How to Tell Stories Like Ira Glass
Whether the format is video, audio or written word, corporate communicators can learn from the host and co-founder of ‘This American Life’
Ira Glass says he’s not a “naturally good storyteller,” so he studied what makes a good story before launching “This American Life,” which attracts nearly 3 million listeners to its public radio program and podcast.
The shows are usually so seamless that it’s easy to take their structure for granted, the way some people don’t appreciate the technical skill of abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock.
Yet below the surface of each American Life episode is a combination of creativity and craft, a formula that Glass, the host and executive producer, has described from time to time in dozens of interviews.
Our own history as a listener goes back to 1995, when Glass co-founded a quirky forerunner to American Life on our Chicago public radio station. The following year, the show changed its name.
Glass, 67, gradually developed the journalistic approach of the show, which has broadcast about 900 episodes. It won the first Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting in 2020, and has earned nine Peabody Awards, which are sometimes called broadcasting’s equivalent of the Pulitzers.
Glass has spent his career in audio, but his thinking dovetails with our own thoughts about storytelling in every format, from written word to video and podcast production.
We’ve picked out a few of his quotes about storytelling and interviewing and combined them with our own tips.
1. Memos and meetings. Before diving in on reporting, we recommend that writers prepare story pitch memos, with a first draft of a headline, first sentence, as well as suggested graphic and photo ideas.
A newsroom leader, who’s like a managing editor, should summarize the memos in a list that we call the story budget.
The story budget and memos give the meetings structure. Instead of having each writer say what they’re working on, the managing editor directs the discussion.
“We have a weekly story meeting and there’s a pitch document where we pitch each other,” Glass told the Columbia Journalism Review in 2017. “And then … what we’re evaluating is, is the plot of the story interesting? Is it something we haven’t heard before? Does it lead to some interesting thought?”
Like Glass, we recommend three editorial meetings, daily, weekly and monthly, each with a different focus.
2. Have a plan. The story pitch memos should be based on enough reporting to believe there’s a basis for the story, including what the reporter must have and what would be nice to have.
American Life takes the same approach.
“We imagine a little map of the story and who would be interesting to hear from,” he told CJR. “And where would you want to begin the story and where would you want it to end. And then you just start going out and reporting it out and calling people.”
3. Good interviews make better stories. In writing workshops, we teach the secret to good interviewing: “The two P’s: Preparation and Persistence.”
Interviews should be conversational in tone, but they are not conversations. The interviewer has certain points that must be covered.
“In these interviews that we’re doing, we’re seeing somebody for two hours, and most of it is not going to be on the air,” Glass said. “But when somebody says the thing that is the tape [or story], then we know it.”
Later in the CJR interview, Glass said, “One of the things that I learned we have to teach people is to decide what tape they need before they go out to get the tape, and then to know when they’ve got it.”
4. Ask again. Corporate communicators are sometimes hesitant to repeat questions, perhaps because their interview subject is a high-ranking boss or someone impatient to get the interview over.
When Glass was asked if he asks the same question more than once, he replied:
“Oh my god, yes. Over and over and over and over again. Yes, it’s completely key, because often they don’t hear it exactly the way you mean it. And I will ask the person the same question four or five times normally before they give me an answer.
“Sometimes you have to theorize what the answer might be. Like I find myself in a lot of interviews saying, ‘Well is it more like this or is it like this? I can imagine it would be this way or this way. What is it?’ And then when they’re forced to like kind of go somewhere—to bat away one of your theories and to run at one of the others.”
5. The magic question. Early in Glass’ career, he worked closely with Noah Adams, who was a co-host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” from 1982 to 1987 and from 1989 to 2002.
Citing Adams, Glass said, “The question that always works is: How did you think it was going to work out before it happened? And then how did it really work out. Is that it?”
6. Get the big picture. We encourage writing nut graphs, which are paragraphs that sum up a story in a nutshell. Originally used in profiles, nut graphs have become common in longer stories as a way to tell the reader where the story is going.
Glass said, “There are certain places that I need people to jump out and give me the big picture idea of this story.”
The nut graph is that place.
7. Nail the timeline. Good stories have movement. Sometimes the movement is like a logical proof as you explain something step-by-step. Other times, the movement is chronological.
You probably won’t start your story at the beginning. You may start at the end or in the middle. But a story editor at The New Yorker used to say, “Chronology is your friend.”
Nonfiction writers sometimes call chronology “plot,” which according to Glass has inherent interest.
“All plot is, is a series of actions where one thing leads to the next — sort of like this thing led to this next thing, led to this next thing, led to this next thing,” he said. “What you want is one thing leads to the next, leads to the next, leads to the next and the reason why we do that is because once you have any sequence of actions in order of like, this happened and then this happened and this happened that creates narrative suspense because you wonder what happened next.”
Natural storyteller
This isn’t the first time we’ve turned to a broadcaster for lessons in storytelling. In 2024, we explained how the podcast team at The Wall Street Journal uses a six-item formula to tell stories.
“True storytellers choose the ingredients that make a good story,” we wrote.
Glass acknowledged he isn’t a natural storyteller in a 2024 Q&A in The New Yorker. He also admitted that he shares something else with many corporate communicators.
He said: “With writing, there’s kind of an existential — will the story exist at all? Like, you’re making it out of nothing.”
Writing this story has made Tom Corfman, a senior consultant with Ragan Consulting Group, think he doesn’t listen often enough to “This American Life.” Do you want to learn more about our Build Better Writers program of workshops and one-on-one training? Email Tom to set up a free call with him and RCG co-founder and senior partner Jim Ylisela.
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