Podcast Archives – Page 2 of 45 – It's All Journalism

393. Hard Times: When The Onion isn’t edgy enough

Like so many other younger siblings, Matt Saincome just wanted to hang out with, and be like, his older brother.

Since his brother was listening to punk bands from The Ramones and Black Flag to Minor Threat, that’s what Saincome listened to as well, from the time he was in elementary school. He tricked his parents into getting a mohawk, kind of, by spiking his hair for a weird hair day in fourth grade. It stuck.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to learn that, after going into journalism school at San Francisco State and realizing he had more fun, and reached more people, writing jokes that took 30 minutes than he did writing a full-length feature story that took a month to complete, he combined his love of punk music with his love of writing.

Matt Saincome and Michael O’Connell pose for a selfie at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Saincome is one of the co-founders of The Hard Times, a hardcore music and satire magazine that has also spawned a book.

“Hard Times was something where I looked at the New York Times and then I saw Vice. You have a legacy organization and then the younger, edgier version,” he says. “I looked at The Onion and saw there wasn’t a younger, edgier version (and thought) what if I start Vice Onion? That was my original notion.”

Utilizing his familiarity and love of punk music and the ethos around it with his journalism training, he and co-founder Bill Conway have been keeping punk snarky and fun for several years.

The publication has been embraced by punk fans and bands as well, something Saincome attributes to his knowledge of the crowd and his roots.

“There’s always been two veins in punk and hardcore, the super serious political vein and then the troublemaking comedy vein,” he says. “You have the Dead Kennedys with super political stuff, though they had plenty of humor in their politics as well. Then you have troublemakers like Fear who are more out to fight the crowd. There’s a politics side or an escapist side. I think Hard Times is definitely in that escapist camp, creating fun and levity through satire and taking all the ideologies of punk and self-serious people, flipping them upside down with satirical tools and seeing if they hold up to jokes. Sometimes they don’t and that’s fun too.”

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined by Matt Saincome, co-founder and writer with The Hard Times, to discuss the satirical punk and hardcore music publication and why it’s all his older brother’s fault.

392. Calling out racists in cartoons makes them angry

Jen Sorensen gets hate mail — she has a folder she checks with some regularity — but it’s not quite the pit of despair and misogyny some might expect.

“There isn’t quite as much misogynist hate mail as I thought there’d be,” says the cartoonist.

That might be due to the alternative press outlets in which her work is primarily circulating.

“Some people aren’t seeing my strip who might react strongly to it.”

But being a woman, and a woman who creates political cartoons, and one who does this work during the Trump era, presents other challenges.

The lack of broad attention is keeping some of the important topics she explores out of reach of the masses.

“In the midst of a traditionalist movement that’s so antagonistic to women and women’s rights, that’s a part of the story that’s getting overlooked a little,” Sorensen says. “You think there might be more attention on women political cartoonists when there doesn’t seem to be more than in the past.”

Most of the complaints she does receive are from people who don’t appreciate their views and political allegiances called out as racist.

Jen Sorensen receives a lot of hate mail for her political cartoons, but not as much as one might think.

“I think they don’t understand that just simply by supporting Trump and accepting this rhetoric and everything he’s doing with immigrants and immigrant children, they don’t see the connection” with racist thoughts and practices, she says. Instead, they’re more likely to argue that “liberals, by noticing race, are the racists.”

Despite the misogyny, despite the angry emails, despite the struggles, Sorensen says it’s the simple act of drawing attention to unfair or slanted situations that help make change happen. Ten years ago, people weren’t having the same level of conversation about things like representation in media that are happening now.

“There are always going to be people who take things too far,” she says. “It’s never fun to be criticized, but this is the way social progress happens. Instead of dismissing it, we need to recognize that this is people responding to a racist environment, to the Trump administration’s lies about immigrants and people responding to attacks on civil rights.”

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined again this week by political cartoonist Jen Sorensen to talk about being a woman with a platform and a voice in the time of Trump, the feedback she receives and why calling out social problems and racist thought might be the only way to move society forward.

391. America has a bad case of truth decay, according to new RAND report

When politicians and policy makers can’t agree on a basic set of facts, how can they really establish a set of priorities for a nation?

When citizens have more difficulty discerning facts from opinion, and no longer trust elected leaders or the media to provide information, what does that do to a society?

In a new book entitled Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life, Jennifer Kavanagh of RAND and her colleagues set out to answer those questions, only to find a distressing state of affairs set in motion long before the 2016 election brought the term “fake news” into our vocabulary.

