WEBVTT - Ira Glass 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:10.080 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:15.600 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.680 hear their stories, what inspired their creations, what decisions changed 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:27.960 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Ira Glass caused 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.280 a revolution in public radio, and he is now its 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.360 primary kingmaker. Glass wasn't the first to share well crafted 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.120 stories about so called ordinary people, but his show This 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.280 American Life connected with a younger generation of public radio listeners, 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.279 and they became fiercely loyal. Ira Glass has become so 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.760 popular that the winner of this year's Halloween contest in 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:55.040 Fort Green, Brooklyn was a dog, the small, white, fluffy type, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.520 dressed as Ira. This is a level of fame. I 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:02.160 didn't quite know existing. Is this what you bargain for? No? 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.880 Has this happened to you. I've never won the Ford 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:09.440 Queen Pupster Halloween custom event. You've got me there? I mean, 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.959 I'm I'm I'm a little jealous. Yeah, yeah, I'm not 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.880 sure jealousy is exactly the right word, but it's something. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.200 It's a weird thing to have happened. Um, how do 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.960 you feel about? I mean, I listened to Fred Armis 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:23.840 and do the episode with you where he's doing you, 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.800 and I try to do you all the time because 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.200 you fit into a category all those yours works, Yours is. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.680 Yours is of a style of announcer, host, journalists, broadcaster, 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.280 or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.000 hear so many people now on the radio who are 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.600 the opposite of what I grew up with. And I 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:45.160 think it comes down to, like, what do you think 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.680 authority comes from? And back when we were kids, authority 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:54.640 came from enunciation, precision, delivery, and a kind of gravitas 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.960 that you are bringing to the character you're playing. And 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.760 I think that you know, not just me, but a 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.440 whole generation of people feel like, well, that character is 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.360 obviously a phony pretending to be this like cartoon, sort 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.919 of like the newscaster on The Simpsons with a deep voice, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.880 having gravitas. And so I think a lot of us 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:13.960 just when in the other direction. And for me, I 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.119 felt like, you know, any story hits you harder if 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.920 the person delivering it doesn't sound like some news robot, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:22.760 but in fact sounds like a real person having the 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.320 reactions a real person would have, and be surprised and 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.519 amazed and amused. The very thing I'm talking about you 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.560 were aware of when you were doing your show and 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.720 conscious of, you know. And I mean I started off 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:33.959 at MPR when I was nineteen, at MPRE on Washington 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:36.600 doing what First it was an intern, and then I 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:38.640 worked on a documentary series where I learned a lot 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.560 of things. By the time I was I was I 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.240 was a production assistant. And all things considered, does that 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.320 mean I've been tween college? Basically, go to Quebec. I 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.680 went to Northwestern for two years and then switched to Brown. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.680 Graduated from Brown in semiotics, which is a field of 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.920 sort of pretentious literary theory, but actually is all about 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.200 how to structure a narrative. So it's an enormous practical training. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:02.960 And there are things that I learned in school that 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.799 I use every day to this day. But anyway, then 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.639 we go back and forth between college and working at NPR. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.480 And at first when I tried to be on the radio, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.600 like most people like, I tried to be the official thing, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.320 and then at some point I trained myself out of 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.160 it because I thought it's not as effective untrained yourself 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.040 out of it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And NPR obviously has 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:23.959 like a tradition of people going back to the seventies 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.919 who talked not like normal announcers, but like people. Susan 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:28.720 Stanberg was the host of All Things Considered, which I 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.440 think people today might not even remember this lady who 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:33.840 really set a tone where she She's just seemed like 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.640 some Upper West Side New York lady, like leaning into 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.320 the microphone mentally talking to you over the radio. You 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.160 just say, mentually the adver mentally, you don't get you 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.560 don't get it. That doesn't get that's a that's that's 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.520 an advert that that's only on the But I got 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.000 she was mentally leading into the microphone, yes, and talking 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.000 like a person. So there were other people doing it. