Reporters have quirks. And can sometimes sing.
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| Not the phone that Mike Schmidt called us with at Kinko's.Co Rentmeester/The Life Picture Collection, via Getty Images |
In the first few months of "The Daily," we reached Mike Schmidt on the road, using the only landline phone connection he could find: the customer service line at Kinko's. Here's how the interview began: |
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Schmidt: Sorry. So I got the folks here at Kinko's to let me use the phone. |
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Barbaro: How did you do that? |
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Schmidt: I told them I needed to call the office. |
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Schmidt: But the problem is, I've got my laptop on the other side of Kinko's here, and I'm afraid some Russian spies are gonna take it, so I got to keep my eyes on it. |
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In many shows, an exchange like that would be left on the cutting room floor. It's not necessary to understand the story. But we decided to use it. |
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We realized that the spontaneous exchanges we have at the beginning of our interviews could be powerful. These moments allow you to experience Times reporters as real people with quirks, tempers, a sense of humor and, in some cases, a magnificent singing voice. |
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We were rolling when Maggie Haberman came on the line from our studio in Washington and did what comes naturally — to her, anyway — when sitting in front of a microphone: She belted out a tune. We ran it on the next morning's show. |
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As producer Andy Mills put it, "We wanted to be transparent about how a story comes together, in part by showing reporters just being themselves." |
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As these humanizing moments have become a fixture of the show, we've had to wrestle with the question of how much is too much. We think of them as little audio gifts, to be delivered sparingly. |
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Occasionally, listeners tell us they've had their fill. "I really don't care for the weird openings," wrote Cameron Collins, a listener in St. Louis. |
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But some of you do like them. That's why, this week, a special afternoon episode previewing the congressional testimony of Robert Mueller opened with me telling our old friend Mike Schmidt that I had missed him. Mike demurred. From there, things got a little therapeutic. In the middle of that episode, Mike reached for a word that seemed to be eluding him. I jumped in with suggestions: |
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Schmidt: Is "resuscitated" the right word? |
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Barbaro: I think that's fair. |
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Schmidt: You resuscitate someone — |
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Barbaro: Revived? Reinforced? Recreated? Restated? |
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Schmidt: We already know many of the facts that will be restated tomorrow. |
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Jake Blozan from San Jose, Calif., wrote to us after hearing that exchange. |
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"Maybe it was because of the time crunch, maybe it was filler, or maybe it was an intentional stylistic choice, but I loved the extra banter and the stumbling/reaching for a word that were left in," Jake wrote. "It brings what can often be somewhat somber or even (dare I say) drier topics a bit more levity." |
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What does Mike Schmidt do when he's not covering the Mueller investigation? |
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| Mike Schmidt's summer reading.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images |
After not hearing from Mike Schmidt for almost two months, we had the privilege of talking to our elusive Washington correspondent twice this week. Many of us wondered what he'd been up to. Some suggested that he might be living in, as Michael Barbaro put it, a "suspended reality." We asked him if this was the case, and here's what he told us. |
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Who: Dan Powell, audio systems engineer |
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Shortly after I started working on podcasts full time, I noticed a change in my music tastes: I was no longer listening to songs with vocals in them. This wasn't a conscious choice, but I've since theorized that having to listen to hours of speech every day for work led me to need a break from the human voice in my downtime. Of course, I'll still queue up the angsty rock I listened to in high school and college once in a while for nostalgia's stake, but most of the new music I seek out these days is instrumental. |
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This week, I've been listening to "Music for Staying Warm," a contemporary classical album by cellist and composer Justin Wright. It's a beautiful, elegantly arranged collection of string quartet compositions with an emphasis on drones and negative space. I've found it helpful for added concentration while tending to non-audio tasks at work, but also for unwinding, relaxing and reflecting at the end of the day. And even though the album fits my requirement of "no voices allowed," the compositions are all emotive in a way that feels unmistakably human. |
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That's it for The Daily newsletter. See you next week. |
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