Research Paper On Studs Terkel

There's another lesson.
And it starts with this guy.
That Studs Terkel.
How many of you know Studs Terkel? Can I see a show of hands?
Not too many of you. Oldsters.
The old TEDxters know Studs Terkel. (Laughter)
Studs Terkel was probably the greatest living interviewer on the planet, as far as I'm concerned, but, certainly, in America when he was living, he died in 2008.
I was fortunate to interview him once he was deaf as a doornail
I did like shout into the microphone for him to hear me.
He was born 1912, died in 2008, so ninety six years old when he died had interviewed probably.
I mean thousands upon thousands of people. his seminal work or work that really set him apart which was also the.
The first work that I that I discovered by him.
Was a book called working.
People talk about what they do all day.
And how they feel about what they do.
And it was that at that thing not just like. What do you do all day.
But,"how do you feel about what you do?"
Because all of us were you know eight, nine, ten hours a day
40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week.
And how we feel about how we spend that time is actually really important.
And Turkle, this book is you know 400-500 pages long.
Have is some of you read it? I'm guessing...
Or read in it you've looked at and it's amazing, right?
One of the belittle games that I play with that book is trying to figure out what questions he asked to elicit the kinds of responses he guy.
And he was talking with priests and prostitutes.
He was starting a cab drivers and C.E.O.'s.
Postal workers, garbage delivery men, Radio deejays
Everybody is in that book is represented in that book
It was published in one thousand nine hundred three.
But it's outstanding reading.
I mean, it really is.
And he has this sense of curiosity about people and their experiences.
That is uncommon and it comes through even though his words are nowhere in the book.
It comes through.
Because he kept asking people about their lives.
So the. Second.
Sort of point in all of this
Where my pointing this thing.
Is to be curious.
Be curious about the world.
Don't just let it be out there and not wonder about it.
But be truly curious about other people's experiences about why things are the way they are.
This thing is dying I think. But anyway maybe every time I go like this they'll move it.
Now. There we go.
So next lesson.
This guy is not Studs Terkel.
It's state senator Tim Grendel.
He's now a judge in Geog County.
But when I met him he was a state Center actually the first time I met him he was running for attorney general.
But several years ago I think this would have been around two thousand and eight or so there was this thing happening.
That the Great Lakes Water compact this gets back to why policy matters of naming Hanauer still here.
But the Great Lakes Water compact was going to be was this agreement between all of the Great Lakes states.
And two Canadian provinces.
The Canadian government the US government and everybody was going to agree that certain uses of the Great Lakes of the fresh water one fifth of the world's fresh water. Which is at our doorstep. Would be protected.
And just about every legislature on the U.S.
Side had agreed to it except for Ohio's.
And the provincial legislature said also agreed to it on the Canadian side.
Everybody was poised to do it except state senator Tim was worried about the water rights of private property owners who lived inside the watershed.
So I was interviewing him along with Matt Dallen who was then a state rep from Geog County and a champion of the compact.
And you know back and forth back and forth live on the air for thirty minutes forty five minutes we're getting close to the end of the program from the ask the state senator is their language that we could put inside the legislation to authorize the compact.
That would set your mind at ease
It's really obvious question right is there any compromise here any middle ground.
And he said: "Well, yeah. I think there is."
Nobody to ask that question yet for some reason like it had come up I don't know if he was waiting for enough enough press or something like that but sometimes the point of that is that sometimes. The obvious question is the most important question to ask.
So don't be afraid to ask the obvious question because it may turn out that the obvious question needs to be asked at that moment.
This is my friend no else the last.
And if you know some nuance Alaska give Show hands.
Fans of no else the last.
I'm a big fan of Noel Selassie and I've done a lot of work together.
One of the other areas in which you wind up sometimes asking questions.
Isn't always the interview, but sometimes you're facilitating a conversation.
Teachers know this really well.
In fact, part of what most of what I learned about asking questions
I learned when I was teaching high
school.
But one of the things that Noel taught me one day when we were planning out this group facilitation thing that we're working on.
And she said to me weird.
Going to stop touching that.
And she said.
Where I we're trying to figure out how to get a group of people to talk to one another about the things that matter to them boast.
And we wanted to feed them a question that they would ask one another and it was like well you just say like hey would you care about it doesn't matter what do you do what he's been your time doing and she hit on it.
So what's your passion.
And that was the thing that cracked it wide open and ultimately the event was this. Two and a half hour event.
Everybody was talking with one another strangers who had never met.
Because we gave them the right question to use: "What's your passion?". and they talked to each other about their passions about what was deep inside their heart, what they cared most about.
So, the lesson there that she has taught me and she continues to teach me every time we work together.
Is the words matter. There it is words matter.
The words you use. Matter a lot.
When you ask questions.
Because they do. Words matter.
This is Ishmael bad.
He wrote a book called Long Way Gone.
He was a child soldier in Sierra Leone
I interviewed him once.
It was sort of terrifying to interview him the anxiety I experienced before interviewing a former child soldier and published author. Knowing that I what I wanted to ask him about that anxiety that I felt prior to that interview.
It came to the anxiety I felt waiting back there and. But I had to ask him. During a live interview on the radio.
In your book you talk about killing people.
Can you tell us what that was like for you and how you live with that.
And those memories and.
