Ask the Editor: What is helpful listener feedback?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, August 2nd, 2024. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, this month’s Ask the Editor. WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler is back with some feedback to your feedback.

PAUL BUTLER: Borrowing inspiration from Charles Dickens let me start off by saying: opening your emails is the best of times…and the worst of times.

It’s usually mostly good…insightful questions and clarifications, loving challenges, interesting suggestions for follow-up stories, and encouraging notes. But occasionally listeners misunderstand what we’re trying to do through our stories, questioning our motives, accusing us of having hidden agendas, and sometimes they are just plain nasty.

But some of the most aggravating feedback is what we dryly refer to as: “actually mail.” For instance:

Actually, the name is pronounced like this…

Or, actually, it happened in 1894, not 1893...

Or, actually, Eisenhower wasn’t president when he said that…

Let me be clear, when we get our facts incorrect, we need to know about it. So please don’t stop telling us when we’re wrong. We realize that if we can’t get the little details right, it’s hard for you to trust us on the big details.

But let me also say that when you do write in about those details, don’t stop there. Take a moment and tell us how the story motivated you to dig deeper into the topic, or inspired you to take action, or gave you a chance to consider a story from another point of view.

Our favorite emails are from listeners who interact with our content.

Let me give you an example from this month’s mail bag. Listener Nathanael Batson lives in Fairfield, Maine, and he’s a recent graduate of the University of Maine Honors College. He writes that his whole family enjoys listening to the podcast and hearing the Word of God. Let me read you a few lines from his feedback to our July 4th segment on John Philip Sousa because I think it illustrates what I’m hoping more listeners will do. Here’s what he says:

As someone interested in music and politics, I enjoy listening to your segments. I wanted to make one note about your July 4th segment on “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Your explanations and quotes were certainly correct and accurate…

But then Nathanael goes on to give us one detail we left out which he thinks would have been interesting for our listeners. He quotes from music historian Paul Bierley who is the author of: “The Works of John Philip Sousa” published in 1984 by Integrity Press. The quote is about Sousa’s inspiration for his most famous piece. Here it is:

Someone asked [Sousa], “Who influenced you to compose ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’” and before the question was hardly asked, Sousa replied, “God–and I say this in all reverence! I was in Europe and I got a cablegram that my manager was dead. I was in Italy and I wished to get home as soon as possible. I rushed to Genoa, then to Paris and to England and sailed for America. On board the steamer as I walked miles up and down the deck, back and forth, a mental band was playing ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ Day after day as I walked it persisted in crashing into my very soul. I wrote it on Christmas Day, 1896.”

That led Nathaniel to this reflection:

So the march not only represents a symbol of American patriotism but also the need to come together during adversity. After hearing of his manager’s death, Sousa became deeply saddened, but writing the piece allowed him to express his love for God and remember his loyalty to America.

Nathaniel then ended his note with an explanation of how he approaches music history, hoping it would be helpful for our reporters. I thought he had some good insights for our writers, so I’ve taken his suggestions, and added some of my own thoughts and written updated guidelines for our reviewers. Guidelines I’ll be sharing with them in this month’s meeting. Here they are:

1. Start by understanding the composer: what is their style, their philosophy, their technique?

2. Then become familiar with the historical time the composer lived and wrote. Who are their contemporaries? What did other figures of their time say about them then? What were they responding to with their work?

3. Then think critically. Don’t just react to their work—whether you like it or dislike it—but evaluate it and analyze it. Is it good? Is it valuable? What can we learn from them that informs us today? What do the scriptures say that helps us think about their work?

So Nathanael, thanks for your thoughtful email, and I hope it not only makes our music history pieces better, but I hope it models what I hope more listeners will do when they write…

And for the rest of you, I await your emails with great expectations.

I’m Paul Butler.

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