Street roots., December 07, 2012, Page 4, Image 4

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street roots
Dec. 7, 2012
SHAPIRO , from page 1
years of work ahead of them, she has maybe
10 years of work ahead of her. And she told
me “If I were hiring for a job, I might hire
those college graduates, too.” But, she says,
“I feel like less of a person because I don’t
have the opportunity to do the work that I
know that I’m able to do.”
J.Z.: You grew up in Portland and now live
in D.C. - two bubbles on either side of the
country. Did you see a side of America you
were surprised at?
A.S.: D.C. really is a bubble. And living in
D.C., we hear and read a lot about the rest
of the America. I think living anywhere you
hear a lot about the rest of America if you’re
paying attention. But there’s really no
substitute for seeing it firsthand. And not
just seeing it firsthand, but walking up to
strangers and saying, “Tell me your story,”
and then hearing those stories. I felt so
privileged that people were willing to talk to
me about what was going on in their lives,
sometimes in very personal ways, all over
the country. And I just don’t think you can
get that experience without going out there
and having those conversations with people.
J.Z.: I was reading about your conundrum
on not standing during the pledge of
allegiance....
A.S.: Oh yeah. That caused a bit of a dust
up.
J.Z.: Every reporter has been in that
position where you’re supposed to be just an
observer, in this day and age when reporters
are looking to brand themselves, as destination
personalities with social media, etc. How do
you balance your online personality with the
journalist?
A.S.: I try not to say anything on Twitter
or Facebook that I would not want broadcast
publicly. The tone of Twitter and Facebook
is obviously different from the tone of NPR,
but if I think there’s something that would
be inappropriate on NPR, then I’m not
going to post it on Twitter or Facebook. I
should rephrase that — inappropriate can
mean different things. For example, on
Twitter, yesterday, I used the phrase social
disease, which I probably would not use on
the radio — an antiquated term for an STD.
But I’m never going to say on Twitter that
was a terrible speech by Barack Obama or I
love this policy proposal by Mitt Romney
unless I would also feel comfortable saying
that on the radio.
I think you can have more personality on
social media, I think you can sort of think
aloud on social media and get those
glimpses of things that might not seem
relevant on the radio. But I don’t think you
can be partisan on social media and be
nonpartisan on the radio and pretend that
because there’s a distinction you’re
somehow insulated from accusations of
partisanship.
J.Z.: Turning to media in general, there has
been a rising chorus of criticism that reporters
have become mere stenographers, and that the
facts are now left to this new meme of fact
checkers, often with their own agenda. What is
your assessment on how media covers our
government and politicians?
A.S.: Certainly in the Romney press
corps, for example, when Romney put out
that completely bogus add about car
manufacturers shipping jobs to China, every
news organization called it out as bogus,
with one or two exceptions.
We cover politics a lot better than we
cover policy. I just read this great book by
Michael Grunwald of Time Magazine called
the “New New Deal” and the book is about
the stimulus. The media paid so much
attention to the fight over passing the
stimulus, but then after the stimulus passed,
everybody just sort of ignored what
happened. And the story is what happens
when the law gets passed, when you allocate
all of this money to these different projects,
and generally speaking, I think policy
sometimes falls through the cracks because
it’s just so much easier to cover the political
wrangling over policy than the
implementation of that policy.
J.Z.: Like the fiscal cliff.
A.S.: Or once we get a deal to avert the
fiscal cliff or go over it or whatever, what’s
in that deal?
We know that there’s a huge package of
spending cuts, but what exactly will be cut
and then once those cuts are made, let’s
look at what the impact is on those
organizations that have gone through the
cuts. Don’t just report on the wrestling
match.
J.Z.: With the election over, what are you
looking for as the big news ahead?
A.S.: I’m fascinated to see what happens
to the Republican Party in the next couple
of years. Because they, by all accounts,
should have taken control of the Senate this
year, and instead they lost seats in the
Senate."They had every opportunity to win
the presidential race, and instead lost big.
They lost young people, they lost minorities,
they lost women. And there’s a part of the
Republican Party that says we have got to
change our platform in order to win these
demographic groups back. But there is also
a tea party base that says, no our problem
was that we nominated a Massachusetts
moderate. So I think there’s going to be a
real civil war in the Republican Party. You
could look specifically at the issue of
immigration. Where is the party going to go
on this? To what extent are they going to
play ball with the White House and
Democrats. That’s what I’m really interested
in the next couple of years.
charity and philanthropy. And she does
stories that a lot of other people are not
doing. And it’s striking to me that on the
federal level, there’s no dialogue about
poverty. I can’t remember the last time I
heard President Obama talk about poverty.
