/Audio by Adam/

Radio and Audio Features and Documentaries

Radio and Audio Features and Documentaries

This Website is a collection of the radio stories and interviews I have broadcast over nearly four decades, mostly on Voice of America but also on NPR, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other outlets.

Some are pegged to momentous news events, but a greater number explore the felt human experience of the news or simply flesh out subjects of my own interest and devising. This kind of radio journalism is unusual these days, when quick sound bites and TV reign supreme. Even so, I have received over 20 international, national and Voice of America awards for this work over the years, and some pieces are regularly used in journalism graduate schools.

Please peruse the categories below, or check the table of contents for a complete alphabetical listing. Most of all, have fun and enjoy the ride. I sure have!

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“The Century in Sound: An American’s Perspective”

October 17, 2009 1 Comment

This is a 38-minute narration-free documentary of the 20th century using (other than my one minute spoken introduction) only archival sound, speeches and other audio artifacts of that talkative 100 years. The montage is of my own making and perspective as the American I happen to be, and hopefully, will take the listener of whatever provenance or vintage, on a real voyage.

It was prepared for worldwide broadcast on the Voice of America on New Year’s Eve 1999; it subsequently won the Grand Prize and the Gold Medal at the New York Festivals, and a Special VOA award. I was later flattered to learn it is often used in journalism classes.

A note on how to listen to it: all on one 38 minutes go, with the lights off. It’s fun to try identify the source of the sound you are hearing the first time around. Then check your impressions against the complete list of sound elements which I hope to post as a sidebar on this blog (when I learn how to do it.) You can also write me and request an email copy, no prob.

“The Goddess in the USA”

March 17, 2023 No Comments

This is one of the first long-form documentaries I ever did for NPR’s “Horizons” program. It explores the deep feminine through the eyes of several “witches” and priestesses who honor and worship female power and divinity through the myths, rituals and symbols associated with goddesses past, present and future. Features Starhawk, Z. Budapest, Francesco Dubie. Gina Banghart, Mathew Fox, Joseph Campbell, Winnie Lubelle and Diana Jordan, among others. Making this documentary changed my view of women forever. Turn off the lights and play it with headphones!

Lubavitcher Rebbe Still Mourned

March 17, 2023 No Comments

Tens of thousands of Hasidic devotees from around the world converged this week at the grave of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, also known as the “Lubavitcher Rebbe,” in Queens, New York. They came to pray, to celebrate, mourn and to ask for blessings from the man many in the Chabad-Lubavitch sect believe to be the Messiah, and whom the world recognizes as one of the great Jewish leaders of the 20th century. (from 2014)

Christopher Columbus: America’s Rorschach

November 28, 2022 No Comments

Explorer. Hero. Genocidal Conqueror. Genius. Inventor. Adventurer. Fool. Prophet. All these names have been used to describe the “discoverer” of America. But what do we really know about the man who sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred and ninety two? This long form doc, explores the many faces of Columbus as he has come down to us, and the enigma he represents within our own national history and character. (produced in conjunction with the 500th anniversary of 1492.)

Saint Thomas Church (Boys) Choir School

May 8, 2011 No Comments

New York’s Saint Thomas Church is one of the only boarding schools in America where talented young boys can go to learn to perform top notch liturgical chorale music and get a good secular education at the same time. Once puberty and the change of voice hit, their sweet sopranos are gone. In the meanwhile however, their boyishness and their music take center stage. This is their story.

Provincetown’s Vanishing Portuguese Community

May 8, 2011 No Comments

Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the tip of Cape Cod was once home to one of the thriving Portugese communities anywhere in the world outside Portugal (and the Azore Islands, where most of those “Portagees” come from). Fishing was their livelihood (once mixed with whaling) was their livelihood. But with the near decimation of the North Atlantic fishing stock, the price of real estate, the out-migration of youth, and the town’s growth as a gay resort town, these Provincetown Portuguese and their culture are disappearing. This story focuses on those who remain, what they remember, and what they see as their prospects.

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