The Man Who Put the ‘P’ in NPR
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2015
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the best mission statements we’ve ever read is the original NPR mission, which was written in 1969 by Bill Siemering. Bill is an amazing guy who, at the age of 80, continues to help create radio stations and programs in developing countries around the world. The manifesto Bill wrote is no longer NPR’s official mission statement but it’s a lovely reminder of why we do this work. It’s truly worth reading.
Here at Radio Diaries we like history – including our own. So with help from the good folks at Transom.org, we brought Bill into a studio because we were curious how he came to write that original mission statement, and why. We asked him to look back at the history of public media, and to imagine the future. We also asked him to read part of that original NPR mission statement.
You can also read a transcript of our conversation at Transom.org, thanks to Jay Allison, Sydney Lewis and Samantha Broun. If you don’t know about Transom…go there as soon as you can. It’s like a master class in radio storytelling.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Radio Diaries. This is Joe. |
| 0:03.0 | And this is Elisa. |
| 0:05.0 | And we want to thank everybody who has donated to Radiotopia's annual fundraiser so far. |
| 0:09.0 | We are coming to the end of the road, but we still have yet to reach our goal of a thousand donors. |
| 0:15.3 | So we want to let you know some of the things that your donation supports here at Radio Diaries. |
| 0:21.5 | We just finished our big series, The Unmarched Graveyard, and there's some expenses that you might expect, you know, paying for our producers, paying for research, paying for some gear, and there's some unexpected things. |
| 0:34.0 | Elisa, is there anything that was kind of unexpected? |
| 0:37.0 | For sure, like with the first story that I worked on, I interviewed a woman named Susan |
| 0:41.2 | Harlebert, whose son had died and was buried on Hard Island. |
| 0:45.4 | And after I interviewed her, I realized that she had actually never visited her son's grave. |
| 0:50.1 | So we decided to set that up. |
| 0:52.0 | You know, I went to pick her up a couple hours north of the city that cost us some gas money. |
| 0:56.4 | We put her up in a hotel and I bought a bunch of pizza and bagels to power us through the weekend. |
| 1:01.7 | And it was a really beautiful and |
| 1:04.0 | carb-filled couple days. |
| 1:07.0 | We hope that gives you a glimpse at some of the things that your donation helps |
| 1:10.0 | to support here at Radio Diaries |
| 1:12.0 | and we hope that you'll support us and the rest of the shows in the Radio Topia family. |
| 1:17.0 | You can donate today at radiotopia.F.M. slash donate. That's Radiotopia. F.M. slash donate. |
| 1:24.0 | And thank you so much for your support. Radiotopia. From PRX is Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond. Now I've been doing stories for public radio for a long time and for the most part |
| 1:48.6 | there isn't that much difference between doing a story for public radio or for our podcast. |
| 1:54.0 | Except for one thing. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Radio Diaries & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Radio Diaries & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.