McEnroe, Glass (Photos: Chion Wolf/WNPR; Rich Orris/PRPD)
If doctors make the worst patients, what can you expect when you have the most celebrated radio producer of his generation as a guest on your radio show?
WNPR’s Colin McEnroe found out when he had Ira Glass on The Colin McEnroe Show Thursday and they ended up having an extensive on-air conversation about how to edit the sound of Glass getting up to adjust the air conditioning in his New York studio.
McEnroe guest-hosts The Pub this week and presents his complete conversation with Glass, which they recorded just a few weeks after the 2016 Public Radio Program Directors conference where Glass singled out McEnroe’s show as a rare example of innovation in public radio (and where he erroneously referred to McEnroe as “Chris” in front of basically everyone important in the system).
Their fascinating conversation on WNPR ranged from the merits of pledge drives and why Glass enjoys producing pitch packages (his top reason has nothing to do with supporting the mission) to the semiotics of this election season and how Donald Trump is, in McEnroe’s typically esoteric words, “hacking away at the umbilicus between signifier and the signified.”
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We welcome your feedback on the show: You can reach me at [email protected] or @aragusea on Twitter; my supervising producer at Current, Mike Janssen, is at [email protected]; and you can contact Current generally at [email protected] or @currentpubmedia on Twitter.
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Adam Ragusea hosts Current’s weekly podcast The Pub and is a journalist in residence and visiting assistant professor at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism.
WOW…a public radio “talent” taking a shot at Trump. How unusual and avant-garde.
I really enjoyed this interview, especially the unedited nature of the conversation. I sometimes think there is perhaps too much editing that goes on. I enjoy hearing people work out their conversations naturally.