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:54.760 I heard people doing it. I was just like, that's 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.520 the direction I gotta go in. I mean, when I 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.320 think about your show, I wonder what it's like for 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.040 you editorially in terms of do you sit there and 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.560 you consciously try to take out of any political point 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.600 of view. I mean the kinds of stories we're doing, 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.400 I think, you know, when we take on something that's 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.240 in the news, you know what we're looking for is 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.440 a story with characters and scenes and emotion and and 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:23.720 looking for a way to to show something new that 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.480 people don't know. So, for example, when we did an 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.560 hour in Guantanamo, like we didn't go into it advocating 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.240 Guantanamo should be shut down or it shouldn't be shut down, 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:33.520 you know, like we we don't, we don't have an 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.560 agenda that way. Like when we did an hour on it, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:37.520 we did an hour because it had been a couple 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.760 of years into Guantanamo existing, and we read that I 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.120 can't remember the number of people, a number of detainees, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.440 like a couple of hundred detainees had been released. We 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.000 had discovered, like you know, the US did determined like 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.039 you guys aren't enemy combatants. You guys, you know, go 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.400 back to Pakistan or wherever. And we had noticed that 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.960 nobody in America interviewed them just to ask like the 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:56.880 normal things you know that like you don't want to know, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.600 like how were you treated? Do you want to kill us? 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.720 All on that and then so like you go into that, 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.160 like you the question of like what our stand politically 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.520 on Guantanamo is it doesn't know. I appreciate that, but 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.400 I'm warning, do people sometimes view you as being liberal? 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.000 Of course they do because because of public radio, which 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.560 is seen as liberal. Though though when you look at 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.800 the studies of like what actually gets covered on the 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.919 news programs in the way it's covered, I feel like 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.640 the numbers bear out the fact that it is not 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.280 more liberal than other news sources. That said, there's a 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.440 tone in the way certain things are covered that conservatives here, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.120 and from talking to conservatives, like, I know like that, 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.800 I think that's a real thing. Um. I think at 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.640 one point, there was a show that we did on 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.120 one of the elections, and it was about how people 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:43.919 voted and why they voted the way they voted, And 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:45.680 I had a long series of discussions with these people 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.440 who are like swing voters because I was fascinated with it. Like, Alec, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.400 you just think about like an election of like Carry 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:52.760 versus Bush, and you're coming down to like the last 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:54.680 three weeks before the election. Who are the people who 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.240 haven't decided? Like how can you like like whatever you say, 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.320 like those are two very different the unknowns. Yeah, Like 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:01.400 what do you have to know? Like you know them 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.839 both really well, Like what exactly? Especially people who are 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:05.920 following the news, like like what is there to wonder 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.400 about at that point, and I think in that show 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.919 I came out and said, look, I'm a Democrat, just 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.599 said to the audience, because I felt there was a 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.599 point in the discussion. In my interviews people were identifying 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.200 as Republican or Democrats, and I felt like, why pretend 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:24.560 anything but this like usually about democratic That said, like 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.120 many Democrats, I find them to be the most annoying 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.240 party and so not representing what I believe on so 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.000 many issues, and so lacking in so many ways, and 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.919 so not doing what I would have them do. So 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.040 even saying that I usually about Democrat, I feel like 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.160 it doesn't even get near what my actual politics are. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.440 But if I have to pick choice reluctantly, it's the 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.280 same thing as like we've done so many stories about God. 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:50.960 At some point I went on the air and said like, look, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.600 I don't believe in God. Like I'm just gonna put 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.200 that out in front. So take everything you're about to 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.040 hear with the grain of salt that you should. Right, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.920 it's just truth and packaging. And I think that it's 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.960 different for me as somebody who's on once a week, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.279 you know, doing a documentary show that's coming like a 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.120 bunch of different stuff. It's different for me than it 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.400 is for like the hosts of All Things Considered or 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.320 Brian Williams or you know what I mean. Like it's 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.720 just my role is different, and so I think I 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.679 have that freedom. When did you realize you do believe 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.800 in God? How old were you a teenager? Did you 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.400 grow up in a religious household? I grew up. It's weird. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.360 My parents we were Jews in the suburbs. So I 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.120 went to I went to Hebrew School and then went 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:28.600 to like the high school version of that. Like, I 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.720 continued past my environments and at some point I realized 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.040 I didn't. It just didn't add up from me, like 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:35.680 you know, you're in love or you're not in love. