The Best of ‘This American Life’: 25th Anniversary Episodes – The New York Times

When the public radio show I host went on the air 25 years ago, I was firmly against publicity photos. They were anti-radio, I’d tell anyone willing to listen to my little rant on the subject. Better not to be seen. Better to be a voice. A presence. Hearing Howard Stern has a power that seeing him does not. Ditto Rush Limbaugh or Terry Gross or anyone who knows what they’re doing on the mic. Why give up invisibility, which makes radio so powerful?

But of course, we live in a world dominated by images. If you want newspapers or magazines to tell readers that your new radio show exists, most of them insist on some sort of photo. And a couple of years into this, my sisters Randi and Karen intervened and told me to drop the schtick and just have my picture taken like everyone else. But till then, our show’s publicity photo had me hidden behind a handwritten note saying “Radio = No Pictures.”

You learn and change over 25 years of doing a thing.

In 1995, when we went on the air, there were a handful of people on NPR experimenting with the sort of journalism-as-radio-storytelling I liked, but nobody had done a weekly show of it. “This American Life” gave this kind of audio narrative journalism — stories told with plot and characters, and a chatty, informal sound — a visibility it had never had.

As part of our new partnership with The New York Times, I’m pleased to note our 25th year here, by sharing some of my favorite episodes. We tried this at Thanksgiving — with a list of holiday listening recommendations — and people seemed to like it, so we’re doing it again. For more episodes, check out our 25th anniversary page.