“Truth decay is the term we’re using to refer to the diminishing role facts, data and analysis play in political and civil discourse and in our policy-making process,” Kavanagh says. “We wanted to define what this means, what we think is causing it, to talk about the consequences and to think about what we still don’t know and lay out a research agenda for studying it. It allowed us then to launch into a research agenda and set up a portfolio of work to understand and address the phenomena.”

It was a key point established early on in the research: “If policy makers can’t agree on facts, if they don’t have a common set of facts as a starting point, they can’t actually have a meaningful policy debate,” she says. “They can’t debate policy options, set national priorities, (determine) how do we allocate scarce resources.”

At the start, RAND, a research organization that works with policy makers, established four trends as contributing to truth decay: The increasing disagreements between facts and data, even when more evidence exists to support established facts; the blurring of the line between facts and opinion; the increasing volume of opinion, especially when presented as fact; and the declining trust in institutions that once were trusted sources of valid, fact-based information.

Distrust in the media and government is so high at this point in history that people don’t know who to believe.

“People not only are not sure what’s true and what’s not, but they don’t know where to turn” for fact-based information, Kavanagh says.

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined this week by Jennifer Kavanagh of RAND to discuss her new book, Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing Role of Facts and Analysis in American Public Life, on the concerning loss of trust and recognition in facts and evidence among policy makers and citizens alike, as opinion gets louder and harder to discern in media.

384. Memes, manifestos and 4chan — making sense of a toxic online culture

390. Shining a brighter collective light on DC’s homeless population

Washington, D.C. is a competitive town where the federal government overshadows almost everything else.

But it’s also a regular city, where people with no affiliation to the government live, work and thrive, or get pushed into the shadows.

Chris Cain, Eric Falquero and Rachel Sadon

A group of 10 news outlets joined forces to help shine a light on one of D.C.’s biggest local issues, one that often gets swept aside: the city’s large homeless population. In August, outlets made a concerted effort to provide a deep, comprehensive and multi-faceted series of stories about what it means to be homeless in Washington, from the city’s shelters to how many teenagers are without a stable place to sleep.

The idea is borrowed from a major project from the San Francisco Chronicle by way of coverage from the New York Times, says Eric Falquero, the editorial director of Street Sense Media, a publication aimed squarely at the homeless population in the city. “They started organizing a list like this four years ago, the New York Times wrote about it and four different people I know emailed it to me. I thought we can do that, we can recruit other outlets to cooperate.”

It’s an effort that included, in its most recent iteration, outlets like DCist and The DC Line in addition to Street Sense.

“We published around 10 stories, which is a lot for us on any one given topic,” says Rachel Sadon, the editor-in-chief at DCist. “The beauty is, there are so many different angles to (the topic of homelessness). We also made sure to be following up on stories we might not otherwise follow up on. Two folks who had been experiencing homelessness were sitting or sleeping on a bench late at night were killed. For the longest time, we didn’t have any information. This gave us an opportunity to say, a month after this, we don’t know who the driver is, we don’t know if he was arrested, and here’s why it happened on federally-controlled land.”

Her outlet also took a look at homelessness for children and students in D.C. who also have to try and go to school when they don’t have a permanent address. For many of the city’s youngest people experiencing homelessness, going back to school means a return to stability, Sadon says.

The joint DC Homeless Crisis Reporting Project also provided an opportunity to take a closer look at some policy-level decisions in the city that will have a direct impact on people who struggle to find, or retain housing.

“Homelessness does relate to so many issues that are top-of-agenda for D.C.,” says Chris Cain of The DC Line. “Not just the mayor’s plans to close what had been the major family shelter, where conditions were legendarily bad, but her commitment to affordable housing that encourages the private sector to build 36,000 new homes by 2025, with one-third being affordable.”

Many of these outlets — with the exception of Street Sense — do not focus on homeleness on a regular basis. A project like this provides a wonderful opportunity to help their readers stop and learn about such a pressing issue and educate them on another part of their hometown that they might not otherwise give much thought on a regular basis.

It’s also an effort that provided some good news on progress: Falquero said the city’s homeless population has been declining over the past few years.

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined by Eric Falquero, editorial director of Street Sense Media; Rachel Sadon, editor-in-chief of DCist; and Chris Cain of The DC Line, as they discuss a 10-outlet effort to cover various aspects of homelessness in Washington for the DC Homeless Crisis Reporting Project and why they wanted to dedicate time, space and resources to the issue.

