Ledes, Nutgraphs, Arguments & Process.

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I got the call many independent producers pray for late one Wednesday afternoon. It was Robyn Semian asking if I could do a last-minute assignment for This American Life. She wanted me to cover a first-of-its-kind conference on building a spaceship to reach the stars. It was to take place that weekend in Orlando, a four-hour drive away. Then Ira Glass would interview me about the conference for the opening story in the Adventure episode airing the following week. I swallowed my scream of joy and calmly said hell, yes.

What follows is a reconstruction of how the piece came together. I had always wondered how This American Life stories were made, and now I got a chance to have a front-row seat in that process. I got Ira’s permission to share our correspondence, but he asked me to clarify that this was an unusual, quick-turnaround piece. Most pieces for This American Life aren’t produced this efficiently, and the vast majority of his interviews aren’t scripted in advance…

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This American Life Tic Tock January 25th, 2012 | by Dan Grech

via Transom.org

(Source: transom.org)