Kyle Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. We're moving toward the end of the year, and this is a time when your public media outlets, like us, remind you that end-of-year financial support keeps the programs on the air that you enjoy and rely upon. We wanted to go a bit further and ask somebody very much in public media about what it takes to create daily quality radio.
Peter O'Dowd fills that description. He's a reporter and host for Here & Now, heard here every Monday through Thursday afternoon from 1-3 p.m. It's a co-production of WBUR Boston and NPR. Peter O'Dowd says the daily routine of making Here & Now isn't always routine.
O'Dowd: First of all, it's really fast paced, and I love that. I think it's so exciting. I mean, we're right in the middle of the day, and so news breaks all the time when we're on the air live. And so, just today, for example, we were covering the Pete Hegseth story and the second strike on that alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela. And it was a rapidly developing story, and we needed to be on it. And we had Tom Bowman on, NPR's Pentagon correspondent. And we were right in the middle of that story, right as it was unfolding, as the president was talking to his Cabinet members publicly, as the Pentagon was holding a press conference. And so I think what I love about it is just how fast it is.
You wake up one morning and you think you know what your show is going to be, and then all of a sudden there's a riot at the U.S. Capitol and there's no plan anymore. And I just think that's so thrilling. On the other hand, you get to do interviews, recorded interviews that you can plan for, that are with celebrities and musicians that you admire. And so it's really fun. It's fun no matter how you cut it.
Kellams: I want to get to those interviews in a moment. But let's go back to the communication. When it's a day like today, when there's breaking news and your clock is changing, is it in your ear? How do you know that you want to give listeners this story or this interview?
O'Dowd: Well, sometimes it's completely obvious. Sometimes we know an event is going to happen, and so we can plan for it. And we have a reporter lined up who's at the scene and who's covering it.
So I'll go back to the January 6 story, for example. I was on the air that day, and I was doing a completely different story. And the director came into my ear and he said, there's a riot at the Capitol. I think it was Tom Bowman again. We've got Tom at the Capitol. He's watching it unfold. We're going to go into special coverage right now. And so let's do it. And basically, the second that story that was airing was over, we were right into special coverage.
It really kind of depends on how quickly stuff is developing. I remember, for instance, when the Queen of England died — Queen Elizabeth II. I was on air that day, and we knew it was getting close. We just didn't know when. And so what we had to do was pay very close attention to what was happening, and we were ready the moment the news came down to go on the air live with a correspondent that we had lined up, but we didn't know when it was going to happen. And so you just have to be flexible. Flexibility is the key.
Kellams: You mentioned the recorded interviews, and they can be serious topics. They can be the environment, they can be immigration, or it can be about research that shows raccoons are being domesticated. What's the value in public radio being able to bring you all of that information?
O'Dowd: Now you've done your homework. Listen, we have a couple different missions. First of all, our mission is to inform people. We want you to come to NPR and to public media to learn about what's happening in the world. We also have a mission to delight and to entertain and to have fun. And so I think that's one of the beautiful things about what we do — that yes, we're very serious news people. We care about updating you with the most serious stories and important stories around the world. But God, if you can't have fun, if you can't enjoy what it means to be human, why do this job? Because otherwise it's just completely depressing, you know what I mean?
Kellams: In a fast-paced news cycle, how do you see the forest for the trees? If you're having to change what you might be doing — and that's not every day, of course — but there's so much developing every day. Can you keep a higher-altitude view of what's going on?
O'Dowd: Well, one of the tricks is that, especially for people who've been doing this for a long time, like I have, sometimes you've really been covering the same exact story for a decade. It just kind of changes around the margins every day. And eventually you get to a certain point where the story has evolved. So I know a lot of these stories already, and I think that's a huge advantage. And I don't think people understand that.
On the other hand, if there is a really quickly developing news situation, you just have to kind of revert to the basics. Hey, I don't know everything about what's happening right now. I'm not the expert. Maybe I have an expert who can explain to me the basics — the who, the what, the when, the where, the why. Or I have a reporter who's watching something unfold firsthand and they can tell me. And so one of the tricks is: don't try too hard, especially when news is moving fast. Just ask the basic questions. What's happening? How do you know? What do you see? And I think that's how you get through some of the most stressful news situations.
Kellams: What are the conversations you and your colleagues at Here & Now have when you're talking about a bigger-picture story? What are the pitches like? How do you determine amongst yourselves what you want us to be able to hear over the course of a week or a month?
O'Dowd: Yeah, well, we have different layers. I mean, we're going to follow the news. And so if it's happening and it's a big deal in Washington, or if there's a big fire or an earthquake or we know people are hurt, it's not much of a discussion. We know we're going to go to the biggest stories. The question then might be, where do we put this in the show? Does this rise to our opening segment? Who do we talk to? Do we want to talk to a reporter that day, or do we want to talk to a real person who's on the scene? Those are the types of questions that we ask ourselves.
But I said there's layers, and what that means is that nobody wants to hear breaking news all the time. We have to do things that are different. We have to plan. We want to do series and in-depth radio projects and that sort of thing. A lot of planning goes on behind the scenes. We have editors and producers who are working in advance.
We did a big project — we've done two big projects — on conditions inside jails in the United States, jails and prisons. That required a ton of planning, a ton of research and reporting. And we knew that was going to take a lot of time. And so you have to really balance the breaking news with the more ambitious stuff — the stuff that's harder to do, the stuff that takes more time and more money and more energy. And so we think we do a pretty good job with that. Not every segment can sound the same. We have to have a different texture every day.
Kellams: People in journalism always talk about we're not here to validate people's opinions, we're here to inform. But I have to tell you about something that you did that validated someone very close to me. They share a phobia. And I hate to bring this up among people who have this, but you've written about a phobia that you have. You wrote about it when you went to Costa Rica, I believe.
O'Dowd: Are you talking — I think you're talking about something that I did a very long time ago.
Kellams: Yes. This was cluster phobia.
O'Dowd: Yes. When you fear clusters of things. Oh my goodness. Well, you've done your homework.
Kellams: Just the value of sharing part of yourself with listeners who share this and then feel a little bit better because they know somebody else experiences this.
O'Dowd: This is an interesting debate that I think sometimes we have to have in journalism, especially when you're hosting a show. You're not just "the facts, ma'am" when you're hosting a show. You kind of need — in my opinion, some people might disagree with me — you kind of need to show yourself a little bit. Your listeners come to see you as a person they trust and that they know and that they care about. You do need to kind of let them in on who you are a little bit.
We have to relate to each other as human beings. Every story I do is about being human. That's the only thing we're really ever talking about — being human. And that's something we all share in common. And so if you can do that in the right doses, I think you can have an effective relationship with your audience. And honestly, that's what it's all about.
Kellams: Peter O'Dowd is a host and reporter for Here & Now, heard here Monday through Thursday afternoons from 1 until 3 p.m. We talked over Zoom last week.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
