Tape

Sayre Quevedo is a producer at VICE. “I'm not like a cinephile at all but in a movie nobody says, ‘And then he revealed to me a deep, dark secret.' You discover the deep, dark secret as the main character is learning it. And I just feel like there's something so much more engaging for me as a listener to feel like I'm discovering at the same time as the person who's doing the reporting than feeling like you're just describing the process of discovery. I just need things to feel like they did in real life. I don't want to recreate things."

Bianca Giaever is the host of Constellation Prize and a producer at The Daily. "My favorite radio stories are ones that were passion projects to begin with, that would be un-pitchable from the start because the idea sounds so mundane. .... Boy talks about anxiety as I feel anxiety would have been the logline for the Scared is scared. Holy Cow Lisa would've be like I want to make a movie about my heartbreak, like every other fucking person on planet earth? ... Terrible pitch! But the person I was talking to happened to be a great talker, an amazing character. ... So I've never really been afraid of the un-pitchable story. And it's actually the type of story that intrigues me the most." If you like the show, and want to keep tape alive, please support us at patreon.com/taperadio.

Wendy Zukerman is the host and executive producer of Science Vs. "There is an expectation that if you have a platform you have an agenda. And whereas — for better or worse — me, personally, I don't have particularly strong opinions about things that I don't know about. It's what makes the show possible. I'm terrible at other things in life, but when it comes to issues, I'm pretty good at knowing, oh, I actually don't know anything about that. I shouldn't be having an opinion. And I just want to know the facts."

Nadia Sirota is the host and co-creator of Meet the Composer and an acclaimed violist. “I actually feel like somebody being joyful about something in their life is wonderful. ... There's this temptation when you're in college, and definitely when you're in conservatory, to try to find the right constellation of things to hate. That will make other people think you're smart. And it's really tempting, and it's really easy, in some levels, to sort of fall into that kind of negative world. In classical music, God knows there's so much tearing down of people and of technique and of whatever. ... It's so boring, and it's fascinating to listen to people talk about stuff they love because it requires a little bit of vulnerability. And also that's the kind of excitement that brings you to love something yourself.”

Avery Trufelman is a producer of 99% Invisible and the host of Articles of Interest. “The literal battleground of interior and exterior forces in your world is what you’re wearing.”

Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of This American Life. “It’s not an accident I made a radio show where I am having intimate conversations with people on tape. ... Like the only person who would go to the trouble to invent something like that is somebody who has difficulty with intimacy, you know what I mean? And I think that I totally was inventing a thing to do in conversations with people on tape that I was having so much trouble doing in real life.”

Julie Snyder is the co-creator of Serial and S-Town. Prior to that, she was the senior producer of This American Life. "So the original conceit [of This American Life] was using the tools of journalism to [tell stories from] everyday life but then I felt like we flipped it back. ... Like why can’t we take then the same sort of narrative tools that we have, that people use to just talk ... and apply that back to things that are traditionally topical stories and news stories?"

See host and creator of Science Vs. Wendy Zukerman talk to Mooj at WNYC's The Greene Space TOMORROW Monday December 4th at 7pm. Buy tickets here: http://www.thegreenespace.org/events/thegreenespace/2017/dec/04/podcast-mixtape/

Robert Smith is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money. "I've done [radio] for 30 years. I don't want to come in and do the same story every time. Like I want things to be challenging. … And it's solely for myself. It's solely so I don't sound like a lot of NPR reporters — they've been there, they've seen it, they've done it. ... Even ones who are really good. They're just like, "I am good at this, I am doing what I always do." And so if the very least thing that comes out of [experimenting] is, "My God! That reporter sounds excited to be in a place, that reporter sounds engaged with people, that reporter feels like he or she is present, is listening," it's exciting! And so, that may be the only thing that people hear, is that — "Wow! You know, Robert seems like he really likes his job."

Alex Blumberg is the co-founder of Gimlet Media. Prior to that he was a producer for This American Life. "A big lesson for me is that there aren't really rules. If [the radio story] is really fun, and you really love it, it's probably going to work. ... And if it doesn't, if it drags, then you should come in with script. ... In the beginning, I was always asking myself, here's this like 3 minute piece of tape in my story — and every other piece of tape had been like 30 to 45 seconds, and here's this one that's a 3 minute chunk — but I think I like it at 3 minutes. Can I do it at 3 minutes or do I have to break it up? And the answer is yeah, if it works at 3 minutes then you can do it at 3 minutes. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't. And the more that happens where I am like my whole story was a piece of teaser tape — 12 seconds of tape here, and 12 seconds of tape here — and then 5 minutes where everything happens, that's fine. If it works, it works."

Lu Olkowski, an independent radio producer, is the host of CBC's Love Me. "You spend so much time with people and I just think it's so shitty to suddenly — the story airs and you — disappear. ... I think that's terrible. And I just don't want to do that."

Lewis Wallace was a reporter for Marketplace. "I think our listeners and audiences are strong enough to hold that I can have a credible voice in reporting a story, and a truthful voice in reporting a story, and also have a perspective."

Julia Barton is a freelance editor who edits for Revisionist History, The World, and Studio 360. She reports for Radiolab, Marketplace, 99% Invisible, and more. "If people think they might want to be an editor the first step is to pitch to places that have good editors and get edited and really pay attention to that process. ... But also the second thing is to just listen to work — work that you like and work that you don't like — and figure out how are you reacting to it. Like where am I bored? Where am I confused? Where am I checking Twitter? Alternately, why am I unable to do what I thought I was doing because the story is so damn good that I can't do anything but listen to it?"

Mike Pesca is the host of Slate's The Gist. "There was a time when the most intelligent guy in your town was just the guy who knew the most — he knew the family genealogy, he knew facts. We've gotten away from that. The facts are there on a computer. So I think the definition of intelligence has a lot to do with synoptical connections — the ability to make connections, the ability to make analogies. So I have these conceptual scopes — I find a way to tie seemingly disparate things together. This is how my mind naturally thinks, but this is also — since I have this show I know that I have to turn out content for it — this is how I've conditioned my mind to think."

Sruthi Pinnamaneni is a producer at Reply All. “It’s almost like me and the other person were learning about each other. And I don’t ever think about it like oh this is what makes this person weird or this is a weird moment. It’s just like moments where a thing feels real. You hear somebody tell you something and you feel like they’re telling it for the first time, and you just can’t get that quickly. It just takes time.”