase. I go, you go. No. I go, you go. No, you go and if we argued wed never finish the vase. Luckily, we argue, then yes then we go home its true. Charlie is that called collaboration . Its called finding beauty. Agreeing. Its very humbling, too because you spend you know, a lot of the work is extremely collaborative and a lot of it is solo, just you locked in a room wrestling with something, and you get to a point where you think, this is good, im hot i think this is amazing. And ill send it to robert and hell send me these classic sevenpage emails where he points out, he brutally, with fierce insight, point out exactly why its not working. And if i could bottle the feeling of reading those emails, it would be perfect for your fear show. laughter but its very humbling when you feel like youve got it and you realize you dont have it. But someone else needs to complete it. But then its quite beautiful, i find, when you kind of walk across the line and you realize we actually have something that none of us could have done alone. And as an only child, i find that mystifying. I continually find it mystifying. Another thing should be said probably about our three shows is theyre all weekly or less. And which gives us all the luxury of having the artisnal killing pieces, getting it just right approach. Charlie the experience i dont know. I dont know about that, but we are not doing daily shows which is a whole different beast. Charlie tell us about the fear series. Well, its actually the show were doing right here at b. A. M. Charlie i know. And because these guys invented the idea of themes. We said, we should do a theme for our show as well, and fear is a capacious theme that drives artists to create art and all of us to do things wise and foolish in life and it seemed like a good theme to propel our show the show which has this incredibly reflective cast next week of andrew berg, the musician, and novelist Jennifer Egan and others, so, how else are we going to tried to make a try to make a coherent scheme of this rather than apart from establishing a theme and when we said to each of them how about fear . I cant tell you how quickly each of them said, yep, im down with fear laughter so i guess we discovered the universal feeling and fear is it. Will there be a point in the fear show where the audience will be afraid . They will be very afraid yes. Charlie are the things you can do on radio you cant do in writing . The real conversation well, you can do it in writing. You do it especially in fictional as opposed to nonfictional writing, but having the moments, the pauses and inflections and tone of voice in conversations, for instance, that charlie you cant do you cant do in magazine writing. You cant convey the visceral sense of what this rapport or lack of rapport is really like in writing, because, also, the description required to convey it in writing would be greater than the thing itself, whereas the spoken word is just its this conversation. Its this highly edited constructed conversation, but nevertheless a conversation in which the listener can sense exactly whats going on if you do your job well. Charlie iraers what are you most proud of hat you created for radio . Its not a particular show. Its just like, when i started the show almost 20 years ago, i dont think i didnt have the power to imagine what it would be today that i would be working with a dozen producers who are so skilled and interesting. Like, other people werent doing these kinds of stories and every person who i hired like i started the show with three other people and me and every person i hired had to train to do these sorts of stories. Then the thought that now i work this the most amazing people. Like, i feel i know its corniest thing in the world to say, but i feel just proud to be their peer, and often im not the loudest or brightest voice in the room at all, you know, and i feel proud of that. I feel proud of them, actually. I have to say, i have this whole conversation feeling like and the most we describe it were more like artisnal chefs that work at a restaurant that put out one meal a week and we have the gall to talk to you in this very day. Its a typical wednesday. You did two hours of live feed this morning. You prepped and tid a half hour prepped and did a half hour about president obama on television. And were, like, we turn out a show a week, we go over and over it. Your experience of this whole thing, do you feel just like like, we sons of bitches laughter yes, thank you and i dont want you to feel like youre in a position to lie or be nice to us. Do you feel just like, oh, thank god i dont do that its so much more fun to be like prepping and doing the thing because we i did daily broadcasting, you do daily broadcasting. You just hear this and you think, thanks god its not me you think, thank god its not me when you hear us do this you do charlie no i dont have the luxury of making it perfect. I mean, i dont. But you are a bill moyers baby. Charlie i am. What do you mean hes a bill moyers baby . When he started, bill moyers put his hand on charley and said, go with my blessing laughter with your career, you can choose different kind of rhythms. Charlie exactly. There are jock reporters. They wake up in the morning, have a press difference, even some lady on the 104 bus is not a reporter at all but she sits in the back of the bus and announce this is morning, today i will be at the press conference of the City Council Vice president , and when you watch evening television, she is there shes in the back. Shes the star shes just bringing up the rear everywhere laughter and i think its kind of neat. But as ira is suggesting, it should be acknowledged that there are people who go to work and they want to tell you this just in, and they want to get it on and right and get it fast. Charlie im not doing that. No, thats the one extreme, and then theres bill moyer. If you look at what we do here, you have to put it in the context of the whole season. You have theater, dance, music, opera, you have to have blockbusters, discoveries, celebrities, you have to find new, you have to figure it all out and then how do you pay for it . I mean, you know, theres these thousands of challenges. But its really interesting that being here in brooklyn, when harvey lichtenstein, my predecessor, sort of started, this institution was quite old and had been her here a long ti, and no one wanted to come to brooklyn, but it was liberating because we could do whatever we wanted if we could pay for it. So it allowed us to invent an institution rather than having one imposed on us, and that spirit still exists now which is how we ended up with this program brooklyn is a thing. Its a thing. You said you met brooklyn people and i took that to mean not geographically from brooklyn but a state of mind. laughter is the pressure in brooklyn different for you now . Yeah, its different, but instead of hearing people complaining all the time about coming here, thaw are here. So, in that way, its a lot easier. But now we have to keep up the momentum and really try to deliver a great product all the time and to keep all these different parts of it going. So in many ways its sort of like what you guys are doing, but its also very different, given that, you know, things come, they go and theyre gone. Let me ask all of you, is this American Life becoming Something Different . Is it evolving towards i mean, how do you see the evolution of it . I mean, i think it is. I feel like its a very different show than it was ten years ago. Charlie yeah, so where is it going then . Oh, i dont know. Charlie you dont know . I dont know. Charlie its part of the excitement for you, a continued attraction . Yeah, of course. Truthfully, were talking about starting another show in the next few months, and getting into the podcast business with a bunch of other projects. Charlie signing your own distribution and all that . Yeah. Its, like, the most interesting stuff we get to do with the stuff we never did before. Like, i am really loving the science part, and jad is, okay, thats good, weve done that. You guys are totally leaving science. Were not totally leaving, were just charlie stepping out. Its like with our thing, you cant answer the question where are you going except you answer it by saying, well, im not staying where i have been. Thats pretty much is answer. And you just go and see what happens. No, i mean, you have to keep it interesting to your is and hope that that makes it more interesting to listeners. 360 has gone into science so its a zero sum game here. Charlie they give it up, you take it on. Well, a little bit, and weve started doing these hourlong docdocumentaries of specific wo. Charlie like moby dick. We say, make us a 30 second horror movie and well have wes craven judge which one is the best one. We had 300 people make incredibly timeconsuming productionintense horror movies. So we do more of those, bringing the listeners and keep it interesting. Charlie on that, keep it interesting. Thank you all of you very much. applause charlie for more about this program and early episodes visit us online at pbs. Com and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org charlie funding for charlie rose has been provided by the Cocacola Company supporting this Program Since 2002. American express and charles schwab. Additional funding provided by the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ music ] yes, check, please people. No its all about licking your plate. The food is just fabulous. I should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. I had a horrible experience. I dont even think we were at the same restaurant. And everybody, im sure, saved room for those desserts