#nprgl

By Joanna Pawlowska

Summer is for adventures. With our wanderlust kicking into full gear, we decided it was time to hit the road again - and take NPR Listening Parties to the next level.  We’re excited to invite you to join the ride!

Introducing: #ListeningOnLocation. With our friends over at NPR’s Science Desk and local Member stations, we’re packing up our portable speakers and heading out to meet some friends “in the field” for immersive listening sessions.

Now what is that, you ask?  It’s a chance to experience stories in the natural environments explored in the reporting – or as close as we can get without going to Malaysia, as our reporters did for the important series from Goats & Soda: Pandemics. We’ll sit among towering Redwoods, walk on Rainforest Trials, and search for Bats. Because what can make a story come alive and spark discussion quite like living it?

In each of four locations, we’ll be joined by a subject matter expert to lead us through a hands-on activity, like a walk through the rainforest.  NPR Science Correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff will then tell us about her work and we’ll listen to reporting on the connection between changes to the environment and human health.  Here’s where you come in: add your voice to an interactive discussion on all of the above, and what we can do to prevent the next pandemic. Science meets storytelling meets impact. That’s right up our alley.

Here’s what’s on deck:

7/23 – Redwood Regional Park in Oakland with KQED 7/29 – Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State with KUOW and KNKX 8/3 – Central Park in New York City 8/5 – The Cary Institute in the Hudson River Valley with WAMC

Are you nearby?  Come meet us in the field!  Too far to join? Follow along with #listeningonlocation and tag your friends in the cities we’re visiting.

By Joanna Pawlowska

Last week, TechWeek invited us to the West Side of Los Angeles to host a Listening Party as part of their week of programming in Santa Monica. With our friends over at KCRW, we wanted to get creative on how to spark an interesting and meaningful conversation for our guests (also attendees of TechWeek’s conference) at the intersection of our two worlds: public media and technology.

Journalist George Lavender recently wrapped “Off The Block”, a five-part series for KCRW’s Independent Producer Project in which he explores the impact that incarceration has - not just on individuals but on the wider community. Through powerful audio storytelling, he traces the path from city block to jail block and back. The thought-provoking stories defy stereotypes while illuminating the humanity in the issues George explores. In other words, his work offers excellent fodder for a Listening Party discussion that invites our guests to consider how the smarts, strategies and energy of Silicon Beach and the tech space could be applied to drive innovation in solving big social issues in Los Angeles and beyond.

Thanks to everyone who joined us! And for those at home, you can Host Your Own Listening Party around the story at the heart of our discussion. 

By Joanna Pawlowska

A friend once said: when we listen to stories, we breathe life into them.  

A story’s characters, situations, and key questions take on shapes and colors in our minds and memories as we listen; the story takes on a new life, extending beyond its original parameters. And this happens a little differently each time we listen, even to the same story.

This idea that listeners give stories life was top of mind as we gathered in Chicago on Monday, September 19 with member station WBEZ for an intimate listening party about America’s Opioid Epidemic. The flow of the program was nearly identical to the first of two conversations on this topic that we hosted in Atlanta early this month (in-depth recap here): we sat in the round, Kelly McEvers introduced the state of the Opioid Crisis in America writ large, we listened to a powerful story from Indiana about a woman’s struggle to get treatment, we learned about addiction and the brain from author Maia Szalavitz, and then we opened the floor for our guests to share their reflections, experiences, and questions.

Yet gathering in a different city and space with a new sea of faces – each with their own unique experiences – gave this night of storytelling a whole new life.

A young woman shared a devastating story about loss to addiction in her own life. Another young woman shared her personal journey into and out of addiction after some painful health problems. A dental student posed thoughtful questions about how professionals should be trained to prescribe pain meds. An addiction doctor weighed in on her experiences on the job and policy wins the city of Chicago has seen over the last year. And the group collectively wondered how we might show more compassion and empathy for those in pain – both physical and emotional – as a pathway to understanding where addiction starts and how to tackle it.

While our second listening party about America’s Opioid Epidemic charted a different course and gave Joy’s story new life, we were guided towards a similar conclusion: conversations about complicated, nuanced topics with real human consequences must continue to happen if we aim to create understanding and ultimately arrive at thoughtful ideas for how to move forward. Even if the stories are the same, we breathe new life into them each time we listen. As in Atlanta, we asked our guests in Chicago to take a few moments to write some thoughts on our Reflection Cards to share with someone outside of the room.