It was so hard to do that
But I knew that it was the question that needed to be adults and I knew it was the question alternately. It was the stuff of his life the life shaping things that happened to him.
Then knew that he probably didn't want to actually talk about.
And what I was trying to do in that moment was fine.
Whatever capacity I had for empathy for someone who had been through those experiences not really.
I mean in that case empathy is really hard but what you have to do when you're interviewing anybody or when you're just asking questions of anybody is you really have to strive for empathy.
I'm going to throw this down. (Laugher)
No Power Point next time A man hours right. OK.
To strive for empathy.
And you have to do that because oftentimes the best conversations that you're having and the moments where your curiosity is really sated is when you're speaking with somebody who has a completely different experience from your own.
And when you strive for empathy you're striving to reach across that difference.
And put yourself in that person's shoes.
And really open your heart to their experience.
Who knows who this is?
It's all the oldsters again.
Allen Ginsberg was a hero of mine.
I'm supposed to stay on the on the red because that's where the good light is.
Allen Ginsberg was a hero of mine be poet.
And I had an opportunity to interview him, many many years ago when I was in college I was writing my thesis about his poetry
I somehow somehow got an opportunity to interview him.
And the night before the interview we.
My friend Jeff and I met him at this event.
And we said Sir we're both it we're both big fans of yours were both at Berkeley we're both writing our theses are our undergraduate thesis on your poetry.
"Could we possibly interview you tonight.?"
And he said: "No".
What about tomorrow.
And he said sure.
As long as you can give me a ride from Palo Alto to San Francisco.
OK And did it so it.
Long story but what he said at that moment he said pick me up tomorrow morning at nine.
At the hotel over there whatever it was and make sure you don't ask me a question that anybody has asked me before.
(Laugher)
OK!
So it's so and.
The dude had been interviewed a lot of times
I mean there are books upon books upon books and magazine articles and everything Paris Review New York are everywhere.
So Jeff and I were like up all night.
You know reviewing everything that we've researched about him to make sure that we're not going over old ground.
Was a really really important lesson and in the end.
We did I mean we were asking him about stuff that really was new for him and it worked really well.
This is moral
Johnson.
Many of you have heard her before if you've ever listened to a City Club broadcast because she asked a question and almost.
It will just yeah I would say eighty percent of the Friday forums that we host that are actually that are broadcast.
This is a picture for asking a question. Just last month January ninth.
When Tim McGinty, our county prosecutor, was speaking.
I can recite the entire question that she asked because it was so perfect.
She recited all of the facts about the to mere Rice Death.
And Timothy Loman the patrolmen who shot him.
Who shot Tamir Rice.
And she recited the facts dispassionately and completely factually.
And then she said in a very pointed way. "Will Officer Loman be indicted?" and Prosecutor McGinty spent.
You know a good five or six minutes.
Going over rehearsed answer that he had but the point is is that her question.
She had marshaled all of the facts together for that question.
And so like the lesson with Ginsburg.
The lesson with Johnson is to be informed.
Don't ask questions of people if specially this isn't the case when you're interviewing celebrity type people or big people who have who have spoken about things.
Don't ask them questions that they've already answered elsewhere know your subject to the extent that you can.
And I know a lot of you know who this is
Stuart Scott died in November.
He was an amazing amazing.. Sportscaster broadcaster. For E.S.P.N.
And in this. In this moment this is a of.
Still that I grabbed off the You Tube video.
This guy on the on the right.
And and you're right yeah it's my right to write. So over there anyway the guy on the right is interviewees of one of these like a red carpet in.
Stuart Scott is is walking down and he's OK "Hey, hey, can I get your attention? and Stuart Scott comes over very generous with his time and this guy takes about a minute to ask him he's like hey so I just wonder you know Stuart's great you know like great amazing career.
And I was one if you have any advice for young upcoming reporters like myself.
And also how to get where you are and.
And then he paused and Stuart Scott said. Right there.
You just asked me two questions ask one.
Don't ask two questions. (Lauhter)
And he said and then he went on he said.
And be simple you don't have to use a lot of words to show people how much you know.
Just ask a simple question.
Sometimes the best question is why.
The simplest question there is.
And he's right.
You don't have to use these long questions with. With all sorts of things to show how much you know.
Sometimes the most important thing is to just be as simple as you can be.
Which is that line. Number seven.
So to review. For one moment. If I may.
So Number seven is be simple I mean should start the beginning.
Number one was to be unafraid to be curious.
Three D. Remember what number three was OK. Come on what go. Now
(Laugher)
Yes try the obvious question.
And then there were number four was Words matter.
Number five. Strive for empathy.
Number six. Be informed
Number Seven: Be simple.
And then I said that I was going to share with you my favorite question.
My favorite question which ultimately was really the question that I asked Ishmael is.
What's that like for you?
Or what was that like for you and that comes from. That's not like the question for you.
It's the authentic. Sincere question.
What's that like for you? Because I don't know. I didn't experience it.
And I think that's a very important question.
A question we should ask one another quite a lot.
There's one last thing though. To say.
And that when you are you asking questions of somebody there is a gift.
Their answer is a gift.
And when they're giving that gift of you to you of your experience.
And their experience and their time. It's very important to be gracious.
All of you have given so much to all of us today.
Your time and your attention and.
I hear outside in the lobby your questions as well.
So I want to just say to all of you. Thank you very much.
(Applause)