I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette.

I'm Trisha Bobito.

And I'm Greta Johnson.

Now, Trisha, I think most Nerdette listeners know not to take us too seriously, but we are, in fact, capital J journalists.

We went to journalism school. We work in a newsroom.

And we believe in journalism for all those lofty, important democracy sorts of reasons, which means we have a lot of respect for the people who don't sit in studios like we're doing right now, but do journalism in very dangerous places.

People like war correspondents.

Weirdly enough, I actually considered being a war correspondent for a second.

Me too, a little.

Really? I bet I considered it less seriously than you did just because I feel like I consider most things less seriously than you do. But I never in my life have even had a passport. So I guess I didn't take it that seriously.

But I do have a ton of respect for war correspondents, people like Kim Barker.

Kim was a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune between 2004 and 2009.

And she wrote a book about her experience. It's called The Taliban Shuffle, Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It's a true story and it's harrowing and hilarious all at once.

That dark comedic tone of Kim's story is what prompted the new movie based on her life, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, starring Tina Fey.

When we talked with Kim, we asked her when she knew she had to write a story about her time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

...