He talks a lot about the middle class. And
Mitt Romney even said, “I’m not concerned
with the very rich or the very poor, I’m
concerned about the middle class.” I think
that’s a pervasive attitude in both parties
throughout Washington. There’s almost a
sense that in boom times, everybody is
doing fine except for the people at the
bottom of the ladder, so we should pay
attention to them. And in rough times, when
the people at the middle of the ladder start
suffering, there seems to be this consensus
in Washington that it’s OK to stop paying
attention to the people at the bottom of the
ladder, but the fact is the people at the
bottom of the ladder are doing worse than
they were before as well.
J.Z.: This may be a little strange, but I
remember a colleague of yours, Ann Garrels,
who covered the Iraq war and titled her
memoirs about it “Naked In Baghdad” - a
reference to filing reports naked in her hotel
room as part of her cover. Any similar
anecdotes from the trail we should know
about?
A.S.: There are so many things. The song
“Born Free” played at the beginning and
end of every Mitt Romney rally, so by the
end of the campaign, we all knew the lyrics.
They were haunting our dreams. I never
broadcast naked, no. Frankly, our days were
so long that we were on the bus and the
plane the whole time, and if anyone had
been naked in those venues there would
have been a real problem with the Secret
Service.
J.Z.: How do you keep your singing chops
when you’re on an assignment like that?
A.S.: I did not. I’m just getting back into
that. In the past year, the only shows that I
did with Pink Martini were in Europe over
the summer. I took a couple weeks off and
traveled with them. And this weekend I’m
going to perform in Philadelphia, which will
be my first show with them in six months.
So I’m really excited to be back doing that.
J.Z.: That’s got to be such a release after the
time on the campaign.
A.S.: It’s the best to be able to do such a
creative thing with such talented musicians.
It’s such a different world from my day job. I
love what I do at NPR, but to be able to do
something that is completely different from
it is so refreshing.
J.Z.: And yet your moniker is “NPR
J.Z.: But where is coverage on issues of
affordable housing, on issues of poverty, on the
cuts to the Bureau of Housing and Urban
Development? You don’t see that covered at the
federal level. Where are those stories?
A.S.: I think they’re missing. We have a
reporter, Pam Fessler, who covers poverty,
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A.S.: I was worried about performing in
Europe, because when I perform in the
States, there’s always this sense of novelty
— “Oh, it’s the guy we’ve heard on NPR,
now he’s up there singing” — so it didn’t
really matter if I was any good or not. But in
Europe, nobody’s ever heard of me, so I
kind of had to hold my own, and I was really
delighted that it went well.
J.Z.: No one could have blamed you for
getting away from it all after the election, but
one of the first things you did after the
campaign ended was participate in a fund
raiser on the 10th anniversary ofOutLoud
Radio. Tell me about that and why that’s
important to you.
A.S.: They are doing such important
work. They are giving LGBT teenagers,
many of whom are - disenfranchised is such
an academic word - but many of them feel
like they are not part of a community,
they’re not part of society. In some cases
they’ve been kicked out of the house, in
some cases they’re homeless. In most cases
they feel like they don’t have a voice. And
OutLoud Radio is quite literally giving them
a voice, and giving them an opportunity to
tell their stories. And they have one project
that I think is just so amazing, an
intergenerational project, where they will
pair an LGBT young person with a senior
citizen in the LGBT community. And the
young people will interview the elders and it
values the experience of our elders in a way
that society often does not. It gives young
people an experience to see themselves as
part of this intergenerational continuity, and
just think it’s such a great project. I was
really happy to be able to support it.
J.Z.: Was this something that you related
to?
A.S.: I came out as a teenager in
Portland, at the end of my junior year at
Beaverton High School. And, on the whole,
had a very good experience. But of course, I
relate to gay teenagers who are figuring out
where they fit in the world. And as a gay
adult who is doing radio, a group doing radio
for gay teens seems like a natural fit.
J.Z.: It reminds me of what Dan Savage did
with the It Gets Better campaign.
A.S.: I admire what Dan did with the It
Gets Better campaign so much. He created
a global movement that in some ways has
become almost the brand of the gay rights
movement today. In such a powerful way
that everybody can get behind. From the
president to celebrities to ordinary people.
It’s remarkable what he was able to do with
that.
J.Z.: The past few years have not been kind
to news outlets. What do you see of the future
of public radio?
A.S.: It’s funny, I think in some ways
public broadcasting and Street Roots have
not-that-different business models, which is
basically saying to people do you like what
we do? If so, will you open your wallets for
us? It’s the same basic fundamental
premise, which is: Here is what we’ll do and
if you like it, we hope you will support it.
Street Roots is a proud partner
with Jesuit Volunteer Corps
Northwest and Americorps.
NORTHW EST
D ignity
Poverty