Read This: Ira Glass reflects on 20 quirky years of This American Life
Today on This American Life: chronological milestones. Do they matter? Or are they just arbitrary numbers on a calendar to which society has attributed undue significance? Ira Glass, who has presided over TAL ever since it was a Chicago-only show called Your Radio Playhouse and wasn’t even subdivided into acts, has some thoughts on the matter and has formed them into a brief but poignant editorial on the occasion of This American Life’s 20th anniversary. Fans should not expect the calm, reflective public radio superstar to get all mushy here. His reflections begin with the words: “I hate nostalgia, so I’ll keep this brief.” Mostly, Glass uses this opportunity to chronicle how much the show has changed over the course of two decades, from doing “stories that were too small and personal for most traditional journalists” to tackling “hardcore documentary reporting that we simply didn’t have the staff or money to do for our first 15 years on the air.”