And now we invite you to join this conversation, too, with our Host Your Own Kit. Listen with friends or listen alone – just please listen.  Listen to Joy’s story and other stories about those struggling with addiction and stories about how our society is dealing with the crisis and evolving the cultural narrative around addiction.

If you have reflections, ideas or stories of your own to share tag @nprgenerationlisten #nprlisteningpary, or drop us a note at [email protected].

By Joanna Pawlowska

Around this time last Spring we set out on our first Listening Tour. We traveled from coast-to-coast connecting with amazing people over radio stories.

Who would have guessed that just a year later we’d be in the middle of a presidential election unlike anything our country has seen before? As the campaigns unfold, we can’t help but feel that history is being made and that this moment will shape the future of our country in powerful, still unknown ways. How will this moment by remembered? How are we understanding it now? How do we see our role in all of this? These are questions we’ve been mulling over since our trip to the Iowa Caucuses in February - and questions we’d love to ask you, too. 

And so we’re hitting the road again, this time with our friends at Morning Edition as part of a special series, The View From Here.

This campaign season, NPR Generation Listen will convene listeners and voters in cities across the country to join live broadcasts of public radio’s flagship morning news magazine, Morning Edition. That’s right: you can see radio being made by some of your favorite NPR hosts, David Greene and Steve Inskeep.

In interesting and intimate spaces in regions usually overlooked during presidential elections, we’ll invite citizens to come together to listen to reporting on the political mood in their areas, and join a thoughtful conversation on what matters to voters – and how much the land, the streets, and where they live impact their experience.

In true Generation Listen style, these gatherings will be intimate, thoughtful, and personal as we listen together - and reflect on what this moment means and our role in it. 

First stop:  Peoria, Illinois on Friday April 8th at I Know You Like A Book with Peoria Public Radio. If you’re in or around Peoria, please join us! More information here.

Follow along @nprgenlisten​ on Instagram and Twitter for updates on upcoming locations, and to hear our stories from the road.

Start With Hosting January’s NPR Listening Party: #RenewalEdition 

Happy 2016! Has the new year got you seeing visions of personal goals dancing in your heads?

The start of a new year brings an invitation to reflect, reset, and recalibrate the ideas, actions, and patterns that set the direction of our lives. We get a reason to choose change: to cultivate more goodness, release deadweight, face a challenge, or rebuild something we’ve lost.

Generation Listen not only wants to help you become your most curious, empathetic, and engaged self -- we also want to help you connect more deeply to your community and kindle conversations about fresh starts.

Get January’s Kit right here!

Peep some NPR story excerpts we’ve hand-picked for January’s kit:

“I had so created my life that I didn't have enough minutes in the day to work out if this was really making me happy, and so I thought, I need to stop right now and go to a very clear environment and then take stock of things.”-- How Can We Find More Time To Be Still?, TED Radio Hour, Nov. 21, 2014

“There's a...trigger for an automatic behavior to start unfolding. And then there's a routine, which is the behavior itself...And then there's a reward. And the reward is what tells our brain whether we should store this habit for future use or not.” -- How You Can Harness ‘The Power Of Habit’, Morning Edition, Feb. 27, 2012

“There’s four types of people...How you react to the idea of forming a habit or someone telling you that you should form a habit...is going to be very different depending on what tendency you are.” -- Change Your Habits And You’ll Be ‘Better Than Before’, Weekend Edition Sunday, March 15, 2015

We’ve also adding a brand new element -- an interactive writing session that will help you and your pals define your 2016 goals. You probably already know that putting your feelings down on paper can provide all kinds of emotional benefits. This particular writing activity is intended to help you solidify your personal priorities, maybe even reveal patterns that can help you cultivate good habits.

Maya Angelou once said, “One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.” We couldn’t agree more. In fact, we’ve created an entire playbook that guides you to listen and reflect on this sentiment and discuss it with your nearest and dearest.

We’ve curated 10 artfully told NPR stories designed to make you think more deeply about what giving truly means and designed to prompt smart conversation amongst your friends.

These stories serve as the heart and soul of our newly launched Listening Party Kit, which makes it incredibly easy for listeners to host their own parties.

Of the 10 stories, we’ve grouped them into three different categories around giving, but it’s up to you to make that final selection based on the vibe you wish to create.  

