“What happens (to storytelling) in your generation?” Tom Ashbrook, host of WBUR’s “On Point,” asked in the first installment of the Swearer Center for Public Service Storytelling Speaker Series Thursday night. The award-winning journalist’s audience filled the seats of Smith-Buonanno Hall 106 to capacity and spilled into the aisles to hear him speak.
“We are now in a storytelling age where all of you can podcast tonight and become my competition,” Ashbrook said.
Before the popularization of online media, large news organizations had power to shape a national narrative, Ashbrook said. But with the increasing number of news sources available online, stories run by big media institutions are “disempowered,” he said.
Though there remain “dominant stories about who we are, where we go,” Ashbrook said the “national storyline” has become divided and ignited panic in the United States. He cited the recent federal government shutdown as the result of multiple “battling stories about what this country must become,” which vary among political factions.
“I’m really freaked out by the degree of polarization in this country,” Ashbrook said, referring to partisan political disputes. But on the show, he said, “we are trying to model American citizenship” by discussing multiple perspectives rather than one polarized view.
“We are trying to embody and personify and model that respectful community… of respect and love for one another,” he said.
Ashbrook said he is “lucky to be able to finish (his) career in the remains of big institutions” such as National Public Radio. WBUR’s resources allow Ashbrook to “support a staff of producers to help (him) perform deep, really informed journalism,” he said.
Ashbrook also said he believed the landscape of radio has transitioned from a primary audience who listens to physical radios, such as a car radio, to one that listens online. For this reason, he is trying to grow his Internet following, he said.
Ashbrook stressed that storytellers should write often and “really listen” because listeners will know if the storyteller does not. He said he works to find the “most edifying and illuminating” facts in his interviews and added that he does not use scripted questions on his show.
Corinne Cathcart ’14 and Liza Yeager ’17, who participate in the Storytellers for Good program at the Swearer Center, said they were thrilled at the turnout of the event and the enthusiasm of the audience. “People had a lot of questions for Tom, and it seemed like they were really excited he was there,” Yeager said.
“He was really honest” and admitted that he does not know what the future of radio will be, said Cathcart, a former Herald staff writer.
Cathcart said she was particularly happy that Ashbrook addressed that “storytelling doesn’t come in one specific form,” noting that his principal method of storytelling is through interviewing.
The Storytelling Speaker Series focuses on “the art of creating a consistently powerful, honest, and resonant radio program that connects with listeners in an age of digital distractions,” according to the Brown event calendar.
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