Can Talking to Strangers Fix Our Politics?

Offline with Jon Favreau

Crooked Media

Society & Culture, News

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How often do you talk to someone you disagree with—not in a Twitter pile on, but face to face? With Donald Trump’s inauguration fast approaching (plus holidays full of opinionated relatives), Jon sits down with Dave Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, to talk about the healing power of conversation. StoryCorps is a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition, a podcast and the largest single archive of personal narratives in the world. Since 2016, it’s also facilitated conversations between Republicans and Democrats as part of its One Small Step Initiative, and the results are surprisingly heartwarming. Jon and Dave talk about strategies to overcome political polarization, what we learn when we talk to strangers, and how to have productive conversations with people who disagree with you.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're based in Brooklyn and, you know, our staff tends to be liberal or like super liberal.
0:07.1	And seeing, but seeing people who are in these interviews as facilitators and like doubting it at first and then becoming like the biggest boosters of one small step.
0:19.4	And like, am I not to swear? Yeah. If you fuck with
0:23.0	their conservative participants, they will kill you. You know, like, they fall in love with
0:27.5	their participants. Welcome to Offline. I'm John Favreau. You just heard from Dave Isay. He's the founder of StoryCorps.
0:41.3	If you're a fan of Public Radio, you've probably heard of StoryCorps. It's a segment on NPR's Morning Edition, a podcast, and an audio archive.
0:48.3	In fact, it's now the single largest collection of personal narratives in the world.
0:53.3	The model is simple. Two people sit down in a
0:56.1	story core booth and interview each other, friends, relatives, strangers, anyone can sign up to do it.
1:01.4	One copy of the recording is stored at the Library of Congress and the participants walk away with
1:07.2	the other. Turns out when you put people face to face in a snug recording booth with
1:12.2	microphones, they open up and connect in ways you don't usually get to connect, as we've talked
1:17.7	about quite a bit on the show. So back in 2016, StoryCorps started a new initiative called
1:23.0	One Small Step, which facilitates conversations between people on opposite sides of the political
1:28.7	divide. But the catch is the participants are encouraged not to debate politics. The goal is
1:34.9	simply to get to know each other as people. So with the holidays and Trump's inauguration right
1:40.6	around the corner, we wanted to have the founder of StoryCorps, Dave Isay, on the show to discuss the importance of talking to people you disagree with, what we lose when we take our conversations online, and the surprising results of one small step.
1:53.7	Dave Isay, welcome to offline.
1:55.4	John, it's good to be here.
1:56.6	So I know about StoryCorps. I'm sure some of our listeners do. But for those who don't, can you talk a bit about how you got started originally and what the initial goal was all the way back in 2003?
2:11.4	Sure. So I was a radio documentary producer for decades before starting StoryCorps.
2:26.8	And I, for better or worse, I was always interested in the public service value of audio more than entertainment value.
	...

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