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Since 1996, Radio Diaries has been giving people tape recorders and working with them to report on their own lives and histories. Over the years, Radio Diaries has pioneered a new form of citizen journalism and produced dozens of acclaimed and innovative documentaries broadcast on NPR: Teenage Diaries, Prison Diaries, Diary of a Retirement Home, My So-Called Lungs, Mandela: An Audio History, Thembi’s AIDS Diary, Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair, Teen Contender, The Unmarked Graveyard and others. These projects have won every major award in broadcast journalism and have helped inspire a movement of first-person documentaries on public radio. 

Radio Diaries has refined the craft of creating compelling narratives—with structure, meaning and sentiment—out of the raw material of the world. These stories have a dedicated broadcast home on NPR’s All Things Considered, reaching 10 million listeners and more through broadcast on This American Life, international radio stations, the web, the Radio Diaries Podcast and public events. Radio Diaries projects are heard within the framework of NPR’s daily news coverage, alongside reports about the economy, political commentaries and the latest movie review. This context gives our work added resonance and is at the heart of our storytelling philosophy: ordinary life is newsworthy.

 

Meet The Team

Board of Directors

Rachael Barrett, (Chair) Owner at R. E. Barrett and Associates LLCJimmie Briggs, (Officer) Principal at Skoll FoundationIra Glass, (Officer) Host and Executive Producer, This American LifeJake Shapiro, (Officer) Head of Creator Partnerships, Apple Podcasts John McGinn, (Officer) Vice Chairman of the National Public Radio FoundationJad Abumrad, (Officer) Professor of Research at Vanderbilt University; Creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton's America.Joe Richman, (Officer) Founder and Executive Producer, Radio Diaries

Academic Advisers

David Barton Smith, Research Professor, Drexel University and Emeritus Professor, Temple University
Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards, Assistant Professor, Duke University Medical Center
Elizabeth Blackmar, Professor of History, Columbia University
Selfa A. Chew-Meléndez, Associate Professor of Instruction History, University of Texas at El Paso
David Greenberg, Professor of History and of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University
Leslie Heaphy, Associate Professor of History, Kent State University
Martha Hodes, Professor of History, New York University
Aaron J.Johnson, Assistant Professor of Music, University of Pittsburgh
Robin D. G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor of History Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, the University of California at Los Angeles
Paul Kramer, Associate Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
Alex Lichtenstein, Professor of History, Indiana University and Editor, American Historical Review
Joanne Meyerowitz, Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University
Kara Murphy Schlichting, Assistant Professor of History, Queens College
Paul Sutter, Professor of Environmental History, University of Colorado, Boulder
Renee Romano, Professor of History, Oberlin College
David G. Schwartz, Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Joseph F. Spillane, Professor of History, University of Florida

Awards

​Peabody Award, Teen Contender Audie Award, Audiobook of the Year, Mandela: An Audio History duPont-Columbia Award, Mandela: An Audio History

RFK Journalism Award, Mandela: An Audio History, Teenage Diaries Overseas Press Club Award, Thembi’s AIDS Diary Edward R. Murrow Award, Thembi’s AIDS Diary and Mexico ’68 National Journalism Award, Thembi’s AIDS Diary and The Last Man on the Mountain
Sigma Delta Chi Award, Prison Diaries and Teenage Diaries
Casey Journalism Award, Teenage Diaries The Ambies (Nominated for Best Sports Podcast), The Longest Game
Third Coast Award, Centenarians in Lockdown, Majd's Diary, My So-Called Lungs, Mandela, The Traveling Electric Chair, Teen Contender, and Melissa's Diary Revisited
Signal Award, Best Limited Series for The Unmarked Graveyard

Funders

Radio Diaries receives funding from National Endowment for the Arts, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs,Two West Foundation, Horace Goldsmith Foundation, The Omer Foundation and listeners like you. Thanks especially to the generous folks in our Producers Circle: George Loening, Howard and Debbie Chasanow, Caitlin LaCroix, Carol Nelson, Susanna Nicholson, Phyllis Richman, Linda Gruber, Jamie Dell'Apa, Judy Wise, Tom Tryforos, Esther Saks, Suzanne Costas, and Nadine Semer. If you're interested in joining our Producers Circle, please contact Joe Richman at joe@radiodiaries.org

We have generous support from The New York Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the South Carolina Humanities Council, the Omer Foundation, and our community of listeners. Thank you. 

 

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