We got our first black and white television set in 1951. It took little time for 6 year old me and my next youngest brother, Tom, to become highly sophisticated viewers. In our opinion, the best shows were Howdy Doody and any western movie with Gabby Hayes. Heck, we even liked the test pattern. (This will undoubtedly elicit emails from you whippersnappers asking what a test pattern is). But the worst shows were Kate Smith (especially when she sang, “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain”), and “Life is Worth Living” with Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. The Archbishop won the Emmy award for, “The Most Outstanding Television Personality” in 1952, but my young brother and I did not share that appreciation. He was the first evangelizer to appear on TV, but not the last. A few years later we watched in fascination as the melodramatic Oral Roberts laid his hands on his audience members and yelled, “Heal!” As the “healee” danced away, throwing the crutches, we were dumfounded. Our parents were much less impressed, turning the TV off whenever they found us watching.
Those early days dampened my enthusiasm for religion via mass media, but a few years ago I happened to tune into Speaking of Faith on MPR. This was something worth paying attention to! Last fall I found out that the daughter of a good friend is a producer for Speaking of Faith. It seemed like a good opportunity to find out more about this revolutionary program.
The show is broadcast at 10:00am on Sunday, tucked between the 9:00 and 11:00am gym masses thereby making it difficult to get to either of the masses and hear the whole program. I listen from 10:15am as I begin my drive to church, but miss the end of the program. Fortunately, it is repeated at 7:00pm on Sunday night and like so many of the MPR programs, it can be streamed, downloaded to a computer or podcast from the web site (www.speakingoffaith.org). But I am getting ahead of myself.
The originator and host of Speaking of Faith is Krista Tippett(right). Krista spoke at St. Joan of Arc a few years ago, so I knew many who visit our web site would be familiar with her. But I thought perhaps it might be interesting to look behind the scenes and find out what goes into the making of this highly successful program. I contacted my friend’s daughter, Colleen Scheck, and after a quick tour of the new MPR studios, I interviewed her. It was an enlightening discussion.
I asked Colleen how she would describe the program. She admitted it can be hard to sum up because of its broad range of topics, but she said it explores many aspects of life through the lens of religion and ethics. Krista sheds some light on this approach on the SOF web site:
In the words of MPR, Speaking of Faith is public radio’s conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. I think the format sets it apart. It is truly a conversation with each guest speaking from their experience and their heart. Krista is a theologically-trained journalist who is able to ask the relevant questions and probe the deeper connections to faith. To me, this is not so much a show about religion as it is about spirituality; not coincidentally, it also resonates with what to me is the best about St. Joan of Arc.
The trouble is, these kinds of pronouncements put listeners on the defensive. In fact, they even foster division within traditions.
Whereas Krista Tippett has a Divinity degree from Yale and a strong background in journalism, Colleen’s background is quite different. She graduated with a degree in History from Northwestern University and spent her twenties working in human resources for Barnes & Noble and Target Corporations. Eventually she felt a calling to do more direct public service work. She arrived in the MPR newsroom, working for then vice-president Bill Buzenberg. She supported Speaking of Faith in its early years, before it became a weekly show, assisting with administration of the multiple grants that helped get it going. She fell in love with the show’s topics and “first-person” approach, and was thrilled when she had the chance to expand her role to that of associate producer.
Working with Speaking of Faith has been gratifying in ways she never anticipated. Colleen told me that each week her eyes are opened to new ideas and perspectives, issues that affect all of us – personally and globally. The dividend she hadn’t expected at MPR was a husband! While in the newsroom, she met and married Tom Scheck, a political reporter for MPR’s regional news service.
Colleen’s responsibilities are varied, and she says the production team works closely and collaboratively on each program. She manages the production schedule, keeps track of program ideas, books interviews with guests, does research for upcoming programs, and supports production of the radio broadcast and its corresponding web site. Three producers rotate primary responsibility for weekly programs so they can work in-depth on all aspects. Interviews are edited to fit the radio broadcast hour, and collaborative feedback helps shape the program script written by Krista Tippett. In addition to producing, Colleen continues to work on the program’s grants and manages its budget.
Colleen(right) told me they do an average of 30 new shows a year and on other weeks re-run programs that remain pertinent and were popular with audiences. I asked her what those programs might be. She told me "The Soul in Depression" is a program that continually evokes much listener response. As the show describes, there is a growing body of literature by people who have struggled with depression and found it to be a lesson in the nature of the human soul. In this program, Krista engages some of these voices experiencing a range of depression and religious perspectives. Another highly-regarded program is "Einstein and the Mind of God" - a two part series about Albert Einstein that explored his thinking about mystery, eternity, and the mind of God. In general, Colleen told me, programs that explore the intersection of science and religion are very popular with their audience.
Generally they begin planning a show 2-3 months in advance unless they are responding immediately to a current news event. It takes a couple weeks to actually produce one show (both the radio broadcast and web site), keeping all seven SOF staff members busy. Veteran public broadcaster Kate Moos is the show’s managing producer, leading the team’s vision and all its programmatic and operational aspects. Kate worked for many years as a reporter and managing editor for MPR’s regional news service. Senior producer Mitch Hanley, a veteran of “A Prairie Home Companion,” brings his audio production, technical direction, and sound quality management experience to the show and does a magnificent job of choosing music and being responsible for its highly-produced sound. Two new associate producers recently joined the team – Shiraz Janjua comes from Montreal, Canada, where he produced a religious affairs program for a community radio station, and Rob McGinley Myers brings his creative writing and producing experience from “The Writer’s Almanac” to the show. Trent Gilliss designs and produces SOF’s increasingly popular web site. In 2005 Speaking of Faith was the first public radio program to win a Webby Award – dubbed “the Oscars of the Internet.” The show has been nominated three times for an Online Journalism Award by the Online News Association, most recently for specialty journalism in 2007.
Speaking of Faith is usually produced and broadcast from the MPR studios in St. Paul with many interviews done by phone. Occasionally the SOF team travels to interview a guest, capture an event, and sometimes to do programs before a live audience. Most recently they traveled to Saddleback Church in Los Angeles to interview Rick and Kay Warren. Earlier last year, two of the producers traveled to Stanford University to attend an event celebrating the Muslim poet and mystic Rumi and to videotape the guest in their program on Rumi who was performing his poetry with a musical ensemble. The video was included on the program’s web site. In 2004, Krista interviewed George Ellis, a cosmologist and Quaker from South Africa, in front of a live audience at WHYY studios in Philadelphia. They recorded the event and produced a show around it.
The Speaking of Faith web site is large and continues to grow, both in content and audience appeal. Many of the web users are younger people and the ability to stream the show or download for listening on their own schedule appeals to them. The site also provides an area for listener feedback. Colleen told me they get both positive and critical response to shows, and will post both types on the site if thoughtfully and respectfully communicated. SOF has developed discussion guides, transcripts, and CDs that are available for some of their more popular shows. They can all be accessed through the web site. Colleen told me these materials are used by church study groups. (It occurred to me that they might be a valuable resource for some of the SJA Small Christian Communities.) Colleen said they are also aware of college professors assigning programs for their students to listen to as coursework.
As I looked at the web site I was amazed at the extent of material available. I was also gratified by the ease of finding programs available for downloading. The podcasts are highly popular and can be searched by date, title, guest or simply by reading through the list of programs.
Speaking of Faith now has a radio audience of half million people, another 200,000 listening to weekly podcasts and over 40,000 subscribing to their email newsletter. For a show that has only been on the air for five years, these statistics are impressive.
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