Radiolab

Radiolab is a radio show from WNYC, New York Public Radio, that deals with science and technology...but to couch it in that way makes it sound like NOVA or some other super-boring public programming. By their own definition, however:

Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Each episode is an investigation - a patchwork of people, sounds, stories all centered around one big idea.

The show is primarily produced by two people - Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. I'd first come across Robert Krulwich when I was learning about how TV works. I'd gotten my first job at WOFL in Orlando, when I'd started shadowing the people in the different parts of the newsroom. Throughout this self-imposed training, I'd learned how hard it is to write stories, shoot video, and craft words and pictures together into something poignant and useful.

After realizing how hard it was to do such a thing, I sought out places on TV where news was presented in a clear, intelligent, and entertaining way. The search led me to two places: Frontline on PBS (which is some of the most amazing television being created right now...almost without equal) and Nightline. This is Nightline several years ago, when they would take one issue and focus on it in depth for the entire half-hour.

Robert Krulwich did a story about the 2004 election and how political parties had shifted their focus from trying to convert people into die-hard party members (and make them vote) and instead to focus on people who were leaning towards their party and bring them solidly on their side. He told the story with interviews and personal stories, of course, but also with the use of animation to explain exactly what was meant by a "wobbly two" (essentially someone who is leaning in favor of a party, but neither die-hard nor neutral). I was hooked.

Krulwich has a way of distilling the very complexities that make up human existence in a way that not only make them clearer, but let you feel like you've been in on the joke the entire time.

Jad Abumrad is a radio producer...though he doesn't care so much about news as he does about SOUND. Abumrad is an audiophile in the purest sense. He isn't the guy who spends $40,000 on audio cables, but he's the guy who lives to expose people to sound in a way that tells a story they would have never expected to notice or appreciate.

The first time I came to truly appreciate the way Jad thinks is when I was exposed to the opening of Radiolab's Morality program in which he asks two questions:

First scenario: There are five men working on a railway, and a train is bearing down on them - they don't see it, and you can't shout to them to warn them. If you do nothing, the five men will die. However, next to you is a lever, and if you pull the lever you will make the train shift tracks onto a track where one man is working. He will be killed, but the five other men will be saved. Do you pull the lever?

Second scenario: Ok, same thing, the train is coming, and five people are working on the tracks...however this time, you're not standing next to a lever, you're on a bridge overlooking the tracks. Next to you, though, is a large man, and if you throw him off of the bridge, the conductor of the train will see him, and stop the train, saving the five men.

Most of the time, the people who are asked if they should pull the lever say they would pull the lever, but they also say they would not push the man off of the bridge. Why? It's the same accounting, right?

The way this is presented got me hooked on the combination of the talents of Krulwich and Abumrad. There's really nothing else like it. Other amazing introductions he's crafted are for the show on Emergence (a topic now close to my heart, thanks to this show and Steven Johnson), Choice, and this week's episode Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters.

I can only ask (if I could beg you in person, I would) to take 3 minutes of your life, to listen to the introduction to the show, Time.

This intro gives me chills and hits me in a way that lets me know there are brilliant people who see the world in a beautiful way...and can convey it to you in a way that may improve the way others see the world.

A second amazing thing about these shows is how they stand up to repetition. In the book "Everything bad is good for you" (again with the Steven Johnson stuff) Johnson points out that the shows that have a lasting imprint on contemporary culture (Simpsons, Seinfeld, Family Guy, even) stand up to multiple viewings. They each have such an amazing attention to detail in the crafting of the show that on the second and third go-round you absorb more from the show than you did the first time. Radiolab has this endearing characteristic as well...so that even if you like it the first time, you'll like it even more on each successive listen.

Radiolab - what can I say about it that hasn't already been said about Leonardo da Vinci?