I'm Joe Richmond.

15 years ago I started a project called Radio Diaries.

The idea is simple.

Give people tape recorders and ask them to document their lives.

Everything. For a few months or even a year, just keep the tape rolling and see what happens.

We've done radio diaries in prisons, retirement homes,

and with teenagers around the country.

And over the years, we've worked with hundreds of people,

from braffitters to coal miners,

from ZZ Top to Nelson Mandela.

And we put these stories on the radio on NPR right alongside the news.

Hey, Jill.

I'm in the radio, Tyra.

Can I just jump in for a second?

I remember first hearing radio series

I'm feeling so jealous because it's stories about everyday people, right?

But so dramatic, like stuff happens.

And they do that thing that I think journalism does so

rarely like the rarest thing for journalism to do which is actually take you into

somebody's life deeply enough that you actually can feel what it would be to have their life.

I think the best way to give your sense of this is if you would just close your eyes.

I'm not kidding, like seriously like close your eyes like right now

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