Simple Googling dug up what Daisey had hidden

Within a few hours of phoning the translator who refuted key details in a This American Life show about factories that manufacture Apple products in China, Marketplace correspondent Rob Schmitz was on a plane to meet her…

Mo’ better radio

Believe it or not, there’s a stone tablet full of radio principles guiding This American Life. Ira Glass laid them out in a talk …

Fred Rogers and the significance of story

The late George Gerbner, a leading scholar of TV program content, wrote this article for the 40th anniversary of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, but it served the additional purpose of explaining why he founded the Cultural Environment Movement in 1996 after leaving the University of Pennsylvania, where he was dean of the Annenberg School of Communication. The article appeared in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Children, Television and Fred Rogers, a collection of diverse essays published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. There is a story about a mother who said to her child, “I wish you would change your behavior.” The child said, “That’s all right, Mother; Mr. Rogers loves me as I am.” Forty years in children’s television — with an approach that is so different from so many other programs— is an event of historic significance.

Latest Rabbit Ears story: a tear-jerker for its staff

The new owner of Rabbit Ears Productions, Millenium Media, says the company will continue producing radio and video childrens’ stories, despite having fired virtually the entire Rabbit Ears staff (pictured) at the end of April. Millenium will move Rabbit Ears operations from Connecticut to its home base in Philadelphia and rely on freelancers for future productions, says Chief Operating Officer Robert Weissman. The CD-ROM publishing company bought Rabbit Ears Productions–perhaps best known for its two-year-old Rabbit Ears Radio–from founder Mark Sottnick about six months ago. Sottnick says the firings took him by surprise and he is quite unhappy. The event shocked those close to Rabbit Ears’ small, family-like operation, and left observers wondering what will become of the enterprise without the staff that was responsible for its critical success.