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.480 Like it's just like there's another explanation for everything around me, 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.480 which makes more sense. Then there's a big dad who 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:47.080 created this all you know, and just you know, universe 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:48.880 has been here. There was like some sort of something 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.800 that happened, Yeah, something like climbed up on the shores 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.240 of Yeah. Actually when I was thirteen and fourteen, Like 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.160 one of the things that was a huge influence on 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.720 me was you remember that you remember these books. Eric 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.200 van Danikin was the author Chariots of the Gods. Oh 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.040 my God, I love this. And I remember being in 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.000 Hebrew College, bottom of Hebrew College and arguing with the 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.320 teachers there are these old rabbis about like, but this 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.800 passage in like Exodus or Genesis, wouldn't this be better 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.640 explained by these paintings on the ground, you know, like 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.320 that we were actually visited by the whole theory of it. 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:22.720 For people who don't know what this is, it was 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.840 like this series of books, and there was TV specials 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.120 and stuff that if you actually looked at it, it 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.040 seems like what they're trying to tell us is people 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.440 visited us from outer space and that's that's what they witnessed. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.760 Scientology really is closer to what we've been exactly. Scientology 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.840 has a good point on it. I remember arguing that 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.240 in Hebrew College with my professors there, and they were 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.439 not They did not buy it, and you probably got slapped, 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.040 like young Woody Allen in radio days, dare you mentioned this? 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.800 Aliens from space? The universe is expanding? What what? What? 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.240 What do you what difference does it make? Are you 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:04.120 an atheist? No? I believe, I don't know what I 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.880 believe in terms of the specific. I had a Catholic 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.800 priest once say to me, listen, I believe in a 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.000 piece of many religions. The Jews have something to say, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.160 and the Muslims have something to say, and the Buddhists 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.520 have something to say. The Hindus have something to say. 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:19.600 He said, sometimes I think I'm a Catholic because they 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.880 just own the nicest real estate and have the nicest 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.680 places to hang out in. And I mean, this is 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:26.160 a priest that said that to me. He says, you know, 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.400 and I believe in a god I believe in. I mean, 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:30.760 I believe something had to be responsible for this. And 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.240 I also believe, oddly enough, as a result of some 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.600 stories I've heard on your show. You know, you know, 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.280 life itself and stories that come to me make me 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.680 believe there must be some God behind This is my belief, 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.360 not a fact. Obviously, my atheist message is not coming 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:51.640 through the subliminal. You fail failing the one thing you 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.160 failed that but you fail. Are there some shows? But 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:57.200 having said that, I have to say, like we do 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:58.680 a lot of shows and religion, We do a lot 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.440 of shows on faith because I think it's it's not 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:02.480 covered very well. Like if it's it's a sort of 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.760 an area of opportunity if you're if you're a reporter 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.640 or a documentary producer, like in America, it's one thing 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.720 that's actually the media do is a terrible job with 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.400 and it's gotten better over the last fifteen years, but 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.280 still like not so great of covering people of faith 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.760 and covering them in terms that are that actually document 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.400 people's relationship with their faith, like generally in the media. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:23.920 Like there's a whole phase of our show where where 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:25.400 where this was like a big thing we were doing 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:27.680 a lot of because my feeling like looking at the 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.440 way people who were religious were covered, they would be 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.760 these cartoon characters right like the you know, you see 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.280 them like these right wing, inflexible like doctrinaire and their beliefs. 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.800 And when I compared that to the actual Christians who 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.920 were in my life, they were super thoughtful and way 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.959 more compassionate and way more just just the way they 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.080 lived their religion was so radically different. Even though they 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.720 were very devout, radically different from what I was seeing. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.520 I was like, we need to document this because this 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:57.280 is a whole territory of stuff. And so we did 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.640 a whole set of stuff where I went out with 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.680 kids on their mission trip and we did this thing 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.120 about this ministerry named Carlton Pearson, and just we did 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.440 a lot of stuff because it seemed like an uncovered 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.640 territory and obviously like doing that without and he I 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.040 wasn't trying to bring anybody over to my side. That 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.720 would be boring. I wasn't interested. And I had a 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:15.360 friend of mine who was an actor who I worked 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.400 with once. He was very devout, very observant jew me 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.079 and his wife. And I once said to him, what 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:21.560 does it mean to you? And like, what what is 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:23.880 Judaism to you? And he said to me, it's the 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.360 study of how we as human beings distinguished ourselves from 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.320 the animals. And when he said that, it has leveled me. