Q. Producing a daily newsmagazine is no easy task. What is involved in preparing to debut a new program?
A. Why did I ever agree to do this? Let’s just say it’s been an intense experience!

On top of the usual launch pressures, we’re trying to rethink how newsmagazines function – not because we believe there’s anything wrong with All Things Considered or Morning Edition, but because the media world changes, audiences change, experiences change, and we want to understand and, in some way, reflect those changes.

Here’s a beginning. We are basing this program in Los Angeles, a decision that creates both obstacles and opportunities. NPR knows how to produce our shows out of Washington, but this is a new setting with new challenges – some of which will strike you as ridiculously mundane, but which nevertheless are the things we actually grapple with: how do we begin to assemble a new reference library; should we keep our data in electronic form or do we need books and papers, what about music and archival sound CDs; where do we store everything? The really hard questions are philosophically demanding: what are we about, what is this program; how do we achieve political diversity along with an ethnic and cultural mix that speaks to and from our audience?

Q. What challenges and rewards have the months of prep work brought you and the Day to Day team?
A. It’s all challenges at this point. The rewards are to come as we develop a show on the air in a process that involves our editors, our writers, our audio engineers, our producers, the stations …and the audience. There really are enormous rewards in public radio journalism – the ability to speak to and hear back from listeners who are concerned with the world and their communities, and who count on us to deliver news programs that are thorough, fair, insightful, and that also offer a kind of audio storytelling that has come to matter to them. One of the delights of this new program is welcoming back to public radio some old friends who are returning to us after some years away working for other media institutions. We know why they’re coming back…there’s just no place like this, and there’s no other audience like this.

Q. One of the challenges you face in launching a new midday news program is changing potential listeners’ habits. What would you say this program has that will draw listeners to include it in their personal time?
A. When there’s an ongoing crisis, you don’t want to go eight hours without reassurance, and these days, various crises are so ongoing that the need for a reliable source of midday news is pretty constant. Aside from news, we’re interested in the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors that shape American life today, and we’re going to explore them – how to buy a used car, what a dreamy kid thinks about doing on vacation, how one weighs the supposed health benefits of a glass or two of wine against the far too common tendency to make that four or five glasses. We’ll cover popular culture – our studios are only about a mile from one of those great Hollywood dream factories. And I think there’s going to be a real interest in the voices and perspectives that we’ll get from Slate Magazine; I think the NPR audience is going to really turn on to these people – they’re not just smart, they’re also funny.

Q. As you mentioned, NPR is collaborating with Slate Magazine on Day to Day. How will Slate contribute?
A. NPR’s idea for a new newsmagazine – our first in a generation – was already an exciting opportunity for fresh ideas and approaches. Slate’s participation makes this venture even more intriguing. I’ve followed the career of Slate founder Michael Kinsley for years as a writer and editor at The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, and Harpers Magazine. I think Kinsley’s insights, his perceptive understanding of how public life works and of human nature, his skill as a writer and instincts as a reporter make him the leading journalist of our generation. When he agreed to join Slate seven years ago, it signaled to me that online magazines were going to be a place of real ideas and excellence. I interviewed him then for NPR, and I’ve been an avid reader of Slate ever since. With current editor Jacob Weisberg, Slate provides about the sharpest collection of reportage and observation in American journalism today. We’ve been talking for months now about how our partnership will work; to be honest, we don’t have all the answers yet. But we are going to bring some of the smartest, best informed voices today to public radio…for a start-up program, Slate means that Day to Day begins with a tremendous asset.

Q. You’ve worked for NPR since 1977 in a variety of positions, and you have experience working in television – how has your past prepared you for the future with Day to Day?
A. Well, I’m used to getting up early. I can write on very short deadlines. I was on the creative team that developed Morning Edition, so I understand what it takes to launch a new show. I’ve come to be able to see and hear stories everywhere I go, and I’m good at listening…I have a lot of faith in the idea of public radio, and I’ve never lost my interest and enthusiasm for reporting details and stories that explain things – explain them to me, first, because I have to understand things before I can explain them to others. I think I have a pretty common curiosity – that is, I wonder about the same things many other people do. It’s a great fortune for me to get to explore some of those things; I really can’t think of anything I’d rather do. If my work over the years has amounted to anything, I think it’s because listeners can hear how thrilled I still am by what we do.