Ira Glass: 10 Years of 'This Life'
Panel from This American Life's Radio: An Illustrated Guide. Jessica Abel hide caption
Public radio listeners know Ira Glass as the host of the weekly program, This American Life. Last month, the show rebroadcast its first-ever program, which originally aired 10 years ago.
Glass Appearances on NPR
Stories from All Things Considered
Conversational Ideas for Long Car Trips (1988)
Song Lyrics Often Misunderstood (brief quote, 1987)
People Describe Being Hit by Lightning (1989)
The premise of This American Life remains as simple today as it was a decade ago: Glass strings together documentary-style stories around themes as hazy as tales of prom or pen pals. But the topics are often beside the point. It's really about the stories -- newsworthy or not -- and the singular characters that come to life within them.
But long before earning his accolades, he worked at NPR -- as an intern, a reporter and the host of Talk of the Nation. Glass joins the program to talk about his approach to radio storytelling.