The Art of the Audio Interview
Originally Aired: Tuesday, April 16, 2019
(Above photo credit: Center for Communication)
We are in a golden age of the audio interview. News organizations are creating audio offerings in various formats, drawing millions of listeners who want to hear more and more via radio, podcasts and streaming services.
What makes us want to listen whether we’re in our cars, on our phones or in our homes? What are the secrets behind great audio interviews? Hear from All Of It host Alison Stewart, United States of Anxiety and Caught host Kai Wright and reporter Matt Katz, as they reveal how they produce and present compelling programming that is changing how we experience news, information and entertainment.
Alison Stewart is host of All Of It, WNYC’s weekday talk show with a fresh take on culture, the arts, the news of the day and how we live in New York and the surrounding region. Since beginning her career as a producer and reporter for MTV News’ breakthrough presidential campaign coverage “Choose or Lose”— which earned her a Peabody Award — Stewart has spent over two decades reporting for all the major national news networks. She has anchored her own groundbreaking and successful news programs on NPR, PBS, ABC and MSNBC, and reported from the floor of six presidential conventions, the Olympics and the World Trade Center on 9/11. Her audio experience includes serving as host of NPR’s experimental digital news program Bryant Park Project and hosting the first season of TED Radio Hour.
Kai Wright is host and editorial director of WNYC’s Narrative Unit and a columnist for The Nation magazine. He was the host of WNYC’s podcasts The United States of Anxiety, Caught and There Goes the Neighborhood. Throughout his career, Kai’s reporting and writing has focused on racial justice, economic inequity, healthcare and sexuality. He is the former editorial director of Colorlines and a longtime fellow of the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.
Matt Katz reports on air at WNYC about immigration, refugees and national security. He covered New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for more than five years, first for The Philadelphia Inquirer and then for WNYC and New Jersey Public Radio. He followed the governor through scandal and presidential candidacy and appeared weekly on WNYC Studios’ Christie Tracker Podcast. In 2015 Matt and a team from WNYC won a Peabody Award for their coverage of Christie and the Bridgegate scandal. In 2016, Matt’s biography of Christie — American Governor: Chris Christie’s Bridge to Redemption — was published by Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions. Matt’s experience covering Christie also shaped his 2016 TedX talk, Political Deceit in a Social Media Age.
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