IAJ’s Top 10 Episodes of 2019

Every December, we take a look back at the top 10 episodes of the year and try to glean something of value from the examination. It’s not just for fun. Maybe we can learn something about what subjects our listeners are most interested in.

In 2019, the topics varied from young journalists learning how to tell their stories to understanding data analytics. The podcasts that seemed to garner the most ears addressed the role of women in newsrooms and the fake news/trust in media matrix.

Reviewing our Top 10 of 2019, IAJ producers Amelia Brust, Nicole Ogrysko and Michael O’Connell share their thoughts about what made these episodes stand out.

368. Amplifying young international voices to tell stories that matter

When producing our episodes, we often forget It’s All Journalism has an international audience. Because of our experiences and contacts, most of the people we talk to are connected to American media, but the issues we discuss often have international implications. This episode reminds us that the journalism discussion is much bigger than one country and how important it is to support the next generation of storytellers. (Michael O’Connell)

343. Leave Facebook and fake news wins

Mandy Jenkins is a long-time friend of our podcast. She was one of our first guests way back in 2008, when she explained to us how to use social media to crowdsource breaking news. At the end of 2018, she’d written one of those year-in-review articles about fake news and Facebook and I thought that would be a great topic for us to discuss. I’m not surprised that this episode ranked so highly, because journalists are still reckoning with how to handle Facebook. At the time of Mandy’s article, lots of journalists were talking about leaving Facebook. She had another take. (Michael O’Connell)

347. How one podcast changed journalism

If I had one episode to do over from 2019, it would be this one. Not that it’s bad, but that I could’ve been a less combative host. Maybe that friction is what makes this episode such a good listen. Martin Spinelli and I had a great discussion about the state of podcasting and I’m just guilty of having strong opinions about the subject. I’ll invite him back in the news year, I promise. (Michael O’Connell)

345. HARO connects reporters and sources in a snap

I’ve used this in my reporting in the past and I recommend it to anyone who feels like they’re stuck in a “source rut.” It’s especially helpful for finding people to talk to on subjects you don’t regularly cover, and perhaps don’t know where to start. In general, reporters need to get better at diversifying their sources, and this is a part of that. (Amelia Brust)

Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer — Betsy O’Donovan and Melody Kramer

348. Decoding metrics means embracing journalism that matters

I’m a nerd for metrics. So, when I get a chance to talk to anyone about using data analytics to better understand the wants and needs of your audience, I eat it up with a spoon. What I liked about this discussion is it reveals, once again, that people appreciate good journalism. (Michael O’Connell)

369. How journalists can avoid rising to the bait in covering Trump

All journalists covering the Trump administration should go back and give Rosen’s Twitter thread a read. It describes how news outlets have only perpetuated a cycle where the president Tweets and journalists rush to cover what he says, regardless of its content and accuracy. It doesn’t have to be this way. Rosen instead urges us to start with the facts and the truth, mention what the president said, and then bring in the facts again. It doesn’t seem that hard, but it’ll take pointed conversations and dedicated resources to change the status quo. (Nicole Ogrysko)

A group of young podcasters from Bronx Prep Middle School

366. Young women lead the conversation about periods, sexism

This was such a fun episode to edit. The giggles and the banter among the girls more than made up for the challenges that came with recording a Skype interview with a big group. My favorite part came when Mike said, “I can hear you,” after a few of the students whispered in the background. The group erupted into laughter. I loved that moment, and the raw energy and passion the class at the Bronx Prep Middle School brought to this interview — and their work creating an original, award-winning podcast — was inspiring and endearing. Kudos to the girls, and to their super cool English teacher, Shehtaz Huq. Keep it up, ladies. (Nicole Ogrysko)

Kristin Gilger and Julia Wallace, authors of There’s No Crying in the Newsroom

374. What’s changed for women in newsrooms? Less than you think

On the surface it might sound disheartening, but to hear that so many successful and talented women in journalism have and still do face self-doubt about their work or their ability to be in charge was incredibly reassuring to me. It’s a reminder to everyone, at every stage of their careers, that someone you may admire has been in your shoes before, and they will feel that frustration again. But the point is that they learned from their experience and so can you. And don’t be afraid to vent your frustration – especially when it’s an outside force preventing you from doing your job. You deserve a chance to do your work and prove yourself without also having to fight off discrimination or unfair limitations. (Amelia Brust)

