Ask the Editor - Timestamps and interview questions

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, December 3rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Time now for Ask the Editor. Here’s WORLD Radio managing editor Leigh Jones.

LEIGH JONES, MANAGING EDITOR: This month, we have two questions from listeners about the way we put the program together. The first is from Reid Trenhaile.

TRENHAILE: Hey WORLD team! First off, great work. Keep it up. Love every morning that I get to listen. I just wanted to ask if there was a way that when you have a show that is not suitable for young children, if there was a way that we could possibly say skip to, and then leave the time stamp that it would be good to skip through. A lot of times we’re driving when we’re listening to the program and it just says, this story isn’t suitable. And I’ve still got 20 minutes in the car with my kids. It would be nice to just quickly skip to a certain time stamp where we could pick back up. Just a suggestion. Love the program! Thanks so much. Have a good day.

Thanks, Reid. That’s a good suggestion. But because of the way we put the program together, we can’t really give you an exact timestamp. We don’t know those until after the hosts have already recorded their introductions and our night owls are putting everything together. But most segments are between 5 and 7 minutes long, so if you want to skip something, that's a good starting point. Though, I would also encourage you to make sure you go back and listen to that segment later!

Our second question comes from listener Martha Borders. She wants to know whether the guests we have on the program know in advance what we’re going to ask them.

The short answer is, no. We don’t share questions in advance. Guests do know the topic, of course. And we’ve made sure in advance they’re comfortable and knowledgeable about what we’re asking them to talk about. We’re not trying to do any “gotcha”-style interviews. Our goal is to get expert analysis on topics from people who are thoroughly familiar with what they’re talking about.

We do collaborate a bit more with WORLD reporters when we have them on to talk about their work. Often they’re sharing information about a story they’ve already written, so our questions are based on that.

Now for my special request. Many of you will remember the election week prayers for the nation that we aired last November. We’re going to do something similar this year, for the last week of December. This time we’re asking you to share Scripture and/or prayers for 2022.

If you want to participate, send us an audio recording of yourself reading the passage or praying. You can use your smartphone’s voice memo app to do that. If you need instructions on recording a voice memo, you’ll find them at wng.org/preroll.

But before you hit that little red button, here are a few guidelines: First, start your recording by saying your name. Second, if you’re reading a passage of Scripture, tell us which passage you’re reading. And third, If you want to record something as a family, that’s great. But please only have one person speak at a time.

We’ll try to use all the recordings we get, but that may not be possible if we have more than we have time to air. We’ll also try to avoid any repetition of passages.

Last thing: a deadline! We need to have these in a week from today. That’s December 10th. Thanks in advance, and we can’t wait to ring in the new year with you.

I’m Leigh Jones.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.