>>Robert Krulwich: The real problem in the
news business like all mature business is
that they found a routine that's a deep routine,
a way of doing business and a way of seeing
the world.
So I will tell you what it's like.
On a typical morning, you go to the news meeting
and they go around the room and say, Okay,
what do you got?
And the reporters and the editors, they pitch.
"I got the governor's press conference."
"I got the three-alarm fire."
"I got a pennant race."
"I got a murder."
It comes to me and says, I've got the fart
story."
It may not be fair, but the room goes a little
quiet and they give me that look.
But I know just as I knew here, I know what
I'm doing and I know it'll be good.
And at the morning meeting at 10:00 in the
morning when the day is young, your special
story is often the favorite because governors
come and go but a fart collapse, very unusual.
You talk about it all day.
But what happens around the noon, the governor
gives a slightly interesting press conference
and you have to do it because the competitors
are going to do it.
There is a burglary.
You got to do that.
There is a fire.
You got to do that.
There is a tornado warning.
You got to do that.
Slowly but surely you watch your precious
story drop lower and lower on the scad list
of stories they are going to do.
And by about 3:00 or 4:30, you hear it go
kerplunk and it drops off the list.
We'll do it tomorrow, they say, because after
all, it happened 10,000 years ago.
You're like yeah, yeah.
But then the next day the same thing happens.
So peter once asked me, "What do you do here
anyway?"
I said, "Well, what you do is 'This just in,'
'This just happened,' 'He just got elected,'
'He just got shot.'"
I do "this always is," stories that are sitting
right in front of us all the time.
We don't know about it.
And I happen to think that "this always is"
is just as interesting as "this just in."
And I'm convinced, totally convinced, that
you can mix science and mystery and complexity
into a news show with ease and success.
And partly to prove it a bunch of years ago
with an amazing partner, Jad Abumrad, who
was recently by the way pronounced a genius
by The MacArthur Foundation, we created this
show called RadioLab.
It is a podcast and radio show.
It has gotten really popular.
Some of you --
[ Applause ]
And what we do on this show is we try -- we
try to break or at least experiment with some
very basic journalism rules.
Normally if a reporter gets a story, what
you do is you interview people, you learn
what you are doing, you get your research
down, you write your copy, you check your
copy, you check your facts.
And when everything is known and checked and
ready, you go on the air and you say "Let
me tell you what I know."
We don't do that.
Instead of telling you what we know, we tell
people what we don't know.
And we do our reporting and out learning right
in front of our audience.
So we argue.
We make mistakes.
We interview people.
We try to figure out what they have just said.
And it creates a kind of edginess because
you watch us learning.