351. Mistrust of the media isn’t new, but it’s getting worse

Brutal but true and to the point. If news organizations are only going to talk the talk but not walk the walk – i.e. hire more diverse staff from a wider variety of backgrounds, avoid treating political coverage like sports, cut the hyperbole and report stories about people who actually need someone to advocate for them – they shouldn’t expect anything to change. For better or worse, journalists aren’t entitled to the public’s trust – they have to earn it. (Amelia Brust)

Joy Mayer and Lynn Walsh of Trusting News

339. Rebuilding trust by peeling back the curtain in newsrooms

The message that Joy Mayer and Lynn Walsh deliver with their Trusting News initiative resonated deeply with me. In my own reporting, I’ve often found that the best stories originate from questions and comments from readers themselves. Telling the readers that their own comments inspired a particular story can go a long way toward building trust with my news outlet’s audience. It shows them that we’re listening and paying attention to what they have to say. (Nicole Ogrysko)

389. Learning from, and protecting, young journalists around the world

The world of journalism has changed a bit since Jennifer Karchmer got her start, but her passion for asking questions and telling stories has only grown stronger.

Now an independent journalist and mentor, Karchmer lives in Washington State, where she’s advocated toward the passage of the state’s New Voices law to help protect young journalists.

“Students aren’t necessarily covered by the First Amendment,” she explains. “In 1988, there was a Supreme Court case, Hazelwood, that turned the clock back in a bad way. It essentially enabled censorship by schools that were looking at stories they didn’t feel presented their high school or college in a flattering light.”

At the time, this might have included stories about teen pregnancy, drug use or the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Karchmer notes. “Because the schools were uncomfortable with it, they were using this as an opportunity to censor and use prior restraint.”

Journalism advocates began to lobby for state-level legislation, arguing that if these students were doing journalism, like the New York Times, and weren’t libeling anyone and were following all other guiding principles and rules as other professionals would, they should have the same protections.

To date, 14 states have passed New Voices legislation to help ensure student journalists aren’t punished or censored from publishing stories and to reinforce their protections under the First Amendment.

It’s important for young journalists to understand the rights and protections they have in the U.S., which for so long has been a beacon of free speech and freedom of the press for countries around the world. Karchmer also encourages journalists to travel internationally and speak with reporters in other countries to help them realize that there isn’t just one way to be a reporter.

She became familiar with Reporters WIthout Borders around 2010 and learned about the annual index that organization puts out, ranking the countries around the world with the best and worst track records for journalism. As an American, it’s something journalists here can almost take for granted, but she was curious to see what it meant to be a journalist in Iceland and, later, South Africa, to explore what the industry looks like in places that might be very different in their public approaches to, and support for, journalism and reporters.

She was welcomed with open arms in both Iceland and South Africa and spent time talking to reporters in both countries and came away from both learning a great deal about how U.S. press freedoms are interpreted in other countries and how reporters internationally operate.

“We in the U.S., we don’t have a lock on journalism,” she says. “It’s a construct. The thing I would encourage journalists to do is early on, get an understanding of journalism around the world. This is a public service, this is my passion, it’s in my blood. Getting out of the four walls of your newsroom, get out and travel.”

Independent journalist Jennifer Karchmer joins producer Michael O’Connell to discuss the importance of international travel for reporters and the New Voices initiative, which works to ensure student journalists are fully protected by the First Amendment.

#368 Amplifying young international voices to tell stories that matter

388. Who wants to own their own newspaper? NewStart’s here to help

What happens when a newspaper owner is ready to retire and there’s no one in line to take over?

“As I go around the country and talk to different people at weekly and small daily papers, we’re finding there’s no succession plan at these papers,” said Jim Iovino of West Virginia University.

To help keep these papers alive, and to train and prepare the next generation of newspaper owners, Iovino and Don Smith of the West Virginia Press Association have teamed up to start NewStart, a local newspaper ownership program.

“We’re looking at the community level, small town weekly papers, daily newspapers across the country. We’re trying to find these individuals who want to come back and work in their hometown or find a new small town they want to live in, who want to own a paper or publication,” he says. “We train them in all the ways they need to do that in a smart way going forward with digital subscriptions, a whole new business model and then help match them up with a newspaper that wants to sell in an area they want to buy. We help facilitate that transaction and give them years of support after.”

Newspapers remain the best source of local news and play major roles in small town life, Smith says.