Here are some tips on how to choose the best rundown of stories to make it an epic NPR party with your friends:

1) Consider your guests’ interests and backgrounds. Are they serious business types? Creative artists? Entrepreneurs? Fellow students? Activists? Teachers? Design your playlist based on what perspectives your guests can bring to the conversation.

2) Decide what mood you want to set. Do you want the group to be moved or inspired, to solve a complex problem, or to dive into a philosophical discussion?

3) Gauge the attention spans of your friends. Are they chatty Kathys who can’t wait to talk the moment an idea pops into their heads? Or are they more introspective and reflective and have a desire to dig into a meaty story? The individual stories in the kit range from 2 to 18 minutes and can be paired and parsed depending on your individual taste.

Check out the types of stories we’ve personally selected for inclusion in December’s kit:

“If I have enough time, I will do four, five, 1,000 jobs for your education. It’s a joy to do that knowing that I’m doing that for you.” - StoryCorps

Our package of personal giving stories run the gamut from inspirational and humorous to emotional. One TED Radio Hour segment features a scientist helping people find their true voices, while a “gangsta gardener” talks about giving his community the gift of health in another segment. We also hear how courageous Central Europeans are risking arrest to help refugees. And you might want to break out the tissues for a touching StoryCorps collection about what parents and grandparents give to their children.

“When someone dies, people…surround you with support. When your company goes out of business, everybody heads for the hills.” - TED Radio Hour

Interested in an intellectual and forward-looking approach to giving? Check out these stories about the future of philanthropy. An interview from TED Radio Hour, “Do We Have The Wrong Idea About Charity?” forces us to question how we expect philanthropic organizations to function: How should they spend their money? What image do we have of nonprofits? Another story in the future-of-philanthropy package explores tech-driven donations, while a third story highlights a different way of giving back (one that involves getting on an airplane).

“It seems that compassion is contagious.” - Hidden Brain

If you’re more of a people-watching armchair psychologist, you might like our selection of stories about the psychology of giving from Shankar Vedantam, NPR’s social science correspondent and host of the Hidden Brain podcast. Through interviews and a review of current social science research, Shankar investigates whether generosity is a learned behavior or if we are born compassionate, giving individuals.

#GivingTuesday is here, and so is the NPR Listening Party Kit!

We invite you to take the (NPR + party) host seat and use our handpicked NPR stories to spark conversation with your nearest and dearest.

Our debut NPR Listening Party Kit is our Giving Edition, featuring a curated collection of stories inspired by “the spirit of giving.” (It is the holidays, after all.)

The 10 stories inside the kit each have a firestarter question to ignite a lively post listening discussion - and one that ultimately inspires you and your friends to discover unique ways to give your time, talent or treasure to your communities.

Inside the Kit you’ll hear familiar NPR voices from Shankar Vendantum to Guy Raz to Elise Hu.  Together we explore topics ranging from the human behavior behind compassion and generosity to how millennials are changing the face of philanthropy to people’s personal and emotional giving experiences.

And since the NPR Listening Party is a party afterall, you can’t forget food, drinks, and music! Our friends at NPR Music and The Salt have got you covered.

Make moves and plan a smarter party by downloading the kit today!

We’d love for you to share your #NPRListeningParty stories, photos and videos from your own gathering with us on social media, tagging yourselves and @NPRGenListen.

Nothing captures the spirit of summer quite like a road trip with great friends. That sense of adventure and possibility makes you feel alive as you explore the world around you and see things through fresh eyes.

We were lucky enough to kick off our summer this year with a 3,000-mile road trip from NPR West in LA to NPR HQ in Washington DC. We’re excited to share some of our favorite scenes from our nine-city Listening Tour — and introduce you to the amazing people we met at NPR Member Stations and cites across the American South. 

We were, and continue to be, moved by the stories we heard — and inspired by the power of really, truly listening to other people.

To everyone we met along the way: We can’t thank you enough for following along as we went city to city, coming to our Listening Parties with open minds and hearts, hosting us in your homes, and showing us your cities. You changed us, and we can only hope we changed you a little bit, too.

Our mission to spread the power of listening doesn’t end here. We hope you pick a story and grab some friends to host your own Listening Party. Here’s how. And make sure to tag your posts and grams #whylisten #listeningparty so we can find you and so we can all feel a little more connected through great storytelling. We’ll repost our favorites every Why Listen Wednesday.

We’re off to keep scheming our next adventure. More on that soon. ;)

-----------------------------

Directed by: Hadas

Edited by: Patrick Fogarty