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Intro:
‘Here and Now’ is the third most listened to NPR program after Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Here & Now is welcoming a new host veteran journalist Indira Lakshmanan. She spoke with WNIN’s Tim Jagielo about the program, and the importance of public media.
Interview transcribed by AI software; lightly edited for clarity; typos may still exist
Tim Jagielo
Well, congratulations on the new post. The first question I'm going to ask is, what is Here & Now to you, and what what's unique about it?
Indira Lakshmanan
Well, I feel incredibly lucky to be joining this show as one of the co-hosts. It's an amazing opportunity, because here and now, as you know, is one of npr's three weekday flagship news magazines. And what's special about the here and now, time, slot and audience is that we're in the middle of the day, so Morning Edition and all things considered are, you know, key pillars, key tent poles of NPR and wonderful for commuters who are coming in and out of work, getting ready, getting their dinner ready.
What's so special about here and now is we're in the middle of the day. And I think that gives us a little extra leeway to go deeper on some stories. We're not the first news that people are hearing in the day, neither are we the last news. So it gives us a chance to do longer segments than either of our, you know, cousins Morning Edition and ATC we, you know, we have the longest feature segments of those three shows, and it allows us to go deep, you know, not only with newsmakers, but also with authors and artists and movie makers, and sort of bring not just information and news to our audiences, But also, you know, some imagination and wonder and inspiration for the middle of their day, and I think that's something really special about the show.
TJ
This may be a bad question — which is a good way to start a question — but are there any examples of recent news or projects or features that kind of allowed or kind of blossomed in this in this format, in this location?
IL
Well, I'm thinking about a long interview that my co host, Scott Tong, recently did with Salman Rushdie, who's, you know, such a brilliant writer. I think he's been, I think it's a robbery that he doesn't yet have a Nobel Prize for Literature, but we were able to do. Do you know a longer, more in depth interview with him about his newest collection of short stories? And that was something really special. It went out to audiences, not only as an audio interview, but also as a video interview that they could pick up and watch on our site, which was something really special.
So I mean, that's just one example, but every day, today, my co host Robin Young did an interview with former Congressman Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania, who was able to give really detailed strategy analysis of what President Trump is doing on his trip in Pennsylvania and why it's so important that he's visiting those key swing congressional districts where he's actually been losing support since the election. So I think every single day there are examples of this, and my first day in the hosting seat will be this Friday, December 12. And hopefully every single day we'll be giving you examples where we're able to go deeper, while also bringing you up to date on the latest news.
TJ
And of course, we'll be working with Scott tog and Robin young. How do you and your deep experience kind of complete this 'power trio' — I'll say it at a risk
IL
Well, I mean, I think all of us bring something special and different to the to the hosting chair. You know, Scott has long experience at marketplace before coming to WBUR and NPR and so he has a real expertise in business. Robin, as you know, has not only, you know, decades and decades of experience doing absolutely everything. She'll sometimes just surprise you with an interview where you'll be like, 'wait, what? You you were there. You knew that?'
I remember hearing her in August do an interview about the beat the anniversary of The Beatles, key historic concert in Shea Stadium in New York, and I couldn't believe it when Robin said 'and I was there as a teenager,' I thought, 'Wow.' You know someone who has lived through history and reported on history.
I'm bringing to the table, you know, more than 12 years as a foreign correspondent before another eight years as a State Department diplomatic correspondent in Washington, covering two Secretaries of State, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. So a lot of foreign policy experience, and, you know, experience as an editor and who's done features and opinion journalism and lots of different things. So we all bring different skills to the table, and I think that's what makes it so special to have good chemistry among hosts who you know all have their own perspectives and sources that we can introduce into the conversation every day.
TJ
In the (announcement) news release you said that you grew up with public media — but public media has been kind of shaken lately. How does public media stay relevant? How does public media fight for its legitimacy, and how does a host for an NPR flag, flagship program help with that?
IL
Yeah, it's such a good question. I'm really glad you asked, because the cut off of our federal funding is really an existential threat to public radio and public television, and it's something where I felt it was all the more important to come back to the public media system. Now, at a time like this, I started my career at NPR. It was my very first job out of school, and I've, over the years, done a lot of contributing work for public television, for PBS NewsHour. I wanted to come back to NPR because this is a time, as you say, where we have to fight for our our relevance and why we matter and we are a public service. Public is right in the word Public Media, and one of the things I love about it is there is no pay wall. They will never be a paywall.
Public media is reliable, trustworthy, fact based, accurate, impartial news and information that is available to absolutely, literally everyone, whether you can pay or whether you can't pay. And that's why I at a time like this, when we've lost our federal funding, it's so important that listeners everywhere who value this kind of trusted news source and source of joy and inspiration and entertainment as well open up their pocketbooks and donate to help, so that others who can't afford to donate can continue to get this service and look, you know, the statistics are out there. They show that more than one in three Americans listen to public radio every week.
We know that more than half of Republicans and three quarters of Democrats support federal funding for public radio and believe that a. Funding public radio is good value for taxpayer dollars. That's from a Harris poll that was done just in July. And you know, key to all of this is at a time when we are so concerned about misinformation, disinformation, fake news. You know, public media is not that public media is reliable news, and it's news that reaches 99-percent of the American population, regardless of your zip code or your income. It goes to communities that don't have commercial television, that don't have the funds to sustain a local subscription newspaper. So this is how we're saving America from news deserts. It's really important that you know this service continues where everybody, no matter how remote and rural your community, has access to public media.
TJ
I always try to link something back to the Midwest. How does Here & Now, and how does a host for Here & Now try to appeal and reach folks in the middle of the country when NPR can sometimes be accused of being coastal?
IL
Yeah, really good question. We actually have something called Here & Now Network, and we have an editor, a senior editor, who's dedicated specifically to that project, and her full time job is to bring in pieces from member stations all over the country, including your own. And so we're always out there looking for good stories.
I'll give you an example — one of the producers I work with just today found out about a fantastic story out of Maine Public Radio about parents who are trying to lead a movement to have their kids use landlines. They're installing landlines in their homes to delay the onset of their kids demanding cell phones. And it's such a great story, and we want to get it on our air, to share it with a national audience.
So that's the kind of story we're always looking for, you know, informative, newsworthy or entertaining stories from all around the country. And one of the things that I think it's particularly useful for is getting some solutions journalism out there.
So please pitch us if there are stories that are going on in your community or in your state, particularly that could be replicated in other parts of the country. We want to hear them. We want to air them on our national you know, network to all of the member stations around the country that listen to our show, and we want to share that experience, because you're absolutely right. America is not just the coasts, and just as we get international news in, we want to get news from every part of the United States in as well.
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