Bob CollinsThere’s been a really great hashtag campaign on Twitter this week (#WeMakeNPR) as the people who work at NPR tweet about what they do and how it is they came to do it.
For many people, radio is a voice, but the reality is the heart and soul of a radio network and radio station are the staggering number of people behind the scenes.
We’re not sure what’s behind the hashtag campaign — in the past it’s had to do with stalled union contract negotiations — but we’re the beneficiaries of the emotional connection journalists have to the job.
Barton Girdwood is an NPR producer — I’ve written about those people before — whose tweet thread today is a good example.
1 There's a trope around @NPR that we're all backseat babies, kids who listen because their parents did. I'm not one of them. <thread>
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
3 …would send me to hell. So I listened to the stories on my local station. That's where I heard the word "homosexual" for the first time.
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
5 I immediately switched off my radio and laid there paralyzed. I didn't dial back in for ten years.
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
7 …that pub radio was essential, that somewhere another little boy would tune in for a glimpse of a world beyond his bedroom walls…
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
9 It employs producers, editors, and reporters who go there. When rights for LGBT people were not vogue, NPR brought the microphone to them.
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
11 That's why I stand with my colleagues. That's why #wemakeNPR pic.twitter.com/Im0eZ2mlfH
— barton girdwood (@bgird2me) June 29, 2017
There are other tweets just as poignant in the campaign.
Tamara Keith revealing she read bedtime stories while working.
My kiddo regularly got his bedtime stories via FaceTime during the campaign. #wemakeNPR pic.twitter.com/VDAag9pwz4
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) June 26, 2017
Sarah Handel, a Weekend Edition producer, noting that something’s got to give when you make the radio stuff.
(1/?) Because I've worked nearly every 12/25 for 15 years, this nugget is growing up thinking Christmas is a season, not a day. #wemakeNPR pic.twitter.com/U5fklfVdnX
— sarahhandel (@sarahhandel) June 29, 2017
And Sam Sanders showing us how the sausage sometimes gets made.
We go wherever we need to go–WHEREVER–to get the sound we need to tell you the stories you need to hear. #WeMakeNPR pic.twitter.com/CmznLEfpzp
— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) June 26, 2017
Someday, robots will do all of the work. But for now, radio remains the voice of humanity.
