Listening to America:
Twenty-Five Years in the Life of a Nation, as Heard on National Public Radio
Edited by Linda Wertheimer
Houghton Mifflin, 423 pages, $24.95
If there were a vision for public broadcasting, National Public Radio’s Bill Buzenberg indicates it would be modeled after a description by essayist E.B. White:
“It should arouse our dreams, satisfy our hunger for beauty, take us on journeys, enable us to participate in events, present great drama and music, explore the sea and the sky and the woods and hills. It should be our Lyceum and Chautauqua, our Minsky’s and our Camelot. It should restate and clarify the social dilemma and the political pickle.”
Buzenberg’s foreword sets the stage for “Listening to America,” which is also scheduled to be available on two 90-minute audio cassettes. Proceeding chronologically, the book offers context for NPR reports that begin with Vietnam War demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and end with the “angry voter” in the fall of 1994 and an interview with House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
NPR anchor and book editor Linda Wertheimer once said she was told NPR’s goal is calm conversation, analysis and explication. The book reinforces the thought. Even in the early years, NPR’s potential shone through–beyond reports on politics, our China policy, the fall of Saigon–in enchanting moments such as the day when there was no play to review, so writer-producer Mike Waters wrote about an “impressive piece of dramatic pageantry,” a sunset.
Politics and prominent news events abound in the book. If “Listening to America” doesn’t offer a lot of insights, it does let us step back in time to experience history as it was being reported.
The book’s best moments are when it deals with universal themes or topics–why wintergreen Life Savers flash in the dark, Goodman Ace on aging, the enigma of Mozart, the Minneapolis of Mary Tyler Moore (“When all of us are gone, there will always be a Ted Baxter,” Rob Edwards said) and an essay on why love pesters us so around Valentine’s Day.
All things considered, it’s a book worthy of a cozy evening in a comfortable chair. Waters calls it “the sort of thing that makes you think of going home and taking your shoes off and putting your slippers on and turning the radio on and enjoying life.”
