What struck me this week was the challenge of working in a group of four. When I'm reporting for radio, I'm by myself or with a producer, and even if the producer and I split up for some of the reporting, we're usually in synch enough that it's fine, and I usually have time to listen to the tape I didn't gather.

In my group this week, we split up some of the reporting -- I wasn't there for some of the tape-gathering, and we didn't have time to go through the tape in preparing our project. Very scary and frustrating for me!

--Joanne Silberner

We watched a most incredible slideshow today - the Marlboro Marine by Luis Sinco for the LA Times. It seemed ridiculous in a way to discuss it afterwards. When a work is so powerful it's better to just let it lie still and quiet - at least for awhile. But of course the lights came back on, the mood shifted and we snapped back into our critical, dissecting selves. Now several hours have passed and a curious thing has happened. This was a piece with voice, some music and of course amazing photographs. Sinco's total emersion into his subject's life allowed us to see the pivotal, emotional moments one rarely glimpses. But as I started to say, something interesting has happened in the time since I saw this slideshow which is that I have forgotten most of the photographs, not all but most. What I remember, what continues to resonate through me is the sound of the soldier's voice. The quiet, gravelly quality of it. The rhythm with which he spoke. The description of looking down the barrel of gun at another person and seeing their life flash before your eyes just before you take it. It's been a long time since I've heard something I thought would stick with me for the rest of my life. But today I did. And interestingly it was not on NPR but on a slideshow for the LA Times...

rebecca

I think one of the things that most impresses me about Robert Krulwich is the evident delight he brings to his work. There is a "gosh, that's so interesting" quality to almost everything he does. I'm convinced that to be successful in communicating, you have to have that quality in what you do. You have to make people want to share the journey through a story with you. In a way, the topic doesn't matter, as long as the person talking about it is interesting.

It reminds a bit of how I chose courses in college. I went for the most interesting teachers, no matter what subject they were teaching. That's how I wound up in courses on Swedish History, Gothic Art and Architecture, and Irish Playwrights of the Early 20th Century.

--Joe Palca