This American Life

How can I get tickets to a taping in Chicago/when are your live shows scheduled?
Our Chicago broadcast tapings are closed to the public ... and right now, we don't have any live shows planned for the coming months. When we do go on the road, we notify folks first via our weekly email list. If you're really interested, you may want to sign up to get early notification.

Why don't you offer shows in other formats besides RealAudio?
Our home base, Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ-FM), generously funds our RealAudio service, which costs much more than we could ever afford alone. They also provide personnel support for us. We're grateful to them for this. Sadly, however, that's all we can offer, as neither TAL or Chicago Public Radio can afford to offer shows in multiple formats.

We recognize there are issues with RealAudio – but there are other quirks with Windows RealMedia Player and other formats, too. And the "free" technologies some of you have kindly suggested have their own costs – mainly, they still require staff time (particularly time to convert our many, many shows) and server/bandwidth space, which are in very short supply here. We promise that we've investigated many options, and have chosen what we think is the best, and really, the only viable solution. Recognizing that we can't make everyone happy, we do the best we can, as we keep our promise to offer TAL shows free online.

Why so many repeats/How many new shows do you produce every year?
We still produce 26-30 new shows every year – as we have for several years now. Each show takes a tremendous amount of work to put together, and we still have a very small staff. We probably could produce more shows (if we worked overnights!), but that target allows us to continue producing high-quality shows we're proud of, and still be home in time to watch Nightline before we crawl into bed.

How can I donate directly to This American Life?
Visit this snazzy page to donate directly to us – and claim your reward! (Squirrel Cop patches and Greatest Hits CDs) All donations made through the website go directly to support our RealAudio service.
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Will you offer Podcasts?
Sadly, no, not in the forseeable future. One thing that's nice about our arrangement with Audible is that it provides a small stream of money – not much, to be sure, but some – that we split with the show's contributors. We like that it's possible for them to get paid again for their work. There's no easy-to-administer method for us to compensate contributors for Podcasts.
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How can I see a preview of your DVD, Lost Buildings?
Visit this page for a preview.
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How can I get a copy of your DVD, Lost Buildings?
Right now, Lost Buildings is available only through station pledge drives. If your station isn't offering Lost Buildings, you can pledge and receive a copy directly from Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ-FM. Unfortunately, there are no reduced pledge levels for students or teachers. We will offer the DVD for sale at some point, probably in the fall of 2005, but right now we don't have info on prices. We'll post information on our mailing list as we confirm things.
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What's that great music you were playing under one of the stories on the show?
Because we Aim to Please, we've worked long and hard on compiling a collection of RealAudio snips of our most frequently used scoring music. The idea: listen to the clips, figure out which one you have in your head, and then, if you wish, you can go out and pick up the CD. If it's not in that batch, however, we're sorry – our email volume is so high that it's become impossible to answer these inquiries.
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If I send you an email, will you help me figure out which episode this story I liked so much was in?
We get tons of email at TAL these days, and we're thrilled because we know it means many are listening. The trouble is that it does compromise our ability to respond to everyone's email personally. So, we ask that you take some time first to research your question yourself by trying to find the segment you're wondering about in our show description pages. Use that search engine! We've been working really hard to flesh the website out with as much information as possible, so chances are good that if you take time to scan, you'll find what you're looking for. Likewise if you've forgotten a name or something from a show – try listening to the segment again on RealAudio. Thanks much for lending a hand.
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Why can't you respond to all your email?
We have an extremely small staff – of one person (!) – handling both the website updates and show email. As a result, we ask you to be as patient as possible. Many thanks.
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How do I submit work or send a show idea to This American Life?
First off – read our guidelines. Then, you might want to consider reading Ira's detailed Radio Manifesto on making good radio; it's at Transom.org.
If you'd still like to submit something, we highly recommend that you review the words of a seasoned veteran – Hillary Frank – who went from listener, to intern, to regular contributor by carefully following our guidelines, and struggling to get past our initial rejection and long-delayed responses. Hillary kindly wrote us this little treatise detailing her experience on the outside, and now, on the inside: How to Get on This American Life. Read it, and perhaps you'll follow in her footsteps.

Some important notes on submissions: don't email us anything; the webstaff doesn't have the ability to consider any submissions, nor are we able to confirm whether a submission has been received and/or considered. Follow the instructions online.

Also, be forewarned that we're a very small staff and unsolicited tapes and manuscripts are, by necessity, our absolute lowest priority. Answers sometimes take up to six months. We apologize in advance for delays you will surely experience if you send us material for the show.

