Extra Credit- Ira Glass

After attending his lecture, Ira Glass is my new favorite person. I was very impressed and just blown away by his performance at Hendricks Chapel back in the beginning of November. I use the word performance because he did more than just lecture the audience that evening: he told us stories, he played clips from past interviews, he even played background music. He was very funny and he mesmerized the audience with his great storytelling abilities.

He opened his performance with all the lights off and talked about how the radio is an excellent medium for storytelling because the lack of visuals forces the audience to listen. He then went on to talk about how archaic traditional journalism has become because it no longer tries to engage the audience. Glass also discussed his method for storytelling that gives action followed by another action and then a thought so that it keeps the audience intrigued with constant bait.

Overall I really enjoyed Glass’s presentation. He has an amazing knack for finding stories in the most pedestrian of places. And after becoming so accustomed to the banal, monotone voices of most broadcast journalists today, it was very refreshing to listen to someone just sound so human.