Telling Tales

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Factual: Life Stories

Radio 4 Extra celebrates the best in storytelling. Different voices and different genres.

BBC Radio 4 Extra celebrates the very best in storytelling, showcasing different voices, and different genres, from the BBC archives and beyond.

Telling Tales: Michael Goldfarb

Michael Goldfarb

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Telling Tales, Michael Goldfarb

Thoughts on factual storytelling from the broadcast journalist, essayist and historian.

The journalist shares stories of his native New York and reflects on covering history, both on radio and in a conflict zone.

Michael Goldfarb is a broadcast journalist and author, whose search for stories has taken him to more than 20 countries. 

His favourite medium is the radio essay and we learn more about Michael’s upbringing in New York, via two standout episodes of Trip Sheets, which he recorded for BBC Radio 3's The Essay.

In these essays, Michael documents a city in flux. In the first essay from 2013, we see New York through the eyes of a cab driver, passing burning buildings, as crime in the city escalated. He also recalls the powerful allure of Broadway, to an aspiring actor not yet ready to be the author of his own scripts, in an essay from 2017's An Actor's Life.

Now based in London, with his field reporting days largely behind him, Michael presents a podcast which reflects on the history he’s reported, written and lived. Titled FRDH - The First Rough Draft of History – recent topics include Brexit, Iran War Fever, the Democrat dilemma, and a declining life expectancy in North America.

In an extract from a 2014 episode of FRDH, titled 9/11 Live: On Air, we hear Michael hosting a live NPR talk show in Boston, as the north tower fell on 11th September 2001. And he reflects on this extraordinary experience, as well as the very real danger to reporters, and the civilians who engage with them, in conflict zones.

We also hear short clips of Ahmad's War, the 2003 NPR documentary which became the subject of a book, as well as Return To Kurdistan, the 2008 follow-up for the BBC World Service.

Presented and produced for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Ali Gardiner.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

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