Tuesday, April 12, 2005
NPR asks listeners to write about what you believe
Dan Gediman was home sick with the flu and looking for something to read when he came upon his wife's old copy of This I Believe, a compilation of personal essays originally read by the essays' authors on a popular 1950s CBS radio feature of the same name.
"I was utterly fascinated when I started to delve into this book and read essay after essay," said Gediman, an independent radio producer based in Louisville, Ky. "And I was astonished that this thing could have been such an enormous phenomenon in its day and I didn't know a thing about it."
He read a sobering essay by Will Thomas, a black war veteran so disgusted by the Jim Crow world he came home to that he was moving his family to Vermont to give the country he loved one more chance. The searching words of 16-year-old Elizabeth Deutsch contemplating faith and duty. And revealing reflections of national icons such as Jackie Robinson.
A seed was planted.
Two years later, Gediman's chance sickbed encounter with This I Believe and the enlistment of Jay Allison, an old friend, collaborator and ground-breaking public-radio producer, and Jay Kernis, senior vice president for programming at National Public Radio, has blossomed into an ambitious reprise on NPR.
The new series, also called This I Believe, made its debut last Monday with an introduction hosted by Allison, who explained the history of the original series, hosted by Edward R. Murrow. Allison replayed snippets of some of the original essays, including the piece by Deutsch, now a Cornell University professor, and invited listeners to join the new effort by submitting their own essays. http://www.npr.org/thisibelieve/agree.html
Regular and prominent Americans are being asked to describe in 500 words their core beliefs and values, and each week NPR will feature a three-minute essay read by the author.
The producers already have received hundreds of essays online at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4564213 and have enlisted as essayists notable Americans ranging from boxing champion Muhammad Ali and activist Gloria Steinem to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and movie director Ron Howard. Former President Clinton will contribute, as will former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich.
Allison said there was an ongoing effort to provide a good balance of perspectives. "We're inviting all comers," he said. "We're not interested in political harangue, not campaign or policy statements or negative statements."
He sees parallels in our contemporary experience and that of Americans in the 1950s. "We are afraid of each other," he said. "Patriotism is questioned. There's a great fear of the other. There are questions about America's place in the world, the overshadowing fear of war and issues of race and immigration are still with us."
Kernis, the NPR executive, said the essays now being sought aren't intended to be sermons, speeches or proselytizing, but "personal stories about how people reached their beliefs."
That doesn't mean faith won't figure into the essays.
"God is a part of most peoples' lives," Kernis said. "If people want to talk about God, spirituality and their beliefs, then they should be able to."
One of the project's goals, Gediman said, is to archive all the essays in an effort to capture for posterity what America believes in 2005. "The process of writing is transformative," he said. "It crystallizes your beliefs."
By Liz Halloran
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is a Tribune Co. newspaper.
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