Great broadcast.

I know. Not like Murrow on London's rooftops. But relatively speaking. Let's just say "compared to the last several days".

It's been a rough week for lots of reasons I won't bore you with.

Jim got back to town yesterday while I was kind of at my low point, freaking out on everything, *trying* to *force* myself to stay positive, which *isn't* how it works, 'cause if you do that you just talk fast and sound sing-songy. Not to mention it's an emotional rollercoaster to do things that way, which is bloody unfair to myself and surely doesn't do the listeners any favours, either. (Apologies to any listener whom I may have caused -- allegedly, of course -- to drive off into a ditch.) These are things that can *only* be learned over doing this sort of thing, day-in, day-out for a while.

There's some immense and glacial calm which is communicable in the newsroom now. I caught it yesterday, but only after the single most disastrous interview I've ever conducted in my life.

You can do this "broadcast news" thing one of two ways, as I see it.

You can go *totally* bipolar -- get cynical, but still sound *way* too happy when you *should* sound "moderately upbeat", turning *intense* emotions off and on like water from a spigot. Do it a few days running and your whole body will literally ache. Your eyes will burn. Your throat will grate. You will hear yourself in the headphones, as you speak, and whatever state of mind you are deliberately affecting, you will think "my god, who *is* this cartoon madman reading news *at* me?". I therefore do not recommend this particular technique.

Or -- you can be calm, no matter what. You can *breathe*. DEEPLY. In this state, you don't have to flip personalities between announcing tragic news and telling people about lovely weather. You *can* be calm, respectful, and appropriate, no matter *what* actually happens, *if* you've got enough clean air inside your lungs and insufficient phlegm to choke you up. You can achieve this state in under ten seconds. The slightest and most undeliberate change in speed and intonation will signal to listeners whether it's "good" news or "bad", and they won't *need* any over-the-top histrionics.

The simple fact is I don't like being in the former state, and *much* prefer being in the latter. Whether this is what listeners want, only time will tell. Pledge drive's a month away -- if anyone loves or hates anything I'm doing, this is my chance to hear about it!

The best way I can illustrate it is how very different actors play Hamlet, and specifically his soliloquies on stage. Are you DECLAIMING TIMELESS BRILLIANT AND DRAMATIC ORATORY TO THE HUDDLED MASSES sitting in the back row, in the hopes that your words will just *overwhelm* everyone else? Or are you really just talking to one person, and exploring one issue, for a minute or two at a time? Radio *isn't* theatre -- but there *are* some *crucial* similarities.

Then the accomplishment for the day -- a two-part report I am *genuinely* proud of my hand in, and, even more, for the newsroom as a whole, because it signals a major shift in how we work *with* eachother.

A regional hospital is considering an operating agreement with a Roman Catholic-owned chain of hospitals, and a bunch of groups in the community are worried about what will happen to end-of-life and women's reproductive healthcare under the new arrangement.

About a month ago we *might* have managed to send one person to a press conference, get someone declaiming angrily into a mic in front of TV cameras, and then called up the other side only to get a prepared statement in response. It would have been "thorough" and "balanced" in the lowest-common-denominator way such a story might ever be and still get the basic facts out there. It might even have advanced the story a bit. But I would bet money it would have impressed listeners about as much as dropping a brick on the sidewalk, only to find it didn't bounce. Even if it *could* be delivered without sounding like one omniscient reporter trying to moderate a shouting match introduced by a host who wound up sounding vapid for not having any involvement in the story beyond rewriting the lead, it would have ultimately ended with some variation on "so-and-so says you're doing this. Are you?" followed by "no, we're not." Thud. A clunker.

Elaine's the process-oriented, "issues" person in the newsroom. Get her talking sometime -- and just listen. Within three minutes she'll go from facts and figures through characterizations into what the broader social implications are and have you utterly enthralled at her analysis of how this little disagreement between parties you've never dealt with in your life really *matters*. Everything ties into something bigger, and given half a chance, she *can* make you understand *why* it's important.

