This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 1.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.
For years, Majid believed that if he could testify in court about what happened to him when he was held in a CIA black site, a judge and jury would give him a break. Finally, he got a chance to see if he was right.
Prologue: Ira talks about the excitin...
Gladiators in the Colosseum. Sideshow performers. Reality television. We've always loved to gawk at the misery or majesty of others. But this week, we ask the question: What's it like when the tables are turned and all eyes are on you?
Prologue: Ira ta...
When is too soon for that celebrity comeback, that joke that is either brilliant or full-on repugnant, that parent-child conversation? Stories about a fallen man trying to kickstart his career with a reality show and an awkward moment between a mom and...
People taking it upon themselves to solve the tiny, overlooked crimes of the world.
Prologue: Host Ira Glass bikes around Manhattan with Gersh Kuntzman, in search of illegal license plates. (11 minutes)Act One: Writer Michael Harriot reexamines the DIY...
The things we break and the ones we can't fix.
Prologue: Ira tells the stories of three things that broke–two of them in his own family. (8 minutes)Act One: A teenage whiz kid invents a new toy for Milton Bradley. Then the trouble starts. (28 minutes)A...
People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed.
Prologue: Jackson Landers tells the story of a very strange decision he made one summer day. (6 minutes)Act One: Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after...
A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza named Yousef Hammash, between early December and now. He talks about what he and his family are experiencing, sometimes as they are experiencing it.
Act One: Over the course of one week in December, Yousef tries...
Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.
Prologue: A family sits down to discuss one thing. But then the true purpose of the meeting emerges. (9 ½ minutes)Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where...
An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.
Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his boyfriend moved in together, and what he thinks pe...
What it means to have words—and to lose them.
Prologue: Sometimes we don’t want to say what’s going on because putting it into words would make it real. At other times, words don’t seem to capture the weight of what we want to say. Susanna Fogel talks ...
