NPR Stories by Julia Taylor

Julia Taylor explores the Craig's List craze, and finds that online classifieds are not all they're cut out to be

This story about affordable housing in Washington aired on August 12, 2004

Taylor's Road Trip with Her Idol: Robert Siegel

I bounded out of bed. This was a day I would remember for a very long time: the day I got to spend on a road trip with my idol, Robert Siegel. Yes, that's right. I was going to drive to Aberdeen, Md., and back with the host of All Things Considered.

I have been an intern at All Things Considered for five weeks. Robert has hosted All Things Considered for over fifteen years. So I was understandably excited and terrified at the prospect of sitting in a van next to him for a whole day.

Over the past few weeks I have gotten used to small interactions with Robert - handing him scripts, firming up booking appointments, even pitching story ideas to him. But until the road trip, I had not yet spent any significant amount of time with him.

We were making the drive to Aberdeen in order to sit in on a cursive writing class. Robert is conducting interviews on cursive writing for a back-to-school feature in September. My role in the project was to research and set up interviews for the feature. Art Silverman, Robert's producer, invited me along on this remote interview "if I had the time." I made the time. This was an experience not to be missed.

When I tell people I am an intern, I brace myself for the same old response. "So, how many cups of coffee did you get today?"

Then I tell them where I work. A little respect enters their eyes. "How did you land that gig?" they ask.

NPR has a certain cache. And, frankly, I am not sure how I landed the gig, but I am sure glad to be at All Things Considered. After all, I have listened to the late-afternoon newsmagazine as long as I can remember.

My first day, I walked in the door twenty minutes early. I was sent to wait in a low-slung black chair in the lobby, face to face with two stories of headshots of NPR correspondents and hosts. There I sat under the watchful eyes of Robert Siegel, Bob Edwards, Anne Garrels, Melissa Block, Michele Norris, all smiling knowingly at the camera. My stomach started to churn.

I did not expect the butterflies. After all, this is my seventh internship since my junior year of high school. I am accustomed to being the newbie, so this summer should been old hat. But this is NPR. And that changes everything.

The first thing I face each morning is the All Things Considered meeting, when editors and hosts toss around ideas for that day's show. Interns are encouraged to participate. So, my third morning on the job, I went to the meeting armed. After everyone else had thrown story ideas into the ring, my stomach churning harder and harder all the while, I timidly proffered mine. "Greece is really struggling economically with the Olympics. Here it says they are even asking for money from other European countries to fund them." The response was dead silence as eternal seconds ticked by, as people stared down at their hands. Finally, Graham Smith, the editor who decides the show's lineup editor, took pity on me. "It's a good idea," he said, "But I think we covered that story a few weeks ago."

Now I pick my stories more carefully. Always prepared for rejection, I try to anticipate the weaknesses in my ideas. Finally, one stuck.

I saw it in a newspaper: a new homeless services proposal in California that President Bush is touting as an example for other states. When I explained the program, I got plenty of questions from my coworkers. That is always a good sign. Graham started nodding. I started to feel more confident. "It's not an issue we could cover in an interview," he said. Oh well, I thought, idea tossed out. But Graham wasn't finished. "I think we can commission a reporter in California to cover it." I couldn't believe my ears. I had an even harder time believing my ears a few days later, when I heard my idea being reported on the show.

After the meeting comes the hardest part of the day: booking guests. We have about five hours to put the show together, so booking guests for interviews with our hosts is a very intense process. Sometimes, it is a logistical tug-of-war to get guests into the studio. That first day, once spoke to a dog trainer in Indiana who had never heard of NPR. I had quite a time trying to convince him to take fifteen minutes out of a dog training session for a conversation with Melissa Block.

The work at All Things Considered is rewarding, but the pressure can be overwhelming. Luckily, we interns get built-in escapes. Each week we have a meeting for the fun part of the summer: Intern Edition. There are 46 of us, and together we are putting the show together, "soup to nuts," as they like to say at NPR. My job is to write a commentary about Craigslist.org, the ridiculously competitive website that most of us used to find housing this summer. In two weeks, the commentary will no longer be an idea in my head; it will be scripted, edited, recorded and premiered to NPR staff.

Another weekly escape is to the intern brown bags. If I'm lucky, I get to dash away from my desk and hear the VP of Online talk about the mission of the NPR website. Or hear the Ombudsman talk about the feedback - some valuable, some ridiculous-that flows through his "Inbox" each day.

The most memorable day of my internship did not turn out to be the most eventful. The drive to Aberdeen was very low-key. The conversation was not limited to world events; we spent more time chatting about our own lives. We shared anecdotes of college and studying abroad. Robert told me about his daughters, about my age, who have studied in far-flung places. He and Art reminisced about changing $100 bills in U.S. currency for unwieldy stacks of worthless cash in Serbia. We stopped for coffee twice.

When people roll their eyes at my intern status, I don't feel ashamed. I just smile a little wider. No matter their position or the amount on their paycheck, I bet they don't know what I know: Robert Siegel dozes on car trips.

Julia Taylor just graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Julia applied for an NPR internship two years ago and didn't get in. She tried again and did.

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