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.480 I'll take that. I take all these little pieces and 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.320 I say to myself, my dad died and I just 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.160 had this such an incredible emotional connection to my father. 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.160 The President of the United States were shot in nineteen 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.120 sixty three. Their energy was such a force in my 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.240 life and them in the world at large. Where did 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:51.160 they go? Does that energy, that is the human soul 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.480 and the human essence just dissipate and is it, you know, 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.600 like the light switch, like when you think, when you die, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.360 it just over, It's over. And I do think that 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.520 though I'm all is given pause by this a Billy 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.640 Collins poem called the Afterlife, where the thesis of the 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:07.320 poem is that each one of us goes to the 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.720 afterlife that he believes in. And I'm always scared of like, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:12.480 oh no, if I believe that that's what I'm going 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.800 to get. It's funny I thought the same thing. Someone 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:17.720 said to me, what do you think is the afterlife? 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.480 And do you believe in that idea? Maybe they based 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:21.559 it off this poem. They said that when you die, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.120 it's a soul in your imagination, and they said, what 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.400 do you think happens in the afterlife? I said, mine's 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.960 pretty mundane, mine's pretty sad. He said why. I said, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:31.720 when you go into a room and it's a screening 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.360 room and God is there. We sit down and it 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.280 gets you some iced tea and you have a sandwich, 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:37.960 and he's like, so what do you want to know? 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:39.840 And you look at me, you know where he knows 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.320 he's God, and you're like, you know, He's like okay. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:44.880 Larry Roll the film and they showed me what really 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.240 happened in Kennedy's assassination. I want them to start to 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.800 tell me the truth. Can you also in that version 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.120 of it, be like, Okay, So on this date in 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.880 the year, my wife and I got into an argument. 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.760 I swear she said this, and then I said this, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.480 and then she said this. She swears mine is very cinematic, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.439 and I say, they say, okay, show me the movie. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:09.680 Who was the girl that really loved me the most? Roland? See, 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.000 you get your answers, You finally get your answers. You 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.640 want your answers, You want your answers. What a shame 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.040 you don't get to do anything with that information, you know, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:18.800 like as a film. Like if this were to be 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.439 a film, the thing you're describing it needs a third act. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.920 Observing that my Afterlife of Fantasy requires a third act 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.640 comes instinctively to Ira. He can't help but think about 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.160 a conversation as if he's the editor, marking the structural 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.920 strengths and weaknesses of each anecdote. More of my conversation 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.840 with Ira Glass coming up next time on Here's the Thing. 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.319 We sit down with actress Julianne Moore. She shares her 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.640 special technique for getting ready to play a scene. I'm 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.800 very chatty. I'd like to talk all the way up 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.920 to action. I do, I do, And if you can't 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.480 talk to me, I'm really disappointed. Then I get lonely. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:01.319 Want to be lonely. When I'm wanting I want to 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.240 do with my buddy. I'm gonna talk to me. You 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:04.920 talk to me, friend. Let's be buddies talking to you. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:06.120 What did you do this morning? What did you have 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:07.800 for dinner last night? What are you doing later today? 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:09.480 Are you cold? Do you like that sweater? Did you 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.160 like my sweater? What are you doing? Action acting? I 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.959 love it. That's my favorite part. Then you get this 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.280 great connection with another human being, and then the scenes 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:23.200 like Comes Alive, that's Julianne Moore. Next time on Here's 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:40.080 the Thing. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.080 Here's the Thing. In January of two thousand twelve, This 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.880 American Life Friend excerpts of performer Mike daisy solo show 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.960 The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. The episode 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.160 featured segments from Daisy's Peace, in which he visited a 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.280 factory in China that made iPhones. Two months after Daisy's 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.480 Peace aired, a reporter discovered discrepancies in his story. Mike 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.240 Daisy had made things up. This American Life retracted the story, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.120 and Ira and his team had to ask themselves, how 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.560 did this happen? We were pretty good fact checkers, I 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.520 thought before mcdaisy and and uh, you know, I worked 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.920 at MPR News and we were at the level that 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.760 we were at an MPR News like we looked into 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.200 it as well as we could. We talked to over 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.080 a dozen people who had either been in those factories 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.120 or human rights groups that monitored those factories, and you know, 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.720 people confirmed everything that he said in the story as 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:33.360 things that really happened in these plants, with one exception. 