A final note: if you do submit audio (we accept CDs, DATs and cassettes), they must be accompanied by a full script in order to be considered. You can also just send a script, solo.
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How can I make radio stories of my own? Ah, we were hoping you'd ask that. Radio's fun. Luckily, there's a website devoted to putting the tools into people's hands to do interesting radio stories. It's called Transom.org. It has a ton of basic explanation about the tech side of things, plus it's the only place anywhere that people just starting in radio get to chat with experienced oldtimers like Studs Terkel, Sarah Vowell, Scott Carrier, and most of the best documentary producers in
Ira's own massive Radio Manifesto is at home at Transom: it's a great resource for people starting out.

Ira's own massive Radio Manifesto is at home at Transom: it's a great resource for people starting out.

Some other useful links:
• Our Comic Book: Step-by-step explanations –with pictures – of how to make stories in the style of This American Life.
• Radio Diaries: Handbook on making your own stories (plus really great stories archived on their site)
• Sound Portraits: Another how to (plus a great archive)
• Pro Tools Free: The software we use to mix and edit our show is available free, for Mac or PC. Look in the "Products" menu at the Digidesign site under "Software" and you'll find it.

What kind of equipment do you use to record and produce stories at This American Life?
For our show we all generally use cassette recorders. We had bad experiences with minidiscs failing. And the DAT machines we were able to afford were more fragile than we'd like for the field. We have a Marantz portable hard disc recorder that we just bought but it still seems complicated and none of us trust it just yet.
Specifically: we use the Sony TC-D5 with the Audio Technica AT 835B shotgun microphone. Electronics are as subjective as anything else. Sometimes a mic will simply work prettily with a certain recorder. These two sound good together. The show has eight or ten kits set up this way.

Here's the unfortunate thing – Sony no longer makes the TC-D5, and we haven't identified a suitable substitute yet. There are usually used machines floating around out there though (try Ebay); they're reliable enough that even a used machine will probably work great for you. You can get the microphone a few different places – perhaps try Full Compass or Bradley Broadcast. They also might have ideas if you're having trouble locating the Sony TC-D5.

There are better mics and better recorders. When we hear David Isay's work – which is recorded digitally using super-expensive phantom-powered mics – we hear a huge difference, and always feel a little jealous. But what we lose in sound quality on our show we gain in reliability and flexibility. The TC-D5 is a cassette recorder you can ship around the country, over and over, which we do. You can explain to someone how to use it over the phone, which we do. It's good enough.

A big advantage of using cassettes: they're cheap, and if you run out while you're in the field, you can buy more pretty much anywhere. We use Maxell XLII High Bias tapes. You'll find these at many record stores, and Best Buys – a block of 5 usually sells around $9. We don't recommend that you get tapes longer than 90 minutes, as longer cassettes use thinner tape that's more prone to breakage. In general, when people's tape sounds bad, we find it isn't because their gear is so bad. It's because they're shy (as everyone is at first) about getting in close with the mic. Or they have the interview in an unnecessarily noisy, buzzy annoying environment for the interview. The best thing you can do to improve most recordings is simply to get closer with the mic. A minidisc with a good shotgun mic should get you better-than-average recordings, if you're careful with the mic.

We edit on Macs, old ones and new ones, using Digidesign's Pro Tools.
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How do I apply for an internship with the show?
We do have an internship program – to apply, review and follow these guidelines carefully. Note that we do not accept emailed applications under any circumstances, nor does the web staff have any information on application receipt or status.
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Can you help me with my RealAudio trouble?
Because we're not RealAudio experts, it's really impossible to efficiently diagnose problems over email. As a result, we cannot provide any RealAudio support. We recommend you try the RealAudio site – they've got some terrific FAQs which have solved many a problem for us. You also can call in for help; they're great on the phone.

