“. . . to create a more informed public—one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and cultures.”
—NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO MISSION STATEMENT
I’M NOT SURE there are so many radio dials that click anymore (she wrote, sounding like Grandma Moses), but when they did, it was a cozy sound—I would even say it triggered a physical response in me. Like when you take the first drag of a cigarette, sip of tea, or bite of chocolate, and your blood vessels widen and dilate—same goes for the radio dial. The click meant that information was coming your way. Weather, traffic, news, stories, facts, opinions, all of it was going to be mainlined into your system. And then there are the people. There are radio personalities I feel so close to, I would invite them to my children’s weddings, and yet I had never met one—until this year. I had been wanting to write a chapter on radio because the radio seems like a cozy layup to me—built-in, free, accessible to most, but what was I going to say, Listen to the radio, it’s cozy? Of course, I wanted to say that, but who am I? But, if I ever met a radio host . . .
When I say I was starstruck when the bright-eyed woman (think Julia Roberts) with a good blowout standing next to me was introduced as Rachel Martin, the authoritative voice I hear almost every morning while washing dishes, making tea, and gathering for the day, I mean, it was like 1998, when I ran into Dan Rather at a CBS elevator—I gasped. In Rachel’s case, I had to take a seat until I came to my senses. Once I did, I got bold. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to ask a professional if what I suspected was true—is radio cozy?
About a week later, Rachel told me on the phone:
“Radio is the most intimate medium. Two voices, no distractions, like makeup, clothes, cameras that distract from the content. There’s nothing like the sound of a voice in your ear. I put the earpiece in, and I can feel the person. Intimate communication is deeply comforting. The voice is someone’s true self—there’s authenticity in it. And I get to be myself, without artifice. When you ask real questions and hear the person pause to truly answer authentically, the audience feels like they are a part of it—and they are. Also, radio is in your personal space, your kitchen, your car, the shower, and I think that makes people feel close to you as host, the guests, and the process. Then there is the studio, do you want to hear about my studio? [Um, YES.]
“I am a person who needs and really enjoys the sun and a lot of light, but not in my studio. There we keep the lights really low, so it’s a very dark space. I have a fuzzy green blanket my aunt gave to me because it’s cold in there. I always have it over my legs. My coffee is always on my right. I take a travel mug from my house to work, and it’s just ugly and boring, but I am very attached to it—to the handle. I leave at three in the morning from home, and no matter how hard I try, it’s always sort of a disaster, and I’m grumpy, so when I get to the studio, I take pains to make the physical space cozy—make it okay so I can do my job. I have to take some ownership of the world around me. So the font on my screen always has to be Arial fourteen. There has to be order, so the show lineup is always on the left of my screen and the news feeds are on the right, like Twitter, Fox, MSNBC, etc. I wear earphones, and the left headphone is on my ear so I can hear what’s on the show, and the right has to be off my ear so I know what’s going on in the studio. I can’t record anything until it’s all arranged. So much about the news is last-minute; it changes rapidly and you can be thrown into a variety of situations that can feel wild—like everything goes out the window. But if the structure I’ve created is in order, I feel able to do what I have to do.”
Bingo. I knew it. Radio is a towering club sandwich of cozy. Just click it on.