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.680 He said that he met a fifteen year old going 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.840 into work at a factory making apple products, and all 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:41.600 the human rights workers everybody we talked to said like, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.480 actually apples like super great about that, and like would 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.240 be very hard for a subcontractor to have underage workers. 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.760 And has been a leader in this so if that happened, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.920 it was a fluke. And in the original show we 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.200 did with him, I confronted with that and he's like, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:56.720 oh yeah, I don't want to tell you anyone I know, 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.200 show me a picture of the person, which isn't really telling, 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.000 but he said, you know they you know, they give 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.600 me proof, and we sort of put it all of 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.200 that out there. Did that make you angry? Well, then 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.280 we found out, like, the one thing that we didn't 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.520 do is we didn't talk to his translator. And he said, look, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.000 I got this phone number, but when I call it, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:14.880 it doesn't you know, it's some lady in China I 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.120 met at the hotel and like, and so we you know, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.440 we we we gave up, you know, we didn't do that, 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:21.040 which at that point we should not have put the 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.320 thing on the radio. After we broadcast, another reporter found 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.720 that translator and she said, basically, she was with him 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.160 his whole time and all these things that he says 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.800 happened did not happen. And so did that make you angry? 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.760 People trust you, they admire you, and no one, no 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.200 one falls you for that obviously, And I don't know 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:42.520 you're not gonna say this. This is me say this. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:44.360 Mike Daisy may be gifted, but he's full of ship. 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:46.680 But the thing is, when that happened, did that piss 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:48.760 you off? Did that make you angry? I wish him, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.920 I mean maybe at some level, Like honestly, like my 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:57.520 first reaction was not being mad at him. Um then 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.040 an atheist thing. No, yeah, we've just given up on 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:07.159 life Ale no um, I mean I mean, honestly, like 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.359 the main thing I thought is like I just wondered 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.159 if we were all going to keep our jobs, you 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.159 know what I mean? Like I really wondered, like is 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.200 this it is the radio show over? Like that was 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.280 the main thing I thought. I don't know, I just 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.840 I just it was a mix of things. Mad was 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.560 in there somewhere about definitely was not the biggest part. 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.600 Other people in my staff were definitely way madder at him, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.080 and we're mad. But I had worked with him so 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.680 closely and adapting the thing for the radio. I felt 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.000 very close to him actually, and I just felt like 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.480 like like your friend did something, I mean, what we 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:40.959 you know, I just made him doing had a bit 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.159 of a relationship with relationship when I said like, oh no, 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.000 like what have you done? And that was a way 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.640 bigger part of it. But but you were asking has 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.439 they have things changed around the radio show since then? 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.359 And the answer is is yes, And now in addition 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:53.800 to doing like all the stuff we did back when 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.639 I worked on Morning Edition and all things considered to 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.520 like see the stories are true. We have professional fact checkers, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.879 like in the New York or something, and so every 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.280 script has gone through by fact checkers who we hire, 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.080 and they go back to all the sources in the 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.119 story and they go back to everything, and it's just 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.000 like it's it's a lot of work, but I have 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:11.959 to say it's been a glove way. It's been awesome. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.280 No approtose, but no appropos that when you know setting aside, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:16.800 I should say the fact checking thing in the whole 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.800 Daisy thing and how he played that out. Some of 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.480 your shows I listened to you, and these are among 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.800 my favorite shows. I mean, like the Adrian Schoolcraft thing. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:25.800 I mean, my my hair was standing up on my 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.280 arms when the cops are in his house in the end, 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.640 they're gonna take them away to quote unquote to the hospital. 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.480 You know what I mean. Do you ever fear any 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.199 blowback from shows like that the Carmen Cigar one that 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.719 was on recently, You over fear that, you know, the 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.840 cops are come and get you, come and get somebody 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.720 in your building, or you really pulled the covers on 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.120 a lot of people on that piece. When the Schoolcrafted, 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.600 I should Schoolcraft died and we had all been published 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.119 in the in the Village Voice, so I felt like 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.080 we were just doing kind of a cover version of 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:54.440