Small towns “count on their newspaper to be the marketplace of ideas in their community. When you talk to someone about their newspaper, it’s local. The radio and TV may be regional, but their newspaper is local. These small weekly newspapers stay in the home from week to week and often they’ll have the whole year sitting there.”

The goal is to keep these papers alive, keep them in their communities, without turning them into affiliates of one of the larger newspaper conglomerates, they say. They also don’t want to see news deserts overtake these towns.

NewStart offers a year-long program, at West Virginia University but also offered online, to go over the business side of things. They help prospective new owners make a business plan, learn the economics of newspaper ownership, but the course also helps the person find a newspaper to take over and make the deal happen.

“If you don’t understand the entrepreneurial part of this but want to make that commitment to a community, you probably won’t make it,” Smith says.

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined this week by Jim Iovino of West Virginia University and Don Smith of the West Virginia Press Association to talk about NewStart, their partnership to help recruit and train new newspaper owners across the country.

Better News: Iconic southern newspaper undergoes digital-first transformation

387. Lead reporter in Sandusky case now investigating barriers in school data reporting

Why are some educators better than others at gathering and supplying data about their institutions or students to the press? Whose privacy is protected by barriers to school data reporting: the students’ or the schools’?

Sara Ganim, a former CNN investigative reporter, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is trying answer these questions through a Hearst Journalism fellowship at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. She’s working with students to tackle these “data deserts” in different levels of education, from public school privacy laws to NCAA concussion statistics.

“The laws that protect, are meant to protect student privacy — a lot of times they’re used to protect institutions, and the information that they don’t want to get out,” she said. “And even when they have nothing to do with any kind of identifying information, they are kept secret under the false premise that you know, needs to be kept secret because of for privacy reasons.”

Any problems encountered while gathering data will likely end up being stories themselves, she said. The fellowship is about a year and Ganim expects to have the team’s stories ready by the end of the spring semester.

“I think we’re going to see that it’s going to take some change in some laws in order for this kind of information to be not just compiled but made readily available and consistently reported,” she said. “I think that there are some places where they’re trying to do the right thing. But it’s so inconsistent from even school to school, forget state to state, that getting a big-picture look at an issue is nearly impossible.”

If there’s no data to report, how do you track a school’s progress on issue?

Ganim has some experience with in-depth investigative reporting. In 2011 she broke the story of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky’s history of child sexual abuse through his charitable organization, as well as the university’s lack of action in response to the original allegations.

She was the third-youngest journalist to receive a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting for The Patriot-News newspaper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then moved to CNN where she produced an investigative report on college fraternity hazing.

Similar to her work in Harrisburg, the nature of Ganim’s project means she has a luxury which many investigative journalists lack: Time. The Patriot-News gave her the flexibility to concentrate on the rumors and allegations of Sandusky’s case, more so than she would have had with a regular reporting beat, and as a result she said it only took about three months before the first story was published.

For others that may mean allocating just 15 minutes or so each work day to their investigation, or a half-day on weekends. But all of that adds up to less time to breathe, or spend with loved ones, and it takes a toll, she said.

Now with the fellowship, what she also has is money. This can be a barrier not only to news organizations but especially to the average citizen — a parent — trying to glean information from a school or school district.

“Big stories of, for example, what I’m doing at the Brechner Center absolutely cost money. We are putting out almost 500 Freedom of Information Act requests, and some of them are going to require fees,” she said. “And if I don’t have, you know, the resources to pay for the data, then I also don’t have a story.”

For those without financial backing, or whose FOIA requests get denied, Ganim said interviewing and nurturing that cordial relationship with public information officers has been a common fallback. The feeling that a FOIA denial is “because of who they are” can be felt both by journalists and parents when it comes to requesting school data, she said. With the fellowship, she hopes to discern if something more systemic is afoot.

It’s All Journalism producer Amelia Brust talks to Sara Ganim, a former CNN investigative reporter, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning work for The Patriot-News exposed former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky’s history of child sexual abuse through his charitable organization, as well as the university’s lack of action in response to the original allegations. She discusses her latest project — tackling “data deserts. This project is funded by a Hearst Journalism fellowship at the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications.

386. NewsMatch, INN and good news for independent, investigative news

In the past few years, the attacks on journalism – and journalists – have increased.

But so too have donations to independent, investigative news organizations, thanks in part to the efforts of NewsMatch.

