Jad Abumrad, Radiolab’s ‘genius’ storyteller, on what public radio needs now: ‘more joy, more chaos’ » Nieman Journalism Lab

First thing’s first: Jad Abumrad does not know how he will spend half a million dollars, but it’s probably going right into his labor of love, the mind-bending radio show that earned him a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant this week.

“The central problem for me has always been that the show eats me alive, and how do I get out from under it just enough to re-imagine it? Particularly because the rest of my life is getting so chaotic,” he told me. (Abumrad has a 2-year-old child and another due in February.)

If you don’t know WNYC’s Radiolab or haven’t heard it before, I will break the rules of blogging now and ask you to leave this page and go listen. Abumrad and co-host Robert Krulwich (who has been experimenting with radio journalism since the ’70s) take big, huge ideas — time, randomness, mortality, fate — and shrink them into something edible and charming. It’s science that feels like play.

via niemanlab.org

read the fully post by Andrew Phelps on NiemanLab.org

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales