Behind the Scenes with Robert Krulwich, producer of The Krasilovskys
Interview conducted by Johanna Zorn

> Back in your NPR days did you set out to tell funny or quirky stories or did you discover that humor is a great way to explain complex ideas?

No, I can't help myself. The way I report is very, very much like the way I talk to myself as I try to make sense of the things I see. If brain surgeons inserted a microphone into my inner brain, what they'd hear is pretty much what it sounds like later on the radio. Deep down I find the world both tragic and funny, so accenting the positive, I often come out funny.

> How do you select the stories that you cover...and how important is this selection process to the success of your work?

I read a lot. I yak a lot. And I am always on the lookout. Anything I learn--and I mean anything---that sticks around in my head is a candidate. Today I researched an economics piece when someone told me they had a cousin who'd just gotten her first job out of college at $90,000. "What kind a job?" I asked, figuring she was a law grad or investment banker. But this was out of college. Turns out she's a pharmacist. Turns out (once I began calling around) that pharmacists are pulling down stratospheric salaries. I wondered why...and thereby hangs a tale. At the same time, for a different show, I'm working on a Valentine's Day piece that describes the courtship practices of an Australian bird. That story came from a guy I know at Columbia College who sends me e-mails all the time. He's a biology major, and I asked him to suggest an animal with a colorful way of getting ladies. He obliged, and now I'm becoming an expert on the Satin Bowerbird. The third story I'm juggling with today involves biological warfare--and that one I found in a book. So I'm always looking and often finding.

> You've written that "on the radio, a story well-told sticks for days, years." What's an example of a story that has stuck with you for years?

The stories that stick are the ones you paint in your head as you listen. Sometimes, because of the people involved, because they've been well crafted, but mostly because they seemed uncannily aimed right at your heart--those are the ones that never go away. I heard one on Ira Glass' show, This American Life (haven't we all?) about a Frank Sinatra imitator who sang evenings on his front stoop in the East Village that I can summon up from memory in stereo any time I want.

> What is a common mistake producers/reporters make when they begin to write a story?

That it has to sound like a Radio Story On National Public Radio. What it should sound like is a story told for the very first time by person dying to tell it. It should flow from its particular details. It should obey no rules but the "I've Got To Tell You This" rules, which are whatever is most apt, most honest and most vivid.

> With the competition for our leisure time so fierce, why do you think radio survives?

Because it's efficient. You can be doing one or two things and still the radio can own a big part of your brain. Books can't do that. TV can't do that. Computers can't do that. Conversation can't do that. Radio sneaks in where the others can't go.