Journal #3 - NPR Radio Interview Analysis

For this assignment, I downloaded a podcast of Fresh Air with host Terry Gross interviewing Stephen Waldmen, who recently wrote the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America. This is a book about the role religion had when America was being founded.

To prepare for this interview, Gross had obviously read the book beforehand. She also had to do some research on religion, as well as some history of America. The history most likely had to include the founding fathers, their beliefs, and documents from this era. Gross knew what he did outside of writing this book, such as founding a website called beliefnet.com, which is about several religions.

The questions asked in this interview were mostly about the book, and how different things influenced Waldmen’s beliefs about religion’s role in founding our country.

Gross had a lot of follow up questions. She built up questions by first asking one, and Waldmen would respond, for example, with a fact about the Quakers. Gross would respond to this answer with a question directed to the Quakers. To transition, she would say “Another myth you’re your book debunks is…”, quote the book itself, or simply reintroduce Waldmen and change subject completely. To me, it didn’t seem like she had a particular strategy for this interview.

If she asked a question but didn’t quite get the answer she wanted, she would summarize what he said, and then ask something along the lines of, “What’s an example of that?”, “What does that say to you?”, or “What guides your opinion?”.

The relationship seemed purely professional. It didn’t seem like they were great friends or anything, but they weren’t arguing and interrupting each other. When the interview ended, there was a quick and dry “thank you for coming. Goodbye” ending.

From this interview, I learned that you have to have your research done to ask questions on the spot, as well as expand on comments. You also have to have many questions lined up so you don’t run out of things to say, especially in a forty minute interview.