Sue Cross

“People are starting to look for news they can trust,” says Sue Cross, the executive director and CEO for the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Every year, around the holidays, NewsMatch announces a fundraising drive in which every dollar donated is doubled. NewsMatch is an initiative from some of the major journalism organizations, including the Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation and others, and is a concerted effort to make sure investigative journalism efforts are not lost or solely reliant on ad sales.

The general idea is a simple one: “If you build public support for your news in your community, we will match these individual donations. Aside from the financial impact, NewsMatch also does … this end-of-year campaign. It has generated more than $14 million for news organizations.”

NewsMatch makes it easy for people to donate as well, helping to find individual journalists, or outlets in their home cities, or to a topic of interest. Donations are matched through the end of the year.

“The future of news is how much communities support it and individuals support it,” Cross says.

She knows firsthand how important it is to support local and independent journalism, and it’s something she sees as an increasing priority not just in the United States but around the world.

INN started in 2009 when a group of investigative journalists from 27 organizations, “essentially the entire nonprofit universe at the time,” came together to discuss the future of their profession in light of the economic slump.

“They set aside competition, which is hard for investigative reporters to do, and said investigative reporting is crucial to our democracy and it’s under threat, so we’re going to form this consortium to try and sustain it,” she says.

Now INN has grown to include international outlets and has helped to increase the number of nonprofit news organizations tenfold, with 3,000 people working in nonprofit news in the U.S. and more than 2,000 of those positions are journalists in the field.

“Our goal is to keep that going and, in the next 10 years, generate another tenfold growth,” Cross says. “We’d like to see 20,000 journalists working in public service, essentially. … In essence, we’re trying to recreate journalism, or a big part of it, as a public trust, rather than a for-profit business.”

When local news outlets close their doors, that eliminates someone paying attention to what’s going on at city hall or the statehouse, she says. Funding investigative journalism and independent outlets go hand-in-hand.

The silver lining here, and there is one, is that the latest INN index found independent outlets are on something of a growth swing, with at least one new outlet opening each month for the last 12 years, and most of the support for those outlets is coming from small, individual donors.

“Average people are stepping up to support, in many cases, local newsrooms, but also ones that cover investigative news,” Cross says. “These are donations from individual people, average citizens, giving in many cases small amounts, or major amounts, but they’re supporting local news organizations in a very direct way.”

Sue Cross, executive director and CEO for the Institute for Nonprofit News, joins producer Michael O’Connell to share some good news on the state of investigative and independent journalism and how donors have through the end of the year to double their contribution to small newsrooms across the country via NewsMatch.

#383 Public good vs private enterprise: sustainability in local news

385. LA Times podcast unravels 15-year-old mystery in Room 20

A nameless man led Joanne Faryon on the journey of her life.

A reporter who’s worked in radio, TV and newspapers, Faryon heard about a man in California who had been living in a nursing home for 15 years, on life support, in a vegetative state. Worse yet, no one knew who he was.

“He was driving in a van trying to cross the border, the Mexico-U.S. border in the Southern California desert and he crashed,” she says. “The van was taken to a place called 66 Garage,” which was how the man was known for more than a decade.

Faryon had done some reporting on the man and his plight when she decided one day to quit her job and solve the mystery of the man’s identity.

But like so many of the best ideas, things took a series of turns. She tried pitching the man’s story, and the search for his name, as a magazine article, as a book, even as a series of podcasts, all to no avail.

Part of the struggle was that Faryon recorded everything, always, so when the time came to log her interviews for usable sound, she’d find long stretches of nothing interrupted by “hiss from an oxygen take, but in the middle you’d have this amazing interaction” with a member of the nursing home’s staff.

With the help of an editor, Sarah White, Faryon was able to produce the podcast Room 20, a story in which she unexpectedly became a character and a driver of change.

The story, as it unfolds, is about three main things.

“It’s about immigration and how a man basically loses his humanity when he crosses the border,” Faryon says. “It’s about the question of consciousness and how good medicine is, or isn’t, for determining consciousness. It’s about these end-of-life decisions we all face. When are we prolonging life or are we prolonging death? These choices are not necessarily reserved for old people — in a lot of cases, people who are on life support, particularly in California. … They’re people who’ve been in accidents, they’re in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Someone along the way has made a decision to keep them alive (in a vegetative state) and they end up living sometimes for decades.”

Producer Michael O’Connell is joined this week by Joanne Faryon, the driving force behind the Room 22 podcast, which helped identify a man who lived for more than 15 years in a vegetative state and was known only as 66 Garage.

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