I, on the other hand, am the detail-oriented faggot geek from Texas. I want clear answers -- yes or no, mostly -- on what the details of the actual contract are, and want to hear why so-and-so will not release them to the public for review, so I can edit it all down in under half an hour and go ON AIR with the hard *facts* at hand. And to be fair to Steve, I'm also "the host", and making my broadcast sound good is among my very top priorities -- "broad issues" are all well and good, but damn it, I have *got* to go on air in twenty minutes, and good luck getting me to understand the underlying issues between now and then while I'm lining up carts, billboards, bollboard music, funding credits, headlines, and weather.

As of today we are working *together* -- as opposed to just "in the same room". A *huge* part of the credit for this goes to Jim.

A couple of weeks ago it was a story about testing veterans for depleted uranium exposure. She worked on her end for *hours* with genetic mutations in the children of veterans exposed to DU. She gathered story after story. I just wanted to know whether DU was or was not the byproduct of Uranium enrichment, and which isotope(s) we were talking about, and the possible role of various "daughter" elements in the decay chain, and why DU was being used for munitions at all (it pierces armour), and what the funding situation was for the program in question.

We worked "in the same room" on that one. We never *quite* found common ground. The story got out, but if you may forgive me for saying so, it wasn't so great, in terms of the total broadcast package. I kind of thought she was crazy, and while I wouldn't dare attribute thoughts to her, I think she could be forgiven for kind of thinking *I* was crazy.

Today's story was *totally* different.

Elaine spent two hours in interviews -- a good chunk of it with people critical of the hospital's arrangement, and their lack of transparency in contrat negotiations. She comes out of interviews with advocates of this and that who want to ask the hospital some questions, which the hospital won't answer to their satisfaction.

I shut up for five minutes and just listen to Elaine, knowing little more than that there is some controversy here. I get a decent sense of *what* it's most important that I ask, without getting emotionally involved in the story. Jim acts as moderator. I get to use the "straw man" in an ethically justifiable way -- I don't personally care, all that much, about reproductive health or contraception or end-of-life care issues and how the Council of Bishops mandates "Christus Health" treat these things.

But -- as an emotionally disengaged reporter, I *can* casually call up and ask the spokesman for the hospital, on behalf of the people who *do* care personally, what they're doing to address these various concerns. It's *not* personal. It doesn't *matter* if I "like" or "don't like" the person I'm interviewing. He agrees -- on tape -- to give some information to me that the activists have not yet managed to get. That agreement gets broadcast to perhaps a hundred thousand listeners.

And I intend to check the inbox tomorrow morning.

So anyway -- we took what could have been a glorious clunker of a produced story about vague abstractions from "right to life" to "right to die" and an uninteresting lead about dull facts concerning contract negotiations and fiscal and ethical implications and tied it all together -- beautifully. It ran about twelve minutes long, from end to end. And the overall effect -- I don't "believe" this, I KNOW it, because I *heard* it -- was one of facilitating a dialogue that might not otherwise have happened. Jim moderated between Elaine and me, and between us all, we facilitated a dialogue, in considerable depth, that might otherwise have been nothing more than "allegations" and "denials".

MY GOD. I LOVE PUBLIC RADIO.

I still do not consider myself a "team player". When I see that very term, I think of Starbucks, and how people are variously managed -- expertly, or not -- into achieving goals that really do *not* matter, in the end. But -- I can not deny tonight's two-parter had an impact that no discrete, "boxy" single-reporter piece on so complex an issue *ever* could have.

I tell you what. I would bet *money* that a *lot* of people heard both of our stories all the way through, tonight, over twelve minutes, as one single "piece", who would *not* have listened to a five or seven minute "he said"/"she said" piece by one reporter, introduced by a host who sounds like he just doesn't "get it".

I am where I belong.