Every couple of weeks John Dankosky pre-produces his daily talk show and goes in late to work. Last Friday on a gorgeous spring day he did just that. While zipping through the meandering hills of northwest Connecticut on his way to work, WNPR‘s news director and talk show host phoned PRX to talk about the show that aired that morning. He had on the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha.
“He was in Connecticut connecting with local listeners and I didn’t feel any compulsion to do anything other than talk about international issues,” Dankosky said.
His show, “Where We Live,” is a local call in talk show that stretches the word local. While he makes sure that every show has some connection to Connecticut (Ambassador Moustapha was there on a lecture tour) Dankosky dismisses the idea that “local” listeners care only about “local issues.”
“In actuality if you go up to them on the street they’ll say they care about the Iraq war, the economy, they care about this presidential election. Pretty far down the list is this school budget in West Hartford.”
He pauses.
“People really care about these connections on national and international issues.”
Two years ago WNPR switched from Classical/News to News/Talk. Creating his show was an important part of the switch. Dankosky started with a fragmented crew who pull shifts elsewhere in the station. It wasn’t until recently that his senior producer, Catie Talarski, came on full time. “Where We Live” also steals a technical director and part time producer from other duties.
But a huge asset, Dankosky says, is his newsroom, a half dozen of “the best reporters in public radio” who feed show ideas and appear on the show to provide informed insight on current affairs.
In fact, most of the show’s topics center around stories generated from the newsroom. But then there are the shows on fair trade or the shows he does after each major presidential contest where he snatches pundits from local universities and recently grabbed sound from the PRX election archive.
“It’s trying to have a conversation each day that has some impact locally but also broadening out the larger issues. It’s a combination of local officials talking about very Connecticut-centric things and national authors and other folks trying to put things in larger context.”
Dankosky says part of WNPR’s motive for creating this blend of local, national, and international is to prepare for the day when–according to Dankosky–networks market directly to Connecticut listeners through the web and satellite.
“We have to make things that are all our own. Something that has this local and global connection that people here are really going to like because if we don’t have that then we’re irrelevant. We have to do that.”
But this fear that networks would eventually bypass member stations hasn’t forced Dankosky to join the din of other talk shows clamoring over the typical national fodder. He has so far avoided talking about Jeremiah Wright, for example. Instead, this election year has focused on local news makers talking about national issues. For instance, they have invited all of Connecticut’s federal candidates to their studio to take questions from callers on a range of national and international topics.
Here, Dankosky is happy, weaving a new dimension to local news that always looks global.
Readers and fans can listen to the full interview with John Dankosky in the flash player below. You can hear his show here.
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