Generally speaking, when people have had problems in the past they've needed to either reinstall or upgrade their RealAudio/RealOne players. The basic player is still free (don't let them fool you – you do not need the fancy $30/$40 player to hear the show). Again, visit the RealAudio site for links and information on upgrades. And one final suggestion: if you do need to reinstall or upgrade your player for some reason, make sure you clear your system of all bits of the old player first. If RealAudio sees parts of the old player on your hard drive – even if it's just a lone extension – you may get error messages indicating that you still need to upgrade. Clear everything, then reinstall ... and you should be fine.
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Why do I have to pay for a RealOne player? I thought you said it was free.
The basic RealOne player, the one you need to listen to every RealAudio file on our site, is free. Really. Follow this simple link to get it – and don't be fooled by the fancy, frilly Player they may offer instead. It's totally unnecessary.
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How come I can't listen to TAL with the free RA Player? I keep getting error messages telling me I need to upgrade.
You can listen to TAL shows using the free player don't let them fool you. RealAudio makes it pretty difficult to find that free player on their site sometimes, but if you get it here, you're set. If you install the free player or an upgraded version and still get error messages, take note: if RealAudio sees parts of an old player on your hard drive – even if it's just a lone extension – you may get error messages indicating that you still need to upgrade (even though you just did). Clear everything, then reinstall ... and you should be fine.
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Why can't I download your RealAudio files?
Allowing download of those files would require us to secure special permissions from our contributors, since you'd actually be copying their work to your local drive. We can't pay them enough to fairly cover this – and it'd also be an administrative nightmare to keep track of who said yes and who said no given our tiny staff size. So sadly, we can only provide for streaming RA. We hope you understand our situation and will listen online anyway.
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Where can we get MP3s of shows, or other high-quality TAL show downloads?
We can't offer MP3s of TAL shows on our site. Downloading the files is a little different than just streaming them; that's because when you download an MP3, you have a high-quality sound file on your desktop that you can then reproduce on CD en masse. And if we allow that, we feel like we'd need to compensate your contributors accordingly – we'd have to charge for the files – and that's not something we're equipped to do on our little server. Besides, we wanted to keep all the audio we offer on the main TAL site free for anyone to listen to, all the time.
But there's definitely a demand for higher-quality files, so in conjunction with a company called Audible, we're now offering high-quality file downloads that you can listen to on any number of portable MP3-compatible players. Via Audible.com, you can now download This American Life episodes for a small per-show fee; you also can subscribe to the show and get weekly downloads for a discount. Part of the proceeds from these sales go directly back to our contributors to compensate them for download and storage of their work--we thought this was the fairest way to go.
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How can I buy a CD of a show?
CDs of all our shows are $13 each; cost includes shipping. Buy 'em anywhere you see a dollar sign icon on our site, like on our main archive page.
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Why are some shows not available on CD? There's a handful of shows - especially very early shows - that we'd just as soon vanquish from the face of the earth and never have anyone ever hear again, thank you very much. Then there are some later shows where writers haven't granted permission to release their stories on CD. Some of those writers did give us permission to post their stories via RealAudio and Audible.com, which is why some shows are unavailable on CD but available in other formats.
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What can I do if a show isn't available on CD? You can still usually hear it for free, as streaming audio, here on the website. Most shows are also available for download at Audible.com/thisamericanlife for a small fee. If your computer can burn CDs, you can make your own CD from an Audible.com download.
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How can I get a copy of your Greatest Hits CDs?

Lies, Sissies & Fiascoes: The Best of This American Life

You can pick up via our online store for $17 (both of our Greatest Hits collections include two CDs full of stories, and the price includes shipping). If you decide instead to buy the CD from a retail outlet we'll still be thrilled, as it'll help convince retailers it's worth keeping in stock.

The TAL show CD that I ordered won't play/Are TAL show CDs compatible with all players?
See our special CD incompatibility page for the answer.

How can I get a transcript of a broadcast?
Sadly, we don't offer show transcripts. It's an expensive service, and we don't get nearly enough requests to justify it. You always can order a CD copy of anything you hear, though.

I really really want a show t-shirt/mug/tattoo. How do I get one?
The vast majority of TAL-carrying stations have offered TAL t-shirts, along with our nifty mugs and tattoos, as premiums during pledge drives. If you want one, check in with your station to see if they still have some on hand. If your station is not offering these items, know that we are unable (due contractual obligations) to sell them ourselves.

How can I find a book mentioned on the show?
Check our books page – we've got information up on many (not all) of the books you've heard about during the show.

What happened to the discussion boards?
For reasons detailed by Ira Glass in a post made to the boards in mid-January, we decided to shut down our "official" bulletin boards at Transom.org. A listener, Andy Knight, decided to take the reins, and his independent discussion boards are now up and running. We also still strongly encourage you to spend some time on the Transom; they've done a spectacular job of assembling some of the most intriguing people in our field to talk about making radio, what radio could be and should be these days. Their discussion boards are top-notch.
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