Hello, OTPM podcast listeners.

Whether you're at the beach or strap hanging on a crowded subway,

we want to help you experience the summertime vibe.

To that end, each week through Labor Day,

we'll be serving you some of the most popular pieces from our archives. This week, we offer one

from our friend John Solomon, which originally aired in 2004. We call it pulling back the curtain.

Before I started working it on the media, I was an avid NPR news listener. To me, like many

devotees, an important aspect of the network's

appeal is how smooth, well-crafted, and polished it sounds. Everyone seems so eloquent.

Interviewers ready with a clearly posed on-point question. Interviewees offering an articulate

answer. Rarely an uh-um or you know uttered.

Correspondents in the field, even when reporting from the middle of the rainforest, are equally

cogent and coherent, and hosts move naturally, effortlessly, and spontaneously between stories.

That soothing and reliable sound has made the NPR product distinctive from other radio and news media.

This is all things considered from NPR news. I'm Melissa Block. And I'm Michelle Norris. Next, the rule of law in Russia.

Tips for senators on how to survive. Now that I am on the other side of the speaker, it has been fascinating to discover the

importance of behind-the-scenes technical packaging in bringing about that effect.

Of course, I want to make it clear that I have found the NPR News on-air staff, present

company excluded, is indeed smooth and eloquent and normally ask the right question.

But they, and now me, aren't as perfect as it

once seemed. New York Times media reporter, David Carr. Everybody always signs erudite and witty

on NPR, and I've always wondered why, and I think there probably is some dark room magic going on there.

...